Amos 1:4

1:4 So I will set Hazael’s house ¹  on fire;

fire ²  will consume Ben Hadad’s ³  fortresses.

Amos 1:2

God Will Judge the Surrounding Nations

1:2 Amos ⁴  said:

“The Lord comes roaring ⁵  out of Zion;

from Jerusalem ⁶  he comes bellowing! ⁷ 

The shepherds’ pastures wilt; ⁸ 

the summit of Carmel ⁹  withers.” ¹⁰ 

Kisah Para Rasul 18:8

18:8 Crispus, the president of the synagogue, ¹¹  believed in the Lord together with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians who heard about it ¹²  believed and were baptized.

Kisah Para Rasul 18:2

18:2 There he ¹³  found ¹⁴  a Jew named Aquila, ¹⁵  a native of Pontus, ¹⁶  who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius ¹⁷  had ordered all the Jews to depart from ¹⁸  Rome. ¹⁹  Paul approached ²⁰  them,

Kisah Para Rasul 26:6

26:6 And now I stand here on trial ²¹  because of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, ²² 

Yeremia 25:18-20

25:18 I made Jerusalem ²³  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ²⁴  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ²⁵  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ²⁶  Such is already becoming the case! ²⁷  25:19 I made all of these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt; ²⁸  his attendants, his officials, his people, 25:20 the foreigners living in Egypt; ²⁹  all the kings of the land of Uz; ³⁰  all the kings of the land of the Philistines, ³¹  the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod; ³² 

Yeremia 47:1

Judgment on the Philistine Cities

47:1 The Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah ³³  about the Philistines before Pharaoh attacked Gaza. ³⁴ 

Zakharia 9:5-7

9:5 Ashkelon will see and be afraid; Gaza will be in great anguish, as will Ekron, for her hope will have been dried up. ³⁵  Gaza will lose her king, and Ashkelon will no longer be inhabited. 9:6 A mongrel people will live in Ashdod, for I will greatly humiliate the Philistines. 9:7 I will take away their abominable religious practices; ³⁶  then those who survive will become a community of believers in our God, ³⁷  like a clan in Judah, and Ekron will be like the Jebusites.

¹ tn “Hazael’s house” (“the house of Hazael”) refers to the dynasty of Hazael.

sn Hazael took the throne of Aram in 843 b.c. and established a royal dynasty. See 2 Kgs 8:7-15 and W. Pitard, Ancient Damascus, 145-60.

² tn Heb “it”; the referent (the fire mentioned in the previous line) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ sn Ben-hadad may refer to Hazael’s son and successor (2 Kgs 13:3, 24) or to an earlier king (see 1 Kgs 20), perhaps the ruler whom Hazael assassinated when he assumed power.

⁴ tn Heb “he;” the referent (Amos) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ sn The Lord, in his role of warrior-king, is compared to a lion. See 3:4, 8.

⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

⁷ tn Heb “gives his voice.”

⁸ tn Lexicographers debate whether there are two roots אָבַל (’aval), one signifying “mourn” and the other “be dry,” or simply one (“mourn”). The parallel verb (“withers”) might favor the first option and have the meaning “wilt away.” It is interesting to note, however, that the root appears later in the book in the context of lament (5:16; 8:8, 10; 9:5). Either 1:2 is a possible wordplay to alert the reader to the death that will accompany the judgment (the option of two roots), or perhaps the translation “mourns” is appropriate here as well (cf. KJV, NASB, NKJV, NJPS; see also D. J. A. Clines, “Was There an ’BL II ‘Be Dry’ in Classical Hebrew?” VT 42 [1992]: 1-10).

⁹ sn Carmel was a region known for its abundant plants and trees. See Isa 33:9; 35:2; Jer 50:19.

¹⁰ sn Loss of a land’s fertility is frequently associated with judgment in the OT and ancient Near Eastern literature.

¹¹ tn That is, “the official in charge of the synagogue”; ἀρχισυνάγωγος (arcisunagwgo") refers to the “leader/president of a synagogue” (so BDAG 139 s.v. and L&N 53.93).

