Genesis 14:19

14:19 He blessed Abram, saying,

“Blessed be Abram by ¹  the Most High God,

Creator ²  of heaven and earth. ³ 

Genesis 24:30-31

24:30 When he saw the bracelets on his sister’s wrists and the nose ring ⁴  and heard his sister Rebekah say, ⁵  “This is what the man said to me,” he went out to meet the man. There he was, standing ⁶  by the camels near the spring. 24:31 Laban said to him, ⁷  “Come, you who are blessed by the Lord! ⁸  Why are you standing out here when I have prepared ⁹  the house and a place for the camels?”

Exodus 20:7

20:7 “You shall not take ¹⁰  the name of the Lord your God in vain, ¹¹  for the Lord will not hold guiltless ¹²  anyone who takes his name in vain.

Ruth 3:10

3:10 He said, “May you be rewarded ¹³  by the Lord, my dear! ¹⁴  This act of devotion ¹⁵  is greater than what you did before. ¹⁶  For you have not sought to marry ¹⁷  one of the young men, whether rich or poor. ¹⁸ 

Ruth 3:1

Naomi Instructs Ruth

3:1 At that time, ¹⁹  Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home for you so you will be secure. ²⁰ 

Ruth 1:21

1:21 I left here full, ²¹  but the Lord has caused me to return empty-handed. ²²  Why do you call me ‘Naomi,’ seeing that ²³  the Lord has opposed me, ²⁴  and the Sovereign One ²⁵  has caused me to suffer?” ²⁶ 

Nehemiah 13:25

13:25 So I entered a complaint with them. I called down a curse on them, and I struck some of the men and pulled out their hair. I had them swear by God saying, “You will not marry off ²⁷  your daughters to their sons, and you will not take any of their daughters as wives for your sons or for yourselves!

Psalms 10:3

10:3 Yes, ²⁸  the wicked man ²⁹  boasts because he gets what he wants; ³⁰ 

the one who robs others ³¹  curses ³²  and ³³  rejects the Lord. ³⁴ 

Psalms 10:2

10:2 The wicked arrogantly chase the oppressed; ³⁵ 

the oppressed are trapped ³⁶  by the schemes the wicked have dreamed up. ³⁷ 

Psalms 1:1

Book 1
(Psalms 1-41)

Psalm 1 ³⁸ 

1:1 How blessed ³⁹  is the one ⁴⁰  who does not follow ⁴¹  the advice ⁴²  of the wicked, ⁴³ 

or stand in the pathway ⁴⁴  with sinners,

or sit in the assembly ⁴⁵  of scoffers! ⁴⁶ 

[14:19]  ¹ tn The preposition לְ (lamed) introduces the agent after the passive participle.

[14:19]  ² tn Some translate “possessor of heaven and earth” (cf. NASB). But cognate evidence from Ugaritic indicates that there were two homonymic roots ָקנָה (qanah), one meaning “to create” (as in Gen 4:1) and the other “to obtain, to acquire, to possess.” While “possessor” would fit here, “creator” is the more likely due to the collocation with “heaven and earth.”

[14:19]  ³ tn The terms translated “heaven” and “earth” are both objective genitives after the participle in construct.

[24:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “And it was when he saw the nose ring and the bracelets on the arms of his sister.” The word order is altered in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[24:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying.”

[24:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “and look, he was standing.” The disjunctive clause with the participle following the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) invites the audience to view the scene through Laban’s eyes.

[24:31]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he said.” The referent (Laban) has been specified and the words “to him” supplied in the translation for clarity.

[24:31]  ⁸ sn Laban’s obsession with wealth is apparent; to him it represents how one is blessed by the Lord. Already the author is laying the foundation for subsequent events in the narrative, where Laban’s greed becomes his dominant characteristic.

[24:31]  ⁹ tn The disjunctive clause is circumstantial.

[20:7]  ¹⁰ tn Or “use” (NCV, TEV); NIV, CEV, NLT “misuse”; NRSV “make wrongful use of.”

