Discovery BoxProverbs 5:5
Context5:5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight to the grave. 1
Proverbs 7:27
Context7:27 Her house is the way to the grave, 2
going down 3 to the chambers 4 of death.
Proverbs 9:18
Context9:18 But they do not realize 5 that the dead 6 are there,
that her guests are in the depths of the grave. 7
Proverbs 27:20
Context27:20 As 8 Death and Destruction are never satisfied, 9
so the eyes of a person 10 are never satisfied. 11
Proverbs 15:11
Context15:11 Death and Destruction 12 are before the Lord –
how much more 13 the hearts of humans! 14
Proverbs 30:16
Context30:16 the grave, 15 the barren womb, 16
land that is not satisfied with water,
and fire that never says, “Enough!” 17
[5:5] 1 tn The term שְׁאוֹל (she’ol, “grave”) is paralleled to “death,” so it does not refer here to the realm of the unblessed.
[7:27] 2 tn The noun “Sheol” in parallelism to “the chambers of death” probably means the grave. The noun is a genitive of location, indicating the goal of the road(s). Her house is not the grave; it is, however, the sure way to it.
[7:27] 3 tn The Qal active participle modifies “ways” to Sheol. The “road,” as it were, descends to the place of death.
[7:27] 4 tn “Chambers” is a hypocatastasis, comparing the place of death or the grave with a bedroom in the house. It plays on the subtlety of the temptation. Cf. NLT “Her bedroom is the den of death.”
[9:18] 3 tn Heb “he does not know.”
[9:18] 4 sn The “dead” are the Rephaim, the “shades” or dead persons who lead a shadowy existence in Sheol (e.g., Prov 2:18-19; Job 3:13-19; Ps 88:5; Isa 14:9-11). This approximates an “as-if” motif of wisdom literature: The ones ensnared in folly are as good as in Hell. See also Ptah-hotep’s sayings (ANET 412-414).
[9:18] 5 tc The LXX adds to the end of v. 18: “But turn away, linger not in the place, neither set your eye on her: for thus will you go through alien water; but abstain from alien water, drink not from an alien fountain, that you may live long, that years of life may be added to you.”
[27:20] 4 tn The term “as” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation in light of the analogy.
[27:20] 5 sn Countless generations of people have gone into the world below; yet “death” is never satisfied – it always takes more. The line personifies Death and Destruction. It forms the emblem in the parallelism.
[27:20] 6 tn Heb “eyes of a man.” This expression refers to the desires – what the individual looks longingly on. Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:34 (one of the rabbinic Midrashim) says, “No man dies and has one-half of what he wanted.”
[27:20] 7 tc The LXX contains a scribal addition: “He who fixes his eye is an abomination to the
[15:11] 5 tn Heb “Sheol and Abaddon” (שְׁאוֹל וַאֲבַדּוֹן (shÿ’ol va’adon); so ASV, NASB, NRSV; cf. KJV “Hell and destruction”; NAB “the nether world and the abyss.” These terms represent the remote underworld and all the mighty powers that reside there (e.g., Prov 27:20; Job 26:6; Ps 139:8; Amos 9:2; Rev 9:11). The
[15:11] 6 tn The construction אַף כִּי (’af ki, “how much more!”) introduces an argument from the lesser to the greater: If all this is open before the
[15:11] 7 tn Heb “the hearts of the sons of man,” although here “sons of man” simply means “men” or “human beings.”
[30:16] 6 tn The term שְׁאוֹל (she’ol, “Sheol”) refers here to the realm of the dead: “the grave” (so KJV, NIV, NLT); cf. TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NAB “the nether world.”
[30:16] 7 tn Heb “the closing of the womb,” a situation especially troubling for one who is consumed with a desire for children (e.g., Gen 16:2; 30:1).
[30:16] 8 sn There is no clear lesson made from these observations. But one point that could be made is that greed, symbolized by the leech, is as insatiable as all these other things. If that is the case, the proverb would constitute a warning against the insatiable nature of greed.
