1 Kings 3:9

3:9 So give your servant a discerning mind ¹  so he can make judicial decisions for ²  your people and distinguish right from wrong. ³  Otherwise ⁴  no one is able ⁵  to make judicial decisions for ⁶  this great nation of yours.” ⁷ 

1 Kings 3:28

3:28 When all Israel heard about the judicial decision which the king had rendered, they respected ⁸  the king, for they realized ⁹  that he possessed supernatural wisdom ¹⁰  to make judicial decisions.

Job 6:30

6:30 Is there any falsehood ¹¹  on my lips?

Can my mouth ¹²  not discern evil things? ¹³ 

Job 6:1

Job Replies to Eliphaz

6:1 Then Job responded: ¹⁴ 

Colossians 2:14-15

2:14 He has destroyed ¹⁵  what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness ¹⁶  expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. 2:15 Disarming ¹⁷  the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ¹⁸ 

Hebrews 5:14

5:14 But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil.

[3:9]  ¹ tn Heb “a hearing heart.” (The Hebrew term translated “heart” often refers to the mental faculties.)

[3:9]  ² tn Heb “to judge.”

[3:9]  ³ tn Heb “to understand between good and evil.”

[3:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “for”; the word “otherwise” is used to reflect the logical sense of the statement.

[3:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “who is able?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “no one.”

[3:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “to judge.”

[3:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “your numerous people.”

[3:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “feared,” perhaps in the sense, “stood in awe of.”

[3:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “saw.”

[3:28]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the wisdom of God within him.”

[6:30]  ¹¹ tn The word עַוְלָה (’avlah) is repeated from the last verse. Here the focus is clearly on wickedness or injustice spoken.

[6:30]  ¹² tn Heb “my palate.” Here “palate” is used not so much for the organ of speech (by metonymy) as of discernment. In other words, what he says indicates what he thinks.

[6:30]  ¹³ tn The final word, הַוּוֹת (havvot) is usually understood as “calamities.” He would be asking if he could not discern his misfortune. But some argue that the word has to be understood in the parallelism to “wickedness” of words (D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 162). Gordis connects it to Mic 7:3 and Ps 5:10 [9] where the meaning “deceit, falsehood” is found. The LXX has “and does not my throat meditate understanding?”

[6:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “answered and said.”

[2:14]  ¹⁵ tn The participle ἐξαλείψας (exaleiyas) is a temporal adverbial participle of contemporaneous time related to the previous verb συνεζωοποίησεν (sunezwopoihsen), but has been translated as a finite verb because of the complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences. For the meaning “destroy” see BDAG 344-45 s.v. ἐξαλείφω 2.

[2:14]  ¹⁶ tn On the translation of χειρόγραφον (ceirografon), see BDAG 1083 s.v. which refers to it as “a certificate of indebtedness.”

[2:15]  ¹⁷ tn See BDAG 100 s.v. ἀπεκδύομαι 2.

[2:15]  ¹⁸ tn The antecedent of the Greek pronoun αὐτῷ (autw) could either be “Christ” or the “cross.” There are several reasons for choosing “the cross” as the antecedent for αὐτῷ in verse 15: (1) The nearest antecedent is τῷ σταυρῷ (tw staurw) in v. 14; (2) the idea of ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησία (edeigmatisen en parrhsia, “made a public disgrace”) seems to be more in keeping with the idea of the cross; (3) a reference to Christ seems to miss the irony involved in the idea of triumph – the whole point is that where one would expect defeat, there came the victory; (4) if Christ is the subject of the participles in v. 15 then almost certainly the cross is the referent for αὐτῷ. Thus the best solution is to see αὐτῷ as a reference to the cross and the preposition ἐν (en) indicating “means” (i.e., by means of the cross) or possibly (though less likely) location (on the cross).