Proverbs 9:10-18

9:10 The beginning ¹  of wisdom is to fear the Lord, ² 

and acknowledging ³  the Holy One ⁴  is understanding.

9:11 For because ⁵  of me your days will be many,

and years will be added ⁶  to your life.

9:12 If you are wise, you are wise to your own advantage, ⁷ 

but if you are a mocker, ⁸  you alone must ⁹  bear it. ¹⁰ 

9:13 The woman called Folly ¹¹  is brash, ¹² 

she is naive ¹³  and does not know ¹⁴  anything. ¹⁵ 

9:14 So she sits at the door of her house,

on a seat at the highest point of the city,

9:15 calling out ¹⁶  to those who are passing by her ¹⁷  in the way, ¹⁸ 

who go straight ¹⁹  on their way.

9:16 “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here,”

she says to those who lack understanding. ²⁰ 

9:17 “Stolen waters ²¹  are sweet,

and food obtained in secret ²²  is pleasant!”

9:18 But they do not realize ²³  that the dead ²⁴  are there,

that her guests are in the depths of the grave. ²⁵ 

[9:10]  ¹ sn The difference between תְּחִלַּת (tÿkhillat) here and רֵאשִׁית (re’shit) of 1:7, if there is any substantial difference, is that this term refers to the starting point of wisdom, and the earlier one indicates the primary place of wisdom (K&D 16:202).

[9:10]  ² tn Heb “fear of the Lord.”

[9:10]  ³ tn Heb “knowledge of the Holy One” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[9:10]  ⁴ tn The word is in the plural in the Hebrew (literally “holy ones”; KJV “the holy”). It was translated “holy men” in Tg. Prov 9:10. But it probably was meant to signify the majestic nature of the Lord. As J. H. Greenstone says, he is “all-holy” (Proverbs, 94). This is an example of the plural of majesty, one of the honorific uses of the plural (see IBHS 122-23 §7.4.3b).

[9:11]  ⁵ tn The preposition בּ (bet) here may have the causal sense (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 45, §247), although it could also be means (Williams, 44, §243).

[9:11]  ⁶ tn The verb וְיוֹסִיפוּ (vÿyosifu) is the Hiphil imperfect, third masculine plural; but because there is no expressed subject the verb may be taken as a passive.

[9:12]  ⁷ tn The text simply has the preposition לְ (lamed) with a suffix; but this will be the use of the preposition classified as “interest,” either for advantage or disadvantage (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 48-49, §271).

[9:12]  ⁸ tn The perfect tense is here in a conditional clause because of the conjunction following the first colon of the verse that begins with “if.” The perfect tense then lays down the antithetical condition – “if you mock,” or “if you are a mocker.”

[9:12]  ⁹ tn The use of the imperfect tense here could be the simple future tense (cf. NASB, NRSV “you…will bear it”), but the obligatory nuance is more appropriate – “you must bear it.” These words anticipate James’ warnings that the words we speak will haunt us through life (e.g., James 3:1-12).

[9:12]  ¹⁰ tc The LXX has an addition: “Forsake folly, that you may reign forever; and seek discretion and direct understanding in knowledge.”

[9:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a woman of foolishness.” This could be translated as “foolish woman,” taking the genitive as attributive (cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV). But in view of the contrast with the personification of wisdom, this word probably also represents a personification and so can be taken as a genitive of apposition, the woman who is folly, or “the woman, Folly” (cf. NIV). For clarity and stylistic reasons the word “called” has been supplied in the translation.

[9:13]  ¹² tn The meaning of the word comes close to “riotous.” W. McKane describes her as restless and rootless (Proverbs [OTL], 366).

[9:13]  ¹³ tn The noun means “foolishness” (cf. KJV “simple”; NAB “inane”). Here it could be classified as a metonymy of adjunct, or as a predictive apposition (when a substantive is used in place of a noun; see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 15, §67).

[9:13]  ¹⁴ tn The ignorance here in Proverbs must be moral ignorance. But see D. W. Thomas for the idea that the verb means “become still,” “be at rest,” yielding here the idea of restless (“A Note on בַל־יָדְעָה in Proverbs 9¹³,” JTS 4 [1953]: 23-24).

[9:13]  ¹⁵ tc The text of v. 13 has been difficult for translators. The MT has, “The foolish woman is boisterous, simplicity, and knows not what.” The LXX reads, “A foolish and impudent woman comes to lack a morsel, she who knows not shame.” The Syriac has, “a woman lacking in discretion, seductive.” Tg. Prov 9:13 translates it, “a foolish woman and a gadabout, ignorant, and she knows not good.” The Vulgate has, “a woman foolish and noisy, and full of wiles, and knowing nothing at all.”

[9:15]  ¹⁶ tn The infinitive construct “calling out” functions epexegetically in the sentence, explaining how the previous action was accomplished.

[9:15]  ¹⁷ tn The term “her” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[9:15]  ¹⁸ tn The noun is a genitive of location after the construct participle. Its parallel word is also an adverbial accusative of location.

[9:15]  ¹⁹ tn The participle modifies the participle in the first colon. To describe the passers-by in this context as those “who go straight” means that they are quiet and unwary.

[9:16]  ²⁰ tn This expression is almost identical to v. 4, with the exception of the addition of conjunctions in the second colon: “and the lacking of understanding and she says to him.” The parallel is deliberate, of course, showing the competing appeals for those passing by.

[9:17]  ²¹ sn The offer is not wine and meat (which represented wisdom), but water that is stolen. The “water” will seem sweeter than wine because it is stolen – the idea of getting away with something exciting appeals to the baser instincts. In Proverbs the water imagery was introduced earlier in 5:15-19 as sexual activity with the adulteress, which would seem at the moment more enjoyable than learning wisdom. Likewise bread will be drawn into this analogy in 30:20. So the “calling out” is similar to that of wisdom, but what is being offered is very different.

[9:17]  ²² tn Heb “bread of secrecies.” It could mean “bread [eaten in] secret places,” a genitive of location; or it could mean “bread [gained through] secrets,” a genitive of source, the secrecies being metonymical for theft. The latter makes a better parallelism in this verse, for bread (= sexually immoral behavior) gained secretly would be like stolen water.

[9:18]  ²³ tn Heb “he does not know.”

[9:18]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ 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.”