Matthew 17:3-4

17:3 Then Moses ¹  and Elijah ²  also appeared before them, talking with him. 17:4 So ³  Peter said ⁴  to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, I will make ⁵  three shelters ⁶  – one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

Matthew 11:14

11:14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, who is to come.

Matthew 27:47-49

27:47 When ⁷  some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 27:48 Immediately ⁸  one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, ⁹  put it on a stick, ¹⁰  and gave it to him to drink. 27:49 But the rest said, “Leave him alone! Let’s see if Elijah will come to save him.” ¹¹ 

Malachi 4:5-6

4:5 Look, I will send you Elijah ¹²  the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord arrives. 4:6 He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, ¹³  so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.” ¹⁴ 

Mark 9:11

9:11 Then ¹⁵  they asked him, ¹⁶  “Why do the experts in the law ¹⁷  say that Elijah must come first?”

John 1:21

1:21 So they asked him, “Then who are you? ¹⁸  Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” ¹⁹  “Are you the Prophet?” ²⁰  He answered, “No!”

John 1:25

1:25 So they asked John, ²¹  “Why then are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, ²²  nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

[17:3]  ¹ tn Grk “And behold, Moses.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[17:3]  ² sn Commentators and scholars discuss why Moses and Elijah are present. The most likely explanation is that Moses represents the prophetic office (Acts 3:18-22) and Elijah pictures the presence of the last days (Mal 4:5-6), the prophet of the eschaton (the end times).

[17:4]  ³ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “so” to indicate that the appearance of Moses and Elijah prompted Peter’s comment.

[17:4]  ⁴ tn Grk “Peter answering said.” This construction is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.

[17:4]  ⁵ tc Instead of the singular future indicative ποιήσω (poihsw, “I will make”), most witnesses (C³ D L W Θ [Φ] 0281 Ë^[1],13 33 Ï lat sy co) have the plural aorist subjunctive ποιήσωμεν (poihswmen, “let us make”). But since ποιήσωμεν is the reading found in the parallel accounts in Mark and Luke, it is almost surely a motivated reading. Further, the earliest and best witnesses, as well as a few others (א B C* 700 pc) have ποιήσω. It is thus more likely that the singular verb is authentic.

[17:4]  ⁶ tn Or “booths,” “dwellings” (referring to the temporary booths constructed in the celebration of the feast of Tabernacles).

[27:47]  ⁷ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[27:48]  ⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[27:48]  ⁹ sn Sour wine refers to cheap wine that was called in Latin posca, a cheap vinegar wine diluted heavily with water. It was the drink of slaves and soldiers, and was probably there for the soldiers who had performed the crucifixion.

[27:48]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “a reed.”

[27:49]  ¹¹ tc Early and important mss (א B C L Γ pc) have another sentence at the end of this verse: “And another [soldier] took a spear and pierced him in the side, and water and blood flowed out.” This comment finds such a strong parallel in John 19:34 that it was undoubtedly lifted from the Fourth Gospel by early, well-meaning scribes and inserted into Matt 27:49. Consequently, even though the support for the shorter reading (A D W Θ Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat sy sa bo) is not nearly as impressive, internal considerations on its behalf are compelling.

[4:5]  ¹² sn I will send you Elijah the prophet. In light of the ascension of Elijah to heaven without dying (2 Kgs 2:11), Judaism has always awaited his return as an aspect of the messianic age (see, e.g., John 1:19-28). Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah, because he came in the “spirit and power” of his prototype Elijah (Matt 11:14; 17:1-13; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36).

[4:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the Lord (cf. Mal 3:7). This option is preferred in the present translation; see Beth Glazier-McDonald, Malachi (SBLDS), 256.

[4:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1-3 will be unnecessary.

[9:11]  ¹⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[9:11]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “And they were asking him, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant and has not been translated.

[9:11]  ¹⁷ tn Or “Why do the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.

[1:21]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “What then?” (an idiom).

[1:21]  ¹⁹ sn According to the 1st century rabbinic interpretation of 2 Kgs 2:11, Elijah was still alive. In Mal 4:5 it is said that Elijah would be the precursor of Messiah. How does one reconcile John the Baptist’s denial here (“I am not”) with Jesus’ statements in Matt 11:14 (see also Mark 9:13 and Matt 17:12) that John the Baptist was Elijah? Some have attempted to remove the difficulty by a reconstruction of the text in the Gospel of John which makes the Baptist say that he was Elijah. However, external support for such emendations is lacking. According to Gregory the Great, John was not Elijah, but exercised toward Jesus the function of Elijah by preparing his way. But this avoids the real difficulty, since in John’s Gospel the question of the Jewish authorities to the Baptist concerns precisely his function. It has also been suggested that the author of the Gospel here preserves a historically correct reminiscence – that John the Baptist did not think of himself as Elijah, although Jesus said otherwise. Mark 6:14-16 and Mark 8:28 indicate the people and Herod both distinguished between John and Elijah – probably because he did not see himself as Elijah. But Jesus’ remarks in Matt 11:14, Mark 9:13, and Matt 17:12 indicate that John did perform the function of Elijah – John did for Jesus what Elijah was to have done for the coming of the Lord. C. F. D. Moule pointed out that it is too simple to see a straight contradiction between John’s account and that of the synoptic gospels: “We have to ask by whom the identification is made, and by whom refused. The synoptic gospels represent Jesus as identifying, or comparing, the Baptist with Elijah, while John represents the Baptist as rejecting the identification when it is offered him by his interviewers. Now these two, so far from being incompatible, are psychologically complementary. The Baptist humbly rejects the exalted title, but Jesus, on the contrary, bestows it on him. Why should not the two both be correct?” (The Phenomenon of the New Testament [SBT], 70).

[1:21]  ²⁰ sn The Prophet is a reference to the “prophet like Moses” of Deut 18:15, by this time an eschatological figure in popular belief. Acts 3:22 identifies Jesus as this prophet.

[1:25]  ²¹ tn Grk “And they asked him, and said to him”; the referent (John) has been specified in the translation for clarity, and the phrase has been simplified in the translation to “So they asked John.”

[1:25]  ²² tn Or “the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).