Psalms 6:2-3

6:2 Have mercy on me, ¹  Lord, for I am frail!

Heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking! ² 

6:3 I am absolutely terrified, ³ 

and you, Lord – how long will this continue? ⁴ 

Psalms 38:3

38:3 My whole body is sick because of your judgment; ⁵ 

I am deprived of health because of my sin. ⁶ 

Job 5:17-18

5:17 “Therefore, ⁷  blessed ⁸  is the man whom God corrects, ⁹ 

so do not despise the discipline ¹⁰  of the Almighty. ¹¹ 

5:18 For ¹²  he ¹³  wounds, ¹⁴  but he also bandages;

he strikes, but his hands also heal.

Isaiah 57:15-18

57:15 For this is what the high and exalted one says,

the one who rules ¹⁵  forever, whose name is holy:

“I dwell in an exalted and holy place,

but also with the discouraged and humiliated, ¹⁶ 

in order to cheer up the humiliated

and to encourage the discouraged. ¹⁷ 

57:16 For I will not be hostile ¹⁸  forever

or perpetually angry,

for then man’s spirit would grow faint before me, ¹⁹ 

the life-giving breath I created.

57:17 I was angry because of their sinful greed;

I attacked them and angrily rejected them, ²⁰ 

yet they remained disobedient and stubborn. ²¹ 

57:18 I have seen their behavior, ²² 

but I will heal them and give them rest,

and I will once again console those who mourn. ²³ 

Hosea 6:1-2

Superficial Repentance Breeds False Assurance of God’s Forgiveness

6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!

He himself has torn us to pieces,

but he will heal us!

He has injured ²⁴  us,

but he will bandage our wounds!

6:2 He will restore ²⁵  us in a very short time; ²⁶ 

he will heal us in a little while, ²⁷ 

so that we may live in his presence.

Luke 4:18

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

because he has anointed ²⁸  me to proclaim good news ²⁹  to the poor. ³⁰ 

He has sent me ³¹  to proclaim release ³²  to the captives

and the regaining of sight ³³  to the blind,

to set free ³⁴  those who are oppressed, ³⁵ 

Acts 2:37-41

The Response to Peter’s Address

2:37 Now when they heard this, ³⁶  they were acutely distressed ³⁷  and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?” 2:38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each one of you be baptized ³⁸  in the name of Jesus Christ ³⁹  for ⁴⁰  the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ⁴¹  2:39 For the promise ⁴²  is for you and your children, and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.” 2:40 With many other words he testified ⁴³  and exhorted them saying, “Save yourselves from this perverse ⁴⁴  generation!” 2:41 So those who accepted ⁴⁵  his message ⁴⁶  were baptized, and that day about three thousand people ⁴⁷  were added. ⁴⁸ 

Acts 16:29-34

16:29 Calling for lights, the jailer ⁴⁹  rushed in and fell down ⁵⁰  trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas. 16:30 Then he brought them outside ⁵¹  and asked, “Sirs, what must ⁵²  I do to be saved?” 16:31 They replied, ⁵³  “Believe ⁵⁴  in the Lord Jesus ⁵⁵  and you will be saved, you and your household.” 16:32 Then ⁵⁶  they spoke the word of the Lord ⁵⁷  to him, along with all those who were in his house. 16:33 At ⁵⁸  that hour of the night he took them ⁵⁹  and washed their wounds; ⁶⁰  then ⁶¹  he and all his family ⁶²  were baptized right away. ⁶³  16:34 The jailer ⁶⁴  brought them into his house and set food ⁶⁵  before them, and he rejoiced greatly ⁶⁶  that he had come to believe ⁶⁷  in God, together with his entire household. ⁶⁸ 

[6:2]  ¹ tn Or “show me favor.”

