13:2 From the fruit of his speech 1 a person eats good things, 2
but the faithless 3 desire 4 the fruit of violence. 5
1 tn Heb “lips” (so NIV); KJV “mouth.” The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause for what the lips produce: speech.
2 tn Heb “he eats [what is] good.”
3 tn Heb “the desire of the faithless.” The noun “faithless” is a subjective genitive: “the faithless desire….”
4 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 13:4; 19:8; 21:10; BDB 660 s.v. 6.a).
5 tn Heb “violence.” The phrase “the fruit of” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the parallelism. The term “violence” is probably a metonymy of cause: “violence” represents what violence gains – ill-gotten gains resulting from violent crime. The wicked desire what does not belong to them.