20:10 Diverse weights and diverse measures 1 –
the Lord abhors 2 both of them.
20:23 The Lord abhors 3 differing weights,
and dishonest scales are wicked. 4
26:8 Like tying a stone in a sling, 5
so is giving honor to a fool.
26:27 The one who digs a pit 6 will fall into it;
the one who rolls a stone – it will come back on him.
27:3 A stone is heavy and sand is weighty,
but vexation 7 by a fool is more burdensome 8 than the two of them.
1 tn The construction simply uses repetition to express different kinds of weights and measures: “a stone and a stone, an ephah and an ephah.”
2 tn Heb “an abomination of the
3 tn Heb “an abomination of the
4 tn Heb “not good.” This is a figure known as tapeinosis – a deliberate understatement to emphasize a worst-case scenario: “it is wicked!” (e.g., 11:1; 20:10).
5 tn The translation “like tying a stone in a sling” seems to make the most sense, even though the word for “sling” occurs only here.
7 sn The verse is teaching talionic justice (“an eye for an eye,” etc.), and so the activities described should be interpreted as evil in their intent. “Digging a pit” would mean laying a trap for someone (the figure of speech would be a metonymy of cause for the effect of ruining someone, if an actual pit is being dug; the figure would be hypocatastasis if digging a pit is being compared to laying a trap, but no pit is being dug). Likewise, “rolling a stone” on someone means to destroy that individual.
9 tn The subject matter is the vexation produced by a fool. The term כַּעַס (ca’as) means “vexation” (ASV); provocation” (NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); “anger” (KJV “wrath”) and usually refers to undeserved treatment. Cf. NLT “the resentment caused by a fool.”
10 sn The contrast is made between dealing with the vexation of a fool and physical labor (moving stones and sand). More tiring is the vexation of a fool, for the mental and emotional effort it takes to deal with it is more draining than physical labor. It is, in the sense of this passage, almost unbearable.