Ulangan 30:12
Konteks30:12 It is not in heaven, as though one must say, “Who will go up to heaven to get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”
Mazmur 24:1-2
KonteksA psalm of David.
24:1 The Lord owns the earth and all it contains,
the world and all who live in it.
24:2 For he set its foundation upon the seas,
and established 2 it upon the ocean currents. 3
Amsal 8:22-31
Konteks8:22 The Lord created 4 me as the beginning 5 of his works, 6
before his deeds of long ago.
8:23 From eternity I was appointed, 7
from the beginning, from before the world existed. 8
8:24 When there were no deep oceans 9 I was born, 10
when there were no springs overflowing 11 with water;
8:25 before the mountains were set in place –
before the hills – I was born,
8:26 before he made the earth and its fields, 12
or the beginning 13 of the dust of the world.
8:27 When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he marked out the horizon 14 over the face of the deep,
8:28 when he established the clouds above,
when the fountains of the deep grew strong, 15
8:29 when he gave the sea his decree
that the waters should not pass over his command, 16
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
8:30 then I was 17 beside him as a master craftsman, 18
and I was his delight 19 day by day,
rejoicing before him at all times,
8:31 rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, 20
and delighting 21 in its people. 22
Yohanes 3:13
Konteks3:13 No one 23 has ascended 24 into heaven except the one who descended from heaven – the Son of Man. 25
Roma 10:6
Konteks10:6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, 26 ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” 27 (that is, to bring Christ down)
Efesus 4:7-10
Konteks4:7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. 4:8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he captured 28 captives; he gave gifts to men.” 29 4:9 Now what is the meaning of “he ascended,” except that he also descended 30 to the lower regions, 31 namely, the earth? 32 4:10 He, the very one 33 who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.
[24:1] 1 sn Psalm 24. The psalmist affirms the universal kingship of the sovereign creator, reminds his people that only the morally pure are qualified to worship him, and celebrates his splendor as a mighty warrior king.
[24:2] 2 tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as a preterite, referring to the creation of the world.
[24:2] 3 sn He…established it upon the ocean currents. The description reflects ancient Israelite prescientific cosmology, which is based on outward appearances. The language also suggests that God’s creative work involved the subjugation of chaos, symbolized by the sea.
[8:22] 4 tn There are two roots קָנָה (qanah) in Hebrew, one meaning “to possess,” and the other meaning “to create.” The earlier English versions did not know of the second root, but suspected in certain places that a meaning like that was necessary (e.g., Gen 4:1; 14:19; Deut 32:6). Ugaritic confirmed that it was indeed another root. The older versions have the translation “possess” because otherwise it sounds like God lacked wisdom and therefore created it at the beginning. They wanted to avoid saying that wisdom was not eternal. Arius liked the idea of Christ as the wisdom of God and so chose the translation “create.” Athanasius translated it, “constituted me as the head of creation.” The verb occurs twelve times in Proverbs with the meaning of “to acquire”; but the Greek and the Syriac versions have the meaning “create.” Although the idea is that wisdom existed before creation, the parallel ideas in these verses (“appointed,” “given birth”) argue for the translation of “create” or “establish” (R. N. Whybray, “Proverbs 8:22-31 and Its Supposed Prototypes,” VT 15 [1965]: 504-14; and W. A. Irwin, “Where Will Wisdom Be Found?” JBL 80 [1961]: 133-42).
[8:22] 5 tn Verbs of creation often involve double accusatives; here the double accusative involves the person (i.e., wisdom) and an abstract noun in construct (IBHS 174-75 §10.2.3c).
[8:22] 6 tn Heb “his way” (so KJV, NASB). The word “way” is an idiom (implied comparison) for the actions of God.
[8:22] sn The claim of wisdom in this passage is that she was foundational to all that God would do.
[8:23] 7 tn The first parallel verb is נִסַּכְתִּי (nissakhti), “I was appointed.” It is not a common word; it occurs here and in Ps 2:6 for the coronation of the king. It means “installed, set.”
[8:23] 8 tn The verb “existed” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation in the light of the context.
[8:24] 9 sn The summary statements just given are now developed in a lengthy treatment of wisdom as the agent of all creation. This verse singles out “watery deeps” (תְּהֹמוֹת, tÿhomot) in its allusion to creation because the word in Genesis signals the condition of the world at the very beginning, and because in the ancient world this was something no one could control. Chaos was not there first – wisdom was.
