Luke 7:28

7:28 I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater ¹  than John. ²  Yet the one who is least ³  in the kingdom of God ⁴  is greater than he is.”

Genesis 12:2

12:2 Then I will make you ⁵  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ⁶ 

and I will make your name great, ⁷ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ⁸ 

Genesis 48:19

48:19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He too will become a nation and he too will become great. In spite of this, his younger brother will be even greater and his descendants will become a multitude ⁹  of nations.”

Joshua 3:7

3:7 The Lord told Joshua, “This very day I will begin to honor you before all Israel ¹⁰  so they will know that I am with you just as I was with Moses.

Joshua 4:14

4:14 That day the Lord brought honor to Joshua before all Israel. They respected ¹¹  him all his life, ¹²  just as they had respected ¹³  Moses.

Joshua 4:1

Israel Commemorates the Crossing

4:1 When the entire nation was on the other side, ¹⁴  the Lord told Joshua,

Joshua 17:8

17:8 (The land of Tappuah belonged to Manasseh, but Tappuah, located on the border of Manasseh, belonged to the tribe of Ephraim.)

Joshua 1:12

1:12 Joshua told the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh:

Matthew 11:9-19

11:9 What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more ¹⁵  than a prophet. 11:10 This is the one about whom it is written:

‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, ¹⁶ 

who will prepare your way before you.’ ¹⁷ 

11:11 “I tell you the truth, ¹⁸  among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least ¹⁹  in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is. 11:12 From ²⁰  the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and forceful people lay hold of it. ²¹  11:13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John appeared. ²²  11:14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, who is to come. 11:15 The one who has ears had better listen! ²³ 

11:16 “To ²⁴  what should I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces who call out to one another, ²⁵ 

11:17 ‘We played the flute for you, yet you did not dance; ²⁶ 

we wailed in mourning, ²⁷  yet you did not weep.’

11:18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’ ²⁸  11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him, ²⁹  a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors ³⁰  and sinners!’ ³¹  But wisdom is vindicated ³²  by her deeds.” ³³ 

John 5:35

5:35 He was a lamp that was burning and shining, ³⁴  and you wanted to rejoice greatly for a short time ³⁵  in his light.

[7:28]  ¹ sn In the Greek text greater is at the beginning of the clause in the emphatic position. John the Baptist was the greatest man of the old era.

[7:28]  ² tc The earliest and best mss read simply ᾿Ιωάννου (Iwannou, “John”) here (Ì⁷⁵ א B L W Ξ Ë¹ 579 pc). Others turn this into “John the Baptist” (K 33 565 al it), “the prophet John the Baptist” (A [D] Θ Ë¹³ Ï lat), or “the prophet John” (Ψ 700 [892 1241] pc). “It appears that προφήτης was inserted by pedantic copyists who wished thereby to exclude Christ from the comparison, while others added τοῦ βαπτιστοῦ, assimilating the text to Mt 11.11” (TCGNT 119).

[7:28]  ³ sn After John comes a shift of eras. The new era is so great that the lowest member of it (the one who is least in the kingdom of God) is greater than the greatest one of the previous era.

[7:28]  ⁴ sn The kingdom of God is a major theme of Jesus’ proclamation. It is a realm in which Jesus rules and to which those who trust him belong. See Luke 6:20; 11:20; 17:20-21. It is not strictly future, though its full manifestation is yet to come. That is why membership in it starts right after John the Baptist.

[12:2]  ⁵ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ⁶ sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ⁷ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[48:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “fullness.”

[3:7]  ¹⁰ tn Or more literally, “to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel.”

[4:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “feared.”

[4:14]  ¹² tn Heb “all the days of his life.”

[4:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “had feared.”

[4:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “And when all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan.”

[11:9]  ¹⁵ tn John the Baptist is “more” because he introduces the one (Jesus) who brings the new era. The term is neuter, but may be understood as masculine in this context (BDAG 806 s.v. περισσότερος b).

[11:10]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “before your face” (an idiom).

[11:10]  ¹⁷ sn The quotation is primarily from Mal 3:1 with pronouns from Exod 23:20. Here is the forerunner who points the way to the arrival of God’s salvation. His job is to prepare and guide the people, as the cloud did for Israel in the desert.

[11:11]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[11:11]  ¹⁹ sn After John comes a shift of eras. The new era is so great that the lowest member of it (the one who is least in the kingdom of God) is greater than the greatest one of the previous era.

[11:12]  ²⁰ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[11:12]  ²¹ tn Or “the kingdom of heaven is forcibly entered and violent people take hold of it.” For a somewhat different interpretation of this passage, see the note on the phrase “urged to enter in” in Luke 16:16.

[11:13]  ²² tn The word “appeared” is not in the Greek text, but is implied.

[11:15]  ²³ tn The translation “had better listen!” captures the force of the third person imperative more effectively than the traditional “let him hear,” which sounds more like a permissive than an imperative to the modern English reader. This was Jesus’ common expression to listen and heed carefully (cf. Matt 13:9, 43; Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 8:8, 14:35).

[11:16]  ²⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[11:16]  ²⁵ tn Grk “who call out to one another, saying.” The participle λέγουσιν (legousin) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[11:17]  ²⁶ sn ‘We played the flute for you, yet you did not dance…’ The children of this generation were making the complaint (see vv. 18-19) that others were not playing the game according to the way they played the music. John and Jesus did not follow “their tune.” Jesus’ complaint was that this generation wanted things their way, not God’s.

[11:17]  ²⁷ tn The verb ἐθρηνήσαμεν (eqrhnhsamen) refers to the loud wailing and lamenting used to mourn the dead in public in 1st century Jewish culture.

[11:18]  ²⁸ sn John the Baptist was too separatist and ascetic for some, and so he was accused of not being directed by God, but by a demon.

[11:19]  ²⁹ tn Grk “Behold a man.”

[11:19]  ³⁰ sn See the note on tax collectors in 5:46.

[11:19]  ³¹ sn Neither were they happy with Jesus (the Son of Man), even though he was the opposite of John and associated freely with people like tax collectors and sinners. Either way, God’s messengers were subject to complaint.

[11:19]  ³² tn Or “shown to be right.”

[11:19]  ³³ tc Most witnesses (B² C D L Θ Ë¹ 33 Ï lat) have “children” (τέκνων, teknwn) here instead of “deeds” (ἔργων, ergwn), but since “children” is the reading of the parallel in Luke 7:35, scribes would be motivated to convert the less colorful “deeds” into more animate offspring of wisdom. Further, ἔργων enjoys support from א B* W (˹³) as well as early versional and patristic support.

[5:35]  ³⁴ sn He was a lamp that was burning and shining. Sir 48:1 states that the word of Elijah was “a flame like a torch.” Because of the connection of John the Baptist with Elijah (see John 1:21 and the note on John’s reply, “I am not”), it was natural for Jesus to apply this description to John.

[5:35]  ³⁵ tn Grk “for an hour.”