Discovery BoxGenesis 15:1
Context15:1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield 1 and the one who will reward you in great abundance.” 2
Psalms 16:5
Context16:5 Lord, you give me stability and prosperity; 3
you make my future secure. 4
Psalms 73:24-26
Context73:24 You guide 5 me by your wise advice,
and then you will lead me to a position of honor. 6
73:25 Whom do I have in heaven but you?
I desire no one but you on earth. 7
73:26 My flesh and my heart may grow weak, 8
but God always 9 protects my heart and gives me stability. 10
Psalms 84:11
Context84:11 For the Lord God is our sovereign protector. 11
The Lord bestows favor 12 and honor;
he withholds no good thing from those who have integrity. 13
Psalms 119:57
Contextח (Khet)
119:57 The Lord is my source of security. 14
I have determined 15 to follow your instructions. 16
Isaiah 61:6
Context61:6 You will be called, ‘the Lord’s priests,
servants of our God.’ 17
You will enjoy 18 the wealth of nations
and boast about 19 the riches you receive from them. 20
Lamentations 3:24
Context3:24 “My portion is the Lord,” I have said to myself, 21
so I will put my hope in him.
Lamentations 3:1
Contextא (Alef) 22
3:1 I am the man 23 who has experienced 24 affliction
from the rod 25 of his wrath.
Lamentations 2:5
Contextה (He)
2:5 The Lord, 26 like an enemy,
destroyed 27 Israel.
He destroyed 28 all her palaces;
he ruined her 29 fortified cities.
He made everyone in Daughter Judah
mourn and lament. 30
Lamentations 2:9
Contextט (Tet)
2:9 Her city gates have fallen 31 to the ground;
he smashed to bits 32 the bars that lock her gates. 33
Her king and princes were taken into exile; 34
there is no more guidance available. 35
As for her prophets,
they no longer receive 36 a vision from the Lord.
Revelation 1:5-6
Context1:5 and from Jesus Christ – the faithful 37 witness, 38 the firstborn from among the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth. To the one who loves us and has set us free 39 from our sins at the cost of 40 his own blood 1:6 and has appointed 41 us as a kingdom, 42 as priests 43 serving his God and Father – to him be the glory and the power for ever and ever! 44 Amen.
[15:1] 1 sn The noun “shield” recalls the words of Melchizedek in 14:20. If God is the shield, then God will deliver. Abram need not fear reprisals from those he has fought.
[15:1] 2 tn Heb “your reward [in] great abundance.” When the phrase הַרְבּה מְאֹדֵ (harbeh mÿod) follows a noun it invariably modifies the noun and carries the nuance “very great” or “in great abundance.” (See its use in Gen 41:49; Deut 3:5; Josh 22:8; 2 Sam 8:8; 12:2; 1 Kgs 4:29; 10:10-11; 2 Chr 14:13; 32:27; Jer 40:12.) Here the noun “reward” is in apposition to “shield” and refers by metonymy to God as the source of the reward. Some translate here “your reward will be very great” (cf. NASB, NRSV), taking the statement as an independent clause and understanding the Hiphil infinitive absolute as a substitute for a finite verb. However, the construction הַרְבּה מְאֹדֵ is never used this way elsewhere, where it either modifies a noun (see the texts listed above) or serves as an adverb in relation to a finite verb (see Josh 13:1; 1 Sam 26:21; 2 Sam 12:30; 2 Kgs 21:16; 1 Chr 20:2; Neh 2:2).
[16:5] 3 tn Heb “O
[16:5] 4 tc Heb “you take hold of my lot.” The form תּוֹמִיךְ (tomikh) should be emended to a participle, תוֹמֵךְ (tomekh). The psalmist pictures the
[73:24] 5 tn The imperfect verbal form here suggests this is the psalmist’s ongoing experience.
[73:24] 6 tn Heb “and afterward [to] glory you will take me.” Some interpreters view this as the psalmist’s confidence in an afterlife in God’s presence and understand כָּבוֹד (cavod) as a metonymic reference to God’s presence in heaven. But this seems unlikely in the present context. The psalmist anticipates a time of vindication, when the wicked are destroyed and he is honored by God for his godly life style. The verb לָקַח (laqakh, “take”) here carries the nuance “lead, guide, conduct,” as in Num 23:14, 27-28; Josh 24:3 and Prov 24:11.
[73:25] 7 tn Heb “Who [is there] for me in heaven? And besides you I do not desire [anyone] in the earth.” The psalmist uses a merism (heaven/earth) to emphasize that God is the sole object of his desire and worship in the entire universe.
[73:26] 8 tn The Hebrew verb כָלָה (khalah, “to fail; to grow weak”) does not refer here to physical death per se, but to the physical weakness that sometimes precedes death (see Job 33:21; Pss 71:9; 143:7; Prov 5:11).
