¹ tn Heb “on the breast.”

¹ tn Or “breast”; KJV, NRSV “in her bosom.”

¹ tn Heb “breasts that shrivel up dry”; cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV “dry breasts.”

² tn Heb “draw out the breast and suckle their young.”

¹ sn Some apparently regretted what had taken place. Beating their breasts was a sign of lamentation.

² tn Grk “beating the breasts” (in mourning); see L&N 52.1.

³ tn Heb “scattered your ways with foreign [gods]” or “spread out your breasts to strangers.”

² tn The words “from her breast” are supplied in the translation for clarification (see v. 11).

³ tn Heb “you will slurp and refresh yourselves from her heavy breast.”

² tn Heb “you will suck and be satisfied from her comforting breast.”

³ sn The severe action is more extreme than beating the breasts in anguish (Isa 32:12; Nah 2:7). It is also ironic, for these are the very breasts she so blatantly offered to her lovers (vv. 3, 21).

² tn Grk “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts that have not nursed!”

⁶ tn Heb “[put away] her immoral behavior from between her breasts.” Cf. KJV “her adulteries,” and NIV “the unfaithfulness.”

⁵ sn This statement is a euphemism: the Beloved wished to give her breasts to Solomon, like a mother would give her breast to her nursing baby. This is the climactic point of the “lover’s wish song” of Song 8:1-2. The Beloved wished that Solomon was her little brother still nursing on her mother’s breast. The Beloved, who had learned from her mother’s example, would bring him inside their home and she would give him her breast: “I would give you spiced wine to drink, the nectar of my pomegranates.” The phrase “my pomegranates” is a euphemism for her breasts. Rather than providing milk from her breasts for a nursing baby, the Beloved’s breasts would provide the sensual delight of “spiced wine” and “nectar” for her lover.

² tn Heb “the breast to wave it, a wave offering before the Lord.” Other possible translations are “to elevate the breast [as] an elevation offering before the Lord” (cf. NRSV) or “to present the breast [as] a presentation offering before the Lord.” See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 91, J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:430-31, 461-72, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 3:63-67.

² tn Or “who were beating their breasts,” implying a ritualized form of mourning employed in Jewish funerals. See the note on the term “women” earlier in this verse.

² sn This was a gesture of grief and anguish (cf. Ezek 21:12 [21:17 HT]). The modern equivalent is “to beat the breast.”

⁴ tn Heb “fail/grow faint in my breast.” Job is saying that he has expended all his energy with his longing for vindication.

² tn There is no verb in the second half of the verse. The idea simply has, “and why breasts that I might suck?”

² tn This word is usually defined as “violence; ruin.” But elsewhere it does mean “breast” (Isa 60:16; 66:11), and that is certainly what it means here.