[6:2]  ² tn Normally the verb בָּהַל (bahal) refers to an emotional response and means “tremble with fear, be terrified” (see vv. 3, 10). Perhaps here the “bones” are viewed as the seat of the psalmist’s emotions. However, the verb may describe one of the effects of his physical ailment, perhaps a fever. In Ezek 7:27 the verb describes how the hands of the people will shake with fear when they experience the horrors of divine judgment.

[6:3]  ³ tn Heb “my being is very terrified.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.

[6:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “and you, Lord, how long?” The suffering psalmist speaks in broken syntax. He addresses God, but then simply cries out with a brief, but poignant, question: How long will this (= his suffering) continue?

[38:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “there is no soundness in my flesh from before your anger.” “Anger” here refers metonymically to divine judgment, which is the practical effect of God’s anger at the psalmist’s sin.

[38:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “there is no health in my bones from before my sin.”

[5:17]  ⁷ tn The particle “therefore” links this section to the preceding; it points this out as the logical consequence of the previous discussion, and more generally, as the essence of Job’s suffering.

[5:17]  ⁸ tn The word אַשְׁרֵי (’ashre, “blessed”) is often rendered “happy.” But “happy” relates to what happens. “Blessed” is a reference to the heavenly bliss of the one who is right with God.

[5:17]  ⁹ tn The construction is an implied relative clause. The literal rendering would simply be “the man God corrects him.” The suffix on the verb is a resumptive pronoun, completing the use of the relative clause. The verb יָכַח (yakhakh) is a legal term; it always has some sense of a charge, dispute, or conflict. Its usages show that it may describe a strife breaking out, a charge or quarrel in progress, or the settling of a dispute (Isa 1:18). The derived noun can mean “reproach; recrimination; charge” (13:6; 23:4). Here the emphasis is on the consequence of the charge brought, namely, the correction.

[5:17]  ¹⁰ tn The noun מוּסַר (musar) is parallel to the idea of the first colon. It means “discipline, correction” (from יָסַר, yasar). Prov 3:11 says almost the same thing as this line.

[5:17]  ¹¹ sn The name Shaddai occurs 31 times in the book. This is its first occurrence. It is often rendered “Almighty” because of the LXX and some of the early fathers. The etymology and meaning of the word otherwise remains uncertain, in spite of attempts to connect it to “mountains” or “breasts.”

[5:18]  ¹² sn Verses 18-23 give the reasons why someone should accept the chastening of God – the hand that wounds is the same hand that heals. But, of course, the lines do not apply to Job because his suffering is not due to divine chastening.

[5:18]  ¹³ tn The addition of the independent pronoun here makes the subject emphatic, as if to say, “For it is he who makes….”

[5:18]  ¹⁴ tn The imperfect verbs in this verse describe the characteristic activities of God; the classification as habitual imperfect fits the idea and is to be rendered with the English present tense.

[57:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the one who dwells forever.” שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) is sometimes translated “the one who lives forever,” and understood as a reference to God’s eternal existence. However, the immediately preceding and following descriptions (“high and exalted” and “holy”) emphasize his sovereign rule. In the next line, he declares, “I dwell in an exalted and holy [place],” which refers to the place from which he rules. Therefore it is more likely that שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) means “I dwell [in my lofty palace] forever” and refers to God’s eternal kingship.

[57:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and also with the crushed and lowly of spirit.” This may refer to the repentant who have humbled themselves (see 66:2) or more generally to the exiles who have experienced discouragement and humiliation.

[57:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to restore the lowly of spirit and to restore the heart of the crushed.”

[57:16]  ¹⁸ tn Or perhaps, “argue,” or “accuse” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[57:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “for a spirit from before me would be faint.”

[57:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and I struck him, hiding, and I was angry.” פָּנַיִם (panayim, “face”) is the implied object of “hiding.”

[57:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “and he walked [as an] apostate in the way of his heart.”

[57:18]  ²² tn Heb “his ways” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); TEV “how they acted.”

[57:18]  ²³ tn Heb “and I will restore consolation to him, to his mourners.”

[6:1]  ²⁴ tn “has struck”; NRSV “struck down.”

