Proverbs 6:22

6:22 When you walk about, ¹  they ²  will guide you;

when you lie down, they will watch over you;

when you wake up, ³  they will talk ⁴  to you.

Proverbs 9:9

9:9 Give instruction ⁵  to a wise person, ⁶  and he will become wiser still;

teach ⁷  a righteous person and he will add to his ⁸  learning.

[6:22]  ¹ tn The verbal form is the Hitpael infinitive construct with a preposition and a suffixed subjective genitive to form a temporal clause. The term הָלַךְ (halakh) in this verbal stem means “to go about; to go to and fro.” The use of these terms in v. 22 also alludes to Deut 6:7.

[6:22]  ² tn Heb “it will guide you.” The verb is singular and the instruction is the subject.

[6:22]  ³ tn In both of the preceding cola an infinitive construct was used for the temporal clauses; now the construction uses a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. The verb would then be equivalent to an imperfect tense, but subordinated as a temporal clause here.

[6:22]  ⁴ sn The Hebrew verb means “talk” in the sense of “to muse; to complain; to meditate”; cf. TEV, NLT “advise you.” Instruction bound to the heart will speak to the disciple on awaking.

[9:9]  ⁵ tn The noun “instruction” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation.

[9:9]  ⁶ sn The parallelism shows what Proverbs will repeatedly stress, that the wise person is the righteous person.

[9:9]  ⁷ tn The Hiphil verb normally means “to cause to know, make known”; but here the context suggests “to teach” (so many English versions).

[9:9]  ⁸ tn The term “his” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for the sake of smoothness and clarity.