Psalms 50:17

50:17 For you hate instruction

and reject my words. ¹ 

Proverbs 1:7

Introduction to the Theme of the Book

1:7 Fearing the Lord ²  is the beginning ³  of moral knowledge, ⁴ 

but ⁵  fools ⁶  despise ⁷  wisdom and instruction. ⁸ 

Proverbs 5:12

5:12 And you will say, “How I hated discipline!

My heart spurned reproof!

Jeremiah 32:33

32:33 They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ⁹  I tried over and over again ¹⁰  to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 35:13

35:13 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹²  told him, “Go and speak to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. Tell them, ¹³  ‘I, the Lord, say: ¹⁴  “You must learn a lesson from this ¹⁵  about obeying what I say! ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 35:17

35:17 So I, the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, say: ¹⁷  “I will soon bring on Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem all the disaster that I threatened to bring on them. I will do this because I spoke to them but they did not listen. I called out to them but they did not answer.”’”

John 3:18-19

3:18 The one who believes in him is not condemned. ¹⁸  The one who does not believe has been condemned ¹⁹  already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only ²⁰  Son of God. 3:19 Now this is the basis for judging: ²¹  that the light has come into the world and people ²²  loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.

¹ tn Heb “and throw my words behind you.”

² tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The expression יְהוָה יִרְאַת (yir’at yÿhvah, “fear of Yahweh”) is a genitive-construct in which יְהוָה (“the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive: He is the object of fear. The term יָרַא (yara’) is the common word for fear in the OT and has a basic three-fold range of meanings: (1) “dread; terror” (Deut 1:29; Jonah 1:10), (2) “to stand in awe” (1 Kgs 3:28), (3) “to revere; to respect” (Lev 19:3). With the Lord as the object, it captures the polar opposites of shrinking back in fear and drawing close in awe and adoration. Both categories of meaning appear in Exod 20:20 (where the Lord descended upon Sinai amidst geophysical convulsions); Moses encouraged the Israelites to not be afraid of God arbitrarily striking them dead for no reason (“Do not fear!”) but informed the people that the Lord revealed himself in such a terrifying manner to scare them from sinning (“God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him in you so that you do not sin”). The fear of the Lord is expressed in reverential submission to his will – the characteristic of true worship. The fear of the Lord is the foundation for wisdom (9:10) and the discipline leading to wisdom (15:33). It is expressed in hatred of evil (8:13) and avoidance of sin (16:6), and so results in prolonged life (10:27; 19:23).

³ tn The noun רֵאשִׁית (re’shit) has a two-fold range of meaning (BDB 912 s.v.): (1) “beginning” = first step in a course of action (e.g., Ps 111:10; Prov 17:14; Mic 1:13) or (2) “chief thing” as the principal aspect of something (e.g., Prov 4:7). So fearing the Lord is either (1) the first step in acquiring moral knowledge or (2) the most important aspect of moral knowledge. The first option is preferred because 1:2-6 focuses on the acquisition of wisdom.

⁴ tn Heb “knowledge.” The noun דָּעַת (da’at, “knowledge”) refers to experiential knowledge, not just cognitive knowledge, including the intellectual assimilation and practical application (BDB 394 s.v.). It is used in parallelism to מוּסָר (musar, “instruction, discipline”) and חָכְמָה (khokhmah, “wisdom, moral skill”).

⁵ tn The conjunction “but” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the antithetical parallelism. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn The term אֱוִיל (’evil, “fool”) refers to a person characterized by moral folly (BDB 17 s.v.). Fools lack understanding (10:21), do not store up knowledge (10:14), fail to attain wisdom (24:7), and refuse correction (15:5; 27:22). They are arrogant (26:5), talk loosely (14:3) and are contentious (20:3). They might have mental intelligence but they are morally foolish. In sum, they are stubborn and “thick-brained” (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 6).

⁷ tn The verb of בָּזָה (bazah, “despise”) means to treat things of value with contempt, as if they were worthless (BDB 102 s.v.). The classic example is Esau who despised his birthright and sold it for lentil stew (Gen 25:34). The perfect tense of this verb may be classified as characteristic perfect (what they have done and currently do) or gnomic perfect (what they always do in past, present and future). The latter is preferred; this describes a trait of fools, and elsewhere the book says that fools do not change.

⁸ sn Hebrew word order is emphatic here. Normal word order is: verb + subject + direct object. Here it is: direct object + subject + verb (“wisdom and instruction fools despise”).

⁹ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.” Compare the same idiom in 2:27.

¹⁰ tn For the idiom involved here see the translator’s note on 7:13. The verb that introduces this clause is a Piel infinitive absolute which is functioning in place of the finite verb (see, e.g., GKC 346 §113.ff and compare usage in Jer 8:15; 14:19. This grammatical point means that the versions cited in BHS fn a may not be reading a different text after all, but may merely be interpreting the form as syntactically equivalent to a finite verb as the present translation has done.).

¹¹ tn Heb “But they were not listening so as to accept correction.”

¹² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For this title see 7:3 and the study note on 2:19.

¹³ tn Heb “35:12 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of armies the God of Israel, “Go and say…‘Will you not learn…’”’” The use of the indirect introduction has been chosen here as in 34:1-2 to try to cut down on the confusion created by embedding quotations within quotations.

¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁵ tn The words “from this” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They have been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

¹⁶ tn Heb “Will you not learn a lesson…?” The rhetorical question here has the force of an imperative, made explicit in the translation.

¹⁷ tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel.” For the title see 7:13 and the study note on 2:19. The first person address is again used in the translation because this whole section is a speech from the Lord (see vv. 12-13).

¹⁸ tn Grk “judged.”

¹⁹ tn Grk “judged.”

²⁰ tn See the note on the term “one and only” in 3:16.

²¹ tn Or “this is the reason for God judging,” or “this is how judgment works.”

²² tn Grk “and men,” but in a generic sense, referring to people of both genders (as “everyone” in v. 20 makes clear).