Amsal 9:17
Konteks9:17 “Stolen waters 1 are sweet,
and food obtained in secret 2 is pleasant!”
Amsal 20:17
Konteks20:17 Bread gained by deceit 3 tastes sweet to a person, 4
but afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel. 5
Ayub 24:5-6
Konteks24:5 Like 6 wild donkeys in the desert
they 7 go out to their labor, 8
seeking diligently for food;
the wasteland provides 9 food for them
and for their children.
24:6 They reap fodder 10 in the field,
and glean 11 in the vineyard of the wicked.
Mazmur 14:4
Konteks14:4 All those who behave wickedly 12 do not understand – 13
those who devour my people as if they were eating bread,
and do not call out to the Lord.
Yeremia 5:26-28
Konteks5:26 “Indeed, there are wicked scoundrels among my people.
They lie in wait like bird catchers hiding in ambush. 14
They set deadly traps 15 to catch people.
5:27 Like a cage filled with the birds that have been caught, 16
their houses are filled with the gains of their fraud and deceit. 17
That is how they have gotten so rich and powerful. 18
5:28 That is how 19 they have grown fat and sleek. 20
There is no limit to the evil things they do. 21
They do not plead the cause of the fatherless in such a way as to win it.
They do not defend the rights of the poor.
Yehezkiel 22:25-29
Konteks22:25 Her princes 22 within her are like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives. They take away riches and valuable things; they have made many women widows 23 within it. 22:26 Her priests abuse my law and have desecrated my holy things. They do not distinguish between the holy and the profane, 24 or recognize any distinction between the unclean and the clean. They ignore 25 my Sabbaths and I am profaned in their midst. 22:27 Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey – shedding blood and destroying lives – so they can get dishonest profit. 22:28 Her prophets coat their messages with whitewash. 26 They see false visions and announce lying omens for them, saying, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. 22:29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have wronged the poor and needy; they have oppressed the foreigner who lives among them and denied them justice. 27
Amos 8:4-6
Konteks8:4 Listen to this, you who trample 28 the needy,
and do away with 29 the destitute in the land.
8:5 You say,
“When will the new moon festival 30 be over, 31 so we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath end, 32 so we can open up the grain bins? 33
We’re eager 34 to sell less for a higher price, 35
and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales! 36
8:6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, 37
a pair of sandals 38 for the needy!
We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!” 39
Mikha 3:5
Konteks3:5 This is what the Lord says: “The prophets who mislead my people
are as good as dead. 40
If someone gives them enough to eat,
they offer an oracle of peace. 41
But if someone does not give them food,
they are ready to declare war on him. 42
Mikha 6:12
Konteks6:12 The city’s rich men think nothing of resorting to violence; 43
her inhabitants lie, 44
their tongues speak deceptive words. 45
Zefanya 3:3
Konteks3:3 Her princes 46 are as fierce as roaring lions; 47
her rulers 48 are as hungry as wolves in the desert, 49
who completely devour their prey by morning. 50
Matius 23:14
Konteks23:14 [[EMPTY]] 51
Yakobus 5:4-5
Konteks5:4 Look, the pay you have held back from the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5:5 You have lived indulgently and luxuriously on the earth. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 52
[9:17] 1 sn The offer is not wine and meat (which represented wisdom), but water that is stolen. The “water” will seem sweeter than wine because it is stolen – the idea of getting away with something exciting appeals to the baser instincts. In Proverbs the water imagery was introduced earlier in 5:15-19 as sexual activity with the adulteress, which would seem at the moment more enjoyable than learning wisdom. Likewise bread will be drawn into this analogy in 30:20. So the “calling out” is similar to that of wisdom, but what is being offered is very different.
[9:17] 2 tn Heb “bread of secrecies.” It could mean “bread [eaten in] secret places,” a genitive of location; or it could mean “bread [gained through] secrets,” a genitive of source, the secrecies being metonymical for theft. The latter makes a better parallelism in this verse, for bread (= sexually immoral behavior) gained secretly would be like stolen water.
[20:17] 3 tn Heb “bread of deceit” (so KJV, NAB). This refers to food gained through dishonest means. The term “bread” is a synecdoche of specific for general, referring to anything obtained by fraud, including food.
