Proverbs 9:17-18

9:17 “Stolen waters ¹  are sweet,

and food obtained in secret ²  is pleasant!”

9:18 But they do not realize ³  that the dead ⁴  are there,

that her guests are in the depths of the grave. ⁵ 

Genesis 3:6-7

3:6 When ⁶  the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, ⁷  was attractive ⁸  to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, ⁹  she took some of its fruit and ate it. ¹⁰  She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. ¹¹  3:7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Job 20:12-20

20:12 “If ¹²  evil is sweet in his mouth

and he hides it under his tongue, ¹³ 

20:13 if he retains it for himself

and does not let it go,

and holds it fast in his mouth, ¹⁴ 

20:14 his food is turned sour ¹⁵  in his stomach; ¹⁶ 

it becomes the venom of serpents ¹⁷  within him.

20:15 The wealth that he consumed ¹⁸  he vomits up,

God will make him throw it out ¹⁹  of his stomach.

20:16 He sucks the poison ²⁰  of serpents; ²¹ 

the fangs ²²  of a viper ²³  kill him.

20:17 He will not look on the streams, ²⁴ 

the rivers, which are the torrents ²⁵ 

of honey and butter. ²⁶ 

20:18 He gives back the ill-gotten gain ²⁷ 

without assimilating it; ²⁸ 

he will not enjoy the wealth from his commerce. ²⁹ 

20:19 For he has oppressed the poor and abandoned them; ³⁰ 

he has seized a house which he did not build. ³¹ 

20:20 For he knows no satisfaction in his appetite; ³² 

he does not let anything he desires ³³  escape. ³⁴ 

Ecclesiastes 11:9

Enjoy Life to the Fullest under the Fear of God

11:9 Rejoice, young man, while you are young, ³⁵ 

and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.

Follow the impulses ³⁶  of your heart and the desires ³⁷  of your eyes,

but know that God will judge your motives and actions. ³⁸ 

Hebrews 11:25

11:25 choosing rather to be ill-treated with the people of God than to enjoy sin’s fleeting pleasure.

[9:17]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  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.”

[3:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “And the woman saw.” The clause can be rendered as a temporal clause subordinate to the following verb in the sequence.

[3:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “that the tree was good for food.” The words “produced fruit that was” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[3:6]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew word תַּאֲוָה (ta’avah, translated “attractive” here) actually means “desirable.” This term and the later term נֶחְמָד (nekhmad, “desirable”) are synonyms.

[3:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “that good was the tree for food, and that desirable it was to the eyes, and desirable was the tree to make one wise.” On the connection between moral wisdom and the “knowledge of good and evil,” see the note on the word “evil” in 2:9.

[3:6]  ¹⁰ tn The pronoun “it” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied (here and also after “ate” at the end of this verse) for stylistic reasons.

[3:6]  ¹¹ sn This pericope (3:1-7) is a fine example of Hebrew narrative structure. After an introductory disjunctive clause that introduces a new character and sets the stage (3:1), the narrative tension develops through dialogue, culminating in the action of the story. Once the dialogue is over, the action is told in a rapid sequence of verbs – she took, she ate, she gave, and he ate.

[20:12]  ¹² tn The conjunction אִם (’im) introduces clauses that are conditional or concessive. With the imperfect verb in the protasis it indicates what is possible in the present or future. See GKC 496 §159.q).

[20:12]  ¹³ sn The wicked person holds on to evil as long as he can, savoring the taste or the pleasure of it.

[20:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in the middle of his palate.”

[20:14]  ¹⁵ tn The perfect verb in the apodosis might express the suddenness of the change (see S. R. Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 204), or it might be a constative perfect looking at the action as a whole without reference to inception, progress, or completion (see IBHS 480-81 §30.1d). The Niphal perfect simply means “is turned” or “turns”; “sour is supplied in the translation to clarify what is meant.

[20:14]  ¹⁶ tn The word is “in his loins” or “within him.” Some translate more specifically “bowels.”

[20:14]  ¹⁷ sn Some commentators suggest that the ancients believed that serpents secreted poison in the gall bladder, or that the poison came from the gall bladder of serpents. In any case, there is poison (from the root “bitter”) in the system of the wicked person; it may simply be saying it is that type of poison.

[20:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “swallowed.”

[20:15]  ¹⁹ tn The choice of words is excellent. The verb יָרַשׁ (yarash) means either “to inherit” or “to disinherit; to dispossess.” The context makes the figure clear that God is administering the emetic to make the wicked throw up the wealth (thus, “God will make him throw it out…”); but since wealth is the subject there is a disinheritance meant here.

[20:16]  ²⁰ tn The word is a homonym for the word for “head,” which has led to some confusion in the early versions.

