¹ tn The Hebrew text has the plural “sons,” but only one name appears after this. The attached phrase “the oldest” might indicate that Shelomith was not Izhar’s only son, but note v. 17.

¹ tn The Hebrew text has “the sons of Eliezer were,” but only one name appears after this in the verse, and we are specifically told that Eliezer had no other sons.

¹ tn The Hebrew text has the plural “sons,” but only one name appears after this. The attached phrase “the oldest” might indicate that Shebuel was not Gershom’s only son, but note v. 17.

¹ tn The antecedent of the pronoun “his” is not clear. The translation assumes that v. 25 resumes the list of Ephraim’s descendants (see vv. 20-21a) after a lengthy parenthesis (vv. 21b-24).

² tn Heb “Except the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat which he caused Israel to commit, Jehu did not turn aside from after them—the golden calves which [were in] Bethel and which [were] in Dan.”

³ tn Heb “I will burn after you.” Some take the verb בָּעַר (baʿar) to mean here “sweep away.” See the discussion of this verb in the notes at 14:10 and 16:3.

¹ tn Heb “their sons who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel were unable to wipe out, and Solomon raised them up for a crew of labor to this day.”

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 20 years.”

² tn Heb “From my master the king is this thing done, and you did not make known to your servants who will sit on the throne of my master the king after him?”

³ tn Heb “and she gave birth to him after Absalom.” This does not imply they had the same mother; Absalom’s mother was Maacah, not Haggith (2 Sam 3:4).

¹ tc The LXX and two Old Latin mss include the following words here: “on his way. And the rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the warring army. When they arrived from Gilgal….”

³ sn The statement the next generation would again act more wickedly than the previous one must refer to the successive sinful generations after Joshua, not Joshua’s godly generation (cf. vv. 7, 17).

¹ tn Heb “What is this unfaithfulness with which you have been unfaithful against the God of Israel, turning today from after the Lord, when you built for yourselves an altar, rebelling today against the Lord?”

¹ tn Heb “At the end of three days, after they made the treaty with them, they heard that they were neighbors to them and in their midst they were living.”

¹ tc Again, to complete a commonly attested wording the LXX adds after “choose” the phrase “to place his name there.” This shows insensitivity to deliberate departures from literary stereotypes. The MT reading is to be preferred.

⁴ tn Heb “walk after”; NIV “by following”; NLT “by worshiping.” This is a violation of the first commandment, the most serious of the covenant violations (Deut 5:6-7).

¹ tn After the adverb “then” the prefixed conjugation has the preterite force. For the archaic constructions, see D. N. Freedman, “Archaic Forms in Early Hebrew Poetry,” ZAW 72 (1960): 101-7. The poem shows all the marks of being ancient.

¹ tn The verb is the Hiphil jussive with a vav (ו) consecutive from the verb סוּר (sur); after the imperative this form may be subordinated to become a purpose clause.

² tn The verb is the jussive with a vav (ו) coming after the imperative; it may be subordinated to form a purpose clause (“that he may pick up”) or the object of the imperative.

⁴ tn The form is a cohortative with a vav (ו) prefixed. After the preceding cohortative this could also be interpreted as a purpose or result clause—in order that we may return.