Proverbs 22:10

22:10 Drive out the scorner ¹  and contention will leave;

strife and insults will cease. ² 

Proverbs 29:7

29:7 The righteous person cares for ³  the legal rights ⁴  of the poor;

the wicked does not understand such ⁵  knowledge.

Proverbs 31:8

31:8 Open your mouth ⁶  on behalf of those unable to speak, ⁷ 

for the legal rights of all the dying. ⁸ 

Proverbs 20:8

20:8 A king sitting on the throne to judge ⁹ 

separates out ¹⁰  all evil with his eyes. ¹¹ 

Proverbs 31:5

31:5 lest they drink and forget what is decreed,

and remove ¹²  from all the poor ¹³  their legal rights. ¹⁴ 

[22:10]  ¹ sn This proverb, written in loose synonymous parallelism, instructs that the scorner should be removed because he causes strife. The “scorner” is לֵץ (lets), the one the book of Proverbs says cannot be changed with discipline or correction, but despises and disrupts anything that is morally or socially constructive.

[22:10]  ² tc The LXX freely adds “when he sits in council (ἐν συνεδρίῳ, ejn sunedriw), he insults everyone.” The MT does not suggest that the setting is in a court of law; so the LXX addition is highly unlikely.

[29:7]  ³ tn The form is an active participle, יֹדֵעַ (yodea’); it describes the righteous as “knowing, caring for, having sympathetic knowledge for, or considering favorably” the legal needs of the poor. Cf. NAB “has a care for”; NASB “is concerned for.”

[29:7]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew word used here is דִּין (din), which typically means “judgment,” but can also mean “strife” and “cause.” Here it refers to the “cause” of the poor (so KJV, ASV), their plea, their case, their legal rights. A righteous person is sympathetic to this.

[29:7]  ⁵ tn The term “such” is supplied in the translation for clarification. It is not simply any knowledge that the wicked do not understand, but the knowledge mentioned in the first colon. They do not understand the “sympathetic knowledge” or “concern” for the cause of the poor.

[31:8]  ⁵ sn The instruction to “open your mouth” is a metonymy of cause; it means “speak up for” (so NIV, TEV, NLT) or in this context “serve as an advocate in judgment” (cf. CEV “you must defend”).

[31:8]  ⁶ sn The instruction compares people who cannot defend themselves in court with those who are physically unable to speak (this is a figure of speech known as hypocatastasis, an implied comparison). The former can physically speak; but because they are the poor, the uneducated, the oppressed, they are unable to conduct a legal defense. They may as well be speechless.

[31:8]  ⁷ tn Or “of all the defenseless.” The noun חֲלוֹף (khalof) means “passing away; vanishing” (properly an infinitive); in this construction “the sons of the passing away” means people who by nature are transitory, people who are dying – mortals. But in this context it would indicate people who are “defenseless” as opposed to those who are healthy and powerful.

[20:8]  ⁷ tn The infinitive construct is דִּין; it indicates purpose, “to judge” (so NIV, NCV) even though it does not have the preposition with it.

[20:8]  ⁸ tn The second line uses the image of winnowing (cf. NIV, NRSV) to state that the king’s judgment removes evil from the realm. The verb form is מִזָרֶה (mÿzareh), the Piel participle. It has been translated “to sift; to winnow; to scatter” and “to separate” – i.e., separate out evil from the land. The text is saying that a just government roots out evil (cf. NAB “dispels all evil”), but few governments have been consistently just.

[20:8]  ⁹ sn The phrase with his eyes indicates that the king will closely examine or look into all the cases that come before him.

[31:5]  ⁹ tn The verb means “change,” perhaps expressed in reversing decisions or removing rights.

[31:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “all the children of poverty.” This expression refers to the poor by nature. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the afflicted”; NIV “oppressed.”

[31:5]  ¹¹ sn The word is דִּין (din, “judgment”; so KJV). In this passage it refers to the cause or the plea for justice, i.e., the “legal rights.”