Proverbs 5:8-14

5:8 Keep yourself ¹  far ²  from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,

5:9 lest you give your vigor ³  to others

and your years to a cruel person,

5:10 lest strangers devour ⁴  your strength, ⁵ 

and your labor ⁶  benefit ⁷  another man’s house.

5:11 And at the end of your life ⁸  you will groan ⁹ 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ¹⁰ 

5:12 And you will say, “How I hated discipline!

My heart spurned reproof!

5:13 For ¹¹  I did not obey my teachers ¹² 

and I did not heed ¹³  my instructors. ¹⁴ 

5:14 I almost ¹⁵  came to complete ruin ¹⁶ 

in the midst of the whole congregation!” ¹⁷ 

[5:8]  ¹ tn Heb “your way.”

[5:8]  ² sn There is a contrast made between “keep far away” (הַרְחֵק, harkheq) and “do not draw near” (וְאַל־תִּקְרַב, vÿ’al-tiqrav).

[5:9]  ³ sn The term הוֹד (hod, “vigor; splendor; majesty”) in this context means the best time of one’s life (cf. NIV “your best strength”), the full manly vigor that will be wasted with licentiousness. Here it is paralleled by “years,” which refers to the best years of that vigor, the prime of life. Life would be ruined by living this way, or the revenge of the woman’s husband would cut it short.

[5:10]  ⁴ tn Or “are sated, satisfied.”

[5:10]  ⁵ tn The word כֹּחַ (coakh, “strength”) refers to what laborious toil would produce (so a metonymy of cause). Everything that this person worked for could become the property for others to enjoy.

[5:10]  ⁶ tn “labor, painful toil.”

[5:10]  ⁷ tn The term “benefit” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[5:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ⁹ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”

[5:13]  ¹¹ tn The vav that introduces this clause functions in an explanatory sense.

[5:13]  ¹² tn The Hebrew term מוֹרַי (moray) is the nominal form based on the Hiphil plural participle with a suffix, from the root יָרָה (yarah). The verb is “to teach,” the common noun is “instruction, law [torah],” and this participle form is teacher (“my teachers”).

[5:13]  ¹³ sn The idioms are vivid: This expression is “incline the ear”; earlier in the first line is “listen to the voice,” meaning “obey.” Such detailed description emphasizes the importance of the material.

[5:13]  ¹⁴ tn The form is the Piel plural participle of לָמַד (lamad) used substantivally.

[5:14]  ¹⁵ tn The expression כִּמְעַט (kim’at) is “like a little.” It means “almost,” and is used of unrealized action (BDB 590 s.v. 2). Cf. NCV “I came close to”; NLT “I have come to the brink of.”

[5:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).

[5:14]  ¹⁷ tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.