² tn Heb “plead for grace” or “plead for mercy” (ESV).

¹ tn Heb “no one pleads with justice.”

¹ tn Heb “Plead with your mother; plead!” The imperative רִיבוּ (rivu, “plead!”) is repeated twice in this line for emphasis. This rhetorical expression is handled in a woodenly literal sense by most English translations: NASB “Contend…contend”; NAB “Protest…protest!”; NIV “Rebuke…rebuke”; NRSV “Plead…plead”; and CEV “Accuse! Accuse your mother!”

³ tn Or “plead my case” (NASB and NIV both similar); NRSV “until he takes my side.”

¹ tn Or “plead your case” (NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “present your plea”; NLT “state your case.”

² tn This verb, like others in this stanza, could be understood as a precative (“Plead”).

¹ tn Heb “in his legal case”; NAB “who pleads his case first.”

⁵ tn Heb “[with] my voice to the Lord I plead for mercy.”

⁴ tn The verb אֶתְחַנָּן (ʾetkhannan) is the Hitpael of חָנַן (khanan), meaning “seek favor,” make supplication,” or “plead for mercy.” The nuance would again be a modal nuance; if potential, then the translation would be “I could [only] plead for mercy.”

³ tn Heb “spreading out her hands.” The idea of asking or pleading for help is implicit in the figure.

³ tn The words “to save them” are implied by the context of “pleading to me” and supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹ sn Psalm 13. The psalmist, who is close to death, desperately pleads for God’s deliverance and affirms his trust in God’s faithfulness.

¹ sn Job first will argue with his friends. His case that he will plead with God begins in v. 13. The same root יָכַח (yakhakh, “argue, plead”) is used here as in v. 3b (see note). Synonymous parallelism between the two halves of this verse supports this translation.

³ tn BDAG 218 s.v. δέομαι states, “In our lit. only w. the mng. to ask for something pleadingly, ask, request,” and then in section a.α states, “w. inf. foll.…Ac 26:3.”

¹ tc The translation of these first two lines follows the redivision of the lines suggested in NIV and NRSV. The Masoretes read, “There is no one who pleads your cause with reference to [your] wound.”

⁴ sn The verse completes the saying by affirming that people will be judged responsible for helping those in mortal danger. The verse uses a series of rhetorical questions to affirm that God knows our hearts and we cannot plead ignorance.

³ sn The test of strength is adversity, for it reveals how strong a person is. Of course a weak person can always plead adverse conditions in order to quit. This is the twenty-fourth saying.

⁴ tn The infinitive הוֹכֵחַ (hokheakh) is from the verb יָכַח (yakhakh), which means “to argue, plead, debate.” It has the legal sense here of arguing a case (cf. 5:17).

³ sn The reason that Hosea (representing the Lord) calls upon his children (representing the children of Israel) to plead with Gomer (representing the nation as a whole), rather than pleading directly with her himself, is because Hosea (the Lord) has turned his back on his unfaithful wife (Israel). He no longer has a relationship with her (“for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband”) because she abandoned him for her lovers.

¹ tn The words “pleading for” have been supplied in the translation to explain the idiom (a metonymy). For parallel usage see BDB 763 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.a and compare usage in Gen 19:27 and Deut 4:10.