Proverbs 23:35

23:35 You will say, ¹  “They have struck me, but I am not harmed!

They beat me, but I did not know it! ² 

When will I awake? I will look for another drink.” ³ 

Proverbs 9:13

9:13 The woman called Folly ⁴  is brash, ⁵ 

she is naive ⁶  and does not know ⁷  anything. ⁸ 

Proverbs 10:30

10:30 The righteous will never be moved,

but the wicked will not inhabit the land. ⁹ 

Proverbs 12:3

12:3 No one ¹⁰  can be established ¹¹  through wickedness,

but a righteous root ¹²  cannot be moved.

Proverbs 14:7

14:7 Leave the presence of a foolish person, ¹³ 

or ¹⁴  you will not understand ¹⁵  wise counsel. ¹⁶ 

Proverbs 19:23

19:23 Fearing the Lord ¹⁷  leads ¹⁸  to life, ¹⁹ 

and one who does so will live ²⁰  satisfied; he will not be afflicted ²¹  by calamity.

Proverbs 24:23

Further Sayings of the Wise

24:23 These sayings also are from the wise:

To show partiality ²²  in judgment is terrible: ²³ 

Proverbs 22:29

22:29 Do you see a person skilled ²⁴  in his work?

He will take his position before kings;

he will not take his position ²⁵  before obscure people. ²⁶ 

Proverbs 23:7

23:7 for he is ²⁷  like someone calculating the cost ²⁸  in his mind. ²⁹ 

“Eat and drink,” he says to you,

but his heart is not with you;

[23:35]  ¹ tn The phrase “You will say” is supplied in the translation to make it clear that the drunkard is now speaking.

[23:35]  ² sn The line describes how one who is intoxicated does not feel the pain, even though beaten by others. He does not even remember it.

[23:35]  ³ tn The last line has only “I will add I will seek it again.” The use of אוֹסִיף (’osif) signals a verbal hendiadys with the next verb: “I will again seek it.” In this context the suffix on the verb refers to the wine – the drunkard wants to go and get another drink.

[9:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “a woman of foolishness.” This could be translated as “foolish woman,” taking the genitive as attributive (cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV). But in view of the contrast with the personification of wisdom, this word probably also represents a personification and so can be taken as a genitive of apposition, the woman who is folly, or “the woman, Folly” (cf. NIV). For clarity and stylistic reasons the word “called” has been supplied in the translation.

[9:13]  ⁵ tn The meaning of the word comes close to “riotous.” W. McKane describes her as restless and rootless (Proverbs [OTL], 366).

[9:13]  ⁶ tn The noun means “foolishness” (cf. KJV “simple”; NAB “inane”). Here it could be classified as a metonymy of adjunct, or as a predictive apposition (when a substantive is used in place of a noun; see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 15, §67).

[9:13]  ⁷ tn The ignorance here in Proverbs must be moral ignorance. But see D. W. Thomas for the idea that the verb means “become still,” “be at rest,” yielding here the idea of restless (“A Note on בַל־יָדְעָה in Proverbs 9¹³,” JTS 4 [1953]: 23-24).

[9:13]  ⁸ tc The text of v. 13 has been difficult for translators. The MT has, “The foolish woman is boisterous, simplicity, and knows not what.” The LXX reads, “A foolish and impudent woman comes to lack a morsel, she who knows not shame.” The Syriac has, “a woman lacking in discretion, seductive.” Tg. Prov 9:13 translates it, “a foolish woman and a gadabout, ignorant, and she knows not good.” The Vulgate has, “a woman foolish and noisy, and full of wiles, and knowing nothing at all.”

[10:30]  ⁷ sn This proverb concerns the enjoyment of covenant blessings – dwelling in the land of Israel. It is promised to the righteous for an eternal inheritance, and so the wicked cannot expect to settle there – they will be exiled.

[12:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a man cannot be.”

