² tn Heb “generation and generation.” The repetition of the singular noun here singles out each of the successive past generations. See IBHS 116 §7.2.3b.

¹ tn The perfect tense is here given a past perfect nuance to stress that the word of the Lord preceded the obedience.

² tn The Pual perfect may be given the past perfect translation in this sentence because the act of commanding preceded the act of numbering.

³ tn Heb “as yesterday and three days ago” or “as yesterday and before that.” This is idiomatic for “as previously” or “as in the past.”

⁵ tn Heb “also from yesterday also from three days ago” or “neither since yesterday nor since before that” is idiomatic for “previously” or “in the past.”

³ tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; it should be classified here as a historic future, future from the perspective of a point in a past time narrative.

³ tn Heb “eat bread.” The imperfect verbal form is used here as a historic future (future from the perspective of the past).

⁵ tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the imperfect verbal form, which here is a historic future (that is, future from the perspective of a past time).

⁶ tn Once again the imperfect verbal form is used as a historic future (that is, future from the perspective of past time).

¹ tn The perfect verbal form is translated as a past perfect because Rachel’s giving birth to Joseph preceded Jacob’s conversation with Laban.

⁴ tn The imperfect verb form has the same nuance as the preceding participle. (If the participle is taken as past durative, then the imperfect would be translated “was dividing.”)

⁴ tn The perfect verbal form here requires the past perfect translation since it describes an event that preceded the event described in the main clause.

² tn Heb “was going up.” The verb is an imperfect form, which in this narrative context carries a customary nuance, indicating continual action in past time.

¹ tn Grk “them, who in.” The relative pronoun (“who”) was replaced by the pronoun “he” (“In past generations he”) and a new sentence was begun in the translation at this point to improve the English style, due to the length of the sentence in Greek and the awkwardness of two relative clauses (“who made the heaven” and “who in past generations”) following one another.

² tn Grk “does.” The present tense here was translated as a past tense to maintain consistency with the first line of the quotation (“he was led like a sheep to slaughter”), which has an aorist passive verb normally translated as a past tense in English.

¹ tn Heb “he stood” or “took a stand.” The verb forms change to perfects and preterites in this verse, signaling past time and therefore a shift in perspective. The section starting here, the memory of the past, functions to certify the character of the future.

² tn The vav consecutive with the perfect in a past narrative is a little unusual. Here it is probably indicating repeated action in past time in keeping with the idiom that precedes and follows it. See GKC 332 §112.f for other possible examples.

¹ tn The translation assumes that vv. 9-10 describe the people’s response to a past judgment (v. 8). The perfect is understood as indicating simple past and the vav (ו) is taken as conjunctive. Another option is to take the vav on the perfect as consecutive and translate, “all the people will know.”

¹ tn The verb דָּרַשׁ (darash) means “to seek; to inquire; to investigate.” The Hebrew perfect form of a dynamic verb should be understood as past or perfective; here it is part of listing her past accomplishments. She was proactive in obtaining these products and perhaps had inspected them for quality so that she could work with them with satisfaction rather than frustration.

¹ tn The passage begins a description of the woman given in the past tense, predominantly with perfect verbs (past tense or perfective for dynamic roots) and preterite verbs (past tense). The few participles and imperfect verbs (here past habitual) derive their time frame from context and are also past time. Most translations have rendered all the descriptions of the woman in the present tense, perhaps out of the habit of changing the Hebrew past tense verbs to present tense in English in the short proverbial sayings. (Most English proverbs are in the present tense, some in the future, the fewest in the past, e.g. “curiosity killed the cat.”) The Hebrew verb forms were considered to have a present tense in proverbial sayings, but proverbial sayings do not need to be in the present tense and the understanding of the Hebrew forms has been corrected (M. Rogland, Alleged Non-Past Uses of Qatal in Classical Hebrew [Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 2003]; J. Cook, “Genericity, Tense, and Verbal Patterns in the Sentence Literature of Proverbs” in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients, ed. Ronald Troxel [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005]; B. Webster “The Perfect Verb and the Perfect Woman in Proverbs” in Windows to the Ancient World of the Hebrew Bible, ed. B. Arnold, N. Erickson, J. Walton [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2014]).