Text -- Proverbs 14:1-12 (NET)

14:1 Every wise woman builds her household, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands. 14:2 The one who walks in his uprightness fears the Lord, but the one who is perverted in his ways despises him. 14:3 In the speech of a fool is a rod for his back, but the words of the wise protect them. 14:4 Where there are no oxen, the feeding trough is clean, but an abundant harvest is produced by strong oxen. 14:5 A truthful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies. 14:6 The scorner seeks wisdom but finds none, but understanding is easy for a discerning person. 14:7 Leave the presence of a foolish person, or you will not understand wise counsel. 14:8 The wisdom of the shrewd person is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deception. 14:9 Fools mock at reparation, but among the upright there is favor. 14:10 The heart knows its own bitterness, and with its joy no one else can share. 14:11 The household of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish. 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Pro 14:1

¹ tn Heb “wise ones of women.” The construct phrase חַכְמוֹת נָשִׁים (khakhmot nashim) features a wholistic genitive: “wise women.” The plural functions in a distributive sense: “every wise woman.” The contrast is between wise and foolish women (e.g., Prov 7:10-23; 31:10-31).

² tn The perfect tense verb in the first colon functions in a gnomic sense, while the imperfect tense in the second colon is a habitual imperfect.

³ tn Heb “house.” This term functions as a synecdoche of container (= house) for contents (= household, family).

NET Notes: Pro 14:2

¹ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive.

² tn Heb “crooked of ways”; NRSV “devious in conduct.” This construct phrase features a genitive of specification: “crooked in reference to his ways.” The term “ways” is an idiom for moral conduct. The evidence that people fear the Lord is uprightness; the evidence of those who despise him is the devious ways.

NET Notes: Pro 14:3

¹ tn The preposition בְּ (bet) may denote (1) exchange: “in exchange for” foolish talk there is a rod; or (2) cause: “because of” foolish talk.

² sn The noun פֶּה (peh, “mouth”) functions as a metonymy of cause for what is said (“speech, words, talk”).

³ tc The MT reads גַּאֲוָה (ga’avah, “pride”) which creates an awkward sense “in the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride” (cf. KJV, ASV). The BHS editors suggest emending the form to גֵּוֹה (“disciplining-rod”) to create tighter parallelism and irony: “in the mouth of a fool is a rod for the back” (e.g., Prov 10:13). What the fools says will bring discipline.

tn Heb “a rod of back.” The noun גֵּוֹה functions as a genitive of specification: “a rod for his back.” The fool is punished because of what he says.

⁴ tn Heb “lips.” The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause, meaning what they say. The wise by their speech will find protection.

NET Notes: Pro 14:4

¹ tn Heb “the strength of oxen.” The genitive שׁוֹר (shor, “oxen”) functions as an attributed genitive: “strong oxen.” Strong oxen are indispensable for a good harvest, and for oxen to be strong they must be well-fed. The farmer has to balance grain consumption with the work oxen do.

NET Notes: Pro 14:5

¹ tn Heb “a witness of faithfulness.” The genitive functions in an attributive sense: “faithful witness” (so KJV, NRSV); TEV “reliable witness.”

² tn Heb “a witness of falsehood.” The genitive functions in an attributive sense: “false witness.”

³ sn This saying addresses the problem of legal testimony: A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness does lie – naturally. The first colon uses the verb כָּזַב (kazav, “to lie”) and the second colon uses the noun כָּזָב (kazav, “lie; falsehood”).

NET Notes: Pro 14:6

¹ sn The “scorner” (לֵץ, lets) is intellectually arrogant; he lacks any serious interest in knowledge or religion. He pursues wisdom in a superficial way so that he can appear wise. The acquisition of wisdom is conditioned by one’s attitude toward it (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 149).

² tn Heb “and there is not.”

³ sn The Niphal of קָלַל (qalal) means “to appear light; to appear trifling; to appear easy.”

NET Notes: Pro 14:7

¹ tn Heb “a man, a stupid fellow.”

² tn Heb “and.” The vav (ו) that introduces this clause may be understood as meaning “or….”

