2 Raja-raja 11:4-12

11:4 In the seventh year Jehoiada summoned ¹  the officers of the units of hundreds of the Carians ²  and the royal bodyguard. ³  He met with them ⁴  in the Lord’s temple. He made an agreement ⁵  with them and made them swear an oath of allegiance in the Lord’s temple. Then he showed them the king’s son. 11:5 He ordered them, “This is what you must do. One third of the unit that is on duty during the Sabbath will guard the royal palace. 11:6 Another third of you will be stationed at the Foundation ⁶  Gate. Still another third of you will be stationed at the gate behind the royal guard. ⁷  You will take turns guarding the palace. ⁸  11:7 The two units who are off duty on the Sabbath will guard the Lord’s temple and protect the king. ⁹  11:8 You must surround the king. Each of you must hold his weapon in his hand. Whoever approaches your ranks must be killed. You must accompany the king wherever he goes.” ¹⁰ 

11:9 The officers of the units of hundreds did just as ¹¹  Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each of them took his men, those who were on duty during the Sabbath as well as those who were off duty on the Sabbath, and reported ¹²  to Jehoiada the priest. 11:10 The priest gave to the officers of the units of hundreds King David’s spears and the shields that were kept in the Lord’s temple. 11:11 The royal bodyguard ¹³  took their stations, each holding his weapon in his hand. They lined up from the south side of the temple to the north side and stood near the altar and the temple, surrounding the king. ¹⁴  11:12 Jehoiada ¹⁵  led out the king’s son and placed on him the crown and the royal insignia. ¹⁶  They proclaimed him king and poured olive oil on his head. ¹⁷  They clapped their hands and cried out, “Long live the king!”

2 Raja-raja 11:2

11:2 So Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Ahaziah’s son Joash and sneaked ¹⁸  him away from the rest of the royal descendants who were to be executed. She hid him and his nurse in the room where the bed covers were stored. ¹⁹  So he was hidden from Athaliah and escaped execution. ²⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 23:1-11

The King Institutes Religious Reform

23:1 The king summoned all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem. ²¹  23:2 The king went up to the Lord’s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud ²²  all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s temple. 23:3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed ²³  the covenant before the Lord, agreeing to follow ²⁴  the Lord and to obey his commandments, laws, and rules with all his heart and being, ²⁵  by carrying out the terms ²⁶  of this covenant recorded on this scroll. All the people agreed to keep the covenant. ²⁷ 

23:4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests, ²⁸  and the guards ²⁹  to bring out of the Lord’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of ³⁰  Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky. ³¹  The king ³²  burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces ³³  of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. ³⁴  23:5 He eliminated ³⁵  the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices ³⁶  on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices ³⁷  to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.) 23:6 He removed the Asherah pole from the Lord’s temple and took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it. ³⁸  He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard. ³⁹  23:7 He tore down the quarters ⁴⁰  of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines ⁴¹  for Asherah.

23:8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined ⁴²  the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. ⁴³  He tore down the high place of the goat idols ⁴⁴  situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate. 23:9 (Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) ⁴⁵  23:10 The king ⁴⁶  ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech. ⁴⁷  23:11 He removed from the entrance to the Lord’s temple the statues of horses ⁴⁸  that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.) ⁴⁹  He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god. ⁵⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 23:2

23:2 The king went up to the Lord’s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud ⁵¹  all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s temple.

Kolose 1:3-4

Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer for the Church

1:3 We always ⁵²  give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 1:4 since ⁵³  we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints.

Efesus 6:10-18

Exhortations for Spiritual Warfare

6:10 Finally, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power. 6:11 Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes ⁵⁴  of the devil. 6:12 For our struggle ⁵⁵  is not against flesh and blood, ⁵⁶  but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, ⁵⁷  against the spiritual forces ⁵⁸  of evil in the heavens. ⁵⁹  6:13 For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground ⁶⁰  on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. 6:14 Stand firm therefore, by fastening ⁶¹  the belt of truth around your waist, ⁶²  by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, 6:15 by fitting your ⁶³  feet with the preparation that comes from the good news ⁶⁴  of peace, ⁶⁵  6:16 and in all of this, ⁶⁶  by taking up the shield ⁶⁷  of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation ⁶⁸  and the sword ⁶⁹  of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 6:18 With every prayer and petition, pray ⁷⁰  at all times in the Spirit, and to this end ⁷¹  be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints.

