³ tn Or “increases.”

⁴ tn Heb “will increase.”

² tn Heb “increase of herds.”

² tn Aram “May your peace increase!”

² tn Grk “the people increased and multiplied.”

¹ tn Aram “May your peace be increased!”

² tn Heb “the strong will not increase his strength.”

⁵ tn Heb “He increased in Daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.”

⁴ tn Heb “and all the increase of your house.”

³ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

² sn The request of the apostles, “Increase our faith,” is not a request for a gift of faith, but a request to increase the depth of their faith.

¹ tn Or “kept increasing.” The imperfect tense suggests something of a progressive force to the verb.

¹ tn The verb רָבָה (ravah), which is repeated twice in this line, means “to increase.” The first occurrence here is usually taken to mean that when the wicked increase they hold the power (cf. NRSV, NLT “are in authority”; TEV, CEV “are in power”). The text does not explain the details, only that when the wicked increase sin will increase in the land.

² tn Heb “the ones who are always at ease [who] increase wealth.”

² tn Grk “through them.” The implication is that through inheriting and acting on these promises the believers will increasingly become partakers of the divine nature.

¹ sn Greediness refers to an increasing desire for more and more. The point is that sinful passions and desires are never satisfied.

² tn Heb “increases.” The verb means that he grows even more wealthy. This is a paradox: Generosity determines prosperity in God’s economy.

⁵ tn Heb “the horn,” here a metaphor for power or strength. Cf. NCV “make his appointed king strong”; NLT “increases the might of his anointed one.”

³ sn Continually increasing. There are evidently degrees of ownership of these qualities, implying degrees of productivity in one’s intimacy with Christ. An idiomatic rendering of the first part of v. 8 would be “For if you can claim ownership of these virtues in progressively increasing amounts…”

¹ tn The verb אַלֵּף (ʾallef) has the meaning of “to teach; to instruct,” but it is unlikely that the idea of revealing is intended. If the verb is understood metonymically, then “to inspire; to prompt” will be sufficient. Dahood and others find another root, and render the verb “to increase,” reversing subject and object: “your mouth increases your iniquity.”