Proverbs 18:21-24

18:21 Death and life are in the power ¹  of the tongue, ² 

and those who love its use ³  will eat its fruit.

18:22 The one who finds ⁴  a wife finds what is enjoyable, ⁵ 

and receives a pleasurable gift ⁶  from the Lord. ⁷ 

18:23 A poor person makes supplications, ⁸ 

but a rich man answers harshly. ⁹ 

18:24 A person who has friends ¹⁰  may be harmed by them, ¹¹ 

but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

[18:21]  ¹ tn Heb “in the hand of.”

[18:21]  ² sn What people say can lead to life or death. The Midrash on Psalms shows one way the tongue [what is said] can cause death: “The evil tongue slays three, the slanderer, the slandered, and the listener” (Midrash Tehillim 52:2). See J. G. Williams, “The Power of Form: A Study of Biblical Proverbs,” Semeia 17 (1980): 35-38.

[18:21]  ³ tn The referent of “it” must be the tongue, i.e., what the tongue says (= “its use”). So those who enjoy talking, indulging in it, must “eat” its fruit, whether good or bad. The expression “eating the fruit” is an implied comparison; it means accept the consequences of loving to talk (cf. TEV).

[18:22]  ⁴ tn The verb מָצָא (matsa’, translated “finds”) is used twice in the first colon. It is paralleled by the verb פּוּק (puq, translated “receives”) in the second colon, which carries the same nuance as the preceding verbs. The first perfect tense verb might function in a hypothetical or conditional sense: “If a man finds…then he finds.” But taken as a principle the nuances of the verbs would be gnomic or characteristic.

[18:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “good.” The term טוֹב (tov, “good; enjoyable; fortune”) might be an allusion to Gen 2:18, which affirms that it is not good for man to be alone. The word describes that which is pleasing to God, beneficial for life, and abundantly enjoyable.

[18:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “what is pleasant.” The noun רָצוֹן (ratson, “what is pleasing”) is often interpreted in a religious-theological sense here: “receives favor from the Lord” (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV). However, this term is probably referring to the pleasure that a person enjoys in marriage, so it should be understood in a nonreligious, marital sense: “pleasure” (e.g., Esth 1:8; HALOT 1282 s.v. 1); cf. CEV “she is a gift from the Lord.”

[18:22]  ⁷ tc The LXX adds this embellishment to complete the thought: “Whoever puts away a good wife puts away good, and whoever keeps an adulteress is foolish and ungodly.”

[18:23]  ⁸ tn Heb “speaks supplications”; NIV “pleads for mercy.” The poor man has to ask for help because he has no choice (cf. CEV). The Hebrew term תַּחֲנוּן (takhanun) is a “supplication for favor” (related to the verb חָנַן [khanan], “to be gracious; to show favor”). So the poor man speaks, but what he speaks is a request for favor.

[18:23]  ⁹ sn The rich person responds harshly to the request. He has hardened himself against such appeals because of relentless demands. The proverb is an observation saying; it simply describes the way the world generally works, rather than setting this out as the ideal.

[18:24]  ¹⁰ tc The construction is “a man of friends” (cf. NASB) meaning a man who has friends (a genitive of the thing possessed). C. H. Toy, however, suggests reading יֵשׁ (yesh) instead of אִישׁ (’ish), along with some of the Greek mss, the Syriac, and Tg. Prov 18:24. It would then say “there are friends” who are unreliable (Proverbs [ICC], 366); cf. NLT. However, the MT should be retained here.

[18:24]  ¹¹ tn The text simply has לְהִתְרֹעֵעַ (lÿhitro’ea’), which means “for being crushed” or “to be shattered” (but not “to show oneself friendly” as in the KJV). What can be made of the sentence is that “a man who has [many] friends [may have them] for being crushed” – the infinitive giving the result (i.e., “with the result that he may be crushed by them”).