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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 100

Psalm 100^[a]

A thanksgiving psalm.

100 Shout out praises to the Lord, all the earth!
²Worship^[b] the Lord with joy.
Enter his presence with joyful singing.
³Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us and we belong to him,^[c]
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
⁴Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise.
Give him thanks.
Praise his name.
⁵For the Lord is good.
His loyal love endures,^[d]
and he is faithful through all generations.^[e]

Exodus 4:27-31

²⁷The Lord said^[a] to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God^[b] and greeted him with a kiss.^[c] ²⁸Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had^[d] sent him and all the signs that he had commanded him. ²⁹Then Moses and Aaron went and brought together all the Israelite elders.^[e] ³⁰Aaron spoke^[f] all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people, ³¹and the people believed. When they heard^[g] that the Lord had attended to^[h] the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down close to the ground.^[i]

Footnotes

Exodus 4:27 tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”
Exodus 4:27 tn S. R. Driver considers that this verse is a continuation of vv. 17 and 18 and that Aaron met Moses before Moses started back to Egypt (Exodus, 33). The first verb, then, might have the nuance of a past perfect: Yahweh had said.
Exodus 4:27 tn Heb “and kissed him.”
Exodus 4:28 tn This verb and the last one in the verse are rendered with the past perfect nuance because they refer to what the Lord had done prior to Moses’ telling Aaron.
Exodus 4:29 sn These are the leaders of the tribes who represented all the people. Later, after the exodus, Moses will select the most capable of them and others to be rulers in a judicial sense (Exod 18:21).
Exodus 4:30 tn Heb “And Aaron spoke.”
Exodus 4:31 tc The LXX (Greek OT) has “and they rejoiced,” probably reading וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ (vayyism^ekhu) instead of what the MT reading, וַיִּשְׂמְעוּ (vayyism^eʿu, “and they heard”). To rejoice would have seemed a natural response of the people at the news, and the words sound similar in Hebrew.tn The form is the preterite with the vav consecutive, “and they heard.” It clearly is a temporal clause subordinate to the following verbs that report how they bowed and worshiped. But it is also in sequence to the preceding: they believed, and then they bowed when they heard.
Exodus 4:31 tn Or “intervened for.” The word פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been translated “visited,” which is open to many interpretations. It means that God intervened in the life of the Israelites to bless them with the fulfillment of the promises. It says more than that he took notice of them, took pity on them, or remembered them. He had not yet fulfilled the promises, but he had begun to act by calling Moses and Aaron. The translation “attended to” attempts to capture that much.
Exodus 4:31 tn The verb וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲוּוּ (vayyishtakhavu) is usually rendered “worshiped.” More specifically, the verbal root חָוָה (khava) in the Hishtaphel stem means “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” While there is nothing wrong with giving it a general translation of “worship,” it may be better in a passage like this to take it in conjunction with the other verb (“bow”) as a verbal hendiadys, using it as an adverb to that verb. The implication is certainly that they prayed, or praised, and performed some other aspect of worship, but the text may just be describing it from their posture of worship. With this response, all the fears of Moses are swept aside—they believed and they were thankful to God.

Acts 7:35-43

³⁵This same^[a] Moses they had rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’^[b] God sent as both ruler and deliverer^[c] through the hand of the angel^[d] who appeared to him in the bush. ³⁶This man led them out, performing wonders and miraculous signs^[e] in the land of Egypt,^[f] at^[g] the Red Sea, and in the wilderness^[h] for forty years. ³⁷This is the Moses who said to the Israelites,^[i] ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’^[j] ³⁸This is the man who was in the congregation^[k] in the wilderness^[l] with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors,^[m] and he^[n] received living oracles^[o] to give to you.^[p] ³⁹Our^[q] ancestors^[r] were unwilling to obey^[s] him, but pushed him aside^[t] and turned back to Egypt in their hearts, ⁴⁰saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go in front of us, for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt^[u] —we do not know what has happened to him!’^[v] ⁴¹At^[w] that time^[x] they made an idol in the form of a calf,^[y] brought^[z] a sacrifice to the idol, and began rejoicing^[aa] in the works of their hands.^[ab] ⁴²But God turned away from them and gave them over^[ac] to worship the host^[ad] of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices^[ae] forty years in the wilderness, was it,^[af] house of Israel? ⁴³But you took along the tabernacle^[ag] of Moloch^[ah] and the star of the^[ai] god Rephan,^[aj] the images you made to worship, but I will deport^[ak] you beyond Babylon.’^[al]

