Yohanes 3:19

3:19 Now this is the basis for judging: ¹  that the light has come into the world and people ²  loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.

Yohanes 12:40-41

12:40 “He has blinded their eyes

and hardened their heart, ³ 

so that they would not see with their eyes

and understand with their heart, ⁴ 

and turn to me, ⁵  and I would heal them.” ⁶ 

12:41 Isaiah said these things because he saw Christ’s ⁷  glory, and spoke about him.

Yesaya 6:9

6:9 He said, “Go and tell these people:

‘Listen continually, but don’t understand!

Look continually, but don’t perceive!’

Yesaya 29:10

29:10 For the Lord has poured out on you

a strong urge to sleep deeply. ⁸ 

He has shut your eyes (the prophets),

and covered your heads (the seers).

Yesaya 42:18-20

The Lord Reasons with His People

42:18 “Listen, you deaf ones!

Take notice, ⁹  you blind ones!

42:19 My servant is truly blind,

my messenger is truly deaf.

My covenant partner, ¹⁰  the servant of the Lord, is truly blind. ¹¹ 

42:20 You see ¹²  many things, but don’t comprehend; ¹³ 

their ears are open, but do not hear.”

Yesaya 44:18

44:18 They do not comprehend or understand,

for their eyes are blind and cannot see;

their minds do not discern. ¹⁴ 

Matius 6:23

6:23 But if your eye is diseased, ¹⁵  your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Matius 13:13-15

13:13 For this reason I speak to them in parables: Although they see they do not see, and although they hear they do not hear nor do they understand. 13:14 And concerning them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

‘You will listen carefully ¹⁶  yet will never understand,

you will look closely ¹⁷  yet will never comprehend.

13:15 For the heart of this people has become dull;

they are hard of hearing,

and they have shut their eyes,

so that they would not see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.’ ¹⁸ 

Lukas 11:34-35

11:34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, ¹⁹  your whole body is full of light, but when it is diseased, ²⁰  your body is full of darkness. 11:35 Therefore see to it ²¹  that the light in you ²²  is not darkness.

Roma 11:7-10

11:7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was diligently seeking, but the elect obtained it. The ²³  rest were hardened, 11:8 as it is written,

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,

eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear,

to this very day.” ²⁴ 

11:9 And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and trap,

a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

11:10 let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see,

and make their backs bend continually.” ²⁵ 

Roma 11:2

11:2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew! Do you not know what the scripture says about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

Roma 2:10

2:10 but ²⁶  glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, for the Jew first and also the Greek.

Roma 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ²⁷ Therefore ²⁸  you are without excuse, ²⁹  whoever you are, ³⁰  when you judge someone else. ³¹  For on whatever grounds ³²  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

Yohanes 2:11

2:11 Jesus did this as the first of his miraculous signs, ³³  in Cana ³⁴  of Galilee. In this way he revealed ³⁵  his glory, and his disciples believed in him. ³⁶ 

[3:19]  ¹ tn Or “this is the reason for God judging,” or “this is how judgment works.”

[3:19]  ² tn Grk “and men,” but in a generic sense, referring to people of both genders (as “everyone” in v. 20 makes clear).

[12:40]  ³ tn Or “closed their mind.”

[12:40]  ⁴ tn Or “their mind.”

[12:40]  ⁵ tn One could also translate στραφῶσιν (strafwsin) as “repent” or “change their ways,” but both of these terms would be subject to misinterpretation by the modern English reader. The idea is one of turning back to God, however. The words “to me” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

[12:40]  ⁶ sn A quotation from Isa 6:10.

[12:41]  ⁷ tn Grk “his”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The referent supplied here is “Christ” rather than “Jesus” because it involves what Isaiah saw. It is clear that the author presents Isaiah as having seen the preincarnate glory of Christ, which was the very revelation of the Father (see John 1:18; John 14:9).

[12:41]  sn Because he saw Christ’s glory. The glory which Isaiah saw in Isa 6:3 was the glory of Yahweh (typically rendered as “Lord” in the OT). Here John speaks of the prophet seeing the glory of Christ since in the next clause and spoke about him, “him” can hardly refer to Yahweh, but must refer to Christ. On the basis of statements like 1:14 in the prologue, the author probably put no great distinction between the two. Since the author presents Jesus as fully God (cf. John 1:1), it presents no problem to him to take words originally spoken by Isaiah of Yahweh himself and apply them to Jesus.

