³ sn Elam and Media were east of Babylon, Elam in the south and Media in the north. They were in what is now western Iran.

² sn The Valley of Achor (“Achor” means “trouble” in Hebrew) was the site of Achan’s execution. It was located to the east, near Jericho.

² tn Heb “seed of Shihor.” “Shihor” probably refers to the east branch of the Nile. See Jer 2:18 and BDB 1009 s.v. שִׁיחוֹר.

² sn Shechem stands for the territory west of the Jordan River; the Valley of Sukkoth represents the region east of the Jordan.

² tn Heb “to [the] river.” The “river” is the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia. Israel expanded both to the west and to the east.

² sn Bashan, located east of the Jordan River, was well-known for its cattle. See Ezek 39:18; Amos 4:1.

¹ tn Heb “the wisdom of Solomon was greater than the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.”

¹ sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. See the note on the same term in 7:3.

² sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. See the note on the same term in 7:3.

³ tn Heb “beyond the Jordan, east of Jericho.” The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied to clarify the meaning.

² tn Heb “the after sea,” that is, the sea behind one when one is facing east, which is the normal OT orientation. Cf. ASV “the hinder sea.”

¹ tn Heb “lift your eyes to the west, north, south, and east and see with your eyes.” The translation omits the repetition of “your eyes” for stylistic reasons.

¹ sn Salecah. Today this is known as Salkhad, in Jordan, about 31 mi (50 km) east of the Jordan River in the Hauran Desert.

² tn Heb “And he sent them away from upon Isaac his son, while he was still living, eastward to the land of the east.”

¹ sn The Hebrew name Elam (עֵילָם, ʿelam) means “highland.” The Elamites were a non-Semitic people who lived east of Babylon.

³ sn The name Kittim is associated with Cyprus, as well as coastlands east of Rhodes. It is used in later texts to refer to the Romans.

¹ tn The disjunctive clause (note the construction conjunction + subject + predicate) introduces an entire paragraph about the richness of the region in the east.

¹ tn Heb “from the rising of the sun to its setting.” The extent is not temporal (“from sunrise to sunset”) but spatial (“from the place where the sun rises [the east] to the place where it sets [the west].” In the phenomenological language of OT cosmology, the sun was described as rising in the east and setting in the west.

⁵ tn The expression is literally “sons of the east.” The use of the genitive after “sons” in this construction may emphasize their nature (like “sons of belial”); it would refer to them as easterners (like “sons of the south” in contemporary American English). BDB 869 s.v. קֶדֶם says “dwellers in the east.”

² sn Most translations render this as “desert” (KJV, NASB, ESV, NRSV, NIV 2011, Holman), “wilderness” (NIV 1984), or “wasteland” (NLV). The rift valley (עֲרָבָה, ʿaravah), which extends from Galilee to the Gulf of Aqaba, is quite arid and desert-like in the areas near the Dead Sea and southward (see the note at Num 22:1). But the point here has more to do with preparation for a royal visit. To come to Jerusalem from the east requires coming through the rift valley (or Jordan Valley). Thematically, God is typically portrayed as coming to Israel from the east. Similarly in the Gospel accounts Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the east.