2 Samuel 12:5-6

12:5 Then David became very angry at this man. He said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! ¹  12:6 Because he committed this cold-hearted crime, he must pay for the lamb four times over!” ² 

2 Samuel 16:4

16:4 The king said to Ziba, “Everything that was Mephibosheth’s now belongs to you.” Ziba replied, “I bow before you. May I find favor in your sight, my lord the king.”

Job 29:16

29:16 I was a father ³  to the needy,

and I investigated the case of the person I did not know;

Proverbs 18:13

18:13 The one who gives an answer ⁴  before he listens ⁵  –

that is his folly and his shame. ⁶ 

Isaiah 11:3-4

11:3 He will take delight in obeying the Lord. ⁷ 

He will not judge by mere appearances, ⁸ 

or make decisions on the basis of hearsay. ⁹ 

11:4 He will treat the poor fairly, ¹⁰ 

and make right decisions ¹¹  for the downtrodden of the earth. ¹² 

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, ¹³ 

and order the wicked to be executed. ¹⁴ 

[12:5]  ¹ tn Heb “the man doing this [is] a son of death.” See 1 Sam 20:31 for another use of this expression, which must mean “he is as good as dead” or “he deserves to die,” as 1 Sam 20:32 makes clear.

[12:6]  ² tc With the exception of the Lucianic recension, the Old Greek translation has here “sevenfold” rather than “fourfold,” a reading that S. R. Driver thought probably to be the original reading (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 291). However, Exod 22:1 [21:37 HT] specifies fourfold repayment for a stolen sheep, which is consistent with 2 Sam 12:6. Some mss of the Targum and the Syriac Peshitta exaggerate the idea to “fortyfold.”

[29:16]  ³ sn The word “father” does not have a wide range of meanings in the OT. But there are places that it is metaphorical, especially in a legal setting like this where the poor need aid.

[18:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “returns a word”; KJV “He that answereth a matter.”

[18:13]  ⁵ sn Poor listening and premature answering indicate that the person has a low regard for what the other is saying, or that he is too absorbed in his own ideas. The Mishnah lists this as the second characteristic of the uncultured person (m. Avot 5:7).

[18:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “it is folly to him and shame.” The verse uses formal parallelism, with the second colon simply completing the thought of the first.

[11:3]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “and his smelling is in the fear of the Lord.” In Amos 5:21 the Hiphil of רוּחַ (ruakh, “smell”) carries the nuance of “smell with delight, get pleasure from.” There the Lord declares that he does not “smell with delight” (i.e., get pleasure from) Israel’s religious assemblies, which probably stand by metonymy for the incense offered during these festivals. In Isa 11:3 there is no sacrificial context to suggest such a use, but it is possible that “the fear of the Lord” is likened to incense. This coming king will get the same kind of delight from obeying (fearing) the Lord, as a deity does in the incense offered by worshipers. Some regard such an explanation as strained in this context, and prefer to omit this line from the text as a virtual dittograph of the preceding statement.

[11:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “by what appears to his eyes”; KJV “after the sight of his eyes”; NIV “by what he sees with his eyes.”

[11:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “by what is heard by his ears”; NRSV “by what his ears hear.”

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “with justice” (so NAB) or “with righteousness” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[11:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “make decisions with rectitude”; cf. ASV, NRSV “and decide with equity.”

[11:4]  ¹² tn Or “land” (NAB, NCV, CEV). It is uncertain if the passage is picturing universal dominion or focusing on the king’s rule over his covenant people. The reference to God’s “holy mountain” in v. 9 and the description of renewed Israelite conquests in v. 14 suggest the latter, though v. 10 seems to refer to a universal kingdom (see 2:2-4).

[11:4]  ¹³ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and he will strike the earth with the scepter of his mouth.” Some have suggested that in this context אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) as an object of judgment seems too broad in scope. The parallelism is tighter if one emends the word to ץ(י)עָרִ (’arits, “potentate, tyrant”). The phrase “scepter of his mouth” refers to the royal (note “scepter”) decrees that he proclaims with his mouth. Because these decrees will have authority and power (see v. 2) behind them, they can be described as “striking” the tyrants down. Nevertheless, the MT reading may not need emending. Isaiah refers to the entire “earth” as the object of God’s judgment in several places without specifying the wicked as the object of the judgment (Isa 24:17-21; 26:9, 21; 28:22; cf. 13:11).

[11:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and by the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked.” The “breath of his lips” refers to his speech, specifically in this context his official decrees that the wicked oppressors be eliminated from his realm. See the preceding note.