Mark 4:13

4:13 He said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? Then ¹  how will you understand any parable?

Isaiah 28:9-10

28:9 Who is the Lord ²  trying to teach?

To whom is he explaining a message? ³ 

Those just weaned from milk!

Those just taken from their mother’s breast! ⁴ 

28:10 Indeed, they will hear meaningless gibberish,

senseless babbling,

a syllable here, a syllable there. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 5:4-5

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ⁶ 

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ⁷ 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ⁸ 

5:5 I will go to the leaders ⁹ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ¹⁰ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ¹¹ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ¹² 

Matthew 15:16-17

15:16 Jesus ¹³  said, “Even after all this, are you still so foolish? 15:17 Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer? ¹⁴ 

Matthew 16:11

16:11 How could you not understand that I was not speaking to you about bread? But beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!”

Luke 24:25

24:25 So ¹⁵  he said to them, “You ¹⁶  foolish people ¹⁷  – how slow of heart ¹⁸  to believe ¹⁹  all that the prophets have spoken!

John 3:10

3:10 Jesus answered, ²⁰  “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? ²¹ 

John 3:1

Conversation with Nicodemus

3:1 Now a certain man, a Pharisee ²²  named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, ²³ 

Colossians 3:2

3:2 Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth,

Hebrews 5:11

The Need to Move on to Maturity

5:11 On this topic we have much to say ²⁴  and it is difficult to explain, since you have become sluggish ²⁵  in hearing.

[4:13]  ¹ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[28:9]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[28:9]  ³ tn Heb “Who is he teaching knowledge? For whom is he explaining a message?” The translation assumes that the Lord is the subject of the verbs “teaching” and “explaining,” and that the prophet is asking the questions. See v. 12. According to some vv. 9-10 record the people’s sarcastic response to the Lord’s message through Isaiah.

[28:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the breasts.” The words “their mother’s” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The translation assumes that this is the prophet’s answer to the questions asked in the first half of the verse. The Lord is trying to instruct people who are “infants” morally and ethically.

[28:10]  ⁵ tn The meaning of this verse has been debated. The text has literally “indeed [or “for”] a little there, a little there” ( כִּי צַו לָצָו צַו לָצָו קַו לָקָו קַו, ki tsav latsav, tsav latsav, qav laqav, qav laqav). The present translation assumes that the repetitive syllables are gibberish that resembles baby talk (cf v. 9b) and mimics what the people will hear when foreign invaders conquer the land (v. 11). In this case זְעֵיר (zÿ’er, “a little”) refers to the short syllabic structure of the babbling (cf. CEV). Some take צַו (tsav) as a derivative of צָוָה (tsavah, “command”) and translate the first part of the statement as “command after command, command after command.” Proponents of this position (followed by many English versions) also take קַו (qav) as a noun meaning “measuring line” (see v. 17), understood here in the abstract sense of “standard” or “rule.”

[5:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

[5:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ⁹ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹² tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.

[15:16]  ¹³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[15:17]  ¹⁴ tn Or “into the latrine.”

[24:25]  ¹⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the disciples’ inability to believe in Jesus’ resurrection.

[24:25]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “O,” an interjection used both in address and emotion (BDAG 1101 s.v. 1).

[24:25]  ¹⁷ tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to complete the interjection.

[24:25]  ¹⁸ sn The rebuke is for failure to believe the promise of scripture, a theme that will appear in vv. 43-47 as well.

[24:25]  ¹⁹ tn On the syntax of this infinitival construction, see BDAG 364-65 s.v. ἐπί 6.b.

[3:10]  ²⁰ tn Grk “Jesus answered and said to him.”

[3:10]  ²¹ sn Jesus’ question “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?” implies that Nicodemus had enough information at his disposal from the OT scriptures to have understood Jesus’ statements about the necessity of being born from above by the regenerating work of the Spirit. Isa 44:3-5 and Ezek 37:9-10 are passages Nicodemus might have known which would have given him insight into Jesus’ words. Another significant passage which contains many of these concepts is Prov 30:4-5.

[3:1]  ²² sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.

[3:1]  ²³ tn Grk “a ruler of the Jews” (denoting a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest legal, legislative, and judicial body among the Jews).

[5:11]  ²⁴ tn Grk “concerning which the message for us is great.”

[5:11]  ²⁵ tn Or “dull.”