Proverbs 17:16

17:16 Of what ¹  use is money in the hand of a fool, ² 

since he has no intention ³  of acquiring wisdom? ⁴ 

Isaiah 28:9-13

28:9 Who is the Lord ⁵  trying to teach?

To whom is he explaining a message? ⁶ 

Those just weaned from milk!

Those just taken from their mother’s breast! ⁷ 

28:10 Indeed, they will hear meaningless gibberish,

senseless babbling,

a syllable here, a syllable there. ⁸ 

28:11 For with mocking lips and a foreign tongue

he will speak to these people. ⁹ 

28:12 In the past he said to them, ¹⁰ 

“This is where security can be found.

Provide security for the one who is exhausted!

This is where rest can be found.” ¹¹ 

But they refused to listen.

28:13 So the Lord’s word to them will sound like

meaningless gibberish,

senseless babbling,

a syllable here, a syllable there. ¹² 

As a result, they will fall on their backsides when they try to walk, ¹³ 

and be injured, ensnared, and captured. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 29:11-12

29:11 To you this entire prophetic revelation ¹⁵  is like words in a sealed scroll. When they hand it to one who can read ¹⁶  and say, “Read this,” he responds, “I can’t, because it is sealed.” 29:12 Or when they hand the scroll to one who can’t read ¹⁷  and say, “Read this,” he says, “I can’t read.” ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 5:3-5

5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ¹⁹ 

But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ²⁰ 

Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.

They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ²¹ 

They refuse to change their ways. ²² 

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ²³ 

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ²⁴ 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ²⁵ 

5:5 I will go to the leaders ²⁶ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ²⁷ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ²⁸ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ²⁹ 

[17:16]  ¹ tn Heb “why this?” The term זֶּה (zeh) is an enclitic use of the demonstrative pronoun for emphasis: “why ever” would this happen?

[17:16]  ² sn The sense seems to be “What good is money” since what the fool needs cannot be bought? The verse is a rhetorical question stating that money would be wasted on a fool.

[17:16]  ³ tn Heb “there is no heart”; NASB “he has no (+ common TEV) sense”; NLT “has no heart for wisdom.”

[17:16]  ⁴ sn W. McKane envisions a situation where the fool comes to a sage with a fee in hand, supposing that he can acquire a career as a sage, and this gives rise to the biting comment here: Why does the fool have money in his hands? To buy wisdom when he has no brains? (Proverbs [OTL], 505).

[28:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[28:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “Who is he teaching knowledge? For whom is he explaining a message?” The translation assumes that the Lord is the subject of the verbs “teaching” and “explaining,” and that the prophet is asking the questions. See v. 12. According to some vv. 9-10 record the people’s sarcastic response to the Lord’s message through Isaiah.

[28:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “from the breasts.” The words “their mother’s” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The translation assumes that this is the prophet’s answer to the questions asked in the first half of the verse. The Lord is trying to instruct people who are “infants” morally and ethically.

[28:10]  ⁸ tn The meaning of this verse has been debated. The text has literally “indeed [or “for”] a little there, a little there” ( כִּי צַו לָצָו צַו לָצָו קַו לָקָו קַו, ki tsav latsav, tsav latsav, qav laqav, qav laqav). The present translation assumes that the repetitive syllables are gibberish that resembles baby talk (cf v. 9b) and mimics what the people will hear when foreign invaders conquer the land (v. 11). In this case זְעֵיר (zÿ’er, “a little”) refers to the short syllabic structure of the babbling (cf. CEV). Some take צַו (tsav) as a derivative of צָוָה (tsavah, “command”) and translate the first part of the statement as “command after command, command after command.” Proponents of this position (followed by many English versions) also take קַו (qav) as a noun meaning “measuring line” (see v. 17), understood here in the abstract sense of “standard” or “rule.”

[28:11]  ⁹ sn This verse alludes to the coming Assyrian invasion, when the people will hear a foreign language that sounds like gibberish to them. The Lord is the subject of the verb “will speak,” as v. 12 makes clear. He once spoke in meaningful terms, but in the coming judgment he will speak to them, as it were, through the mouth of foreign oppressors. The apparent gibberish they hear will be an outward reminder that God has decreed their defeat.

[28:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “who said to them.”

[28:12]  ¹¹ sn This message encapsulates the Lord’s invitation to his people to find security in his protection and blessing.

[28:13]  ¹² tn Heb “And the word of the Lord will be to them, ‘tsahv latsahv,’ etc.” See the note at v. 10. In this case the “Lord’s word” is not the foreigner’s strange sounding words (as in v. 10), but the Lord’s repeated appeals to them (like the one quoted in v. 12). As time goes on, the Lord’s appeals through the prophets will have no impact on the people; they will regard prophetic preaching as gibberish.

[28:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “as a result they will go and stumble backward.” Perhaps an infant falling as it attempts to learn to walk is the background image here (cf. v. 9b). The Hebrew term לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) could be taken as indicating purpose (“in order that”), rather than simple result. In this case the people’s insensitivity to the message is caused by the Lord as a means of expediting their downfall.

[28:13]  ¹⁴ sn When divine warnings and appeals become gibberish to the spiritually insensitive, they have no guidance and are doomed to destruction.

[29:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “vision” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[29:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “one who knows a/the scroll.”

[29:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and if the scroll is handed to one who does not know a scroll.”

[29:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I do not know a scroll.”

[5:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “O Lord, are your eyes not to faithfulness?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[5:3]  ²⁰ tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.

[5:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”

[5:3]  ²² tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”

[5:4]  ²³ tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

[5:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ²⁶ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.