Ayub 34:30

34:30 so that the godless man should not rule,

and not lay snares for the people. ¹ 

Ayub 34:2

34:2 “Listen to my words, you wise men;

hear ²  me, you learned men. ³ 

1 Samuel 23:3-4

23:3 But David’s men said to him, “We are afraid while we are still here in Judah! What will it be like if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?” 23:4 So David asked the Lord once again. But again the Lord replied, “Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.”

Amsal 20:8

20:8 A king sitting on the throne to judge ⁴ 

separates out ⁵  all evil with his eyes. ⁶ 

Amsal 20:26

20:26 A wise king separates out ⁷  the wicked;

he turns the threshing wheel over them. ⁸ 

[34:30]  ¹ tn This last verse is difficult because it is unbalanced and cryptic. Some have joined the third line of v. 29 with this entire verse to make a couplet. But the same result is achieved by simply regarding this verse as the purpose of v. 29. But there still are some words that must be added. In the first colon, “[he is over the nations]…preventing from ruling.” And in the second colon, “laying” has to be supplied before “snares.”

[34:2]  ² tn Heb “give ear to me.”

[34:2]  ³ tn The Hebrew word means “the men who know,” and without a complement it means “to possess knowledge.”

[20:8]  ⁴ tn The infinitive construct is דִּין; it indicates purpose, “to judge” (so NIV, NCV) even though it does not have the preposition with it.

[20:8]  ⁵ tn The second line uses the image of winnowing (cf. NIV, NRSV) to state that the king’s judgment removes evil from the realm. The verb form is מִזָרֶה (mÿzareh), the Piel participle. It has been translated “to sift; to winnow; to scatter” and “to separate” – i.e., separate out evil from the land. The text is saying that a just government roots out evil (cf. NAB “dispels all evil”), but few governments have been consistently just.

[20:8]  ⁶ sn The phrase with his eyes indicates that the king will closely examine or look into all the cases that come before him.

[20:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “winnows” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV). The sage draws on the process of winnowing to explain how the king uncovers and removes wickedness. The verb from which the participle מְזָרֶה (mÿzareh) is derived means “to separate; to winnow; to scatter”; the implied comparison means that the king will separate good people from bad people like wheat is separated from chaff. The image of winnowing is also used in divine judgment. The second line of the verse uses a detail of the process to make the point. Driving a wheel over the wheat represents the threshing process; the sharp iron wheels of the cart would easily serve the purpose (e.g., Isa 28:27-28).

[20:26]  ⁸ tn The king has the wisdom/ability to destroy evil from his kingdom. See also D. W. Thomas, “Proverbs 20:26,” JTS 15 (1964): 155-56.