20:16 He sucks the poison 1 of serpents; 2
the fangs 3 of a viper 4 kill him.
30:6 This is a message 5 about the animals in the Negev:
Through a land of distress and danger,
inhabited by lionesses and roaring lions, 6
by snakes and darting adders, 7
they transport 8 their wealth on the backs of donkeys,
their riches on the humps of camels,
to a nation that cannot help them. 9
41:24 Look, you are nothing, and your accomplishments are nonexistent;
the one who chooses to worship you is disgusting. 10
59:5 They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake
and spin a spider’s web.
Whoever eats their eggs will die,
a poisonous snake is hatched. 11
3:7 But when he saw many Pharisees 12 and Sadducees 13 coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
1 tn The word is a homonym for the word for “head,” which has led to some confusion in the early versions.
2 sn To take the possessions of another person is hereby compared to sucking poison from a serpent – it will kill eventually.
3 tn Heb “tongue.”
4 tn Some have thought this verse is a gloss on v. 14 and should be deleted. But the word for “viper” (אֶפְעֶה, ’ef’eh) is a rare word, occurring only here and in Isa 30:6 and 59:5. It is unlikely that a rarer word would be used in a gloss. But the point is similar to v. 14 – the wealth that was greedily sucked in by the wicked proves to be their undoing. Either this is totally irrelevant to Job’s case, a general discussion, or the man is raising questions about how Job got his wealth.
5 tn Traditionally, “burden” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “oracle.”
6 tc Heb “[a land of] a lioness and a lion, from them.” Some emend מֵהֶם (mehem, “from them”) to מֵהֵם (mehem), an otherwise unattested Hiphil participle from הָמַם (hamam, “move noisily”). Perhaps it would be better to take the initial mem (מ) as enclitic and emend the form to הֹמֶה (homeh), a Qal active participle from הָמָה (hamah, “to make a noise”); cf. J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:542, n. 9.
7 tn Heb “flying fiery one.” See the note at 14:29.
8 tn Or “carry” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
9 sn This verse describes messengers from Judah transporting wealth to Egypt in order to buy Pharaoh’s protection through a treaty.
10 tn Heb “an object of disgust [is he who] chooses you.”
11 tn Heb “that which is pressed in hatches [as] a snake.”
12 sn Pharisees were members of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.
13 sn The Sadducees controlled the official political structures of Judaism at this time, being the majority members of the Sanhedrin. They were known as extremely strict on law and order issues (Josephus, J. W. 2.8.2 [2.119], 2.8.14 [2.164-166]; Ant. 13.5.9 [13.171-173], 13.10.6 [13.293-298], 18.1.2 [18.11], 18.1.4 [18.16-17], 20.9.1 [20.199]; Life 2 [10-11]). See also Matt 16:1-12; 22:23-34; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-38; Acts 5:17; 23:6-8.
14 tn Grk “the judgment of Gehenna.”