[10:26] 1 sn Two similes are used to portray the aggravation in sending a lazy person to accomplish a task. Vinegar to the teeth is an unpleasant, irritating experience; and smoke to the eyes is an unpleasant experience that hinders progress.
[10:26] 2 tn The participle is plural, and so probably should be taken in a distributive sense: “to each one who sends him.”
[25:19] 3 sn The similes in this emblematic parallelism focus on things that are incapable of performing certain activities – they are either too painful to use or are ineffective.
[25:19] 4 tn Since there is no preposition to clarify the construction, there are two ways to take the term מִבְטָח (mivtakh, “confidence”) in the context. It can either refer (1) to reliance on an unfaithful person, or it can refer (2) to that on which the unfaithful person relies. C. H. Toy argues for the second, that what the faithless person relies on will fail him in the time of trouble (Proverbs [ICC], 466). This view requires a slight change in the MT to make “confidence” a construct noun (i.e., the confidence of the faithless); the first view, which fits better the MT as it stands, says that “confidence [in] a faithless person” is like relying on a decaying tooth or a lame foot. This is the view preferred in most English versions, including the present one.
[25:19] 5 tn Heb “in the day of trouble”; KJV, NASB “in time of trouble.”
