Isaiah 8:18

8:18 Look, I and the sons whom the Lord has given me ¹  are reminders and object lessons ²  in Israel, sent from the Lord who commands armies, who lives on Mount Zion.

Isaiah 8:1

A Sign-Child is Born

8:1 The Lord told me, “Take a large tablet ³  and inscribe these words ⁴  on it with an ordinary stylus: ⁵  ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ ⁶ 

Colossians 4:15

4:15 Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters ⁷  who are in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church that meets in her ⁸  house. ⁹ 

Galatians 4:19

4:19 My children – I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you! ¹⁰ 

Philemon 1:10

1:10 I am appealing ¹¹  to you concerning my child, whose spiritual father I have become ¹²  during my imprisonment, ¹³  that is, Onesimus,

[8:18]  ¹ sn This refers to Shear-jashub (7:3) and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (8:1, 3).

[8:18]  ² tn Or “signs and portents” (NAB, NRSV). The names of all three individuals has symbolic value. Isaiah’s name (which meant “the Lord delivers”) was a reminder that the Lord was the nation’s only source of protection; Shear-jashub’s name was meant, at least originally, to encourage Ahaz (see the note at 7:3), and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz’s name was a guarantee that God would defeat Israel and Syria (see the note at 8:4). The word מוֹפֶת (mofet, “portent”) can often refer to some miraculous event, but in 20:3 it is used, along with its synonym אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) of Isaiah’s walking around half-naked as an object lesson of what would soon happen to the Egyptians.

[8:1]  ³ sn Probably made of metal, wood, or leather. See HALOT 193 s.v. גִּלָּיוֹן.

[8:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “write” (so KJV, ASV, NIV, NRSV).

[8:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “with the stylus of a man.” The significance of the qualifying genitive “a man” is uncertain. For various interpretations see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:219, n. 1.

[8:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “quickly, [the] plunder; it hurries, [the] loot.” The first word (מַהֵר, maher) is either a Piel imperative (“hurry [to]”) or infinitive (“hurrying,” or “quickly”). The third word (חָשׁ, khash) is either a third masculine singular perfect or a masculine singular participle, in either case from the root חוּשׁ (khush, “hurry”). Perhaps it is best to translate, “One hastens to the plunder, one hurries to the loot.” In this case מַהֵר is understood as an infinitive functioning as a verb, the subject of חוּשׁ is taken as indefinite, and the two nouns are understood as adverbial accusatives. As we discover in v. 3, this is the name of the son to be born to Isaiah through the prophetess.

[4:15]  ⁷ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[4:15]  ⁸ tc If the name Nympha is accented with a circumflex on the ultima (Νυμφᾶν, Numfan), then it refers to a man; if it receives an acute accent on the penult (Νύμφαν), the reference is to a woman. Scribes that considered Nympha to be a man’s name had the corresponding masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ here (autou, “his”; so D [F G] Ψ Ï), while those who saw Nympha as a woman read the feminine αὐτῆς here (auth", “her”; B 0278 6 1739^[*^] 1881 sa). Several mss (א A C P 075 33 81 104 326 1175 2464 bo) have αὐτῶν (autwn, “their”), perhaps because of indecisiveness on the gender of Nympha, perhaps because they included ἀδελφούς (adelfou", here translated “brothers and sisters”) as part of the referent. (Perhaps because accents were not part of the original text, scribes were particularly confused here.) The harder reading is certainly αὐτῆς, and thus Nympha should be considered a woman.

[4:15]  ⁹ tn Grk “the church in her house.” The meaning is that Paul sends greetings to the church that meets at Nympha’s house.

[4:19]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “My children, for whom I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you.” The relative clauses in English do not pick up the emotional force of Paul’s language here (note “tone of voice” in v. 20, indicating that he is passionately concerned for them); hence, the translation has been altered slightly to capture the connotative power of Paul’s plea.

[1:10]  ¹¹ tn Or “I am encouraging…”

[1:10]  ¹² tn Grk “my child whom I have begotten.” The adjective “spiritual” has been supplied before “father” in the translation to clarify for the modern reader that Paul did not literally father a child during his imprisonment. Paul’s point is that he was instrumental in Onesimus’ conversion while in prison.

[1:10]  ¹³ sn During my imprisonment. Apparently Onesimus became a believer under Paul’s shepherding while he [Paul] was a prisoner in Rome.