Acts 3:25

3:25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, ¹  saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants ²  all the nations ³  of the earth will be blessed.’ ⁴ 

Acts 7:16

7:16 and their bones ⁵  were later moved to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a certain sum of money ⁶  from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

---

¹ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

² tn Or “in your offspring”; Grk “in your seed.”

sn In your descendants (Grk “in your seed”). Seed has an important ambiguity in this verse. The blessing comes from the servant (v. 26), who in turn blesses the responsive children of the covenant as the scripture promised. Jesus is the seed who blesses the seed.

³ tn Or “families.” The Greek word πατριά (patria) can indicate persons of succeeding generations who are related by birth (“lineage,” “family”) but it can also indicate a relatively large unit of people who make up a sociopolitical group and who share a presumed biological descent. In many contexts πατριά is very similar to ἔθνος (eqnos) and λαός (laos). In light of the context of the OT quotation, it is better to translate πατριά as “nations” here.

⁴ sn A quotation from Gen 22:18.

⁵ tn “and they.”

⁶ sn See Gen 49:29-32.