Footnotes

Acts 7:35 sn This same. The reference to “this one” occurs five times in this speech. It is the way the other speeches in Acts refer to Jesus (e.g., Acts 2:23).
Acts 7:35 sn A quotation from Exod 2:14 (see Acts 7:27). God saw Moses very differently than the people of the nation did. The reference to a ruler and a judge suggests that Stephen set up a comparison between Moses and Jesus, but he never finished his speech to make the point. The reader of Acts, however, knowing the other sermons in the book, recognizes that the rejection of Jesus is the counterpoint.
Acts 7:35 tn Or “liberator.” The meaning “liberator” for λυτρωτήν (lutrōtēn) is given in L&N 37.129: “a person who liberates or releases others.”
Acts 7:35 tn Or simply “through the angel.” Here the “hand” could be understood as a figure for the person or the power of the angel himself. The remark about the angel appearing fits the first century Jewish view that God appears to no one (John 1:14-18; Gal 3:19; Deut 33:2 LXX).
Acts 7:36 tn Here the context indicates the miraculous nature of the signs mentioned.sn Performing wonders and miraculous signs. Again Moses acted like Jesus. The phrase appears 9 times in Acts (2:19, 22, 43; 4:30; 5:12; 6:8; 7:36; 14:3; 15:12).
Acts 7:36 tn Or simply “in Egypt.” The phrase “the land of” could be omitted as unnecessary or redundant.
Acts 7:36 tn Grk “and at,” 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.
Acts 7:36 tn Or “desert.”
Acts 7:37 tn Grk “to the sons of Israel.”
Acts 7:37 sn A quotation from Deut 18:15. This quotation sets up Jesus as the “leader-prophet” like Moses (Acts 3:22; Luke 9:35).
Acts 7:38 tn This term, ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia), is a secular use of the term that came to mean “church” in the epistles. Here a reference to an assembly is all that is intended.
Acts 7:38 tn Or “desert.”
Acts 7:38 tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”
Acts 7:38 tn Grk “fathers, who.” The relative pronoun was replaced by the pronoun “he” and a new clause introduced by “and” was begun in the translation at this point to improve the English style.
Acts 7:38 tn Or “messages.” This is an allusion to the law given to Moses.
Acts 7:38 tc ‡ The first person pronoun ἡμῖν (hēmin, “to us”) is read by A C D E Ψ 33 1739 M lat sy, while the second person pronoun ὑμῖν (humin, “to you”) is read by P⁷⁴ א B 36 453 al co. The second person pronoun thus has significantly better external support. As well, ὑμῖν is a harder reading in this context, both because it is surrounded by first person pronouns and because Stephen perhaps “does not wish to disassociate himself from those who received God’s revelation in the past, but only from those who misinterpreted and disobeyed that revelation” (TCGNT 307). At the same time, Stephen does associate himself to some degree with his disobedient ancestors in v. 39, suggesting that the decisive break does not really come until v. 51 (where both his present audience and their ancestors are viewed as rebellious). Thus, both externally and internally ὑμῖν is the preferred reading.
Acts 7:39 tn Grk “whom our.” The continuation of the sentence as a relative clause is awkward in English, so a new sentence was started in the translation at this point.
Acts 7:39 tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”
Acts 7:39 sn To obey. Again the theme of the speech is noted. The nation disobeyed the way of God and opted for Egypt over the promised land.
Acts 7:39 sn Pushed him aside. This is the second time Moses is “pushed aside” in Stephen’s account (see v. 27).
Acts 7:40 tn Or simply “of Egypt.” The phrase “the land of” could be omitted as unnecessary or redundant.
Acts 7:40 sn A quotation from Exod 32:1, 23. Doubt (we do not know what has happened to him) expresses itself in unfaithful action. The act is in contrast to God’s promise in Exod 23:20.
Acts 7:41 tn Grk “And.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.
Acts 7:41 tn Grk “In those days.”
Acts 7:41 tn Or “a bull calf” (see Exod 32:4-6). The term μοσχοποιέω (moschopoieō) occurs only in Christian writings according to BDAG 660 s.v.
Acts 7:41 tn Grk “and brought,” 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.
Acts 7:41 tn The imperfect verb εὐφραίνοντο (euphrainonto) has been translated ingressively. See BDAG 414-15 s.v. εὐφραίνω 2.
Acts 7:41 tn Or “in what they had done.”
Acts 7:42 sn The expression and gave them over suggests similarities to the judgment on the nations described by Paul in Rom 1:18-32.
Acts 7:42 tn Or “stars.”sn To worship the hosts of heaven. Their action violated Deut 4:19; 17:2-5. See Ps 106:36-43.
Acts 7:42 tn The two terms for sacrifices “semantically reinforce one another and are here combined essentially for emphasis” (L&N 53.20).
Acts 7:42 tn The Greek construction anticipates a negative reply which is indicated in the translation by the ‘tag’ question, “was it?”
Acts 7:43 tn Or “tent.”sn A tabernacle was a tent used to house religious objects or a shrine (i.e., a portable sanctuary).
Acts 7:43 sn Moloch was a Canaanite deity who was believed to be the god of the sky and the sun.
Acts 7:43 tc ‡ Most mss, including several significant ones (P⁷⁴ א A C E Ψ 33 1739 M h p vg sy^h mae bo Cyr), have ὑμῶν (humōn, “your”) here, in conformity with the LXX of Amos 5:26. But other significant and diverse witnesses lack the pronoun: The lack of ὑμῶν in B D 36 453 gig sy^p sa Ir^lat Or is difficult to explain if it is not the autographic wording here. NA²⁸ has the word in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.
Acts 7:43 sn Rephan (῾Ραιφάν, Rhaiphan) was a pagan deity. The term was a name for Saturn. It was variously spelled in the mss (BDAG 903 s.v. has Rompha as an alternate spelling). The references cover a range of deities and a history of unfaithfulness.
Acts 7:43 tn Or “I will make you move.”
Acts 7:43 sn A quotation from Amos 5:25-27. This constituted a prediction of the exile.

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 100[a]

A thanksgiving psalm.

Footnotes

Footnotes

Footnotes

Psalm 100^[a]