Proverbs 21:6-7

21:6 Making a fortune ¹  by a lying tongue is like ²  a vapor driven back and forth; ³ 

they seek death. ⁴ 

21:7 The violence ⁵  done by the wicked ⁶  will drag them away

because ⁷  they refuse to do what is right. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 17:11

17:11 The person who gathers wealth by unjust means

is like the partridge that broods over eggs but does not hatch them. ⁹ 

Before his life is half over he will lose his ill-gotten gains. ¹⁰ 

At the end of his life it will be clear he was a fool.” ¹¹ 

Micah 6:10

6:10 “I will not overlook, ¹²  O sinful house, the dishonest gain you have hoarded away, ¹³ 

or the smaller-than-standard measure I hate so much. ¹⁴ 

[21:6]  ¹ tn The first word of the verse is the noun meaning “doing, deed, work.” The BHS editors suggest reading with the LXX an active participle – “the one who makes” (cf. NAB “He who makes”). The second word means “treasure,” from the verb “lay up, store up.” It is an objective genitive here.

[21:6]  ² tn The comparative “like” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the metaphor; it is supplied for the sake of clarity.

[21:6]  ³ tn The Hebrew הֶבֶל נִדָּף (hevel nidaf) is properly “a driven vapor” (“driven” = the Niphal participle). The point of the metaphor is that the ill-gotten gains will vanish into thin air. The LXX has “pursues” (as if reading רֹדֵף, rodef); cf. NAB “chasing a bubble over deadly snares.”

[21:6]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew has “seekers of death,” meaning “[they that seek them] are seekers of death,” or that the fortune is “a fleeting vapor for those who seek death.” The sense is not readily apparent. The Greek and the Latin versions have “snares of death”; the form מוֹקְשֵׁי (moqÿshe) was read instead of מְבַקְשֵׁי (mÿvaqshe). This reading does not make a more credible metaphor, and one must explain the loss of the letter ב (bet) in the textual variant. It is, however, slightly easier to interpret in the verse, and is followed by a number of English versions (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). But whether the easier reading is the correct one in this case would be difficult to prove.

[21:7]  ⁵ tn The “violence” (שֹׁד, shod) drags away the wicked, probably either to do more sin or to their punishment. “Violence” here is either personified, or it is a metonymy of cause, meaning “the outcome of their violence” drags them away.

[21:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “violence of the wicked.” This is a subjective genitive: “violence which the wicked do.”

[21:7]  ⁷ tn The second colon of the verse is the causal clause, explaining why they are dragged away. They are not passive victims of their circumstances or their crimes. They choose to persist in their violence and so it destroys them.

[21:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “they refuse to do justice” (so ASV); NASB “refuse to act with justice.”

[17:11]  ⁹ tn The meaning of this line is somewhat uncertain. The word translated “broods over” occurs only here and Isa 34:15. It is often defined on the basis of an Aramaic cognate which means “to gather” with an extended meaning of “to gather together under her to hatch.” Many commentators go back to a Rabbinic explanation that the partridge steals the eggs of other birds and hatches them out only to see the birds depart when they recognize that she is not the mother. Modern studies question the validity of this zoologically. Moreover, W. L. Holladay contests the validity on the basis of the wording “and she does hatch them” (Heb “bring them to birth”). See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:498, and see also P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, J. F. Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25 (WBC), 229. The point of the comparison is that the rich gather their wealth but they do not get to see the fruits of it.

[17:11]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text merely says “it.” But the antecedent might be ambiguous in English so the reference to wealth gained by unjust means is here reiterated for clarity.

[17:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he will be [= prove to be] a fool.”

[6:10]  ¹² tn The meaning of the first Hebrew word in the line is unclear. Possibly it is a combination of the interrogative particle and אִשׁ (’ish), an alternate form of יֵשׁ (yesh, “there is/are”). One could then translate literally, “Are there treasures of sin [in] the house of the sinful?” The translation assumes an emendation to הַאֶשֶּׁה (ha’esheh, from נָשָׁא, nasha’, “to forget”), “Will I forget?” The rhetorical question expects an answer, “No, I will not forget.”

[6:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “the treasures of sin”; NASB “treasures of wickedness”; NIV “ill-gotten treasures.”

[6:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the accursed scant measure.”