Keluaran 32:11

32:11 But Moses sought the favor ¹  of the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Mazmur 109:13

109:13 May his descendants ²  be cut off! ³ 

May the memory of them be wiped out by the time the next generation arrives! ⁴ 

Amsal 13:9

13:9 The light ⁵  of the righteous shines brightly, ⁶ 

but the lamp ⁷  of the wicked goes out. ⁸ 

[32:11]  ¹ tn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 351) draws on Arabic to show that the meaning of this verb (חָלָה, khalah) was properly “make sweet the face” or “stroke the face”; so here “to entreat, seek to conciliate.” In this prayer, Driver adds, Moses urges four motives for mercy: 1) Israel is Yahweh’s people, 2) Israel’s deliverance has demanded great power, 3) the Egyptians would mock if the people now perished, and 4) the oath God made to the fathers.

[109:13]  ² tn Or “offspring.”

[109:13]  ³ sn On the expression cut off see Ps 37:28.

[109:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “in another generation may their name be wiped out.”

[13:9]  ⁵ sn The images of “light” and “darkness” are used frequently in scripture. Here “light” is an implied comparison: “light” represents life, joy, and prosperity; “darkness” signifies adversity and death. So the “light of the righteous” represents the prosperous life of the righteous.

[13:9]  ⁶ tn The verb יִשְׂמָח (yismah) is normally translated “to make glad; to rejoice.” But with “light” as the subject, it has the connotation “to shine brightly” (see G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew Text of Proverbs,” Bib 32 [1951]: 180).

[13:9]  ⁷ sn The lamp is an implied comparison as well, comparing the life of the wicked to a lamp that is going to be extinguished.

[13:9]  ⁸ tc The LXX adds, “Deceitful souls go astray in sins, but the righteous are pitiful and merciful.”

[13:9]  tn The verb דָּעַךְ (da’akh) means “to go out [in reference to a fire or lamp]; to be extinguished.” The idea is that of being made extinct, snuffed out (cf. NIV, NLT). The imagery may have been drawn from the sanctuary where the flame was to be kept burning perpetually. Not so with the wicked.