4:5 Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding;
do not forget and do not turn aside from the words I speak. 1
21:1 The king’s heart 2 is in the hand 3 of the Lord like channels of water; 4
he turns it wherever he wants.
1 tn Heb “from the words of my mouth” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); TEV, CEV “what I say.”
2 sn “Heart” is a metonymy of subject; it signifies the ability to make decisions, if not the decisions themselves.
3 sn “Hand” in this passage is a personification; the word is frequently used idiomatically for “power,” and that is the sense intended here.
4 tn “Channels of water” (פַּלְגֵי, palge) is an adverbial accusative, functioning as a figure of comparison – “like channels of water.” Cf. NAB “Like a stream”; NIV “watercourse”; NRSV, NLT “a stream of water.”