1 Samuel 2:29

2:29 Why are you ¹  scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? ²  You have honored your sons more than you have me by having made yourselves fat from the best parts of all the offerings of my people Israel.’

Genesis 3:12

3:12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave ³  me some fruit ⁴  from the tree and I ate it.”

Genesis 3:17

3:17 But to Adam ⁵  he said,

“Because you obeyed ⁶  your wife

and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat from it,’

cursed is the ground ⁷  thanks to you; ⁸ 

in painful toil you will eat ⁹  of it all the days of your life.

Jeremiah 38:5

38:5 King Zedekiah said to them, “Very well, you can do what you want with him. ¹⁰  For I cannot do anything to stop you.” ¹¹ 

¹ tc The MT has a plural “you” here, but the LXX and a Qumran ms have the singular. The singular may be the correct reading; the verb “you have honored” later in the verse is singular even in the MT. However, it is more probable that the Lord here refers to Eli and his sons. Note the plural in the second half of the verse (“you have made yourselves fat”).

² tn Heb “which I commanded, dwelling place.” The noun is functioning as an adverbial accusative in relation to the verb. Since God’s dwelling place/sanctuary is in view, the pronoun “my” is supplied in the translation.

³ tn The Hebrew construction in this sentence uses an independent nominative absolute (formerly known as a casus pendens). “The woman” is the independent nominative absolute; it is picked up by the formal subject, the pronoun “she” written with the verb (“she gave”). The point of the construction is to throw the emphasis on “the woman.” But what makes this so striking is that a relative clause has been inserted to explain what is meant by the reference to the woman: “whom you gave me.” Ultimately, the man is blaming God for giving him the woman who (from the man’s viewpoint) caused him to sin.

⁴ tn The words “some fruit” here and the pronoun “it” at the end of the sentence are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).

⁶ tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.

⁷ sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.

⁸ tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.

⁹ sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.

¹⁰ tn Heb “Behold, he is in your hands [= power/control].”

¹¹ tn Heb “For the king cannot do a thing with/against you.” The personal pronoun “I” is substituted in the English translation due to differences in style; Hebrew style often uses the third person or the title in speaking of oneself but English rarely if ever does. Compare the common paraphrasis of “your servant” for “I” in Hebrew (cf. BDB 714 s.v. עֶבֶד 6 and usage in 1 Sam 20:7, 8) and compare the usage in Pss 63:11 (63:12 HT); 61:6 (61:7 HT) where the king is praying for himself. For the meaning of יָכֹל (yakhol) as “to be able to do anything,” see BDB 407 s.v. יָכֹל 1.g.