¹ tc Heb “forty-two,” but some mss of the LXX and the Syriac along with the parallel passage in 2 Kgs 8:26 read “twenty-two.”

¹ tn Heb “for by the final words of David, they were the number of the sons of Levi, from a son of twenty years and upward.”

¹ tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.” The Old Greek also has these words: “in the twenty-eighth year of Jeroboam.”

¹ tc The Old Greek translation has here a lengthy section consisting of twenty-three verses that are not found in the MT.

³ tc The Hebrew text has “twenty cors,” but the ancient Greek version and the parallel text in 2 Chr 2:10 read “20,000 baths.”

¹ tn Heb “And the life of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years, the years of the life of Sarah.”

¹ sn The twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of King Darius’ second year was September 21, 520 b.c., twenty-three days after the original command by Haggai to rebuild (1:1). The text does not state the reason for the delay, but it may have resulted from the pressing need to bring in the late summer harvest.

² tn The first word of the twenty-first line begins with שׁ (shin), the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The graphic distinction between שׁ (shin) and שׂ (sin) had not been made at the time the book of Proverbs was written; that graphic distinction was introduced by the Masoretes, ca. a.d. 1000.

¹ tn Heb “[This is] the ephah.” An ephah was a liquid or solid measure of about a bushel (five gallons or just under twenty liters). By metonymy it refers here to a measuring container (probably a basket) of that quantity.

² sn The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month was Kislev 24 or December 18, 520. See v. 10. Here the reference is to “today,” the day the oracle is being delivered.

¹ sn The eight verses of Jonah’s prayer in Hebrew contain twenty-seven first person pronominal references to himself. There are fifteen second- or third person references to the Lord.

¹ sn The twenty-first saying seems to be concerned with the need for wisdom in warfare. In line with that, the word used here is גֶּבֶר (gever), “mighty man; hero; warrior.”

¹ sn The twenty-sixth saying teaches that one should develop wisdom because it has a profitable future. The saying draws on the image of honey; its health-giving properties make a good analogy to wisdom.

³ sn The test of strength is adversity, for it reveals how strong a person is. Of course a weak person can always plead adverse conditions in order to quit. This is the twenty-fourth saying.

² sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).

³ tn The verb is supplied. The Hebrew text simply has “in/with the number of names of those who are twenty years old and higher according to their skulls.”

¹ sn Your servant. The narrative recounts Jacob’s groveling in fear before Esau as he calls his brother his “lord,” as if to minimize what had been done twenty years ago.

¹ tn The total number of names in the list is thirty-six, not twenty-nine. Perhaps (1) some of the names are alternatives (though the text appears to delineate clearly such alternative names here and elsewhere, see vv. 8, 9, 10, 13, 25b) or (2), more likely, later scribes added to a list originally numbering twenty-nine and failed to harmonize the concluding summary statement with the expanded list.

¹ tn Grk “the twenty-four elders fall down.” BDAG 815 s.v. πίπτω 1.b.α.ב. has “fall down, throw oneself to the ground as a sign of devotion or humility, before high-ranking persons or divine beings.”

¹ sn This is rhetorical hyperbole, since technically a mustard plant is not a tree. This could refer to one of two types of mustard plant popular in Palestine and would be either ten or twenty-five ft (3 or 7.5 m) tall.