Proverbs 5:4

5:4 but in the end ¹  she is bitter ²  as wormwood, ³ 

sharp as a two-edged ⁴  sword.

Proverbs 5:11

5:11 And at the end of your life ⁵  you will groan ⁶ 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ⁷ 

Proverbs 20:21

20:21 An inheritance gained easily ⁸  in the beginning

will not be blessed ⁹  in the end. ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 23:32

23:32 Afterward ¹¹  it bites like a snake,

and stings like a viper.

Proverbs 29:21

29:21 If ¹²  someone pampers his servant from youth,

he will be a weakling ¹³  in the end.

[5:4]  ¹ sn Heb “her end” (so KJV). D. Kidner notes that Proverbs does not allow us to forget that there is an afterward (Proverbs [TOTC], 65).

[5:4]  ² sn The verb “to be bitter” (מָרַר, marar) describes things that are harmful and destructive for life, such as the death of the members of the family of Naomi (Ruth 1:20) or finding water that was undrinkable (Exod 15:22-27). The word indicates that the sweet talking will turn out badly.

[5:4]  ³ tn The Hebrew term translated “wormwood” refers to the aromatic plant that contrasts with the sweetness of honey. Some follow the LXX and translate it as “gall” (cf. NIV). The point is that there was sweetness when the tryst had alluring glamour, but afterward it had an ugly ring (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 74).

[5:4]  ⁴ sn The Hebrew has “like a sword of [two] mouths,” meaning a double-edged sword that devours/cuts either way. There is no movement without damage. There may be a wordplay here with this description of the “sword with two mouths,” and the subject of the passage being the words of her mouth which also have two sides to them. The irony is cut by the idiom.

[5:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ⁶ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”

[20:21]  ⁹ tc The Kethib reads מְבֻחֶלֶת (mÿbukhelet), “gotten by greed” (based on a cognate Syriac verb, “to be greedy”); but the Qere is מְבֹהֶלֶת (mÿvohelet), “gotten hastily [or, quickly].” A large number of mss and the ancient versions read with the Qere (cf. KJV, ASV “gotten hastily”; NAB “gained hastily”; NIV “quickly gained”; NRSV “quickly acquired”).

[20:21]  ¹⁰ tn The form is the Pual imperfect, “will not be blessed,” suggesting that divine justice is at work.

[20:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in its end”; KJV, ASV “the end thereof.”

[23:32]  ¹³ tn Heb “its end”; NASB “At the last”; TEV (interpretively) “The next morning.”

[29:21]  ¹⁷ tn There is no conditional particle at the beginning of the verse; however, the relationship of the clauses, which lay down the condition first and then (with a vav) the consequences, indicates a conditional construction here. Cf. also NAB, NIV, NCV, TEV.

[29:21]  ¹⁸ tn The word מָגוֹן (magon) is a hapax legomenon; accordingly, it has been given a variety of interpretations. The LXX has “grief,” and this has been adopted by some versions (e.g., NIV, NCV). The idea would be that treating the servant too easily for so long would not train him at all, so he will be of little use, and therefore a grief. J. Reider takes the word to mean “weakling” from the Arabic root na’na (“to be weak”), with a noun/adjective form muna’ana’ (“weak; feeble”); see his “Etymological Studies in Biblical Hebrew,” VT 4 [1954]: 276-95. This would give a different emphasis to the sentence, but on the whole not very different than the first. In both cases the servant will not be trained well. Rashi, a Jewish scholar who lived a.d. 1040-1105, had the translation “a master.” The servant trained this way will assume authority in the household even as the son. This may be behind the KJV translation “son” (likewise ASV, NASB). Tg. Prov 29:21 and the Syriac have “to be uprooted,” which may reflect a different text entirely.