48:6 Look at them shake uncontrollably, 18
like a woman writhing in childbirth. 19
1 tn The singular participle is to be taken here as a collective, representing all the inhabitants of the land.
2 tn “Face to face” is literally “eye to eye.” It only occurs elsewhere in Isa 52:8. This expresses the closest communication possible.
3 sn There is much literature on pagan diviners and especially prophecy in places in the east like Mari (see, for example, H. B. Huffmon, “Prophecy in the Mari Letters,” BA 31 [1968]: 101-24). Balaam appears to be a pagan diviner who was of some reputation; he was called to curse the Israelites, but God intervened and gave him blessings only. The passage forms a nice complement to texts that deal with blessings and curses. It shows that no one can curse someone whom God has blessed.
4 tn Heb “by the river”; in most contexts this expression refers to the Euphrates River (cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT).
5 tn Heb “in the land of Amaw” (cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV); traditionally “in the land of the sons of his people.” The LXX has “by the river of the land.”
6 tn Heb “eye.” So also in v. 11.
7 tn Heb “command” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “charge the people as follows.”
8 tn Heb “brothers”; NAB “your kinsmen.”
9 sn The descendants of Esau (Heb “sons of Esau”; the phrase also occurs in 2:8, 12, 22, 29). These are the inhabitants of the land otherwise known as Edom, south and east of the Dead Sea. Jacob’s brother Esau had settled there after his bitter strife with Jacob (Gen 36:1-8). “Edom” means “reddish,” probably because of the red sandstone of the region, but also by popular etymology because Esau, at birth, was reddish (Gen 25:25).
10 sn Mount Seir is synonymous with Edom.
11 tn Heb “has given the land to you.” Rahab’s statement uses the Hebrew perfect, suggesting certitude.
12 tn Heb “terror of you has fallen upon us.”
13 tn Or “melting away because of.”
14 tn Both of these statements are actually subordinated to “I know” in the Hebrew text, which reads, “I know that the
15 tn Heb “and what you did to the two Amorite kings who were beyond the Jordan, Sihon and Og, how you annihilated them.”
16 tn Heb “your servants.”
17 tn Or “we were very afraid.”
18 tn Heb “trembling seizes them there.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here, as often in poetic texts, to point “to a spot in which a scene is localized vividly in the imagination” (BDB 1027 s.v.).
19 tn Heb “[with] writhing like one giving birth.”