Leviticus 26:43

26:43 The land will be abandoned by them ¹  in order that it may make up for ²  its Sabbaths while it is made desolate ³  without them, ⁴  and they will make up for their iniquity because ⁵  they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred ⁶  my statutes.

Numbers 15:31

15:31 Because he has despised ⁷  the word of the Lord and has broken ⁸  his commandment, that person ⁹  must be completely cut off. ¹⁰  His iniquity will be on him.’” ¹¹ 

Numbers 15:2

15:2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land where you are to live, ¹²  which I am giving you, ¹³ 

Numbers 12:9-10

12:9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he departed. 12:10 When ¹⁴  the cloud departed from above the tent, Miriam became ¹⁵  leprous ¹⁶  as snow. Then Aaron looked at ¹⁷  Miriam, and she was leprous!

Numbers 12:2

12:2 They ¹⁸  said, “Has the Lord only ¹⁹  spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” ²⁰  And the Lord heard it. ²¹ 

Numbers 17:1-2

The Budding of Aaron’s Staff

17:1 ²² The Lord spoke to Moses: 17:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and receive from them a staff from each tribe, ²³  one from every tribal leader, ²⁴  twelve staffs; you must write each man’s name on his staff.

Numbers 36:1

Women and Land Inheritance

36:1 Then the heads of the family groups ²⁵  of the Gileadites, the descendant of Machir, the descendant of Manasseh, who were from the Josephite families, approached and spoke before Moses ²⁶  and the leaders who were the heads of the Israelite families. ²⁷ 

Proverbs 1:7

Introduction to the Theme of the Book

1:7 Fearing the Lord ²⁸  is the beginning ²⁹  of moral knowledge, ³⁰ 

but ³¹  fools ³²  despise ³³  wisdom and instruction. ³⁴ 

Proverbs 1:30

1:30 they did not comply with my advice,

they spurned ³⁵  all my rebuke.

Jeremiah 6:19

6:19 Hear this, you peoples of the earth: ³⁶ 

‘Take note! ³⁷  I am about to bring disaster on these people.

It will come as punishment for their scheming. ³⁸ 

For they have paid no attention to what I have said, ³⁹ 

and they have rejected my law.

Zechariah 7:11-13

7:11 “But they refused to pay attention, turning away stubbornly and stopping their ears so they could not hear. 7:12 Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, ⁴⁰  so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the Lord who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the Lord who rules over all had poured out great wrath.

7:13 “‘It then came about that just as I ⁴¹  cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,’ the Lord Lord who rules over all had said.

Acts 13:41

13:41 ‘Look, you scoffers; be amazed and perish! ⁴² 

For I am doing a work in your days,

a work you would never believe, even if someone tells you.’” ⁴³ 

Acts 13:1

The Church at Antioch Commissions Barnabas and Saul

13:1 Now there were these prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch: ⁴⁴  Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, ⁴⁵  Lucius the Cyrenian, ⁴⁶  Manaen (a close friend of Herod ⁴⁷  the tetrarch ⁴⁸  from childhood ⁴⁹ ) and Saul.

Acts 4:8

4:8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, ⁵⁰  replied, ⁵¹  “Rulers of the people and elders, ⁵² 

[26:43]  ¹ tn Heb “from them.” The preposition “from” refers here to the agent of the action (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 455).

[26:43]  ² tn The jussive form of the verb with the simple vav (ו) here calls for a translation that expresses purpose.

[26:43]  ³ tn The verb is the Hophal infinitive construct with the third feminine singular suffix (GKC 182 §67.y; cf. v. 34).

[26:43]  ⁴ tn Heb “from them.”

[26:43]  ⁵ tn Heb “because and in because,” a double expression, which is used only here and in Ezek 13:10 (without the vav) for emphasis (GKC 492 §158.b).

[26:43]  ⁶ tn Heb “and their soul has abhorred.”

[15:31]  ⁷ tn The verb בָּזָה (bazah, “to despise”) means to treat something as worthless, to treat it with contempt, to look down the nose at something as it were.

[15:31]  ⁸ tn The verb פָּרַר (parar, “to break”) can mean to nullify, break, or violate a covenant.

[15:31]  ⁹ tn Heb “soul.”

[15:31]  ¹⁰ tn The construction uses the Niphal imperfect with the modifying Niphal infinitive absolute. The infinitive makes the sentence more emphatic. If the imperfect tense is taken as an instruction imperfect, then the infinitive makes the instruction more binding. If it is a simple future, then the future is certain. In either case, there is no exclusion from being cut off.

