Numbers 5:17

5:17 The priest will then take holy water ¹  in a pottery jar, and take some ²  of the dust ³  that is on the floor of the tabernacle, and put it into the water.

Numbers 5:22

5:22 and this water that causes the curse will go ⁴  into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh rot.” ⁵  Then the woman must say, “Amen, amen.” ⁶ 

Numbers 5:24

5:24 He will make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings a curse will enter her to produce bitterness.

Deuteronomy 29:18

29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 29:1

Narrative Interlude

29:1 (28:69) ⁸  These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. ⁹ 

Deuteronomy 15:1

Release for Debt Slaves

15:1 At the end of every seven years you must declare a cancellation ¹⁰  of debts.

Proverbs 5:4

5:4 but in the end ¹¹  she is bitter ¹²  as wormwood, ¹³ 

sharp as a two-edged ¹⁴  sword.

Ecclesiastes 7:26

7:26 I discovered this: ¹⁵ 

More bitter than death is the kind of ¹⁶  woman ¹⁷  who is like a hunter’s snare; ¹⁸ 

her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains.

The man who pleases God escapes her,

but the sinner is captured by her.

Isaiah 38:17

38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. ¹⁹ 

You delivered me ²⁰  from the pit of oblivion. ²¹ 

For you removed all my sins from your sight. ²² 

Jeremiah 2:19

2:19 Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment.

Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you. ²³ 

Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful ²⁴ 

it was for you to reject me, the Lord your God, ²⁵ 

to show no respect for me,” ²⁶ 

says the Lord God who rules over all. ²⁷ 

Revelation 10:9-10

10:9 So ²⁸  I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He ²⁹  said to me, “Take the scroll ³⁰  and eat it. It ³¹  will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.” 10:10 So ³²  I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it, and it did taste ³³  as sweet as honey in my mouth, but ³⁴  when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter.

[5:17]  ¹ tn This is probably water taken from the large bronze basin in the courtyard. It is water set apart for sacred service. “Clean water” (so NEB) does not capture the sense very well, but it does have the support of the Greek that has “pure running water.” That pure water would no doubt be from the bronze basin anyway.

[5:17]  ² tn Heb “from.” The preposition is used here with a partitive sense.

[5:17]  ³ sn The dust may have come from the sanctuary floor, but it is still dust, and therefore would have all the pollutants in it.

[5:22]  ⁴ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. It could be taken as a jussive following the words of the priest in the previous section, but it is more likely to be a simple future.

[5:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “fall away.”

[5:22]  ⁶ tn The word “amen” carries the idea of “so be it,” or “truly.” The woman who submits to this test is willing to have the test demonstrate the examination of God.

[29:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “yielding fruit poisonous and wormwood.” The Hebrew noun לַעֲנָה (la’anah) literally means “wormwood” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB), but is used figuratively for anything extremely bitter, thus here “fruit poisonous and bitter.”

[29:1]  ⁸ sn Beginning with 29:1, the verse numbers through 29:29 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 29:1 ET = 28:69 HT, 29:2 ET = 29:1 HT, 29:3 ET = 29:2 HT, etc., through 29:29 ET = 29:28 HT. With 30:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

[29:1]  ⁹ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (which some English versions substitute here for clarity, cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[15:1]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew term שְׁמִטָּת (shÿmittat), a derivative of the verb שָׁמַט (shamat, “to release; to relinquish”), refers to the cancellation of the debt and even pledges for the debt of a borrower by his creditor. This could be a full and final remission or, more likely, one for the seventh year only. See R. Wakely, NIDOTTE 4:155-60. Here the words “of debts” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied. Cf. NAB “a relaxation of debts”; NASB, NRSV “a remission of debts.”

[5:4]  ¹¹ sn Heb “her end” (so KJV). D. Kidner notes that Proverbs does not allow us to forget that there is an afterward (Proverbs [TOTC], 65).

[5:4]  ¹² sn The verb “to be bitter” (מָרַר, marar) describes things that are harmful and destructive for life, such as the death of the members of the family of Naomi (Ruth 1:20) or finding water that was undrinkable (Exod 15:22-27). The word indicates that the sweet talking will turn out badly.

[5:4]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew term translated “wormwood” refers to the aromatic plant that contrasts with the sweetness of honey. Some follow the LXX and translate it as “gall” (cf. NIV). The point is that there was sweetness when the tryst had alluring glamour, but afterward it had an ugly ring (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 74).

[5:4]  ¹⁴ sn The Hebrew has “like a sword of [two] mouths,” meaning a double-edged sword that devours/cuts either way. There is no movement without damage. There may be a wordplay here with this description of the “sword with two mouths,” and the subject of the passage being the words of her mouth which also have two sides to them. The irony is cut by the idiom.

