Numbers 18:12

18:12 “All the best of the olive oil and all the best of the wine and of the wheat, the first fruits of these things that they give to the Lord, I have given to you. ¹ 

Exodus 23:19

23:19 The first of the firstfruits of your soil you must bring to the house of the Lord your God.

“You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. ² 

Deuteronomy 26:2-10

26:2 you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he ³  chooses to locate his name. ⁴  26:3 You must go to the priest in office at that time and say to him, “I declare today to the Lord your ⁵  God that I have come into the land that the Lord ⁶  promised ⁷  to our ancestors ⁸  to give us.” 26:4 The priest will then take the basket from you ⁹  and set it before the altar of the Lord your God. 26:5 Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering ¹⁰  Aramean ¹¹  was my ancestor, ¹²  and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, ¹³  but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people. 26:6 But the Egyptians mistreated and oppressed us, forcing us to do burdensome labor. 26:7 So we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and he ¹⁴  heard us and saw our humiliation, toil, and oppression. 26:8 Therefore the Lord brought us out of Egypt with tremendous strength and power, ¹⁵  as well as with great awe-inspiring signs and wonders. 26:9 Then he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 26:10 So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him. ¹⁶ 

Nehemiah 10:37

10:37 We will also bring the first of our coarse meal, of our contributions, of the fruit of every tree, of new wine, and of olive oil to the priests at the storerooms of the temple of our God, along with a tenth of the produce ¹⁷  of our land to the Levites, for the Levites are the ones who collect the tithes in all the cities where we work. ¹⁸ 

Proverbs 3:9-10

3:9 Honor ¹⁹  the Lord from your wealth

and from the first fruits of all your crops; ²⁰ 

3:10 then your barns will be filled completely, ²¹ 

and your vats ²²  will overflow ²³  with new wine.

Ezekiel 44:30

44:30 The first of all the first fruits and all contributions of any kind ²⁴  will be for the priests; you will also give to the priest the first portion of your dough, so that a blessing may rest on your house.

Matthew 6:33

6:33 But above all pursue his kingdom ²⁵  and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Romans 11:16

11:16 If the first portion ²⁶  of the dough offered is holy, then the whole batch is holy, and if the root is holy, so too are the branches. ²⁷ 

Romans 11:1

Israel’s Rejection not Complete nor Final

11:1 So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ²⁸  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

James 1:18

1:18 By his sovereign plan he gave us birth ²⁹  through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Revelation 14:4

14:4 These are the ones who have not defiled themselves ³⁰  with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from humanity as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb,

[18:12]  ¹ tn This form may be classified as a perfect of resolve – he has decided to give them to them, even though this is a listing of what they will receive.

[23:19]  ² sn On this verse, see C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1-7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48-55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56-58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23-35. Here and at 34:26, where this command is repeated, it ends a series of instructions about procedures for worship.

[26:2]  ³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[26:2]  ⁴ sn The place where he chooses to locate his name. This is a circumlocution for the central sanctuary, first the tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple. See Deut 12:1-14 and especially the note on the word “you” in v. 14.

[26:3]  ⁵ tc For the MT reading “your God,” certain LXX mss have “my God,” a contextually superior rendition followed by some English versions (e.g., NAB, NASB, TEV). Perhaps the text reflects dittography of the kaf (כ) at the end of the word with the following preposition כִּי (ki).

[26:3]  ⁶ tc The Syriac adds “your God” to complete the usual formula.

[26:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “swore on oath.”

[26:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 7, 15).

[26:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “your hand.”

[26:5]  ¹⁰ tn Though the Hebrew term אָבַד (’avad) generally means “to perish” or the like (HALOT 2-3 s.v.; BDB 1-2 s.v.; cf. KJV “a Syrian ready to perish”), a meaning “to go astray” or “to be lost” is also attested. The ambivalence in the Hebrew text is reflected in the versions where LXX Vaticanus reads ἀπέβαλεν (apebalen, “lose”) for a possibly metathesized reading found in Alexandrinus, Ambrosianus, ἀπέλαβεν (apelaben, “receive”); others attest κατέλειπεν (kateleipen, “leave, abandon”). “Wandering” seems to suit best the contrast with the sedentary life Israel would enjoy in Canaan (v. 9) and is the meaning followed by many English versions.

