1 Kings 2:9

2:9 But now ¹  don’t treat him as if he were innocent. You are a wise man and you know how to handle him; ²  make sure he has a bloody death.” ³ 

Proverbs 20:26

20:26 A wise king separates out ⁴  the wicked;

he turns the threshing wheel over them. ⁵ 

[2:9]  ¹ tc The Lucianic recension of the Old Greek and the Vulgate have here “you” rather than “now.” The two words are homonyms in Hebrew.

[2:9]  ² tn Heb “what you should do to him.”

[2:9]  ³ tn Heb “bring his grey hair down in blood [to] Sheol.”

[20:26]  ⁴ 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).

[20:26]  ⁵ 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.