Psalms 21:8-9

21:8 You ¹  prevail over ²  all your enemies;

your power is too great for those who hate you. ³ 

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ⁴  when you appear; ⁵ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ⁶ 

the fire consumes them.

Luke 19:14

19:14 But his citizens ⁷  hated ⁸  him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man ⁹  to be king ¹⁰  over us!’

Luke 19:27

19:27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, ¹¹  bring them here and slaughter ¹²  them ¹³  in front of me!’”

Luke 19:2

19:2 Now ¹⁴  a man named Zacchaeus was there; he was a chief tax collector ¹⁵  and was rich.

Luke 1:8-9

1:8 Now ¹⁶  while Zechariah ¹⁷  was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, ¹⁸  1:9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, ¹⁹  to enter ²⁰  the holy place ²¹  of the Lord and burn incense.

[21:8]  ¹ tn The king is now addressed. One could argue that the Lord is still being addressed, but v. 9 militates against this proposal, for there the Lord is mentioned in the third person and appears to be distinct from the addressee (unless, of course, one takes “Lord” in v. 9 as vocative; see the note on “them” in v. 9b). Verse 7 begins this transition to a new addressee by referring to both the king and the Lord in the third person (in vv. 1-6 the Lord is addressed and only the king referred to in the third person).

[21:8]  ² tn Heb “your hand finds.” The idiom pictures the king grabbing hold of his enemies and defeating them (see 1 Sam 23:17). The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 8-12 may be translated with the future tense, as long as the future is understood as generalizing.

[21:8]  ³ tn Heb “your right hand finds those who hate you.”

[21:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

[21:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

[21:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

[19:14]  ⁷ tn Or “subjects.” Technically these people were not his subjects yet, but would be upon his return. They were citizens of his country who opposed his appointment as their king; later the newly-appointed king will refer to them as his “enemies” (v. 27).

[19:14]  ⁸ tn The imperfect is intense in this context, suggesting an ongoing attitude.

[19:14]  ⁹ tn Grk “this one” (somewhat derogatory in this context).

[19:14]  ¹⁰ tn Or “to rule.”

[19:27]  ¹¹ tn Grk “to rule over them.”

[19:27]  ¹² tn This term, when used of people rather than animals, has some connotations of violence and mercilessness (L&N 20.72).

[19:27]  ¹³ sn Slaughter them. To reject the king is to face certain judgment from him.

[19:2]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “And behold.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the introduction of a new character. The Greek word ἰδού (idou) at the beginning of this statement has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[19:2]  ¹⁵ sn This is the one place in the NT the office of chief tax collector is noted. He would organize the other tax collectors and collect healthy commissions (see also the note on the word tax collector in 3:12).

[1:8]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “Now it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[1:8]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Zechariah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:8]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “serving as priest in the order of his division before God.”

[1:9]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “according to the custom of the priesthood it fell to him by lot.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation to make it clear that the prepositional phrase κατὰ τὸ ἔθος τῆς ἱερατείας (kata to eqo" th" Jierateia", “according to the custom of the priesthood”) modifies the phrase “it fell to him by lot” rather than the preceding clause.

[1:9]  ²⁰ tn This is an aorist participle and is temporally related to the offering of incense, not to when the lot fell.

[1:9]  ²¹ tn Or “temple.” Such sacrifices, which included the burning of incense, would have occurred in the holy place according to the Mishnah (m. Tamid 1.2; 3.1; 5-7). A priest would have given this sacrifice, which was offered for the nation, once in one’s career. It would be offered either at 9 a.m. or 3 p.m., since it was made twice a day.