23:5 When you gaze upon riches, 1 they are gone,
for they surely make wings for themselves,
and fly off into the sky like an eagle! 2
23:33 Your eyes will see strange things, 3
and your mind will speak perverse things.
31:1 “I made a covenant with 4 my eyes;
how then could I entertain thoughts against a virgin? 5
119:37 Turn my eyes away from what is worthless! 6
Revive me with your word! 7
6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If then your eye is healthy, 8 your whole body will be full of light.
1 tc The Kethib is הֲתָעוּף (hata’uf), “do your eyes fly [light] on it?” The Qere is the Hiphil, הֲתָעִיף (hata’if) “do you cause your eyes to fly on it?” But the line is difficult. The question may be indirect: If you cast your eyes on it, it is gone – when you think you are close, it slips away.
2 sn This seventh saying warns people not to expend all their energy trying to get rich because riches are fleeting (cf. Instruction of Amememope, chap. 7, 9:10-11 which says, “they have made themselves wings like geese and have flown away to heaven”). In the ancient world the symbol of birds flying away signified fleeting wealth.
3 tn The feminine plural of זָר (zar, “strange things”) refers to the trouble one has in seeing and speaking when drunk.
4 tn The idea of cutting a covenant for something may suggest a covenant that is imposed, except that this construction elsewhere argues against it (see 2 Chr 29:10).
5 tn This half-verse is the effect of the covenant. The interrogative מָה (mah) may have the force of the negative, and so be translated “not to pay attention.”
6 tn Heb “Make my eyes pass by from looking at what is worthless.”
7 tn Heb “by your word.”
8 tn Or “sound” (so L&N 23.132 and most scholars). A few scholars take this word to mean something like “generous” here (L&N 57.107). partly due to the immediate context concerning money, in which case the “eye” is a metonymy for the entire person (“if you are generous”).