Proverbs 1:18

1:18 but these men lie in wait for their own blood, ¹ 

they ambush their own lives! ² 

Proverbs 5:22

5:22 The wicked ³  will be captured by his ⁴  own iniquities, ⁵ 

and he will be held ⁶  by the cords of his own sin. ⁷ 

Job 27:13-23

27:13 This is the portion of the wicked man

allotted by God, ⁸ 

the inheritance that evildoers receive

from the Almighty.

27:14 If his children increase – it is for the sword! ⁹ 

His offspring never have enough to eat. ¹⁰ 

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ¹¹ 

and their ¹²  widows do not mourn for them.

27:16 If he piles up silver like dust

and stores up clothing like mounds of clay,

27:17 what he stores up ¹³  a righteous man will wear,

and an innocent man will inherit his silver.

27:18 The house he builds is as fragile as a moth’s cocoon, ¹⁴ 

like a hut ¹⁵  that a watchman has made.

27:19 He goes to bed wealthy, but will do so no more. ¹⁶ 

When he opens his eyes, it is all gone. ¹⁷ 

27:20 Terrors overwhelm him like a flood; ¹⁸ 

at night a whirlwind carries him off.

27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone;

it sweeps him out of his place.

27:22 It hurls itself against him without pity ¹⁹ 

as he flees headlong from its power.

27:23 It claps ²⁰  its hands at him in derision

and hisses him away from his place. ²¹ 

Ecclesiastes 10:8

Wisdom is Needed to Avert Dangers in Everyday Life

10:8 One who digs a pit may ²²  fall into it,

and one who breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake. ²³ 

Isaiah 59:5-8

59:5 They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake

and spin a spider’s web.

Whoever eats their eggs will die,

a poisonous snake is hatched. ²⁴ 

59:6 Their webs cannot be used for clothing;

they cannot cover themselves with what they make.

Their deeds are sinful;

they commit violent crimes. ²⁵ 

59:7 They are eager to do evil, ²⁶ 

quick to shed innocent blood. ²⁷ 

Their thoughts are sinful;

they crush and destroy. ²⁸ 

59:8 They are unfamiliar with peace;

their deeds are unjust. ²⁹ 

They use deceitful methods,

and whoever deals with them is unfamiliar with peace. ³⁰ 

Ephesians 4:22

4:22 You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside ³¹  the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires,

[1:18]  ¹ sn They think that they are going to shed innocent blood, but in their blindness they do not realize that it is their own blood they shed. Their greed will lead to their destruction. This is an example of ironic poetic justice. They do not intend to destroy themselves; but this is what they accomplish.

[1:18]  ² tn Heb “their own souls.” The term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul”) is used as a metonymy (= soul) of association (= life). The noun נֶפֶשׁ often refers to physical “life” (Exod 21:23; Num 17:3; Judg 5:18; Prov 12:10; BDB 659 s.v. 3.c).

[5:22]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “his own iniquities will capture the wicked.” The translation shifts the syntax for the sake of smoothness and readability.

[5:22]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew is structured chiastically: “his own iniquities will capture the wicked, by the cords of his own sin will he be held.”

[27:13]  ⁸ tn The expression “allotted by God” interprets the simple prepositional phrase in the text: “with/from God.”

[27:14]  ⁹ tn R. Gordis (Job, 294) identifies this as a breviloquence. Compare Ps 92:8 where the last two words also constitute the apodosis.

[27:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will not be satisfied with bread/food.”

[27:15]  ¹¹ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ¹² tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[27:17]  ¹³ tn The text simply repeats the verb from the last clause. It could be treated as a separate short clause: “He may store it up, but the righteous will wear it. But it also could be understood as the object of the following verb, “[what] he stores up the righteous will wear.” The LXX simply has, “All these things shall the righteous gain.”

[27:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb כָעָשׁ (kha’ash, “like a moth”), but this leaves room for clarification. Some commentators wanted to change it to “bird’s nest” or just “nest” (cf. NRSV) to make the parallelism; see Job 4:14. But the word is not found. The LXX has a double expression, “as moths, as a spider.” So several take it as the spider’s web, which is certainly unsubstantial (cf. NAB, NASB, NLT; see Job 8:14).

[27:18]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew word is the word for “booth,” as in the Feast of Booths. The word describes something that is flimsy; it is not substantial at all.

