6:35 He will not consider 1 any compensation; 2
he will not be willing, even if you multiply the compensation. 3
7:9 Foreigners are consuming what his strenuous labor produced, 4
but he does not recognize it!
His head is filled with gray hair,
but he does not realize it!
1 tn Heb “lift up the face of,” meaning “regard.”
2 tn The word rendered “compensation” is כֹּפֶר (cofer); it is essentially a ransom price, a sum to be paid to deliver another from debt, bondage, or crime. The husband cannot accept payment as a ransom for a life, since what has happened cannot be undone so easily.
3 tn BDB 1005 s.v. שֹׁחַד suggests that this term means “hush money” or “bribe” (cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT). C. H. Toy takes it as legal compensation (Proverbs [ICC], 142).
4 tn Heb “foreigners consume his strength”; NRSV “devour (sap NIV) his strength.”
5 sn Note the younger son is not “my brother” but this son of yours (an expression with a distinctly pejorative nuance).
6 sn This is another graphic description. The younger son’s consumption had been like a glutton. He had both figuratively and literally devoured the assets which were given to him.
7 sn The charge concerning the prostitutes is unproven, but essentially the older brother accuses the father of committing an injustice by rewarding his younger son’s unrighteous behavior.
8 sn See note on the phrase “fattened calf” in v. 23.