[17:15] 1 tn Heb “he who justifies the wicked and and he who condemns the righteous” (so NASB). The first colon uses two Hiphil participles, מַצְדִּיק (matsdiq) and מַרְשִׁיעַ (marshia’). The first means “to declare righteous” (a declarative Hiphil), and the second means “to make wicked [or, guilty]” or “to condemn” (i.e., “to declare guilty”). To declare someone righteous who is a guilty criminal, or to condemn someone who is innocent, are both abominations for the Righteous Judge of the whole earth.
[17:15] 2 tn Heb “an abomination of the
[17:26] 3 tn Heb “not good.” This is an example of tapeinosis – an understatement that implies the worst-case scenario: “it is terrible.”
[17:26] 4 tn The verb עָנַשׁ, here a Qal infinitive construct, properly means “to fine” (cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT) but is taken here to mean “to punish” in general. The infinitive functions as the subject of the clause.
[17:26] 5 tn The form is the Hiphil infinitive construct from נָכָה (nakhah, “to strike; to smite”). It may well refer to public beatings, so “flog” is used in the translation, since “strike” could refer to an individual’s action and “beat” could be taken to refer to competition.
[17:26] 6 tn Heb “[is] against uprightness.” The expression may be rendered “contrary to what is right.”
[17:26] sn The two lines could be synonymous parallelism; but the second part is being used to show how wrong the first act would be – punishing the righteous makes about as much sense as beating an official of the court for doing what is just.
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