Genesis 19:15-17

19:15 At dawn ¹  the angels hurried Lot along, saying, “Get going! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, ²  or else you will be destroyed when the city is judged!” ³  19:16 When Lot ⁴  hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters because the Lord had compassion on them. ⁵  They led them away and placed them ⁶  outside the city. 19:17 When they had brought them outside, they ⁷  said, “Run ⁸  for your lives! Don’t look ⁹  behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! ¹⁰  Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!”

Numbers 16:26

16:26 And he said to the community, “Move away from the tents of these wicked ¹¹  men, and do not touch anything they have, lest you be destroyed because ¹²  of all their sins.” ¹³ 

Proverbs 13:20

13:20 The one who associates ¹⁴  with the wise grows wise,

but a companion of fools suffers harm. ¹⁵ 

Proverbs 13:1

13:1 A wise son accepts ¹⁶  his father’s discipline, ¹⁷ 

but a scoffer ¹⁸  does not listen to rebuke.

Proverbs 5:22

5:22 The wicked ¹⁹  will be captured by his ²⁰  own iniquities, ²¹ 

and he will be held ²²  by the cords of his own sin. ²³ 

[19:15]  ¹ tn Heb “When dawn came up.”

[19:15]  ² tn Heb “who are found.” The wording might imply he had other daughters living in the city, but the text does not explicitly state this.

[19:15]  ³ tn Or “with the iniquity [i.e., punishment] of the city” (cf. NASB, NRSV).

[19:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Lot) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the compassion of the Lord to them.”

[19:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “brought him out and placed him.” The third masculine singular suffixes refer specifically to Lot, though his wife and daughters accompanied him (see v. 17). For stylistic reasons these have been translated as plural pronouns (“them”).

[19:17]  ⁷ tn Or “one of them”; Heb “he.” Several ancient versions (LXX, Vulgate, Syriac) read the plural “they.” See also the note on “your” in v. 19.

[19:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “escape.”

[19:17]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew verb translated “look” signifies an intense gaze, not a passing glance. This same verb is used later in v. 26 to describe Lot’s wife’s self-destructive look back at the city.

[19:17]  ¹⁰ tn Or “in the plain”; Heb “in the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.

[16:26]  ¹¹ tn The word רָשָׁע (rasha’) has the sense of a guilty criminal. The word “wicked” sometimes gives the wrong connotation. These men were opposing the Lord, and so were condemned as criminals – they were guilty. The idea of “wickedness” therefore applies in that sense.

[16:26]  ¹² tn The preposition bet (בְּ) in this line is causal – “on account of their sins.”

[16:26]  ¹³ sn The impression is that the people did not hear what the Lord said to Moses, but only what Moses said to the people as a result. They saw the brilliant cloud, and perhaps heard the sound of his voice, but the relaying of the instructions indicates they did not hear the actual instruction from the Lord himself.

[13:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “walks.” When used with the preposition אֶת (’et, “with”), the verb הָלַךְ (halakh, “to walk”) means “to associate with” someone (BDB 234 s.v. הָלַךְ II.3.b; e.g., Mic 6:8; Job 34:8). The active participle of הָלַךְ (“to walk”) stresses continual, durative action. One should stay in close association with the wise, and move in the same direction they do.

[13:20]  ¹⁵ tn The verb form יֵרוֹעַ (yeroa’) is the Niphal imperfect of רָעַע (ra’a’), meaning “to suffer hurt.” Several have attempted to parallel the repetition in the wordplay of the first colon. A. Guillaume has “he who associates with fools will be left a fool” (“A Note on the Roots רִיע, יָרַע, and רָעַע in Hebrew,” JTS 15 [1964]: 294). Knox translated the Vulgate thus: “Fool he ends that fool befriends” (cited by D. Kidner, Proverbs [TOTC], 104).

[13:1]  ¹⁶ tn The term “accepts” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and clarity.

[13:1]  ¹⁷ tc G. R. Driver suggested reading this word as מְיֻסַּר (mÿyussar, “allows himself to be disciplined”); see his “Hebrew Notes on Prophets and Proverbs,” JTS 41 (1940): 174. But this is not necessary at all; the MT makes good sense as it stands. Similarly, the LXX has “a wise son listens to his father.”

[13:1]  ¹⁸ sn The “scoffer” is the worst kind of fool. He has no respect for authority, reviles worship of God, and is unteachable because he thinks he knows it all. The change to a stronger word in the second colon – “rebuke” (גָּעַר, ga’ar) – shows that he does not respond to instruction on any level. Cf. NLT “a young mocker,” taking this to refer to the opposite of the “wise son” in the first colon.

[5:22]  ¹⁹ tn The suffix on the verb is the direct object suffix; “the wicked” is a second object by apposition: They capture him, the wicked. Since “the wicked” is not found in the LXX, it could be an old scribal error; or the Greek translator may have simply smoothed out the sentence. C. H. Toy suggests turning the sentence into a passive idea: “The wicked will be caught in his iniquities” (Proverbs [ICC], 117).

[5:22]  ²⁰ tn The word is the subject of the clause, but the pronominal suffix has no clear referent. The suffix is proleptic, referring to the wicked.

[5:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “his own iniquities will capture the wicked.” The translation shifts the syntax for the sake of smoothness and readability.

[5:22]  ²² sn The lack of discipline and control in the area of sexual gratification is destructive. The one who plays with this kind of sin will become ensnared by it and led to ruin.

[5:22]  ²³ tn The Hebrew is structured chiastically: “his own iniquities will capture the wicked, by the cords of his own sin will he be held.”