16:4 Please let the Moabite fugitives live 1 among you.
Hide them 2 from the destroyer!”
Certainly 3 the one who applies pressure will cease, 4
the destroyer will come to an end,
those who trample will disappear 5 from the earth.
25:5 like heat 6 in a dry land,
you humble the boasting foreigners. 7
Just as the shadow of a cloud causes the heat to subside, 8
so he causes the song of tyrants to cease. 9
1 tn That is, “live as resident foreigners.”
2 tn Heb “Be a hiding place for them.”
3 tn The present translation understands כִּי (ki) as asseverative, but one could take it as explanatory (“for,” KJV, NASB) or temporal (“when,” NAB, NRSV). In the latter case, v. 4b would be logically connected to v. 5.
4 tn A perfect verbal form is used here and in the next two lines for rhetorical effect; the demise of the oppressor(s) is described as if it had already occurred.
5 tc The Hebrew text has, “they will be finished, the one who tramples, from the earth.” The plural verb form תַּמּוּ, (tammu, “disappear”) could be emended to agree with the singular subject רֹמֵס (romes, “the one who tramples”) or the participle can be emended to a plural (רֹמֵסִם, romesim) to agree with the verb. The translation assumes the latter. Haplography of mem (ם) seems likely; note that the word after רֹמֵס begins with a mem.
6 tn Or “drought” (TEV).
7 tn Heb “the tumult of foreigners.”
8 tn Heb “[like] heat in the shadow of a cloud.”
9 tn The translation assumes that the verb יַעֲנֶה (ya’aneh) is a Hiphil imperfect from עָנָה (’anah, “be afflicted, humiliated”). In this context with “song” as object it means to “quiet” (see HALOT 853-54 s.v. II ענה). Some prefer to emend the form to the second person singular, so that it will agree with the second person verb earlier in the verse. BDB 776 s.v. III עָנָה Qal.1 understands the form as Qal, with “song” as subject, in which case one might translate “the song of tyrants will be silent.” An emendation of the form to a Niphal (יֵעָנֶה, ye’aneh) would yield the same translation.