4:23 Guard your heart with all vigilance, 1
for from it are the sources 2 of life.
2:1 Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, 3
those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. 4
As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, 5
because they have the power to do so.
2:2 They confiscate the fields they desire,
and seize the houses they want. 6
They defraud people of their homes, 7
and deprive people of the land they have inherited. 8
1 tn Heb “more than all guarding.” This idiom means “with all vigilance.” The construction uses the preposition מִן (min) to express “above; beyond,” the word “all” and the noun “prison; guard; act of guarding.” The latter is the use here (BDB 1038 s.v. מִשְׁמָר).
2 sn The word תּוֹצְאוֹת (tots’ot, from יָצָא, yatsa’) means “outgoings; extremities; sources.” It is used here for starting points, like a fountainhead, and so the translation “sources” works well.
3 tn Heb “Woe to those who plan sin.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”; “ah”) was a cry used in mourning the dead.
4 tn Heb “those who do evil upon their beds.”
5 tn Heb “at the light of morning they do it.”
6 tn Heb “they desire fields and rob [them], and houses and take [them] away.”
7 tn Heb “and they oppress a man and his home.”
8 tn Heb “and a man and his inheritance.” The verb עָשַׁק (’ashaq, “to oppress”; “to wrong”) does double duty in the parallel structure and is understood by ellipsis in the second line.