Job 9:30-31

9:30 If I wash myself with snow water, ¹ 

and make my hands clean with lye, ² 

9:31 then you plunge me into a slimy pit ³ 

and my own clothes abhor me.

Psalms 26:6

26:6 I maintain a pure lifestyle, ⁴ 

so I can appear before your altar, ⁵  O Lord,

Isaiah 1:16

1:16 ⁶ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ⁷ 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

Jeremiah 4:14

4:14 “Oh people of Jerusalem, purify your hearts from evil ⁸ 

so that you may yet be delivered.

How long will you continue to harbor up

wicked schemes within you?

Matthew 27:24

Jesus is Condemned and Mocked

27:24 When ⁹  Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but that instead a riot was starting, he took some water, washed his hands before the crowd and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. You take care of it yourselves!” ¹⁰ 

Luke 11:38-39

11:38 The ¹¹  Pharisee was astonished when he saw that Jesus ¹²  did not first wash his hands ¹³  before the meal. 11:39 But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean ¹⁴  the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ¹⁵ 

John 2:6

2:6 Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, ¹⁶  each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ¹⁷ 

John 3:25

3:25 Now a dispute came about between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew ¹⁸  concerning ceremonial washing. ¹⁹ 

Hebrews 9:10

9:10 They served only for matters of food and drink ²⁰  and various washings; they are external regulations ²¹  imposed until the new order came. ²² 

James 4:8

4:8 Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you double-minded. ²³ 

James 4:1

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ²⁴  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ²⁵  from your passions that battle inside you? ²⁶ 

James 1:7

1:7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord,

[9:30]  ¹ tn The Syriac and Targum Job read with the Qere “with water of [בְמֵי, bÿme] snow.” The Kethib simply has “in [בְמוֹ, bÿmo] snow.” In Ps 51:9 and Isa 1:18 snow forms a simile for purification. Some protest that snow water is not necessarily clean; but if fresh melting snow is meant, then the runoff would be very clear. The image would work well here. Nevertheless, others have followed the later Hebrew meaning for שֶׁלֶג (sheleg) – “soap” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT). Even though that makes a nice parallelism, it is uncertain whether that meaning was in use at the time this text was written.

[9:30]  ² tn The word בֹּר (bor, “lye, potash”) does not refer to purity (Syriac, KJV, ASV), but refers to the ingredient used to make the hands pure or clean. It has the same meaning as בֹּרִית (borit), the alkali or soda made from the ashes of certain plants.

[9:31]  ³ tn The pointing in the MT gives the meaning “pit” or “ditch.” A number of expositors change the pointing to שֻׁחוֹת (shukhot) to obtain the equivalent of שֻׂחוֹת (sukhot) / סֻחוֹת (sukhot): “filth” (Isa 5:25). This would make the contrast vivid – Job has just washed with pure water and soap, and now God plunges him into filth. M. H. Pope argues convincingly that the word “pit” in the MT includes the idea of “filth,” making the emendation unnecessary (“The Word sahat in Job 9:31,” JBL 83 [1964]: 269-78).

[26:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “I wash my hands in innocence.” The psalmist uses an image from cultic ritual to picture his moral lifestyle. The imperfect verbal emphasizes that this is his habit.

[26:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “so I can go around your altar” (probably in ritual procession). Following the imperfect of the preceding line, the cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.

[1:16]  ⁶ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ⁷ sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[4:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “Oh, Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil.”

[27:24]  ⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[27:24]  ¹⁰ sn You take care of it yourselves! Compare the response of the chief priests and elders to Judas in 27:4. The expression is identical except that in 27:4 it is singular and here it is plural.

[11:38]  ¹¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[11:38]  ¹² tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:38]  ¹³ tn The words “his hands” are not in the Greek text, but have been supplied for clarity.

[11:39]  ¹⁴ sn The allusion to washing (clean the outside of the cup) shows Jesus knew what they were thinking and deliberately set up a contrast that charged them with hypocrisy and majoring on minors.

[11:39]  ¹⁵ tn Or “and evil.”

[2:6]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “for the purification of the Jews.”

[2:6]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “holding two or three metretes” (about 75 to 115 liters). Each of the pots held 2 or 3 μετρηταί (metrhtai). A μετρητῆς (metrhths) was about 9 gallons (40 liters); thus each jar held 18-27 gallons (80-120 liters) and the total volume of liquid involved was 108-162 gallons (480-720 liters).

[3:25]  ¹⁸ tc Was this dispute between the Baptist’s disciples and an individual Judean (᾿Ιουδαίου, Ioudaiou) or representatives of the Jewish authorities (᾿Ιουδαίων, Ioudaiwn)? There is good external support for the plural ᾿Ιουδαίων (Ì⁶⁶ א* Θ Ë^1,13 565 al latt), but the external evidence for the singular ᾿Ιουδαίου is slightly stronger ({Ì⁷⁵ א² A B L Ψ 33 1241 the majority of Byzantine minuscules and others}).

[3:25]  ¹⁹ tn Or “ceremonial cleansing,” or “purification.”

[9:10]  ²⁰ tn Grk “only for foods and drinks.”

[9:10]  ²¹ tc Most witnesses (D¹ Ï) have “various washings, and external regulations” (βαπτισμοῖς καὶ δικαιώμασιν, baptismoi" kai dikaiwmasin), with both nouns in the dative. The translation “washings; they are… regulations” renders βαπτισμοῖς, δικαιώματα (baptismoi", dikaiwmata; found in such important mss as Ì⁴⁶ א* A I P 0278 33 1739 1881 al sa) in which case δικαιώματα is taken as the nominative subject of the participle ἐπικείμενα (epikeimena). It seems far more likely that scribes would conform δικαιώματα to the immediately preceding datives and join it to them by καί than they would to the following nominative participle. Both on external and internal evidence the text is thus secure as reading βαπτισμοῖς, δικαιώματα.

[9:10]  ²² tn Grk “until the time of setting things right.”

[4:8]  ²³ tn Or “two-minded” (the same description used in 1:8).

[4:1]  ²⁴ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ²⁵ tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ²⁶ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”