Psalms 40:9

40:9 I have told the great assembly ¹  about your justice. ² 

Look! I spare no words! ³ 

O Lord, you know this is true.

Isaiah 61:1-3

The Lord Will Rejuvenate His People

61:1 The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me,

because the Lord has chosen ⁴  me. ⁵ 

He has commissioned ⁶  me to encourage ⁷  the poor,

to help ⁸  the brokenhearted,

to decree the release of captives,

and the freeing of prisoners,

61:2 to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor,

the day when our God will seek vengeance, ⁹ 

to console all who mourn,

61:3 to strengthen those who mourn in Zion,

by giving them a turban, instead of ashes,

oil symbolizing joy, ¹⁰  instead of mourning,

a garment symbolizing praise, ¹¹  instead of discouragement. ¹² 

They will be called oaks of righteousness, ¹³ 

trees planted by the Lord to reveal his splendor. ¹⁴ 

Jonah 3:2

3:2 “Go immediately ¹⁵  to Nineveh, that large city, ¹⁶  and proclaim to ¹⁷  it the message that I tell you.”

Luke 4:18-19

4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed ¹⁸  me to proclaim good news ¹⁹  to the poor. ²⁰ 

He has sent me ²¹  to proclaim release ²²  to the captives

and the regaining of sight ²³  to the blind,

to set free ²⁴  those who are oppressed, ²⁵ 

4:19 to proclaim the year ²⁶  of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁷ 

Luke 9:60

9:60 But Jesus ²⁸  said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, ²⁹  but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” ³⁰ 

Romans 10:15

10:15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How timely ³¹  is the arrival ³²  of those who proclaim the good news.” ³³ 

Colossians 1:25

1:25 I became a servant of the church according to the stewardship ³⁴  from God – given to me for you – in order to complete ³⁵  the word of God,

Colossians 1:28

1:28 We proclaim him by instructing ³⁶  and teaching ³⁷  all people ³⁸  with all wisdom so that we may present every person mature ³⁹  in Christ.

[40:9]  ¹ sn The great assembly is also mentioned in Pss 22:25 and 35:18.

[40:9]  ² tn Heb “I proclaim justice in the great assembly.” Though “justice” appears without a pronoun here, the Lord’s just acts are in view (see v. 10). His “justice” (צֶדֶק, tsedeq) is here the deliverance that originates in his justice; he protects and vindicates the one whose cause is just.

[40:9]  ³ tn Heb “Look! My lips I do not restrain.”

[61:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “anointed,” i.e., designated to carry out an assigned task.

[61:1]  ⁵ sn The speaker is not identified, but he is distinct from the Lord and from Zion’s suffering people. He possesses the divine spirit, is God’s spokesman, and is sent to release prisoners from bondage. The evidence suggests he is the Lord’s special servant, described earlier in the servant songs (see 42:1-4, 7; 49:2, 9; 50:4; see also 51:16).

[61:1]  ⁶ tn Or “sent” (NAB); NCV “has appointed me.”

[61:1]  ⁷ tn Or “proclaim good news to.”

[61:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “to bind up [the wounds of].”

[61:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “to announce the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance.

[61:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “oil of joy” (KJV, ASV); NASB, NIV, NRSV “the oil of gladness.”

[61:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “garment of praise.”

[61:3]  ¹² tn Heb “a faint spirit” (so NRSV); KJV, ASV “the spirit of heaviness”; NASB “a spirit of fainting.”

[61:3]  ¹³ tn Rather than referring to the character of the people, צֶדֶק (tsedeq) may carry the nuance “vindication” here, suggesting that God’s restored people are a testimony to his justice. See v. 2, which alludes to the fact that God will take vengeance against the enemies of his people. Cf. NAB “oaks of justice.”

[61:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a planting of the Lord to reveal splendor.”

[3:2]  ¹⁵ sn The commands of 1:2 are repeated here. See the note there on the combination of “arise” and “go.”

[3:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Nineveh, the great city.”

[3:2]  ¹⁷ tn The verb קָרָא (qara’, “proclaim”) is repeated from 1:2 but with a significant variation. The phrase in 1:2 was the adversative קְרָא עָל (qÿra’ ’al, “proclaim against”), which often designates an announcement of threatened judgment (1 Kgs 13:4, 32; Jer 49:29; Lam 1:15). However, here the phrase is the more positive קְרָא אֶל (qÿra’ ’el, “proclaim to”) which often designates an oracle of deliverance or a call to repentance, with an accompanying offer of deliverance that is either explicit or implied (Deut 20:10; Isa 40:2; Zech 1:4; HALOT 1129 s.v. קרא 8; BDB 895 s.v. קָרָא 3.a). This shift from the adversative preposition עַל (“against”) to the more positive preposition אֶל (“to”) might signal a shift in God’s intentions or perhaps it simply makes his original intention more clear. While God threatened to judge Nineveh, he was very willing to relent and forgive when the people repented from their sins (3:8-10). Jonah later complains that he knew that God was likely to relent from the threatened judgment all along (4:2).

[4:18]  ¹⁸ sn The phrase he has anointed me is an allusion back to Jesus’ baptism in Luke 3:21-22.

[4:18]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “to evangelize,” “to preach the gospel.”

[4:18]  ²⁰ sn The poor is a key term in Luke. It refers to the pious poor and indicates Jesus’ desire to reach out to those the world tends to forget or mistreat. It is like 1:52 in force and also will be echoed in 6:20 (also 1 Pet 2:11-25). Jesus is commissioned to do this.