[20:7]  ¹¹ tn שָׁוְא (shav’, “vain”) describes “unreality.” The command prohibits use of the name for any idle, frivolous, or insincere purpose (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 196). This would include perjury, pagan incantations, or idle talk. The name is to be treated with reverence and respect because it is the name of the holy God.

[20:7]  ¹² tn Or “leave unpunished.”

[3:10]  ¹³ tn Or “blessed” (so NASB, NRSV).

[3:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “my daughter.” This form of address is a mild form of endearment, perhaps merely rhetorical. A few English versions omit it entirely (e.g., TEV, CEV). The same expression occurs in v. 11.

[3:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “latter [act of] devotion”; NRSV “this last instance of your loyalty.”

[3:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you have made the latter act of devotion better than the former”; NIV “than that which you showed earlier.”

[3:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “by not going after the young men” (NASB similar); TEV “You might have gone looking for a young man.”

[3:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “whether poor or rich” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); the more common English idiom reverses the order (“rich or poor”; cf. NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[3:1]  ¹⁹ tn The phrase “sometime later” does not appear in Hebrew but is supplied to mark the implicit shift in time from the events in chapter 2.

[3:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “My daughter, should I not seek for you a resting place so that it may go well for you [or which will be good for you]?” The idiomatic, negated rhetorical question is equivalent to an affirmation (see 2:8-9) and has thus been translated in the affirmative (so also NAB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[1:21]  ²¹ sn I left here full. That is, with a husband and two sons.

[1:21]  ²² tn Heb “but empty the Lord has brought me back.” The disjunctive clause structure (vav + adverb + verb + subject) highlights the contrast between her former condition and present situation. Cf. TEV “has brought me back without a thing.”

[1:21]  ²³ tn The disjunctive clause structure (vav [ו] + subject + verb) here introduces either an attendant circumstance (“when the Lord has opposed me”) or an explanation (“seeing that the Lord has opposed me”).

[1:21]  ²⁴ tc The LXX reads “humbled me” here, apparently understanding the verb as a Piel (עָנָה, ’anah) from a homonymic root meaning “afflict.” However, עָנָה (“afflict”) never introduces its object with בְּ (bet); when the preposition בְּ is used with this verb, it is always adverbial (“in, with, through”). To defend the LXX reading one would have to eliminate the preposition.

[1:21]  ²⁵ sn The divine name translated Sovereign One is שַׁדַּי (shadday, “Shaddai”). See further the note on this term in Ruth 1:20.

[1:21]  ²⁶ tn Or “brought disaster upon me”; NIV “brought misfortune (calamity NRSV) upon me”; NLT “has sent such tragedy.”

[13:25]  ²⁷ tn Heb “give.”

[10:3]  ²⁸ tn The translation assumes כִּי (ki) is asseverative: “indeed, certainly.” Another option is to translate “for,” understanding v. 3 as giving the reason why the wicked so arrogantly seek to destroy the helpless (so NASB, NRSV).

[10:3]  ²⁹ tn The representative or typical evildoer is described in vv. 3-11, 13, 15. Since the singular form predominates in these verses, it has been retained in the translation.

[10:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the wicked [one] boasts on account of the desire of his appetite.” The translation assumes that the preposition עַל (’al) introduces the reason why the wicked boasts (cf. this use of עַל with הָלַל (halal) in Ps 119:164 and Ezra 3:11). In this case, the “desire of his appetite” refers by metonymy to the object desired and acquired.

[10:3]  ³¹ tn The translation assumes the active participle is substantival, referring to the wicked man mentioned in the preceding line. The substantival participle is then understood as the subject of the following verbs. For other examples of the participle of בָּצַע (batsar) used of those who desire and/or acquire wealth through dishonest and/or violent means, see Prov 1:19; 15:27; Jer 6:13; 8:10; Hab 2:9.

[10:3]  ³² tn The verb בָּרַךְ (barakh) normally means “to bless,” but in a few cases it exhibits the polarized meaning “to curse” (1 Kgs 21:10, 13; Job 1:5-11; 2:5-9). (Some regard this use of בָּרַךְ as a mere euphemism.) The verb refers to the act of pronouncing or calling down a formal curse upon the object of one’s anger.

