Esther 3:2-3

3:2 As a result, ¹  all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate were bowing and paying homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded. However, Mordecai did not bow, ²  nor did he pay him homage.

3:3 Then the servants of the king who were at the king’s gate asked Mordecai, “Why are you violating the king’s commandment?”

Esther 5:11

5:11 Haman then recounted to them his fabulous wealth, ³  his many sons, ⁴  and how the king had magnified him and exalted him over the king’s other officials and servants.

Proverbs 1:32

1:32 For the waywardness ⁵  of the

simpletons will kill ⁶  them,

and the careless ease ⁷  of fools will destroy them.

Proverbs 16:18

16:18 Pride ⁸  goes ⁹  before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall. ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 18:12

18:12 Before destruction the heart ¹¹  of a person is proud,

but humility comes ¹²  before honor. ¹³ 

Proverbs 30:13

30:13 There is a generation whose eyes are so lofty, ¹⁴ 

and whose eyelids are lifted up disdainfully. ¹⁵ 

Obadiah 1:3

1:3 Your presumptuous heart ¹⁶  has deceived you –

you who reside in the safety of the rocky cliffs, ¹⁷ 

whose home is high in the mountains. ¹⁸ 

You think to yourself, ¹⁹ 

‘No one can ²⁰  bring me down to the ground!’ ²¹ 

[3:2]  ¹ tn Heb “and” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). Other modern English versions leave the conjunction untranslated here (NAB, NIV, NCV, NLT).

[3:2]  ² sn Mordecai did not bow. The reason for Mordecai’s refusal to bow before Haman is not clearly stated here. Certainly the Jews did not refuse to bow as a matter of principle, as though such an action somehow violated the second command of the Decalogue. Many biblical texts bear witness to their practice of falling prostrate before people of power and influence (e.g., 1 Sam 24:8; 2 Sam 14:4; 1 Kgs 1:16). Perhaps the issue here was that Haman was a descendant of the Amalekites, a people who had attacked Israel in an earlier age (see Exod 17:8-16; 1 Sam 15:17-20; Deut 25:17-19).

[5:11]  ³ tn Heb “the glory of his riches” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “the splendor of his riches.”

[5:11]  ⁴ sn According to Esth 9:10 Haman had ten sons.

[1:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “turning away” (so KJV). The term מְשׁוּבַת (mÿshuvat, “turning away”) refers to moral defection and apostasy (BDB 1000 s.v.; cf. ASV “backsliding”). The noun מְשׁוּבַת (“turning away”) which appears at the end of Wisdom’s speech in 1:32 is from the same root as the verb תָּשׁוּבוּ (tashuvu, “turn!”) which appears at the beginning of this speech in 1:23. This repetition of the root שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn”) creates a wordplay: Because fools refuse to “turn to” wisdom (1:23), they will be destroyed by their “turning away” from wisdom (1:32). The wordplay highlights the poetic justice of their judgment. But here they have never embraced the teaching in the first place; so it means turning from the advice as opposed to turning to it.

[1:32]  ⁶ sn The Hebrew verb “to kill” (הָרַג, harag) is the end of the naive who refuse to change. The word is broad enough to include murder, massacre, killing in battle, and execution. Here it is judicial execution by God, using their own foolish choices as the means to ruin.

[1:32]  ⁷ tn Heb “complacency” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “smugness.” The noun שַׁלְוַה (shalvah) means (1) positively: “quietness; peace; ease” and (2) negatively: “self-sufficiency; complacency; careless security” (BDB 1017 s.v.), which is the sense here. It is “repose gained by ignoring or neglecting the serious responsibilities of life” (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 29).

[16:18]  ⁸ sn The two lines of this proverb are synonymous parallelism, and so there are parasynonyms. “Pride” is paired with “haughty spirit” (“spirit” being a genitive of specification); and “destruction” is matched with “a tottering, falling.”

[16:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “[is] before destruction.”

[16:18]  ¹⁰ sn Many proverbs have been written in a similar way to warn against the inevitable disintegration and downfall of pride. W. McKane records an Arabic proverb: “The nose is in the heavens, the seat is in the mire” (Proverbs [OTL], 490).

[18:12]  ¹¹ sn The term “heart” is a metonymy of subject, referring to the seat of the spiritual and intellectual capacities – the mind, the will, the motivations and intentions. Proud ambitions and intentions will lead to a fall.

[18:12]  ¹² tn Heb “[is] before honor”; cf. CEV “humility leads to honor.”

[18:12]  ¹³ sn The way to honor is through humility (e.g., Prov 11:2; 15:33; 16:18). The humility and exaltation of Jesus provides the classic example (Phil 2:1-10).

[30:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “how high are its eyes!” This is a use of the interrogative pronoun in exclamatory sentences (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 25, §127).

[30:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “its eyelids are lifted up,” a gesture indicating arrogance and contempt or disdain for others. To make this clear, the present translation supplies the adverb “disdainfully” at the end of the verse.

[1:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the presumption of your heart”; NAB, NIV “the pride of your heart”; NASB “arrogance of your heart.”

[1:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in the concealed places of the rock”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “in the clefts of the rock”; NCV “the hollow places of the cliff”; CEV “a mountain fortress.”

[1:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “on high (is) his dwelling”; NASB “in the loftiness of your dwelling place”; NRSV “whose dwelling (abode NAB) is in the heights.”

[1:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the one who says in his heart.”

[1:3]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew imperfect verb used here is best understood in a modal sense (“Who can bring me down?”) rather than in the sense of a simple future (“Who will bring me down?”). So also in v. 4 (“I can bring you down”). The question is not so much whether this will happen at some time in the future, but whether it even lies in the realm of possible events. In their hubris the Edomites were boasting that no one had the capability of breaching their impregnable defenses. However, their pride caused them to fail to consider the vast capabilities of Yahweh as warrior.

[1:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “Who can bring me down?” This rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “No one!”