Job 19:22

19:22 Why do you pursue me like God does? ¹ 

Will you never be satiated with my flesh? ² 

Psalms 27:2

27:2 When evil men attack me ³ 

to devour my flesh, ⁴ 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ⁵ 

they stumble and fall. ⁶ 

Psalms 35:25

35:25 Do not let them say to themselves, ⁷  “Aha! We have what we wanted!” ⁸ 

Do not let them say, “We have devoured him!”

Proverbs 1:11-12

1:11 If they say, “Come with us!

We will ⁹  lie in wait ¹⁰  to shed blood; ¹¹ 

we will ambush ¹²  an innocent person ¹³  capriciously. ¹⁴ 

1:12 We will swallow them alive ¹⁵  like Sheol, ¹⁶ 

those full of vigor ¹⁷  like those going down to the Pit.

Proverbs 1:18

1:18 but these men lie in wait for their own blood, ¹⁸ 

they ambush their own lives! ¹⁹ 

Micah 3:2-3

3:2 yet you ²⁰  hate what is good, ²¹ 

and love what is evil. ²² 

You flay my people’s skin ²³ 

and rip the flesh from their bones. ²⁴ 

3:3 You ²⁵  devour my people’s flesh,

strip off their skin,

and crush their bones.

You chop them up like flesh in a pot ²⁶  –

like meat in a kettle.

[19:22]  ¹ sn Strahan comments, “The whole tragedy of the book is packed into these extraordinary words.”

[19:22]  ² sn The idiom of eating the pieces of someone means “slander” in Aramaic (see Dan 3:8), Arabic and Akkadian.

[27:2]  ³ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

[27:2]  ⁴ sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

[27:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

[27:2]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”

[35:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “in their heart[s].”

[35:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “Aha! Our desire!” The “desire” of the psalmist’s enemies is to triumph over him.

[1:11]  ⁹ tn This cohortative נֶאֶרְבָה (ne’ervah) could denote resolve (“We will lie in wait!”) or exhortation (“Let us lie in wait!”). These sinners are either expressing their determination to carry out a violent plan or they are trying to entice the lad to participate with them.

[1:11]  ¹⁰ tn The verb אָרַב (’arav, “to lie in wait”) it is used for planning murder (Deut 19:11), kidnapping (Judg 21:20), or seduction (Prov 23:28).

[1:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for blood.” The term דָּם (dam, “blood”) functions as a metonymy of effect for “blood shed violently” through murder (HALOT 224 s.v. 4).

[1:11]  ¹² tn Heb “lie in hiding.”

[1:11]  ¹³ tn The term “innocent” (נָקִי, naqi) intimates that the person to be attacked is harmless.

[1:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “without cause” (so KJV, NASB); NCV “just for fun.” The term חִנָּם (khinnam, “without cause”) emphasizes that the planned attack is completely unwarranted.

[1:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “lives.” The noun חַיִּים (khayyim, “lives”) functions as an adverbial accusative of manner: “alive.” The form is a plural of state, used to describe a condition of life which encompasses a long period of time – in this case a person’s entire life. Murder cuts short a person’s life.

[1:12]  ¹⁶ tn The noun שְׁאוֹל (shÿ’ol) can mean (1) “death,” cf. NCV; (2) “the grave,” cf. KJV, NIV, NLT (3) “Sheol” as the realm of departed spirits, cf. NAB “the nether world,” and (4) “extreme danger.” Here it is parallel to the noun בוֹר (vor, “the Pit”) so it is the grave or more likely “Sheol” (cf. ASV, NRSV). Elsewhere Sheol is personified as having an insatiable appetite and swallowing people alive as they descend to their death (e.g., Num 16:30, 33; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5). In ancient Near Eastern literature, the grave is often personified in similar manner, e.g., in Ugaritic mythological texts Mot (= “death”) is referred to as “the great swallower.”

[1:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and whole.” The vav (ו) is asseverative or appositional (“even”); it is omitted in the translation for the sake of style and smoothness. The substantival adjective תָּמִים (tamim, “whole; perfect; blameless”) is an adverbial accusative describing the condition and state of the object. Used in parallel to חַיִּים (khayyim, “alive”), it must mean “full of health” (BDB 1071 s.v. תָּמִים 2). These cutthroats want to murder a person who is full of vigor.

[1:18]  ¹⁸ sn They think that they are going to shed innocent blood, but in their blindness they do not realize that it is their own blood they shed. Their greed will lead to their destruction. This is an example of ironic poetic justice. They do not intend to destroy themselves; but this is what they accomplish.

[1:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “their own souls.” The term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul”) is used as a metonymy (= soul) of association (= life). The noun נֶפֶשׁ often refers to physical “life” (Exod 21:23; Num 17:3; Judg 5:18; Prov 12:10; BDB 659 s.v. 3.c).

[3:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the ones who.”

[3:2]  ²¹ tn Or “good.”

[3:2]  ²² tn Or “evil.”

[3:2]  ²³ tn Heb “their skin from upon them.” The referent of the pronoun (“my people,” referring to Jacob and/or the house of Israel, with the Lord as the speaker) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and their flesh from their bones.”

[3:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “who.”

[3:3]  ²⁶ tc The MT reads “and they chop up as in a pot.” The translation assumes an emendation of כַּאֲשֶׁר (ka’asher, “as”) to כִּשְׁאֵר (kish’er, “like flesh”).