15:17 Better a meal of vegetables where there is love 6
than a fattened ox where there is hatred. 7
1 tn The text uses הִנֵּה (hinneh), often archaically translated “behold.” It is often used to express the dramatic present, the immediacy of an event – “Look, this is what I am doing!”
2 sn G. J. Wenham (Genesis [WBC], 1:34) points out that there is nothing in the passage that prohibits the man and the woman from eating meat. He suggests that eating meat came after the fall. Gen 9:3 may then ratify the postfall practice of eating meat rather than inaugurate the practice, as is often understood.
3 tn Heb “every moving thing that lives for you will be for food.”
4 tn The words “I gave you” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
5 tn The perfect verb form describes the action that accompanies the declaration.
5 tn Heb “and love there.” This clause is a circumstantial clause introduced with vav, that becomes “where there is love.” The same construction is used in the second colon.
6 sn Again the saying concerns troublesome wealth: Loving relationships with simple food are better than a feast where there is hatred. The ideal, of course, would be loving family and friends with a great meal in addition, but this proverb is only comparing two things.
7 tn Heb “the wine of their drinking.”
8 tn The words “from their diet” are not in the Hebrew text but have been added in the translation for clarity.