¹² tn Or “who heard him,” or “who heard Paul.” The ambiguity here results from the tendency of Greek to omit direct objects, which must be supplied from the context. The problem is that no less than three different ones may be supplied here: (1) “him,” referring to Crispus, but this is not likely because there is no indication in the context that Crispus began to speak out about the Lord; this is certainly possible and even likely, but more than the text here affirms; (2) “Paul,” who had been speaking in the synagogue and presumably, now that he had moved to Titius Justus’ house, continued speaking to the Gentiles; or (3) “about it,” that is, the Corinthians who heard about Crispus’ conversion became believers. In the immediate context this last is most probable, since the two incidents are juxtaposed. Other, less obvious direct objects could also be supplied, such as “heard the word of God,” “heard the word of the Lord,” etc., but none of these are obvious in the immediate context.

¹³ tn Grk “And he.” 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. The word “there” is not in the Greek text but is implied.

¹⁴ tn Grk “finding.” The participle εὑρών (Jeurwn) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

¹⁵ sn On Aquila and his wife Priscilla see also Acts 18:18, 26; Rom 16:3-4; 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Tim 4:19. In the NT “Priscilla” and “Prisca” are the same person. This author uses the full name Priscilla, while Paul uses the diminutive form Prisca.

¹⁶ sn Pontus was a region in the northeastern part of Asia Minor. It was a Roman province.

¹⁷ sn Claudius refers to the Roman emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, known as Claudius, who ruled from a.d. 41-54. The edict expelling the Jews from Rome was issued in a.d. 49 (Suetonius, Claudius 25.4).

¹⁸ tn Or “to leave.”

¹⁹ map For location see JP4 A1.

²⁰ tn Or “went to.”

²¹ tn BDAG 568 s.v. κρίνω 5.a.α has “κρίνεσθαι ἐπί τινι be on trial because of a thing Ac 26:6.”

²² tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

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

²⁴ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

²⁵ tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

²⁶ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

²⁷ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

²⁸ sn See further Jer 46:2-28 for the judgment against Egypt.

²⁹ tn The meaning of this term and its connection with the preceding is somewhat uncertain. This word is used of the mixture of foreign people who accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exod 12:38) and of the foreigners that the Israelites were to separate out of their midst in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 13:3). Most commentators interpret it here of the foreign people who were living in Egypt. (See BDB 786 s.v. I עֶרֶב and KBL 733 s.v. II עֶרֶב.)

³⁰ sn The land of Uz was Job’s homeland (Job 1:1). The exact location is unknown but its position here between Egypt and the Philistine cities suggests it is south of Judah, probably in the Arabian peninsula. Lam 4:21 suggests that it was near Edom.

³¹ sn See further Jer 47:1-7 for the judgment against the Philistines. The Philistine cities were west of Judah.

³² sn The Greek historian Herodotus reports that Ashdod had been destroyed under the Pharaoh who preceded Necho, Psammetichus.

³³ tn Heb “That which came [as] the word of the Lord to Jeremiah.” For this same construction see 14:1; 46:1 and see the translator’s note at 14:1 for explanation.

³⁴ sn The precise dating of this prophecy is uncertain. Several proposals have been suggested, the most likely of which is that the prophecy was delivered in 609 b.c. in conjunction with Pharaoh Necho’s advance into Palestine to aid the Assyrians. That was the same year that Josiah was killed by Necho at the battle of Megiddo and four years before Necho was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, the foe from the north. The prophecy presupposes that Ashkelon is still in existence (v. 5) hence it must be before 604 b.c. For a fairly complete discussion of the options see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 299-300.

³⁵ tn The present translation presupposes a Hiphil perfect of יָבֵשׁ (yavesh, “be dry”; cf. NRSV “are withered”) rather than the usually accepted Hiphil of בּוֹשׁ (bosh, “be ashamed”; cf. KJV, ASV), a sense that is less suitable with the removal of hope.

³⁶ tn Heb “and I will take away their blood from their mouth and their abominations from between their teeth.” These expressions refer to some type of abominable religious practices, perhaps eating meat with the blood still in it (less likely NCV “drinking blood”) or eating unclean or forbidden foods.

³⁷ tn Heb “and they will be a remnant for our God”; cf. NIV “will belong to our God”; NLT “will worship our God.”