Job 18:11

18:11 Terrors ¹  frighten him on all sides

and dog ²  his every step.

Psalms 48:4-6

48:4 For ³  look, the kings assemble; ⁴ 

they advance together.

48:5 As soon as they see, ⁵  they are shocked; ⁶ 

they are terrified, they quickly retreat. ⁷ 

48:6 Look at them shake uncontrollably, ⁸ 

like a woman writhing in childbirth. ⁹ 

Psalms 68:12

68:12 Kings leading armies run away – they run away! ¹⁰ 

The lovely lady ¹¹  of the house divides up the loot.

Proverbs 21:1

21:1 The king’s heart ¹²  is in the hand ¹³  of the Lord like channels of water; ¹⁴ 

he turns it wherever he wants.

Proverbs 28:1

28:1 The wicked person flees when there is no one pursuing, ¹⁵ 

but the righteous person is as confident ¹⁶  as a lion.

Jeremiah 48:8-9

48:8 The destroyer will come against every town.

Not one town will escape.

The towns in the valley will be destroyed.

The cities on the high plain will be laid waste. ¹⁷ 

I, the Lord, have spoken! ¹⁸ 

48:9 Set up a gravestone for Moab,

for it will certainly be laid in ruins! ¹⁹ 

Its cities will be laid waste

and become uninhabited.”

[18:11]  ¹ sn Bildad is referring here to all the things that afflict a person and cause terror. It would then be a metonymy of effect, the cause being the afflictions.

[18:11]  ² tn The verb פּוּץ (puts) in the Hiphil has the meaning “to pursue” and “to scatter.” It is followed by the expression “at his feet.” So the idea is easily derived: they chase him at his feet. But some commentators have other proposals. The most far-fetched is that of Ehrlich and Driver (ZAW 24 [1953]: 259-60) which has “and compel him to urinate on his feet,” one of many similar readings the NEB accepted from Driver.

[48:4]  ³ tn The logical connection between vv. 3-4 seems to be this: God is the protector of Zion and reveals himself as the city’s defender – this is necessary because hostile armies threaten the city.

[48:4]  ⁴ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 4-6 are understood as descriptive. In dramatic style (note הִנֵּה, hinneh, “look”) the psalm describes an enemy attack against the city as if it were occurring at this very moment. Another option is to take the perfects as narrational (“the kings assembled, they advanced”), referring to a particular historical event, such as Sennacherib’s siege of the city in 701 b.c. (cf. NIV, NRSV). Even if one translates the verses in a dramatic-descriptive manner (as the present translation does), the Lord’s victory over the Assyrians was probably what served as the inspiration of the description (see v. 8).

[48:5]  ⁵ tn The object of “see” is omitted, but v. 3b suggests that the Lord’s self-revelation as the city’s defender is what they see.

[48:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “they look, so they are shocked.” Here כֵּן (ken, “so”) has the force of “in the same measure.”

[48:5]  ⁷ tn The translation attempts to reflect the staccato style of the Hebrew text, where the main clauses of vv. 4-6 are simply juxtaposed without connectives.

[48:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “trembling seizes them there.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here, as often in poetic texts, to point “to a spot in which a scene is localized vividly in the imagination” (BDB 1027 s.v.).

[48:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “[with] writhing like one giving birth.”

[68:12]  ¹⁰ tn The verbal repetition draws attention to the statement.

[68:12]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew form appears to be the construct of נוּה (nuh, “pasture”) but the phrase “pasture of the house” makes no sense here. The translation assumes that the form is an alternative or corruption of נצוה (“beautiful woman”). A reference to a woman would be appropriate in light of v. 11b.

[21:1]  ¹² sn “Heart” is a metonymy of subject; it signifies the ability to make decisions, if not the decisions themselves.

[21:1]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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.”

[28:1]  ¹⁵ sn The line portrays the insecurity of a guilty person – he flees because he has a guilty conscience, or because he is suspicious of others around him, or because he fears judgment.

[28:1]  ¹⁶ tn The verb בָּטַח (batakh) means “to trust; to be secure; to be confident.” Cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “bold.”

[48:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “The valley will be destroyed and the tableland be laid waste.” However, in the context this surely refers to the towns and not to the valley and the tableland itself.

[48:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “which/for/as the Lord has spoken.” The first person form has again been adopted because the Lord is the speaker throughout (cf. v. 1).

[48:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “Scatter salt over Moab for it will certainly be laid in ruins.” The meaning of these two lines is very uncertain. The Hebrew of these two lines presents several difficulties. It reads תְּנוּ־צִיץ לְמוֹאָב נָצֹא תֵּצֵא (tÿnu-tsits lÿmo’av natso’ tetse’). Of the five words two are extremely problematic and the meaning of the second affects also the meaning of the last word which normally means “go out.” The word צִיץ (tsits) regularly refers to a blossom or flower or the diadem on the front of Aaron’s mitre. BDB 851 s.v. II צִיץ gives a nuance “wings (coll)” based on the interpretation of Abu Walid and some medieval Jewish interpreters who related it to an Aramaic root. But BDB says that meaning is dubious and refers to the Greek which reads σημεῖα (shmeia, “sign” or “sign post”). Along with KBL 802 s.v. I צִיץ and HALOT 959 s.v. II צִיץ, BDB suggests that the Greek presupposes the word צִיּוּן (tsiyyun) which refers to a road marker (Jer 31:21) or a gravestone (2 Kgs 23:17). That is the meaning followed here. Several modern commentaries and English versions have followed a proposal by W. Moran that the word is related to a Ugaritic word meaning salt (cf., e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 320). However, HALOT 959 s.v. II צִיץ questions the validity of this on philological grounds saying that the meaning of salt does not really fit the Ugaritic either. The present translation follows the suggestions of the lexicons here and reads the word as though the Greek supported the meaning “gravestone.” The other difficulty is with the word נָצֹא (natso’), which looks like a Qal infinitive absolute of an otherwise unattested root which BDB s.v. נָצָא says is defined in Gesenius’ Thesaurus as “fly.” However, see the meaning and the construction of an infinitive absolute of one root with that of another as highly improbable. Hence, most modern lexicons either emend the forms to read נָצֹה תִּצֶּה (natsoh titseh) from the root נָצָה (natsah) meaning “to fall into ruins” (so KBL 629 s.v. נָצָה Qal, and see among others J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 700, n. 10, who notes that final א [aleph] and final ה [hey] are often confused; see the discussion and examples in GKC 216-17 §75.nn-rr). This is the option that this translation as well as a number of modern ones have taken. A second option is to see נָצֹא (natso’) as an error for יָצֹא (yatso’) and read the text in the sense of “she will certainly surrender,” a meaning that the verb יָצָא (yatsa’) has in 1 Sam 11:3; Isa 36:6. The best discussion of this option as well as a discussion on the problem of reading צִיץ (tsits) as salt is found in G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 313-14.