1 Samuel 17:10

17:10 Then the Philistine said, “I defy Israel’s troops this day! Give me a man so we can fight ¹  each other!”

Isaiah 10:15

10:15 Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it,

or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? ² 

As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,

or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!

Isaiah 36:8-10

36:8 Now make a deal with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, provided you can find enough riders for them. 36:9 Certainly you will not refuse one of my master’s minor officials and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen. ³  36:10 Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this land to destroy it. The Lord told me, ‘March up against this land and destroy it!’”’” ⁴ 

Isaiah 36:15

36:15 Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

Isaiah 36:18

36:18 Hezekiah is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.” Has any of the gods of the nations rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria? ⁵ 

Isaiah 37:22-23

37:22 this is what the Lord says about him: ⁶ 

“The virgin daughter Zion ⁷ 

despises you – she makes fun of you;

daughter Jerusalem

shakes her head after you. ⁸ 

37:23 Whom have you taunted and hurled insults at?

At whom have you shouted

and looked so arrogantly? ⁹ 

At the Holy One of Israel! ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 37:28-29

37:28 I know where you live

and everything you do

and how you rage against me. ¹¹ 

37:29 Because you rage against me

and the uproar you create has reached my ears, ¹² 

I will put my hook in your nose, ¹³ 

and my bridle between your lips,

and I will lead you back

the way you came.”

Zechariah 2:8

2:8 For the Lord who rules over all says to me that for his own glory ¹⁴  he has sent me to the nations that plundered you – for anyone who touches you touches the pupil ¹⁵  of his ¹⁶  eye.

Zechariah 12:3

12:3 Moreover, on that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy burden ¹⁷  for all the nations, and all who try to carry it will be seriously injured; ¹⁸  yet all the peoples of the earth will be assembled against it.

Acts 5:38-39

5:38 So in this case I say to you, stay away from these men and leave them alone, because if this plan or this undertaking originates with people, ¹⁹  it will come to nothing, ²⁰  5:39 but if ²¹  it is from God, you will not be able to stop them, or you may even be found ²²  fighting against God.” He convinced them, ²³ 

Acts 9:4-5

9:4 He ²⁴  fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, ²⁵  why are you persecuting me?” ²⁶  9:5 So he said, “Who are you, Lord?” He replied, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!

Acts 12:1-2

James is Killed and Peter Imprisoned

12:1 About that time King Herod ²⁷  laid hands on ²⁸  some from the church to harm them. ²⁹  12:2 He had James, the brother of John, executed with a sword. ³⁰ 

Acts 12:22-23

12:22 But the crowd ³¹  began to shout, ³²  “The voice of a god, ³³  and not of a man!” 12:23 Immediately an angel of the Lord ³⁴  struck ³⁵  Herod ³⁶  down because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died. ³⁷ 

[17:10]  ¹ tn Following the imperative, the cohortative verbal form indicates purpose/result here.

[10:15]  ² tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”

[36:9]  ³ tn Heb “How can you turn back the face of an official [from among] the least of my master’s servants and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?” In vv. 8-9 the chief adviser develops further the argument begun in v. 6. His reasoning seems to be as follows: “In your weakened condition you obviously need military strength. Agree to the king’s terms and I will personally give you more horses than you are capable of outfitting. If I, a mere minor official, am capable of giving you such military might, just think what power the king has. There is no way the Egyptians can match our strength. It makes much better sense to deal with us.”

[36:10]  ⁴ sn In v. 10 the chief adviser develops further the argument begun in v. 7. He claims that Hezekiah has offended the Lord and that the Lord has commissioned Assyria as his instrument of discipline and judgment.

[36:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “Have the gods of the nations rescued, each his land, from the hand of the king of Assyria?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course not!”

[37:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “this is the word which the Lord has spoken about him.”

[37:22]  ⁷ sn Zion (Jerusalem) is pictured here as a young, vulnerable daughter whose purity is being threatened by the would-be Assyrian rapist. The personification hints at the reality which the young girls of the city would face if the Assyrians conquer it.

[37:22]  ⁸ sn Shaking the head was a mocking gesture of derision.

[37:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “and lifted your eyes on high?” Cf. NIV “lifted your eyes in pride”; NRSV “haughtily lifted your eyes.”

[37:23]  ¹⁰ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[37:28]  ¹¹ tc Heb “your going out and your coming in and how you have raged against me.” Several scholars have suggested that this line is probably dittographic (note the beginning of the next line). However, most English translations include the statement in question at the end of v. 28 and the beginning of v. 29. Interestingly, the LXX does not have this clause at the end of v. 28 and the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a does not have it at the beginning of v. 29. In light of this ambiguous manuscript evidence, it appears best to retain the clause in both verses.

[37:29]  ¹² tc Heb “and your complacency comes up into my ears.” The parallelism is improved if שַׁאֲנַנְךָ (sha’anankha, “your complacency”) is emended to שְׁאוֹנְךָ (shÿ’onÿkha, “your uproar”). See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 237-38. However, the LXX seems to support the MT and Sennacherib’s cavalier dismissal of Yahweh depicts an arrogant complacency (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 1:658, n. 10).

