² sn The verse is simply observing two things that are misfits. It is not concerned with a fool who changes and can handle wealth, or a servant who changes to become a nobleman. It is focused on things that are incongruous.

¹ sn The metaphor of the washbasin, used to rinse one’s hands and feet, suggests that Moab, in contrast to Israel’s elevated position (vv. 7-8), would be reduced to the status of a servant.

¹ tn Heb “may your work be revealed to your servants.” In this context (note v. 17) the verb form יֵרָאֶה (yeraʾeh) is best understood as an unshortened jussive (see Gen 1:9; Isa 47:3).

¹ sn The metaphor of the washbasin, used to rinse one’s hands and feet, suggests that Moab, in contrast to Israel’s elevated position (vv. 6-7), would be reduced to the status of a servant.

¹ tn Heb “him,” but the plural pronoun has been used in the translation to indicate that the referent is the servants mentioned in v. 13 (since the previous “him” in v. 14 refers to God).

¹ tn This term עֶבֶד (ʿeved) is the servant or the slave. He is compelled to work through the day in the heat, but he longs for evening when he can rest from the slavery.

³ sn Job’s servants were probably armed and gave resistance, which would be the normal case in that time. This was probably why they were “killed with the sword.”

¹ tn The Masoretic accents indicate that the phrase “to Artaxerxes the king” goes with what precedes and that the letter begins with the words “from your servants.” But it seems better to understand the letter to begin by identifying the addressee.

¹ tn Heb “If you are for good to these people and you are favorable to them and speak to them good words, they will be your servants all the days.”

¹ tn Heb “and you, hear [from] heaven and act and judge your servants by repaying the guilty, to give his way on his head, and to declare the innocent to be innocent, to give to him according to his innocence.”

² tn Heb “That is why your servant found to pray before you.” Perhaps the phrase אֶת לִבּוֹ (ʾet libbo, “his heart”) should be supplied as the object of the verb “found.”

¹ tn Heb “obey my commandments and rules according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets.”

³ tn Heb “so there might be a lamp for David my servant all the days before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for myself to put my name there.”

² tn Heb “From my master the king is this thing done, and you did not make known to your servants who will sit on the throne of my master the king after him?”

¹ tn The term נַעַר (naʿar), here translated “boy,” often refers to a servant or apprentice in line for a position of authority. A decade or more has probably passed since Hannah brought him to Eli.

² tn Heb “handmaid.” The use of this term (translated two more times in this verse and once each in vv. 16, 17 simply as “servant” for stylistic reasons) is an expression of humility.

¹ tn Heb “As the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua acted accordingly; he did not turn aside a thing from all which the Lord commanded Moses.”

¹ tn Heb “Then you may return to the land of your possession and possess it, that which Moses, the Lord’s servant, gave to you beyond the Jordan toward the rising of the sun.”

² tn Heb “your servant.” The pronoun is used in the translation to clarify that Moses is speaking of himself, since in contemporary English one does not usually refer to oneself in third person.

² tn Heb “in the eyes of the servants of Pharaoh and in the eyes of the people.” In the translation the word “Egyptian” has been supplied to clarify that the Egyptians and not the Israelites are meant here.