17:10 A rebuke makes a greater impression on 1 a discerning person
than a hundred blows on a fool. 2
17:25 A foolish child is a grief 3 to his father,
and bitterness to the mother who bore him. 4
1 tn Heb “goes in deeper” (cf. NASB, NRSV). The verb נָחֵת (nakhet) “to go down; to descend” with the preposition בְּ (bet) means “to descend into; to make an impression on” someone.
2 tn The form is the Hiphil infinitive of נָכָה (nakhah) with the comparative מִן, min. The word “fool” then would be an objective genitive – more than blows to/on a fool.
3 sn The Hebrew noun means “vexation, anger, grief.”
4 tn Heb “to the one who bore him.” Because the participle is feminine singular in Hebrew, this has been translated as “the mother who bore him.”