Kejadian 18:1

Three Special Visitors

18:1 The Lord appeared to Abraham ¹  by the oaks ²  of Mamre while ³  he was sitting at the entrance ⁴  to his tent during the hottest time of the day.

Ulangan 22:15

22:15 Then the father and mother of the young woman must produce the evidence of virginity ⁵  for the elders of the city at the gate.

Ulangan 25:7

25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ⁶  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!”

Yosua 20:4

20:4 The one who committed manslaughter ⁷  should escape to one of these cities, stand at the entrance of the city gate, and present his case to the leaders of that city. ⁸  They should then bring him into the city, give him a place to stay, and let him live there. ⁹ 

Rut 4:11

4:11 All the people who were at the gate and the elders replied, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is entering your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the house of Israel! May ¹⁰  you prosper ¹¹  in Ephrathah and become famous ¹²  in Bethlehem. ¹³ 

Rut 4:2

4:2 Boaz chose ten of the village leaders ¹⁴  and said, “Sit down here!” So they sat down.

1 Samuel 15:2

15:2 Here is what the Lord of hosts says: ‘I carefully observed how the Amalekites opposed ¹⁵  Israel along the way when Israel ¹⁶  came up from Egypt.

1 Samuel 15:2

15:2 Here is what the Lord of hosts says: ‘I carefully observed how the Amalekites opposed ¹⁷  Israel along the way when Israel ¹⁸  came up from Egypt.

1 Raja-raja 15:1

Abijah’s Reign over Judah

15:1 In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijah ¹⁹  became king over Judah.

Mazmur 127:5

127:5 How blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!

They will not be put to shame ²⁰  when they confront ²¹  enemies at the city gate.

Amsal 31:23

31:23 Her husband is well-known ²²  in the city gate ²³ 

when he sits with the elders ²⁴  of the land.

Yeremia 26:10

26:10 However, some of the officials ²⁵  of Judah heard about what was happening ²⁶  and they rushed up to the Lord’s temple from the royal palace. They set up court ²⁷  at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s temple. ²⁸ 

Yeremia 36:10

36:10 At that time Baruch went into the temple of the Lord. He stood in the entrance of the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan who had been the royal secretary. ²⁹  That room was in the upper court ³⁰  near the entrance of the New Gate. ³¹  There, where all the people could hear him, he read from the scroll what Jeremiah had said. ³² 

[18:1]  ¹ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:1]  ² tn Or “terebinths.”

[18:1]  ³ tn The disjunctive clause here is circumstantial to the main clause.

[18:1]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew noun translated “entrance” is an adverbial accusative of place.

[22:15]  ⁵ sn In light of v. 17 this would evidently be blood-stained sheets indicative of the first instance of intercourse. See E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC), 302-3.

[25:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister in law.” In the second instance the pronoun (“she”) has been used in the translation to avoid redundancy.

[20:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the one who accidentally kills another, cf. v. 2) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “and speak into the ears of the elders of that city his words.”

[20:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “and they should gather him into the city to themselves, give to him a place, and he will live with them.”

[4:11]  ¹⁰ tn Following the jussive, the imperative with prefixed vav indicates purpose or result.

[4:11]  ¹¹ tn The phrase וַעֲשֵׂה־חַיִל (va’aseh-khayil, literally, “do strength”) has been variously translated: (1) financial prosperity: “may you become rich” (TEV), “may you be a rich man” (CEV), “may you achieve wealth” (NASB), “may you prosper” (NKJV, NJPS); (2) social prominence: “may you become powerful” (NCV), “may you have standing” (NIV), “may you be great” (NLT), “may you do well” (NAB); (3) reproductive fertility: “may you produce children” (NRSV); and (4) social activity: “may you do a worthy deed” (REB).

[4:11]  ¹² tc Heb “and call a name.” This statement appears to be elliptical. Usually the person named and the name itself follow this expression. Perhaps וּקְרָא־שֵׁם (uqÿra’-shem) should be emended to וְיִקָּרֵא־שֵׁם (vÿyiqqare’-shem), “and your name will be called out,” that is, “perpetuated” (see Gen 48:16, cf. also Ruth 4:14b). The omission of the suffix with “name” could be explained as virtual haplography (note the letter bet [ב], which is similar to kaf [כ], at the beginning of the next word). The same explanation could account for the omission of the prefixed yod (י) on the verb “call” (yod [י] and vav [ו] are similar in appearance). Whether one reads the imperative (the form in the MT) or the jussive (the emended form), the construction indicates purpose or result following the earlier jussive “may he make.”

