³ tn Heb “Also to the king of Moab he sent, but he was unwilling.”

³ tn Or “against Moab,” that is, so as to prevent the Moabites from crossing.

¹ tn Heb “They struck Moab that day—about ten thousand men.”

³ tn Heb “The Israelites sent by his hand an offering to Eglon, king of Moab.”

¹ sn The name Ben Ammi means “son of my people.” Like the account of Moab’s birth, this story is probably included in the narrative to portray the Ammonites, another perennial enemy of Israel, in a negative light.

² tn Heb “The heart of the soldiers of Moab will be like the heart of a woman in labor.”

¹ sn See further Jer 49:7-22 for the judgment against Edom. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were east of Judah.

² tn Heb “like a bird fleeing, thrust away [from] a nest, the daughters of Moab are [at] the fords of Arnon.”

¹ tn Heb “for Moab.” For rhetorical purposes the speaker (the Lord?; see v. 9) plays the role of a mourner.

¹ tn Heb “and she arose, along with her daughters-in-law, and she returned from the region of Moab.”

² tn The ban applied to the encampments and forts of this group of Midianite tribes living in the region of Moab.

² sn The area is in the mountains of Moab; Deut 34:1 more precisely identifies it as Mount Nebo.

¹ sn The picture is that of undisturbed complacency (cf. Zeph 1:12). Because Moab had never known the discipline of exile, she had remained as she always was.

² tn Heb “from Abarim.” This was the mountain range in Moab from which Moses viewed the promised land (cf. Deut 32:49).

² tn Heb “and the splendor of Moab will be disgraced with all the great multitude, and a small little remnant will not be strong.”

¹ tn Heb “and Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, the one who returned from the region of Moab.”

⁵ tn Heb “the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines.”

¹ sn Wadi Zered. Now known as Wadi el-Ḥesa, this valley marked the boundary between Moab to the north and Edom to the south.

¹ tn Heb “like the days which you lived.” This refers to the rest of the forty-year period in the desert before Israel arrived in Moab.

¹ sn The evidence indicates that Moab was part of the very corrupt Canaanite world, a world that was given over to the fertility ritual of the times.