² sn Matthew’s wording suggests that both of the criminals spoke abusively to him. If so, one of them quickly changed his attitude toward Jesus (see Luke 23:40-43).

¹ tn The emphatic use of the independent pronouns “you” and “I” (אַתָּה, ʾattah, and אֲנִי, ʾani) in vv. 10 and 11 creates an ironic comparison and emphasizes the strong contrast between the attitudes of Jonah and the Lord.

¹ sn The use of the term יָטַב (yatab, “rightly, good”) creates a wordplay with its antonym רָעָה (raʿah, “evil, wrong”), which is used in 4:1 of Jonah’s bad attitude.

¹ sn The rhetorical purpose for such a lengthy list is to impress on the audience the guilt of these women with their proud, materialistic attitude, whose husbands and fathers have profited at the expense of the poor.

¹ sn A servant coming to power could become a tyrant if he is unaccustomed to the use of such power, or he might retain the attitude of a servant and be useless as a leader.

² tn The two participles לֵץ (lets, “mocker”) and הֹמֶה (homeh, “brawler”) are substantives; they function as predicates in the sentence. Excessive use of intoxicants excites the drinker to boisterous behavior and aggressive attitudes—it turns them into mockers and brawlers.

¹ tn The imperfects in this verse emphasize the attitude the psalmist maintains toward God’s law. Another option is to translate with the future tense, “I will find delight…I will not forget.”

² tn Heb “but they rebelled in their counsel.” The prefixed verbal form is either preterite or imperfect, in which case it is customary, describing repeated action in past time (“they would have a rebellious attitude”).

¹ tn The grammatical construction used here (conjunction with independent pronoun) highlights the contrast between the psalmist’s defeated condition envisioned in v. 4 and confident attitude he displays in v. 5.

² tn Heb “trusted in him.” Here the verb probably describes more than a mental attitude. It is likely that the Shechemites made an alliance with Gaal and were now trusting him for protection in return for their loyalty (and probably tribute).

² tn The Hebrew term translated here “abhorrent” (תּוֹעֵבָה, toʿevah) speaks of attitudes and/or behaviors so vile as to be reprehensible to a holy God. See note on the word “abhorrent” in Deut 7:25.

¹ tn The Hebrew term translated here “abhorrent” (תּוֹעֵבָה, toʿevah) speaks of attitudes and/or behaviors so vile as to be reprehensible to a holy God. See note on the word “abhorrent” in Deut 7:25.

¹ sn The third and final cycle of speeches now begins with Eliphaz’ final speech. Eliphaz will here underscore the argument that man’s ills are brought about by sin; he will then deduce from Job’s sufferings the sins he must have committed and the sinful attitude he has about God. The speech has four parts: Job’s suffering is proof of his sin (2-5), Job’s sufferings demonstrate the kinds of sin Job committed (6-11), Job’s attitude about God (12-20), and the final appeal and promise to Job (21-30).

¹ tc There is some confusion among the witnesses concerning this word. The Kethib is the Qal perfect third common plural שָׂנְאוּ (san^eʾu, “they hated”), referring to the Jebusites’ attitude toward David. The Qere is the Qal passive participle construct plural שְׂנֻאֵי (s^enuʾe, “hated”), referring to David’s attitude toward the Jebusites. 4QSam^a has the Qal perfect third person feminine singular שָׂנְאָה (san^eʾah, “hated”), the subject of which would be “the soul of David.” The difference is minor and the translation adopted above works for either the Kethib or the Qere.

¹ sn Refresh my heart in Christ. Paul desired that Philemon refresh his heart in the same way that he [Philemon] had refreshed the hearts of other believers (cf. Phlm 7), that is, by forgiving and accepting Onesimus. In this way the presence and character of Jesus Christ would be vividly seen in Philemon’s attitude toward his runaway slave.

² sn Everything was held in common. The remark is not a reflection of political philosophy, but of the extent of their spontaneous commitment to one another. Such a response does not have the function of a command, but is reflective of an attitude that Luke commends as evidence of their identification with one another.

¹ sn There is no clue to the identity of the bride and groom, but in all probability either relatives or friends of Jesus’ family were involved, since Jesus’ mother and both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the celebration. The attitude of Mary in approaching Jesus and asking him to do something when the wine ran out also suggests that familial obligations were involved.

⁴ tn Or “evil attitude.” The meaning of the noun רָעָה (raʿah) is intentionally ambiguous; the author puns on its broad range of meanings to create a polysemantic wordplay. It can signify (1) “distress, misery, discomfort,” (2) “misfortune, injury,” (3) “calamity, disaster,” (4) “moral evil,” and (5) “ill-disposed, evil attitude” (see BDB 949 s.v. רָעָה; HALOT 1262-63 s.v. רָעָה). The narrator has used several meanings of רָעָה in 3:8-4:2, namely, “moral evil” (3:8, 10) and “calamity, disaster” (3:9, 10; 4:2), as well as the related verb רָעַע (raʿaʿ, “to be displeasing”; see 4:1). Here the narrator puns on the meaning “discomfort” created by the scorching desert heat, but God’s primary motivation is to “deliver” Jonah, not from something as trivial as physical discomfort from heat, but from his sinful attitude about God’s willingness to spare Nineveh. This gives the term an especially ironic twist: Jonah is only concerned about being delivered from his physical “discomfort,” while God wants to deliver him from his “evil attitude.”

² sn In the parallelism this statement means that a person’s heart is the true reflection of that person. It is in looking at the heart, the will, the choices, the loves, the decisions, the attitudes, that people come to self-awareness.

¹ sn The “scorner” (לֵץ, lets) is intellectually arrogant; he lacks any serious interest in knowledge or religion. He pursues wisdom in a superficial way so that he can appear wise. The acquisition of wisdom is conditioned by one’s attitude toward it (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 149).