² sn The difficulty of getting news of any kind from a distant land made its reception all the more delightful when it was good (e.g., Gen 45:27; Prov 15:30).

² tn Heb “gets full.” This verb means “to be sated; to be satisfied; to be filled.” It is often used with reference to food, but here it refers to frequent visits that wear out one’s welcome (cf. NLT).

⁴ sn The promise of reward does not necessarily mean that the person who gives to the poor will get money back; the rewards in the book of Proverbs involve life and prosperity in general.

³ tn The phrase “is harder to reach” is supplied in the translation on the basis of the comparative מִן (min). It is difficult to get into a fortified city; it is more difficult to reach an offended brother.

¹ sn Elihu now will give another reason why he will speak—the arguments of these friends failed miserably. But before he gets to his argument, he will first qualify his authority.

² tn The verb means “to root out,” but this does not fit the parallelism with fire. Wright changed two letters and the vowels in the verb to get the root צָרַף (tsaraf, “to burn”). The NRSV has “burn to the root.”

³ tn The phrase “like the collar” is difficult, primarily because their tunics did not have collars. A translation of “neck” would suit better. Some change the preposition to ב (bet), getting a translation “by the neck of my tunic.”

¹ tn The verb גָּדַר (gadar) means “to wall up; to fence up; to block.” God has blocked Job’s way so that he cannot get through. See the note on 3:23. Cf. Lam 3:7.

² tn The Hiphil of the verb means “to bring back”; with the object “my breath,” it means “get my breath” or simply “breathe.” The infinitive is here functioning as the object of the verb (see GKC 350 §114.m).

² tn Heb “taking wheat.” The reference to getting wheat is obscure and traditionally inferred to mean that they came under the pretense of obtaining wheat (KJV, ESV, NASB, NIV, Holman). However the plausibility of this scenario is not culturally certain.

¹ tn Heb “stumblers have put on strength.” Because of the contrast between the prior and current condition, the participle has been translated with past tense. The Hebrew metaphor is a picture of getting dressed with (“putting on”) strength like clothing.

¹ sn Too old to get married again. Naomi may be exaggerating for the sake of emphasis. Her point is clear, though: It is too late to roll back the clock.

¹ tn The Niphal of נָקָם (naqam, “to avenge, to take vengeance”) followed by the preposition ב (bet) has the force “to get revenge against.” See 1 Sam 18:25; Jer 50:15; Ezek 25:12.

² tn Heb “Is there not among the daughters of your brothers or among all my people a woman that you have to go to get a wife among the uncircumcised Philistines?”

² tn Heb “Everyone who laps with his tongue from the water, as a dog laps, put him by himself, as well as the one who gets down on his knees to drink.”

³ tn The two clauses probably should be related: the getting involved in the false charge could lead to the death of an innocent person (so, e.g., Naboth in 1 Kgs 21:10-13).

² tn The verb is a Hitpael perfect with vav (ו) consecutive; it follows the sequence of the imperfect before it—“if he gets up and walks about.” This is proof of recovery.

² tn The preterite could be given a simple definite past translation, but an ingressive past would be more likely, as the smell would get worse and worse with the dead fish.

² tn Heb “let us travel and let us go.” The two cohortatives are used in combination with the sense, “let’s travel along, get going, be on our way.”

² sn But they seemed like only a few days to him. This need not mean that the time passed quickly. More likely it means that the price seemed insignificant when compared to what he was getting in the bargain.