¹ tn Heb “for by the final words of David, they were the number of the sons of Levi, from a son of twenty years and upward.”

² tn Heb “twenty cubits.” Assuming a cubit of 18 inches (45 cm), this would give a length of 30 feet (9 m).

¹ tc Heb “forty-two,” but the parallel passage in 2 Kgs 8:26 reads “twenty-two” along with some mss of the LXX and the Syriac.

¹ sn The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month of Darius’ second year was Kislev 24 or December 18, 520 b.c.

² sn Again, the twenty-fourth day of the month was Kislev 24 or December 18, 520 b.c. See v. 10.

¹ sn The twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month…in Darius’ second year was February 15, 519 b.c.

⁴ sn There were twenty-four divisions of priesthood and the priestly division of Abijah was eighth on the list according to 1 Chr 24:10.

¹ tn Grk “about twenty-five or thirty stades” (a stade as a unit of linear measure is about 607 feet or 187 meters).

¹ tn The first word of the twenty-first line begins with שׁ (shin), the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The graphic distinction between שׁ (shin) and שׂ (sin) had not been made at the time the book of Proverbs was written; that graphic distinction was introduced by the Masoretes, ca. a.d. 1000.

¹ sn The twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of King Darius’ second year was September 21, 520 b.c., twenty-three days after the original command by Haggai to rebuild (1:1). The text does not state the reason for the delay, but it may have resulted from the pressing need to bring in the late summer harvest.

¹ sn Your servant. The narrative recounts Jacob’s groveling in fear before Esau as he calls his brother his “lord,” as if to minimize what had been done twenty years ago.

⁴ tn The verb is supplied. The Hebrew text simply has “in/with the number of names of those who are twenty years old and higher according to their skulls.”

² sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).

¹ tn Heb “About fifteen thousand [in number] were all the ones remaining from the army of the sons of the east. The fallen ones were a hundred and twenty thousand [in number], men drawing the sword.”

¹ tn Heb “He built twenty cubits from the rear areas of the temple with cedar planks from the floor to the walls, and he built it on the inside for an inner sanctuary, for a holy place of holy places.”

¹ tc The Old Greek translation includes the following words at the beginning of ch. 8: “It so happened that when Solomon finished building the Lord’s temple and his own house, after twenty years.”

¹ tn Heb “and the wings of the cherubs, their length was twenty cubits.” Assuming a cubit of 18 inches (45 cm), the wingspan of the cherubs would have been 30 feet (9 m).

² tc The Syriac reads “eighteen cubits” (twenty-seven feet). This apparently reflects an attempt at harmonization with 1 Kgs 7:15, 2 Kgs 25:17, and Jer 52:21.

¹ sn The twenty-first saying seems to be concerned with the need for wisdom in warfare. In line with that, the word used here is גֶּבֶר (gever), “mighty man; hero; warrior.”

³ sn The test of strength is adversity, for it reveals how strong a person is. Of course a weak person can always plead adverse conditions in order to quit. This is the twenty-fourth saying.