[20:16]  ²¹ sn To take the possessions of another person is hereby compared to sucking poison from a serpent – it will kill eventually.

[20:16]  ²² tn Heb “tongue.”

[20:16]  ²³ tn Some have thought this verse is a gloss on v. 14 and should be deleted. But the word for “viper” (אֶפְעֶה, ’ef’eh) is a rare word, occurring only here and in Isa 30:6 and 59:5. It is unlikely that a rarer word would be used in a gloss. But the point is similar to v. 14 – the wealth that was greedily sucked in by the wicked proves to be their undoing. Either this is totally irrelevant to Job’s case, a general discussion, or the man is raising questions about how Job got his wealth.

[20:17]  ²⁴ tn The word פְּלַגּוֹת (pÿlaggot) simply means “streams” or “channels.” Because the word is used elsewhere for “streams of oil” (cf. 29:6), and that makes a good parallelism here, some supply “oil” (cf. NAB, NLT). But the second colon of the verse is probably in apposition to the first. The verb “see” followed by the preposition bet, “to look on; to look over,” means “to enjoy as a possession,” an activity of the victor.

[20:17]  ²⁵ tn The construct nouns here have caused a certain amount of revision. It says “rivers of, torrents of.” The first has been emended by Klostermann to יִצְהָר (yitshar, “oil”) and connected to the first colon. Older editors argued for a נָהָר (nahar) that meant “oil” but that was not convincing. On the other hand, there is support for having more than one construct together serving as apposition (see GKC 422 §130.e). If the word “streams” in the last colon is a construct, that would mean three of them; but that one need not be construct. The reading would be “He will not see the streams, [that is] the rivers [which are] the torrents of honey and butter.” It is unusual, but workable.

[20:17]  ²⁶ sn This word is often translated “curds.” It is curdled milk, possibly a type of butter.

[20:18]  ²⁷ tn The idea is the fruit of his evil work. The word יָגָע (yaga’) occurs only here; it must mean ill-gotten gains. The verb is in 10:3.

[20:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and he does not swallow.” In the context this means “consume” for his own pleasure and prosperity. The verbal clause is here taken adverbially.

[20:18]  ²⁹ sn The expression is “according to the wealth of his exchange.” This means he cannot enjoy whatever he gained in his business deals. Some mss have בּ (bet) preposition, making the translation easier; but this is evidence of a scribal correction.

[20:19]  ³⁰ tc The verb indicates that after he oppressed the poor he abandoned them to their fate. But there have been several attempts to improve on the text. Several have repointed the text to get a word parallel to “house.” Ehrlich came up with עֹזֵב (’ozev, “mud hut”), Kissane had “hovel” (similar to Neh 3:8). M. Dahood did the same (“The Root ’zb II in Job,” JBL 78 [1959]: 306-7). J. Reider came up with עֶזֶב (’ezev, the “leavings”), what the rich were to leave for the poor (“Contributions to the Scriptural text,” HUCA 24 [1952/53]: 103-6). But an additional root עָזַב (’azav) is questionable. And while the text as it stands is general and not very striking, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Dhorme reverses the letters to gain בְּעֹז (bÿ’oz, “with force [or violence]”).

[20:19]  ³¹ tn The last clause says, “and he did not build it.” This can be understood in an adverbial sense, supplying the relative pronoun to the translation.

[20:20]  ³² tn Heb “belly,” which represents his cravings, his desires and appetites. The “satisfaction” is actually the word for “quiet; peace; calmness; ease.” He was driven by greedy desires, or he felt and displayed an insatiable greed.

[20:20]  ³³ tn The verb is the passive participle of the verb חָמַד (khamad) which is one of the words for “covet; desire.” This person is controlled by his desires; there is no escape. He is a slave.

[20:20]  ³⁴ tn The verb is difficult to translate in this line. It basically means “to cause to escape; to rescue.” Some translate this verb as “it is impossible to escape”; this may work, but is uncertain. Others translate the verb in the sense of saving something else: N. Sarna says, “Of his most cherished possessions he shall save nothing” (“The Interchange of the Preposition bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 [1959]: 315-16). The RSV has “he will save nothing in which he delights”; NIV has “he cannot save himself by his treasure.”

[11:9]  ³⁵ tn Heb “in your youth”; or “in your childhood.”

[11:9]  ³⁶ tn Heb “walk in the ways of your heart.”

[11:9]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the sight.”

[11:9]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and know that concerning all these God will bring you into judgment.” The point is not that following one’s impulses and desires is inherently bad and will bring condemnation from God. Rather the point seems to be: As you follow your impulses and desires, realize that all you think and do will eventually be evaluated by God. So one must seek joy within the boundaries of God’s moral standards.