Proverbs 5:15

5:15 Drink water from your own cistern

and running water from your own well. ¹ 

Proverbs 9:5

9:5 “Come, eat ²  some of my food,

and drink some of the wine I have mixed. ³ 

Proverbs 4:17

4:17 For they eat bread ⁴  gained from wickedness ⁵ 

and drink wine obtained from violence. ⁶ 

Proverbs 26:6

26:6 Like cutting off the feet or drinking violence, ⁷ 

so is sending ⁸  a message by the hand of a fool. ⁹ 

Proverbs 31:7

31:7 let them ¹⁰  drink and forget ¹¹  their poverty,

and remember their misery no more.

Proverbs 31:4-5

31:4 It is not for kings, ¹²  O Lemuel,

it is not for kings to drink wine, ¹³ 

or for rulers to crave strong drink, ¹⁴ 

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

and remove ¹⁵  from all the poor ¹⁶  their legal rights. ¹⁷ 

Proverbs 23:7

23:7 for he is ¹⁸  like someone calculating the cost ¹⁹  in his mind. ²⁰ 

“Eat and drink,” he says to you,

but his heart is not with you;

[5:15]  ¹ sn Paul Kruger develops this section as an allegory consisting of a series of metaphors. He suggests that what is at issue is private versus common property. The images of the cistern, well, or fountain are used of a wife (e.g., Song 4:15) because she, like water, satisfies desires. Streams of water in the street would then mean sexual contact with a lewd woman. According to 7:12 she never stays home but is in the streets and is the property of many (P. Kruger, “Promiscuity and Marriage Fidelity? A Note on Prov 5:15-18,” JNSL 13 [1987]: 61-68).

[9:5]  ² tn The construction features a cognate accusative (verb and noun from same root). The preposition בּ (bet) has the partitive use “some” (GKC 380 §119.m).

[9:5]  ³ tn The final verb actually stands in a relative clause although the relative pronoun is not present; it modifies “wine.”

[4:17]  ³ tn The noun is a cognate accusative stressing that they consume wickedness.

[4:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “the bread of wickedness” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV). There are two ways to take the genitives: (1) genitives of apposition: wickedness and violence are their food and drink (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT), or (2) genitives of source: they derive their livelihood from the evil they do (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 93).

[4:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “the wine of violence” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV). This is a genitive of source, meaning that the wine they drink was plundered from their violent crime. The Hebrew is structured in an AB:BA chiasm: “For they eat the bread of wickedness, and the wine of violence they drink.” The word order in the translation is reversed for the sake of smoothness and readability.

[26:6]  ⁴ sn Sending a messenger on a mission is like having another pair of feet. But if the messenger is a fool, this proverb says, not only does the sender not have an extra pair of feet – he cuts off the pair he has. It would not be simply that the message did not get through; it would get through incorrectly and be a setback! The other simile uses “violence,” a term for violent social wrongs and injustice. The metaphorical idea of “drinking” violence means suffering violence – it is one’s portion. So sending a fool on a mission will have injurious consequences.

[26:6]  ⁵ tn The participle could be taken as the subject of the sentence: “the one who sends…cuts off…and drinks.”

[26:6]  ⁶ sn The consequence is given in the first line and the cause in the second. It would be better not to send a message at all than to use a fool as messenger.

[31:7]  ⁵ tn The subjects and suffixes are singular (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB). Most other English versions render this as plural for stylistic reasons, in light of the preceding context.

[31:7]  ⁶ tn The king was not to “drink and forget”; the suffering are to “drink and forget.”

[31:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “[It is] not for kings.”

[31:4]  ⁷ sn This second warning for kings concerns the use of alcohol. If this passage is meant to prohibit any use of alcohol by kings, it would be unheard of in any ancient royal court. What is probably meant is an excessive and unwarranted use of alcohol, or a troubling need for it, so that the meaning is “to drink wine in excess” (cf. NLT “to guzzle wine”; CEV “should not get drunk”). The danger, of course, would be that excessive use of alcohol would cloud the mind and deprive a king of true administrative ability and justice.

[31:4]  ⁸ tn The MT has אֵו (’ev), a Kethib/Qere reading. The Kethib is אוֹ (’o) but the Qere is אֵי (’ey). Some follow the Qere and take the word as a shortened form of וַֹיֵּה, “where?” This would mean the ruler would be always asking for drink (cf. ASV). Others reconstruct to אַוֵּה (’avveh, “to desire; to crave”). In either case, the verse would be saying that a king is not to be wanting/seeking alcohol.

[31:5]  ⁷ tn The verb means “change,” perhaps expressed in reversing decisions or removing rights.

[31:5]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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.”

[23:7]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “soul.”