33:22 He 1 draws near to the place of corruption,
and his life to the messengers of death. 2
1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, 4 she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
1 tn Heb “his soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh, “life”] draws near.”
2 tn The MT uses the Hiphil participle, “to those who cause death.” This seems to be a reference to the belief in demons that brought about death, an idea not mentioned in the Bible itself. Thus many proposals have been made for this expression. Hoffmann and Budde divide the word into לְמוֹ מֵתִּים (lÿmo metim) and simply read “to the dead.” Dhorme adds a couple of letters to get לִמְקוֹם מֵתִּים (limqom metim, “to the place [or abode] of the dead”).
3 tn Or “and the power of death” (taking the reference to the gates of Hades as a metonymy).
sn In the OT, Hades was known as Sheol. It is the place where the unrighteous will reside (Matt 11:23; Luke 16:23; Rev 20:13-14). Some translations render this by its modern equivalent, “hell”; others see it as a reference to the power of death.
4 tn The connotation of the Greek is “before they came together in marital and domestic union” (so BDAG 970 s.v. συνέρχομαι 3).