¹ sn The image of paths, brightness or darkness, and stumbling illustrate the contrast of lifestyles. When acting with righteousness one’s course becomes clearer and more sure, while the wicked are caught in their ways, ignorant of why they fall.

¹ tn Heb “by me they swear.” When the psalmist’s enemies call judgment down on others, they hold the psalmist up as a prime example of what they desire their enemies to become.

¹ tn Heb “and the Lord has become my elevated place.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive is used in a rhetorical sense, describing an anticipated development as if it were already reality.

² tn Heb “will have become embarrassed and ashamed.” The perfect verbal forms function here as future perfects, indicating future actions which will precede chronologically the action expressed by the main verb in the preceding line.

¹ tc Heb “become for me a rocky summit of a dwelling place.” The Hebrew term מָעוֹן (maʿon, “dwelling place”) should probably be emended to מָעוֹז (maʿoz, “refuge”; see Ps 31:2).

¹ sn When a man becomes rich. Why would people fear such a development? The acquisition of wealth makes individuals powerful and enables them to oppress others (see vv. 5-6).

³ tn The two words could be taken separately, but they seem to form a fine nominal hendiadys because the issue is God’s justice. So the word for power becomes the modifier.

¹ tn The idea is that Job has become proverbial, people think of misfortune and sin when they think of him. The statement uses the ordinary word for “word” (מִלָּה, millah), but in this context it means more: “proverb; byword.”

⁴ tc Some commentators join this very short colon to the beginning of v. 17: “they do not know the light. For together…” becomes “for together they have not known the light.”

² tn The first verb, the jussive, means “to return”; the second verb, the imperative, means “to come.” The two could be taken as a hendiadys, the first verb becoming adverbial: “to come again.”

² tn Heb “and it would be for you for wisdom,” or “that it would become your wisdom.” Job is rather sarcastic here, indicating if they shut up they would prove themselves to be wise (see Prov 17:28).

¹ tn A verb form needs to be supplied here. Bildad is not saying to Job, “If you are pure [as you say you are].” Bildad is convinced that Job is a sinner. Therefore, “If you become pure” makes more sense here.

² tn Heb “Why should it become guilt for Israel?” David’s decision betrays an underlying trust in his own strength rather than in divine provision. See also 1 Chr 27:23-24.

¹ tn The verb is the Hiphil jussive with a vav (ו) consecutive from the verb סוּר (sur); after the imperative this form may be subordinated to become a purpose clause.

³ tn Heb “to all his impurity.” The phrase refers to the impurity of the person whom the man touches to become unclean (see the previous clause). To clarify this, the translation uses “that person’s” rather than “his.”

⁵ tn The expression is “with strength of hand,” making “hand” the genitive of specification. In translation “strength” becomes the modifier because “hand” specifies where the strength was. But of course the whole expression is anthropomorphic for the power of God.

¹ tn The first of the two clauses begun with perfects and vav consecutives may be subordinated to form a temporal clause: “and he will see…and he will pass over,” becomes “when he sees…he will pass over.”

¹ tn The construction uses the predicator of nonexistence—אֵין (ʾen, “there is not”)—with a pronominal suffix prior to the Piel participle. The suffix becomes the subject of the clause. Heb “but if there is not you releasing.”

¹ sn The third plague is brief and unannounced. Moses and Aaron were simply to strike the dust so that it would become gnats. Not only was this plague unannounced, but also it was not duplicated by the Egyptians.

¹ tn The construction is a verbal hendiadys: לֹא תֹאסִפוּן לָתֵת (loʾ toʾsifun latet, “you must not add to give”). The imperfect tense acts adverbially, and the infinitive becomes the main verb of the clause: “you must no longer give.”