Psalms 147:14

147:14 He ¹  brings peace to your territory. ² 

He abundantly provides for you ³  the best grain.

Exodus 23:25

23:25 You must serve ⁴  the Lord your God, and he ⁵  will bless your bread and your water, ⁶  and I will remove sickness from your midst.

Leviticus 26:4-5

26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ⁷  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ⁸  26:5 Threshing season will extend for you until the season for harvesting grapes, ⁹  and the season for harvesting grapes will extend until sowing season, so ¹⁰  you will eat your bread until you are satisfied, ¹¹  and you will live securely in your land.

Deuteronomy 28:2-5

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ¹²  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ¹³  28:4 Your children ¹⁴  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed.

Proverbs 3:9-10

3:9 Honor ¹⁵  the Lord from your wealth

and from the first fruits of all your crops; ¹⁶ 

3:10 then your barns will be filled completely, ¹⁷ 

and your vats ¹⁸  will overflow ¹⁹  with new wine.

Haggai 1:6

1:6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but are never filled. You drink, but are still thirsty. You put on clothes, but are not warm. Those who earn wages end up with holes in their money bags.’” ²⁰ 

Haggai 1:9

1:9 ‘You expected a large harvest, but instead ²¹  there was little, and when you brought it home it disappeared right away. ²²  Why?’ asks the Lord who rules over all. ‘Because my temple remains in ruins, thanks to each of you favoring his own house! ²³ 

Haggai 2:16-19

2:16 From that time ²⁴  when one came expecting a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures from it, there were only twenty. 2:17 I struck all the products of your labor ²⁵  with blight, disease, and hail, and yet you brought nothing to me,’ ²⁶  says the Lord. 2:18 ‘Think carefully about the past: ²⁷  from today, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, ²⁸  to the day work on the temple of the Lord was resumed, ²⁹  think about it. ³⁰  2:19 The seed is still in the storehouse, isn’t it? And the vine, fig tree, pomegranate, and olive tree have not produced. Nevertheless, from today on I will bless you.’”

Malachi 2:2

2:2 If you do not listen and take seriously ³¹  the need to honor my name,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will send judgment ³²  on you and turn your blessings into curses – indeed, I have already done so because you are not taking it to heart.

Matthew 14:19-21

14:19 Then ³³  he instructed the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven he gave thanks and broke the loaves. He gave them to the disciples, ³⁴  who in turn gave them to the crowds. ³⁵  14:20 They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the broken pieces left over, twelve baskets full. 14:21 Not counting women and children, there were about five thousand men who ate.

Luke 1:53

1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things, ³⁶  and has sent the rich away empty. ³⁷ 

Luke 1:2

1:2 like the accounts ³⁸  passed on ³⁹  to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word ⁴⁰  from the beginning. ⁴¹ 

Colossians 1:10-11

1:10 so that you may live ⁴²  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ⁴³  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, 1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of ⁴⁴  all patience and steadfastness, joyfully

[147:14]  ¹ tn Heb “the one who.”

[147:14]  ² tn Heb “he makes your boundary peace.”

[147:14]  ³ tn Heb “satisfies you with.”

[23:25]  ⁴ tn The perfect tense, masculine plural, with vav (ו) consecutive is in sequence with the preceding: do not bow down to them, but serve Yahweh. It is then the equivalent of an imperfect of instruction or injunction.

[23:25]  ⁵ tn The LXX reads “and I will bless” to make the verb conform with the speaker, Yahweh.

[23:25]  ⁶ sn On this unusual clause B. Jacob says that it is the reversal of the curse in Genesis, because the “bread and water” represent the field work and ground suitability for abundant blessing of provisions (Exodus, 734).

[26:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

[26:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “will reach for you the vintage season.”

[26:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to satisfaction”; KJV, ASV, NASB “to the full.”

[28:2]  ¹² tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[28:3]  ¹³ tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

[28:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[3:9]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ 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).

