Isaiah 58:11

58:11 The Lord will continually lead you;

he will feed you even in parched regions. ¹ 

He will give you renewed strength, ² 

and you will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring that continually produces water.

Isaiah 61:11

61:11 For just as the ground produces its crops

and a garden yields its produce,

so the sovereign Lord will cause deliverance ³  to grow,

and give his people reason to praise him in the sight of all the nations. ⁴ 

Psalms 1:3

1:3 He is like ⁵  a tree planted by flowing streams; ⁶ 

it ⁷  yields ⁸  its fruit at the proper time, ⁹ 

and its leaves never fall off. ¹⁰ 

He succeeds in everything he attempts. ¹¹ 

Psalms 92:13-15

92:13 Planted in the Lord’s house,

they grow in the courts of our God.

92:14 They bear fruit even when they are old;

they are filled with vitality and have many leaves. ¹² 

92:15 So they proclaim that the Lord, my protector,

is just and never unfair. ¹³ 

Acts 2:41-47

2:41 So those who accepted ¹⁴  his message ¹⁵  were baptized, and that day about three thousand people ¹⁶  were added. ¹⁷ 

The Fellowship of the Early Believers

2:42 They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, ¹⁸  to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ¹⁹  2:43 Reverential awe ²⁰  came over everyone, ²¹  and many wonders and miraculous signs ²²  came about by the apostles. 2:44 All who believed were together and held ²³  everything in common, 2:45 and they began selling ²⁴  their property ²⁵  and possessions and distributing the proceeds ²⁶  to everyone, as anyone had need. 2:46 Every day ²⁷  they continued to gather together by common consent in the temple courts, ²⁸  breaking bread from ²⁹  house to house, sharing their food with glad ³⁰  and humble hearts, ³¹  2:47 praising God and having the good will ³²  of all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day ³³  those who were being saved.

Acts 4:4

4:4 But many of those who had listened to ³⁴  the message ³⁵  believed, and the number of the men ³⁶  came to about five thousand.

Acts 5:14

5:14 More and more believers in the Lord were added to their number, ³⁷  crowds of both men and women.

[58:11]  ¹ tn Heb “he will satisfy in parched regions your appetite.”

[58:11]  ² tn Heb “and your bones he will strengthen.”

[61:11]  ³ tn Or perhaps, “righteousness,” but the context seems to emphasize deliverance and restoration (see v. 10 and 62:1).

[61:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “and praise before all the nations.”

[1:3]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries the same characteristic force as the imperfect in the preceding verse. According to the psalmist, the one who studies and obeys God’s commands typically prospers.

[1:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “channels of water.”

[1:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “which.”

[1:3]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew imperfect verbal forms in v. 3 draw attention to the typical nature of the actions/states they describe.

[1:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “in its season.”

[1:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “fade”; “wither.”

[1:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and all which he does prospers”; or “and all which he does he causes to prosper.” (The simile of the tree does not extend to this line.) It is not certain if the Hiphil verbal form (יַצְלִיחַ, yatsliakh) is intransitive-exhibitive (“prospers”) or causative (“causes to prosper”) here. If the verb is intransitive, then כֹּל (kol, “all, everything”) is the subject. If the verb is causative, then the godly individual or the Lord himself is the subject and כֹּל is the object. The wording is reminiscent of Josh 1:8, where the Lord tells Joshua: “This law scroll must not leave your lips! You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it. Then you will prosper (literally, “cause your way to prosper”) and be successful.”

[92:14]  ¹² tn Heb “they are juicy and fresh.”

[92:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “so that [they] proclaim that upright [is] the Lord, my rocky summit, and there is no injustice in him.”

[2:41]  ¹⁴ tn Or “who acknowledged the truth of.”

[2:41]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “word.”

[2:41]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “souls” (here an idiom for the whole person).

[2:41]  ¹⁷ tn Or “were won over.”

[2:42]  ¹⁸ sn Fellowship refers here to close association involving mutual involvement and relationships.

[2:42]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “prayers.” This word was translated as a collective singular in keeping with English style.

[2:43]  ²⁰ tn Or “Fear.”

[2:43]  ²¹ tn Grk “on every soul” (here “soul” is an idiom for the whole person).

[2:43]  ²² tn In this context the miraculous nature of these signs is implied. Cf. BDAG 920 s.v. σημεῖον 2.a.

[2:44]  ²³ tn Grk “had.”

[2:45]  ²⁴ tn The imperfect verb has been translated as an ingressive (“began…”). Since in context this is a description of the beginning of the community of believers, it is more likely that these statements refer to the start of various activities and practices that the early church continued for some time.

[2:45]  ²⁵ tn It is possible that the first term for property (κτήματα, kthmata) refers to real estate (as later usage seems to indicate) while the second term (ὑπάρξεις, Juparxeis) refers to possessions in general, but it may also be that the two terms are used together for emphasis, simply indicating that all kinds of possessions were being sold. However, if the first term is more specifically a reference to real estate, it foreshadows the incident with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11.

[2:45]  ²⁶ tn Grk “distributing them” (αὐτά, auta). The referent (the proceeds of the sales) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:46]  ²⁷ tn BDAG 437 s.v. ἡμέρα 2.c has “every day” for this phrase.

[2:46]  ²⁸ tn Grk “in the temple.” This is actually a reference to the courts surrounding the temple proper, and has been translated accordingly.

[2:46]  ²⁹ tn Here κατά (kata) is used as a distributive (BDAG 512 s.v. B.1.d).

[2:46]  ³⁰ sn The term glad (Grk “gladness”) often refers to joy brought about by God’s saving acts (Luke 1:14, 44; also the related verb in 1:47; 10:21).

[2:46]  ³¹ tn Grk “with gladness and humbleness of hearts.” It is best to understand καρδίας (kardias) as an attributed genitive, with the two nouns it modifies actually listing attributes of the genitive noun which is related to them.

[2:47]  ³² tn Or “the favor.”

[2:47]  ³³ tn BDAG 437 s.v. ἡμέρα 2.c has “every day” for this phrase.

[4:4]  ³⁴ tn Or “had heard.”

[4:4]  ³⁵ tn Or “word.”

[4:4]  ³⁶ tn In the historical setting it is likely that only men are referred to here. The Greek term ἀνήρ (anhr) usually refers to males or husbands rather than people in general. Thus to translate “of the people” would give a false impression of the number, since any women and children were apparently not included in the count.

[5:14]  ³⁷ tn Or “More and more believers were added to the Lord.”