[4:11]  ¹³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[4:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he took ten men from the elders of the town.”

[15:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “what Amalek did to Israel, how he placed against him.”

[15:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Israel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “what Amalek did to Israel, how he placed against him.”

[15:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Israel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:1]  ¹⁹ tc The Old Greek also has the phrase “the son of Rehoboam.”

[127:5]  ²⁰ tn Being “put to shame” is here metonymic for being defeated, probably in a legal context, as the reference to the city gate suggests. One could be humiliated (Ps 69:12) or deprived of justice (Amos 5:12) at the gate, but with strong sons to defend the family interests this was less likely to happen.

[127:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “speak with.”

[31:23]  ²² tn The first word of the fourteenth line begins with נ (nun), the fourteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The form is the Niphal participle of יָדַע (yada’); it means that her husband is “known.” The point is that he is a prominent person, respected in the community.

[31:23]  ²³ tn Heb “gate”; the term “city” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[31:23]  sn The “gate” was the area inside the entrance to the city, usually made with rooms at each side of the main street where there would be seats for the elders. This was the place of assembly for the elders who had judicial responsibilities.

[31:23]  ²⁴ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition and a pronominal suffix that serves as the subject (subjective genitive) to form a temporal clause. The fact that he “sits with the elders” means he is one of the elders; he sits as a judge among the people.

[26:10]  ²⁵ sn These officials of Judah were officials from the royal court. They may have included some of the officials mentioned in Jer 36:12-25. They would have been concerned about any possible “illegal” proceedings going on in the temple.

[26:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “these things.”

[26:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they sat” or “they took their seats.” However, the context is one of judicial trial.

[26:10]  sn The gateway or gate complex of an ancient Near Eastern city was often used for court assemblies (cf. Deut 21:19; 22:15; Ruth 4:1; Isa 29:21). Here the gate of the temple was used for the convening of a court to try Jeremiah for the charge of being a false prophet.

[26:10]  ²⁸ tn The translation follows many Hebrew mss and ancient versions in reading the word “house” (= temple) here. The majority of Hebrew mss do not have this word. It is, however, implicit in the construction “the New Gate of the Lord.”

[26:10]  sn The location of the New Gate is uncertain. It is mentioned again in Jer 36:10 where it is connected with the upper (i.e., inner) court of the temple. Some equate it with the Upper Gate that Jotham rebuilt during his reign (2 Kgs 15:35; Jotham reigned from 750-735 b.c.). That gate, however, has already been referred to as the Upper Gate of Benjamin in Jer 20:2 (for more detail see the study note there) and would not likely have been called something different here.

[36:10]  ²⁹ sn Shaphan had been the royal secretary under Jehoiakim’s father’s rule. During the course of his official duties the book of the law had been discovered and he had read it and reported its contents to Josiah who instituted sweeping reforms on the basis of his obedience to it. (See 2 Kgs 22 and note especially vv. 3, 8, 10.) If the Shaphan mentioned in 26:14 is the same person as this, Gemariah would have been the brother of the man who spoke up on Jeremiah’s behalf when the priests and prophets sought to have him killed.

[36:10]  ³⁰ sn It is generally agreed that this is the same as the inner court mentioned in 1 Kgs 6:36; 7:12. It is called “upper” here because it stood above (cf. 1 Kgs 7:12) the outer court where all the people were standing.

[36:10]  ³¹ sn The New Gate is the same gate where Jeremiah had been accused of falsely claiming the Lord’s authority for his “treasonous” prophecies according to 26:10-11. See the study note on 26:10 for more details about the location of this gate.

[36:10]  ³² tn The syntax of the original is complicated due to all the qualifying terms: Heb “And Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord in (i.e., in the entrance of) the room of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe in the upper court at the entrance of the New Gate in the house of the Lord in the ears of all the people.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to contain all the same information in shorter English sentences that better conform with contemporary English style.