Psalms 18:42

18:42 I grind them as fine windblown dust; ¹ 

I beat them underfoot ²  like clay ³  in the streets.

Micah 4:13

4:13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion!

For I will give you iron horns; ⁴ 

I will give you bronze hooves,

and you will crush many nations.” ⁵ 

You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them,

and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler ⁶  of the whole earth. ⁷ 

Zechariah 4:7

Oracle of Response

4:7 “What are you, you great mountain? ⁸  Because of Zerubbabel you will become a level plain! And he will bring forth the temple ⁹  capstone with shoutings of ‘Grace! Grace!’ ¹⁰  because of this.”

Zechariah 4:2

4:2 He asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, ¹¹  “I see a menorah of pure gold with a receptacle at the top and seven lamps, with fourteen pipes going to the lamps.

Colossians 1:4-5

1:4 since ¹²  we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. 1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ¹³  from the hope laid up ¹⁴  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ¹⁵ 

[18:42]  ¹ tn Heb “I pulverize them like dust upon the face of the wind.” The phrase “upon the face of” here means “before.” 2 Sam 22:43 reads, “like dust of the earth.”

[18:42]  ² tc Ps 18:42 reads, “I empty them out” (Hiphil of ריק), while 2 Sam 22:43 reads, “I crush them, I stomp on them” (juxtaposing the synonyms דקק and רקע). It is likely that the latter is a conflation of variants. One, but not both, of the verbs in 2 Sam 22:43 is probably original; “empty out” does not form as good a parallel with “grind, pulverize” in the parallel line.

[18:42]  ³ tn Or “mud.”

[4:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will make your horn iron.”

[4:13]  ⁵ sn Jerusalem (Daughter Zion at the beginning of the verse; cf. 4:8) is here compared to a powerful ox which crushes the grain on the threshing floor with its hooves.

[4:13]  ⁶ tn Or “the Lord” (so many English versions); Heb “the master.”

[4:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “and their wealth to the master of all the earth.” The verb “devote” does double duty in the parallelism and is supplied in the second line for clarification.

[4:7]  ⁸ sn In context, the great mountain here must be viewed as a metaphor for the enormous task of rebuilding the temple and establishing the messianic kingdom (cf. TEV “Obstacles as great as mountains”).

[4:7]  ⁹ tn The word “temple” has been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent (cf. NLT “final stone of the Temple”).

[4:7]  ¹⁰ sn Grace is a fitting response to the idea that it was “not by strength and not by power” but by God’s gracious Spirit that the work could be done (cf. v. 6).

[4:2]  ¹¹ tc The present translation (along with most other English versions) follows the reading of the Qere and many ancient versions, “I said,” as opposed to the MT Kethib “he said.”

[1:4]  ¹² tn The adverbial participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") is understood to be temporal and translated with “since.” A causal idea may also be in the apostle’s mind, but the context emphasizes temporal ideas, e.g., “from the day” (v. 6).

[1:5]  ¹³ tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ¹⁴ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ¹⁵ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.