¹ tn Heb “Solomon held the festival at that time for seven days, and all Israel was with him, a very great assembly from Lebo Hamath to the wadi of Egypt.”

¹ tn Heb “There is great distress to me; let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but into the hand of men let me not fall.”

¹ tn Each of the names in this list is preceded by the word “chief” in the Hebrew text. This has not been included in the translation because it would appear very redundant to the modern reader.

² tn Heb “with very great strength.” The Hebrew term חַיִל (khayil, “strength”) may refer here to the size of her retinue (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV) or to the great wealth she brought with her.

² sn Instead of “I will send away,” the parallel text in 2 Chr 7:20 has “I will throw away.” The two verbs sound very similar in Hebrew, so the discrepancy is likely due to an oral transmissional error.

¹ tn Heb “and the heart of Nabal was good upon him”; NASB, NRSV “Nabal’s heart was merry within him”; NIV “he was in high spirits”; NCV, TEV “was in a good mood”; CEV “was very drunk and feeling good.”

³ tc The MT has here the very odd form נְמִבְזָה (n^emivzah), but this is apparently due to a scribal error. The translation follows instead the Niphal participle נִבְזָה (nivzah).

² sn The statement to this very day reflects the perspective of the author, who must have written prior to David’s conquest of the Jebusites (see 2 Sam 5:6-7).

² sn The statement to this very day reflects the perspective of the author, who must have written prior to David’s conquest of the Jebusites (see 2 Sam 5:6-7).

¹ tn Heb “They and all their camps with them came out, a people as numerous as the sand which is on the edge of the sea in multitude, and [with] horses and chariots very numerous.”

³ tn Heb “and the Lord destroyed them to this day” (cf. NRSV); NLT “he has kept them devastated to this very day.” The translation uses the verb “annihilated” to indicate the permanency of the action.

³ tn Heb “your inheritance”; NLT “your special (very own NRSV) possession.” Israel is compared to landed property that one would inherit from his ancestors and pass on to his descendants.

² tn Heb “in order to make known to you.” In the Hebrew text this statement is subordinated to what precedes, resulting in a very long sentence in English. The translation makes this statement a separate sentence for stylistic reasons.

¹ tn Or “the first of your dough.” The phrase is not very clear. N. H. Snaith thinks it means a batch of loaves from the kneading trough—the first batch of the baking (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 251).

¹ tn Heb “consecrated, devoted, forbidden” (נָזִיר, nazir). The same term is used for the “consecration” of the “Nazirite” (and his hair, Num 6:2, 18, etc.), a designation which, in turn, derives from the very same root.

¹ tn Heb “from to the faces of the Lord.” The rendering here is based on the use of “my faces” and “your faces” referring to the very “presence” of the Lord in Exod 33:14-15.

² sn Most commentators have difficulty with this verse. W. C. Kaiser says the strict chronology is not always kept, and so the plague here may very well refer to the killing of the three thousand (“Exodus,” EBC 2:481).

² tn The word “wipe” is a figure of speech indicating “remove me” (meaning he wants to die). The translation “blot” is traditional, but not very satisfactory, since it does not convey complete removal.

¹ tn The idea of the “snare” is to lure them to judgment; God is apparently warning about contact with the Canaanites, either in worship or in business. They were very syncretistic, and so it would be dangerous to settle among them.

¹ tn The active participle הוֹלֵךְ (holekh) is used to add the idea of “continually” to the action of the sentence; here the trumpet became very loud—continually. See GKC 344 §113.u.