[15:31]  ¹¹ sn The point is that the person’s iniquity remains with him – he must pay for his sin. The judgment of God in such a case is both appropriate and unavoidable.

[15:2]  ¹² tn Heb “the land of your habitations.”

[15:2]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew participle here has the futur instans use of the participle, expressing that something is going to take place. It is not imminent, but it is certain that God would give the land to Israel.

[12:10]  ¹⁴ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) is here introducing a circumstantial clause of time.

[12:10]  ¹⁵ tn There is no verb “became” in this line. The second half of the line is introduced with the particle הִנֵה (hinneh, “look, behold”) in its archaic sense. This deictic use is intended to make the reader focus on Miriam as well.

[12:10]  ¹⁶ sn The word “leprosy” and “leprous” covers a wide variety of skin diseases, and need not be limited to the actual disease of leprosy known today as Hansen’s disease. The description of it here has to do with snow, either the whiteness or the wetness. If that is the case then there would be open wounds and sores – like Job’s illness (see M. Noth, Numbers [OTL], 95-96).

[12:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “turned to.”

[12:2]  ¹⁸ tn Now the text changes to use a plural form of the verb. The indication is that Miriam criticized the marriage, and then the two of them raised questions about his sole leadership of the nation.

[12:2]  ¹⁹ tn The use of both רַק and אַךְ (raq and ’akh) underscore the point that the issue is Moses’ uniqueness.

[12:2]  ²⁰ tn There is irony in the construction in the text. The expression “speak through us” also uses דִּבֵּר + בְּ(dibber + bÿ). They ask if God has not also spoken through them, after they have spoken against Moses. Shortly God will speak against them – their words are prophetic, but not as they imagined.

[12:2]  ²¹ sn The statement is striking. Obviously the Lord knows all things. But the statement of the obvious here is meant to indicate that the Lord was about to do something about this.

[17:1]  ²² sn Num 17:1 in the English Bible is 17:16 in the Hebrew text (BHS). See also the note on 16:36.

[17:2]  ²³ tn Heb “receive from them a rod, a rod from the house of a father.”

[17:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “from every leader of them according to their fathers’ house.”

[36:1]  ²⁵ tn The expression is “the heads of the fathers by the family of the Gileadites.”

[36:1]  ²⁶ tn The Greek and the Syriac add “and before Eleazar the priest.”

[36:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “heads of the fathers.”

[1:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The expression יְהוָה יִרְאַת (yir’at yÿhvah, “fear of Yahweh”) is a genitive-construct in which יְהוָה (“the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive: He is the object of fear. The term יָרַא (yara’) is the common word for fear in the OT and has a basic three-fold range of meanings: (1) “dread; terror” (Deut 1:29; Jonah 1:10), (2) “to stand in awe” (1 Kgs 3:28), (3) “to revere; to respect” (Lev 19:3). With the Lord as the object, it captures the polar opposites of shrinking back in fear and drawing close in awe and adoration. Both categories of meaning appear in Exod 20:20 (where the Lord descended upon Sinai amidst geophysical convulsions); Moses encouraged the Israelites to not be afraid of God arbitrarily striking them dead for no reason (“Do not fear!”) but informed the people that the Lord revealed himself in such a terrifying manner to scare them from sinning (“God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him in you so that you do not sin”). The fear of the Lord is expressed in reverential submission to his will – the characteristic of true worship. The fear of the Lord is the foundation for wisdom (9:10) and the discipline leading to wisdom (15:33). It is expressed in hatred of evil (8:13) and avoidance of sin (16:6), and so results in prolonged life (10:27; 19:23).

[1:7]  ²⁹ tn The noun רֵאשִׁית (re’shit) has a two-fold range of meaning (BDB 912 s.v.): (1) “beginning” = first step in a course of action (e.g., Ps 111:10; Prov 17:14; Mic 1:13) or (2) “chief thing” as the principal aspect of something (e.g., Prov 4:7). So fearing the Lord is either (1) the first step in acquiring moral knowledge or (2) the most important aspect of moral knowledge. The first option is preferred because 1:2-6 focuses on the acquisition of wisdom.

[1:7]  ³⁰ tn Heb “knowledge.” The noun דָּעַת (da’at, “knowledge”) refers to experiential knowledge, not just cognitive knowledge, including the intellectual assimilation and practical application (BDB 394 s.v.). It is used in parallelism to מוּסָר (musar, “instruction, discipline”) and חָכְמָה (khokhmah, “wisdom, moral skill”).

