1 Timotius 6:4

6:4 he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in controversies and verbal disputes. This gives rise to envy, dissension, slanders, evil suspicions,

Yesaya 29:13-14

29:13 The sovereign master ¹  says,

“These people say they are loyal to me; ² 

they say wonderful things about me, ³ 

but they are not really loyal to me. ⁴ 

Their worship consists of

nothing but man-made ritual. ⁵ 

29:14 Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people –

an absolutely extraordinary deed. ⁶ 

Wise men will have nothing to say,

the sages will have no explanations.” ⁷ 

Yeremia 8:8-9

8:8 How can you say, “We are wise!

We have the law of the Lord”?

The truth is, ⁸  those who teach it ⁹  have used their writings

to make it say what it does not really mean. ¹⁰ 

8:9 Your wise men will be put to shame.

They will be dumbfounded and be brought to judgment. ¹¹ 

Since they have rejected the word of the Lord,

what wisdom do they really have?

Matius 15:14

15:14 Leave them! They are blind guides. ¹²  If someone who is blind leads another who is blind, ¹³  both will fall into a pit.”

Matius 21:27

21:27 So ¹⁴  they answered Jesus, ¹⁵  “We don’t know.” ¹⁶  Then he said to them, “Neither will I tell you ¹⁷  by what authority ¹⁸  I am doing these things.

Matius 23:16-24

23:16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple is bound by nothing. ¹⁹  But whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound by the oath.’ 23:17 Blind fools! Which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 23:18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing. ²⁰  But if anyone swears by the gift on it he is bound by the oath.’ 23:19 You are blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 23:20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 23:21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and the one who dwells in it. 23:22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and the one who sits on it.

23:23 “Woe to you, experts in the law ²¹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth ²²  of mint, dill, and cumin, ²³  yet you neglect what is more important in the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness! You ²⁴  should have done these things without neglecting the others. 23:24 Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel! ²⁵ 

Yohanes 3:9-10

3:9 Nicodemus replied, ²⁶  “How can these things be?” ²⁷  3:10 Jesus answered, ²⁸  “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? ²⁹ 

Yohanes 9:40-41

9:40 Some of the Pharisees ³⁰  who were with him heard this ³¹  and asked him, ³²  “We are not blind too, are we?” ³³  9:41 Jesus replied, ³⁴  “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, ³⁵  but now because you claim that you can see, ³⁶  your guilt ³⁷  remains.” ³⁸ 

Roma 1:22

1:22 Although they claimed ³⁹  to be wise, they became fools

Roma 1:2

1:2 This gospel ⁴⁰  he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures,

Titus 3:7

3:7 And so, ⁴¹  since we have been justified by his grace, we become heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life.” ⁴² 

Titus 3:2

3:2 They must not slander ⁴³  anyone, but be peaceable, gentle, showing complete courtesy to all people.

Pengkhotbah 2:12

Wisdom is Better than Folly

2:12 Next, I decided to consider ⁴⁴  wisdom, as well as foolish behavior and ideas. ⁴⁵ 

For what more can the king’s successor do than what the king ⁴⁶  has already done?

[29:13]  ¹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai).

[29:13]  ² tn Heb “Because these people draw near to me with their mouth.”

[29:13]  ³ tn Heb “and with their lips they honor me.”

[29:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “but their heart is far from me.” The heart is viewed here as the seat of the will, from which genuine loyalty derives.

[29:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “their fear of me is a commandment of men that has been taught.”

[29:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “Therefore I will again do something amazing with these people, an amazing deed, an amazing thing.” This probably refers to the amazing transformation predicted in vv. 17-24, which will follow the purifying judgment implied in vv. 15-16.

[29:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “the wisdom of their wise ones will perish, the discernment of their discerning ones will keep hidden.”

[8:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “Surely, behold!”

[8:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “the scribes.”

[8:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “The lying pen of the scribes have made [it] into a lie.” The translation is an attempt to make the most common interpretation of this passage understandable for the average reader. This is, however, a difficult passage whose interpretation is greatly debated and whose syntax is capable of other interpretations. The interpretation of the NJPS, “Assuredly, for naught has the pen labored, for naught the scribes,” surely deserves consideration within the context; i.e. it hasn’t done any good for the scribes to produce a reliable copy of the law, which the people have refused to follow. That interpretation has the advantage of explaining the absence of an object for the verb “make” or “labored” but creates a very unbalanced poetic couplet.

[8:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “be trapped.” However, the word “trapped” generally carries with it the connotation of divine judgment. See BDB 540 s.v. לָכַד Niph.2, and compare usage in Jer 6:11 for support. The verbs in the first two lines are again the form of the Hebrew verb that emphasizes that the action is as good as done (Hebrew prophetic perfects).

[15:14]  ¹² tc ‡ Most mss, some of which are significant, read “They are blind guides of the blind” (א¹ C L W Z Θ Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat). The shorter reading is read by א*^,2 B D 0237 Epiph. There is a distinct possibility of omission due to homoioarcton in א*; this manuscript has a word order variation which puts the word τυφλοί (tufloi, “blind”) right before the word τυφλῶν (tuflwn, “of the blind”). This does not explain the shorter reading, however, in the other witnesses, of which B and D are quite weighty. Internal considerations suggest that the shorter reading is original: “of the blind” was likely added by scribes to balance this phrase with Jesus’ following statement about the blind leading the blind, which clearly has two groups in view. A decision is difficult, but internal considerations here along with the strength of the witnesses argue that the shorter reading is more likely original. NA²⁷ places τυφλῶν in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[15:14]  ¹³ tn Grk “If blind leads blind.”

[21:27]  ¹⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “So” to indicate that the clause is a result of the deliberations of the leaders.

