Discovery Box2 Samuel 17:8
Context17:8 Hushai went on to say, “You know your father and his men – they are soldiers and are as dangerous as a bear out in the wild that has been robbed of her cubs. 1 Your father is an experienced soldier; he will not stay overnight with the army.
Proverbs 17:12
Context17:12 It is better for a person to meet 2 a mother bear being robbed of her cubs,
than 3 to encounter 4 a fool in his folly. 5
Amos 9:1-3
Context9:1 I saw the sovereign One 6 standing by the altar 7 and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, 8 so the thresholds shake!
Knock them down on the heads of all the people, 9
and I will kill the survivors 10 with the sword.
No one will be able to run away; 11
no one will be able to escape. 12
9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, 13
my hand would pull them up from there.
Even if they could climb up to heaven,
I would drag them down from there.
9:3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,
I would hunt them down and take them from there.
Even if they tried to hide from me 14 at the bottom of the sea,
from there 15 I would command the Sea Serpent 16 to bite them.
[17:8] 1 tc The LXX (with the exception of the recensions of Origen and Lucian) repeats the description as follows: “Just as a female bear bereft of cubs in a field.”
[17:12] 2 tn Heb “Let a man meet” (so NASB); NLT “It is safer to meet.” The infinitive absolute פָּגוֹשׁ (pagosh, “to meet”) functions as a jussive of advice. The bear meeting a man is less dangerous than a fool in his folly. It could be worded as a “better” saying, but that formula is not found here.
[17:12] 3 tn The second colon begins with וְאַל (vÿ’al), “and not.” This negative usually appears with volitives, so the fuller expression of the parallel line would be “and let not a fool in his folly [meet someone].”
[17:12] 4 tn The words “to meet” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied by the parallelism and are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
[17:12] 5 sn The human, who is supposed to be rational and intelligent, in such folly becomes more dangerous than the beast that in this case acts with good reason. As R. L. Alden comments, “Consider meeting a fool with a knife, or gun, or even behind the wheel of a car” (Proverbs, 134). See also E. Loewenstamm, “Remarks on Proverbs 17:12 and 20:27,” VT 37 (1967): 221-24. For a slightly different nuance cf. TEV “some fool busy with a stupid project.”
[9:1] 6 tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
[9:1] 7 sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.
[9:1] 8 tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.
[9:1] 9 tn Heb “cut them off on the head of all of them.” The translation assumes the objective suffix on the verb refers to the tops of the pillars and that the following prepositional phrase refers to the people standing beneath. Another option is to take this phrase as referring to the pillars, in which case one could translate, “Knock all the tops of the pillars off.”
[9:1] 10 tn Heb “the remnant of them.” One could possibly translate, “every last one of them” (cf. NEB “to the last man”). This probably refers to those who survive the collapse of the temple, which may symbolize the northern kingdom.
[9:1] 11 tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”
[9:1] 12 tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”
[9:2] 13 tn Heb “into Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), that is, the land of the dead localized in Hebrew thought in the earth’s core or the grave. Cf. KJV “hell”; NCV, NLT “the place of the dead”; NIV “the depths of the grave.”
[9:3] 14 tn Heb “from before my eyes.”
[9:3] 15 tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).
[9:3] 16 sn If the article indicates a definite serpent, then the mythological Sea Serpent, symbolic of the world’s chaotic forces, is probably in view. See Job 26:13 and Isa 27:1 (where it is also called Leviathan). Elsewhere in the OT this serpent is depicted as opposing the
