16:18 Pride 1 goes 2 before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall. 3
19:3 A person’s folly 4 subverts 5 his way,
and 6 his heart rages 7 against the Lord.
1 sn The two lines of this proverb are synonymous parallelism, and so there are parasynonyms. “Pride” is paired with “haughty spirit” (“spirit” being a genitive of specification); and “destruction” is matched with “a tottering, falling.”
2 tn Heb “[is] before destruction.”
3 sn Many proverbs have been written in a similar way to warn against the inevitable disintegration and downfall of pride. W. McKane records an Arabic proverb: “The nose is in the heavens, the seat is in the mire” (Proverbs [OTL], 490).
4 tn Heb “the folly of a man.”
5 tn The verb סָלַף (salaf) normally means “to twist; to pervert; to overturn,” but in this context it means “to subvert” (BDB 701 s.v.); cf. ASV “subverteth.”
6 tn The clause begins with vav on the nonverb phrase “against the
7 sn The “heart raging” is a metonymy of cause (or adjunct); it represents the emotions that will lead to blaming God for the frustration. Genesis 42:28 offers a calmer illustration of this as the brothers ask what God was doing to them.