[1:7]  ³¹ tn The conjunction “but” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the antithetical parallelism. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:7]  ³² tn The term אֱוִיל (’evil, “fool”) refers to a person characterized by moral folly (BDB 17 s.v.). Fools lack understanding (10:21), do not store up knowledge (10:14), fail to attain wisdom (24:7), and refuse correction (15:5; 27:22). They are arrogant (26:5), talk loosely (14:3) and are contentious (20:3). They might have mental intelligence but they are morally foolish. In sum, they are stubborn and “thick-brained” (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 6).

[1:7]  ³³ tn The verb of בָּזָה (bazah, “despise”) means to treat things of value with contempt, as if they were worthless (BDB 102 s.v.). The classic example is Esau who despised his birthright and sold it for lentil stew (Gen 25:34). The perfect tense of this verb may be classified as characteristic perfect (what they have done and currently do) or gnomic perfect (what they always do in past, present and future). The latter is preferred; this describes a trait of fools, and elsewhere the book says that fools do not change.

[1:7]  ³⁴ sn Hebrew word order is emphatic here. Normal word order is: verb + subject + direct object. Here it is: direct object + subject + verb (“wisdom and instruction fools despise”).

[1:30]  ³⁵ tn The verb “spurned” (נָאַץ, na’ats) is parallel to “comply, accede to, be willing” (e.g., 1:10). This is how the morally stubborn fool acts (e.g., 15:5).

[6:19]  ³⁶ tn Heb “earth.”

[6:19]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Behold!”

[6:19]  ³⁸ tn Heb “disaster on these people, the fruit of their schemes.”

[6:19]  ³⁹ tn Heb “my word.”

[7:12]  ⁴⁰ tn The Hebrew term שָׁמִיר (shamir) means literally “hardness” and since it is said in Ezek 3:9 to be harder than flint, many scholars suggest that it refers to diamond. It is unlikely that diamond was known to ancient Israel, however, so probably a hard stone like emery or corundum is in view. The translation nevertheless uses “diamond” because in modern times it has become proverbial for its hardness. A number of English versions use “flint” here (e.g., NASB, NIV).

[7:13]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “he.” Since the third person pronoun refers to the Lord, it has been translated as a first person pronoun (“I”) to accommodate English style, which typically does not exhibit switches between persons of pronouns in the same immediate context as Hebrew does.

[13:41]  ⁴² tn Or “and die!”

[13:41]  ⁴³ sn A quotation from Hab 1:5. The irony in the phrase even if someone tells you, of course, is that Paul has now told them. So the call in the warning is to believe or else face the peril of being scoffers whom God will judge. The parallel from Habakkuk is that the nation failed to see how Babylon’s rising to power meant perilous judgment for Israel.

[13:1]  ⁴⁴ sn Antioch was a city in Syria (not Antioch in Pisidia).

[13:1]  ⁴⁵ sn Simeon may well have been from North Africa, since the Latin loanword Niger refers to someone as “dark-complexioned.”

[13:1]  ⁴⁶ sn The Cyrenian refers to a native of the city of Cyrene, on the coast of northern Africa west of Egypt.

[13:1]  ⁴⁷ sn Herod is generally taken as a reference to Herod Antipas, who governed Galilee from 4 b.c. to a.d. 39, who had John the Baptist beheaded, and who is mentioned a number of times in the gospels.

[13:1]  ⁴⁸ tn Or “the governor.”

[13:1]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “(a foster brother of Herod the tetrarch).” The meaning “close friend from childhood” is given by L&N 34.15, but the word can also mean “foster brother” (L&N 10.51). BDAG 976 s.v. σύντροφας states, “pert. to being brought up with someone, either as a foster-brother or as a companion/friend,” which covers both alternatives. Context does not given enough information to be certain which is the case here, although many modern translations prefer the meaning “close friend from childhood.”

[4:8]  ⁵⁰ sn Filled with the Holy Spirit. The narrator’s remark about the Holy Spirit indicates that Peter speaks as directed by God and for God. This fulfills Luke 12:11-12 (1 Pet 3:15).

[4:8]  ⁵¹ tn Grk “Spirit, said to them.”

[4:8]  ⁵² tc The Western and Byzantine texts, as well as one or two Alexandrian witnesses, read τοῦ ᾿Ισραήλ (tou Israhl, “of Israel”) after πρεσβύτεροι (presbuteroi, “elders”; so D E Ψ 33 1739 Ï it), while most of the better witnesses, chiefly Alexandrian (Ì⁷⁴ א A B 0165 1175 vg sa bo), lack this modifier. The longer reading was most likely added by scribes to give literary balance to the addressees in that “Rulers” already had an adjunct while “elders” was left absolute.