[20:17] 5 sn The image of food and eating is carried throughout the proverb. Food taken by fraud seems sweet at first, but afterward it is not. To end up with a mouth full of gravel (a mass of small particles; e.g., Job 20:14-15; Lam 3:16) implies by comparison that what has been taken by fraud will be worthless and useless and certainly in the way (like food turning into sand and dirt).
[24:5] 6 tc The verse begins with הֵן (hen); but the LXX, Vulgate, and Syriac all have “like.” R. Gordis (Job, 265) takes הֵן (hen) as a pronoun “they” and supplies the comparative. The sense of the verse is clear in either case.
[24:5] 7 tn That is, “the poor.”
[24:5] 8 tc The MT has “in the working/labor of them,” or “when they labor.” Some commentators simply omit these words. Dhorme retains them and moves them to go with עֲרָבָה (’aravah), which he takes to mean “evening”; this gives a clause, “although they work until the evening.” Then, with many others, he takes לוֹ (lo) to be a negative and finishes the verse with “no food for the children.” Others make fewer changes in the text, and as a result do not come out with such a hopeless picture – there is some food found. The point is that they spend their time foraging for food, and they find just enough to survive, but it is a day-long activity. For Job, this shows how unrighteous the administration of the world actually is.
[24:5] 9 tn The verb is not included in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation.
[24:6] 10 tc The word בְּלִילוֹ (bÿlilo) means “his fodder.” It is unclear to what this refers. If the suffix is taken as a collective, then it can be translated “they gather/reap their fodder.” The early versions all have “they reap in a field which is not his” (taking it as בְּלִי לוֹ, bÿli lo). A conjectural emendation would change the word to בַּלַּיְלָה (ballaylah, “in the night”). But there is no reason for this.
[24:6] 11 tn The verbs in this verse are uncertain. In the first line “reap” is used, and that would be the work of a hired man (and certainly not done at night). The meaning of this second verb is uncertain; it has been taken to mean “glean,” which would be the task of the poor.
[14:4] 12 tn Heb “all the workers of wickedness.” See Pss 5:5; 6:8.
[14:4] 13 tn Heb “Do they not understand?” The rhetorical question (rendered in the translation as a positive affirmation) expresses the psalmist’s amazement at their apparent lack of understanding. This may refer to their lack of moral understanding, but it more likely refers to their failure to anticipate God’s defense of his people (see vv. 5-7).
[5:26] 14 tn The meaning of the last three words is uncertain. The pointing and meaning of the Hebrew word rendered “hiding in ambush” is debated. BDB relates the form (כְּשַׁךְ, kÿshakh) to a root שָׁכַךְ (shakhakh), which elsewhere means “decrease, abate” (cf. BDB 1013 s.v. שָׁכַךְ), and notes that this is usually understood as “like the crouching of fowlers,” but they say this meaning is dubious. HALOT 1345 s.v. I שׁוֹר questions the validity of the text and offers three proposals; the second appears to create the least textual modification, i.e., reading כְּשַׂךְ (kesakh, “as in the hiding place of (bird catchers)”; for the word שַׂךְ (sakh) see HALOT 1236 s.v. שׂךְ 4 and compare Lam 2:6 for usage. The versions do not help. The Greek does not translate the first two words of the line. The proposal given in HALOT is accepted with some hesitancy.
[5:26] 15 tn Heb “a destroying thing.”
[5:27] 16 tn The words, “that have been caught” are not in the text but are implicit in the comparison.
[5:27] 17 tn Heb “are filled with deceit.” The translation assumes a figure of speech of cause for effect (metonymy). Compare the same word in the same figure in Zeph 1:9.
[5:27] 18 tn Heb “therefore they have gotten great and rich.”
[5:28] 19 tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to show that this line is parallel with the preceding.
[5:28] 20 tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. This verb occurs only here. The lexicons generally relate it to the word translated “plate” in Song 5:14 and understand it to mean “smooth, shiny” (so BDB 799 s.v. I עֶשֶׁת) or “fat” (so HALOT 850 s.v. II עֶשֶׁת). The word in Song 5:14 more likely means “smooth” than “plate” (so TEV). So “sleek” is most likely here.
[5:28] 21 tn Heb “they cross over/transgress with respect to matters of evil.”
