The Swedish Core Bible offers synonyms and commentary
Svenska Kärnbibeln is an expanded Swedish translation of the Bible. The New Testament is available both online and in print. All the books of the Old Testament are available on this site. Some of the books are still in the proofreading stage. A printed edition with all the books of the Bible is planned for 2024. This marks the first expanded translation in a Scandinavian language. Similar English translations are the Amplified Bible, Thomas Nelson’s Expanded Bible and Wuest Expanded Bible.
Svenska Kärnbibeln uses parentheses and brackets as follows:
() – Expands the meaning of the Greek and Hebrew words.
[] – Additions allow the reader to better understand the passage by including references, modern weights, and measures.
Commentary
The notes are formatted in a way that they can be read with the text. The neat thing about these notes is that the reader acquires the information without clicking on a link, and it is easy to skip a comment while reading the text. The comments are mostly very short.
We find one example of commentary regarding volume and weight in 1 Samuel 1:24. When Hannah brings an offering to the tabernacle, the original grain measure an ephah is used. It is then explained with the European liter measurement “litra”. In an American translation, the equivalent of a bushel (one-half to two-thirds of a bushel) probably would have been used. However, Kärnbibeln adds a comment as follows:
“And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah [35 litra] of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the LORD in Shiloh: and the child was young.”
Of course, this note could have been in a footnote, or a measurement table, but adding it in the text allows the reader to see the original measurement (and to make connections to other usages in the Bible) as well as to get an idea regarding whether the volume is large or small. In this case, Hanna must have had a donkey in order to carry the grain offering!
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