Proverbs 9:8-9

9:8 Do not reprove ¹  a mocker or ²  he will hate you;

reprove a wise person and he will love you.

9:9 Give instruction ³  to a wise person, ⁴  and he will become wiser still;

teach ⁵  a righteous person and he will add to his ⁶  learning.

[9:8]  ¹ tn In view of the expected response for reproof, the text now uses a negated jussive to advise against the attempt. This is paralleled antithetically by the imperative in the second colon. This imperative is in an understood conditional clause: “if you reprove a wise person.”

[9:8]  ² tn Heb “lest he hate you.” The particle פֶּן (pen, “lest”) expresses fear or precaution (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 79, §476). The antonyms “love” and “hate” suggest that the latter means “reject” and the former means “choosing and embracing.”

[9:9]  ³ tn The noun “instruction” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation.

[9:9]  ⁴ sn The parallelism shows what Proverbs will repeatedly stress, that the wise person is the righteous person.

[9:9]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn The term “his” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for the sake of smoothness and clarity.