32:14 butter from the herd
and milk from the flock,
along with the fat of lambs,
rams and goats of Bashan,
along with the best of the kernels of wheat;
and from the juice of grapes you drank wine.
22:12 Many bulls 1 surround me;
powerful bulls of Bashan 2 hem me in.
68:15 The mountain of Bashan 3 is a towering mountain; 4
the mountain of Bashan is a mountain with many peaks. 5
33:9 The land 6 dries up 7 and withers away;
the forest of Lebanon shrivels up 8 and decays.
Sharon 9 is like the desert; 10
Bashan and Carmel 11 are parched. 12
27:6 They made your oars from oaks of Bashan;
they made your deck 13 with cypresses 14 from the Kittean isles. 15
4:1 Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan 17 who live on Mount Samaria!
You 18 oppress the poor;
you crush the needy.
You say to your 19 husbands,
“Bring us more to drink!” 20
1 sn The psalmist figuratively compares his enemies to dangerous bulls.
2 sn Bashan, located east of the Jordan River, was well-known for its cattle. See Ezek 39:18; Amos 4:1.
3 sn The mountain of Bashan probably refers to Mount Hermon.
4 tn Heb “a mountain of God.” The divine name is probably used here in a superlative sense to depict a very high mountain (“a mountain fit for God,” as it were). Cf. NIV “are majestic mountains”; NRSV “O mighty mountain.”
5 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term, which appears only here in the OT, is uncertain. HALOT 174 s.v. גַּבְנוֹן suggests “many-peaked,” while BDB 148 s.v. גַּבְנִן suggests “rounded summit.”
6 tn Or “earth” (KJV); NAB “the country.”
7 tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. I אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism. See 24:4.
8 tn Heb “Lebanon is ashamed.” The Hiphil is exhibitive, expressing the idea, “exhibits shame.” In this context the statement alludes to the withering of vegetation.
9 sn Sharon was a fertile plain along the Mediterranean coast. See 35:2.
10 tn Or “the Arabah” (NIV). See 35:1.
11 sn Both of these areas were known for their trees and vegetation. See 2:13; 35:2.
12 tn Heb “shake off [their leaves]” (so ASV, NRSV); NAB “are stripped bare.”
13 tn Or “hull.”
14 tc The Hebrew reads “Your deck they made ivory, daughter of Assyria.” The syntactically difficult “ivory” is understood here as dittography and omitted, though some construe this to refer to ivory inlays. “Daughter of Assyria” is understood here as improper word division and the vowels repointed as “cypresses.”
15 tn Heb “from the coastlands (or islands) of Kittim,” generally understood to be a reference to the island of Cyprus, where the Phoenicians had a trading colony on the southeast coast. Many modern English versions have “Cyprus” (CEV, TEV), “the coastlands of Cyprus” (NASB), “the coasts of Cyprus” (NIV, NRSV), or “the southern coasts of Cyprus” (NLT).
16 sn See Rev 19:17-18.
17 sn The expression cows of Bashan is used by the prophet to address the wealthy women of Samaria, who demand that their husbands satisfy their cravings. The derogatory language perhaps suggests that they, like the livestock of Bashan, were well fed, ironically in preparation for the coming slaughter. This phrase is sometimes cited to critique the book’s view of women.
18 tn Heb “the ones who” (three times in this verse).
19 tn Heb “their.”
20 sn Some commentators relate this scene to the description of the marzeah feast of 6:3-6, in which drinking played a prominent part (see the note at 6:6).