[26:5]  ¹¹ sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).

[26:5]  ¹² tn Heb “father.”

[26:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “sojourned there few in number.” The words “with a household” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.

[26:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 26:2.

[26:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “by a powerful hand and an extended arm.” These are anthropomorphisms designed to convey God’s tremendously great power in rescuing Israel from their Egyptian bondage. They are preserved literally in many English versions (cf. KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[26:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 26:2.

[10:37]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “a tithe of our land.”

[10:37]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “of our work.”

[3:9]  ¹⁹ tn The imperative כַּבֵּד (kabbed, “honor”) functions as a command, instruction, counsel or exhortation. To honor God means to give him the rightful place of authority by rendering to him gifts of tribute. One way to acknowledge God in one’s ways (v. 6) is to honor him with one’s wealth (v. 9).

[3:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “produce.” The noun תְּבוּאָה (tÿvu’ah) has a two-fold range of meaning: (1) “product; yield” of the earth (= crops; harvest) and (2) “income; revenue” in general (BDB 100 s.v.). The imagery in vv. 9-10 is agricultural; however, all Israelites – not just farmers – were expected to give the best portion (= first fruits) of their income to Lord.

[3:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “with plenty” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “to overflowing.” The noun שָׂבָע (sava’, “plenty; satiety”) functions as an adverbial accusative of manner or contents: “completely.”

[3:10]  ²² sn This pictures the process of pressing grapes in which the upper receptacle is filled with grapes and the lower one catches the juice. The harvest of grapes will be so plentiful that the lower vat will overflow with grape juice. The pictures in v. 10 are metonymies of effect for cause (= the great harvest that God will provide when they honor him).

[3:10]  ²³ tn Heb “burst open.” The verb פָּרַץ (parats, “to burst open”) functions as hyperbole here to emphasize the fullness of the wine vats (BDB 829 s.v. 9).

[44:30]  ²⁴ tn Heb has in addition “from your contributions,” a repetition unnecessary in English.

[6:33]  ²⁵ tc ‡ Most mss (L W Θ 0233 Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat sy mae) read τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ (thn basileian tou qeou kai thn dikaiosunhn aujtou, “the kingdom of God and his righteousness”) here, but the words “of God” are lacking in א B pc sa bo Eus. On the one hand, there is the possibility of accidental omission on the part of these Alexandrian witnesses, but it seems unlikely that the scribe’s eye would skip over both words (especially since τοῦ θεοῦ is bracketed by first declension nouns). Intrinsically, the author generally has a genitive modifier with βασιλεία – especially θεοῦ or οὐρανῶν (ouranwn) – but this argument cuts both ways: Although he might be expected to use such an adjunct here, scribes might also be familiar with his practice and would thus naturally insert it if it were missing in their copy of Matthew. Although a decision is difficult, the omission of τοῦ θεοῦ is considered most likely to be original. NA²⁷ includes the words in brackets, indicating doubt as to their authenticity.

[11:16]  ²⁶ tn Grk “firstfruits,” a term for the first part of something that has been set aside and offered to God before the remainder can be used.

[11:16]  ²⁷ sn Most interpreters see Paul as making use of a long-standing metaphor of the olive tree (the root…the branches) as a symbol for Israel. See, in this regard, Jer 11:16, 19. A. T. Hanson, Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology, 121-24, cites rabbinic use of the figure of the olive tree, and goes so far as to argue that Rom 11:17-24 is a midrash on Jer 11:16-19.

[1:20]  ²⁸ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

[1:18]  ²⁹ tn Grk “Having willed, he gave us birth.”

[14:4]  ³⁰ tn The aorist passive verb is rendered as a reflexive (“defiled themselves”) by BDAG 657 s.v. μολύνω 2.