27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, 1
and their 2 widows do not mourn for them.
28:11 He has searched 3 the sources 4 of the rivers
and what was hidden he has brought into the light.
31:18 but from my youth I raised the orphan 5 like a father,
and from my mother’s womb 6
I guided the widow! 7
1 tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”
2 tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.
3 tc The translation “searched” follows the LXX and Vulgate; the MT reads “binds up” or “dams up.” This latter translation might refer to the damming of water that might seep into a mine (HALOT 289 s.v. חבשׁ; cf. ESV, NJPS, NASB, REB, NLT).
4 tc The older translations had “he binds the streams from weeping,” i.e., from trickling (מִבְּכִי, mibbÿkhi). But the Ugaritic parallel has changed the understanding, reading “toward the spring of the rivers” (`m mbk nhrm). Earlier than that discovery, the versions had taken the word as a noun as well. Some commentators had suggested repointing the Hebrew. Some chose מַבְּכֵי (mabbÿkhe, “sources”). Now there is much Ugaritic support for the reading (see G. M. Landes, BASOR 144 [1956]: 32f.; and H. L. Ginsberg, “The Ugaritic texts and textual criticism,” JBL 62 [1943]: 111).
5 tn Heb “he grew up with me.” Several commentators have decided to change the pronoun to “I,” and make it causative.
6 tn The expression “from my mother’s womb” is obviously hyperbolic. It is a way of saying “all his life.”
7 tn Heb “I guided her,” referring to the widow mentioned in v. 16.