Yesaya 9:18

9:18 For ¹  evil burned like a fire, ² 

it consumed thorns and briers;

it burned up the thickets of the forest,

and they went up in smoke. ³ 

Yesaya 27:4

27:4 I am not angry.

I wish I could confront some thorns and briers!

Then I would march against them ⁴  for battle;

I would set them ⁵  all on fire,

Yesaya 37:36

37:36 The Lord’s messenger ⁶  went out and killed 185,000 troops ⁷  in the Assyrian camp. When they ⁸  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ⁹ 

Yesaya 37:2

37:2 Eliakim the palace supervisor, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, ¹⁰  clothed in sackcloth, sent this message to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz:

1 Samuel 23:6-7

David Eludes Saul Again

23:6 Now when Abiathar son of Ahimelech had fled to David at Keilah, he had brought with him an ephod. ¹¹  23:7 When Saul was told that David had come to Keilah, Saul said, “God has delivered ¹²  him into my hand, for he has boxed himself into a corner by entering a city with two barred gates.” ¹³ 

[9:18]  ¹ tn Or “Indeed” (cf. NIV “Surely”). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[9:18]  ² sn Evil was uncontrollable and destructive, and so can be compared to a forest fire.

[9:18]  ³ tn Heb “and they swirled [with] the rising of the smoke” (cf. NRSV).

[27:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “it.” The feminine singular suffix apparently refers back to the expression “thorns and briers,” understood in a collective sense. For other examples of a cohortative expressing resolve after a hypothetical statement introduced by נָתַן with מִי (miwith natan), see Judg 9:29; Jer 9:1-2; Ps 55:6.

[27:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “it.” The feminine singular suffix apparently refers back to the expression “thorns and briers,” understood in a collective sense.

[37:36]  ⁶ tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[37:36]  ⁷ tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.

[37:36]  ⁸ tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.

[37:36]  ⁹ tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”

[37:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “elders of the priests” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); NCV “the older priests”; NRSV, TEV, CEV “the senior priests.”

[23:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “an ephod went down in his hand.”

[23:7]  ¹² tn The MT reading (“God has alienated him into my hand”) in v. 7 is a difficult and uncommon idiom. The use of this verb in Jer 19:4 is somewhat parallel, but not entirely so. Many scholars have therefore suspected a textual problem here, emending the word נִכַּר (nikkar, “alienated”) to סִכַּר (sikkar, “he has shut up [i.e., delivered]”). This is the idea reflected in the translations of the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate, although it is not entirely clear whether they are reading something different from the MT or are simply paraphrasing what for them too may have been a difficult text. The LXX has “God has sold him into my hands,” apparently reading מַכַר (makar, “sold”) for MT’s נִכַּר. The present translation is a rather free interpretation.

[23:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “with two gates and a bar.” Since in English “bar” could be understood as a saloon, it has been translated as an attributive: “two barred gates.”