19:15 Laziness brings on 3 a deep sleep, 4
and the idle person 5 will go hungry. 6
40:1 “Comfort, comfort my people,”
says your 7 God.
2:14 However, in the future I will allure her; 8
I will lead 9 her back into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
1 tn Heb “his soul stuck to [or “joined with”],” meaning Shechem became very attached to Dinah emotionally.
2 tn Heb “and he spoke to the heart of the young woman,” which apparently refers in this context to tender, romantic speech (Hos 2:14). Another option is to translate the expression “he reassured the young woman” (see Judg 19:3, 2 Sam 19:7; cf. NEB “comforted her”).
3 tn Heb “causes to fall” or “casts”; NAB “plunges…into.”
4 tn Or “complete inactivity”; the word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) can refer to a physical “deep sleep” (e.g., Gen 2:21; Jonah 1:5, 6); but it can also be used figuratively for complete inactivity, as other words for “sleep” can. Here it refers to lethargy or debility and morbidness.
5 tn The expression וְנֶפֶשׁ רְמִיָּה (vÿnefesh rÿmiyyah) can be translated “the soul of deceit” or “the soul of slackness.” There are two identical feminine nouns, one from the verb “beguile,” and the other from a cognate Arabic root “grow loose.” The second is more likely here in view of the parallelism (cf. NIV “a shiftless man”; NAB “the sluggard”). One who is slack, that is, idle, will go hungry.
6 sn The two lines are related in a metonymical sense: “deep sleep” is the cause of going hungry, and “going hungry” is the effect of deep sleep.
7 tn The pronominal suffix is second masculine plural. The identity of the addressee is uncertain: (1) God’s people may be addressed, or (2) the unidentified heralds commanded to comfort Jerusalem.
8 tn The participle מְפַתֶּיהָ (méfatteha, Piel participle masculine singular + 3rd feminine singular suffix from פָּתָה, patah, “to allure”) following the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “Now!”) describes an event that will occur in the immediate or near future.
9 tn Following the future-time referent participle (מְפַתֶּיהָ, méfatteha) there is a string of perfects introduced by vav consecutive that refer to future events.