5:14 I almost 1 came to complete ruin 2
in the midst of the whole congregation!” 3
22:13 The sluggard says, “There is a lion 4 outside!
I will be killed in the middle of the streets!” 5
1 tn The expression כִּמְעַט (kim’at) is “like a little.” It means “almost,” and is used of unrealized action (BDB 590 s.v. 2). Cf. NCV “I came close to”; NLT “I have come to the brink of.”
2 tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).
3 tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.
4 sn The proverb humorously describes the sluggard as making ridiculous excuses for not working – he might be eaten by a lion (e.g., 26:13). It is possible that “lion” is figurative, intended to represent someone who is like a lion, but this detracts from the humor of the exaggeration.
5 tc The LXX changes the phrase to read “murderers in the street” to form a better parallelism, possibly because the verb רָצַח (ratsakh) is used only of humans, not wild animals. The NIV attempts to solve the problem by making the second line a separate claim by the sluggard: “or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’”