Efesus 6:1

6:1 Children, ⁷²  obey your parents in the Lord ⁷³  for this is right.

Titus 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ⁷⁴  a slave ⁷⁵  of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith ⁷⁶  of God’s chosen ones and the knowledge of the truth that is in keeping with godliness,

[11:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Jehoiada sent and took.”

[11:4]  ² sn The Carians were apparently a bodyguard, probably comprised of foreigners. See HALOT 497 s.v. כָּרִי and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 126.

[11:4]  ³ tn Heb “the runners.”

[11:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “he brought them to himself.”

[11:4]  ⁵ tn Or “covenant.”

[11:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “the gate of Sur” (followed by many English versions) but no such gate is mentioned elsewhere in the OT. The parallel account in 2 Chr 23:5 has “Foundation Gate.” סוּר (sur), “Sur,” may be a corruption of יְסוֹד (yÿsod) “foundation,” involving in part dalet-resh confusion.

[11:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “the runners.”

[11:6]  ⁸ tn The meaning of מַסָּח (massakh) is not certain. The translation above, rather than understanding it as a genitive modifying “house,” takes it as an adverb describing how the groups will guard the palace. See HALOT 605 s.v. מַסָּח for the proposed meaning “alternating” (i.e., “in turns”).

[11:7]  ⁹ tn Verses 5b-7 read literally, “the third of you, the ones entering [on] the Sabbath and the ones guarding the guard of the house of the king, and the third in the gate of Sur, and the third in the gate behind the runners, and you will guard the guard of the house, alternating. And the two units of you, all the ones going out [on] the Sabbath, and they will guard the guard of the house of the Lord for the king.” The precise meaning of this text is impossible to determine. It would appear that the Carians and royal bodyguard were divided into three units. One unit would serve during the Sabbath; the other two would be off duty on the Sabbath. Jehoiada divided the first unit into three groups and assigned them different locations. The two off duty units were assigned the task of guarding the king.

[11:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and be with the king in his going out and in his coming in.”

[11:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “according to all that.”

[11:9]  ¹² tn Heb “came.”

[11:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the runners” (also in v. 19).

[11:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the runners stood, each with his weapons in his hand, from the south shoulder of the house to the north shoulder of the house, at the altar and at the house, near the king all around.”

[11:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoiada) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:12]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew term עֵדוּת (’edut) normally means “witness” or “testimony.” Here it probably refers to some tangible symbol of kingship, perhaps a piece of jewelry such as an amulet or neck chain. See the discussion in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 128. Some suggest that a document is in view, perhaps a copy of the royal protocol or of the stipulations of the Davidic covenant. See HALOT 790-91 s.v. עֵדוּת.

[11:12]  ¹⁷ tn Or “they made him king and anointed him.”

[11:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “stole.”

[11:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “him and his nurse in an inner room of beds.” The verb is missing in the Hebrew text. The parallel passage in 2 Chr 22:11 has “and she put” at the beginning of the clause. M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 126) regard the Chronicles passage as an editorial attempt to clarify the difficulty of the original text. They prefer to take “him and his nurse” as objects of the verb “stole” and understand “in the bedroom” as the place where the royal descendants were executed. The phrase בַּחֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת (bakhadar hammittot), “an inner room of beds,” is sometimes understood as referring to a bedroom (HALOT 293 s.v. חֶדֶר), though some prefer to see here a “room where the covers and cloths were kept for the beds (HALOT 573 s.v. מִטָּת). In either case, it may have been a temporary hideout, for v. 3 indicates that the child hid in the temple for six years.

[11:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and they hid him from Athaliah and he was not put to death.” The subject of the plural verb (“they hid”) is probably indefinite.

[23:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “and the king sent and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem gathered to him.”

[23:1]  map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[23:2]  ²² tn Heb “read in their ears.”

[23:3]  ²³ tn Heb “cut,” that is, “made, agreed to.”

[23:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “walk after.”

[23:3]  ²⁵ tn Or “soul.”

[23:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “words.”

[23:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “stood in the covenant.”

[23:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the priests of the second [rank],” that is, those ranked just beneath Hilkiah.

[23:4]  ²⁹ tn Or “doorkeepers.”

[23:4]  ³⁰ tn Heb “for.”

