Proverbs 20:17

20:17 Bread gained by deceit 1  tastes sweet to a person, 2 

but afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel. 3 

Matthew 7:9

7:9 Is 4  there anyone among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

Luke 11:11

11:11 What father among you, if your 5  son asks for 6  a fish, will give him a snake 7  instead of a fish?

1 tn Heb “bread of deceit” (so KJV, NAB). This refers to food gained through dishonest means. The term “bread” is a synecdoche of specific for general, referring to anything obtained by fraud, including food.

2 tn Heb “a man.”

3 sn The image of food and eating is carried throughout the proverb. Food taken by fraud seems sweet at first, but afterward it is not. To end up with a mouth full of gravel (a mass of small particles; e.g., Job 20:14-15; Lam 3:16) implies by comparison that what has been taken by fraud will be worthless and useless and certainly in the way (like food turning into sand and dirt).

4 tn Grk “Or is there.”

5 tn Grk “the”; in context the article is used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

6 tc Most mss (א A C D L W Θ Ψ Ë1,13 33 Ï lat syc,p,h bo) have “bread, does not give him a stone instead, or” before “a fish”; the longer reading, however, looks like a harmonization to Matt 7:9. The shorter reading is thus preferred, attested by Ì45,75 B 1241 pc sys sa.

7 sn The snake probably refers to a water snake.