¹ sn This proverb contrasts the hopes of the righteous and the wicked. The righteous will see their hopes fulfilled. The saying is concerned with God’s justice. The words תּוֹחֶלֶת (tokhelet, from יָחַל, yakhal) and תִּקְוַת (tiqvat, from קָוָה, qavah) are synonyms, both emphasizing eager expectations, longings, waiting in hope.

³ tn The text has תִקְוָתִי (tiqvati, “hope”). There is no reason to change the text to “my desire” (as Driver and others do) if the word is interpreted metonymically—it means “what I hope for.” What Job hopes for and asks for is death.

³ tn This second half of the verse simply has “your hope and the integrity of your ways.” The expression “the perfection of your ways” is parallel to “your fear,” and “your hope” is parallel to “your confidence.” This sentence is an example of casus pendens or extraposition: “as for your hope, it is the integrity of your ways” (see GKC 458 §143.d).

¹ tc The LXX alters the proverb to speak first of the righteous: “When the righteous dies, hope does not perish; but the boasting by the ungodly perishes.” The spirit of the saying is similar to the Hebrew. Perhaps the LXX translators wanted to see the hope of the righteous fulfilled in the world to come. However, they may have tried to address the conceptual problem that arises from a literal reading of the Hebrew, “when a wicked person dies, hope perishes.” The LXX has “hope does not perish.” If the Hebrew text they used read “not,” they may have inferred that the proverb should talk about the righteous. If a “not” were restored to the Hebrew, it would then contrast true hope from hope in power: “When a wicked person dies, hope (itself) does not perish; but expectation based on power has perished.” But note that the LXX text of Proverbs is generally loose as a translation and sometimes has apparent substitutions.

² tn The line is difficult. “His hope [= expectation]” must refer to any assailant who hopes or expects to capture the creature. Because there is no antecedent, Dhorme and others transpose it with the next verse. The point is that the man who thought he was sufficient to confront Leviathan soon finds his hope—his expectation—false (a derivative from the verb כָּזַב [kazav, “lie”] is used for a mirage).

² tn The repetition of “my hope” in the verse has thrown the versions off, and their translations have led commentators also to change the second one to something like “goodness,” on the assumption that a word cannot be repeated in the same verse. The word actually carries two different senses here. The first would be the basic meaning “hope,” but the second a metonymy of cause, namely, what hope produces, what will be seen.

¹ tn The phrase “that is” is supplied in the translation to indicate that the imperishable inheritance is in apposition to the living hope of v. 3.

² tn Or the phrase may connect at the end of the verse: “hope…in the presence of our God and Father.”

³ tn These phrases denote Christian virtues in action: the work produced by faith, labor motivated by love, and endurance that stems from hope in Christ.

¹ tn Grk “he was hoping that money would be given to him by Paul.” To simplify the translation, the passive construction has been converted to an active one.

¹ sn All the prophets…have spoken about and announced. What Peter preaches is rooted in basic biblical and Jewish hope as expressed in the OT scriptures.

¹ sn Note how in the quotation that follows all genders, ages, and classes are included. The event is like a hope Moses expressed in Num 11:29.

³ sn Herod, hoping to see him perform some miraculous sign, seems to have treated Jesus as a curiosity (cf. 9:7-9).

³ sn Apparently Jonah hoped that he might have persuaded the Lord to “change his mind” again (see 3:8-10) and to judge Nineveh after all.

² sn Zedekiah held out this hope of escape until the end. He tried to escape but was unsuccessful (cf. 39:4-5).

⁴ sn Parents of fools, who had hoped for children who would be a credit to the family, find only bitter disappointment (cf. TEV “nothing but sadness and sorrow”).

³ sn Failure in realizing one’s hopes can be depressing or discouraging. People can bear frustration only so long (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 153).

¹ sn The hope for life after death is supported now by a description of the severity with which God deals with people in this life.

² tn The verb “wait, hope” has the idea of eager expectation and preparation. It is used elsewhere of waiting on the Lord with anticipation.

³ tn Heb “And who knows whether” (so NASB). The question is one of hope, but free of presumption. Cf. Jonah 3:9.