Colossians 1:1

1 Παῦλος ἀπόστολος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ διὰ θελήματος θεοῦ καὶ Τιμόθεος ὁ ἀδελφὸς

Παῦλος -  noun Nom sing. masc.   "Paul" (nominative absolute  aka. Independent Nominative)

ἀπόστολος -noun  nom sing. masc.  (simple apposition) "an apostle"

Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ - noun Genitive sing. masc.  2x  "of Christ Jesus"  (genitive of possession)

διὰ  -  prep. with the genative ③ marker of instrumentality or circumstance whereby someth. is accomplished or effected, by, via, through^[1]ⓓ of efficient cause via, "through"

θελήματος - noun Genitive sing. neuter  "desire, wish" (genitive after the prep.)

θεοῦ- noun genitive sing. masc. "of God" (subjective genitive)

καὶ -  conj. "and"  (copulative)

Τιμόθεος - Noun nom. sing. masc.  "Timothy" (nominative absolute)

ὁ ἀδελφὸς  - noun nom. sing. masc.  with the definite article  "the brother"  (simple apposition)

Translation- "Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God and Timothy the brother."

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^[1] Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed.) (224). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Psalm 1:2b

Matthew 5:3

Matthew 5:3 Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι,
ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.



Μακάριοι adj nominative plural. "blessed, happy" I decided to use the word blessed in my translation because I feel that this term often has a specialized usage in the New Testament(and in this context).. where God is the agent of blessing and the applicable human is the recipient of the blessing from the agent of blessing (God). Happy just seemed to weak of a word to use in this instance and could very very easily lead to a misunderstanding of what Jesus was saying. It is interesting to notice the parallel between Makapios and the use of Blessed in the Hebrew Old Testament (even in the Psalm I have been translating).
I'm going to classify this as a adjective used substantively. I'm going to put the being verb in my translation for fluidity in English.

here are some additional notes I saw on the word.
The special feature of the group μακάριος, μακαρίζειν, μακαρισμός in the NT is that it refers overwhelmingly to the distinctive religious joy which accrues to man from his share in the salvation of the kingdom of God. Thus the verb μακαρίζειν, which occurs only twice in the NT, is used in Lk. 1:48 of the blessing of the mother of the Messiah by all generations (Lk. 11:27), and in Jm. 5:11 of the righteous who endure (ὑπομείναντας). The noun μακαρισμός is found only 3 times, at Gl. 4:15 for the blessedness of receiving the message of salvation, and at R. 4:6, 9 with reference to the remission of sins. In both passages it is used almost technically by Paul. μακάριος is very common in the NT, and it is used almost always in direct beatitudes.40 As in the Gk. world and the OT the reference is to persons. Only occasionally is it to things, e.g., individual members of the body (Mt. 13:16: ὀφθαλμοί, ὦτα; Lk. 11:27: κοιλία, μαστοί).

Here is an interesting not on the paradoxical nature of the Blessings stated in Matthew. This parodixical nature is one of the features of the statements that really causes them to stand out and draw our attention to the statements being made.

Thus the NT beatitudes often contain sacred paradoxes (Mt. 5:3 ff.; Lk. 6:20–22; 1 Pt. 3:14; 4:14; Rev. 14:13). This is particularly true of the striking beatitudes which obviously formed the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount in the very earliest tradition. In the impressive form of beatitudes basic statements are here made about those who may regard themselves as citizens of the kingdom of God. The power of the statements lies in their reversal of all human values. In Lk. the beatitudes consist more of eschatological consolation. Men in certain circumstances, the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, are promised the blessings of the kingdom of God. In Mt. the factor of their own moral and religious conduct is more prominent, and the connection between right conduct and heavenly recompense is emphasised.

. Vol. 4: Theological dictionary of the New Testament. 1964- (G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (368). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.



οἱ πτωχοὶ nominative plural (nominative predicate) 1. poor, beggarly, destitute

2. of little value, relatively worthless


τῷ πνεύματι noun dative singular "in the spirit"





here is an important not on the Greek idiom that is present in the text here

88.57 πτωχὸς τῷ πνεύματι: (an idiom, literally ‘poor in spirit’) pertaining to one who is humble with regard to his own capacities (in the one NT occurrence, namely, Mt 5:3, this humility is in relationship to God)—‘to be humble.’ μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι ‘happy are those who are humble before God’ Mt 5:3. A literal translation of πτωχὸς τῷ πνεύματι may lead to serious misunderstanding, since ‘poor in spirit’ is likely to mean either ‘lacking in the Holy Spirit’ or ‘lacking in ambition or drive.’ In order to indicate clearly that this poverty or need is related in some way to spiritual realities, one may translate ‘happy are those who recognize their need of God.’

Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (748). New York: United Bible Societies.


The fact that this is a Greek idiom makes this a difficult potion to translate. I'm not sure if i like just translating it "poor in spirit", because this is pretty hard to understand and again easy to misinterpret. I think I am going to go with "spiritually destitute" I think this translation preserves the meaning of the Greek idiom and also fits well with the contrast between poverty (spiritually) now and the Kingdom that these poor will inherit. I like the word destitute because it seems to emphasize the needy the man is without the false negative connotations that other words might be misunderstood to be saying.

