Discovery BoxJob 24:14-17
Context24:14 Before daybreak 1 the murderer rises up;
he kills the poor and the needy;
in the night he is 2 like a thief. 3
24:15 And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight,
thinking, 4 ‘No eye can see me,’
and covers his face with a mask.
24:16 In the dark the robber 5 breaks into houses, 6
but by day they shut themselves in; 7
they do not know the light. 8
24:17 For all of them, 9 the morning is to them
like deep darkness;
they are friends with the terrors of darkness.
Psalms 36:4
Context36:4 He plans ways to sin while he lies in bed;
he is committed to a sinful lifestyle; 10
he does not reject what is evil. 11
Proverbs 1:11-16
Context1:11 If they say, “Come with us!
We will 12 lie in wait 13 to shed blood; 14
we will ambush 15 an innocent person 16 capriciously. 17
1:12 We will swallow them alive 18 like Sheol, 19
those full of vigor 20 like those going down to the Pit.
1:13 We will seize 21 all kinds 22 of precious wealth;
we will fill our houses with plunder. 23
We will all share 25 equally in what we steal.” 26
1:15 My child, do not go down 27 their way, 28
withhold yourself 29 from their path; 30
1:16 for they 31 are eager 32 to inflict harm, 33
and they hasten 34 to shed blood. 35
Proverbs 4:16
Context4:16 For they cannot sleep unless they cause harm; 36
they are robbed of sleep 37 until they make someone stumble. 38
Romans 3:15
Context3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood,
[24:14] 1 tn The text simply has לָאוֹר (la’or, “at light” or “at daylight”), probably meaning just at the time of dawn.
[24:14] 2 tn In a few cases the jussive is used without any real sense of the jussive being present (see GKC 323 §109.k).
[24:14] 3 sn The point is that he is like a thief in that he works during the night, just before the daylight, when the advantage is all his and the victim is most vulnerable.
[24:16] 5 tn The phrase “the robber” has been supplied in the English translation for clarification.
[24:16] 6 tc This is not the idea of the adulterer, but of the thief. So some commentators reverse the order and put this verse after v. 14.
[24:16] 7 tc The verb חִתְּמוּ (khittÿmu) is the Piel from the verb חָתַם (khatam, “to seal”). The verb is now in the plural, covering all the groups mentioned that work under the cover of darkness. The suggestion that they “seal,” i.e., “mark” the house they will rob, goes against the meaning of the word “seal.”
[24:16] 8 tc Some commentators join this very short colon to the beginning of v. 17: “they do not know the light. For together…” becomes “for together they have not known the light.”
[36:4] 10 tn Heb “he takes a stand in a way [that is] not good.” The word “way” here refers metaphorically to behavior or life style.
[36:4] 11 tn The three imperfect verbal forms in v. 4 highlight the characteristic behavior of the typical evildoer.
[1:11] 12 tn This cohortative נֶאֶרְבָה (ne’ervah) could denote resolve (“We will lie in wait!”) or exhortation (“Let us lie in wait!”). These sinners are either expressing their determination to carry out a violent plan or they are trying to entice the lad to participate with them.
[1:11] 13 tn The verb אָרַב (’arav, “to lie in wait”) it is used for planning murder (Deut 19:11), kidnapping (Judg 21:20), or seduction (Prov 23:28).
[1:11] 14 tn Heb “for blood.” The term דָּם (dam, “blood”) functions as a metonymy of effect for “blood shed violently” through murder (HALOT 224 s.v. 4).
[1:11] 15 tn Heb “lie in hiding.”
[1:11] 16 tn The term “innocent” (נָקִי, naqi) intimates that the person to be attacked is harmless.
[1:11] 17 tn Heb “without cause” (so KJV, NASB); NCV “just for fun.” The term חִנָּם (khinnam, “without cause”) emphasizes that the planned attack is completely unwarranted.
[1:12] 18 tn Heb “lives.” The noun חַיִּים (khayyim, “lives”) functions as an adverbial accusative of manner: “alive.” The form is a plural of state, used to describe a condition of life which encompasses a long period of time – in this case a person’s entire life. Murder cuts short a person’s life.
[1:12] 19 tn The noun שְׁאוֹל (shÿ’ol) can mean (1) “death,” cf. NCV; (2) “the grave,” cf. KJV, NIV, NLT (3) “Sheol” as the realm of departed spirits, cf. NAB “the nether world,” and (4) “extreme danger.” Here it is parallel to the noun בוֹר (vor, “the Pit”) so it is the grave or more likely “Sheol” (cf. ASV, NRSV). Elsewhere Sheol is personified as having an insatiable appetite and swallowing people alive as they descend to their death (e.g., Num 16:30, 33; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5). In ancient Near Eastern literature, the grave is often personified in similar manner, e.g., in Ugaritic mythological texts Mot (= “death”) is referred to as “the great swallower.”
