Yesaya 19:3

19:3 The Egyptians will panic, ¹ 

and I will confuse their strategy. ² 

They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead,

from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians. ³ 

Yesaya 19:13-14

19:13 The officials of Zoan are fools,

the officials of Memphis ⁴  are misled;

the rulers ⁵  of her tribes lead Egypt astray.

19:14 The Lord has made them undiscerning; ⁶ 

they lead Egypt astray in all she does,

so that she is like a drunk sliding around in his own vomit. ⁷ 

Yesaya 19:2

19:2 “I will provoke civil strife in Egypt, ⁸ 

brothers will fight with each other,

as will neighbors,

cities, and kingdoms. ⁹ 

1 Samuel 17:14

17:14 Now David was the youngest. While the three oldest sons followed Saul,

1 Samuel 17:1

David Kills Goliath

17:1 ¹⁰ The Philistines gathered their troops ¹¹  for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah.

Kisah Para Rasul 22:20-22

22:20 And when the blood of your witness ¹²  Stephen was shed, ¹³  I myself was standing nearby, approving, ¹⁴  and guarding the cloaks ¹⁵  of those who were killing him.’ ¹⁶  22:21 Then ¹⁷  he said to me, ‘Go, because I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”

The Roman Commander Questions Paul

22:22 The crowd ¹⁸  was listening to him until he said this. ¹⁹  Then ²⁰  they raised their voices and shouted, ²¹  “Away with this man ²²  from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live!” ²³ 

Ayub 39:17

39:17 For God deprived her of wisdom,

and did not impart understanding to her.

Yehezkiel 14:7-9

14:7 For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally. 14:8 I will set my face against that person and will make him an object lesson and a byword ²⁴  and will cut him off from among my people. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

14:9 “‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word – I, the Lord, have made a fool of ²⁵  that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

Yehezkiel 14:2

14:2 The word of the Lord came to me:

Yehezkiel 2:1

Ezekiel’s Commission

2:1 He said to me, “Son of man, ²⁶  stand on your feet and I will speak with you.”

[19:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and the spirit of Egypt will be laid waste in its midst.”

[19:3]  ² tn The verb בָּלַע (bala’, “confuse”) is a homonym of the more common בָּלַע (bala’, “swallow”); see HALOT 135 s.v. I בלע.

[19:3]  ³ tn Heb “they will inquire of the idols and of the spirits of the dead and of the ritual pits and of the magicians.” Hebrew אוֹב (’ov, “ritual pit”) refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. See the note on “incantations” in 8:19.

[19:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “Noph” (so KJV); most recent English versions substitute the more familiar “Memphis.”

[19:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “the cornerstone.” The singular form should be emended to a plural.

[19:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “the Lord has mixed into her midst a spirit of blindness.”

[19:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “like the going astray of a drunkard in his vomit.”

[19:2]  ⁸ tn Heb I will provoke Egypt against Egypt” (NAB similar).

[19:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “and they will fight, a man against his brother, and a man against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.” Civil strife will extend all the way from the domestic level to the provincial arena.

[17:1]  ¹⁰ tc The content of 1 Sam 17–18, which includes the David and Goliath story, differs considerably in the LXX as compared to the MT, suggesting that this story circulated in ancient times in more than one form. The LXX for chs. 17–18 is much shorter than the MT, lacking almost half of the material (39 of a total of 88 verses). Many scholars (e.g., McCarter, Klein) think that the shorter text of the LXX is preferable to the MT, which in their view has been expanded by incorporation of later material. Other scholars (e.g., Wellhausen, Driver) conclude that the shorter Greek text (or the Hebrew text that underlies it) reflects an attempt to harmonize certain alleged inconsistencies that appear in the longer version of the story. Given the translation characteristics of the LXX elsewhere in this section, it does not seem likely that these differences are due to deliberate omission of these verses on the part of the translator. It seems more likely that the Greek translator has faithfully rendered here a Hebrew text that itself was much shorter than the MT in these chapters. Whether or not the shorter text represented by the LXX is to be preferred over the MT in 1 Sam 17–18 is a matter over which textual scholars are divided. For a helpful discussion of the major textual issues in this unit see D. Barthélemy, D. W. Gooding, J. Lust, and E. Tov, The Story of David and Goliath (OBO). Overall it seems preferable to stay with the MT, at least for the most part. However, the major textual differences between the LXX and the MT will be mentioned in the notes that accompany the translation so that the reader may be alert to the major problem passages.

