Discovery BoxProverbs 19:15-29
Context19:15 Laziness brings on 1 a deep sleep, 2
and the idle person 3 will go hungry. 4
19:16 The one who obeys commandments guards 5 his life;
the one who despises his ways 6 will die. 7
19:17 The one who is gracious 8 to the poor lends 9 to the Lord,
and the Lord 10 will repay him 11 for his good deed. 12
19:18 Discipline your child, for 13 there is hope,
but do not set your heart 14 on causing his death. 15
19:19 A person with great anger bears the penalty, 16
but if you deliver him from it once, you will have to do it again. 17
19:20 Listen to advice 18 and receive discipline,
that 19 you may become wise 20 by the end of your life. 21
19:21 There are many plans 22 in a person’s mind, 23
but it 24 is the counsel 25 of the Lord which will stand.
19:22 What is desirable 26 for a person is to show loyal love, 27
and a poor person is better than a liar. 28
19:23 Fearing the Lord 29 leads 30 to life, 31
and one who does so will live 32 satisfied; he will not be afflicted 33 by calamity.
19:24 The sluggard plunges 34 his hand in the dish,
and he will not even bring it back to his mouth! 35
19:25 Flog 36 a scorner, and as a result the simpleton 37 will learn prudence; 38
correct a discerning person, and as a result he will understand knowledge. 39
19:26 The one who robs 40 his father 41 and chases away his mother
is a son 42 who brings shame and disgrace.
19:27 If you stop listening to 43 instruction, my child,
you will stray 44 from the words of knowledge.
19:28 A crooked witness 45 scorns justice,
and the mouth of the wicked devours 46 iniquity.
19:29 Judgments 47 are prepared for scorners,
and floggings for the backs of fools.
[19:15] 1 tn Heb “causes to fall” or “casts”; NAB “plunges…into.”
[19:15] 2 tn Or “complete inactivity”; the word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) can refer to a physical “deep sleep” (e.g., Gen 2:21; Jonah 1:5, 6); but it can also be used figuratively for complete inactivity, as other words for “sleep” can. Here it refers to lethargy or debility and morbidness.
[19:15] 3 tn The expression וְנֶפֶשׁ רְמִיָּה (vÿnefesh rÿmiyyah) can be translated “the soul of deceit” or “the soul of slackness.” There are two identical feminine nouns, one from the verb “beguile,” and the other from a cognate Arabic root “grow loose.” The second is more likely here in view of the parallelism (cf. NIV “a shiftless man”; NAB “the sluggard”). One who is slack, that is, idle, will go hungry.
[19:15] 4 sn The two lines are related in a metonymical sense: “deep sleep” is the cause of going hungry, and “going hungry” is the effect of deep sleep.
[19:16] 5 tn The verb שָׁמַר (shamar) is repeated twice in this line but with two different senses, creating a polysemantic wordplay: “he who obeys/keeps (ֹֹשׁמֵר, shomer) the commandment safeguards/keeps (שֹׁמֵר, shomer) his life.”
[19:16] 6 sn The expression his ways could refer either (1) to the conduct of the individual himself, or (2) to the commandments as the
[19:16] 7 tc The Kethib is יָוְמֻת (yavmut), “will be put to death,” while the Qere reads יָמוּת (yamut, “will die”). The Qere is the preferred reading and is followed by most English versions.
[19:17] 8 sn The participle חוֹנֵן (khonen, “shows favor to”) is related to the word for “grace.” The activity here is the kind favor shown poor people for no particular reason and with no hope of repayment. It is literally an act of grace.
[19:17] 9 tn The form מַלְוֵה (malveh) is the Hiphil participle from לָוָה (lavah) in construct; it means “to cause to borrow; to lend.” The expression here is “lender of the
[19:17] 10 tn Heb “he.” The referent of the 3rd person masculine singular pronoun is “the
[19:17] 11 sn The promise of reward does not necessarily mean that the person who gives to the poor will get money back; the rewards in the book of Proverbs involve life and prosperity in general.
[19:17] 12 tn Heb “and his good deed will repay him.” The word גְּמֻלוֹ (gÿmulo) could be (1) the subject or (2) part of a double accusative of the verb. Understanding it as part of the double accusative makes better sense, for then the subject of the verb is God. How “his deed” could repay him is not immediately obvious.
