31:14 Then Rachel and Leah replied to him, “Do we still have any portion or inheritance 6 in our father’s house? 31:15 Hasn’t he treated us like foreigners? He not only sold us, but completely wasted 7 the money paid for us! 8
13:22 A benevolent 9 person leaves an inheritance 10 for his grandchildren, 11
but the wealth of a sinner is stored up for the righteous. 12
19:14 A house and wealth are inherited from parents, 13
but a prudent wife 14 is from the Lord.
19:1 Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity 15
than one who is perverse in his speech 16 and is a fool. 17
1 tn Heb “great.” In this context the statement refers primarily to Abraham’s material wealth, although reputation and influence are not excluded.
2 tn Heb “and he.” The referent (the
3 tn Heb “to my master.” This has been replaced by the pronoun “him” in the translation for stylistic reasons.
4 tn Heb “after her old age.”
5 tn Heb “and he.” The referent (the servant’s master, Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn The two nouns may form a hendiadys, meaning “a share in the inheritance” or “a portion to inherit.”
7 tn Heb “and he devoured, even devouring.” The infinitive absolute (following the finite verb here) is used for emphasis.
8 tn Heb “our money.” The word “money” is used figuratively here; it means the price paid for Leah and Rachel. A literal translation (“our money”) makes it sound as if Laban wasted money that belonged to Rachel and Leah, rather than the money paid for them.
9 tn Heb “good.”
10 sn In ancient Israel the idea of leaving an inheritance was a sign of God’s blessing; blessings extended to the righteous and not the sinners.
11 tn Heb “the children of children.”
12 sn In the ultimate justice of God, the wealth of the wicked goes to the righteous after death (e.g., Ps 49:10, 17).
13 tn Heb “inheritance of fathers” (so KJV, ASV, NASB).
14 sn This statement describes a wife who has a skillful use of knowledge and discretion that proves to be successful. This contrasts with the preceding verse. The proverb is not concerned about unhappy marriages or bad wives (both of which exist); it simply affirms that when a marriage works out well one should credit it as a gift from God.
15 sn People should follow honesty even if it leads to poverty (e.g., Prov 18:23; 19:22).
16 tn Heb “lips.” The term “lips” is a metonymy for what one says with his lips. The expression “perverse in his lips” refers to speech that is morally perverted. Some medieval Hebrew
17 tc The Syriac and Tg. Prov 19:1 read “rich” instead of MT “fool.” This makes tighter antithetical parallelism than MT and is followed by NAB. However, the MT makes sense as it stands; this is an example of metonymical parallelism. The MT reading is also supported by the LXX. The Hebrew construction uses וְהוּא (vÿhu’), “and he [is],” before “fool.” This may be rendered “one who is perverse while a fool” or “a fool at the same time.”
18 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.
19 tc If the name Nympha is accented with a circumflex on the ultima (Νυμφᾶν, Numfan), then it refers to a man; if it receives an acute accent on the penult (Νύμφαν), the reference is to a woman. Scribes that considered Nympha to be a man’s name had the corresponding masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ here (autou, “his”; so D [F G] Ψ Ï), while those who saw Nympha as a woman read the feminine αὐτῆς here (auth", “her”; B 0278 6 1739[*] 1881 sa). Several
20 tn Grk “the church in her house.” The meaning is that Paul sends greetings to the church that meets at Nympha’s house.
21 tn The terms “however” and “but” in this sentence were supplied in order to emphasize the contrast.
22 tn The articular noun τῇ ἀπεκδύσει (th apekdusei) is a noun which ends in -σις (-sis) and therefore denotes action, i.e., “removal.” Since the head noun is a verbal noun, the following genitive τοῦ σώματος (tou swmatos) is understood as an objective genitive, receiving the action of the head noun.
23 tn Grk “in the removal of the body of flesh.” The genitive τῆς σαρκός (th" sarko") has been translated as an attributive genitive, “fleshly body.”
24 tn The second prepositional phrase beginning with ἐν τῇ περιτομῇ (en th peritomh) is parallel to the prepositional phrase ἐν τῇ ἀπεκδύσει (en th apekdusei) and gives a further explanation of it. The words “that is” were supplied to bring out this force in the translation.