1 Kings 20:10

20:10 Ben Hadad sent another message to him, “May the gods judge me severely ¹  if there is enough dirt left in Samaria for my soldiers to scoop up in their hands.” ² 

1 Kings 20:2

20:2 He sent messengers to King Ahab of Israel, who was in the city. ³ 

1 Kings 18:23

18:23 Let them bring us two bulls. Let them choose one of the bulls for themselves, cut it up into pieces, and place it on the wood. But they must not set it on fire. I will do the same to the other bull and place it on the wood. But I will not set it on fire.

1 Kings 19:1

Elijah Runs for His Life

19:1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, including a detailed account of how he killed all the prophets with the sword.

Isaiah 10:13-14

10:13 For he says:

“By my strong hand I have accomplished this,

by my strategy that I devised.

I invaded the territory of nations, ⁴ 

and looted their storehouses.

Like a mighty conqueror, ⁵  I brought down rulers. ⁶ 

10:14 My hand discovered the wealth of the nations, as if it were in a nest,

as one gathers up abandoned eggs,

I gathered up the whole earth.

There was no wing flapping,

or open mouth chirping.” ⁷ 

Obadiah 1:3

1:3 Your presumptuous heart ⁸  has deceived you –

you who reside in the safety of the rocky cliffs, ⁹ 

whose home is high in the mountains. ¹⁰ 

You think to yourself, ¹¹ 

‘No one can ¹²  bring me down to the ground!’ ¹³ 

[20:10]  ¹ tn Heb “So may the gods do to me, and so may they add.”

[20:10]  ² tn Heb “if the dirt of Samaria suffices for the handfuls of all the people who are at my feet.”

[20:2]  ³ tn Heb “to the city.”

[10:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “removed the borders of nations”; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV “boundaries.”

[10:13]  ⁵ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has כְּאַבִּיר (kÿ’abir, “like a strong one”); the marginal reading (Qere) is כַּבִיר (kavir, “mighty one”).

[10:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “and I brought down, like a strong one, ones sitting [or “living”].” The participle יוֹשְׁבִים (yoshÿvim, “ones sitting”) could refer to the inhabitants of the nations, but the translation assumes that it refers to those who sit on thrones, i.e., rulers. See BDB 442 s.v. יָשַׁב and HALOT 444 s.v. ישׁב.

[10:14]  ⁷ sn The Assyrians’ conquests were relatively unopposed, like robbing a bird’s nest of its eggs when the mother bird is absent.

[1:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “the presumption of your heart”; NAB, NIV “the pride of your heart”; NASB “arrogance of your heart.”

[1:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the concealed places of the rock”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “in the clefts of the rock”; NCV “the hollow places of the cliff”; CEV “a mountain fortress.”

[1:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “on high (is) his dwelling”; NASB “in the loftiness of your dwelling place”; NRSV “whose dwelling (abode NAB) is in the heights.”

[1:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the one who says in his heart.”

[1:3]  ¹² tn The Hebrew imperfect verb used here is best understood in a modal sense (“Who can bring me down?”) rather than in the sense of a simple future (“Who will bring me down?”). So also in v. 4 (“I can bring you down”). The question is not so much whether this will happen at some time in the future, but whether it even lies in the realm of possible events. In their hubris the Edomites were boasting that no one had the capability of breaching their impregnable defenses. However, their pride caused them to fail to consider the vast capabilities of Yahweh as warrior.

[1:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “Who can bring me down?” This rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “No one!”