[19:18] 13 tn The translation understands כִּי (ki) as causal. Some prefer to take כִּי as temporal and translate, “while there is hope” (so KJV, NASB, NCV, NRSV, NLT), meaning that discipline should be administered when the child is young and easily guided. In the causal reading of כִּי, the idea seems to be that children should be disciplined because change is possible due to their youth and the fact that they are not set in their ways.
[19:18] 14 tn The expression “do not lift up your soul/life” to his death may mean (1) “do not set your heart” on his death (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV), or it may mean (2) “do not be a willing partner” (cf. NIV). The parent is to discipline a child, but he is not to take it to the extreme and destroy or kill the child.
[19:18] 15 tn The Hiphil infinitive construct הֲמִיתוֹ (hamito) means “taking it to heart” in this line. The traditional rendering was “and let not your soul spare for his crying.” This involved a different reading than “causing his death” (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 206-7).
[19:19] 16 sn The Hebrew word means “indemnity, fine”; this suggests that the trouble could be legal, and the angry person has to pay for it.
[19:19] 17 tn The second colon of the verse is very difficult, and there have been many proposals as to its meaning: (1) “If you save [your enemy], you will add [good to yourself]”; (2) “If you save [your son by chastening], you may continue [chastisement and so educate him]”; (3) “If you deliver [him by paying the fine for him once], you will have to do it again”; (4) “If you save [him this time], you will have to increase [the punishment later on].” All interpretations have to supply a considerable amount of material (indicated by brackets). Many English versions are similar to (3).
[19:20] 18 sn The advice refers in all probability to the teachings of the sages that will make one wise.
[19:20] 19 tn The proverb is one continuous thought, but the second half of the verse provides the purpose for the imperatives of the first half.
[19:20] 20 tn The imperfect tense has the nuance of a final imperfect in a purpose clause, and so is translated “that you may become wise” (cf. NAB, NRSV).
[19:20] 21 tn Heb “become wise in your latter end” (cf. KJV, ASV) which could obviously be misunderstood.
[19:21] 22 sn The plans (from the Hebrew verb חָשַׁב [khashav], “to think; to reckon; to devise”) in the human heart are many. But only those which God approves will succeed.
[19:21] 23 tn Heb “in the heart of a man” (cf. NAB, NIV). Here “heart” is used for the seat of thoughts, plans, and reasoning, so the translation uses “mind.” In contemporary English “heart” is more often associated with the seat of emotion than with the seat of planning and reasoning.
[19:21] 24 tn Heb “but the counsel of the
[19:21] 25 tn The antithetical parallelism pairs “counsel” with “plans.” “Counsel of the
[19:22] 26 tn Heb “the desire of a man” (so KJV). The noun in construct is תַּאֲוַת (ta’avat), “desire [of].” Here it refers to “the desire of a man [= person].” Two problems surface here, the connotation of the word and the kind of genitive. “Desire” can also be translated “lust,” and so J. H. Greenstone has “The lust of a man is his shame” (Proverbs, 208). But the sentence is more likely positive in view of the more common uses of the words. “Man” could be a genitive of possession or subjective genitive – the man desires loyal love. It could also be an objective genitive, meaning “what is desired for a man.” The first would be the more natural in the proverb, which is showing that loyal love is better than wealth.
[19:22] 27 tn Heb “[is] his loyal love”; NIV “unfailing love”; NRSV “loyalty.”
[19:22] 28 sn The second half of the proverb presents the logical inference: The liar would be without “loyal love” entirely, and so poverty would be better than this. A poor person who wishes to do better is preferable to a person who makes promises and does not keep them.
[19:23] 29 tn Heb “the fear of the
[19:23] 30 tn The term “leads” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and style.
[19:23] 31 tn Here “life” is probably a metonymy of subject for “blessings and prosperity in life.” The plural form often covers a person’s “lifetime.”
[19:23] 32 tn The subject of this verb is probably the one who fears the
[19:23] 33 tn Heb “he will not be visited” (so KJV, ASV). The verb פָּקַד (paqad) is often translated “visit.” It describes intervention that will change the destiny. If God “visits” it means he intervenes to bless or to curse. To be “visited by trouble” means that calamity will interfere with the course of life and change the direction or the destiny. Therefore this is not referring to a minor trouble that one might briefly experience. A life in the
[19:24] 34 tn Heb “buries” (so many English versions); KJV “hideth”; NAB “loses.”