[17:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “camps.”

[22:20]  ¹² sn Now Paul referred to Stephen as your witness, and he himself had also become a witness. The reversal was now complete; the opponent had now become a proponent.

[22:20]  ¹³ sn When the blood of your witness Stephen was shed means “when your witness Stephen was murdered.”

[22:20]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “and approving.” This καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[22:20]  ¹⁵ tn Or “outer garments.”

[22:20]  sn The cloaks. The outer garment, or cloak, was taken off and laid aside to leave the arms free (in this case for throwing stones).

[22:20]  ¹⁶ tn Or “who were putting him to death.” For the translation of ἀναιρούντων (anairountwn) as “putting to death” see BDAG 64 s.v. ἀναιρέω 2.

[22:21]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “And.” Since this represents a response to Paul’s reply in v. 19, καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the logical sequence.

[22:22]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “They were listening”; the referent (the crowd) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:22]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “until this word.”

[22:22]  sn Until he said this. Note it is the mention of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles with its implication of ethnic openness that is so disturbing to the audience.

[22:22]  ²⁰ tn Grk “And.” To indicate the logical sequence, καί (kai) has been translated as “then” here.

[22:22]  ²¹ tn Grk “and said.”

[22:22]  ²² tn Grk “this one.”

[22:22]  ²³ tn BDAG 491 s.v. καθήκω has “to be appropriate, come/reach to, be proper/fitting…Usu. impers. καθήκει it comes (to someone)…foll. by acc. and inf….οὐ καθῆκεν αὐτὸν ζῆν he should not be allowed to live Ac 22:22.”

[14:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “proverbs.”

[14:9]  ²⁵ tn The translation is uncertain due to difficulty both in determining the meaning of the verb’s stem and its conjugation in this context. In the Qal stem the basic meaning of the verbal root פָּתַה (patah) is “to be gullible, foolish.” The doubling stems (the Pual and Piel used in this verse) typically give such stative verbs a factitive sense, hence either “make gullible” (i.e., “entice”) or “make into a fool” (i.e., “to show to be a fool”). The latter represents the probable meaning of the term in Jer 20:7, 10 and is followed here (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:193; R. Mosis “Ez 14, 1-11 - ein Ruf zur Umkehr,” BZ 19 [1975]: 166-69 and ThWAT 4:829-31). In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool. Secondly, the verb is in the perfect conjugation and may be translated “I have made a fool of him” or “I have enticed him,” or to show determination (see IBHS 439-41 §27.2f and g), or in certain syntactical constructions as future. Any of these may be plausible if the doubling stems used are understood in the sense of “making a fool of.” But if understood as “to make gullible,” more factors come into play. As the Hebrew verbal form is a perfect, it is often translated as present perfect: “I have enticed.” In this case the Lord states that he himself enticed the prophet to cooperate with the idolaters. Such enticement to sin would seem to be a violation of God’s moral character, but sometimes he does use such deception and enticement to sin as a form of punishment against those who have blatantly violated his moral will (see, e.g., 2 Sam 24). If one follows this line of interpretation in Ezek 14:9, one would have to assume that the prophet had already turned from God in his heart. However, the context gives no indication of this. Therefore, it is better to take the perfect as indicating certitude and to translate it with the future tense: “I will entice.” In this case the Lord announces that he will judge the prophet appropriately. If a prophet allows himself to be influenced by idolaters, then the Lord will use deception as a form of punishment against that deceived prophet. A comparison with the preceding oracles also favors this view. In 14:4 the perfect of certitude is used for emphasis (see “I will answer”), though in v. 7 a participle is employed. For a fuller discussion of this text, see R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 23-25.

[2:1]  ²⁶ sn The phrase son of man occurs ninety-three times in the book of Ezekiel. It simply means “human one,” and distinguishes the prophet from the nonhuman beings that are present in the world of his vision.