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
34:19 who shows no partiality to princes,
and does not take note of 4 the rich more than the poor,
because all of them are the work of his hands?
34:28 so that they caused 5 the cry of the poor
to come before him,
so that he hears 6 the cry of the needy.
1 tn The text simply has לָאוֹר (la’or, “at light” or “at daylight”), probably meaning just at the time of dawn.
2 tn In a few cases the jussive is used without any real sense of the jussive being present (see GKC 323 §109.k).
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 tn The verb means “to give recognition; to take note of” and in this passage with לִפְנֵי (lifne, “before”) it means to show preferential treatment to the rich before the poor. The word for “rich” here is an unusual word, found parallel to “noble” (Isa 32:2). P. Joüon thinks it is a term of social distinction (Bib 18 [1937]: 207-8).
5 tn The verse begins with the infinitive construct of בּוֹא (bo’, “go”), showing the result of their impious actions.
6 tn The verb here is an imperfect; the clause is circumstantial to the preceding clause, showing either the result, or the concomitant action.