[73:26] 10 tn Heb “is the rocky summit of my heart and my portion.” The psalmist compares the
[84:11] 11 tn Heb “[is] a sun and a shield.” The epithet “sun,” though rarely used of Israel’s God in the OT, was a well-attested royal title in the ancient Near East. For several examples from Ugaritic texts, the Amarna letters, and Assyrian royal inscriptions, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 131, n. 2.
[84:11] 13 tn Heb “he does not withhold good to those walking in integrity.”
[119:57] 14 tn Heb “my portion [is] the
[119:57] 16 tn Heb “to keep your words” (see v. 9).
[61:6] 17 tn The Hebrew text adds, “it will be said concerning you.”
[61:6] 18 tn Heb “eat” (KJV, NAB, NASB); NIV “feed on”; NLT “be fed with.”
[61:6] 19 tc The form in the Hebrew text is probably a corruption of יִתְאַמְּרוּ (yit’ammÿru), a Hitpael from אָמַר (’amar), meaning “boast about” (see HALOT 67 s.v. II אמר, HALOT 416 s.v. ימר, and BDB 56 s.v. אָמַר).
[61:6] 20 tn Heb “their glory” (i.e., riches).
[3:24] 21 tn Heb “My soul said…” The term נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is a synecdoche of part (= my soul) for the whole person (= I ).
[3:1] 22 sn The nature of the acrostic changes here. Each of the three lines in each verse, not just the first, begins with the corresponding letter of the alphabet.
[3:1] 23 tn The noun גֶּבֶר (gever, “man”) refers to a strong man, distinguished from women, children, and other non-combatants whom he is to defend. According to W. F. Lanahan the speaking voice in this chapter is that of a defeated soldier (“The Speaking Voice in the Book of Lamentations” JBL 93 [1974]: 41-49.) F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp (Lamentations [IBC], 108) argues that is the voice of an “everyman” although “one might not unreasonably suppose that some archetypal communal figure like the king does in fact stand in the distant background.”
[3:1] 24 tn The verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”) has a broad range of meanings, including (1) “to see” as to learn from experience and (2) “to see” as to experience (e.g., Gen 20:10; Ps 89:49; Eccl 5:17; Jer 5:12; 14:13; 20:18; 42:14; Zeph 3:15). Here it means that the speaker has experienced these things. The same Hebrew verb occurs in 2:20 where the Lord is asked to “see” (translated “Consider!”), although it is difficult to maintain this connection in an English translation.
[3:1] 25 tn The noun שֵׁבֶט (shevet, “rod”) refers to the weapon used for smiting an enemy (Exod 21:20; 2 Sam 23:21; 1 Chr 11:3; Isa 10:15; Mic 4:14) and instrument of child-discipline (Prov 10:13; 22:15; 29:15). It is used figuratively to describe discipline of the individual (Job 9:34; 21:9; 37:13; 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:33) and the nation (Isa 10:5, 24; 14:29; 30:31).
[2:5] 26 tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the
[2:5] 27 tn Heb “swallowed up.”
[2:5] 28 tn Heb “swallowed up.”
[2:5] 29 tn Heb “his.” For consistency this has been translated as “her.”
[2:5] 30 tn Heb “He increased in Daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.”
[2:9] 31 tn Heb “have sunk down.” This expression, “her gates have sunk down into the ground,” is a personification, picturing the city gates descending into the earth, as if going down into the grave or the netherworld. Most English versions render it literally (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NJPS); however, a few paraphrases have captured the equivalent sense quite well: “Zion’s gates have fallen facedown on the ground” (CEV) and “the gates are buried in rubble” (TEV).
[2:9] 32 tn Heb “he has destroyed and smashed her bars.” The two verbs אִבַּד וְשִׁבַּר (’ibbad vÿshibbar) form a verbal hendiadys that emphasizes the forcefulness of the destruction of the locking bars on the gates. The first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense: “he has smashed to pieces.” Several English versions render this expression literally and miss the rhetorical point: “he has ruined and broken” (RSV, NRSV), “he has destroyed and broken” (KJV, NASB), “he has broken and destroyed” (NIV). The hendiadys has been correctly noted by others: “smashed to pieces” (TEV, CEV) and “smashed to bits” (NJPS).
[2:9] 33 tn Heb “her bars.” Since the literal “bars” could be misunderstood as referring to saloons, the phrase “the bars that lock her gates” has been used in the present translation.
[2:9] 34 tn Heb “are among the nations.”
