Proverbs 1:26

1:26 so I myself will laugh when disaster strikes you,

I will mock when what you dread comes,

Proverbs 2:20

2:20 So you will walk in the way of good people,

and will keep on the paths of the righteous.


tn The conclusion or apodosis is now introduced.

sn Laughing at the consequences of the fool’s rejection of wisdom does convey hardness against the fool; it reveals the folly of rejecting wisdom (e.g., Ps 2:4). It vindicates wisdom and the appropriateness of the disaster (D. Kidner, Proverbs [TOTC], 60).

tn Heb “at your disaster.” The 2nd person masculine singular suffix is either (1) a genitive of worth: “the disaster due you” or (2) an objective genitive: “disaster strikes you.” The term “disaster” (אֵיד, ’ed) often refers to final life-ending calamity (Prov 6:15; 24:22; BDB 15 s.v. 3). The preposition ב (bet) focuses upon time here.

tn Heb “your dread” (so NASB); KJV “your fear”; NRSV “panic.” The 2nd person masculine singular suffix is a subjective genitive: “that which you dread.”

tn The conjunction לְמַעַן (lÿmaan, “so; as a result”) introduces the concluding result (BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן 2; HALOT 614 s.v. מַעַן 2.c) of heeding the admonition to attain wisdom (2:1-11) and to avoid the evil men and women and their destructive ways (2:12-19).

tn The noun “good” (טוֹבִים, tovim) does not function as an attributive genitive (“the good way”) because it is a plural noun and the term “way” (דֶרֶךְ, derekh) is singular. Rather it functions as a genitive of possession identifying the people who walk on this path: “the way of the good people.”

tn In the light of the parallelism, the noun “righteous” (צַדִּיקִים, tsadiqim) functions as a genitive of possession rather than an attributive genitive.