3:7 Do not be wise in your own estimation; 1
fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 2
11:30 The fruit of the righteous is like 3 a tree producing life, 4
and the one who wins souls 5 is wise. 6
14:1 Every wise woman 7 builds 8 her household, 9
but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.
15:24 The path of life is upward 10 for the wise person, 11
to 12 keep him from going downward to Sheol. 13
19:20 Listen to advice 14 and receive discipline,
that 15 you may become wise 16 by the end of your life. 17
1 tn Heb “in your own eyes” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.”
2 sn The second colon clarifies the first. If one fears the
3 tn The comparative “like” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the metaphor; it is supplied for the sake of clarity.
4 tn Heb “tree of life” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV). The noun חַיִּים (khayyim, “life”) is genitive of product. What the righteous produce (“fruit”) is like a tree of life – a long and healthy life as well as a life-giving influence and provision for others.
5 tc The Leningrad Codex mistakenly vocalized ש (sin or shin) as שׂ (sin) instead of שׁ (shin) in the term נְפָשׂוֹת (nefashot) which is vocalized as נְפָשׁוֹת (nefasot, “souls”) in the other medieval Hebrew
6 tc The MT reads חָכָם (khakham, “wise”) and seems to refer to capturing (לָקַח, laqakh; “to lay hold of; to seize; to capture”) people with influential ideas (e.g., 2 Sam 15:6). An alternate textual tradition reads חָמָס (khamas) “violent” (reflected in the LXX and Syriac) and refers to taking away lives: “but the one who takes away lives (= kills people) is violent” (cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV). The textual variant was caused by orthographic confusion of ס (samek) and כ (kaf), and metathesis of מ (mem) between the 2nd and 3rd consonants. If the parallelism is synonymous, the MT reading fits; if the parallelism is antithetical, the alternate tradition fits. See D. C. Snell, “‘Taking Souls’ in Proverbs 11:30,” VT 33 (1083): 362-65.
5 tn Heb “wise ones of women.” The construct phrase חַכְמוֹת נָשִׁים (khakhmot nashim) features a wholistic genitive: “wise women.” The plural functions in a distributive sense: “every wise woman.” The contrast is between wise and foolish women (e.g., Prov 7:10-23; 31:10-31).
6 tn The perfect tense verb in the first colon functions in a gnomic sense, while the imperfect tense in the second colon is a habitual imperfect.
7 tn Heb “house.” This term functions as a synecdoche of container (= house) for contents (= household, family).
7 tn There is disagreement over the meaning of the term translated “upward.” The verse is usually taken to mean that “upward” is a reference to physical life and well-being (cf. NCV), and “going down to Sheol” is a reference to physical death, that is, the grave, because the concept of immortality is said not to appear in the book of Proverbs. The proverb then would mean that the wise live long and healthy lives. But W. McKane argues (correctly) that “upwards” in contrast to Sheol, does not fit the ways of describing the worldly pattern of conduct and that it is only intelligible if taken as a reference to immortality (Proverbs [OTL], 480). The translations “upwards” and “downwards” are not found in the LXX. This has led some commentators to speculate that these terms were not found in the original, but were added later, after the idea of immortality became prominent. However, this is mere speculation.
8 tn Heb “to the wise [man],” because the form is masculine.
9 tn The term לְמַעַן (lema’an, “in order to”) introduces a purpose clause; the path leads upward in order to turn the wise away from Sheol.
10 tn Heb “to turn from Sheol downward”; cf. NAB “the nether world below.”
9 sn The advice refers in all probability to the teachings of the sages that will make one wise.
10 tn The proverb is one continuous thought, but the second half of the verse provides the purpose for the imperatives of the first half.
11 tn The imperfect tense has the nuance of a final imperfect in a purpose clause, and so is translated “that you may become wise” (cf. NAB, NRSV).
12 tn Heb “become wise in your latter end” (cf. KJV, ASV) which could obviously be misunderstood.