¹ sn This is probably a reference to Cyprus.

¹ sn The descendants of Elishah populated Cyprus.

¹ sn Cyprus is a large island in the Mediterranean off the south coast of Asia Minor.

⁴ sn Cyprus is a large island in the Mediterranean off the south coast of Asia Minor.

³ sn Cyprus was a large island in the Mediterranean off the south coast of Asia Minor.

¹ sn Cyprus was a large island in the Mediterranean off the south coast of Asia Minor.

⁴ sn Cyprus was a large island in the Mediterranean off the south coast of Asia Minor.

² sn Paphos was a city on the southwestern coast of the island of Cyprus. See Acts 13:6.

² sn Paphos. A city on the southwestern coast of the island of Cyprus. It was the seat of the Roman proconsul.

⁴ tn Heb “the Kittim,” a designation for the people of Cyprus. See HALOT 504-05 s.v. כִּתִּיִּים.

³ sn Salamis was a city on the southeastern coast of the island of Cyprus. This was a commercial center and a center of Judaism.

² tn Heb “[to the] Kittim, get up, cross over; even there there will be no rest for you.” On “Kittim” see the note on “Cyprus” at v. 1.

³ sn The name Kittim is associated with Cyprus, as well as coastlands east of Rhodes. It is used in later texts to refer to the Romans.

³ tn Or perhaps, “Mnason of Cyprus, one of the original disciples.” BDAG 137 s.v. ἀρχαῖος 1 has “ἀ. μαθητής a disciple of long standing (perh. original disc.) Ac 21:16.”

⁵ sn The statement that some men from Cyprus and Cyrene…began to speak to the Greeks shows that Peter’s experience of reaching out to the Gentiles was not unique.

⁴ tn Grk “and Cyprus,” but 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.

³ tn Heb “from the coastlands (or islands) of Kittim,” generally understood to be a reference to the island of Cyprus, where the Phoenicians had a trading colony on the southeast coast.

² sn The Hebrew term translated Cyprus (“Kittim”) originally referred to the island of Cyprus but later was used for the lands in the west, including Macedonia (1 Macc 1:1; 8:5) and Rome (Dan 11:30). It is used here as part of a figure called merism to denote the lands in the west as opposed to Kedar, which was in the east. The figure includes polar opposites to indicate totality, i.e., everywhere from west to east.

¹ tc The MT is difficult. The Kittim refers normally to Cyprus, or any maritime people to the west. W. F. Albright proposed emending the line to “islands will gather in the north, ships from the distant sea” (“The Oracles of Balaam,” JBL 63 [1944]: 222-23). Some commentators accept that reading as the original state of the text, since the present MT makes little sense.

¹ sn The name Kittim has various designations in extra-biblical literature. It can refer to a location on the island of Cyprus, or more generally to the island itself, or it can be an inclusive term to refer to parts of the Mediterranean world that lay west of the Middle East (e.g., Rome). For ships of Kittim the Greek OT (LXX) has “Romans,” an interpretation followed by a few English versions (e.g., TEV). A number of times in the Dead Sea Scrolls the word is used in reference to the Romans. Other English versions are more generic: “[ships] of the western coastlands” (NIV, NLT); “from the west” (NCV, CEV).