[23:4]  ³¹ tn Heb “all the host of heaven” (also in v. 5).

[23:4]  ³² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:4]  ³³ tn Or “fields.” For a defense of the translation “terraces,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 285.

[23:4]  ³⁴ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:5]  ³⁵ tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”

[23:5]  ³⁶ tn Or “burn incense.”

[23:5]  ³⁷ tn Or “burned incense.”

[23:6]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and he burned it in the Kidron Valley.”

[23:6]  ³⁹ tc Heb “on the grave of the sons of the people.” Some Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses read the plural “graves.”

[23:6]  tn The phrase “sons of the people” refers here to the common people (see BDB 766 s.v. עַם), as opposed to the upper classes who would have private tombs.

[23:7]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “cubicles.” Heb “houses.”

[23:7]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “houses.” Perhaps tent-shrines made from cloth are in view (see BDB 109 s.v. בַּיִת). M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 286) understand this as referring to clothes made for images of the goddess.

[23:8]  ⁴² tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”

[23:8]  ⁴³ sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.

[23:8]  ⁴⁴ tc The Hebrew text reads “the high places of the gates,” which is problematic in that the rest of the verse speaks of a specific gate. The translation assumes an emendation to בָּמוֹת הַשְּׁעָרִים (bamot hashÿ’arim), “the high place of the goats” (that is, goat idols). Worship of such images is referred to in Lev 17:7 and 2 Chr 11:15. For a discussion of the textual issue, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 286-87.

[23:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “their brothers.”

[23:10]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:10]  ⁴⁷ sn Attempts to identify this deity with a god known from the ancient Near East have not yet yielded a consensus. For brief discussions see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor II Kings (AB), 288 and HALOT 592 s.v. מֹלֶךְ. For more extensive studies see George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek, and John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament.

[23:11]  ⁴⁸ tn The MT simply reads “the horses.” The words “statues of” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[23:11]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “who/which was in the […?].” The meaning of the Hebrew term פַּרְוָרִים (parvarim), translated here “courtyards,” is uncertain. The relative clause may indicate where the room was located or explain who Nathan Melech was, “the eunuch who was in the courtyards.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 288-89, who translate “the officer of the precincts.”

[23:11]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.”

[23:2]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “read in their ears.”

[1:3]  ⁵² tn The adverb πάντοτε (pantote) is understood to modify the indicative εὐχαριστοῦμεν (eucaristoumen) because it precedes περὶ ὑμῶν (peri Jumwn) which probably modifies the indicative and not the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseucomenoi). But see 1:9 where the same expression occurs and περὶ ὑμῶν modifies the participle “praying” (προσευχόμενοι).

[1:4]  ⁵³ 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).

[6:11]  ⁵⁴ tn Or “craftiness.” See BDAG 625 s.v. μεθοδεία.

[6:12]  ⁵⁵ tn BDAG 752 s.v. πάλη says, “struggle against…the opponent is introduced by πρός w. the acc.”

[6:12]  ⁵⁶ tn Grk “blood and flesh.”

[6:12]  ⁵⁷ tn BDAG 561 s.v. κοσμοκράτωρ suggests “the rulers of this sinful world” as a gloss.

[6:12]  sn The phrase world-rulers of this darkness does not refer to human rulers but the evil spirits that rule over the world. The phrase thus stands in apposition to what follows (the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens); see note on heavens at the end of this verse.

[6:12]  ⁵⁸ tn BDAG 837 s.v. πνευματικός 3 suggests “the spirit-forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12.

[6:12]  ⁵⁹ sn The phrase spiritual forces of evil in the heavens serves to emphasize the nature of the forces which oppose believers as well as to indicate the locality from which they originate.

[6:13]  ⁶⁰ tn The term ἀνθίστημι (anqisthmi) carries the idea of resisting or opposing something or someone (BDAG 80 s.v.). In Eph 6:13, when used in combination with στῆναι (sthnai; cf. also στῆτε [sthte] in v. 14) and in a context of battle imagery, it seems to have the idea of resisting, standing firm, and being able to stand your ground.

[6:14]  ⁶¹ sn The four participles fastening… putting on…fitting…taking up… indicate the means by which believers can take their stand against the devil and his schemes. The imperative take in v. 17 communicates another means by which to accomplish the standing, i.e., by the word of God.

