¹ sn Listen, O princess. The poet now addresses the bride.

¹ sn A saying attributed to the poet Epimenides of Crete (6th century b.c.).

¹ sn A quotation from the poet Menander, Thais 218, which Paul uses in a proverbial sense.

¹ tn Heb “your arrows are sharp—peoples beneath you fall—in the heart of the enemies of the king.” The choppy style reflects the poet’s excitement.

¹ tn Heb “I will cause your name to be remembered in every generation and generation.” The cohortative verbal form expresses the poet’s resolve. The king’s “name” stands here for his reputation and character, which the poet praised in vv. 2-7.

² sn The poet did not think it strange or unworthy for a woman of this stature to be a businesswoman engaged in an honest trade. In fact, weaving of fine linens was a common trade for women in the ancient world.

² sn The Hebrew poets and prophets frequently refer to the morning clouds as a simile for transitoriness (e.g., Job 7:9; Isa 44:22; Hos 6:4; 13:3; BDB 778 s.v. עָנָן 1.c). For discussion of this phenomena in Palestine, see Chaplin, PEQ (1883): 19.

³ tn Or “quake.” נָזֹלּוּ (nazollu) is from the verbal root זָלַל (zalal, “quake”; see HALOT 272 s.v. II זלל). Perhaps there is a verbal allusion to Judg 5:5, the only other passage where this verb occurs. In that passage the poet tells how the Lord’s appearance to do battle caused the mountains to shake.

⁴ sn Submit to him. The poet here makes the point that the young bride is obligated to bring pleasure to her new husband. Though a foreign concept to modern western culture, this was accepted as the cultural norm in the psalmist’s day.

² tn The relationships of these clauses is in some question. Some think that the poet has inverted the first two, and so they should read, “That is why I have said: ‘It is all one.’” Others would take the third clause to be what was said.

³ tn Heb “Mount Zion, the peaks of Zaphon.” Like all the preceding phrases in v. 2, both phrases are appositional to “city of our God, his holy hill” in v. 1, suggesting an identification in the poet’s mind between Mount Zion and Zaphon. “Zaphon” usually refers to the “north” in a general sense (see Pss 89:12; 107:3), but here, where it is collocated with “peaks,” it refers specifically to Mount Zaphon, located in the vicinity of ancient Ugarit and viewed as the mountain where the gods assembled (see Isa 14:13). By alluding to West Semitic mythology in this way, the psalm affirms that Mount Zion is the real divine mountain, for it is here that the Lord God of Israel lives and rules over the nations. See P. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 353, and T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 103.

² tn The phrase כְּעֲנַן־בֹּקֶר (k^eʿanan boqer, “like a cloud of the morning”) occurs also in Hos 6:4 in a similar simile. The Hebrew poets and prophets refer to morning clouds as a simile for transitoriness (Job 7:9; Isa 44:22; Hos 6:4; 13:3; HALOT 858 s.v. עָנָן 1.b; BDB 778 s.v. עָנָן 1.c).

¹ tc The MT reads שָׁמְעוּ (sham^eʿu, “They heard”), Qal perfect third person common plural from שָׁמַע (shamaʿ, “to hear”). The LXX ἀκούσατε (akousate) reflects שִׁמְעוּ (shimʿu, “Hear!”), the imperative second person masculine plural form of the same stem and root. Most English versions follow the MT (KJV, NASB, NIV, NJPS, CEV), but several follow the LXX (RSV, NRSV, TEV). Internal evidence favors the MT. The poet has been addressing God (v. 20) and continues to describe his distress, including what the enemy does. The description later in this verse also uses the Qal perfect third person common plural form שָׁמְעוּ (sham^eʿu, “they heard”). The MT vocalization is most likely original.

² tn This line is traditionally taken as the poet-warrior’s self-exhortation, “March on, my soul, in strength!” The present translation (a) takes the verb (a second feminine singular form) as addressed to Deborah (cf. v. 12), (b) understands נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) in its well-attested sense of “throat; neck” (cf. Jonah 2:6), (c) takes the final yod (י) on נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) as an archaic construct indicator (rather than a suffix), and (d) interprets עֹז (ʿoz, “strength”) as an attributive genitive (literally, “necks of strength,” i.e., “strong necks”). For fuller discussion and various proposals, see B. Lindars, Judges 1-5, 270-71.

