4:14 He called out loudly 1 as follows: 2
‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches!
Strip off its foliage
and scatter its fruit!
Let the animals flee from under it
and the birds from its branches!
9:13 The woman called Folly 3 is brash, 4
she is naive 5 and does not know 6 anything. 7
9:14 So she sits at the door of her house,
on a seat at the highest point of the city,
9:15 calling out 8 to those who are passing by her 9 in the way, 10
who go straight 11 on their way.
40:9 Go up on a high mountain, O herald Zion!
Shout out loudly, O herald Jerusalem! 12
Shout, don’t be afraid!
Say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
58:1 “Shout loudly! Don’t be quiet!
Yell as loud as a trumpet!
Confront my people with their rebellious deeds; 13
confront Jacob’s family with their sin! 14
1 tn Aram “in strength.”
2 tn Aram “and thus he was saying.”
3 tn Heb “a woman of foolishness.” This could be translated as “foolish woman,” taking the genitive as attributive (cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV). But in view of the contrast with the personification of wisdom, this word probably also represents a personification and so can be taken as a genitive of apposition, the woman who is folly, or “the woman, Folly” (cf. NIV). For clarity and stylistic reasons the word “called” has been supplied in the translation.
4 tn The meaning of the word comes close to “riotous.” W. McKane describes her as restless and rootless (Proverbs [OTL], 366).
5 tn The noun means “foolishness” (cf. KJV “simple”; NAB “inane”). Here it could be classified as a metonymy of adjunct, or as a predictive apposition (when a substantive is used in place of a noun; see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 15, §67).
6 tn The ignorance here in Proverbs must be moral ignorance. But see D. W. Thomas for the idea that the verb means “become still,” “be at rest,” yielding here the idea of restless (“A Note on בַל־יָדְעָה in Proverbs 913,” JTS 4 [1953]: 23-24).
7 tc The text of v. 13 has been difficult for translators. The MT has, “The foolish woman is boisterous, simplicity, and knows not what.” The LXX reads, “A foolish and impudent woman comes to lack a morsel, she who knows not shame.” The Syriac has, “a woman lacking in discretion, seductive.” Tg. Prov 9:13 translates it, “a foolish woman and a gadabout, ignorant, and she knows not good.” The Vulgate has, “a woman foolish and noisy, and full of wiles, and knowing nothing at all.”
8 tn The infinitive construct “calling out” functions epexegetically in the sentence, explaining how the previous action was accomplished.
9 tn The term “her” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for the sake of clarity and smoothness.
10 tn The noun is a genitive of location after the construct participle. Its parallel word is also an adverbial accusative of location.
11 tn The participle modifies the participle in the first colon. To describe the passers-by in this context as those “who go straight” means that they are quiet and unwary.
12 tn The second feminine singular imperatives are addressed to personified Zion/Jerusalem, who is here told to ascend a high hill and proclaim the good news of the Lord’s return to the other towns of Judah. Isa 41:27 and 52:7 speak of a herald sent to Zion, but the masculine singular form מְבַשֵּׂר (mÿvaser) is used in these verses, in contrast to the feminine singular form מְבַשֶּׂרֶת (mÿvaseret) employed in 40:9, where Zion is addressed as a herald.
13 tn Heb “declare to my people their rebellion.”
14 tn Heb “and to the house of Jacob their sin.” The verb “declare” is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).