Jude 1:4

1:4 For certain men ¹  have secretly slipped in among you ²  – men who long ago ³  were marked out ⁴  for the condemnation I am about to describe ⁵  – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil ⁶  and who deny our only Master ⁷  and Lord, ⁸  Jesus Christ.

Ezra 9:1-4

A Prayer of Ezra

9:1 Now when these things had been completed, the leaders approached me and said, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the local residents ⁹  who practice detestable things similar to those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. 9:2 Indeed, they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race ¹⁰  has become intermingled with the local residents. Worse still, the leaders and the officials have been at the forefront of all of this!”

9:3 When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and my robe and ripped out some of the hair from my head and beard. Then I sat down, quite devastated. 9:4 Everyone who held the words of the God of Israel in awe ¹¹  gathered around me because of the unfaithful acts of the people of the exile. ¹²  Devastated, I continued to sit there until the evening offering.

Ezra 10:6-9

10:6 Then Ezra got up from in front of the temple of God and went to the room of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. While he stayed ¹³  there, he did not eat food or drink water, for he was in mourning over the infidelity of the exiles.

10:7 A proclamation ¹⁴  was circulated ¹⁵  throughout Judah and Jerusalem ¹⁶  that all the exiles were to be assembled in Jerusalem. 10:8 Everyone who did not come within three days would thereby forfeit all his property, in keeping with the counsel of the officials and the elders. Furthermore, he himself would be excluded from the assembly of the exiles.

10:9 All the men of Judah and Benjamin were gathered in Jerusalem within the three days. (It was in the ninth month, on the twentieth day of that month.) All the people sat in the square at the temple of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the rains.

Isaiah 22:12

22:12 At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning,

for shaved heads and sackcloth. ¹⁷ 

Ezekiel 9:4-6

9:4 The Lord said to him, “Go through the city of Jerusalem ¹⁸  and put a mark ¹⁹  on the foreheads of the people who moan and groan over all the abominations practiced in it.”

9:5 While I listened, he said to the others, ²⁰  “Go through the city after him and strike people down; do no let your eye pity nor spare ²¹  anyone! 9:6 Old men, young men, young women, little children, and women – wipe them out! But do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary!” So they began with the elders who were at the front of the temple.

Joel 2:17

2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep

from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. ²² 

Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;

please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,

to become a proverb ²³  among the nations.

Why should it be said ²⁴  among the peoples,

“Where is their God?”

[1:4]  ¹ tn Grk “people.” However, if Jude is indeed arguing that Peter’s prophecy about false teachers has come true, these are most likely men in the original historical and cultural setting. See discussion of this point in the note on the phrase “these men” in 2 Pet 2:12.

[1:4]  ² tn “Among you” is not in the Greek text, but is obviously implied.

[1:4]  ³ tn Or “in the past.” The adverb πάλαι (palai) can refer to either, though the meaning “long ago” is more common.

[1:4]  ⁴ tn Grk “written about.”

[1:4]  ⁵ tn Grk “for this condemnation.” τοῦτο (touto) is almost surely a kataphoric demonstrative pronoun, pointing to what follows in vv. 5-18. Otherwise, the condemnation is only implied (in v. 3b) or is merely a statement of their sinfulness (“ungodly” in v. 4b), not a judgment of it.

[1:4]  ⁶ tn Grk “debauchery.” This is the same word Peter uses to predict what the false teachers will be like (2 Pet 2:2, 7, 18).

[1:4]  ⁷ tc Most later witnesses (P Ψ Ï sy) have θεόν (qeon, “God”) after δεσπότην (despothn, “master”), which appears to be a motivated reading in that it explicitly links “Master” to “God” in keeping with the normal NT pattern (see Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; 2 Tim 2:21; Rev 6:10). In patristic Greek, δεσπότης (despoth") was used especially of God (cf. BDAG 220 s.v. 1.b.). The earlier and better witnesses (Ì^72,78 א A B C 0251 33 81 323 1241 1739 al co) lack θεόν; the shorter reading is thus preferred on both internal and external grounds.

[1:4]  ⁸ tn The terms “Master and Lord” both refer to the same person. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they always had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. For more discussion see ExSyn 270-78. See also Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1

[9:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “the peoples of the lands.” So also in v. 2.

[9:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the holy seed,” referring to the Israelites as God’s holy people.

[9:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “who trembled at the words of the God of Israel.”

[9:4]  ¹² tn Heb “the exile”; the words “the people” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[10:6]  ¹³ tc The translation reads וַיָּלֶן (vayyalen, “and he stayed”) rather than the reading וַיֵּלֶךְ (vayyelekh, “and he went”) of the MT. Cf. the LXX.

[10:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “voice.”

[10:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they sent.”

[10:7]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[22:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “for baldness and the wearing of sackcloth.” See the note at 15:2.

[9:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem.”

[9:4]  ¹⁹ tn The word translated “mark” is in Hebrew the letter ת (tav). Outside this context the only other occurrence of the word is in Job 31:35. In ancient Hebrew script this letter was written like the letter X.

[9:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “to these he said in my ears.”

[9:5]  ²¹ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[2:17]  ²² tn Heb “between the vestibule and the altar.” The vestibule was located at the entrance of the temple and the altar was located at the other end of the building. So “between the vestibule and the altar” is a merism referring to the entire structure. The priestly lament permeates the entire house of worship.

[2:17]  ²³ tn For the MT reading לִמְשָׁל (limshol, an infinitive, “to rule”), one should instead read לְמָשָׁל (lÿmashal, a noun, “to a byword”). While the consonantal Hebrew text permits either, the context suggests that the concern here is more one of not wanting to appear abandoned by God to ongoing economic depression rather than one of concern over potential political subjection of Israel (cf. v. 19). The possibility that the form in the MT is an infinitive construct of the denominative verb II מָשַׁל (mashal, “to utter a proverb”) does not seem likely because of the following preposition (Hebrew בְּ [bÿ], rather than עַל [’al]).

[2:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Why will they say?”