³ tn Heb “his mouth” (so KJV, NAB). The term “mouth” is a metonymy for hunger or eating. The idea of the proverb is clear—the need to eat drives people to work.

² tn The imperfect tense functions with the nuance of instruction or injunction. It could also be given an obligatory nuance: “you must eat” or “you are to eat.” Some versions have simply made it an imperative.

³ tn The word “fruit” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied as the direct object of the verb “eat.” Presumably the only part of the tree the man would eat would be its fruit (cf. 3:2).

² tn The idea of eating “your fill” is evident in the context with the use of χορτάζω (chortazō) in v. 21.

¹ tn Grk “the right to eat and drink.” In the context this is a figurative reference to financial support.

² tn Or “and ate with.” It was table fellowship and the possibility of eating unclean food that disturbed them.

² tn Grk “eating and drinking the things from them” (an idiom for what the people in the house provide the guests).

³ tn Or “will hand me over”; Grk “one of you will betray me, the one who eats with me.”

¹ sn Eating the fat and drinking blood were God’s exclusive rights in Israelite sacrifices (Lev 3:17).

² sn The idiom of eating the pieces of someone means “slander” in Aramaic (see Dan 3:8), Arabic and Akkadian.

¹ tn Heb “And Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard, now they had finished eating.”

¹ sn The expression must indicate that they could destroy the enemies as easily as they could eat bread.

⁵ tn Heb “your bread,” which makes little sense in the context. The Hebrew word can be revocalized to read, “those who eat bread with you,” i.e., “your friends” (cf. KJV “they that eat thy bread,” NIV “those who eat your bread,” TEV “Those friends who ate with you”).

⁴ tn Heb “to eat of it.” The verb אָכַל (ʾakhal, “to eat”) functions as a metonymy of association, that is, the action of eating is associated with the enjoyment of the fruit of one’s labor (e.g., Eccl 2:24-26; 3:12-13, 22; 5:17-19; 8:15; 9:9).

³ tn Possibly this could be given an optative translation, to reflect the earlier one: “O that someone would give….” But the verb is not the same; here it is the Hiphil of the verb “to eat”—“who will make us eat” (i.e., provide meat for us to eat).

⁴ sn Dust you will eat. Being restricted to crawling on the ground would necessarily involve “eating dust,” although that is not the diet of the serpent. The idea of being brought low, of “eating dust” as it were, is a symbol of humiliation.

³ sn The Hebrew word order (“Did you from the tree—which I commanded you not to eat from it—eat?”) is arranged to emphasize that the man’s and the woman’s eating of the fruit was an act of disobedience. The relative clause inserted immediately after the reference to the tree brings out this point very well.

¹ tn There is a notable change between what the Lord God had said and what the woman says. God said “you may freely eat” (the imperfect with the infinitive absolute, see 2:16), but the woman omits the emphatic infinitive, saying simply “we may eat.” Her words do not reflect the sense of eating to her heart’s content.

² sn G. J. Wenham (Genesis [WBC], 1:34) points out that there is nothing in the passage that prohibits the man and the woman from eating meat. He suggests that eating meat came after the fall. Gen 9:3 may then ratify the postfall practice of eating meat rather than inaugurate the practice, as is often understood.

³ sn This is the covenant meal, the peace offering, that they are eating there on the mountain. To eat from the sacrifice meant that they were at peace with God, in covenant with him. Likewise, in the new covenant believers draw near to God on the basis of sacrifice, and eat of the sacrifice because they are at peace with him, and in Christ they see the Godhead revealed.