Judges 9:4

9:4 They paid him seventy silver shekels out of the temple of Baal-Berith. Abimelech then used the silver to hire some lawless, dangerous ¹  men as his followers. ² 

Judges 9:1

Abimelech Murders His Brothers

9:1 Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother’s relatives. ³  He said to them and to his mother’s entire extended family, ⁴ 

Judges 1:2

1:2 The Lord said, “The men of Judah should take the lead. ⁵  Be sure of this! I am handing the land over to them.” ⁶ 

Judges 1:2

1:2 The Lord said, “The men of Judah should take the lead. ⁷  Be sure of this! I am handing the land over to them.” ⁸ 

Judges 1:22-24

Partial Success

1:22 When the men ⁹  of Joseph attacked ¹⁰  Bethel, ¹¹  the Lord was with them. 1:23 When the men of Joseph spied out Bethel (it used to be called Luz), 1:24 the spies spotted ¹²  a man leaving the city. They said to him, “If you show us a secret entrance into the city, we will reward you.”

Job 30:1-10

Job’s Present Misery

30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger ¹³  than I,

whose fathers I disdained too much ¹⁴ 

to put with my sheep dogs. ¹⁵ 

30:2 Moreover, the strength of their ¹⁶  hands –

what use was it to me?

Men whose strength ¹⁷  had perished;

30:3 gaunt ¹⁸  with want and hunger,

they would gnaw ¹⁹  the parched land,

in former time desolate and waste. ²⁰ 

30:4 By the brush ²¹  they would gather ²²  herbs from the salt marshes, ²³ 

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

30:5 They were banished from the community ²⁴  –

people ²⁵  shouted at them

like they would shout at thieves ²⁶  –

30:6 so that they had to live ²⁷ 

in the dry stream beds, ²⁸ 

in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.

30:7 They brayed ²⁹  like animals among the bushes

and were huddled together ³⁰  under the nettles.

30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people, ³¹ 

they were driven out of the land with whips. ³² 

Job’s Indignities

30:9 “And now I have become their taunt song;

I have become a byword ³³  among them.

30:10 They detest me and maintain their distance; ³⁴ 

they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

Acts 17:5

17:5 But the Jews became jealous, ³⁵  and gathering together some worthless men from the rabble in the marketplace, ³⁶  they formed a mob ³⁷  and set the city in an uproar. ³⁸  They attacked Jason’s house, ³⁹  trying to find Paul and Silas ⁴⁰  to bring them out to the assembly. ⁴¹ 

[9:4]  ¹ tn Heb “empty and reckless.”

[9:4]  ² tn Heb “and they followed him.”

[9:1]  ³ tn Heb “brothers.”

[9:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “to all the extended family of the house of the father of his mother.”

[1:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “Judah should go up.”

[1:2]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew exclamation הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally, “Behold”), translated “Be sure of this,” draws attention to the following statement. The verb form in the following statement (a Hebrew perfect, indicating completed action from the standpoint of the speaker) emphasizes the certainty of the event. Though it had not yet taken place, the Lord speaks of it as a “done deal.”

[1:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Judah should go up.”

[1:2]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew exclamation הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally, “Behold”), translated “Be sure of this,” draws attention to the following statement. The verb form in the following statement (a Hebrew perfect, indicating completed action from the standpoint of the speaker) emphasizes the certainty of the event. Though it had not yet taken place, the Lord speaks of it as a “done deal.”

[1:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “house.” This is a metonymy for the warriors from the tribe.

[1:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “went up.”

[1:22]  ¹¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[1:24]  ¹² tn Heb “saw.”

[30:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “smaller than I for days.”

[30:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “who I disdained their fathers to set…,” meaning “whose fathers I disdained to set.” The relative clause modifies the young fellows who mock; it explains that Job did not think highly enough of them to put them with the dogs. The next verse will explain why.

[30:1]  ¹⁵ sn Job is mocked by young fellows who come from low extraction. They mocked their elders and their betters. The scorn is strong here – dogs were despised as scavengers.

[30:2]  ¹⁶ tn The reference is to the fathers of the scorners, who are here regarded as weak and worthless.

[30:2]  ¹⁷ tn The word כֶּלַח (kelakh) only occurs in Job 5:26; but the Arabic cognate gives this meaning “strength.” Others suggest כָּלַח (kalakh, “old age”), ֹכּל־חַיִל (kol-khayil, “all vigor”), כֹּל־לֵחַ (kol-leakh, “all freshness”), and the like. But there is no reason for such emendation.

