² sn Tell my brother. In 1st century Jewish culture, a figure like a rabbi was often asked to mediate disputes, except that here mediation was not requested, but representation.

¹ sn The finger of God is a figurative reference to God’s power (L&N 76.3). This phrase was used of God’s activity during the Exodus (Exod 8:19).

¹ sn The necessity that the Son of Man suffer is the particular point that needed emphasis, since for many 1st century Jews the Messiah was a glorious and powerful figure, not a suffering one.

² tn Or “disdain you”; Grk “cast out your name as evil.” The word “name” is used here as a figure of speech to refer to the person as a whole.

² tn Grk “I do not know or understand what you are saying.” In the translation this is taken as a hendiadys (a figure of speech where two terms express a single meaning, usually for emphatic reasons).

² sn This cup alludes to the wrath of God that Jesus would experience (in the form of suffering and death) for us. See Pss 11:6; 75:8-9; Isa 51:17, 19, 22 for this figure.

³ sn The necessity that the Son of Man suffer is the particular point that needed emphasis, since for many 1st century Jews the Messiah was a glorious and powerful figure, not a suffering one.

³ sn This cup alludes to the wrath of God that Jesus would experience (in the form of suffering and death) for us. See Pss 11:6; 75:8-9; Isa 51:17, 19, 22 for this figure.

³ sn The necessity that the Son of Man suffer is the particular point that needed emphasis since for many 1st century Jews the Messiah was a glorious and powerful figure, not a suffering one.

¹ tn Heb “they will drink and roar as with wine”; the LXX (followed here by NAB, NRSV) reads “they will drink blood like wine” (referring to a figurative “drinking” of the blood of their enemies).

² tn Heb “who opens wide like Sheol his throat.” Here נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is understood in a physical sense, meaning “throat,” which in turn is figurative for the appetite. See H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 11-12.

⁵ tn Heb “from (the) sea.” The form should be emended to מַיִם (mayim, “water”). This is a figurative description of the Nile River: It functioned like a fortress wall for Thebes.

¹ tn Or “melt” (NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). This is a figurative description of earthquakes, landslides, and collapse of the mountains, rather than some sort of volcanic activity (note the remainder of the verse).

⁸ sn The term wickedness is personified here; it is pictured as ascending heavenward into the very presence of God. This figuratively depicts how God became aware of their evil—it had ascended into heaven right into his presence.

⁷ tn Heb “house.” The term בַּיִת (bayit, “house”) is used as a figure of speech, referring to either (1) the temple or official sanctuaries (so TEV, CEV) or (2) the land of Israel (e.g., Hos 9:15).

² tn Aram “had eaten the pieces of.” The Aramaic expression is ironic, in that the accusers who had figuratively “eaten the pieces of Daniel” are themselves literally devoured by the lions.

¹ sn This can be the blood that covered the sword in its great slaughter (v. 14), figuratively representing the end of Babylon. The pronouns are still second person feminine singular.

¹ tn Heb “elders were shown no respect.” The phrase “shown no respect” is an example of tapeinosis, a figurative expression of understatement: to show no respect to elders = to terribly mistreat elders.

⁴ tn Heb “they flow away.” The verb זוּב (zuv, “to flow, gush”) is used figuratively here, meaning “to pine away” or “to waste away” from hunger. See also the next note.

⁴ tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tolaʿ, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing, a metonymy of association where the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.