[19:24] 35 sn This humorous portrayal is an exaggeration; but the point is that laziness can overcome hunger. It would have a wider application for anyone who would start a project and then lack the interest or energy to finish it (R. N. Whybray, Proverbs [CBC], 111). Ibn Ezra proposes that the dish was empty, because the sluggard was too lazy to provide for himself.
[19:25] 36 tn The Hiphil imperfect תַּכֶּה (takeh) is followed by another imperfect. It could be rendered: “strike a scorner [imperfect of instruction] and a simpleton will become prudent.” But the first of the parallel verbs can also be subordinated to the second as a temporal or conditional clause. Some English versions translate “beat” (NAB “if you beat an arrogant man”), but this could be understood to refer to competition rather than physical punishment. Therefore “flog” has been used in the translation, since it is normally associated with punishment or discipline.
[19:25] 37 sn Different people learn differently. There are three types of people in this proverb: the scorner with a closed mind, the simpleton with an empty mind, and the discerning person with an open mind (D. Kidner, Proverbs [TOTC], 135). The simpleton learns by observing a scoffer being punished, even though the punishment will have no effect on the scoffer.
[19:25] 38 sn The word is related to “shrewdness” (cf. 1:4). The simpleton will learn at least where the traps are and how to avoid them.
[19:25] 39 tn The second half begins with הוֹכִיחַ (hokhiakh), the Hiphil infinitive construct. This parallels the imperfect tense beginning the first half; it forms a temporal or conditional clause as well, so that the main verb is “he will understand.”
[19:26] 40 tn The construction joins the Piel participle מְשַׁדֶּד (mÿshaded, “one who robs”) with the Hiphil imperfect יַבְרִיחַ (yavriakh, “causes to flee” = chases away). The imperfect given a progressive imperfect nuance matches the timeless description of the participle as a substantive.
[19:26] 41 sn “Father” and “mother” here represent a stereotypical word pair in the book of Proverbs, rather than describing separate crimes against each individual parent. Both crimes are against both parents.
[19:26] 42 tn The more generic “child” does not fit the activities described in this verse and so “son” is retained in the translation. In the ancient world a “son” was more likely than a daughter to behave as stated. Such behavior may reflect the son wanting to take over his father’s lands prematurely.
[19:27] 43 tn Heb “Stop listening…!” The infinitive construct לִשְׁמֹעַ (lishmoa’) functions as the direct object of the imperative: “stop heeding [or, listening to].” Of course in this proverb which shows the consequences of doing so, this is irony. The sage is instructing not to stop. The conditional protasis construction does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation.
[19:27] 44 tn The second line has an infinitive construct לִשְׁגוֹת (lishgot), meaning “to stray; to go astray; to err.” It indicates the result of the instruction – stop listening, and as a result you will go astray. The LXX took it differently: “A son who ceases to attend to discipline is likely to stray from words of knowledge.” RSV sees the final clause as the purpose of the instructions to be avoided: “do not listen to instructions to err.”
[19:28] 45 tn Heb “a witness who is worthless and wicked” (עֵד בְּלִיַּעַל, ’ed beliyya’al). Cf. KJV “an ungodly witness”; NAB “an unprincipled witness”; NCV “an evil witness”; NASB “a rascally witness.”
[19:28] 46 tn The parallel line says the mouth of the wicked “gulps down” or “swallows” (יְבַלַּע, yÿvala’) iniquity. The verb does not seem to fit the line (or the proverb) very well. Some have emended the text to יַבִּיעַ (yavia’, “gushes”) as in 15:28 (cf. NAB “pours out”). Driver followed an Arabic balaga to get “enunciates,” which works well with the idea of a false witness (W. McKane, Proverbs [OTL], 529). As it stands, however, the line indicates that in what he says the wicked person accepts evil – and that could describe a false witness.
[19:29] 47 tc Some (cf. NAB) suggest emending the MT’s “judgments” (from שָׁפַט, shafat) to “rods” (from שָׁבַט, shavat); however, this is not necessary if the term in the MT is interpreted figuratively. The LXX “scourges” might reflect a different Vorlage, but it also could have been an interpretive translation from the same text. “Judgments” is a metonymy of cause and refers to the punishment that the scoffer is to receive.
