Proverbs 9:4-6

9:4 “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,”

she says ¹  to those ²  who lack understanding. ³ 

9:5 “Come, eat ⁴  some of my food,

and drink some of the wine I have mixed. ⁵ 

9:6 Abandon your foolish ways ⁶  so that you may live, ⁷ 

and proceed ⁸  in the way of understanding.”

[9:4]  ¹ tn Heb “lacking of heart she says to him.” The pronominal suffix is a resumptive pronoun, meaning, “she says to the lacking of heart.”

[9:4]  ² tn Heb “him.”

[9:4]  ³ tn Heb “heart”; cf. NIV “to those who lack judgment.”

[9:5]  ⁴ tn The construction features a cognate accusative (verb and noun from same root). The preposition בּ (bet) has the partitive use “some” (GKC 380 §119.m).

[9:5]  ⁵ tn The final verb actually stands in a relative clause although the relative pronoun is not present; it modifies “wine.”

[9:6]  ⁶ tn There are two ways to take this word: either as “fools” or as “foolish ways.” The spelling for “foolishness” in v. 13 differs from this spelling, and so some have taken that as an indicator that this should be “fools.” But this could still be an abstract plural here as in 1:22. Either the message is to forsake fools (i.e., bad company; cf. KJV, TEV) or forsake foolishness (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT).

[9:6]  ⁷ tn The two imperatives are joined with vav; this is a volitive sequence in which result or consequence is expressed.

[9:6]  ⁸ tn The verb means “go straight, go on, advance” or “go straight on in the way of understanding” (BDB 80 s.v. אָשַׁר).