[2:9] 35 tn Heb “there is no torah” or “there is no Torah” (אֵין תּוֹרָה, ’en torah). Depending on whether תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction, law”) is used in parallelism with the preceding or following line, it refers to (1) political guidance that the now-exiled king had formerly provided or (2) prophetic instruction that the now-ineffective prophets had formerly provided (BDB 434 s.v. תּוֹרָה 1.b). It is possible that the three lines are arranged in an ABA chiastic structure, exploiting the semantic ambiguity of the term תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction”). Possibly it is an oblique reference to the priests’ duties of teaching, thus introducing a third group of the countries leaders. It is possible to hear in this a lament in reference to the destruction of Torah scrolls that may have been at the temple when it was destroyed.
[2:9] 36 tn Heb “they cannot find.”
[1:5] 37 tn Or “Jesus Christ – the faithful one, the witness…” Some take ὁ πιστός (Jo pistos) as a second substantive in relation to ὁ μάρτυς (Jo martus). In the present translation, however, ὁ πιστός was taken as an adjective in attributive position to ὁ μάρτυς. The idea of martyrdom and faithfulness are intimately connected. See BDAG 820 s.v. πιστός 1.a.α: “ὁ μάρτυς μου ὁ πιστός μου Rv 2:13 (μάρτυς 3); in this ‘book of martyrs’ Christ is ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς (καὶ ὁ ἀληθινός) 1:5; 3:14; cp. 19:11 (the combination of ἀληθινός and πιστός in the last two passages is like 3 Macc 2:11). Cp. Rv 17:14.”
[1:5] 38 sn The Greek term translated witness can mean both “witness” and “martyr.”
[1:5] 39 tc The reading “set free” (λύσαντι, lusanti) has better ms support (Ì18 א A C 1611 2050 2329 2351 ÏA sy) than its rival, λούσαντι (lousanti, “washed”; found in P 1006 1841 1854 2053 2062 ÏK lat bo). Internally, it seems that the reading “washed” could have arisen in at least one of three ways: (1) as an error of hearing (both “released” and “washed” are pronounced similarly in Greek); (2) an error of sight (both “released” and “washed” look very similar – a difference of only one letter – which could have resulted in a simple error during the copying of a ms); (3) through scribal inability to appreciate that the Hebrew preposition ב can be used with a noun to indicate the price paid for something. Since the author of Revelation is influenced significantly by a Semitic form of Greek (e.g., 13:10), and since the Hebrew preposition “in” (ב) can indicate the price paid for something, and is often translated with the preposition “in” (ἐν, en) in the LXX, the author may have tried to communicate by the use of ἐν the idea of a price paid for something. That is, John was trying to say that Christ delivered us at the price of his own blood. This whole process, however, may have been lost on a later scribe, who being unfamiliar with Hebrew, found the expression “delivered in his blood” too difficult, and noticing the obvious similarities between λύσαντι and λούσαντι, assumed an error and then proceeded to change the text to “washed in his blood” – a thought more tolerable in his mind. Both readings, of course, are true to scripture; the current question is what the author wrote in this verse.
[1:5] 40 tn The style here is somewhat Semitic, with the use of the ἐν (en) + the dative to mean “at the price of.” The addition of “own” in the English is stylistic and is an attempt to bring out the personal nature of the statement and the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ death – a frequent refrain in the Apocalypse.
[1:6] 41 tn The verb ποιέω (poiew) can indicate appointment or assignment rather than simply “make” or “do.” See Mark 3:14 (L&N 37.106).
[1:6] 42 tn See BDAG 168 s.v. βασιλεία 1.a for the idea of “he made us a kingdom,” which was translated as “he appointed us (to be or function) as a kingdom” (see the note on the word “appointed” earlier in the verse).
[1:6] 43 tn Grk “a kingdom, priests.” The term ἱερεῖς (Jiereis) is either in apposition to βασιλείαν (basileian) or as a second complement to the object “us” (ἡμᾶς, Jhmas). The translation retains this ambiguity.
[1:6] 44 tc Both the longer reading τῶν αἰώνων (twn aiwnwn, “to the ages of the ages” or, more idiomatically, “for ever and ever”; found in א C Ï) and the shorter (“for ever”; found in Ì18 A P 2050 pc bo) have good ms support. The author uses the longer expression (εἰς [τοὺς] αἰῶνας [τῶν] αἰώνων, ei" [tou"] aiwna" [twn] aiwnwn) in every other instance of αἰών in Revelation, twelve passages in all (1:18; 4:9, 10; 5:13; 7:12; 10:6; 11:15; 14:11; 15:7; 19:3; 20:10; 22:5). Thus, on the one hand, the style of the author is consistent, while on the other hand, the scribes may have been familiar with such a stylistic feature, causing them to add the words here. The issues are more complex than can be presented here; the longer reading, however, is probably original (the shorter reading arising from accidental omission of the genitive phrase due to similarity with the preceding words).
