Proverbs 7:15

7:15 That is why I came out to meet you,

to look for you, ¹  and I found you!

Proverbs 10:26

10:26 Like vinegar to the teeth and like smoke to the eyes, ² 

so is the sluggard to those ³  who send him.

Proverbs 15:7

15:7 The lips of the wise spread ⁴  knowledge,

but not so the heart of fools. ⁵ 

Proverbs 26:8

26:8 Like tying a stone in a sling, ⁶ 

so is giving honor to a fool.

Proverbs 27:8

27:8 Like a bird that wanders ⁷  from its nest,

so is a person who wanders from his home. ⁸ 

Proverbs 27:19

27:19 As in water the face is reflected as a face, ⁹ 

so a person’s heart ¹⁰  reflects the person.

[7:15]  ¹ tn Heb “to look diligently for your face.”

[10:26]  ² sn Two similes are used to portray the aggravation in sending a lazy person to accomplish a task. Vinegar to the teeth is an unpleasant, irritating experience; and smoke to the eyes is an unpleasant experience that hinders progress.

[10:26]  ³ tn The participle is plural, and so probably should be taken in a distributive sense: “to each one who sends him.”

[15:7]  ³ tc The verb of the first colon is difficult because it does not fit the second very well – a heart does not “scatter” or “spread” knowledge. On the basis of the LXX, C. H. Toy (Proverbs [ICC], 305) suggests a change to יִצְּרוּ (yitsÿru, “they preserve”). The Greek evidence, however, is not strong. For the second line the LXX has “hearts of fools are not safe,” apparently taking לֹא־כֵן (lo’-khen) as “unstable” instead of “not so.” So it seems futile to use the Greek version to modify the first colon to make a better parallel, when the Greek has such a different reading in the second colon anyway.

[15:7]  ⁴ sn The phrase “the heart of fools” emphasizes that fools do not comprehend knowledge. Cf. NCV “there is no knowledge in the thoughts of fools.”

[26:8]  ⁴ tn The translation “like tying a stone in a sling” seems to make the most sense, even though the word for “sling” occurs only here.

[27:8]  ⁵ tn The form נוֹדֶדֶת (nodedet) is the Qal participle from נָדַד (nadad), “to wander; to stray; to flutter; to retreat; to depart”; cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT “strays.” It will be directly paralleled with the masculine participle in the second colon.

[27:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “place” (so KJV, ASV); most other English versions translate as “home.”

[27:19]  ⁶ tn The verse is somewhat cryptic and so has prompted many readings. The first line in the MT has “As water the face to the face.” The simplest and most probable interpretation is that clear water gives a reflection of the face (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). One creative but unconvincing suggestion is that of L. Kopf, who suggests the idea is “water of face” (a construct) and that it means shame or modesty, i.e., a face is not really human without shame, and a man without a heart is not human (“Arabische Etymologien und Parallelen zum Bibelwörterbuch,” VT 9 [1959]: 260-61).

[27:19]  ⁷ tn The second line has “so the heart of a man to a man” (cf. KJV, ASV). The present translation (along with many English versions) supplies “reflects” as a verb in the second line to emphasize the parallelism.