Proverbs 12:14

12:14 A person will be satisfied with good from the fruit of his words, ¹ 

and the work of his hands ²  will be rendered to ³  him.

Proverbs 20:13

20:13 Do not love sleep, ⁴  lest you become impoverished;

open your eyes so that ⁵  you might be satisfied with food. ⁶ 

Proverbs 30:9

30:9 lest I become satisfied and act deceptively ⁷ 

and say, “Who is the Lord?”

Or lest I become poor and steal

and demean ⁸  the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:16

30:16 the grave, ⁹  the barren womb, ¹⁰ 

land that is not satisfied with water,

and fire that never says, “Enough!” ¹¹ 

[12:14]  ¹ tn Heb “fruit of the lips.” The term “fruit” is the implied comparison, meaning what is produced; and “lips” is the metonymy of cause, referring to speech. Proper speech will result in good things.

[12:14]  ² tn Heb “the work of the hands of a man.”

[12:14]  ³ tc The Kethib has the Qal imperfect, “will return” to him (cf. NASB); the Qere preserves a Hiphil imperfect, “he/one will restore/render” to him (cf. KJV, ASV). The Qere seems to suggest that someone (God or people) will reward him in kind. Since there is no expressed subject, it may be translated as a passive voice.

[20:13]  ⁴ sn The proverb uses antithetical parallelism to teach that diligence leads to prosperity. It contrasts loving sleep with opening the eyes, and poverty with satisfaction. Just as “sleep” can be used for slothfulness or laziness, so opening the eyes can represent vigorous, active conduct. The idioms have caught on in modern usage as well – things like “open your eyes” or “asleep on the job.”

[20:13]  ⁵ tn The second line uses two imperatives in a sequence (without the vav [ו]): “open your eyes” and then (or, in order that) you will “be satisfied.”

[20:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “bread” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV), although the term often serves in a generic sense for food in general.

[30:9]  ⁷ tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) means “to be disappointing; to deceive; to fail; to grow lean.” In the Piel stem it means “to deceive; to act deceptively; to cringe; to disappoint.” The idea of acting deceptively is illustrated in Hos 9:2 where it has the connotation of “disowning” or “refusing to acknowledge” (a meaning very close to its meaning here).

[30:9]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew verb literally means “to take hold of; to seize”; this produces the idea of doing violence to the reputation of God.

[30:16]  ¹⁰ tn The term שְׁאוֹל (she’ol, “Sheol”) refers here to the realm of the dead: “the grave” (so KJV, NIV, NLT); cf. TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NAB “the nether world.”

[30:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the closing of the womb,” a situation especially troubling for one who is consumed with a desire for children (e.g., Gen 16:2; 30:1).

[30:16]  ¹² sn There is no clear lesson made from these observations. But one point that could be made is that greed, symbolized by the leech, is as insatiable as all these other things. If that is the case, the proverb would constitute a warning against the insatiable nature of greed.