3:28 Do not say to your neighbor, “Go! Return tomorrow
and I will give it,” when 1 you have it with you at the time. 2
13:4 The appetite 3 of the sluggard 4 craves 5 but gets nothing,
but the desire of the diligent will be abundantly satisfied. 6
22:13 The sluggard says, “There is a lion 7 outside!
I will be killed in the middle of the streets!” 8
1 tn Heb “and it is with you.” The prefixed vav introduces a circumstantial clause: “when …”
2 tn The words “at the time” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.
3 tn The noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, traditionally “soul”) has a broad range of meanings, and here denotes “appetite” (e.g., Ps 17:9; Prov 23:3; Eccl 2:24; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5; BDB 660 s.v. 5.c) or (2) “desire” (e.g., Deut 12:20; Prov 19:8; 21:10; BDB 660 s.v. 6.a).
4 sn The contrast is between the “soul (= appetite) of the sluggard” (נַפְשׁוֹ עָצֵל, nafsho ’atsel) and the “soul (= desire) of the diligent” (נֶפֶשׁ חָרֻצִים, nefesh kharutsim) – what they each long for.
5 tn The Hitpael verb means “to lust after; to crave.” A related verb is used in the Decalogue’s prohibition against coveting (Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21).
6 tn Heb “will be made fat” (cf. KJV, NASB); NRSV “is richly supplied.”
7 sn The proverb humorously describes the sluggard as making ridiculous excuses for not working – he might be eaten by a lion (e.g., 26:13). It is possible that “lion” is figurative, intended to represent someone who is like a lion, but this detracts from the humor of the exaggeration.
8 tc The LXX changes the phrase to read “murderers in the street” to form a better parallelism, possibly because the verb רָצַח (ratsakh) is used only of humans, not wild animals. The NIV attempts to solve the problem by making the second line a separate claim by the sluggard: “or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’”
9 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
10 tn Grk “ground, praying and saying.” Here the participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.
11 tn Grk “if it is possible.”
12 sn This cup alludes to the wrath of God that Jesus would experience (in the form of suffering and death) for us. See Ps 11:6; 75:8-9; Isa 51:17, 19, 22 for this figure.
13 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.
14 tn Grk “saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant here in contemporary English and has not been translated.
15 tn Grk “this”; the referent (the cup) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Grk “because their eyes were weighed down,” an idiom for becoming extremely or excessively sleepy (L&N 23.69).
17 tn Κἀκεῖνος (kakeino") has been translated “Then he.”
18 tn Grk “answering, he will say.” This is redundant in contemporary English and has been simplified to “he will reply.”
19 tn Grk “my children are with me in the bed.” In Jewish homes in the time of Jesus, the beds were often all together in one room; thus the householder may be speaking of individual beds (using a collective singular) rather than a common bed.
20 tn The syntax of vv. 6-7 is complex. In the Greek text Jesus’ words in v. 6 begin as a question. Some see Jesus’ question ending at v. 6, but the reply starting in v. 8 favors extending the question through the entire illustration. The translation breaks up the long sentence at the beginning of v. 7 and translates Jesus’ words as a statement for reasons of English style.