[5:28] sn There is a wordplay in the use of this word which has twice been applied in v. 22 to the sea not crossing the boundary set for it by God.
[22:25] 22 tn Heb “a conspiracy of her prophets is in her midst.” The LXX reads “whose princes” rather than “a conspiracy of prophets.” The prophets are mentioned later in the paragraph (v. 28). If one follows the LXX in verse 25, then five distinct groups are mentioned in vv. 25-29: princes, priests, officials, prophets, and the people of the land. For a defense of the Septuagintal reading, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:32, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:720, n. 4.
[22:25] 23 tn Heb “her widows they have multiplied.” The statement alludes to their murderous acts.
[22:26] 24 tn Or “between the consecrated and the common.”
[22:26] 25 tn Heb “hide their eyes from.” The idiom means to disregard or ignore something or someone (see Lev 20:4; 1 Sam 12:3; Prov 28:27; Isa 1:15).
[22:28] 26 tn Heb “her prophets coat for themselves with whitewash.” The expression may be based on Ezek 13:10-15.
[22:29] 27 tn Heb “and the foreigner they have oppressed without justice.”
[8:4] 28 tn See the note on the word “trample” in 2:7.
[8:4] 29 tn Or “put an end to”; or “exterminate.”
[8:5] 30 sn Apparently work was prohibited during the new moon festival, just as it was on the Sabbath.
[8:5] 32 tn The verb, though omitted in the Hebrew text, is supplied in the translation from the parallel line.
[8:5] 33 tn Heb “sell grain.” Here “grain” could stand by metonymy for the bins where it was stored.
[8:5] 34 tn Here and in v. 6 the words “we’re eager” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
[8:5] 35 tn Heb “to make small the ephah and to make great the shekel.” The “ephah” was a unit of dry measure used to determine the quantity purchased, while the “shekel” was a standard weight used to determine the purchase price. By using a smaller than standard ephah and a heavier than standard shekel, these merchants were able to increase their profit (“sell less for a higher price”) by cheating the buyer.
[8:5] 36 tn Heb “and to cheat with deceptive scales”; NASB, NIV “dishonest scales”; NRSV “false balances.”
[8:5] sn Rigged scales may refer to bending the crossbar or shifting the center point of the scales to make the amount weighed appear heavier than it actually was, thus cheating the buyer.
[8:6] 37 tn Heb “to buy the poor for silver.”
[8:6] sn The expression trade silver for the poor refers to the slave trade.
[8:6] 38 tn See the note on the word “sandals” in 2:6.
[8:6] 39 tn Heb “The chaff of the grain we will sell.”
[3:5] 40 tn Heb “concerning the prophets, those who mislead my people.” The first person pronominal suffix is awkward in a quotation formula that introduces the words of the
[3:5] 41 tn Heb “those who bite with their teeth and cry out, ‘peace.’” The phrase “bite with the teeth” is taken here as idiomatic for eating. Apparently these prophets were driven by mercenary motives. If they were paid well, they gave positive oracles to their clients, but if someone could not afford to pay them, they were hostile and delivered oracles of doom.
[3:5] 42 tn Heb “but [as for the one] who does not place [food] in their mouths, they prepare for war against him.”
[6:12] 43 tn Heb “because her rich are full of violence.”
[6:12] 44 tn Heb “speak lies.”
[6:12] 45 tn Heb “and their tongue is deceptive in their mouth.”
[3:3] 47 tn Heb “her princes in her midst are roaring lions.” The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as fierce as”) for clarity.
[3:3] 48 tn Traditionally “judges.”
[3:3] 49 tn Heb “her judges [are] wolves of the evening,” that is, wolves that prowl at night. The translation assumes an emendation to עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “desert”). For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 128. The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as hungry as”) for clarity.
[3:3] 50 tn Heb “they do not gnaw [a bone] at morning.” The precise meaning of the line is unclear. The statement may mean these wolves devour their prey so completely that not even a bone is left to gnaw by the time morning arrives. For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 129.
[23:14] 51 tc The most important
[5:5] 52 sn James’ point seems to be that instead of seeking deliverance from condemnation, they have defied God’s law (fattened your hearts) and made themselves more likely objects of his judgment (in a day of slaughter).
