1 Samuel 27:1

David Aligns Himself with the Philistines

27:1 David thought to himself, ¹  “One of these days I’m going to be swept away by the hand of Saul! There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of searching for me through all the territory of Israel and I will escape from his hand.”

Psalms 54:3-4

54:3 For foreigners ²  attack me; ³ 

ruthless men, who do not respect God, seek my life. ⁴  (Selah)

54:4 Look, God is my deliverer! ⁵ 

The Lord is among those who support me. ⁶ 

Proverbs 1:16

1:16 for they ⁷  are eager ⁸  to inflict harm, ⁹ 

and they hasten ¹⁰  to shed blood. ¹¹ 

Proverbs 4:16

4:16 For they cannot sleep unless they cause harm; ¹² 

they are robbed of sleep ¹³  until they make someone stumble. ¹⁴ 

[27:1]  ¹ tn Heb “said to his heart.”

[54:3]  ² tc Many medieval Hebrew mss read זֵדִים (zedim, “proud ones”) rather than זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”). (No matter which reading one chooses as original, dalet-resh confusion accounts for the existence of the variant.) The term זֵדִים (“proud ones”) occurs in parallelism with עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Ps 86:14 and Isa 13:11. However, זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”) is parallel to עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Isa 25:5; 29:5; Ezek 28:7; 31:12.

[54:3]  ³ tn Heb “rise against me.”

[54:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “and ruthless ones seek my life, they do not set God in front of them.”

[54:4]  ⁵ tn Or “my helper.”

[54:4]  ⁶ tn Or “sustain my life.”

[1:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “their feet.” The term “feet” is a synecdoche of the part (= their feet) for the whole person (= they), stressing the eagerness of the robbers.

[1:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “run.” The verb רוּץ (ruts, “run”) functions here as a metonymy of association, meaning “to be eager” to do something (BDB 930 s.v.).

[1:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “to harm.” The noun רַע (ra’) has a four-fold range of meanings: (1) “pain, harm” (Prov 3:30), (2) “calamity, disaster” (13:21), (3) “distress, misery” (14:32) and (4) “moral evil” (8:13; see BDB 948-49 s.v.). The parallelism with “swift to shed blood” suggests it means “to inflict harm, injury.”

[1:16]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect tense verbs may be classified as habitual or progressive imperfects describing their ongoing continual activity.

[1:16]  ¹¹ tc The BHS editors suggest deleting this entire verse from MT because it does not appear in several versions (Codex B of the LXX, Coptic, Arabic) and is similar to Isa 59:7a. It is possible that it was a scribal gloss (intentional addition) copied into the margin from Isaiah. But this does not adequately explain the differences. It does fit the context well enough to be original.

[4:16]  ¹² sn The verb is רָעַע (ra’a’), which means “to do evil; to harm.” The verse is using the figure of hyperbole to stress the preoccupation of some people with causing trouble. R. L. Alden says, “How sick to find peace only at the price of another man’s misfortune” (Proverbs, 47).

[4:16]  ¹³ sn Heb “their sleep is robbed/seized”; these expressions are metonymical for their restlessness in plotting evil.

[4:16]  ¹⁴ sn The Hiphil imperfect (Kethib) means “cause to stumble.” This idiom (from hypocatastasis) means “bring injury/ruin to someone” (BDB 505-6 s.v. כָּשַׁל Hiph.1).