Amsal 12:17

12:17 The faithful witness ¹  tells what is right, ² 

but a false witness ³  speaks ⁴  deceit.

Amsal 19:5

19:5 A false witness ⁵  will not go unpunished,

and the one who spouts out ⁶  lies will not escape punishment. ⁷ 

Amsal 19:9

19:9 A false witness will not go unpunished,

and the one who spouts out ⁸  lies will perish. ⁹ 

Amsal 25:18

25:18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow, ¹⁰ 

so is the one who testifies against ¹¹  his neighbor as a false witness. ¹² 

Keluaran 20:16

20:16 “You shall not give ¹³  false testimony ¹⁴  against your neighbor.

Keluaran 23:1

Justice

23:1 ¹⁵ “You must not give ¹⁶  a false report. ¹⁷  Do not make common cause ¹⁸  with the wicked ¹⁹  to be a malicious ²⁰  witness.

Ulangan 19:16-20

19:16 If a false ²¹  witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime, ²²  19:17 then both parties to the controversy must stand before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges ²³  who will be in office in those days. 19:18 The judges will thoroughly investigate the matter, and if the witness should prove to be false and to have given false testimony against the accused, ²⁴  19:19 you must do to him what he had intended to do to the accused. In this way you will purge ²⁵  evil from among you. 19:20 The rest of the people will hear and become afraid to keep doing such evil among you.

Ulangan 19:1

Laws Concerning Manslaughter

19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he ²⁶  is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses,

Kisah Para Rasul 21:10-15

21:10 While we remained there for a number of days, ²⁷  a prophet named Agabus ²⁸  came down from Judea. 21:11 He came ²⁹  to us, took ³⁰  Paul’s belt, ³¹  tied ³²  his own hands and feet with it, ³³  and said, “The Holy Spirit says this: ‘This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will tie up the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over ³⁴  to the Gentiles.’” 21:12 When we heard this, both we and the local people ³⁵  begged him not to go up to Jerusalem. 21:13 Then Paul replied, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking ³⁶  my heart? For I am ready not only to be tied up, ³⁷  but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 21:14 Because he could not be persuaded, ³⁸  we said no more except, ³⁹  “The Lord’s will be done.” ⁴⁰ 

21:15 After these days we got ready ⁴¹  and started up ⁴²  to Jerusalem.

Mazmur 27:12

27:12 Do not turn me over to my enemies, ⁴³ 

for false witnesses who want to destroy me testify against me. ⁴⁴ 

Mazmur 35:11

35:11 Violent men perjure themselves, ⁴⁵ 

and falsely accuse me. ⁴⁶ 

Matius 15:19

15:19 For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Matius 26:59

26:59 The ⁴⁷  chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were trying to find false testimony against Jesus so that they could put him to death.

Kisah Para Rasul 6:13

6:13 They brought forward false witnesses who said, “This man does not stop saying things against this holy place ⁴⁸  and the law. ⁴⁹ 

[12:17]  ¹ tn The text has “he pours out faithfully”; the word rendered “faithfully” or “reliably” (אֱמוּנָה, ’emunah) is used frequently for giving testimony in court, and so here the subject matter is the reliable witness.

[12:17]  ² tn Heb “righteousness.”

[12:17]  ³ tn Heb “witness of falsehoods.” The genitive noun functions attributively, and the plural form depicts habitual action or moral characteristic. This describes a person who habitually lies. A false witness cannot be counted on to help the cause of justice.

[12:17]  ⁴ tn The term “speaks” does not appear in this line but is implied by the parallelism; it is supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness.

[19:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “a witness of lies.” This expression is an attributive genitive: “a lying witness” (cf. CEV “dishonest witnesses”). This is paralleled by “the one who pours out lies.”

[19:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”

[19:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “will not escape” (so NAB, NASB); NIV “will not go free.” Here “punishment” is implied, and has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  sn This proverb is a general statement, because on occasion there are false witnesses who go unpunished in this life (e.g., Prov 6:19; 14:5, 25; 19:9). The Talmud affirms, “False witnesses are contemptible even to those who hire them” (b. Sanhedrin 29b).

[19:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”

[19:9]  ⁹ sn The verse is the same as v. 5, except that the last word changes to the verb “will perish” (cf. NCV “will die”; CEV, NLT “will be destroyed”; TEV “is doomed”).

[25:18]  ¹⁰ sn The first line identifies the emblem of the proverb: False witnesses are here compared to deadly weapons because they can cause the death of innocent people (e.g., Exod 20:16; Deut 5:20; and Prov 14:5).

[25:18]  ¹¹ tn The verb עָנָה (’anah) followed by the preposition בְּ (bet) with its object means “to testify against” (answer against someone). With the preposition לְ (lamed) it would mean “to testify for” someone. Here the false witness is an adversary, hence the comparison with deadly weapons.

[25:18]  ¹² tn While עֵד (’ed) could be interpreted as “evidence” (a meaning that came from a metonymy – what the witness gives in court), its normal meaning is “witness.” Here it would function as an adverbial accusative, specifying how he would answer in court.

[20:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “answer” as in a court of law.

[20:16]  ¹⁴ tn The expression עֵד שָׁקֶר (’ed shaqer) means “a lying witness” (B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 388). In this verse the noun is an adverbial accusative, “you will not answer as a lying witness.” The prohibition is against perjury. While the precise reference would be to legal proceedings, the law probably had a broader application to lying about other people in general (see Lev 5:1; Hos 4:2).

[23:1]  ¹⁵ sn People who claim to worship and serve the righteous judge of the universe must preserve equity and justice in their dealings with others. These verses teach that God’s people must be honest witnesses (1-3); God’s people must be righteous even with enemies (4-5); and God’s people must be fair in dispensing justice (6-9).