[6:2]  ²⁵ tn The Piel of חָיָה (khayah) may mean: (1) to keep/preserve persons alive from the threat of premature death (1 Kgs 20:31; Ezek 13:18; 18:27); (2) to restore the dead to physical life (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; cf. NCV “will put new life in us”); or (3) to restore the dying back to life from the threat of death (Ps 71:20; BDB 311 s.v. חָיָה).

[6:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “after two days” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV). The expression “after two days” is an idiom meaning “after a short time” (see, e.g., Judg 11:4; BDB 399 s.v. יוֹם 5.a).

[6:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “on the third day” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV), which parallels “after two days” and means “in a little while.” The “2-3” sequence is an example of graded numerical parallelism (Prov 30:15-16, 18-19, 21-23, 24-28, 29-31). This expresses the unrepentant overconfidence of Israel that the Lord’s discipline of Israel would be relatively short and that he would restore them quickly.

[4:18]  ²⁸ sn The phrase he has anointed me is an allusion back to Jesus’ baptism in Luke 3:21-22.

[4:18]  ²⁹ tn Grk “to evangelize,” “to preach the gospel.”

[4:18]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ 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]  ³² 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]  ³³ 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]  ³⁴ 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]  ³⁵ 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).

[2:37]  ³⁶ tn The word “this” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek, but must be supplied for the modern English reader.

[2:37]  ³⁷ tn Grk “they were pierced to the heart” (an idiom for acute emotional distress).

[2:38]  ³⁸ tn The verb is a third person imperative, but the common translation “let each of you be baptized” obscures the imperative force in English, since it sounds more like a permissive (“each of you may be baptized”) to the average English reader.

[2:38]  ³⁹ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[2:38]  ⁴⁰ tn There is debate over the meaning of εἰς in the prepositional phrase εἰς ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν (eis afesin twn Jamartiwn Jumwn, “for/because of/with reference to the forgiveness of your sins”). Although a causal sense has been argued, it is difficult to maintain here. ExSyn 369-71 discusses at least four other ways of dealing with the passage: (1) The baptism referred to here is physical only, and εἰς has the meaning of “for” or “unto.” Such a view suggests that salvation is based on works – an idea that runs counter to the theology of Acts, namely: (a) repentance often precedes baptism (cf. Acts 3:19; 26:20), and (b) salvation is entirely a gift of God, not procured via water baptism (Acts 10:43 [cf. v. 47]; 13:38-39, 48; 15:11; 16:30-31; 20:21; 26:18); (2) The baptism referred to here is spiritual only. Although such a view fits well with the theology of Acts, it does not fit well with the obvious meaning of “baptism” in Acts – especially in this text (cf. 2:41); (3) The text should be repunctuated in light of the shift from second person plural to third person singular back to second person plural again. The idea then would be, “Repent for/with reference to your sins, and let each one of you be baptized…” Such a view is an acceptable way of handling εἰς, but its subtlety and awkwardness count against it; (4) Finally, it is possible that to a first-century Jewish audience (as well as to Peter), the idea of baptism might incorporate both the spiritual reality and the physical symbol. That Peter connects both closely in his thinking is clear from other passages such as Acts 10:47 and 11:15-16. If this interpretation is correct, then Acts 2:38 is saying very little about the specific theological relationship between the symbol and the reality, only that historically they were viewed together. One must look in other places for a theological analysis. For further discussion see R. N. Longenecker, “Acts,” EBC 9:283-85; B. Witherington, Acts, 154-55; F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary, 129-30; BDAG 290 s.v. εἰς 4.f.

[2:38]  ⁴¹ tn Here the genitive τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος (tou Jagiou pneumato") is a genitive of apposition; the gift consists of the Holy Spirit.

[2:39]  ⁴² sn The promise refers to the promise of the Holy Spirit that Jesus received from the Father in 2:33 and which he now pours out on others. The promise consists of the Holy Spirit (see note in 2:33). Jesus is the active mediator of God’s blessing.

