⁵ tn Or “the unjust.”

² tn Heb “and not unjust gain.”

² tn Heb “in a land of uprightness they act unjustly”; NRSV “they deal perversely.”

³ tn Heb “those who unjustly gain unjust gain.” The participle בֹּצֵעַ (botseaʿ, “those who unjustly gain”) is followed by the cognate accusative of the same root בָּצַע (batsaʿ, “unjust gain”) to underscore the idea that they gained their wealth through heinous criminal activity.

² tn Heb “and they turned aside after unjust gain and took bribes and perverted justice.”

¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who profits unjustly by evil unjust gain for his house.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

⁵ tn Heb “haters of bribes.” Here is another objective genitive, one that refers to unjust gain. To hate unjust gain is to reject and refuse it. Their decisions will not be swayed by greed.

³ sn The reference to the just suffering for the unjust is an allusion to Isa 53:11-12.

³ sn The rhetorical question suggests the insensitivity of this generation for its act against God’s servant, who was slain unjustly as he was silent.

² sn Made loud lamentation. For someone who was stoned to death, lamentation was normally not allowed (m. Sanhedrin 6:6). The remark points to an unjust death.

³ sn The Omride dynasty, of which Ahab was the most infamous king, had a reputation for implementing unjust and oppressive measures. See 1 Kgs 21.

² tn Heb “violence and destruction.” The expression “violence and destruction” stand metonymically for the goods the oppressors have accumulated by their unjust actions.

² tn The Hebrew text merely says “it.” But the antecedent might be ambiguous in English, so the reference to wealth gained by unjust means is here reiterated for clarity.

² tn “My judgment” would here, as before, be “my right.” God has taken this away by afflicting Job unjustly (A. B. Davidson, Job, 187).

² sn Except for these chains. The chains represented Paul’s unjust suffering for the sake of the message. His point was, in effect, “I do not care how long it takes. I only hope you and everyone else hearing this would become believers in Christ, but without my unjust suffering.”

² sn Jeremiah’s prayers against the unjust treatment of his enemies here and elsewhere (see 11:18-20; 12:1-4; 15:15-18; 17:14-18) have many elements of prayers by the innocent in the book of Psalms: an invocation of the Lord as just judge, a lament about unjust attacks, an appeal to innocence, and a cry for vindication that often calls for the Lord to pay back in kind those who unjustly attack the petitioner. See for examples Pss 5, 7, 17, and 54, among many others.

² sn Not doing anything deserving death… Here is yet another declaration of Paul’s innocence, but still no release. The portrayal shows how unjust Paul’s confinement was.

¹ tn מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), which refers to “justice” in the earlier verses, here refers to “justice from God,” or “vindication.” Because the people are unjust, God refuses to vindicate them before their enemies. See v. 11.

² sn The verse is saying that in God’s justice wealth amassed unjustly will eventually go to the poor. God will take the wealth away from them and give it to people who will distribute it better to the poor.

³ sn The verb followed by the cognate noun usually means seeking gain in an unjust way (1 Sam 8:3), or for selfish purposes (Gen 37:26), or gaining by violence. The word may have the sense of covetousness.