[21:27]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “answering Jesus, they said.” This construction is somewhat awkward in English and has been simplified in the translation.

[21:27]  ¹⁶ sn Very few questions could have so completely revealed the wicked intentions of the religious leaders. Jesus’ question revealed the motivation of the religious leaders and exposed them for what they really were – hypocrites. They indicted themselves when they cited only two options and chose neither of them (“We do not know”). The point of Matt 21:23-27 is that no matter what Jesus said in response to their question, they were not going to believe it and would in the end use it against him.

[21:27]  ¹⁷ sn Neither will I tell you. Though Jesus gave no answer, the analogy he used to their own question makes his view clear. His authority came from heaven.

[21:27]  ¹⁸ tn On this phrase, see BDAG 844 s.v. ποῖος 2.a.γ. This is exactly the same phrase as in v. 23.

[23:16]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing.”

[23:18]  ²⁰ tn Grk “Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing.”

[23:23]  ²¹ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:23]  ²² tn Or “you tithe mint.”

[23:23]  ²³ sn Cumin (alternately spelled cummin) was an aromatic herb native to the Mediterranean region. Its seeds were used for seasoning.

[23:23]  ²⁴ tc ‡ Many witnesses (B C K L W Δ 0102 33 565 892 pm) have δέ (de, “but”) after ταῦτα (tauta, “these things”), while many others lack it (א D Γ Θ Ë^1,13 579 700 1241 1424 pm). Since asyndeton was relatively rare in Koine Greek, the conjunction may be an intentional alteration, and is thus omitted from the present translation. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[23:24]  ²⁵ tn Grk “Blind guides who strain out a gnat yet who swallow a camel!”

[3:9]  ²⁶ tn Grk “Nicodemus answered and said to him.”

[3:9]  ²⁷ sn “How can these things be?” is Nicodemus’ answer. It is clear that at this time he has still not grasped what Jesus is saying. Note also that this is the last appearance of Nicodemus in the dialogue. Having served the purpose of the author, at this point he disappears from the scene. As a character in the narrative, he has served to illustrate the prevailing Jewish misunderstanding of Jesus’ teaching about the necessity of a new, spiritual birth from above. Whatever parting words Nicodemus might have had with Jesus, the author does not record them.

[3:10]  ²⁸ tn Grk “Jesus answered and said to him.”

[3:10]  ²⁹ sn Jesus’ question “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?” implies that Nicodemus had enough information at his disposal from the OT scriptures to have understood Jesus’ statements about the necessity of being born from above by the regenerating work of the Spirit. Isa 44:3-5 and Ezek 37:9-10 are passages Nicodemus might have known which would have given him insight into Jesus’ words. Another significant passage which contains many of these concepts is Prov 30:4-5.

[9:40]  ³⁰ sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.

[9:40]  ³¹ tn Grk “heard these things.”

[9:40]  ³² tn Grk “and said to him.”

[9:40]  ³³ tn Questions prefaced with μή (mh) in Greek anticipate a negative answer. This can sometimes be indicated by using a “tag” at the end in English (here the tag is “are we?”).

[9:41]  ³⁴ tn Grk “Jesus said to them.”

[9:41]  ³⁵ tn Grk “you would not have sin.”

[9:41]  ³⁶ tn Grk “now because you say, ‘We see…’”

[9:41]  ³⁷ tn Or “your sin.”

[9:41]  ³⁸ sn Because you claim that you can see, your guilt remains. The blind man received sight physically, and this led him to see spiritually as well. But the Pharisees, who claimed to possess spiritual sight, were spiritually blinded. The reader might recall Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in 3:10, “Are you the teacher of Israel and don’t understand these things?” In other words, to receive Jesus was to receive the light of the world, to reject him was to reject the light, close one’s eyes, and become blind. This is the serious sin of which Jesus had warned before (8:21-24). The blindness of such people was incurable since they had rejected the only cure that exists (cf. 12:39-41).

[1:22]  ³⁹ tn The participle φάσκοντες (faskonte") is used concessively here.

[1:2]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “the gospel of God, which he promised.” Because of the length and complexity of this sentence in Greek, it was divided into shorter English sentences in keeping with contemporary English style. To indicate the referent of the relative pronoun (“which”), the word “gospel” was repeated at the beginning of v. 2.

[3:7]  ⁴¹ tn This is the conclusion of a single, skillfully composed sentence in Greek encompassing Titus 3:4-7. Showing the goal of God’s merciful salvation, v. 7 begins literally, “in order that, being justified…we might become heirs…”

[3:7]  ⁴² tn Grk “heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

[3:2]  ⁴³ tn Or “discredit,” “damage the reputation of.”

[2:12]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and I turned to see.”

[2:12]  ⁴⁵ sn See 1:17 for the same expression. Throughout 2:1-11, Qoheleth evaluated the merits of merrymaking (2:1-3), accomplishing grand things (2:4-6), amassing great wealth (2:7-8), and secular acquisitions and accomplishments (2:9-10). Now, he reflects on the benefit in life in living wisely and not giving oneself over to frivolous self-indulgence.

[2:12]  ⁴⁶ tc The Hebrew text reads עָשׂוּהוּ (’asuhu, “they have done it”; Qal perfect 3rd person masculine plural from עָשַׂה [’asah] + 3rd person masculine singular suffix). However, many medieval Hebrew mss read עָשָׂהוּ (’asahu, “he has done”; Qal perfect 3rd person masculine singular from עָשַׂה), reflected in the LXX and Syriac. The error was caused by dittography (ו, vav, written twice) or by orthographic confusion between ו and ה (hey) in הוו (confused as והוו) at the end of 2:12 and beginning of 2:13. The 3rd person masculine singular referent of עָשׂוּהוּ “what he has done” is the king, that is, Qoheleth himself. The referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.