Yosua 1:9

1:9 I repeat, ¹  be strong and brave! Don’t be afraid and don’t panic, ²  for I, the Lord your God, am with you in all you do.” ³ 

Yosua 1:16

1:16 They told Joshua, “We will do everything you say. We will go wherever you send us.

Yudas 1:6

1:6 You also know that ⁴  the angels who did not keep within their proper domain ⁵  but abandoned their own place of residence, he has kept ⁶  in eternal chains ⁷  in utter ⁸  darkness, locked up ⁹  for the judgment of the great Day.

Yudas 1:2

1:2 May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! ¹⁰ 

1 Samuel 13:1

Saul Fails the Lord

13:1 Saul was [thirty] ¹¹  years old when he began to reign; he ruled over Israel for [forty] ¹²  years.

[1:9]  ¹ tn Heb “Have I not commanded you?” The rhetorical question emphasizes the importance of the following command by reminding the listener that it is being repeated.

[1:9]  ² tn Or perhaps, “don’t get discouraged!”

[1:9]  ³ tn Heb “in all which you go.”

[1:6]  ⁴ tn Grk “and.” Verse 6 is a continuation of the same sentence begun in v. 5. Due to the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[1:6]  ⁵ tn Grk “who did not keep their own domain.”

[1:6]  sn The idea is that certain angels acted improperly, going outside the bounds prescribed by God (their proper domain).

[1:6]  ⁶ sn There is an interesting play on words used in this verse. Because the angels did not keep their proper place, Jesus has kept them chained up in another place. The same verb keep is used in v. 1 to describe believers’ status before God and Christ.

[1:6]  ⁷ sn In 2 Pet 2:4 a less common word for chains is used.

[1:6]  ⁸ tn The word ζόφος (zofos, “utter, deepest darkness”) is used only five times in the NT: two in 2 Peter, two in Jude, and one in Hebrews. Jude 6 parallels 2 Pet 2:4; Jude 13 parallels 2 Pet 2:17.

[1:6]  ⁹ tn The words “locked up” are not in Greek, but is expressed in English as a resumptive point after the double prepositional phrase (“in eternal chains in utter darkness”).

[1:2]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”

[13:1]  ¹¹ tc The MT does not have “thirty.” A number appears to have dropped out of the Hebrew text here, since as it stands the MT (literally, “a son of a year”) must mean that Saul was only one year old when he began to reign! The KJV, attempting to resolve this, reads “Saul reigned one year,” but that is not the normal meaning of the Hebrew text represented by the MT. Although most LXX mss lack the entire verse, some Greek mss have “thirty years” here (while others have “one year” like the MT). The Syriac Peshitta has Saul’s age as twenty-one. But this seems impossible to harmonize with the implied age of Saul’s son Jonathan in the following verse. Taking into account the fact that in v. 2 Jonathan was old enough to be a military leader, some scholars prefer to supply in v. 1 the number forty (cf. ASV, NASB). The present translation (“thirty”) is a possible but admittedly uncertain proposal based on a few Greek mss and followed by a number of English versions (e.g., NIV, NCV, NLT). Other English versions simply supply ellipsis marks for the missing number (e.g., NAB, NRSV).

[13:1]  ¹² tc The MT has “two years” here. If this number is to be accepted as correct, the meaning apparently would be that after a lapse of two years at the beginning of Saul’s reign, he then went about the task of consolidating an army as described in what follows (cf. KJV, ASV, CEV). But if the statement in v. 1 is intended to be a comprehensive report on the length of Saul’s reign, the number is too small. According to Acts 13:21 Saul reigned for forty years. Some English versions (e.g., NIV, NCV, NLT), taking this forty to be a round number, add it to the “two years” of the MT and translate the number in 2 Sam 13:1 as “forty-two years.” While this is an acceptable option, the present translation instead replaces the MT’s “two” with the figure “forty.” Admittedly the textual evidence for this decision is weak, but the same can be said of any attempt to restore sense to this difficult text (note the ellipsis marks at this point in NAB, NRSV). The Syriac Peshitta lacks this part of v. 1.