[29:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “a disposition [or “spirit”] of deep sleep.” Through this mixed metaphor (sleep is likened to a liquid which one pours and in turn symbolizes spiritual dullness) the prophet emphasizes that God himself has given the people over to their spiritual insensitivity as a form of judgment.

[42:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “look to see”; NAB, NCV “look and see”; NRSV “look up and see.”

[42:19]  ¹⁰ tc The precise meaning of מְשֻׁלָּם (mÿshullam) in this context is uncertain. In later biblical Hebrew the form (which appears to be a Pual participle from the root שָׁלַם, shalam) occurs as a proper name, Meshullam. The Pual of שָׁלַם (“be complete”) is attested with the meaning “repaid, requited,” but that makes little sense here. BDB 1023 s.v. שָׁלַם relates the form to the denominative verb שָׁלַם (“be at peace”) and paraphrases “one in a covenant of peace” (J. N. Oswalt suggests “the covenanted one”; Isaiah [NICOT], 2:128, n. 59) Some emend the form to מֹשְׁלָם (moshÿlam, “their ruler”) or to מְשֻׁלָּחִי (mÿshullakhi, “my sent [or “commissioned”] one”), which fits nicely in the parallelism (note “my messenger” in the previous line). The translation above assumes an emendation to כְּמוֹ שֹׁלְמִי (kÿmo sholÿmi, “like my ally”). Isaiah uses כְּמוֹ in 30:22 and perhaps 51:5; for שֹׁלְמי (“my ally”) see Ps 7:5 HT (7:4 ET).

[42:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like my messenger I send? Who is blind like my commissioned one, blind like the servant of the Lord?” The point of the rhetorical questions is that no one is as blind/deaf as this servant. In this context the Lord’s “servant” is exiled Israel (cf. 41:8-9), which is spiritually blind and deaf and has failed to fulfill God’s purpose for it. This servant stands in contrast to the ideal “Israel” of the servant songs.

[42:20]  ¹² tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has a perfect, 2nd person masculine singular; the marginal reading (Qere) has an infinitive absolute, which functions here as a finite verb.

[42:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “but you do not guard [i.e., retain in your memory]”; NIV “but have paid no attention.”

[44:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for their eyes are smeared over so they cannot see, so their heart cannot be wise.”

[6:23]  ¹⁵ tn Or “if your eye is sick” (L&N 23.149).

[6:23]  sn There may be a slight wordplay here, as this term can also mean “evil,” so the figure uses a term that points to the real meaning of being careful as to what one pays attention to or looks at.

[13:14]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “with hearing,” a cognate dative that intensifies the action of the main verb “you will listen” (ExSyn 168-69).

[13:14]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “look by looking.” The participle is redundant, functioning to intensify the force of the main verb.

[13:15]  ¹⁸ sn A quotation from Isa 6:9-10. Thus parables both conceal or reveal depending on whether one is open to hearing what they teach.

[11:34]  ¹⁹ tn Or “sound” (so L&N 23.132 and most scholars). A few scholars take this word to mean something like “generous” here (L&N 57.107), partly due to the immediate context of this saying in Matt 6:22 which concerns money, in which case the “eye” is a metonymy for the entire person (“if you are generous”).

[11:34]  ²⁰ tn Or “when it is sick” (L&N 23.149).

[11:34]  sn There may be a slight wordplay here, as this term can also mean “evil,” so the figure uses a term that points to the real meaning of being careful as to what one pays attention to or looks at.

[11:35]  ²¹ tn This is a present imperative, calling for a constant watch (L&N 24.32; ExSyn 721).

[11:35]  ²² sn Here you is a singular pronoun, individualizing the application.

[11:7]  ²³ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[11:8]  ²⁴ sn A quotation from Deut 29:4; Isa 29:10.

[11:10]  ²⁵ sn A quotation from Ps 69:22-23.

[2:10]  ²⁶ tn Grk “but even,” to emphasize the contrast. The second word has been omitted since it is somewhat redundant in English idiom.

[2:1]  ²⁷ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ²⁸ tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ²⁹ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ³⁰ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ³¹ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ³² tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[2:11]  ³³ tn This sentence in Greek involves an object-complement construction. The force can be either “Jesus did this as,” or possibly “Jesus made this to be.” The latter translation accents not only Jesus’ power but his sovereignty too. Cf. also 4:54 where the same construction occurs.

[2:11]  ³⁴ map For location see Map1 C3; Map2 D2; Map3 C5.

[2:11]  ³⁵ tn Grk “in Cana of Galilee, and he revealed.”

[2:11]  ³⁶ tn Or “his disciples trusted in him,” or “his disciples put their faith in him.”