¹ sn Psalm 81. The psalmist calls God’s people to assemble for a festival and then proclaims God’s message to them. The divine speech (vv. 6-16) recalls how God delivered the people from Egypt, reminds Israel of their rebellious past, expresses God’s desire for his people to obey him, and promises divine protection in exchange for obedience.

² tn The grammatical construction (conjunction + pronominal subject) highlights the contrast between God’s victorious people and the defeated enemies mentioned in the previous line. The perfect verbal forms either generalize or, more likely, state rhetorically the people’s confidence as they face the approaching battle. They describe the demise of the enemy as being as good as done.

² tn Heb “The men of Manasseh did not conquer Beth Shean and its surrounding towns, Taanach and its surrounding towns, the people living in Dor and its surrounding towns, the people living in Ibleam and its surrounding towns, or the people living in Megiddo and its surrounding towns.”

¹ sn The consecration ceremony was to be done in full view of the assembled people. In all probability the laying on of the hands was done through representatives of the tribes, and not all the people. This ritual of the imposition of hands showed that the people were taking part in the consecration, and that the Levites represented them in the service of the Lord.

² sn This question, “what are you doing for the people,” is qualified by the next question. Sitting alone all day and the people standing around all day showed that Moses was exhibiting too much care for the people—he could not do this.

² sn One wonders if the people thought that Moses and Aaron had water and were withholding it from the people, or whether Moses was able to get it on demand. The people should have come to Moses to ask him to pray to God for water, but their action led Moses to say that they had challenged God (B. Jacob, Exodus, 476).

² tn Heb “They will see and be ashamed of zeal of people.” Some take the prefixed verbs as jussives and translate the statement as a prayer, “Let them see and be put to shame.” The meaning of the phrase קִנְאַת עָם (qinʾat ʿam, “zeal of people”) is unclear. The translation assumes that this refers to God’s angry judgment upon people. Another option is to understand the phrase as referring to God’s zealous, protective love of his covenant people. In this case one might translate, “by your zealous devotion to your people.”

¹ tn Heb “and Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and [between] the king and [between] the people, to become a people for the Lord, and between the king and [between] the people.” The final words of the verse (“and between the king and [between] the people”) are probably accidentally repeated from earlier in the verse. They do not appear in the parallel account in 2 Chr 23:16. If retained, they probably point to an agreement governing how the king and people should relate to one another.

¹ sn This section concerns religious duties of the people of God as they worship by giving thanks to God for their blessings. The principles here are: God requires his people to allow the poor to share in their bounty (10-11); God requires his people to provide times of rest and refreshment for those who labor for them (12); God requires allegiance to himself (13); God requires his people to come before him in gratitude and share their bounty (14-17); God requires that his people safeguard proper worship forms (18-19).

⁶ tn Heb “the daughter of my people.” Rather than a genitive of relationship (“daughter of X”), the phrase בַּת־עַמִּי (bat ʿammi) is probably a genitive of apposition. The idiom “Daughter X” occurs often in Lamentations: “Daughter Jerusalem” (2x), “Daughter Zion” (7x), “Virgin Daughter Zion” (1x), “Daughter of My People” (5x), “Daughter Judah” (2x), and “Virgin Daughter Judah” (1x). In each case, it is a poetic description of Jerusalem or Judah as a whole. The idiom בַּת־עַמִּי (bat ʿammi, lit., “daughter of my people” is rendered variously by the English versions: “the daughter of my people” (KJV, RSV, NASB), “my people” (NIV, TEV, CEV), and “my poor people” (NJPS). The metaphor here pictures the people as vulnerable and weak.

¹ tc The first part of this verse, “He cuts a shaft far from the place where people live,” has received a lot of attention. The word for “live” is גָּר (gar). Some of the proposals are: “limestone,” on the basis of the LXX; “far from the light,” reading נֵר (ner); “by a foreign people,” taking the word to means “foreign people”; “a foreign people opening shafts”; or taking gar as “crater” based on Arabic. Driver puts this and the next together: “a strange people who have been forgotten cut shafts” (see his “Problems in Job,” AJSL 52 [1935/36]: 163). L. Waterman had “the people of the lamp” (“Note on Job 28:4, ” JBL 71 [1952]: 167ff). And there are others. Since there is really no compelling argument in favor of one of these alternative interpretations, the MT should be preserved until shown to be wrong.

² tn Or perhaps “the unintentional sins of the people”; Grk “the ignorances of the people.” Cf. BDAG 13 s.v. ἀγνόημα, “sin committed in ignorance/unintentionally.” This term seems to be simply a synonym for “sins” (cf. Heb 5:2) and does not pick up the distinction made in Num 15:22-31 between unwitting sin and “high-handed” sin. The Day of Atonement ritual in Lev 16 covered all the sins of the people, not just the unwitting ones.

¹ tn The term ἄνθρωποι (anthrōpoi) used here can mean either “people” (when used generically) or “men” (though there is a more specific term in Greek for adult males, ανήρ [anēr]). Thus the woman could have been speaking either (1) to all the people or (2) to the male leaders of the city as their representatives. However, most recent English translations regard the former as more likely and render the word “people” here.

³ tn Grk “people.” The plural of ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos) usually indicates people in general, but the singular is used in the expression “Son of Man.” There is thus an ironic allusion to Jesus’ statement in v. 6: His self-designation as “Son of Man” is meant to be unique, but the crowd regards it simply as meaning “human, person.” To maintain this connection for the English reader the plural ἀνθρώποις (anthrōpois) has been translated here as “men” rather than as the more generic “people.”

³ tn The translation has adopted a different phrase order here than that in the Greek text. The Greek text reads, “People brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those possessed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics.” Even though it is obvious that four separate groups of people are in view here, following the Greek word order could lead to the misconception that certain people were possessed by epileptics and paralytics. The word order adopted in the translation avoids this problem.

¹ tn Heb “they,” but, as H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 284) notes, the third person is used here to include the people just referred to as well as the current addressees, hence “your people” or “the people of Judah.” It is possible that the third person again reflects the rhetorical distancing that was referred to earlier in 35:16 (see the translator’s note there for explanation), in which case one might translate, “you have shown,” and “you have not revered.”

³ sn For the metaphor of the Lord going forth against his enemies like an attacking lion, see Jer 49:19; 50:44; and Isa 31:4, in all of which the Lord comes against the nations in defense of his people. In Hos 5:14 the metaphor is turned against his own people. The figure of a lion ravaging people has already been used in Jer 4:7 of the enemy from the north (Babylon).

¹ tn The idea of their putting the name of Yahweh on the people is somewhat problematic. The pronouncing of the name of Yahweh in this context over the people was taken to be the effectual means of blessings. “Putting the name on them” is an expression that emphasizes the truth that he is their God and they are his people or that having his name is having his blessing.

³ sn The verb נָחָה (nakhah, “to lead”) is a fairly common word in the Bible for God’s leading of his people (as in Ps 23:3 for leading in the paths of righteousness). This passage illustrates what others affirm, that God leads his people in a way that is for their own good. There were shorter routes to take, but the people were not ready for them.

¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate that this judgment is the result of what these wicked people did to the saints and prophets.