³ tc The MT reads וּבַל־יָדַעְתָּ (uval-yada’ta, “you did not know [the lips of knowledge]).” It must mean that one should leave the fool because he did not receive knowledge from what fools said. Tg. Prov 14:7 freely interprets the verse: “for there is no knowledge on his lips.” The LXX reflects a Hebrew Vorlage of וּכְלֵי־דַעַת (ukhÿle-da’at, “[wise lips] are weapons of discretion”). The textual variant involves wrong word division and orthographic confusion between ב (bet) and כ (kaf). C. H. Toy emends the text: “for his lips do not utter knowledge” as in 15:7 (Proverbs [ICC], 285). The MT is workable and more difficult.

⁴ tn Heb “lips of knowledge” (so KJV, ASV). “Lips” is the metonymy of cause, and “knowledge” is an objective genitive (speaking knowledge) or attributive genitive (knowledgeable speech): “wise counsel.”

NET Notes: Pro 14:8

¹ tn Or “the prudent [person]” (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV).

² tn The Hiphil infinitive construct denotes purpose. Those who are shrewd will use it to give careful consideration to all their ways.

³ tn The word means “deception,” but some suggest “self-deception” here (W. McKane, Proverbs [OTL], 466; and D. W. Thomas, “Textual and Philological Notes on Some Passages in the Book of Proverbs,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 286); cf. NLT “fools deceive themselves.” The parallelism would favor this, but there is little support for it. The word usually means “craft practiced on others.” If the line is saying the fool is deceitful, there is only a loose antithesis between the cola.

NET Notes: Pro 14:9

¹ tn The noun “fools” is plural but the verb “mock” is singular. This has led some to reverse the line to say “guilty/guilt offering mocks fools” (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 287); see, e.g., Isa 1:14; Amos 5:22. But lack of agreement between subject and verb is not an insurmountable difficulty.

² tc The LXX reads “houses of transgressors will owe purification.” Tg. Prov 14:9 has “guilt has its home among fools” (apparently reading לִין לוּן, lin lun).

tn Heb “guilt.” The word אָשָׁם (’asham) has a broad range of meanings: “guilt; reparation.” According to Leviticus, when someone realized he was guilty he would bring a “reparation offering,” a sin offering with an additional tribute for restitution (Lev 5:1-6). It would be left up to the guilty to come forward; it was for the kind of thing that only he would know, for which his conscience would bother him. Fools mock any need or attempt to make things right, to make restitution (cf. NIV, NRSV, NCV, TEV).

³ tn The word רָצוֹן (ratson) means “favor; acceptance; pleasing.” It usually means what is pleasing or acceptable to God. In this passage it either means that the upright try to make amends, or that the upright find favor for doing so.

NET Notes: Pro 14:10

¹ tn Heb “bitterness of its soul.”

² tn Heb “stranger” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV).

³ tn The verb is the Hitpael of II עָרַב (’arav), which means “to take in pledge; to give in pledge; to exchange.” Here it means “to share [in].” The proverb is saying that there are joys and sorrows that cannot be shared. No one can truly understand the deepest feelings of another.

NET Notes: Pro 14:11

¹ tn Heb “house.” The term “house” is a metonymy of subject, referring to their contents: families and family life.

sn Personal integrity ensures domestic stability and prosperity, while lack of such integrity (= wickedness) will lead to the opposite.

² tn The term “tent” is a metonymy here referring to the contents of the tent: families.

NET Notes: Pro 14:12

¹ tn Heb “which is straight before a man.”

sn The proverb recalls the ways of the adulterous woman in chapters 1-9, and so the translation of “man” is retained. The first line does not say that the “way” that seems right is “vice,” but the second line clarifies that. The individual can rationalize all he wants, but the result is still the same. The proverb warns that any evil activity can take any number of ways (plural) to destruction.

² tn Heb “the ways of death” (so KJV, ASV). This construct phrase features a genitive of destiny: “ways that lead to [or, end in] death.” Here death means ruin (e.g., Prov 7:27; 16:25). The LXX adds “Hades,” but the verse seems to be concerned with events of this life.