¹ tn Heb “uncleanness.” The noun טֻמְאָה (tumʾah, “uncleanness”) refers in general to the state of ritual uncleanness and specifically to (1) sexual uncleanness (Num 5:19); (2) filthy material (Ezek 24:11; 2 Chr 29:16); (3) ritual uncleanness (Lev 16:16, 19; Ezek 22:15; 24:13; 36:25, 29; 39:24; Zech 13:2); (4) menstrual uncleanness (Lev 15:25, 26, 30; 18:19; Ezek 36:17); and (5) polluted meat (Judg 13:7, 14). Here, Jerusalem is personified as a woman whose menstrual uncleanness has soiled even her own clothes; this is a picture of the consequences of the sin of Jerusalem: uncleanness = her sin, and soiling her own clothes = consequences of sin. The poet may also be mixing metaphors, allowing various images (of shame) to circulate in the hearer’s mind, including rape and public exposure. By not again mentioning sin directly (a topic relatively infrequent in this book), the poet lays a general acknowledgment of sin in 1:8 alongside an exceptionally vivid picture of the horrific circumstances that have come to be. This is no simplistic explanation that sin merits such inhumane treatment. Instead 1:9 insists that no matter the legal implications of being guilty, the Lord should be motivated to aid Jerusalem (and therefore her people) because her obscene reality is so revolting.

¹ sn There is no little debate about the identity of the speaker(s) and the audience addressed in 5:1b. There are five options: (1) He is addressing his bride. (2) The bride is addressing him. (3) The wedding guests are addressing him and his bride. (4) He and his bride are addressing the wedding guests. (5) The poet is addressing him and his bride. When dealing with this issue, the following factors should be considered: (1) the form of both the exhortations and the addressees are plural. This makes it unlikely that he is addressing his bride or that his bride is addressing him. (2) The exhortation has an implicitly sexual connotation because the motif of “eating” and “drinking” refers to sexual consummation in 5:1a. This makes it unlikely that he or his bride are addressing the wedding guests—an orgy is quite out of the question! (3) The poet could be in view because as the writer who created the Song, only he could have been with them—in a poetic sense—in the bridal chamber as a “guest” on their wedding night. (4) The wedding guests could be in view through the figurative use of apostrophe (addressing an audience that is not in the physical presence of the speaker). While the couple was alone in their wedding chambers, the wedding guests wished them all the joys and marital bliss of the honeymoon. This is supported by several factors: (a) Wedding feasts in the ancient Near East frequently lasted several days and after the couple had consummated their marriage, they would appear again to celebrate a feast with their wedding guests. (b) The structure of the Song is composed of paired-dialogues which either begin or conclude with the words of the friends or daughters of Jerusalem (1:2-4, 5-11; 3:6-11; 5:9-16; 6:1-3, 4-13; 7:1-10) or which conclude with an exhortation addressed to them (2:1-7; 3:1-5; 8:1-4). In this case, the poetic unit of 4:1-5:1 would conclude with an exhortation by the friends in 5:1b.

² tn Traditionally “rust,” literally “eating” or “consuming.” Greek has a specific word for “rust” (James 5:3), whereas the term used here is not used of rust anywhere else. In the present context where moths are mentioned, some interpreters see a reference to some other kind of consuming insect. Mal 3:11 LXX does appear to use the Greek term as a translation of the Hebrew term for some type of grasshopper. Two OT passages (Job 13:28; Hos 5:12) mention “moth” in parallel with “rot” or “wood rot”; the physician Galen used the Greek term in medical texts to refer to the decay of teeth (6.422; 12.879). It is thus possible to see the second term in Matt 6:19 as referring to some type of rot, decay, or corrosion rather than as a specific reference to damage by insects or other pests. However, a surviving fragment by the Greek poet Pindar (fragment 209; Oxford Text = 222) mentions the inability of moths or weevils to destroy gold: “Gold is the child of Zeus; neither moth nor weevil consumes it” (cf. BDAG 922 s.v. σής where the word for “weevil,” κίς, is mistranslated as “rust”). In light of this usage and the context it was decided to render the Greek term as “devouring insect.”