[23:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “take up, lift, carry” (נָשָׂא, nasa’). This verb was also used in the prohibition against taking “the name of Yahweh in vain.” Sometimes the object of this verb is physical, as in Jonah 1:12 and 15. Used in this prohibition involving speech, it covers both originating and repeating a lie.

[23:1]  ¹⁷ tn Or “a groundless report” (see Exod 20:7 for the word שָׁוְא, shav’).

[23:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “do not put your hand” (cf. KJV, ASV); NASB “join your hand.”

[23:1]  ¹⁹ tn The word “wicked” (רָשָׁע, rasha’) refers to the guilty criminal, the person who is doing something wrong. In the religious setting it describes the person who is not a member of the covenant and may be involved in all kinds of sin, even though there is the appearance of moral and spiritual stability.

[23:1]  ²⁰ tn The word חָמָס (khamas) often means “violence” in the sense of social injustices done to other people, usually the poor and needy. A “malicious” witness would do great harm to others. See J. W. McKay, “Exodus 23:1-43, 6-8: A Decalogue for Administration of Justice in the City Gate,” VT 21 (1971): 311-25.

[19:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “violent” (חָמָס, khamas). This is a witness whose motivation from the beginning is to do harm to the accused and who, therefore, resorts to calumny and deceit. See I. Swart and C. VanDam, NIDOTTE 2:177-80.

[19:16]  ²² tn Or “rebellion.” Rebellion against God’s law is in view (cf. NAB “of a defection from the law”).

[19:17]  ²³ tn The appositional construction (“before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges”) indicates that these human agents represented the Lord himself, that is, they stood in his place (cf. Deut 16:18-20; 17:8-9).

[19:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “his brother” (also in the following verse).

[19:19]  ²⁵ tn Heb “you will burn out” (בִּעַרְתָּ, bi’arta). Like a cancer, unavenged sin would infect the whole community. It must, therefore, be excised by the purging out of its perpetrators who, presumably, remained unrepentant (cf. Deut 13:6; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21-22, 24; 24:7).

[19:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[21:10]  ²⁷ tn BDAG 848 s.v. πολύς 1.b.α has “ἐπὶ ἡμέρας πλείους for a (large) number of days, for many days…Ac 13:31. – 21:10…24:17; 25:14; 27:20.”

[21:10]  ²⁸ sn Agabus also appeared in Acts 11:28. He was from Jerusalem, so the two churches were still in contact with one another.

[21:11]  ²⁹ tn Grk “And coming.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here. The participle ἐλθών (elqwn) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[21:11]  ³⁰ tn Grk “and taking.” 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. The participle ἄρας (aras) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[21:11]  ³¹ sn The belt was a band or sash used to keep money as well as to gird up the tunic (BDAG 431 s.v. ζώνη).

[21:11]  ³² tn The participle δήσας (dhsas) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[21:11]  ³³ tn The words “with it” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

[21:11]  ³⁴ tn Grk “and will deliver him over into the hands of” (a Semitic idiom).

[21:11]  sn The Jews…will tie up…and will hand him over. As later events will show, the Jews in Jerusalem did not personally tie Paul up and hand him over to the Gentiles, but their reaction to him was the cause of his arrest (Acts 21:27-36).

[21:12]  ³⁵ tn Or “the people there.”

[21:13]  ³⁶ tn The term translated “breaking” as used by Josephus (Ant. 10.10.4 [10.207]) means to break something into pieces, but in its only NT use (it is a hapax legomenon) it is used figuratively (BDAG 972 s.v. συνθρύπτω).

[21:13]  ³⁷ tn L&N 18.13 has “to tie objects together – ‘to tie, to tie together, to tie up.’” The verb δέω (dew) is sometimes figurative for imprisonment (L&N 37.114), but it is preferable to translate it literally here in light of v. 11 where Agabus tied himself up with Paul’s belt.

[21:14]  ³⁸ tn The participle πειθομένου (peiqomenou) in this genitive absolute construction has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.

[21:14]  ³⁹ tn Grk “we became silent, saying.”

[21:14]  ⁴⁰ sn “The Lord’s will be done.” Since no one knew exactly what would happen, the matter was left in the Lord’s hands.

[21:15]  ⁴¹ tn Or “we made preparations.”

[21:15]  ⁴² tn Grk “were going up”; the imperfect verb ἀνεβαίνομεν (anebainomen) has been translated as an ingressive imperfect.

[21:15]  sn In colloquial speech Jerusalem was always said to be “up” from any other location in Palestine. The group probably covered the 65 mi (105 km) in two days using horses. Their arrival in Jerusalem marked the end of Paul’s third missionary journey.

[27:12]  ⁴³ tn Heb “do not give me over to the desire of my enemies.”

[27:12]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “for they have risen up against me, lying witnesses and a testifier of violence.” The form יָפֵחַ (yafeakh) is traditionally understood as a verb meaning “snort, breathe out”: “for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty” (KJV; cf. BDB 422 s.v.). A better option is to take the form as a noun meaning “a witness” (or “testifier”). See Prov 6:19; 12:17; 14:5, 25; 19:5, 9, and Hab 2:3.

[35:11]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “witnesses of violence rise up.”

[35:11]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “[that] which I do not know they ask me.”

[26:59]  ⁴⁷ tn Grk “Now the.” Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[6:13]  ⁴⁸ sn This holy place is a reference to the temple.

[6:13]  ⁴⁹ sn The law refers to the law of Moses. It elaborates the nature of the blasphemy in v. 11. To speak against God’s law in Torah was to blaspheme God (Deut 28:15-19). On the Jewish view of false witnesses, see Exod 19:16-18; 20:16; m. Sanhedrin 3.6; 5.1-5. Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 may indicate why the temple was mentioned.