[4:18]  ²¹ tc The majority of mss, especially the later Byzantines, include the phrase “to heal the brokenhearted” at this point (A Θ Ψ 0102 ˹ Ï). The phrase is lacking in several weighty mss (א B D L W Ξ Ë¹³ 33 579 700 892* pc lat sy^s co), including representatives from both the Alexandrian and Western texttypes. From the standpoint of external evidence, the omission of the phrase is more likely original. When internal evidence is considered, the shorter reading becomes almost certain. Scribes would be much more prone to add the phrase here to align the text with Isa 61:1, the source of the quotation, than to remove it from the original.

[4:18]  ²² sn The release in view here is comprehensive, both at a physical level and a spiritual one, as the entire ministry of Jesus makes clear (Luke 1:77-79; 7:47; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 5:31; 10:43).

[4:18]  ²³ sn Again, as with the previous phrase, regaining of sight may well mean more than simply miraculously restoring physical sight, which itself pictures a deeper reality (Luke 1:77-79; 18:35-43).

[4:18]  ²⁴ sn The essence of Jesus’ messianic work is expressed in the phrase to set free. This line from Isa 58 says that Jesus will do what the nation had failed to do. It makes the proclamation messianic, not merely prophetic, because Jesus doesn’t just proclaim the message – he brings the deliverance. The word translated set free is the same Greek word (ἄφεσις, afesi") translated release earlier in the verse.

[4:18]  ²⁵ sn Again, as with the previous phrases, oppressed may well mean more than simply political or economic oppression, but a deeper reality of oppression by sin (Luke 1:77-79; 18:35-43).

[4:19]  ²⁶ sn The year of the Lord’s favor (Grk “the acceptable year of the Lord”) is a description of the year of Jubilee (Lev 25:10). The year of the total forgiveness of debt is now turned into a metaphor for salvation. Jesus had come to proclaim that God was ready to forgive sin totally.

[4:19]  ²⁷ sn A quotation from Isa 61:1-2a. Within the citation is a line from Isa 58:6, with its reference to setting the oppressed free.

[9:60]  ²⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:60]  ²⁹ sn There are several options for the meaning of Jesus’ reply Leave the dead to bury their own dead: (1) Recent research suggests that burial customs in the vicinity of Jerusalem from about 20 b.c. to a.d. 70 involved a reinterment of the bones a year after the initial burial, once the flesh had rotted away. At that point the son would have placed his father’s bones in a special box known as an ossuary to be set into the wall of the tomb. Thus Jesus could well be rebuking the man for wanting to wait around for as much as a year before making a commitment to follow him. In 1st century Jewish culture, to have followed Jesus rather than burying one’s father would have seriously dishonored one’s father (cf. Tobit 4:3-4). (2) The remark is an idiom (possibly a proverbial saying) that means, “The matter in question is not the real issue,” in which case Jesus was making a wordplay on the wording of the man’s (literal) request (see L&N 33.137). (3) This remark could be a figurative reference to various kinds of people, meaning, “Let the spiritually dead bury the dead.” (4) It could also be literal and designed to shock the hearer by the surprise of the contrast. Whichever option is preferred, it is clear that the most important priority is to preach the gospel (proclaim the kingdom of God).

[9:60]  ³⁰ sn The kingdom of God is a major theme of Jesus. It is a realm in which Jesus rules and to which those who trust him belong. See Luke 6:20; 11:20; 17:20-21.

[10:15]  ³¹ tn The word in this context seems to mean “coming at the right or opportune time” (see BDAG 1103 s.v. ὡραῖος 1); it may also mean “beautiful, attractive, welcome.”

[10:15]  ³² tn Grk “the feet.” The metaphorical nuance of “beautiful feet” is that such represent timely news.

[10:15]  ³³ sn A quotation from Isa 52:7; Nah 1:15.

[1:25]  ³⁴ tn BDAG 697 s.v. οἰκονομία 1.b renders the term here as “divine office.”

[1:25]  ³⁵ tn See BDAG 828 s.v. πληρόω 3. The idea here seems to be that the apostle wants to “complete the word of God” in that he wants to preach it to every person in the known world (cf. Rom 15:19). See P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC), 82.

[1:28]  ³⁶ tn Or “admonishing,” or “warning.” BDAG 679 s.v. νουθετέω states, “to counsel about avoidance or cessation of an improper course of conduct,, admonish, warn, instruct.” After the participle νουθετοῦντες (nouqetounte", “instructing”) the words πάντα ἄνθρωπον (panta anqrwpon, “all men”) occur in the Greek text, but since the same phrase appears again after διδάσκοντες (didaskontes) it was omitted in translation to avoid redundancy in English.

[1:28]  ³⁷ tn The two participles “instructing” (νουθετοῦντες, nouqetounte") and “teaching” (διδάσκοντες, didaskonte") are translated as participles of means (“by”) related to the finite verb “we proclaim” (καταγγέλλομεν, katangellomen).

[1:28]  ³⁸ tn Here ἄνθρωπον (anqrwpon) is twice translated as a generic (“people” and “person”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.

[1:28]  ³⁹ tn Since Paul’s focus is on the present experience of the Colossians, “mature” is a better translation of τέλειον (teleion) than “perfect,” since the latter implies a future, eschatological focus.