Ulangan 28:54

28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children.

Ulangan 28:56

28:56 Likewise, the most ¹  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ²  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters,

Ulangan 28:1

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ³  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ⁴  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.

1 Samuel 15:32

Samuel Puts Agag to Death

15:32 Then Samuel said, “Bring me King Agag of the Amalekites.” So Agag came to him trembling, ⁵  thinking to himself, ⁶  “Surely death is bitter!” ⁷ 

Amsal 29:21

29:21 If ⁸  someone pampers his servant from youth,

he will be a weakling ⁹  in the end.

Yesaya 47:1

Babylon Will Fall

47:1 “Fall down! Sit in the dirt,

O virgin ¹⁰  daughter Babylon!

Sit on the ground, not on a throne,

O daughter of the Babylonians!

Indeed, ¹¹  you will no longer be called delicate and pampered.

Yeremia 6:2

6:2 I will destroy ¹²  Daughter Zion, ¹³ 

who is as delicate and defenseless as a young maiden. ¹⁴ 

Ratapan 4:5

ה (He)

4:5 Those who once feasted on delicacies ¹⁵ 

are now starving to death ¹⁶  in the streets.

Those who grew up ¹⁷  wearing expensive clothes ¹⁸ 

are now dying ¹⁹  amid garbage. ²⁰ 

Lukas 7:25

7:25 What ²¹  did you go out to see? A man dressed in fancy ²²  clothes? ²³  Look, those who wear fancy clothes and live in luxury ²⁴  are in kings’ courts! ²⁵ 

[28:56]  ¹ tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

[28:56]  ² tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”

[28:1]  ³ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[15:32]  ⁵ tn The MT reading מַעֲדַנֹּת (ma’adannot, literally, “bonds,” used here adverbially, “in bonds”) is difficult. The word is found only here and in Job 38:31. Part of the problem lies in determining the root of the word. Some scholars have taken it to be from the root ענד (’nd, “to bind around”), but this assumes a metathesis of two of the letters of the root. Others take it from the root עדן (’dn) with the meaning “voluptuously,” but this does not seem to fit the context. It seems better to understand the word to be from the root מעד (m’d, “to totter” or “shake”). In that case it describes the fear that Agag experienced in realizing the mortal danger that he faced as he approached Samuel. This is the way that the LXX translators understood the word, rendering it by the Greek participle τρέμον (tremon, “trembling”).

[15:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “and Agag said.”

[15:32]  ⁷ tc The text is difficult here. With the LXX, two Old Latin mss, and the Syriac Peshitta it is probably preferable to delete סָר (sar, “is past”) of the MT; it looks suspiciously like a dittograph of the following word מַר (mar, “bitter”). This further affects the interpretation of Agag’s comment. In the MT he comes to Samuel confidently assured that the danger is over (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV “Surely the bitterness of death is past,” along with NLT, CEV). However, it seems more likely that Agag realized that his fortunes had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and that the clemency he had enjoyed from Saul would not be his lot from Samuel. The present translation thus understands Agag to approach not confidently but in the stark realization that his death is imminent (“Surely death is bitter!”). Cf. NAB “So it is bitter death!”; NRSV “Surely this is the bitterness of death”; TEV “What a bitter thing it is to die!”

[29:21]  ⁸ tn There is no conditional particle at the beginning of the verse; however, the relationship of the clauses, which lay down the condition first and then (with a vav) the consequences, indicates a conditional construction here. Cf. also NAB, NIV, NCV, TEV.

[29:21]  ⁹ tn The word מָגוֹן (magon) is a hapax legomenon; accordingly, it has been given a variety of interpretations. The LXX has “grief,” and this has been adopted by some versions (e.g., NIV, NCV). The idea would be that treating the servant too easily for so long would not train him at all, so he will be of little use, and therefore a grief. J. Reider takes the word to mean “weakling” from the Arabic root na’na (“to be weak”), with a noun/adjective form muna’ana’ (“weak; feeble”); see his “Etymological Studies in Biblical Hebrew,” VT 4 [1954]: 276-95. This would give a different emphasis to the sentence, but on the whole not very different than the first. In both cases the servant will not be trained well. Rashi, a Jewish scholar who lived a.d. 1040-1105, had the translation “a master.” The servant trained this way will assume authority in the household even as the son. This may be behind the KJV translation “son” (likewise ASV, NASB). Tg. Prov 29:21 and the Syriac have “to be uprooted,” which may reflect a different text entirely.

[47:1]  ¹⁰ tn בְּתוּלַה (bÿtulah) often refers to a virgin, but the phrase “virgin daughter” is apparently stylized (see also 23:12; 37:22). In the extended metaphor of this chapter, where Babylon is personified as a queen (vv. 5, 7), she is depicted as being both a wife and mother (vv. 8-9).

[47:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “For” (NASB, NRSV).

[6:2]  ¹² tn The verb here is another example of the Hebrew verb form that indicates the action is as good as done (a Hebrew prophetic perfect).

[6:2]  ¹³ sn Jerusalem is personified as a young maiden who is helpless in the hands of her enemies.

[6:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “The beautiful and delicate one I will destroy, the daughter of Zion. The English versions and commentaries are divided over the rendering of this verse because (1) there are two verbs with these same consonants, one meaning “to be like” and the other meaning “to be destroyed” (intransitive) or “to destroy” (transitive), and (2) the word rendered “beautiful” (נָוָה, navah) can be understood as a noun meaning “pasture” or as a defective writing of an adjective meaning “beautiful, comely” (נָאוָה, na’vah). Hence some render “Fair Zion, you are like a lovely pasture,” reading the verb form as an example of the old second feminine singular perfect. Although this may fit the imagery of the next verse, that rendering ignores the absence of a preposition (לְ or אֶל, lÿ or ’el, both of which can be translated “to”) that normally goes with the verb “be like” and drops the conjunction in front of the adjective “delicate.” The parallel usage of the verb in Hos 4:5 argues for the meaning “destroy.”

[4:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”

[4:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “are desolate.”

[4:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “were reared.”

[4:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tola’, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing: it is a metonymy of association: the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.

[4:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “embrace garbage.” One may also translate “rummage through” (cf. NCV “pick through trash piles”; TEV “pawing through refuse”; NLT “search the garbage pits.”

[4:5]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew word אַשְׁפַּתּוֹת (’ashpatot) can also mean “ash heaps.” Though not used as a combination elsewhere, to “embrace ash heaps” might also envision a state of mourning or even dead bodies lying on the ash heaps.

[7:25]  ²¹ tn Grk “But what.” Here ἀλλά (alla, a strong contrastive in Greek) produces a somewhat awkward sense in English, and has not been translated. The same situation occurs at the beginning of v. 26.

[7:25]  ²² tn Or “soft”; see L&N 79.100.

[7:25]  ²³ sn The reference to fancy clothes makes the point that John was not rich or powerful, in that he did not come from the wealthy classes.

[7:25]  ²⁴ tn See L&N 88.253, “to revel, to carouse, to live a life of luxury.”

[7:25]  ²⁵ tn Or “palaces.”