[30:3]  ¹⁸ tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.

[30:3]  ¹⁹ tn The form is the plural participle with the definite article – “who gnaw.” The article, joined to the participle, joins on a new statement concerning a preceding noun (see GKC 404 §126.b).

[30:3]  ²⁰ tn The MT has “yesterday desolate and waste.” The word “yesterday” (אֶמֶשׁ, ’emesh) is strange here. Among the proposals for אֶמֶשׁ (’emesh), Duhm suggested יְמַשְּׁשׁוּ (yÿmashÿshu, “they grope”), which would require darkness; Pope renders “by night,” instead of “yesterday,” which evades the difficulty; and Fohrer suggested with more reason אֶרֶץ (’erets), “a desolate and waste land.” R. Gordis (Job, 331) suggests יָמִישׁוּ / יָמֻשׁוּ (yamishu/yamushu), “they wander off.”

[30:4]  ²¹ tn Or “the leaves of bushes” (ESV), a possibility dating back to Saadia and discussed by G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:209) in their philological notes.

[30:4]  ²² tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

[30:4]  ²³ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.

[30:5]  ²⁴ tn The word גֵּו (gev) is an Aramaic term meaning “midst,” indicating “midst [of society].” But there is also a Phoenician word that means “community” (DISO 48).

[30:5]  ²⁵ tn The form simply is the plural verb, but it means those who drove them from society.

[30:5]  ²⁶ tn The text merely says “as thieves,” but it obviously compares the poor to the thieves.

[30:6]  ²⁷ tn This use of the infinitive construct expresses that they were compelled to do something (see GKC 348-49 §114.h, k).

[30:6]  ²⁸ tn The adjectives followed by a partitive genitive take on the emphasis of a superlative: “in the most horrible of valleys” (see GKC 431 §133.h).

[30:7]  ²⁹ tn The verb נָהַק (nahaq) means “to bray.” It has cognates in Arabic, Aramaic, and Ugaritic, so there is no need for emendation here. It is the sign of an animal’s hunger. In the translation the words “like animals” are supplied to clarify the metaphor for the modern reader.

[30:7]  ³⁰ tn The Pual of the verb סָפַח (safakh, “to join”) also brings out the passivity of these people – “they were huddled together” (E. Dhorme, Job, 434).

[30:8]  ³¹ tn The “sons of the senseless” (נָבָל, naval) means they were mentally and morally base and defective; and “sons of no-name” means without honor and respect, worthless (because not named).

[30:8]  ³² tn Heb “they were whipped from the land” (cf. ESV) or “they were cast out from the land” (HALOT 697 s.v. נכא). J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 397) follows Gordis suggests that the meaning is “brought lower than the ground.”

[30:9]  ³³ tn The idea is that Job has become proverbial, people think of misfortune and sin when they think of him. The statement uses the ordinary word for “word” (מִלָּה, millah), but in this context it means more: “proverb; byword.”

[30:10]  ³⁴ tn Heb “they are far from me.”

[17:5]  ³⁵ tn Grk “becoming jealous.” The participle ζηλώσαντες (zhlwsante") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style. So elsewhere in Acts (5:17; 7:9; 13:45).

[17:5]  ³⁶ tn Literally ἀγοραῖος (agoraio") refers to the crowd in the marketplace, although BDAG 14-15 s.v. ἀγοραῖος 1 gives the meaning, by extension, as “rabble.” Such a description is certainly appropriate in this context. L&N 15.127 translates the phrase “worthless men from the streets.”

[17:5]  ³⁷ tn On this term, which is a NT hapax legomenon, see BDAG 745 s.v. ὀχλοποιέω.

[17:5]  ³⁸ tn BDAG 458 s.v. θορυβέω 1 has “set the city in an uproar, start a riot in the city” for the meaning of ἐθορύβουν (eqoruboun) in this verse.

[17:5]  ³⁹ sn The attack took place at Jason’s house because this was probably the location of the new house church.

[17:5]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “them”; the referents (Paul and Silas) have been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:5]  ⁴¹ tn BDAG 223 s.v. δῆμος 2 has “in a Hellenistic city, a convocation of citizens called together for the purpose of transacting official business, popular assembly προάγειν εἰς τὸν δ. Ac 17:5.”