[8:24] 10 tn The third parallel verb is חוֹלָלְתִּי (kholalti), “I was given birth.” Some (e.g., KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV) translate it “brought forth” – not in the sense of being presented, but in the sense of being “begotten, given birth to.” Here is the strongest support for the translation of קָנָה (qanah) as “created” in v. 22. The verb is not literal; it continues the perspective of the personification.
[8:24] 11 tn Heb “made heavy.”
[8:26] 12 tn Heb “open places.”
[8:26] 13 tn Here רֹאשׁ (ro’sh) means “beginning” with reference to time (BDB 911 s.v. 4.b).
[8:27] 14 sn The infinitive construct בְּחוּקוֹ (bÿkhuqo, “to cut; to engrave; to mark”) and the noun חוּג (khug, “horizon; circle”) form a paronomasia in the line.
[8:28] 15 tn To form a better parallel some commentators read this infinitive בַּעֲזוֹז (ba’azoz), “when [they] grew strong,” as a Piel causative, “when he made firm, fixed fast” (cf. NIV “fixed securely”; NLT “established”). But the following verse (“should not pass over”) implies the meaning “grew strong” here.
[8:30] 17 tn The verb form is a preterite with vav consecutive, although it has not been apocopated. It provides the concluding statement for the temporal clauses as well as the parallel to v. 27.
[8:30] 18 tn Critical to the interpretation of this line is the meaning of אָמוֹן (’amon). Several suggestions have been made: “master craftsman” (cf. ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV), “nursing child” (cf. NCV), “foster father.” R. B. Y. Scott chooses “faithful” – a binding or living link (“Wisdom in Creation: The ‘Amon of Proverbs 8:30,” VT 10 [1960]: 213-23). The image of a child is consistent with the previous figure of being “given birth to” (vv. 24, 25). However, “craftsman” has the most support (LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, Tg. Prov 8:30, Song 7:1; Jer 52:15; also P. W. Skehan, “Structures in Poems on Wisdom: Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24,” CBQ 41 [1979]: 365-79).
[8:30] 19 tn The word is a plural of intensification for “delight”; it describes wisdom as the object of delight. The LXX has the suffix; the Hebrew does not.
[8:31] 20 tn The two words are synonymous in general and so could be taken to express a superlative idea – the “whole world” (cf. NIV, NCV). But תֵּבֵל (tevel) also means the inhabited world, and so the construct may be interpreted as a partitive genitive.
[8:31] 21 tn Heb “and my delights” [were] with/in.”
[8:31] 22 tn Heb “the sons of man.”
[3:13] 23 tn Grk “And no one.”
[3:13] 24 sn The verb ascended is a perfect tense in Greek (ἀναβέβηκεν, anabebhken) which seems to look at a past, completed event. (This is not as much of a problem for those who take Jesus’ words to end at v. 12, and these words to be a comment by the author, looking back on Jesus’ ascension.) As a saying of Jesus, these words are a bit harder to explain. Note, however, the lexical similarities with 1:51: “ascending,” “descending,” and “son of man.” Here, though, the ascent and descent is accomplished by the Son himself, not the angels as in 1:51. There is no need to limit this saying to Jesus’ ascent following the resurrection, however; the point of the Jacob story (Gen 28), which seems to be the background for 1:51, is the freedom of communication and relationship between God and men (a major theme of John’s Gospel). This communication comes through the angels in Gen 28 (and John 1:51); but here (most appropriately) it comes directly through the Son of Man. Although Jesus could be referring to a prior ascent, after an appearance as the preincarnate Son of Man, more likely he is simply pointing out that no one from earth has ever gone up to heaven and come down again. The Son, who has come down from heaven, is the only one who has been ‘up’ there. In both Jewish intertestamental literature and later rabbinic accounts, Moses is portrayed as ascending to heaven to receive the Torah and descending to distribute it to men (e.g., Targum Ps 68:19.) In contrast to these Jewish legends, the Son is the only one who has ever made the ascent and descent.
