Ezra 7:27

7:27 ¹ Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who so moved in the heart of the king to so honor the temple of the Lord which is in Jerusalem!

Proverbs 21:1

21:1 The king’s heart ²  is in the hand ³  of the Lord like channels of water; ⁴ 

he turns it wherever he wants.

[7:27]  ¹ sn At this point the language of the book reverts from Aramaic (7:12-26) back to Hebrew.

[21:1]  ² sn “Heart” is a metonymy of subject; it signifies the ability to make decisions, if not the decisions themselves.

[21:1]  ³ sn “Hand” in this passage is a personification; the word is frequently used idiomatically for “power,” and that is the sense intended here.

[21:1]  ⁴ tn “Channels of water” (פַּלְגֵי, palge) is an adverbial accusative, functioning as a figure of comparison – “like channels of water.” Cf. NAB “Like a stream”; NIV “watercourse”; NRSV, NLT “a stream of water.”