¹ tn Heb “This is the inheritance of the sons of Gad by their clans, the cities and their towns.”

¹ tn Heb “This is the inheritance of the sons of Reuben by their clans, the cities and their towns.”

² tn The Hebrew term פְּרָזִי (p^erazi) refers to rural areas, at the most “unwalled villages” (KJV, NASB “unwalled towns”).

⁴ tn The term πόλις (polis) can refer to a small town, which is what Nain was. It was about six miles southeast of Nazareth.

³ tn Or “town.” The translation “city” is used here because of its collocation with “of David,” suggesting its importance, though not its size.

¹ tn The feminine singular participle is here used in a collective sense for all the residents of the town. See GKC 394 §122.s.

¹ sn Most commentaries see a reference to the towns in the Jordan valley referred to in Josh 13:27 and to the towns mentioned in Josh 13:15-17, which were on the high tableland or high plateau or plain north of the Arnon. The mention of the towns in the first half of the verse is broader than that because it would include all the towns in the southern half of Moab between the Arnon and Zered, as well as those mentioned in the second half of the verse in conjunction with the valley and the high plateau north of the Arnon.

² tn Heb “They will buy fields with silver and write in the deed and seal [it] and have witnesses witness [it] in the land of Benjamin, in the environs of Jerusalem, in the towns in Judah, in the towns in the hill country, in the towns in the Shephelah, and in the towns in the Negev.” The long Hebrew sentence has again been restructured to better conform to contemporary English style. The indefinite “they will buy” is treated as a passive. It is followed by three infinitive absolutes that substitute for the finite verb (cf. GKC 345 §113.y). Such substitution is a common stylistic feature of the book of Jeremiah.

¹ sn The animal is happier in open countryside than in a busy town, and on its own rather than being driven by a herdsman.

¹ tn Or “Havvoth Jair” (NIV, NRSV). Some translations do not translate the phrase (“havvoth” = “the towns of”), but treat it as part of the place name.

³ tn Heb “and from the gate of his place” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “from the court of his birth place”; NIV84 “from the town records.”

¹ tn Heb “and the cities set apart for the sons of Ephraim in the midst of the inheritance of the sons of Manasseh, all the cities and their towns.”

⁶ sn Bethsaida was a town on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee. Probably this should be understood to mean a place in the vicinity of the town. It represents an attempt to reconcile the location with the place of the miraculous feeding that follows.

² sn The antecedent of “their” in their towns is not entirely clear. In Matt 4:23 “their synagogues” apparently refers to the people of Galilee, and in 9:35 to the synagogues of the towns Jesus is visiting. Here, however, the most likely antecedent is Jesus’ disciples mentioned at the beginning of this verse.

⁴ tn The Greek word πόλις (polis), can mean either “town” or “city” (see previous note in this verse). “Town” was employed here to emphasize the large number of places to visit (not just the largest cities) and thus the extensive nature of the disciples’ ministry.

³ tc The translation reads with some medieval Hebrew MSS and ancient versions בְּעָרֵיהֶם (b^eʿarehem, “in their towns”), rather than the reading בֶּעָרִים (beʿarim, “in the towns”) found in the MT. Cf. Neh 7:72 HT [7:73 ET].

² tn Heb “And they surrounded.” The rest of the verse suggests that “the town” is the object, not “the house.” Though the Gazites knew Samson was in the town, apparently they did not know exactly where he had gone. Otherwise, they could have just gone into or surrounded the house and would not have needed to post guards at the city gate.

² sn Presumably there had been some men living in the town of Zoar to which Lot and his daughters had initially fled. Perhaps they feared that the destruction was more widespread than it really was, or perhaps they feared some sort of stigma following the disaster that fell on their former town.

¹ tn The Hebrew word עִיר (ʿir) can refer to either a city or a town, depending on the size of the place. Given that this place was described by Lot later in this verse as a “little place,” the translation uses “town.”

² sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea, apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).