[27:19]  ¹⁶ tc The verb is the Niphal יֵאָסֵף (ye’asef), from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”). So, “he lies down rich, but he is not gathered.” This does not make much sense. It would mean “he will not be gathered for burial,” but that does not belong here. Many commentators accept the variant יֹאסִף (yo’sif) stood for יוֹסִיף (yosif, “will [not] add”). This is what the LXX and the Syriac have. This leads to the interpretive translation that “he will do so no longer.”

[27:19]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and he is not.” One view is that this must mean that he dies, not that his wealth is gone. R. Gordis (Job, 295) says the first part should be made impersonal: “when one opens one’s eyes, the wicked is no longer there.” E. Dhorme (Job, 396) has it more simply: “He has opened his eyes, and it is for the last time.” But the other view is that the wealth goes overnight. In support of this is the introduction into the verse of the wealthy. The RSV, NRSV, ESV, and NLT take it that “wealth is gone.”

[27:20]  ¹⁸ tn Many commentators want a word parallel to “in the night.” And so we are offered בַּיּוֹם (bayyom, “in the day”) for כַמַּיִם (khammayim, “like waters”) as well as a number of others. But “waters” sometimes stand for major calamities, and so may be retained here. Besides, not all parallel structures are synonymous.

[27:22]  ¹⁹ tn The verb is once again functioning in an adverbial sense. The text has “it hurls itself against him and shows no mercy.”

[27:23]  ²⁰ tn If the same subject is to be carried through here, it is the wind. That would make this a bold personification, perhaps suggesting the force of the wind. Others argue that it is unlikely that the wind claps its hands. They suggest taking the verb with an indefinite subject: “he claps” means “one claps. The idea is that of people rejoicing when the wicked are gone. But the parallelism is against this unless the second line is changed as well. R. Gordis (Job, 296) has “men will clap their hands…men will whistle upon him.”

[27:23]  ²¹ tn Or “hisses at him from its place” (ESV).

[10:8]  ²² tn The four imperfect verbs in vv. 8-9 may be nuanced as indicatives (“will…”) or in a modal sense denoting possibility (“may…”). The LXX rendered them with indicatives, as do many English translations (KJV, RSV, NRSV, ASV, MLB, YLT, NJPS). However, it is better to take them in a modal sense (NEB, NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, CEV, NLT). One who digs a pit does not necessarily fall into it, but he may under the right conditions.

[10:8]  ²³ tn Heb “a serpent will bite him.” The clause “he who breaks through a wall” (וּפֹרֵץ גָּדֵר, uforets gader) is a nominative absolute – the casus pendens is picked up by the resumptive pronoun in the following clause “a serpent will bite him” (יִשְּׁכֶנּוּ נָחָשׁ, yishÿkhennu nakhash). This construction is used for rhetorical emphasis (see IBHS 76-77 §4.7c).

[59:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “that which is pressed in hatches [as] a snake.”

[59:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “their deeds are deeds of sin, and the work of violence [is] in their hands.”

[59:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “their feet run to evil.”

[59:7]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they quickly pour out innocent blood.”

[59:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “their thoughts are thoughts of sin, destruction and crushing [are] in their roadways.”

[59:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “a way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their pathways.”

[59:8]  ³⁰ tn Heb “their paths they make crooked, everyone who walks in it does not know peace.”

[4:22]  ³¹ tn An alternative rendering for the infinitives in vv. 22-24 (“to lay aside… to be renewed… to put on”) is “that you have laid aside… that you are being renewed… that you have put on.” The three infinitives of vv. 22 (ἀποθέσθαι, apoqesqai), 23 (ἀνανεοῦσθαι, ananeousqai), and 24 (ἐνδύσασθαι, endusasqai), form part of an indirect discourse clause; they constitute the teaching given to the believers addressed in the letter. The problem in translation is that one cannot be absolutely certain whether they go back to indicatives in the original statement (i.e., “you have put off”) or imperatives (i.e., “put off!”). Every other occurrence of an aorist infinitive in indirect discourse in the NT goes back to an imperative, but in all of these examples the indirect discourse is introduced by a verb that implies a command. The verb διδάσκω (didaskw) in the corpus Paulinum may be used to relate the indicatives of the faith as well as the imperatives. This translation implies that the infinitives go back to imperatives, though the alternate view that they refer back to indicatives is also a plausible interpretation. For further discussion, see ExSyn 605.