[10:3]  ³³ tn The conjunction “and” is supplied in the translation; it does not appear in the Hebrew text.

[10:3]  ³⁴ tn Another option is to translate, “he blesses one who robs others, [but] he curses the Lord.” In this case the subject of the verbs is “the wicked man” mentioned in the previous line, and “the one who robs others” is the object of the verb בָּרַךְ (barakh), which is understood in its usual sense of “bless.”

[10:2]  ³⁵ tn Heb “because of the pride of [the] wicked he burns [i.e. hotly pursues] [the] oppressed.” The singular forms רָשָׁע (rasha’, “wicked”) and עָנִי (’aniy, “oppressed”) are collective and representative, as indicated in the next line, which uses plural verb forms to describe the actions of both.

[10:2]  ³⁶ tn The two imperfect verbal forms in v. 2 describe either what typically happens (from the psalmist’s perspective) or what the psalmist was experiencing at the time he offered this prayer.

[10:2]  ³⁷ tn Heb “they are trapped in the schemes which they have thought up.” The referents of the two pronominal suffixes on the verbs have been specified in the translation for clarity. The referent of the first suffix (“they”) is taken as the oppressed, while the referent of the second (“they”) is taken to be the wicked (cf. NIV, which renders “wicked” in the previous line as a collective singular). Others take the referent of both occurrences of “they” in the line to be the wicked (cf. NRSV, “let them be caught in the schemes they have devised”).

[1:1]  ³⁸ sn Psalm 1. In this wisdom psalm the author advises his audience to reject the lifestyle of the wicked and to be loyal to God. The psalmist contrasts the destiny of the wicked with that of the righteous, emphasizing that the wicked are eventually destroyed while the godly prosper under the Lord’s protective care.

[1:1]  ³⁹ tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see v. 3; Pss 2:12; 34:9; 41:1; 65:4; 84:12; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).

[1:1]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man.” Hebrew wisdom literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The principle of the psalm is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender and age specific “man” with the more neutral “one.” (Generic “he” is employed in vv. 2-3). Since the godly man described in the psalm is representative of followers of God (note the plural form צַדִּיקִים [tsadiqim, “righteous, godly”] in vv. 5-6), one could translate the collective singular with the plural “those” both here and in vv. 2-3, where singular pronouns and verbal forms are utilized in the Hebrew text (cf. NRSV). However, here the singular form may emphasize that godly individuals are usually outnumbered by the wicked. Retaining the singular allows the translation to retain this emphasis.

[1:1]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “walk in.” The three perfect verbal forms in v. 1 refer in this context to characteristic behavior. The sequence “walk–stand–sit” envisions a progression from relatively casual association with the wicked to complete identification with them.

[1:1]  ⁴² tn The Hebrew noun translated “advice” most often refers to the “counsel” or “advice” one receives from others. To “walk in the advice of the wicked” means to allow their evil advice to impact and determine one’s behavior.

[1:1]  ⁴³ tn In the psalms the Hebrew term רְשָׁעִים (rÿsha’im, “wicked”) describes people who are proud, practical atheists (Ps 10:2, 4, 11) who hate God’s commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander (Ps 50:16-20), and cheat others (Ps 37:21).

[1:1]  ⁴⁴ tn “Pathway” here refers to the lifestyle of sinners. To “stand in the pathway of/with sinners” means to closely associate with them in their sinful behavior.

[1:1]  ⁴⁵ tn Here the Hebrew term מוֹשַׁב (moshav), although often translated “seat” (cf. NEB, NIV), appears to refer to the whole assembly of evildoers. The word also carries the semantic nuance “assembly” in Ps 107:32, where it is in synonymous parallelism with קָהָל (qahal, “assembly”).

[1:1]  ⁴⁶ tn The Hebrew word refers to arrogant individuals (Prov 21:24) who love conflict (Prov 22:10) and vociferously reject wisdom and correction (Prov 1:22; 9:7-8; 13:1; 15:12). To “sit in the assembly” of such people means to completely identify with them in their proud, sinful plans and behavior.