Job 24:14

24:14 Before daybreak ¹  the murderer rises up;

he kills the poor and the needy;

in the night he is ²  like a thief. ³ 

Proverbs 4:16

4:16 For they cannot sleep unless they cause harm; ⁴ 

they are robbed of sleep ⁵  until they make someone stumble. ⁶ 

Matthew 27:1

Jesus Brought Before Pilate

27:1 When ⁷  it was early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to execute him.

[24:14]  ¹ tn The text simply has לָאוֹר (la’or, “at light” or “at daylight”), probably meaning just at the time of dawn.

[24:14]  ² tn In a few cases the jussive is used without any real sense of the jussive being present (see GKC 323 §109.k).

[24:14]  ³ sn The point is that he is like a thief in that he works during the night, just before the daylight, when the advantage is all his and the victim is most vulnerable.

[4:16]  ⁴ sn The verb is רָעַע (ra’a’), which means “to do evil; to harm.” The verse is using the figure of hyperbole to stress the preoccupation of some people with causing trouble. R. L. Alden says, “How sick to find peace only at the price of another man’s misfortune” (Proverbs, 47).

[4:16]  ⁵ sn Heb “their sleep is robbed/seized”; these expressions are metonymical for their restlessness in plotting evil.

[4:16]  ⁶ sn The Hiphil imperfect (Kethib) means “cause to stumble.” This idiom (from hypocatastasis) means “bring injury/ruin to someone” (BDB 505-6 s.v. כָּשַׁל Hiph.1).

[27:1]  ⁷ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.