1 Kings 2:8-9

2:8 “Note well, you still have to contend with Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, ¹  who tried to call down upon me a horrible judgment when I went to Mahanaim. ²  He came down and met me at the Jordan, and I solemnly promised ³  him by the Lord, ‘I will not strike you down ⁴  with the sword.’ 2:9 But now ⁵  don’t treat him as if he were innocent. You are a wise man and you know how to handle him; ⁶  make sure he has a bloody death.” ⁷ 

1 Kings 2:2

2:2 “I am about to die. ⁸  Be strong and become a man!

1 Kings 16:5-9

16:5 The rest of the events of Baasha’s reign, including his accomplishments and successes, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel. ⁹  16:6 Baasha passed away ¹⁰  and was buried in Tirzah. His son Elah replaced him as king. 16:7 The prophet Jehu son of Hanani received from the Lord the message predicting the downfall of Baasha and his family because of all the evil Baasha had done in the sight of the Lord. ¹¹  His actions angered the Lord (including the way he had destroyed Jeroboam’s dynasty), so that his family ended up like Jeroboam’s. ¹² 

Elah’s Reign over Israel

16:8 In the twenty-sixth year of King Asa’s reign over Judah, Baasha’s son Elah became king over Israel; he ruled in Tirzah for two years. 16:9 His servant Zimri, a commander of half of his chariot force, conspired against him. While Elah was drinking heavily ¹³  at the house of Arza, who supervised the palace in Tirzah,

Proverbs 20:8

20:8 A king sitting on the throne to judge ¹⁴ 

separates out ¹⁵  all evil with his eyes. ¹⁶ 

Proverbs 20:26

20:26 A wise king separates out ¹⁷  the wicked;

he turns the threshing wheel over them. ¹⁸ 

[2:8]  ¹ tn Heb “Look, with you is Shimei….”

[2:8]  ² tn Heb “and he cursed me with a horrible curse on the day I went to Mahanaim.”

[2:8]  ³ tn Or “swore an oath to.”

[2:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “kill you.”

[2:9]  ⁵ tc The Lucianic recension of the Old Greek and the Vulgate have here “you” rather than “now.” The two words are homonyms in Hebrew.

[2:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “what you should do to him.”

[2:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “bring his grey hair down in blood [to] Sheol.”

[2:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “going the way of all the earth.”

[16:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Baasha, and that which he did and his strength, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Israel?”

[16:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”

[16:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and also through Jehu son of Hanani the word of the Lord came concerning [or “against”] Baasha and his house, and because of all the evil which he did in the eyes of the Lord.”

[16:7]  ¹² tn Heb “angering him by the work of his hands, so that he was like the house of Jeroboam, and because of how he struck it down.”

[16:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “while he was drinking and drunken.”

[20:8]  ¹⁴ tn The infinitive construct is דִּין; it indicates purpose, “to judge” (so NIV, NCV) even though it does not have the preposition with it.

[20:8]  ¹⁵ tn The second line uses the image of winnowing (cf. NIV, NRSV) to state that the king’s judgment removes evil from the realm. The verb form is מִזָרֶה (mÿzareh), the Piel participle. It has been translated “to sift; to winnow; to scatter” and “to separate” – i.e., separate out evil from the land. The text is saying that a just government roots out evil (cf. NAB “dispels all evil”), but few governments have been consistently just.

[20:8]  ¹⁶ sn The phrase with his eyes indicates that the king will closely examine or look into all the cases that come before him.

[20:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “winnows” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV). The sage draws on the process of winnowing to explain how the king uncovers and removes wickedness. The verb from which the participle מְזָרֶה (mÿzareh) is derived means “to separate; to winnow; to scatter”; the implied comparison means that the king will separate good people from bad people like wheat is separated from chaff. The image of winnowing is also used in divine judgment. The second line of the verse uses a detail of the process to make the point. Driving a wheel over the wheat represents the threshing process; the sharp iron wheels of the cart would easily serve the purpose (e.g., Isa 28:27-28).

[20:26]  ¹⁸ tn The king has the wisdom/ability to destroy evil from his kingdom. See also D. W. Thomas, “Proverbs 20:26,” JTS 15 (1964): 155-56.