[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).
[28:24] 5 sn While the expression is general enough to cover any kind of robbery, the point seems to be that because it can be rationalized it may refer to prematurely trying to gain control of the family property through some form of pressure and in the process reducing the parents’ possessions and standing in the community. The culprit could claim what he does is not wrong because the estate would be his anyway.
[28:24] 6 sn The metaphor of “companion” here means that a person who would do this is just like the criminally destructive person. It is as if they were working together, for the results are the same.
[28:24] 7 tn Heb “man who destroys” (so NASB); TEV “no better than a common thief.”
