³ tn Grk “but having no charge worthy of death or imprisonment.” BDAG 273-74 s.v. ἔγκλημα 1 has “legal t.t.…ἔ. ἄξιον θανάτου ἢ δεσμῶν a charge deserving death or imprisonment 23:29.”

⁴ sn Those who keep Jesus’ words will not see death because they have already passed from death to life (cf. 5:24). In Johannine theology eternal life begins in the present rather than in the world to come.

³ tn Heb “Let us die there.” The words “at least” and “fighting” are intended to bring out the contrast of passive surrender to death in the open country and active resistance to the death implicit in the context.

¹ sn The image of the Lord “swallowing” death would be especially powerful, for death was viewed in Canaanite mythology and culture as a hungry enemy that swallows its victims. See the note at 5:14.

⁷ tn The article prefixed to הַמָּוֶת (hammavet, “death”) probably functions in an indefinite possessive sense or in a generic sense: “one’s death,” e.g., Gen 44:2 (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 19, §86, §92).

² sn Countless generations of people have gone into the world below; yet “death” is never satisfied—it always takes more. The line personifies Death and Destruction. It forms the emblem in the parallelism.

² tn Heb “death will shepherd them,” that is, death itself (personified here as a shepherd) will lead them like a flock of helpless, unsuspecting sheep to Sheol, the underworld, the land of the dead.

³ sn This is a reference to death, the king of all terrors. Other identifications are made in the commentaries: Mot, the Ugaritic god of death; Nergal of the Babylonians; Molech of the Canaanites, the one to whom people sent emissaries.

³ sn Death is separation from the living, from the land of the living. And ignorance of what goes on in this life, good or bad, is part of death. See also Eccl 9:5-6, which makes a similar point.

¹ tc Instead of the MT’s “fields of grain offerings” the Lucianic recension of the LXX reads “your high places are mountains of death.” Cf. the Old Latin montes mortis (“mountains of death”).

² tn Heb “and,” but here the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is adversative, contrasting the consequences of beating an animal to death with those of beating a person to death.

¹ tn Grk “there is a necessity for the death of the one who made it to be proven.”

² tn Grk “and there was found in/for me the commandment which was for life—this was for death.”

³ sn Despite the official assessment that no charge against him deserved death or imprisonment, there was no effort to release Paul.

¹ sn The phrase over Stephen means in connection with Stephen’s death. See Acts 8:1b-3.

³ tn Grk “the sleep of slumber”; this is a redundant expression to emphasize physical sleep as opposed to death.

¹ sn Jesus’ death has been determined as a part of God’s plan (Acts 2:22-24).

¹ sn Jesus was stressing that all stand at risk of death, if they do not repent and receive life.

¹ sn Jesus’ point repeats v. 3. The circumstances make no difference. All must deal with the reality of what death means.

¹ tn Or “and the power of death” (taking the reference to the gates of Hades as a metonymy).