[1:12] 20 tn Heb “and whole.” The vav (ו) is asseverative or appositional (“even”); it is omitted in the translation for the sake of style and smoothness. The substantival adjective תָּמִים (tamim, “whole; perfect; blameless”) is an adverbial accusative describing the condition and state of the object. Used in parallel to חַיִּים (khayyim, “alive”), it must mean “full of health” (BDB 1071 s.v. תָּמִים 2). These cutthroats want to murder a person who is full of vigor.
[1:13] 21 tn Heb “find.” The use of the verb מָצָא (matsa’, “to find”) is deliberate understatement to rhetorically down-play the heinous act of thievery.
[1:13] 22 tn Heb “all wealth of preciousness.”
[1:13] 23 tn The noun שָׁלָל (shalal, “plunder”) functions as an adverbial accusative of material: “with plunder.” This term is normally used for the spoils of war (e.g., Deut 20:14; Josh 7:21; Judg 8:24, 25; 1 Sam 30:20) but here refers to “stolen goods” (so NCV, CEV; e.g., Isa 10:2; Prov 16:19; BDB 1022 s.v. 3). The enticement was to join a criminal gang and adopt a life of crime to enjoy ill-gotten gain (A. Cohen, Proverbs, 4). Cf. NAB, NRSV “booty”; TEV “loot.”
[1:14] 24 tn Heb “Throw in your lot with us.” This is a figurative expression (hypocatastasis) urging the naive to join their life of crime and divide their loot equally. The noun גּוֹרָל (goral, “lot”) can refer to (1) lot thrown for decision-making processes, e.g., choosing the scapegoat (Lev 16:8), discovering a guilty party (Jonah 1:7) or allocating property (Josh 18:6); (2) allotted portion (Josh 15:1) and (3) allotted fate or future destiny (Prov 1:14; Dan 12:13; see BDB 174 s.v.). Here the criminals urged the lad to share their life. The verb תַּפִּיל (tappil) is an imperfect of injunction: “Throw in…!” but might also be an imperfect of permission: “you may throw.” It functions metonymically as an invitation to join their life of crime: “share with us” (BDB 658 s.v. 3).
[1:14] 25 tn Heb “there will be to all of us.”
[1:14] 26 tn Heb “one purse” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV). The term כִּיס (kis, “purse; bag”) is a synecdoche of container (= purse) for contents (= stolen goods). The adjective אֶחָד (’ekhad, “one”) indicates that the thieves promised to share equally in what they had stolen.
[1:15] 27 tn Heb “do not walk.”
[1:15] 28 tn Heb “in the way with them.”
[1:15] 29 tn Heb “your foot.” The term “foot” (רֶגֶל, regel) is a synecdoche of part (= your foot) for the whole person (= yourself).
[1:15] 30 sn The word “path” (נְתִיבָה, nÿtivah) like the word “way” (דֶּרֶךְ, derekh) is used as an idiom (developed from a hypocatastasis), meaning “conduct, course of life.”
[1:16] 31 tn Heb “their feet.” The term “feet” is a synecdoche of the part (= their feet) for the whole person (= they), stressing the eagerness of the robbers.
[1:16] 32 tn Heb “run.” The verb רוּץ (ruts, “run”) functions here as a metonymy of association, meaning “to be eager” to do something (BDB 930 s.v.).
[1:16] 33 tn Heb “to harm.” The noun רַע (ra’) has a four-fold range of meanings: (1) “pain, harm” (Prov 3:30), (2) “calamity, disaster” (13:21), (3) “distress, misery” (14:32) and (4) “moral evil” (8:13; see BDB 948-49 s.v.). The parallelism with “swift to shed blood” suggests it means “to inflict harm, injury.”
[1:16] 34 tn The imperfect tense verbs may be classified as habitual or progressive imperfects describing their ongoing continual activity.
[1:16] 35 tc The BHS editors suggest deleting this entire verse from MT because it does not appear in several versions (Codex B of the LXX, Coptic, Arabic) and is similar to Isa 59:7a. It is possible that it was a scribal gloss (intentional addition) copied into the margin from Isaiah. But this does not adequately explain the differences. It does fit the context well enough to be original.
[4:16] 36 sn The verb is רָעַע (ra’a’), which means “to do evil; to harm.” The verse is using the figure of hyperbole to stress the preoccupation of some people with causing trouble. R. L. Alden says, “How sick to find peace only at the price of another man’s misfortune” (Proverbs, 47).
[4:16] 37 sn Heb “their sleep is robbed/seized”; these expressions are metonymical for their restlessness in plotting evil.
[4:16] 38 sn The Hiphil imperfect (Kethib) means “cause to stumble.” This idiom (from hypocatastasis) means “bring injury/ruin to someone” (BDB 505-6 s.v. כָּשַׁל Hiph.1).
