8:27 “God does not really live on the earth! 1 Look, if the sky and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this temple I have built!
8:1 2 Then Solomon convened in Jerusalem 3 Israel’s elders, all the leaders of the Israelite tribes and families, so they could witness the transferal of the ark of the Lord’s covenant from the city of David (that is, Zion). 4
13:11 Now there was an old prophet living in Bethel. 5 When his sons came home, they told their father 6 everything the prophet 7 had done in Bethel that day and all the words he had spoken to the king. 8 13:12 Their father asked them, “Which road did he take?” His sons showed him 9 the road the prophet 10 from Judah had taken.
25:5 If even the moon is not bright,
and the stars are not pure as far as he is concerned, 11
25:6 how much less a mortal man, who is but a maggot 12 –
a son of man, who is only a worm!”
1 tn Heb “Indeed, can God really live on the earth?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course not,” the force of which the translation above seeks to reflect.
2 tc The Old Greek translation includes the following words at the beginning of ch. 8: “It so happened that when Solomon finished building the Lord’s temple and his own house, after twenty years.”
3 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
4 tn Heb “Then Solomon convened the elders of Israel, the heads of the tribes, the chiefs of the fathers belonging to the sons of Israel to King Solomon [in] Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the covenant of the
5 map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.
6 tn Heb “and his son came and told him.” The MT has the singular here, but several other textual witnesses have the plural, which is more consistent with the second half of the verse and with vv. 12-13.
7 tn Heb “the man of God.”
8 tn Heb “all the actions which the man of God performed that day in Bethel, the words which he spoke to the king, and they told them to their father.”
9 tn The Hebrew text has “and his sons saw” (וַיִּרְאוּ [vayyir’u], Qal from רָאָה [ra’ah]). In this case the verbal construction (vav consecutive + prefixed verbal form) would have to be understood as pluperfect, “his sons had seen.” Such uses of this construction are rare at best. Consequently many, following the lead of the ancient versions, prefer to emend the verbal form to a Hiphil with pronominal suffix (וַיַּרְאֻהוּ [vayyar’uhu], “and they showed him”).
10 tn Heb “the man of God.”
11 tn Heb “not pure in his eyes.”
12 tn The text just has “maggot” and in the second half “worm.” Something has to be added to make it a bit clearer. The terms “maggot” and “worm” describe man in his lowest and most ignominious shape.