75:10 God says, 1
“I will bring down all the power of the wicked;
the godly will be victorious.” 2
16:12 Doing wickedness 3 is an abomination to kings,
because a throne 4 is established in righteousness.
20:8 A king sitting on the throne to judge 5
separates out 6 all evil with his eyes. 7
20:26 A wise king separates out 8 the wicked;
he turns the threshing wheel over them. 9
21:12 O royal family descended from David. 10
The Lord says:
‘See to it that people each day 11 are judged fairly. 12
Deliver those who have been robbed from those 13 who oppress them.
Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.
It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out
because of the evil that you have done. 14
3:1 I said,
“Listen, you leaders 15 of Jacob,
you rulers of the nation 16 of Israel!
You ought to know what is just, 17
3:2 yet you 18 hate what is good, 19
and love what is evil. 20
You flay my people’s skin 21
and rip the flesh from their bones. 22
3:3 You 23 devour my people’s flesh,
strip off their skin,
and crush their bones.
You chop them up like flesh in a pot 24 –
like meat in a kettle.
3:4 Someday these sinners will cry to the Lord for help, 25
but he will not answer them.
He will hide his face from them at that time,
because they have done such wicked deeds.”
3:9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family 26 of Jacob,
you rulers of the nation 27 of Israel!
You 28 hate justice
and pervert all that is right.
1 tn The words “God says” are not in the Hebrew text. They are supplied in the translation to clarify that God speaks in v. 10.
2 tn Heb “and all the horns of the wicked I will cut off, the horns of the godly will be lifted up.” The imagery of the wild ox’s horn is once more utilized (see vv. 4-5).
3 sn The “wickedness” mentioned here (רֶשַׁע, resha’) might better be understood as a criminal act, for the related word “wicked” can also mean the guilty criminal. If a king is trying to have a righteous administration, he will detest any criminal acts.
4 tn The “throne” represents the administration, or the decisions made from the throne by the king, and so the word is a metonymy of adjunct (cf. NLT “his rule”).
5 tn The infinitive construct is דִּין; it indicates purpose, “to judge” (so NIV, NCV) even though it does not have the preposition with it.
6 tn The second line uses the image of winnowing (cf. NIV, NRSV) to state that the king’s judgment removes evil from the realm. The verb form is מִזָרֶה (mÿzareh), the Piel participle. It has been translated “to sift; to winnow; to scatter” and “to separate” – i.e., separate out evil from the land. The text is saying that a just government roots out evil (cf. NAB “dispels all evil”), but few governments have been consistently just.
7 sn The phrase with his eyes indicates that the king will closely examine or look into all the cases that come before him.
8 tn Heb “winnows” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV). The sage draws on the process of winnowing to explain how the king uncovers and removes wickedness. The verb from which the participle מְזָרֶה (mÿzareh) is derived means “to separate; to winnow; to scatter”; the implied comparison means that the king will separate good people from bad people like wheat is separated from chaff. The image of winnowing is also used in divine judgment. The second line of the verse uses a detail of the process to make the point. Driving a wheel over the wheat represents the threshing process; the sharp iron wheels of the cart would easily serve the purpose (e.g., Isa 28:27-28).
9 tn The king has the wisdom/ability to destroy evil from his kingdom. See also D. W. Thomas, “Proverbs 20:26,” JTS 15 (1964): 155-56.
10 tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.
11 tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.
12 sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.
13 tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”
14 tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”
15 tn Heb “heads.”
16 tn Heb “house.”
17 tn Heb “Should you not know justice?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you should!”
18 tn Heb “the ones who.”
19 tn Or “good.”
20 tn Or “evil.”
21 tn Heb “their skin from upon them.” The referent of the pronoun (“my people,” referring to Jacob and/or the house of Israel, with the
22 tn Heb “and their flesh from their bones.”
23 tn Heb “who.”
24 tc The MT reads “and they chop up as in a pot.” The translation assumes an emendation of כַּאֲשֶׁר (ka’asher, “as”) to כִּשְׁאֵר (kish’er, “like flesh”).
25 tn Heb “then they will cry out to the
26 tn Heb “house.”
27 tn Heb “house.”
28 tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons (also at the beginning of v. 10).