1 Samuel 2:30

2:30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘I really did say ¹  that your house and your ancestor’s house would serve ²  me forever.’ But now the Lord says, ‘May it never be! ³  For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed!

1 Samuel 2:2

2:2 No one is holy ⁴  like the Lord!

There is no one other than you!

There is no rock ⁵  like our God!

1 Samuel 9:1

Samuel Meets with Saul

9:1 There was a Benjaminite man named Kish son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin. He was a prominent person.

1 Samuel 21:13

21:13 He altered his behavior in their presence. ⁶  Since he was in their power, ⁷  he pretended to be insane, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting his saliva run down his beard.

Job 20:7

20:7 he will perish forever, like his own excrement; ⁸ 

those who used to see him will say, ‘Where is he?’

Psalms 83:10

83:10 They were destroyed at Endor; ⁹ 

their corpses were like manure ¹⁰  on the ground.

Isaiah 5:25

5:25 So the Lord is furious ¹¹  with his people;

he lifts ¹²  his hand and strikes them.

The mountains shake,

and corpses lie like manure ¹³  in the middle of the streets.

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 14:19

14:19 But you have been thrown out of your grave

like a shoot that is thrown away. ¹⁵ 

You lie among ¹⁶  the slain,

among those who have been slashed by the sword,

among those headed for ¹⁷  the stones of the pit, ¹⁸ 

as if you were a mangled corpse. ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 14:23

14:23 “I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals ²⁰ 

and covered with pools of stagnant water.

I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,” ²¹ 

says the Lord who commands armies.

Jeremiah 8:2

8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ²²  These are things they ²³  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ²⁴  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ²⁵  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ²⁶ 

Ezekiel 26:4

26:4 They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers. I will scrape her soil ²⁷  from her and make her a bare rock.

Zephaniah 1:17

1:17 I will bring distress on the people ²⁸ 

and they will stumble ²⁹  like blind men,

for they have sinned against the Lord.

Their blood will be poured out like dirt;

their flesh ³⁰  will be scattered ³¹  like manure.

Malachi 2:3

2:3 I am about to discipline your children ³²  and will spread offal ³³  on your faces, ³⁴  the very offal produced at your festivals, and you will be carried away along with it.

Luke 14:34-35

14:34 “Salt ³⁵  is good, but if salt loses its flavor, ³⁶  how can its flavor be restored? 14:35 It is of no value ³⁷  for the soil or for the manure pile; it is to be thrown out. ³⁸  The one who has ears to hear had better listen!” ³⁹ 

[2:30]  ¹ tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[2:30]  ² tn Heb “walk about before.”

[2:30]  ³ tn Heb “may it be far removed from me.”

[2:2]  ⁴ sn In this context God’s holiness refers primarily to his sovereignty and incomparability. He is unique and distinct from all other so-called gods.

[2:2]  ⁵ tn The LXX has “and there is none righteous like our God.” The Hebrew term translated “rock” refers to a rocky cliff where one can seek refuge from enemies. Here the metaphor depicts God as a protector of his people. Cf. TEV “no protector like our God”; CEV “We’re safer with you than on a high mountain.”

[21:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “in their eyes.”

[21:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “in their hand.”

[20:7]  ⁸ tn There have been attempts to change the word here to “like a whirlwind,” or something similar. But many argue that there is no reason to remove a coarse expression from Zophar.

[83:10]  ⁹ sn Endor is not mentioned in the accounts of Gideon’s or Barak’s victories, but both battles took place in the general vicinity of the town. (See Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 46, 54.) Because Sisera and Jabin are mentioned in v. 9b, many understand them to be the subject of the verbs in v. 10, though they relate v. 10 to Gideon’s victory, which is referred to in v. 9a, 11. (See, for example, Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 263.)

[83:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they were manure.” In addition to this passage, corpses are compared to manure in 2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:21; 16:4; 25:33.

[5:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the anger of the Lord rages.”

[5:25]  ¹² tn Or “extends”; KJV, ASV “he hath stretched forth.”

[5:25]  ¹³ tn Or “garbage” (NCV, CEV, NLT); NAB, NASB, NIV “refuse.”

[5:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.”

[14:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “like a shoot that is abhorred.” The simile seems a bit odd; apparently it refers to a small shoot that is trimmed from a plant and tossed away. Some prefer to emend נֵצֶר (netser, “shoot”); some propose נֵפֶל (nefel, “miscarriage”). In this case one might paraphrase: “like a horrible-looking fetus that is delivered when a woman miscarries.”

[14:19]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “are clothed with.”

[14:19]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “those going down to.”

[14:19]  ¹⁸ tn בּוֹר (bor) literally means “cistern”; cisterns were constructed from stones. On the metaphorical use of “cistern” for the underworld, see the note at v. 15.

[14:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “like a trampled corpse.” Some take this line with what follows.

[14:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I will make her into a possession of wild animals.” It is uncertain what type of animal קִפֹּד (qippod) refers to. Some suggest a rodent (cf. NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”), others an owl (cf, NAB, NIV, TEV).

[14:23]  ²¹ tn Heb “I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction.”

[8:2]  ²² tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  ²³ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[26:4]  ²⁷ tn Or “debris.”

[1:17]  ²⁸ tn “The people” refers to mankind in general (see vv. 2-3) or more specifically to the residents of Judah (see vv. 4-13).

[1:17]  ²⁹ tn Heb “walk.”

[1:17]  ³⁰ tn Some take the referent of “flesh” to be more specific here; cf. NEB (“bowels”), NAB (“brains”), NIV (“entrails”).

[1:17]  ³¹ tn The words “will be scattered” are supplied in the translation for clarity based on the parallelism with “will be poured out” in the previous line.

[2:3]  ³² tc The phrase “discipline your children” is disputed. The LXX and Vulgate suppose זְרוֹעַ (zÿroa’, “arm”) for the MT זֶרַע (zera’, “seed”; hence, “children”). Then, for the MT גֹעֵר (go’er, “rebuking”) the same versions suggest גָּרַע (gara’, “take away”). The resulting translation is “I am about to take away your arm” (cf. NAB “deprive you of the shoulder”). However, this reading is unlikely. It is common for a curse (v. 2) to fall on offspring (see, e.g., Deut 28:18, 32, 41, 53, 55, 57), but a curse never takes the form of a broken or amputated arm. It is preferable to retain the reading of the MT here.

[2:3]  ³³ tn The Hebrew term פֶרֶשׁ (feresh, “offal”) refers to the entrails as ripped out in preparing a sacrificial victim (BDB 831 s.v. פֶּרֶשׁ). This graphic term has been variously translated: “dung” (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NLT); “refuse” (NKJV, NASB); “offal” (NEB, NIV).

[2:3]  ³⁴ sn See Zech 3:3-4 for similar coarse imagery which reflects cultic disqualification.

[14:34]  ³⁵ tn Grk “Now salt…”; here οὖν has not been translated.

[14:34]  ³⁶ 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 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. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be, both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.

[14:35]  ³⁷ tn Or “It is not useful” (L&N 65.32).

[14:35]  ³⁸ tn Grk “they throw it out.” The third person plural with unspecified subject is a circumlocution for the passive here.

[14:35]  ³⁹ tn The translation “had better listen!” captures the force of the third person imperative more effectively than the traditional “let him hear,” which sounds more like a permissive than an imperative to the modern English reader. This was Jesus’ common expression to listen and heed carefully (cf. Matt 11:15; 13:9, 43; Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 8:8).