119:119 You remove all the wicked of the earth like slag. 1
Therefore I love your rules. 2
25:4 Remove the dross from the silver,
and material 3 for the silversmith will emerge;
1:22 Your 4 silver has become scum, 5
your beer is diluted with water. 6
1:25 I will attack you; 7
I will purify your metal with flux. 8
I will remove all your slag. 9
5:13 “You are the salt 13 of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, 14 how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.
1 sn Traditionally “dross” (so KJV, ASV, NIV). The metaphor comes from metallurgy; “slag” is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.
2 sn As he explains in the next verse, the psalmist’s fear of judgment motivates him to obey God’s rules.
3 tn The Hebrew כֶּלִי (keli) means “vessel; utensil” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB). But purging dross from silver does not produce a “vessel” for the silversmith. Some versions therefore render it “material” (e.g., NIV, NRSV). The LXX says “that it will be entirely pure.” So D. W. Thomas reads כָּלִיל (kalil) and translates it “purified completely” (“Notes on Some Passages in the Book of Proverbs,” VT 15 [1965]: 271-79; cf. NAB). W. McKane simply rearranges the line to say that the smith can produce a work of art (Proverbs [OTL], 580; cf. TEV “a thing of beauty”). The easiest explanation is that “vessel” is a metonymy of effect, “vessel” put for the material that goes into making it (such metonymies occur fairly often in Psalms and Proverbs).
4 tn The pronoun is feminine singular; personified Jerusalem (see v. 21) is addressed.
5 tn Or “dross.” The word refers to the scum or impurites floating on the top of melted metal.
6 sn The metaphors of silver becoming impure and beer being watered down picture the moral and ethical degeneration that had occurred in Jerusalem.
7 tn Heb “turn my hand against you.” The second person pronouns in vv. 25-26 are feminine singular. Personified Jerusalem is addressed. The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack,” in Ps 81:15 HT (81:14 ET); Ezek 38:12; Am 1:8; Zech 13:7. In Jer 6:9 it is used of gleaning grapes.
8 tn Heb “I will purify your dross as [with] flux.” “Flux” refers here to minerals added to the metals in a furnace to prevent oxides from forming. For this interpretation of II בֹּר (bor), see HALOT 153 s.v. II בֹּר and 750 s.v. סִיג.
9 sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.
10 tn For similar imagery, see Isa 1:21-26; Jer 6:27-30.
11 tn The Hebrew second person pronoun is masculine plural here and in vv. 19b-21, indicating that the people are being addressed.
12 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
13 sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.
14 sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its flavor since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested that the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens; under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca.