1 Kings 18:26-29

18:26 So they took a bull, as he had suggested, ¹  and prepared it. They invoked the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “Baal, answer us.” But there was no sound and no answer. They jumped ²  around on the altar they had made. ³  18:27 At noon Elijah mocked them, “Yell louder! After all, he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or perhaps he stepped out for a moment or has taken a trip. Perhaps he is sleeping and needs to be awakened.” ⁴  18:28 So they yelled louder and, in accordance with their prescribed ritual, ⁵  mutilated themselves with swords and spears until their bodies were covered with blood. ⁶  18:29 Throughout the afternoon they were in an ecstatic frenzy, ⁷  but there was no sound, no answer, and no response. ⁸ 

Psalms 97:7

97:7 All who worship idols are ashamed,

those who boast about worthless idols.

All the gods bow down before him. ⁹ 

Isaiah 44:17

44:17 With the rest of it he makes a god, his idol;

he bows down to it and worships it.

He prays to it, saying,

‘Rescue me, for you are my god!’

Jeremiah 51:47

51:47 “So the time will certainly come ¹⁰ 

when I will punish the idols of Babylon.

Her whole land will be put to shame.

All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst. ¹¹ 

Daniel 3:7

3:7 Therefore when they all ¹²  heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, ¹³  and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations, and language groups began bowing down and paying homage to the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had erected.

Daniel 3:18

3:18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we don’t serve your gods, and we will not pay homage to the golden statue that you have erected.”

Daniel 3:29

3:29 I hereby decree ¹⁴  that any people, nation, or language group that blasphemes ¹⁵  the god of Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego will be dismembered and his home reduced to rubble! For there exists no other god who can deliver in this way.”

Daniel 5:23

5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought before you the vessels from his temple, and you and your nobles, together with your wives and concubines, drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone – gods ¹⁶  that cannot see or hear or comprehend! But you have not glorified the God who has in his control ¹⁷  your very breath and all your ways!

Jonah 1:5

1:5 The sailors were so afraid that each cried out ¹⁸  to his own god ¹⁹  and they flung ²⁰  the ship’s cargo ²¹  overboard ²²  to make the ship lighter. ²³  Jonah, meanwhile, ²⁴  had gone down ²⁵  into the hold ²⁶  below deck, ²⁷  had lain down, and was sound asleep. ²⁸ 

[18:26]  ¹ tn Heb “and they took the bull which he allowed them.”

[18:26]  ² tn Heb “limped” (the same verb is used in v. 21).

[18:26]  ³ tc The MT has “which he made,” but some medieval Hebrew mss and the ancient versions have the plural form of the verb.

[18:27]  ⁴ sn Elijah’s sarcastic proposals would have been especially offensive and irritating to Baal’s prophets, for they believed Baal was imprisoned in the underworld as death’s captive during this time of drought. Elijah’s apparent ignorance of their theology is probably designed for dramatic effect; indeed the suggestion that Baal is away on a trip or deep in sleep comes precariously close to the truth as viewed by the prophets.

[18:28]  ⁵ tn Or “as was their custom.”

[18:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “until blood poured out on them.”

[18:29]  ⁷ tn Heb “when noon passed they prophesied until the offering up of the offering.”

[18:29]  ⁸ tc The Old Greek translation and Syriac Peshitta include the following words here: “When it was time to offer the sacrifice, Elijah the Tishbite spoke to the prophets of the abominations: ‘Stand aside for the time being, and I will offer my burnt offering.’ So they stood aside and departed.”

[97:7]  ⁹ tn The translation assumes that the prefixed verbal form in the first line is an imperfect (“are ashamed”) and that the ambiguous form in the third line is a perfect (“bow down”) because the psalmist appears to be describing the effect of the Lord’s mighty theophany on those who witness it (see vv. 5, 8). Another option is to take the prefixed form in the first line as a jussive (“let all who worship idols be ashamed”) and the ambiguous form in the third line as an imperative (“All you gods, bow down before him!”; cf. NIV).

[51:47]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “That being so, look, days are approaching.” לָכֵן (lakhen) often introduces the effect of an action. That may be the case here, the turmoil outlined in v. 46 serving as the catalyst for the culminating divine judgment described in v. 47. Another possibility is that לָכֵן here has an asseverative force (“certainly”), as in Isa 26:14 and perhaps Jer 5:2 (see the note there). In this case the word almost has the force of “for, since,” because it presents a cause for an accompanying effect. See Judg 8:7 and the discussion of Isa 26:14 in BDB 486-87 s.v. כֵּן 3.d.

[51:47]  ¹¹ tn Or “all her slain will fall in her midst.” In other words, her people will be overtaken by judgment and be unable to escape. The dead will lie in heaps in the very heart of the city and land.

[3:7]  ¹² tn Aram “all the peoples.”

[3:7]  ¹³ tc Though not in the Aramaic text of BHS, this word appears in many medieval Hebrew MSS, some LXX MSS, and Vulgate. Cf. vv. 5, 10, 15.

[3:29]  ¹⁴ tn Aram “from me is placed an edict.”

[3:29]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “speaks negligence.”

[5:23]  ¹⁶ tn Aram “which.”

[5:23]  ¹⁷ tn Aram “in whose hand [are].”

[1:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “they cried out, each one.” The shift from the plural verb וַיִּזְעֲקוּ (vayyiz’aqu, “they cried out to”) to the singular subject אִישׁ (’ish, “each one”) is a rhetorical device used to emphasize that each one of the sailors individually cried out. In contrast, Jonah slept.

[1:5]  ¹⁹ tn Or “gods” (CEV, NLT). The plural noun אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) might be functioning either as a plural of number (“gods”) or a plural of majesty (“god”) – the form would allow for either. As members of a polytheistic culture, each sailor might appeal to several gods. However, individuals could also look to a particular god for help in trouble. Tg. Jonah 1:5 interpretively renders the line, “Each man prayed to his idols, but they saw that they were useless.”

[1:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “hurled.” The Hiphil of טוּל (tul, “to hurl”) is again used, repeated from v. 4.

[1:5]  ²¹ tn The plural word rendered “cargo” (כֵּלִים, kelim) is variously translated “articles, vessels, objects, baggage, instruments” (see 1 Sam 17:22; 1 Kgs 10:21; 1 Chr 15:16; Isa 18:2; Jer 22:7). As a general term, it fits here to describe the sailors throwing overboard whatever they could. The English word “cargo” should be taken generally to include the ship’s payload and whatever else could be dispensed with.

[1:5]  ²² tn Heb “into the sea.”

[1:5]  ²³ tn Heb “to lighten it from them.”

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “but Jonah.” The disjunctive construction of vav + nonverb followed by nonpreterite (וְיוֹנָה יָרַד, vÿyonah yarad; “but Jonah had gone down…”) introduces a parenthetical description of Jonah’s earlier actions before the onset of the storm.

[1:5]  ²⁵ tn Following a vav-disjunctive introducing parenthetical material, the suffixed-conjugation verb יָרַד (yarad) functions as a past perfect here: “he had gone down” (see IBHS 490-91 §30.5.2). This describes Jonah’s previous actions before the onset of the storm.

[1:5]  ²⁶ tn Or “stern.” There is some question whether the term יַרְכָה (yarkhah) refers to the ship’s hold below deck (R. S. Hess, NIDOTTE 3:282) or to the stern in the back of the ship (HALOT 439 s.v. *יְרֵכָה 2.b). This is the only use of this term in reference to a ship in biblical Hebrew. When used elsewhere, this term has a two-fold range of meanings: (1) “rear,” such as rear of a building (Exod 26:22, 27; 36:27, 32; Ezek 46:19), back room of a house (1 Kgs 6:16; Ps 128:3; Amos 6:10), flank of a person’s body (figurative for rear border; Gen 49:13); and (2) “far part” that is remote, such as the back of a cave (1 Sam 24:4), the bottom of a cistern (Isa 14:15), the lower recesses of Sheol (Ezek 32:23), the remotest part of a mountain range (Judg 19:1, 18; 2 Kgs 19:23; Isa 37:24), the highest summit of a mountain (Ps 48:3), and the north – viewed as the remotest part of the earth (Isa 14:13; Ezek 38:6, 15; 39:2). So the term could refer to the “back” (stern) or “remote part” (lower cargo hold) of the ship. The related Akkadian expression arkat eleppi, “stern of a ship” (HALOT 439 s.v. 2.b) seems to suggest that יַרְכָה means “stern” (HALOT 439 s.v. 2.b). However, the preceding יָרַד אֶל (yarad ’el, “he went down into”) suggests a location below deck. Also the genitive noun סְפִינָה (sÿfinah) refers to a “ship” with a deck (BDB 706 s.v. סְפִינָה; HALOT 764 s.v. סְפִינָה; R. S. Hess, NIDOTTE 3:282).

[1:5]  ²⁷ tn Or “of the ship.” The noun סְפִינָה (sÿfinah) refers to a “ship” with a deck (HALOT 764 s.v. סְפִינָה). The term is a hapax legomenon in Hebrew and is probably an Aramaic loanword. The term is used frequently in the related Semitic languages to refer to ships with multiple decks. Here the term probably functions as a synecdoche of whole for the part, referring to the “lower deck” rather than to the ship as a whole (R. S. Hess, NIDOTTE 3:282). An outdated approach related the noun to the verb סָפַן (safan, “to cover”) and suggested that סְפִינָה describes a ship covered with sheathing (BDB 706 s.v. סְפִינָה).

[1:5]  ²⁸ tn The a-class theme vowel of וַיֵּרָדַם (vayyeradam) indicates that this is a stative verb, describing the resultant condition of falling asleep: “was sound asleep.”