³ sn Note how the failure to respond to the message of the gospel is seen as a failure to turn.

¹ sn On the Israelites’ failure to conquer the Canaanites completely, see Judg 1:27-28.

⁴ sn The rebuke is for failure to believe the promise of scripture, a theme that will appear in vv. 43-47 as well.

² sn J. H. Greenstone comments: “Man’s own failures are the result of his own folly and should not be attributed to God” (Proverbs, 201).

³ sn Failure in realizing one’s hopes can be depressing or discouraging. People can bear frustration only so long (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 153).

³ sn Here the psalmist addresses God and suggests that God is ultimately responsible for what is happening because of his failure to intervene (see vv. 1-2, 11).

² sn Ezekiel 16:49-50 includes three types of sins of Sodom: failure to help the poor and needy while having prosperity, pride (or haughtiness), and committing abomination.

³ sn The failure to finish the building project leads to embarrassment (in a culture where avoiding public shame was extremely important). The half completed tower testified to poor preparation and planning.

⁵ sn The slave’s action in beginning to beat the other slaves was not only a failure to carry out what was commanded but involved doing the exact reverse.

¹ sn Whoever is not with me is against me. The call here is to join the victor. Failure to do so means that one is being destructive. Responding to Jesus is the issue.

¹ sn Whoever is not with me is against me. The call here is to join the victor. Failure to do so means that one is being destructive. Responding to Jesus is the issue.

² sn These were penalties (curses) that were to be imposed on Israel for failure to keep her covenant with God (cf. Lev 26:23-26). These three occur together fourteen other times in the book of Jeremiah.

³ sn Drought was one of the punishments for failure to adhere to the terms of their covenant with God. See Deut 28:22-24 and Lev 26:18-20.

⁴ tn Heb “an ephah.” An ephah was a dry measure; there were ten ephahs in a homer. So this verse envisions major crop failure, where only one-tenth of the anticipated harvest is realized.

³ sn They retreated. This could refer to the northern tribes’ failure to conquer completely their allotted territory (see Judg 1), or it could refer generally to the typical consequence (military defeat) of their sin (see vv. 10-11).

² sn The details of the verse are not easy to explain, but the meaning of the whole verse seems to be about the miscarriage of justice in the courts and the failure of God to do anything about it.

³ tn Heb “defect” (so NASB). This highly elliptical line suggests that Israel’s major fault was its failure to act like God’s people; in fact, they acted quite the contrary.

³ sn Verse 22 forms a fitting climax to the chapter, in which the king continually seeks to destroy the Israelite strength. Finally, with this decree, he throws off any subtlety and commands the open extermination of Hebrew males. The verse forms a transition to the next chapter, in which Moses is saved by Pharaoh’s own daughter. These chapters show that the king’s efforts to destroy the strength of Israel—so clearly a work of God—met with failure again and again. And that failure involved the efforts of women, whom Pharaoh did not consider a threat.

⁵ sn In 4:20 the author again describes the opponents, who claim to love God. Their failure to show love for their fellow Christians proves their claim to know God to be false: The one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

¹ tn Grk “hear,” but the idea of “hear and obey” or simply “obey” is frequently contained in the Greek verb ἀκούω (akouō; see L&N 36.14) and the following context (v. 23) makes it clear that failure to “obey” the words of this “prophet like Moses” will result in complete destruction.