[1:6]  ²⁰ tn Some translate “pockets” (so NLT) but the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror) refers to a bag, pouch, or purse of money (BDB 865 s.v. צְרוֹר; HALOT 1054 s.v. צְרוֹר 1). Because coinage had been invented by the Persians and was thus in use in Haggai’s day, this likely is a money bag or purse rather than pouches or pockets in the clothing. Since in contemporary English “purse” (so NASB, NIV, NCV) could be understood as a handbag, the present translation uses “money bags.”

[1:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “look!” (הִנֵּה, hinneh). The term, an interjection, draws attention to the point being made.

[1:9]  ²² tn Heb “I blew it away” (so NRSV, TEV, NLT). The imagery here suggests that human achievements are so fragile and temporal that a mere breath from God can destroy them (see Ezek 22:20, 21; and Isa 40:7 with נָשַׁב, nashav).

[1:9]  ²³ tn Heb “and each of you runs to his own house”; NIV “is busy with”; TEV “is busy working on”; NCV “work hard for.”

[2:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “from their being,” idiomatic for “from the time they were then,” or “since the time.” Cf. KJV “Since those days were.”

[2:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “you, all the work of your hands”; NRSV “you and all the products of your toil”; NIV “all the work of your hands.”

[2:17]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and there was not with you.” The context favors the idea that the harvests were so poor that the people took care of only themselves, leaving no offering for the Lord. Cf. KJV and many English versions “yet ye turned not to me,” understanding the phrase to refer to the people’s repentance rather than their failure to bring offerings.

[2:18]  ²⁷ tn Heb “set your heart.” A similar expression occurs in v. 15.

[2:18]  ²⁸ sn The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month was Kislev 24 or December 18, 520. See v. 10. Here the reference is to “today,” the day the oracle is being delivered.

[2:18]  ²⁹ sn The day work…was resumed. This does not refer to the initial founding of the Jerusalem temple in 536 b.c. but to the renewal of construction three months earlier (see 1:15). This is clear from the situation described in v. 19 which accords with the food scarcities of that time already detailed in Hag 1:10-11.

[2:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb “set your heart.” A similar expression occurs in v. 15 and at the beginning of this verse.

[2:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “and if you do not place upon [the] heart”; KJV, NAB, NRSV “lay it to heart.”

[2:2]  ³² tn Heb “the curse” (so NASB, NRSV); NLT “a terrible curse.”

[14:19]  ³³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “Then.”

[14:19]  ³⁴ tn Grk “And after instructing the crowds to recline for a meal on the grass, after taking the five loaves and the two fish, after looking up to heaven, he gave thanks, and after breaking the loaves he gave them to the disciples.” Although most of the participles are undoubtedly attendant circumstance, there are but two indicative verbs – “he gave thanks” and “he gave.” The structure of the sentence thus seems to focus on these two actions and has been translated accordingly.

[14:19]  ³⁵ tn Grk “to the disciples, and the disciples to the crowds.”

[1:53]  ³⁶ sn Good things refers not merely to material blessings, but blessings that come from knowing God.

[1:53]  ³⁷ sn Another fundamental contrast of Luke’s is between the hungry and the rich (Luke 6:20-26).

[1:2]  ³⁸ tn Grk “even as”; this compares the recorded tradition of 1:1 with the original eyewitness tradition of 1:2.

[1:2]  ³⁹ tn Or “delivered.”

[1:2]  ⁴⁰ sn The phrase eyewitnesses and servants of the word refers to a single group of people who faithfully passed on the accounts about Jesus. The language about delivery (passed on) points to accounts faithfully passed on to the early church.

[1:2]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “like the accounts those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word passed on to us.” The location of “in the beginning” in the Greek shows that the tradition is rooted in those who were with Jesus from the start.

[1:10]  ⁴² tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ⁴³ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

[1:11]  ⁴⁴ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.