So here is my translation of the first half of the verse
wooden - blessed ones (are) the poor in the spirit.
my final translation- "Blessed are the spiritually destitute"

ὅτι - conjunction "for"

αὐτῶν- personal pronoun 3rd person plural genitive masculine "of them" I'm thinking this is the predicate use of the genitive case

ἐστιν - present active indicative third person singular from the being verb εἰμί

ἡ βασιλεία noun nominative singular femin. "the kingdom" (nominative predicate)

τῶν οὐρανῶν noun genitive plural masculine "of the heavens" (Subjective Genitive)

wooden translation- 'blessed ones (are) the poor in spirit, for of them is the kingdom of the heavens."

Final translation "Blessed are the spiritually destitute, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"

I really didn't like just leaving it "theirs is the kingdom..., but I didn't want to add any extra words to try to make it sound smother and make the verse potentially say more than it does in the Greek"

Psalm 1:2a

כִּי אִמ בְּתֹורַת יְהוָה חֶפְצֹו וּבְתֹורָתֹו יֶהְגֶּה יֹוםָם וָלָיְלָה

כִּי אִמ- After a neg. but is expressed by כִּי אִם, Gen. 32:29 לֹא יַֽעֲקֹב ··· כִּי אִם יִשְׂרָאֵל not Jacob but Israel. 1 S. 21:5, 2 K. 23:9, Jer. 16:14, 15. Or simply by כִּי, Gen. 45:8 לֹא אַתֶּם שְׁלַחְתֶּם כִּי א׳ it is not you who sent but God. 1 K. 21:15, 2 Chr. 20:15.

The two conjunctions go together here, after the negatives in the first verse to contrast with the statement about to be made in verse 2

בְּתֹורַת יְהוָה - in the Torah of God. Prefixed prep בְּ "in" (location) - the noun Torah is made definite by the definiteness of "YHWH" . Torah could be translated "law or instruction".. but I think it is a specialized term that may be best translated (at least for my purposes) as Torah. I'm going to label this construct pair as either a subjective genitive or as a possessive genitive. I wasn't sure which to chose... they both made sense to me.

חֶפְצֹו- noun singular "delight, joy, pleasure" - with a pronominal suffix attached to the end (3ms suffix) "his"... I'm going to add the word "is" here in my english translation so it makes a little more sense and flows a little better. So it goes from "but in the Torah of YHWH his pleasure" to (after a little moving around) "but his pleasure is in the Torah of YHWH". I'm not sure if I will move the translation around this way or if I will leave it closer to the way the Hebrew has it structured. The Psalms seems to emphasis the importance of God's Torah and I kind of think that perhaps the phrase "in the Torah of YHWH is placed in the beginning of the phrase in order to draw attention to the phrase. So I may translate it "But in the Torah of YHWH is his joy" I am also not sure which word I will use for חֶפְצֹ "joy, pleasure, or delight" Right now I am leaning toward either delight or joy."

I heard a great illustration from my Greek professor from Moody just last week. He was discussing the practice in Greek (but it also happens in Hebrew) of placing a word out of the normal order for the purpose of drawing attention to the word. He said (not an exact quote), "Suppose you were coming over to my house for a visit and I had just purchased a lovely new chair for my living room that I wanted you to complement me on. During your whole visit you did not even once comment on my new chair. The next time you come for a visit I place the chair in a new spot, so that perhaps you will comment on it during your second visit. This time, when you visit, I place the chair on top of my kitchen table. Will you miss it this time?"

More notes on Psalm 1:1

אַשְׁרֵי־הָאִישׁ* אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים לֹא עָמָד וּבְמֹושַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָׁב

A. Here are some figures of speech used in this first verse of Psalm 1.

1. I already made reference to the apparent degregation of the action in the first verse... it goes from walk to stand to sitting. An argument has also been made by some (EW Bullinger in his book "Figures of Speech used in the Bible" pg 429) that this form of Anabasis (aka. Gradual Ascent) is also used in the character of the evil people described. Here is what he wrote, "The first are impious, as to their mind. The second are sinners, who not only think, but carry out the workings of their evil minds. The third are scorners, glorying in their wickedness and scoffing at righteousness."

2. Enantiosis (aka. Contraries) Enantiosis is similiar to antithesis, where two thoughts are placed in contrast to each other in order to make the contrast more striking and to emphasize it. Enantiosis is used when negative and affirmations are used in contrast. In this case the negative in verse one is used in contrast to the affirmation in verse two.. to further instruct us how to live a righteous men and women.

B. I am taking the prefixed preposition בְ in the locative sense meaning in/on.

C. The nouns that are in construct do not have definite articles prefixed to them in any part of the construct chains. I listened to my friend Marty talk about this in the Hebrew class that he taught (second term class 2 part 1 located here for download). His discussion interested me so much I had to stop the class and look up the use of definite articles in construct chains in Waltke and Oconnor's book "Biblical Hebrew Syntax". They noted that in poetic writtings the definite article does not appear at times when it is expected... and grammatically should appear. I am guessing that is what is happening here.

