⁴ tn Heb “and their wealth to the master of all the earth.” The verb “devote” does double duty in the parallelism and is supplied in the second line for clarification.

⁵ tn Heb “he will bring rest to the earth and will cause unrest to.” The terms “rest” and “unrest” have been doubly translated to give more of the idea underlying these two concepts.

² tn Heb “If the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth below be explored, then also I could reject all the seed of Israel for all they have done.”

¹ tn Aram “The gods who did not make…earth will disappear…” In conformity with contemporary English style, the sentence is broken up in the translation to avoid a long, complex English sentence.

¹ tn Once more repetition is used to draw attention to a statement. In the Hebrew text each line ends with אֶרֶץ (ʾerets, “earth”). Each line also uses a Hitpolel verb form from a geminate root preceded by an emphatic infinitive absolute.

⁴ sn Qoheleth states that he made a thorough investigation of everything that had been accomplished on earth. His position as king gave him access to records and contacts with people that would have been unavailable to others.

³ tn The participle עֹמָדֶת (ʿomadet, “to stand”) emphasizes a continual, durative, uninterrupted state (present universal condition). Man, despite all his secular accomplishments in all generations, makes no ultimate impact on the earth.

¹ tn Heb “Four are the small things of the earth.” TEV has “four animals,” though in the list of four that follows, two are insects and one is a reptile.

¹ sn The idiom seek the face means to try to obtain favor from someone. According to the proverb, many people assume that true justice depends on the disposition of some earthly ruler.

¹ tn Heb “heavens for height and earth for depth.” The proverb is clearly intending the first line to be an illustration of the second—it is almost emblematic parallelism.

² tn Heb “over all the earth [be] your splendor.” Though no verb appears, the tone of the statement is a prayer or wish. (Note the imperative form in the preceding line.)

² sn The raging seas…the commotion made by the nations. The raging seas symbolize the turbulent nations of the earth (see Ps 46:2-3, 6; Isa 17:12).

² sn It is ready to fall. The earth is compared to a wall that has been broken by the force of the earthquake (note the preceding line) and is ready to collapse.

² tn Heb “over all the earth [be] your splendor.” Though no verb appears, the tone of the statement is a prayer or wish. (Note the imperative form in the preceding line.)

² tn Heb “over all the earth [be] your splendor.” Though no verb appears, the tone of the statement is a prayer or wish. (Note the imperative form in the preceding line.)

¹ sn Psalm 47. In this hymn the covenant community praises the Lord as the exalted king of the earth who has given them victory over the nations and a land in which to live.

¹ tn Heb “for our being/life sinks down to the dirt, our belly clings to the earth.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being, life”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.

¹ tn Heb “I pulverize them like dust upon the face of the wind.” The phrase “upon the face of” here means “before.” 2 Sam 22:43 reads, “like dust of the earth.”

³ sn His eyes. The anthropomorphic language draws attention to God’s awareness of and interest in the situation on earth. Though the enemies are hidden by the darkness (v. 2), the Lord sees all.

¹ sn The verse needs to be understood in the context: as the light shines in the dawn, the features of the earth take on a recognizable shape or form. The language is phenomenological.