Jeremiah 26:11

26:11 Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said, ¹  “This man should be condemned to die ²  because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so ³  with your own ears.”

Psalms 52:2

52:2 Your tongue carries out your destructive plans; ⁴ 

it is as effective as a sharp razor, O deceiver. ⁵ 

Psalms 57:4

57:4 I am surrounded by lions;

I lie down ⁶  among those who want to devour me; ⁷ 

men whose teeth are spears and arrows,

whose tongues are a sharp sword. ⁸ 

Psalms 64:3

64:3 They ⁹  sharpen their tongues like a sword;

they aim their arrow, a slanderous charge, ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 18:21

18:21 Death and life are in the power ¹¹  of the tongue, ¹² 

and those who love its use ¹³  will eat its fruit.

[26:11]  ¹ tn Heb “the priests and prophets said to the leaders and the people….” The long sentence has been broken up to conform better with contemporary English style and the situational context is reflected in “laid their charges.”

[26:11]  ² tn Heb “a sentence of death to this man.”

[26:11]  ³ tn Heb “it.”

[52:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “destruction your tongue devises.”

[52:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “like a sharpened razor, doer of deceit.” The masculine participle עָשָׂה (’asah) is understood as a substantival vocative, addressed to the powerful man.

[57:4]  ⁶ tn The cohortative form אֶשְׁכְּבָה (’eshkÿvah, “I lie down”) is problematic, for it does not seem to carry one of the normal functions of the cohortative (resolve or request). One possibility is that the form here is a “pseudo-cohortative” used here in a gnomic sense (IBHS 576-77 §34.5.3b).

[57:4]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew verb לָהַט (lahat) is here understood as a hapax legomenon meaning “devour” (see HALOT 521 s.v. II להט), a homonym of the more common verb meaning “to burn.” A more traditional interpretation takes the verb from this latter root and translates, “those who are aflame” (see BDB 529 s.v.; cf. NASB “those who breathe forth fire”).

[57:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “my life, in the midst of lions, I lie down, devouring ones, sons of mankind, their teeth a spear and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.” The syntax of the verse is difficult. Another option is to take “my life” with the preceding verse. For this to make sense, one must add a verb, perhaps “and may he deliver” (cf. the LXX), before the phrase. One might then translate, “May God send his loyal love and faithfulness and deliver my life.” If one does take “my life” with v. 4, then the parallelism of v. 5 is altered and one might translate: “in the midst of lions I lie down, [among] men who want to devour me, whose teeth….”

[64:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[64:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a bitter word.”

[18:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in the hand of.”

[18:21]  ¹² sn What people say can lead to life or death. The Midrash on Psalms shows one way the tongue [what is said] can cause death: “The evil tongue slays three, the slanderer, the slandered, and the listener” (Midrash Tehillim 52:2). See J. G. Williams, “The Power of Form: A Study of Biblical Proverbs,” Semeia 17 (1980): 35-38.

[18:21]  ¹³ tn The referent of “it” must be the tongue, i.e., what the tongue says (= “its use”). So those who enjoy talking, indulging in it, must “eat” its fruit, whether good or bad. The expression “eating the fruit” is an implied comparison; it means accept the consequences of loving to talk (cf. TEV).