¹ tn Heb “and the lot belonged to the tribe of Manasseh, for he was the firstborn of Joseph.”

¹ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

⁴ sn God’s removal of Lot before the judgment is paradigmatic. He typically delivers the godly before destroying their world.

¹ tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.

¹ tn Heb “Lot traveled.” The proper name has not been repeated in the translation at this point for stylistic reasons.

² sn The descendants of Lot. Following the destruction of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, as God’s judgment, Lot fathered two sons by his two daughters, namely, Moab and Ammon (Gen 19:30-38). Thus, these descendants of Lot in and around Ar were the Moabites.

⁴ tn The verb “to do wickedly” is repeated here (see v. 7). It appears that whatever “wickedness” the men of Sodom had intended to do to Lot’s visitors—probably nothing short of homosexual rape—they were now ready to inflict on Lot.

¹ tn Heb “casting the lot.” Because modern readers are not familiar with the ancient practice of casting lots, the image of the coin toss to decide an issue has been employed in the translation (cf. CEV “drawing straws”). Although the casting of lots is often compared to throwing dice, the translation “throwing dice ends disputes” in this context could be misunderstood to mean “participating in a game of dice ends disputes.”

² tn This verse more literally reads “And [if] he rescued righteous Lot, who was deeply distressed by the lifestyle of the lawless in [their] debauchery.”

³ tn Grk “cast lots” (probably by using marked pebbles or broken pieces of pottery). A modern equivalent “threw dice” was chosen here because of its association with gambling.

³ tc The MT reads יַדּוּ (yaddu, “they cast [lots]”) from יָדַד (yadad, “to cast [lots]”). On the other hand, the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QpNah) read ירו (“they threw, cast [lots]”) from יָרָה (yarah, “to throw, cast [lots]”) (e.g., Josh 18:6). The textual variant arose due to orthographic confusion between ד (dalet) and ר (resh)—two Hebrew letters very similar in appearance. The root יָדַד is relatively rare—it occurs only two other times (Obad 11; Joel 4:3 [3:3 ET])—therefore, it might have been confused with יָרָה which appears more frequently.

¹ tn Heb “therefore you will not have one who strings out a measuring line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.”

⁴ sn Casting lots seems to be a way of deciding who would gain control over material possessions and enslaved peoples following a military victory.

¹ tn Heb “among the smooth stones of the stream [is] your portion, they, they [are] your lot.” The next line indicates idols are in view.

¹ sn The proverb concerns the practice of seeking divine leading through casting lots. For a similar lesson, see Amenemope (18, 19:16-17, in ANET 423).

⁴ sn The judges, like the counselors, are nobles in the cities. God may reverse their lot, either by captivity or by shame, and they cannot resist his power.

¹ tn Heb “against her by lot.” The verb “we will go up” (נַעֲלֶה, naʿaleh) has probably been accidentally omitted before “against her” (עָלֶיהָ, ʿaleha).

¹ tn Heb “The lot was to the tribe of the sons of Judah by their clans to the border of Edom, the wilderness of Zin toward the south, southward.”

¹ tn Heb “By lot was their inheritance, as the Lord had commanded by Moses, to the nine tribes and the half-tribe.”

¹ sn The sun had just risen. There was very little time for Lot to escape between dawn (v. 15) and sunrise (here).