Applications

1. I want the blessing of the Lord.

2. Bad company corrupts good morals. Be careful who and what I allow to be in the sphere of where I walk, stand and sit (both literally and figuratively). When I can't avoid being in the presence of evil men, scoffers, etc... make sure i am not allowing them to be my influence.

3. Moral degradation is a path.. a slippery slope. Once you start down it, it leads further down.

אַ֥שְֽׁרֵי־הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר׀ לֹ֥א הָלַךְ֮ בַּעֲצַ֪ת רְשָׁ֫עִ֥ים וּבְדֶ֣רֶךְ חַ֭טָּאִים לֹ֥א עָמָ֑ד וּבְמוֹשַׁ֥ב לֵ֝צִ֗ים לֹ֣א יָשָֽׁב׃

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Psalm 1:1b

וּבְדֶ֣רֶךְ חַ֭טָּאִים לֹ֥א עָמָ֑ד וּבְמוֹשַׁ֥ב לֵ֝צִ֗ים לֹ֣א יָשָֽׁב׃

וּבְדֶ֣רֶךְ- conjunction "and" - prefixed prep "in" - "way, path, route, road, highway", i.e., a thoroughfare to physically get from one place to another (Ge 16:7), note: context will provide the size of the pathway, ranging from a narrow path to a major thoroughfare

Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

This word is in construct with the word that follows.. thus allowing it to have definiteness

חַ֭טָּאִים noun masc plural "sinner, wicked person", i.e., a class of persons that offend a standard, and so incur moral guilt (Ge 13:13; Nu 17:3[EB 16:38]; 1Sa 15:18; Ps 1:1, 5; 25:8; 26:9; 51:15[EB 13]; 104:35; Pr 1:10; 13:21; 23:17; Isa 1:28; 13:9; 33:14; Am 9:10+)

Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

At my first glance of this form, I made a rookie mistake in my head... I mistook the חַ֭ for a הַ and didn't realize until I looked it up which guttural it really was. It was part of the root and not a prefixed definite article.

לֹ֥א - "no, not"

עָמָ֑ד - verb perfect 3MS "he (does not) stand"

וּבְמוֹשַׁ֥ב conj. "and' - Prefixed prep. in - noun masc singular..

"dwelling, settlement", i.e., a place to live (Ge 10:30); 2. LN 80.1–80.4 place, site, i.e., a location (1Sa 20:25; Eze 8:3); 3. LN 6.106–6.117 "seat", i.e., a place where one sits (1Sa 20:18, 25; 1Ki 10:5); 4. LN 6.106–6.117 throne, i.e., a chair of a king, as a representation of his power (Eze 28:2); 5. LN 67.142–67.162 time interval, i.e., an indefinite period of time (Ex 12:40); 6. LN 63.13–63.20 household members, i.e., those who dwell in residence, who are part of a larger whole (2Sa 9:12); 7. LN 11.12–11.54 unit: מֹושָׁב זָקֵן (mô∙šāḇ zā∙qēn)2 council member, i.e., a ruling socio-religious ruling group (Ps 107:32), note: for NIV text in Eze 37:23, see 5412; 8. LN 7.2–7.25 unit: בַּיִת מֹושָׁב (bǎ∙yiṯ mô∙šāḇ) house, formally, house of dwelling, i.e., a construction where one lives (Lev 25:29)

Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

This noun is in construct with the participle that follows thus giving it definiteness.

לֵ֝צִ֗ים - verb qal participle masc plural "the ones who mock"

mock, scorn, formally, talk big, i.e., speak words which show no respect for the object, and make fun of the object, with a possible focus of speaking in the situation with confidence and authority (Pr 9:12+); (polel ptcp.) scorner (Hos 7:5+), note: for another parsing, see 4372.5; (hif) mock (Ps 119:51; Pr 3:34; 14:9; 19:28+),

Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

לֹ֣א - "no, not"

יָשָֽׁב - Verb qal perf. 3MS "he (does not) sit.

I didn't really want to change the word order of the Hebrew verbs in my translation so I offer the translation in 2 forms. One has a few words adjusted (to make sense in English), the the verbs appear in the sequence they are in the Hebrew text... and the second is in smother English.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the advice of the wicked, and in the path of sinners he does not stand, and in the seat of mockers he does not sit." (verb order kept)

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the advice of the wicked, and does not stand in the path of sinners, and does not sit in the seat of mockers" (a little bit smother, with verb order changed and the word he not repeated)

note-- I could not decide whether to translate the second phrase "in the path" or "on the path". On the path makes more sense in English, but in the path assists in capturing the Hebrew parallelism (plus the same prefixed preposition is used in all three phrases in Hebrew... so I thought that I would try to keep it consistent in my English translation

note-- a lot of translations use the word "scoffers" in this verse, but that's not a word I use much in real life, so I went with "mockers" ... Scoffers just didn't make the cut in the JCV- Joel Conley Version... hey it's my translation, so don't mock me :-)