[6:14]  ⁶² tn Grk “girding your waist with truth.” In this entire section the author is painting a metaphor for his readers based on the attire of a Roman soldier prepared for battle and its similarity to the Christian prepared to do battle against spiritually evil forces. Behind the expression “with truth” is probably the genitive idea “belt of truth.” Since this is an appositional genitive (i.e., belt which is truth), the author simply left unsaid the idea of the belt and mentioned only his real focus, namely, the truth. (The analogy would have been completely understandable to his 1st century readers.) The idea of the belt is supplied in the translation to clarify the sense in English.

[6:15]  ⁶³ tn The definite article τοῖς (tois) was taken as a possessive pronoun, i.e., “your,” since it refers to a part of the physical body.

[6:15]  ⁶⁴ tn Grk “gospel.” However, this is not a technical term here.

[6:15]  ⁶⁵ tn Grk “in preparation of the gospel of peace.” The genitive τοῦ εὐαγγελίου (tou euangeliou) was taken as a genitive of source, i.e., “that comes from….”

[6:16]  ⁶⁶ tn Grk “in everything.”

[6:16]  ⁶⁷ sn The Greek word translated shield (θυρεός, qureos) refers to the Roman soldier’s large rectangular wooden shield, called in Latin scutum, about 4 ft (1.2 m) high, covered with leather on the outside. Before a battle in which flaming arrows might be shot at them, the soldiers wet the leather covering with water to extinguish the arrows. The Roman legionaries could close ranks with these shields, the first row holding theirs edge to edge in front, and the rows behind holding the shields above their heads. In this formation they were practically invulnerable to arrows, rocks, and even spears.

[6:17]  ⁶⁸ sn An allusion to Isa 59:17.

[6:17]  ⁶⁹ sn The Greek term translated sword (μάχαιρα, macaira) refers to the Roman gladius, a short sword about 2 ft (60 cm) long, used for close hand-to-hand combat. This is the only clearly offensive weapon in the list of armor mentioned by the author (he does not, for example, mention the lance [Latin pilum]).

[6:18]  ⁷⁰ tn Both “pray” and “be alert” are participles in the Greek text (“praying…being alert”). Both are probably instrumental, loosely connected with all of the preceding instructions. As such, they are not additional commands to do but instead are the means through which the prior instructions are accomplished.

[6:18]  ⁷¹ tn Grk “and toward it.”

[6:1]  ⁷² tn The use of the article τά (ta) with τέκνα (tekna) functions in a generic way to distinguish this group from husbands, wives, fathers and slaves and is left, therefore, untranslated. The generic article is used with γύναῖκες (gunaikes) in 5:22, ἄνδρες (andres) in 5:25, δοῦλοι (douloi) in 6:5, and κύριοι (kurioi) in 6:9.

[6:1]  ⁷³ tc B D* F G as well as a few versional and patristic representatives lack “in the Lord” (ἐν κυρίῳ, en kuriw), while the phrase is well represented in Ì⁴⁶ א A D¹ I^vid Ψ 0278 0285 33 1739 1881 Ï sy co. Scribes may have thought that the phrase could be regarded a qualifier on the kind of parents a child should obey (viz., only Christian parents), and would thus be tempted to delete the phrase to counter such an interpretation. It is unlikely that the phrase would have been added, since the form used to express such sentiment in this Haustafel is ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ/Χριστῷ (Jw" tw kuriw/Cristw, “as to the Lord/Christ”; see 5:22; 6:5). Even though the witnesses for the omission are impressive, it is more likely that the phrase was deleted than added by scribal activity.

[1:1]  ⁷⁴ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:1]  ⁷⁵ tn Traditionally, “servant” or “bondservant.” Though δοῦλος (doulos) is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[1:1]  sn Undoubtedly the background for the concept of being the Lord’s slave or servant is to be found in the Old Testament scriptures. For a Jew this concept did not connote drudgery, but honor and privilege. It was used of national Israel at times (Isa 43:10), but was especially associated with famous OT personalities, including such great men as Moses (Josh 14:7), David (Ps 89:3; cf. 2 Sam 7:5, 8) and Elijah (2 Kgs 10:10); all these men were “servants (or slaves) of the Lord.”

[1:1]  ⁷⁶ tn Grk “for the faith,” possibly, “in accordance with the faith.”