[7:26]  ¹⁵ tn The word “this” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[7:26]  ¹⁶ tn The phrase “kind of” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity (see the following note on the word “woman”).

[7:26]  ¹⁷ tn The article on הָאִשָּׁה (ha’ishah) functions in a particularizing sense (“the kind of woman”) rather than in a generic sense (i.e., “women”).

[7:26]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “is snares.” The plural form מְצוֹדִים (mÿtsodim, from the noun I מָצוֹד, matsod, “snare”) is used to connote either intensity, repeated or habitual action, or moral characteristic. For the function of the Hebrew plural, see IBHS 120-21 §7.4.2. The term II מָצוֹד “snare” is used in a concrete sense in reference to the hunter’s snare or net, but in a figurative sense of being ensnared by someone (Job 19:6; Prov 12:12; Eccl 7:26).

[38:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”

[38:17]  ²⁰ tc The Hebrew text reads, “you loved my soul,” but this does not fit syntactically with the following prepositional phrase. חָשַׁקְתָּ (khashaqta, “you loved”), may reflect an aural error; most emend the form to חָשַׂכְת, (khasakht, “you held back”).

[38:17]  ²¹ tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”

[38:17]  ²² tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”

[2:19]  ²³ tn Or “teach you a lesson”; Heb “rebuke/chide you.”

[2:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “how evil and bitter.” The reference is to the consequences of their acts. This is a figure of speech (hendiadys) where two nouns or adjectives joined by “and” introduce a main concept modified by the other noun or adjective.

[2:19]  ²⁵ tn Heb “to leave the Lord your God.” The change in person is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, which is common in Hebrew style but not in English, from third to first person between this line and the next.

[2:19]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and no fear of me was on you.”

[2:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh, [the God of] hosts.” For the title Lord God see the study note on 1:6. For the title “who rules over all” see the following study note. The title “the Lord who rules over all” is a way of rendering the title “Yahweh of armies.” It is an abbreviation of a longer title “Yahweh the God of armies” which occurs five times in Jeremiah (see, e.g., 44:7). The abbreviated title occurs seventy-seven times in the book of Jeremiah. On thirty-two occasions it is further qualified by the title “the God of Israel,” showing his special relation to Israel. On six occasions it is preceded by the title “Lord” (see, e.g., 46:10) and twice it is preceded by the title “the King” (see, e.g., 51:17). Both titles emphasize his sovereignty. Twice it is said that he is the maker of all things (10:16; 51:19), and once it is said that he made the earth and the people and animals on it and gives them into the control of whomever he wishes (27:4-5). On two occasions it is emphasized that he also made the heavenly elements and controls the natural elements of wind, rain, thunder, and hail (31:35; 51:14-16). All this is consistent with usage elsewhere where the “armies” over which he has charge are identified as (1) the angels which surround his throne (Isa 6:3, 5; 1 Kgs 22:19) and which he sends to protect his servants (2 Kgs 6:17), (2) the natural forces of thunder, rain, and hail (Isa 29:6; Josh 10:11; Judg 5:4, 5) through which he sends the enemy into panic and “gums” up their chariot wheels, (3) the armies of Israel (1 Sam 17:45) which he leads into battle (Num 10:34-35; Josh 5:14, 15) and for whom he fights as a mighty warrior (Exod 15:3; Isa 42:13; Ps 24:8), and even (4) the armies of the nations which he musters against his disobedient people (Isa 13:14). This title is most commonly found in the messenger formula “Thus says…” introducing both oracles of judgment (on Israel [e.g., 9:7, 15] and on the nations [e.g. 46:19; 50:18]; and see in general 25:29-32). It emphasizes his sovereignty as the king and creator, the lord of creation and of history, and the just judge who sees and knows all (11:20; 20:12) and judges each person and nation according to their actions (Jer 32:18-19). In the first instance (in the most dominant usage) this will involve the punishment of his own people through the agency of the Babylonians (cf., e.g., 25:8-9). But it will also include the punishment of all nations, including Babylon itself (cf. Jer 25:17-26, 32-38), and will ultimately result in the restoration of his people and a new relation with them (30:8; 31:35-37).

[10:9]  ²⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the instructions given by the voice.

[10:9]  ²⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[10:9]  ³⁰ tn The words “the scroll” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[10:9]  ³¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[10:10]  ³² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the instructions given by the angel.

[10:10]  ³³ tn Grk “it was.” The idea of taste is implied.

[10:10]  ³⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.