[37:29]  ¹³ sn The word-picture has a parallel in Assyrian sculpture. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 238.

[2:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “After glory has he sent me” (similar KJV, NASB). What is clearly in view is the role of Zechariah who, by faithful proclamation of the message, will glorify the Lord.

[2:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “gate” (בָּבָה, bavah) of the eye, that is, pupil. The rendering of this term by KJV as “apple” has created a well-known idiom in the English language, “the apple of his eye” (so ASV, NIV). The pupil is one of the most vulnerable and valuable parts of the body, so for Judah to be considered the “pupil” of the Lord’s eye is to raise her value to an incalculable price (cf. NLT “my most precious possession”).

[2:8]  ¹⁶ tc A scribal emendation (tiqqun sopherim) has apparently altered an original “my eye” to “his eye” in order to allow the prophet to be the speaker throughout vv. 8-9. This alleviates the problem of the Lord saying, in effect, that he has sent himself on the mission to the nations.

[12:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “heavy stone” (so NRSV, TEV, NLT); KJV “burdensome stone”; NIV “an immovable rock.”

[12:3]  ¹⁸ sn In Israel’s and Judah’s past they had been uprooted by various conquerors such as the Assyrians and the Babylonians. In the eschaton, however, they will be so “heavy” with God’s glory and so rooted in his promises that no nation will be able to move them.

[5:38]  ¹⁹ tn Here ἀνθρώπων (anqrwpwn) has been translated as a generic noun (“people”).

[5:38]  ²⁰ tn Or “it will be put to an end.”

[5:39]  ²¹ tn This is expressed in a first class condition, in contrast to the condition in v. 38b, which is third class. As such, v. 39 is rhetorically presented as the more likely option.

[5:39]  ²² tn According to L&N 39.32, the verb εὑρεθῆτε (Jeureqhte, an aorist passive subjunctive) may also be translated “find yourselves” – “lest you find yourselves fighting against God.” The Jewish leader Gamaliel is shown contemplating the other possible alternative about what is occurring.

[5:39]  ²³ tn Grk “They were convinced by him.” This passive construction was converted to an active one (“He convinced them”) in keeping with contemporary English style. The phrase “He convinced them” is traditionally placed in Acts 5:40 by most English translations; the standard Greek critical text (represented by NA²⁷ and UBS⁴) places it at the end of v. 39.

[9:4]  ²⁴ tn Grk “and he.” Because of the length of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun.

[9:4]  ²⁵ tn The double vocative suggests emotion.

[9:4]  ²⁶ sn Persecuting me. To persecute the church is to persecute Jesus.

[12:1]  ²⁷ sn King Herod was Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod I (Herod the Great). His mediocre career is summarized in Josephus, Ant. 18-19. This event took place in a.d. 42 or 43.

[12:1]  ²⁸ tn Or “King Herod had some from the church arrested.”

[12:1]  ²⁹ tn Or “to cause them injury.”

[12:2]  ³⁰ sn The expression executed with a sword probably refers to a beheading. James was the first known apostolic martyr (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 2.9.1-3). On James, not the Lord’s brother, see Luke 5:10; 6:14. This death ended a short period of peace noted in Acts 9:31 after the persecution mentioned in 8:1-3.

[12:22]  ³¹ tn The translation “crowd” is given by BDAG 223 s.v. δῆμος; the word often means a gathering of citizens to conduct public business. Here it is simply the group of people gathered to hear the king’s speech.

[12:22]  ³² tn The imperfect verb ἐπεφώνει (epefwnei) is taken ingressively in the sequence of events. Presumably the king had started his speech when the crowd began shouting.

[12:22]  ³³ sn The voice of a god. Contrast the response of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14:13-15.

[12:23]  ³⁴ tn Or “the angel of the Lord.” See the note on the word “Lord” in 5:19.

[12:23]  ³⁵ sn On being struck…down by an angel, see Acts 23:3; 1 Sam 25:28; 2 Sam 12:15; 2 Kgs 19:35; 2 Chr 13:20; 2 Macc 9:5.

[12:23]  ³⁶ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Herod) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:23]  ³⁷ sn He was eaten by worms and died. Josephus, Ant. 19.8.2 (19.343-352), states that Herod Agrippa I died at Caesarea in a.d. 44. The account by Josephus, while not identical to Luke’s account, is similar in many respects: On the second day of a festival, Herod Agrippa appeared in the theater with a robe made of silver. When it sparkled in the sun, the people cried out flatteries and declared him to be a god. The king, carried away by the flattery, saw an owl (an omen of death) sitting on a nearby rope, and immediately was struck with severe stomach pains. He was carried off to his house and died five days later. The two accounts can be reconciled without difficulty, since while Luke states that Herod was immediately struck down by an angel, his death could have come several days later. The mention of worms with death adds a humiliating note to the scene. The formerly powerful ruler had been thoroughly reduced to nothing (cf. Jdt 16:17; 2 Macc 9:9; cf. also Josephus, Ant. 17.6.5 [17.168-170], which details the sickness which led to Herod the Great’s death).