² tn Heb “the Lord.” Since the Lord is speaking, it is preferable for clarity to supply the first person pronoun in the translation.

¹ tn The relative pronoun is added here in place of the conjunction to clarify that Balaam is speaking to God and not vice versa.

² tn This clause is also a verbal hendiadys: “what the Lord might add to speak,” meaning, “what more the Lord might say.”

² tn The verb is placed here in the text: “and I will speak”; it has been moved in this translation to be closer to the direct object clause.

¹ tn Heb “Speak now in the ears of the people.” The expression is emphatic; it seeks to ensure that the Israelites hear the instruction.

² tn The word בִּי (bi) is a particle of entreaty; it seeks permission to speak and is always followed by “Lord” or “my Lord.”

¹ tn Heb “And, look, your eyes see and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that my mouth is the one speaking to you.”

² sn That Hebrew slave. Now, when speaking to her husband, Potiphar’s wife refers to Joseph as a Hebrew slave, a very demeaning description.

² tn Heb “would not be his,” that is, legally speaking. Under the levirate system the child would be legally considered the child of his deceased brother.

¹ tn Heb “went out to Jacob to speak with him.” The words “about Dinah” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

² tn The construction is a verbal hendiadys—the preterite (“he added”) is combined with an adverb “yet” and an infinitive “to speak.”

⁴ sn Came down from Jerusalem. Antioch in Syria lies due north of Jerusalem. In Western languages it is common to speak of north as “up” and south as “down,” but the NT maintains the Hebrew idiom which speaks of any direction away from Jerusalem as down (since Mount Zion was thought of in terms of altitude).

¹ tn Grk “for we are not able not to speak about what we have seen and heard,” but the double negative, which cancels out in English, is emphatic in Greek. The force is captured somewhat by the English translation “it is impossible for us not to speak…” although this is slightly awkward.

¹ sn One always speaks of “going up” to Jerusalem in Jewish idiom, even though in western thought it is more common to speak of south as “down” (Jerusalem lies south of Galilee). The reason for the idiom is that Jerusalem was identified with Mount Zion in the OT, so that altitude was the issue.

¹ sn The verses from v. 5 to v. 19 all speak of the Lord in the third person. The prophet, who is the spokesman for the Lord, (50:1) thus is speaking. However, the message is still from God because this was all what he spoke “through the prophet Jeremiah.”

¹ sn In vv. 4-10 the prophet appears to be speaking, since the Lord is referred to in the third person. However, since the Lord refers to himself in the third person later in this chapter (see v. 13), it is possible that he speaks throughout the chapter.

² sn The instruction compares people who cannot defend themselves in court with those who are physically unable to speak (this is a figure of speech known as hypocatastasis, an implied comparison). The former can physically speak, but because they are the poor, the uneducated, the oppressed, they are unable to conduct a legal defense. They may as well be speechless.

² tn Heb “one who speaks truth in his heart”; or “one who speaks truth [that is] in his heart.” This apparently refers to formulating a truthful statement in one’s mind and then honestly revealing that statement in one’s speech.

¹ tn Some commentators take this as a question: “And shall [or must] I wait because they do not speak?” (A. B. Davidson, R. Gordis). But this is not convincing because the silence of the friends is the reason for him to speak, not to wait.

² tn The Hebrew expression is literally “yet/this/speaking/and this/ arrived.” The sentence uses the two demonstratives as a contrasting pair. It means “this one was still speaking when that one arrived” (IBHS 308-9 §17.3c). The word “messenger” has been supplied in the translation in vv. 16, 17, and 18 for clarity and for stylistic reasons.