Jeremiah 29:10

29:10 “For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule ¹  are over will I again take up consideration for you. ²  Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore ³  you to your homeland. ⁴ 

Zephaniah 2:7

2:7 Those who are left from the kingdom of Judah ⁵  will take possession of it. ⁶ 

By the sea ⁷  they ⁸  will graze,

in the houses of Ashkelon they will lie down in the evening,

for the Lord their God will intervene for them ⁹  and restore their prosperity. ¹⁰ 

Acts 15:14

15:14 Simeon ¹¹  has explained ¹²  how God first concerned himself ¹³  to select ¹⁴  from among the Gentiles ¹⁵  a people for his name.

[29:10]  ¹ sn See the study note on Jer 25:11 for the reckoning of the seventy years.

[29:10]  ² tn See the translator’s note on Jer 27:22 for this term.

[29:10]  ³ tn Verse 10 is all one long sentence in the Hebrew original: “According to the fullness of Babylon seventy years I will take thought of you and I will establish my gracious word to you by bringing you back to this place.” The sentence has been broken up to conform better to contemporary English style.

[29:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “this place.” The text has probably been influenced by the parallel passage in 27:22. The term appears fifteen times in Jeremiah and is invariably a reference to Jerusalem or Judah.

[2:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “the remnant of the house of Judah.”

[2:7]  ⁶ tn Or “the coast will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah.”

[2:7]  ⁷ tc Heb “on them,” but the antecedent of the masculine pronoun is unclear. It may refer back to the “pasture lands,” though that noun is feminine. It is preferable to emend the text from עֲלֵיהֶם (’alehem) to עַל־הַיָּם (’al-hayyam, “by the sea”) an emendation that assumes a misdivision and transposition of letters in the MT (cf. NEB “They shall pasture their flocks by the sea”). See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 192.

[2:7]  ⁸ tn The referent of the pronominal subject (“they”) is unclear. It may refer (1) to the shepherds (in which case the first verb should be translated, “pasture their sheep,” cf. NEB), or (2) to the Judahites occupying the area, who are being compared to sheep (cf. NIV, “there they will find pasture”).

[2:7]  ⁹ tn Or “will care for them.”

[2:7]  ¹⁰ tn Traditionally, “restore their captivity,” i.e., bring back their captives, but it is more likely the expression means “restore their fortunes” in a more general sense (cf. NEB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[15:14]  ¹¹ sn Simeon is a form of the apostle Peter’s Aramaic name. James uses Peter’s “Jewish” name here.

[15:14]  ¹² tn Or “reported,” “described.”

[15:14]  ¹³ tn BDAG 378 s.v. ἐπισκέπτομαι 3 translates this phrase in Acts 15:14, “God concerned himself about winning a people fr. among the nations.”

[15:14]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “to take,” but in the sense of selecting or choosing (accompanied by the preposition ἐκ [ek] plus a genitive specifying the group selected from) see Heb 5:1; also BDAG 584 s.v. λαμβάνω 6.

[15:14]  ¹⁵ sn In the Greek text the expression “from among the Gentiles” is in emphatic position.