[12:3]  ¹¹ tn The Niphal imperfect of כּוּן (cun, “to be established”) refers to finding permanent “security” (so NRSV, TEV, CEV) before God. Only righteousness can do that.

[12:3]  ¹² tn Heb “a root of righteousness.” The genitive צַדִּיקִים (tsadiqim, “righteousness”) functions as an attributive adjective. The figure “root” (שֹׁרֶשׁ, shoresh) stresses the security of the righteous; they are firmly planted and cannot be uprooted (cf. NLT “the godly have deep roots”). The righteous are often compared to a tree (e.g., 11:30; Ps 1:3; 92:13).

[14:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “a man, a stupid fellow.”

[14:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and.” The vav (ו) that introduces this clause may be understood as meaning “or….”

[14:7]  ¹⁵ tc The MT reads וּבַל־יָדַעְתָּ (uval-yada’ta, “you did not know [the lips of knowledge]).” It must mean that one should leave the fool because he did not receive knowledge from what fools said. Tg. Prov 14:7 freely interprets the verse: “for there is no knowledge on his lips.” The LXX reflects a Hebrew Vorlage of וּכְלֵי־דַעַת (ukhÿle-da’at, “[wise lips] are weapons of discretion”). The textual variant involves wrong word division and orthographic confusion between ב (bet) and כ (kaf). C. H. Toy emends the text: “for his lips do not utter knowledge” as in 15:7 (Proverbs [ICC], 285). The MT is workable and more difficult.

[14:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “lips of knowledge” (so KJV, ASV). “Lips” is the metonymy of cause, and “knowledge” is an objective genitive (speaking knowledge) or attributive genitive (knowledgeable speech): “wise counsel.”

[19:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the fear of the Lord.” This expression features an objective genitive: “fearing the Lord.”

[19:23]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn The subject of this verb is probably the one who fears the Lord and enjoys life. So the proverb uses synthetic parallelism; the second half tells what this life is like – it is an abiding contentment that is not threatened by calamity (cf. NCV “unbothered by trouble”).

[19:23]  ²⁰ 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 Lord cannot be disrupted by such major catastrophes that would alter one’s destiny.

[24:23]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “to recognize faces”; KJV, ASV “to have respect of persons”; NLT “to show favoritism.”

[24:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “not good.” This is a figure known as tapeinosis – a deliberate understatement to emphasize a worst-case scenario: “it is terrible!”

[22:29]  ²² sn The word translated “skilled” is general enough to apply to any crafts; but it may refer to a scribe or an official (R. N. Whybray, Proverbs [CBC], 134).

[22:29]  ²³ tn The verb form used twice here is יִתְיַצֵּב (yityatsev), the Hitpael imperfect of יָצַב (yatsav), which means “to set or station oneself; to take one’s stand” in this stem. With the form לִפְנֵי (life) it means “to present oneself before” someone; so here it has the idea of serving as a courtier in the presence of a king.

[22:29]  ²⁴ sn The fifth saying affirms that true skill earns recognition and advancement (cf. Instruction of Amenemope, chap. 30, 27:16-17 [ANET 424]).

[23:7]  ²⁵ tc The line is difficult; it appears to mean that the miser is the kind of person who has calculated the cost of everything in his mind as he offers the food. The LXX has: “Eating and drinking with him is as if one should swallow a hair; do not introduce him to your company nor eat bread with him.” The Hebrew verb “to calculate” (שָׁעַר, sha’ar) with a change of vocalization and of sibilant would yield “hair” (שֵׂעָר, se’ar) – “like a hair in the throat [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh], so is he.” This would picture an irritating experience. The Instruction of Amenemope uses “blocking the throat” in a similar saying (chapt. 11, 14:7 [ANET 423]). The suggested change is plausible and is followed by NRSV; but the rare verb “to calculate” in the MT would be easier to defend on the basis of the canons of textual criticism because it is the more difficult reading.

[23:7]  ²⁶ tn The phrase “the cost” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the verb; it is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[23:7]  ²⁷ tn Heb “soul.”