12:1 Samuel said to all Israel, “I have done 1 everything you requested. 2 I have given you a king. 3
18:18 David said to Saul, “Who am I? Who are my relatives or the clan of my father 4 in Israel that I should become the king’s son-in-law?”
28:4 Those who forsake the law 9 praise the wicked, 10
but those who keep the law contend 11 with them.
14:8 O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do 12 with idols anymore!
I will answer him and care for him.
I am like 13 a luxuriant cypress tree; 14
your fruitfulness comes from me! 15
1 tn Heb “Look, I have listened to your voice.”
2 tn Heb “to all which you said to me.”
3 tn Heb “and I have installed a king over you.”
4 tn Heb “Who are my relatives, the clan of my father?” The term חַי (khay), traditionally understood as “my life,” is here a rare word meaning “family, kinfolk” (see HALOT 309 s.v. III חַי). The phrase “clan of my father” may be a scribal gloss explaining the referent of this rare word.
5 tn Heb “and he drove the spear into the wall.”
6 tn Heb “fled and escaped.”
7 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.
8 tn Heb “their way on their head I have placed.” The same expression occurs in 1 Kgs 8:32; Ezek 11:21; 16:43; 22:31.
9 sn Some commentators do not think that the word refers to the Mosaic law, but to “instruction” or “teaching” in general (cf. NCV “who disobey what they have been taught”). However, the expression “keep the law” in the second line indicates that it is binding, which would not be true of teaching in general (J. Bright, “The Apodictic Prohibition: Some Observations,” JBL 92 [1973]: 185-204). Moreover, Proverbs 28:9 and 29:18 refer to the law, and this chapter has a stress on piety.
10 sn The proverb gives the outcome and the evidence of those who forsake the law – they “praise the wicked.” This may mean (1) calling the wicked good or (2) justifying what the wicked do, for such people are no longer sensitive to evil.
11 tn The verb is the Hitpael imperfect of גָּרָה (garah), which means “to stir up strife” but in this stem means “to engage in strife” (cf. NIV “resist them”). Tg. Prov 28:4 adds an explanatory expansion, “so as to induce them to repent.”
12 tn The Hebrew expression מַה־לִּי עוֹד (mah-li ’od) is a formula of repudiation/emphatic denial that God has anything in common with idols: “I want to have nothing to do with […] any more!” Cf., e.g., Judg 11:12; 2 Sam 16:10; 19:23; 1 Kgs 17:18; 2 Kgs 3:13; 2 Chr 35:21; Jer 2:18; Ps 50:16; BDB 553 s.v. מָה 1.d.(c).
13 tn The term “like” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity, as in the majority of English versions (including KJV).
14 tn Cf. KJV “a green fir tree”; NIV, NCV “a green pine tree”; NRSV “an evergreen cypress.”
15 tn Heb “your fruit is found in me”; NRSV “your faithfulness comes from me.”
16 tn Or “unscrupulousness.”
17 sn “You who…paths of the Lord?” This rebuke is like ones from the OT prophets: Jer 5:27; Gen 32:11; Prov 10:7; Hos 14:9. Five separate remarks indicate the magician’s failings. The closing rhetorical question of v. 10 (“will you not stop…?”) shows how opposed he is to the way of God.