1 Samuel 4:12

Eli Dies

4:12 On that day ¹  a Benjaminite ran from the battle lines and came to Shiloh. His clothes were torn and dirt was on his head.

1 Samuel 4:2

4:2 The Philistines arranged their forces to fight ²  Israel. As the battle spread out, ³  Israel was defeated by ⁴  the Philistines, who ⁵  killed about four thousand men in the battle line in the field.

1 Samuel 1:2

1:2 He had two wives; the name of the first was Hannah and the name of the second was Peninnah. Now Peninnah had children, but Hannah was childless.

Job 2:12

2:12 But when they gazed intently ⁶  from a distance but did not recognize ⁷  him, they began to weep loudly. Each of them tore his robes, and they threw dust into the air over their heads. ⁸ 

Lamentations 2:10

י (Yod)

2:10 The elders of Daughter Zion

sit ⁹  on the ground in silence. ¹⁰ 

They have thrown dirt on their heads;

They have dressed in sackcloth. ¹¹ 

Jerusalem’s young women ¹²  stare down at the ground. ¹³ 

Revelation 18:19

18:19 And they threw dust on their heads and were shouting with weeping and mourning, ¹⁴ 

“Woe, Woe, O great city –

in which all those who had ships on the sea got rich from her wealth –

because in a single hour she has been destroyed!” ¹⁵ 

[4:12]  ¹ tn Or perhaps, “the same day.” On this use of the demonstrative pronoun see Joüon 2:532 §143.f.

[4:2]  ² tn Heb “to meet.”

[4:2]  ³ tn The MT has וַתִּטֹּשׁ (vattittosh), from the root נטשׁ (ntsh). This verb normally means “to leave,” “to forsake,” or “to permit,” but such an idea does not fit this context very well. Many scholars have suspected that the text originally read either וַתֵּט (vattet, “and it spread out”), from the root נטה (nth), or וַתִּקֶשׁ (vattiqesh, “and it grew fierce”), from the root קשׂה (qsh). The former suggestion is apparently supported by the LXX ἔκλινεν (eklinen, “it inclined”) and is adopted in the translation.

[4:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “before.”

[4:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Philistines, and they killed.” The pronoun “they” has been translated as a relative pronoun (“who”) to make it clear to the English reader that the Philistines were the ones who did the killing.

[2:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “they lifted up their eyes.” The idiom “to lift up the eyes” (or “to lift up the voice”) is intended to show a special intensity in the effort. Here it would indicate that they were trying to see Job from a great distance away.

[2:12]  ⁷ tn The Hiphil perfect here should take the nuance of potential perfect – they were not able to recognize him. In other words, this does not mean that they did not know it was Job, only that he did not look anything like the Job they knew.

[2:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “they tossed dust skyward over their heads.”

[2:10]  ⁹ tc Consonantal ישׁבו (yshvy) is vocalized by the MT as יֵשְׁבוּ (yeshvu), Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural from יָשַׁב (yashav, “to sit”): “they sit on the ground.” However, the ancient versions (Aramaic Targum, Greek Septuagint, Syriac Peshitta, Latin Vulgate) reflect an alternate vocalization tradition of יָשְׁבוּ (yashvu), Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural from שׁוּב (shuv, “to return”): “they return to the ground (= the grave).” The parallelism with the following line favors the MT.

[2:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they sit on the ground, they are silent.” Based on meter, the two verbs יִדְּמוּ…יֵשְׁבוּ (yeshvu…yidÿmu, “they sit…they are silent”) are in the same half of the line. Joined without a ו (vav) conjunction they form a verbal hendiadys. The first functions in its full verbal sense while the second functions adverbially: “they sit in silence.” The verb יִדְּמוּ (yidÿmu) may mean to be silent or to wail.

[2:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they have girded themselves with sackcloth.”

[2:10]  ¹² tn Heb “the virgins of Jerusalem.” The term “virgins” is a metonymy of association, standing for single young women who are not yet married. These single women are in grief because their potential suitors have been killed. The elders, old men, and young women function together as a merism for all of the survivors (F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations [IBC], 92).

[2:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “have bowed down their heads to the ground.”

[18:19]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “with weeping and mourning, saying.” Here the participle λέγοντες (legontes) has not been translated because it is redundant in contemporary English.

[18:19]  ¹⁵ tn On ἡρημώθη (Jhrhmwqh) L&N 20.41 states, “to suffer destruction, with the implication of being deserted and abandoned – ‘to be destroyed, to suffer destruction, to suffer desolation.’ ἐρημόομαι: μιᾷ ὥρᾳ ἠρημώθη ὁ τοσοῦτος πλοῦτος ‘such great wealth has been destroyed within a single hour’ Re 18:17.”