¹ tn Heb “May these words of mine, which I have requested before the Lord, be near the Lord our God day and night.”

¹ sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. See the note on the same term in 7:3.

² sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. See the note on the same term in 7:3.

⁵ tn The words “beside him” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. Cf. TEV “at his feet”; CEV “near his feet.”

³ tn The expression קָרַב אֶל (qarav ʾel) means “draw near to” or “approach,” but is also used as a euphemism for the intended purpose of sexual relations.

¹ sn Zin is on the southern edge of the land, but Rehob is far north, near Mount Hermon. The spies covered all the land.

¹ tn The expression קָרַב אֶל (qarav ʾel) means “draw near to” or “approach,” but is also used as a euphemism for the intended purpose of sexual relations.

² tn Heb “and he brought near to him.” The referents of the pronouns “he” and “him” (Joseph and his father respectively) have been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “until his drawing near unto his brother.” The construction uses the preposition with the infinitive construct to express a temporal clause.

² tn Heb “Bring near to me and I will eat of the wild game, my son.” Following the imperative, the cohortative with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose or result.

⁴ tn Heb “so that you may refresh yourselves, after [which] you may be on your way—for therefore you passed by near your servant.”

⁵ tn Or “on.” The preposition ἐπί (epi) with the accusative case could mean “on, at, by, near”; given the nature of this scene appearing in a vision, it is difficult to know precisely which the author of Revelation intended. See BDAG 363 s.v. ἐπί 1.c.γ, “At, by, near someone or someth.”

⁴ tn This expression is open to alternative translations: (1) It could mean that they say in the face of darkness, “Light is near.” (2) It could also mean “The light is near the darkness” or “The light is nearer than the darkness.”

¹ sn The location of Migdal Eder is not given. It appears to be somewhere between Bethlehem and Hebron. Various traditions have identified it as at the shepherds’ fields near Bethlehem (the Hebrew name Migdal Eder means “tower of the flock”; see Mic 4:8) or located it near Solomon’s pools.

¹ tn Heb “you have brought near your days.” The expression “bring near your days” appears to be an adaptation of the idiom “days draw near,” which is used to indicate that an event, such as death, is imminent (see Gen 27:41; 47:29; Deut 31:14; 1 Kgs 2:1; Ezek 12:23). Here “your days” probably refer to the days of the personified city’s life, which was about to come to an end through God’s judgment.

³ tc The MT plural “oaks” (אֵלוֹנֵי, ʾeloney) should probably be altered (with many Greek texts) to the singular “oak” (אֵלוֹן, ʾelon; cf. NRSV) in line with the only other occurrence of the phrase (Gen 12:6). The Syriac, Tg. Ps.-J. read mmrʾ, confusing this place with the “oaks of Mamre” near Hebron (Gen 13:18). Smr also appears to confuse “Moreh” with “Mamre” (reading mwrʾ, a combined form), adding the clarification mwl shkm (“near Shechem”) apparently to distinguish it from Mamre near Hebron.

² sn En route and near Damascus. This is the first retelling of Paul’s Damascus Road experience in Acts (cf. Acts 9:1-9; the second retelling is in Acts 26:9-20).

¹ tn Grk “But as the time for the fulfillment of the promise drew near that God had declared to Abraham.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged to improve English style. See vv. 6-7 above.

² sn See the note at John 6:17 for a description of the first-century fishing boat discovered in 1986 near Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

¹ tn Grk “reclining at the table.” The phrase reclining at the table reflects the normal practice in 1st century Near Eastern culture of eating a meal in a semi-reclining position.