[2:40]  ⁴³ tn Or “warned.”

[2:40]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “crooked” (in a moral or ethical sense). See Luke 3:5.

[2:41]  ⁴⁵ tn Or “who acknowledged the truth of.”

[2:41]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “word.”

[2:41]  ⁴⁷ tn Grk “souls” (here an idiom for the whole person).

[2:41]  ⁴⁸ tn Or “were won over.”

[16:29]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the jailer) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:29]  ⁵⁰ tn Or “and prostrated himself.”

[16:30]  ⁵¹ tn Grk “And bringing them outside, he asked.” The participle προαγαγών (proagagwn) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style. Because of the length of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun by supplying the conjunction “then” to indicate the logical sequence.

[16:30]  ⁵² tn The Greek term (δεῖ, dei) is used by Luke to represent divine necessity.

[16:31]  ⁵³ tn Grk “said.”

[16:31]  ⁵⁴ sn Here the summary term of response is a call to believe. In this context it refers to trusting the sovereign God’s power to deliver, which events had just pictured for the jailer.

[16:31]  ⁵⁵ tc The majority of mss add Χριστόν (Criston, “Christ”) here (C D E Ψ 1739 Ï sy sa), but the best and earliest witnesses read simply τὸν κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν (ton kurion Ihsoun, “the Lord Jesus”; Ì^74vid א A B 33 81 pc bo). The addition of “Christ” to “Lord Jesus” is an obviously motivated reading. Thus on both external and internal grounds, the shorter reading is strongly preferred.

[16:32]  ⁵⁶ tn Grk “And they.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the continuity with the preceding verse. Greek style often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” but English style does not.

[16:32]  ⁵⁷ sn The word of the Lord is a technical expression in OT literature, often referring to a divine prophetic utterance (e.g., Gen 15:1, Isa 1:10, Jonah 1:1). In the NT it occurs 15 times: 3 times as ῥῆμα τοῦ κυρίου (rJhma tou kuriou; Luke 22:61, Acts 11:16, 1 Pet 1:25) and 12 times as λόγος τοῦ κυρίου (logo" tou kuriou; here and in Acts 8:25; 13:44, 48, 49; 15:35, 36; 19:10, 20; 1 Thess 1:8, 4:15; 2 Thess 3:1). As in the OT, this phrase focuses on the prophetic nature and divine origin of what has been said.

[16:33]  ⁵⁸ tn Grk “And at.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[16:33]  ⁵⁹ tn Grk “taking them…he washed.” The participle παραλαβών (paralabwn) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[16:33]  ⁶⁰ tn On this phrase BDAG 603 s.v. λούω 1 gives a literal translation as “by washing he freed them from the effects of the blows.”

[16:33]  ⁶¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the logical sequence.

[16:33]  ⁶² sn All his family. It was often the case in the ancient world that conversion of the father led to the conversion of all those in the household.

[16:33]  ⁶³ tn Or “immediately.”

[16:34]  ⁶⁴ tn Grk “He”; the referent (the jailer) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:34]  ⁶⁵ tn Grk “placed [food] on the table” (a figurative expression). Since the actual word for food is not specified, it would also be possible to translate “set a meal before them,” but since this is taking place in the middle of the night, the preparations necessary for a full meal would probably not have been made. More likely Paul and Silas were given whatever was on hand that needed little or no preparation.

[16:34]  ⁶⁶ tn Or “he was overjoyed.”

[16:34]  ⁶⁷ tn The translation “come to believe” reflects more of the resultative nuance of the perfect tense here.

[16:34]  ⁶⁸ tn The phrase “together with his entire household” is placed at the end of the English sentence so that it refers to both the rejoicing and the belief. A formal equivalence translation would have “and he rejoiced greatly with his entire household that he had come to believe in God,” but the reference to the entire household being baptized in v. 33 presumes that all in the household believed.