[3:13] 25 tc Most witnesses, including a few important ones (A[*] Θ Ψ 050 Ë1,13 Ï latt syc,p,h), have at the end of this verse “the one who is in heaven” (ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, Jo wn en tw ouranw). A few others have variations on this phrase, such as “who was in heaven” (e syc), or “the one who is from heaven” (0141 pc sys). The witnesses normally considered the best, along with several others, lack the phrase in its entirety (Ì66,75 א B L T Ws 083 086 33 1241 pc co). On the one hand, if the reading ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ is authentic it may suggest that while Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus he spoke of himself as in heaven even while he was on earth. If that is the case, one could see why variations from this hard saying arose: “who was in heaven,” “the one who is from heaven,” and omission of the clause. At the same time, such a saying could be interpreted (though with difficulty) as part of the narrator’s comments rather than Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus, alleviating the problem. And if v. 13 was viewed in early times as the evangelist’s statement, “the one who is in heaven” could have crept into the text through a marginal note. Other internal evidence suggests that this saying may be authentic. The adjectival participle, ὁ ὤν, is used in the Fourth Gospel more than any other NT book (though the Apocalypse comes in a close second), and frequently with reference to Jesus (1:18; 6:46; 8:47). It may be looking back to the LXX of Exod 3:14 (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν). Especially since this exact construction is not necessary to communicate the location of the Son of Man, its presence in many witnesses here may suggest authenticity. Further, John uses the singular of οὐρανός (ourano", “heaven”) in all 18 instances of the word in this Gospel, and all but twice with the article (only 1:32 and 6:58 are anarthrous, and even in the latter there is significant testimony to the article). At the same time, the witnesses that lack this clause are very weighty and must not be discounted. Generally speaking, if other factors are equal, the reading of such
[3:13] sn See the note on the title Son of Man in 1:51.
[10:6] 26 sn A quotation from Deut 9:4.
[10:6] 27 sn A quotation from Deut 30:12.
[4:8] 28 tn Grk “he led captive captivity.”
[4:8] 29 sn A quotation which is perhaps ultimately derived from Ps 68:18. However, the wording here differs from that of Ps 68 in both the Hebrew text and the LXX in a few places, the most significant of which is reading “gave gifts to” in place of “received gifts from” as in HT and LXX. It has sometimes been suggested that the author of Ephesians modified the text he was citing in order to better support what he wanted to say here. Such modifications are sometimes found in rabbinic exegesis from this and later periods, but it is also possible that the author was simply citing a variant of Ps 68 known to him but which has not survived outside its quotation here (W. H. Harris, The Descent of Christ [AGJU 32], 104). Another possibility is that the words here, which strongly resemble Ps 68:19 HT and LXX (68:18 ET), are actually part of an early Christian hymn quoted by the author.
[4:9] 30 tc The majority of
[4:9] 31 tc The Western texttype (D* F G it) lacks the plural noun μέρη (merh, “regions”); the shorter reading cannot be dismissed out of hand since it is also supported by Ì46 (which often has strong affinities, however, with the Western text). The inclusion of the word has strong external support from important, early
[4:9] 32 tn Grk “to the lower parts of the earth.” This phrase has been variously interpreted: (1) The traditional view understands it as a reference to the underworld (hell), where Jesus is thought to have descended in the three days between his death and resurrection. In this case, “of the earth” would be a partitive genitive. (2) A second option is to translate the phrase “of the earth” as a genitive of apposition: “to the lower parts, namely, the earth” (as in the present translation). Many recent scholars hold this view and argue that it is a reference to the incarnation. (3) A third option, which also sees the phrase “of the earth” as a genitive of apposition, is that the descent in the passage occurs after the ascent rather than before it, and refers to the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost (cf. Acts 4:11-16). Support for this latter view is found in the intertestamental and rabbinic use of Ps 68:18 (quoted in v. 8), which is consistently and solely interpreted as a reference to Moses’ ascent of Mt. Sinai to “capture” the words of the law. The probability, therefore, is that the comments here in v. 9 reflect a polemic against the interpretation of Ps 68:18 in certain circles as a reference to Moses. See W. H. Harris, The Descent of Christ (AGJU 32), 46-54; 171-204.
[4:10] 33 tn The Greek text lays specific emphasis on “He” through the use of the intensive pronoun, αὐτός (autos). This is reflected in the English translation through the use of “the very one.”
