Proverbs 23:21

23:21 because drunkards and gluttons become impoverished,

and drowsiness ¹  clothes them with rags. ² 

Proverbs 30:23

30:23 under an unloved ³  woman who is married,

and under a female servant who dispossesses ⁴  her mistress.

Proverbs 20:13

20:13 Do not love sleep, ⁵  lest you become impoverished;

open your eyes so that ⁶  you might be satisfied with food. ⁷ 

Proverbs 30:9

30:9 lest I become satisfied and act deceptively ⁸ 

and say, “Who is the Lord?”

Or lest I become poor and steal

and demean ⁹  the name of my God.

[23:21]  ¹ tn Here “drowsiness” is a metonymy of effect or adjunct, put for the drunkenness and gluttony that causes it. So all of it, the drunkenness and the drowsiness that comes from it, brings on the ruin (cf. CEV “you will end up poor”). Likewise, “rags” is a metonymy of adjunct, associated with the poverty brought on by a dissolute lifestyle.

[23:21]  ² sn This is the fourteenth saying, warning about poor associations. Drunkenness and gluttony represent the epitome of the lack of discipline. In the Mishnah they are used to measure a stubborn and rebellious son (m. Sanhedrin 8). W. G. Plaut notes that excessive drinking and eating are usually symptoms of deeper problems; we usually focus more on the drinking because it is dangerous to others (Proverbs, 241-42).

[30:23]  ³ tn The Hebrew term means “hated,” from שָׂנֵא (sane’), a feminine passive participle. The text does not say why she is hated; some have speculated that she might be odious (cf. KJV, ASV, NAB) or unattractive, but perhaps she is married to someone incapable of showing love (e.g., Gen 29:31, 33; Deut 21:15; Isa 60:5). Perhaps the strange situation of Jacob was in the mind of the sage, for Leah was described as “hated” (Gen 29:31).

[30:23]  ⁴ tn The verb יָרַשׁ (yarash) means either (1) “to possess; to inherit” or (2) “to dispossess.” Often the process of possessing meant the dispossessing of those already there (e.g., Hagar and Sarah in Gen 16:5; 21:10); another example is the Israelites’ wars against the Canaanites.

[20:13]  ⁵ sn The proverb uses antithetical parallelism to teach that diligence leads to prosperity. It contrasts loving sleep with opening the eyes, and poverty with satisfaction. Just as “sleep” can be used for slothfulness or laziness, so opening the eyes can represent vigorous, active conduct. The idioms have caught on in modern usage as well – things like “open your eyes” or “asleep on the job.”

[20:13]  ⁶ tn The second line uses two imperatives in a sequence (without the vav [ו]): “open your eyes” and then (or, in order that) you will “be satisfied.”

[20:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “bread” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV), although the term often serves in a generic sense for food in general.

[30:9]  ⁷ tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) means “to be disappointing; to deceive; to fail; to grow lean.” In the Piel stem it means “to deceive; to act deceptively; to cringe; to disappoint.” The idea of acting deceptively is illustrated in Hos 9:2 where it has the connotation of “disowning” or “refusing to acknowledge” (a meaning very close to its meaning here).

[30:9]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew verb literally means “to take hold of; to seize”; this produces the idea of doing violence to the reputation of God.