² tn Heb “What is your servant, that you turn to a dead dog which is like me?”

² tn Heb “and they turned aside after unjust gain and took bribes and perverted justice.”

⁴ tn Heb “turn aside” (so KJV, NASB); NIV, TEV, NLT “Come over here.”

⁶ tn Heb “and he turned aside” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “And he went over.”

¹ tn Heb “Benjamin turned after him and, look, the whole city went up toward the sky.”

¹ tn Heb “they turned aside there to enter to spend the night.”

¹ tn Heb “Turn aside” (also a second time later in this verse).

² tn Heb “did not hear your voice and did not turn an ear to you.”

⁴ tn Heb “all of him has turned white, and he is clean.”

² tn Heb “turn [them] into sweet smoke” since the word is used for burning incense.

² tn Heb “at the turning of the morning”; NASB, NIV, TEV, CEV “at daybreak.”

³ sn The wordplay begun in v. 4 is continued here. The word translated “turns aside” in the literal translation and “wayward” in the translation is from the same root as “go the wrong way,” “turn around,” “turn away from me,” “apostasy,” and “turn back to me.” What God hoped for were confessions of repentance and change of behavior; what he got was denial of wrongdoing and continued turning away from him.

¹ tn Heb “turning away” (so KJV). The term מְשׁוּבַת (m^eshuvat, “turning away”) refers to moral defection and apostasy (BDB 1000 s.v.; cf. ASV “backsliding”). The noun מְשׁוּבַת (“turning away”) which appears at the end of Wisdom’s speech in 1:32 is from the same root as the verb תָּשׁוּבוּ (tashuvu, “turn!”) which appears at the beginning of this speech in 1:23. This repetition of the root שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn”) creates a wordplay: Because fools refuse to “turn to” wisdom (1:23), they will be destroyed by their “turning away” from wisdom (1:32). The wordplay highlights the poetic justice of their judgment. But here they have never embraced the teaching in the first place; so it means turning from the advice as opposed to turning to it.

³ tn For the translation of plural πονηρία (ponēria) as “iniquities,” see G. Harder, TDNT 6:565. The plural is important, since for Luke turning to Jesus means turning away from sins, not just the sin of rejecting Jesus.

² sn These two lines cover all relationships: Turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children points to horizontal relationships, while (turn) the disobedient to the wisdom of the just shows what God gives from above in a vertical manner.

¹ tn Heb “I have turned in compassion.” This suggests that the Lord has responded to the “turning” (i.e., repentance) of the people (v. 6) and now, with great love and forgiveness, allows construction of the temple to proceed.

⁵ tn Heb “turn aside.” They “turn aside” the needy by denying them the justice they deserve at the city gate (where legal decisions were made, and therefore where justice should be done).

⁶ tn Heb “I will turn my hand against Ekron.” For other uses of the idiom “turn the hand against,” see Ps 81:14; Isa 1:25; Jer 6:9; Zech 13:7.

¹ sn To “turn the back” is universally recognized as a symbol of rejection. The turning of the face toward one is the subject of the beautiful Aaronic blessing in Num 6:24-26.

² tn Heb “you turned with a turning [toward] Jacob.” The Hebrew term שְׁבוּת (sh^evut) is apparently a cognate accusative of שׁוּב (shuv). See Pss 14:7; 53:6.