Psalms 57:4

57:4 I am surrounded by lions;

I lie down ¹  among those who want to devour me; ² 

men whose teeth are spears and arrows,

whose tongues are a sharp sword. ³ 

Psalms 59:7

59:7 Look, they hurl insults at me

and openly threaten to kill me, ⁴ 

for they say, ⁵ 

“Who hears?”

Proverbs 11:9

11:9 With his speech ⁶  the godless person ⁷  destroys ⁸  his neighbor,

but by knowledge ⁹  the righteous will be delivered.

Proverbs 11:12

11:12 The one who denounces ¹⁰  his neighbor lacks wisdom, ¹¹ 

but the one who has discernment ¹²  keeps silent. ¹³ 

Proverbs 11:18

11:18 The wicked person ¹⁴  earns ¹⁵  deceitful wages, ¹⁶ 

but the one who sows ¹⁷  righteousness reaps ¹⁸  a genuine ¹⁹  reward. ²⁰ 

Proverbs 16:27

16:27 A wicked scoundrel ²¹  digs up ²²  evil,

and his slander ²³  is like a scorching fire. ²⁴ 

Proverbs 18:8

18:8 The words of a gossip ²⁵  are like choice morsels; ²⁶ 

they go down into the person’s innermost being. ²⁷ 

Proverbs 18:21

18:21 Death and life are in the power ²⁸  of the tongue, ²⁹ 

and those who love its use ³⁰  will eat its fruit.

James 3:5-8

3:5 So too the tongue is a small part of the body, ³¹  yet it has great pretensions. ³²  Think ³³  how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze. 3:6 And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents ³⁴  the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It ³⁵  pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell. ³⁶ 

3:7 For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature ³⁷  is subdued and has been subdued by humankind. ³⁸  3:8 But no human being can subdue the tongue; it is a restless ³⁹  evil, full of deadly poison.

[57:4]  ¹ tn The cohortative form אֶשְׁכְּבָה (’eshkÿvah, “I lie down”) is problematic, for it does not seem to carry one of the normal functions of the cohortative (resolve or request). One possibility is that the form here is a “pseudo-cohortative” used here in a gnomic sense (IBHS 576-77 §34.5.3b).

[57:4]  ² tn The Hebrew verb לָהַט (lahat) is here understood as a hapax legomenon meaning “devour” (see HALOT 521 s.v. II להט), a homonym of the more common verb meaning “to burn.” A more traditional interpretation takes the verb from this latter root and translates, “those who are aflame” (see BDB 529 s.v.; cf. NASB “those who breathe forth fire”).

[57:4]  ³ tn Heb “my life, in the midst of lions, I lie down, devouring ones, sons of mankind, their teeth a spear and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.” The syntax of the verse is difficult. Another option is to take “my life” with the preceding verse. For this to make sense, one must add a verb, perhaps “and may he deliver” (cf. the LXX), before the phrase. One might then translate, “May God send his loyal love and faithfulness and deliver my life.” If one does take “my life” with v. 4, then the parallelism of v. 5 is altered and one might translate: “in the midst of lions I lie down, [among] men who want to devour me, whose teeth….”

[59:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “look, they gush forth with their mouth, swords [are] in their lips.”

[59:7]  ⁵ tn The words “for they say” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The following question (“Who hears?”) is spoken by the psalmist’s enemies, who are confident that no one else can hear their threats against the psalmist. They are aggressive because they feel the psalmist is vulnerable and has no one to help him.

[11:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “with his mouth.” The term פֶּה (peh, “mouth”) functions as a metonymy of cause for speech.

[11:9]  ⁷ sn The Hebrew word originally meant “impious, godless, polluted, profane.” It later developed the idea of a “hypocrite” (Dan 11:32), one who conceals his evil under the appearance of godliness or kindness. This one is a false flatterer.

[11:9]  ⁸ sn The verb שָׁחַת (shakhat) means “to destroy; to ruin” (e.g., the destruction of Sodom in Gen 13:10). The imperfect tense is probably not an habitual imperfect (because the second colon shows exceptions), but probably a progressive imperfect (“this goes on”) or potential imperfect (“they can do this”).

[11:9]  ⁹ sn The antithetical proverb states that a righteous person can escape devastating slander through knowledge. The righteous will have sufficient knowledge and perception to see through the hypocrisy and avoid its effect.

[11:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “despises” (so NASB) or “belittles” (so NRSV). The participle בָּז (baz, from בּוּז, buz) means “to despise; to show contempt for” someone. It reflects an attitude of pride and judgmentalism. In view of the parallel line, in this situation it would reflect perhaps some public denunciation of another person.

[11:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “heart.” The noun לֵב (lev, “heart”) functions as a metonymy of association for wisdom, since the heart is often associated with knowledge and wisdom (BDB 524 s.v. 3.a).

[11:12]  ¹² tn Heb “a man of discernment.”

[11:12]  ¹³ sn The verb translated “keeps silence” (יַחֲרִישׁ, yakharish) means “holds his peace.” Rather than publicly denouncing another person’s mistake or folly, a wise person will keep quiet about it (e.g., 1 Sam 10:27). A discerning person realizes that the neighbor may become an opponent and someday retaliate.

[11:18]  ¹⁴ tn The form is the masculine singular adjective used as a substantive.

[11:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “makes” (so NAB).

[11:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “wages of deception.”

[11:18]  ¹⁷ sn The participle “sowing” provides an implied comparison (the figure is known as hypocatastasis) with the point of practicing righteousness and inspiring others to do the same. What is sown will yield fruit (1 Cor 9:11; 2 Cor 9:6; Jas 3:18).

[11:18]  ¹⁸ tn The term “reaps” does not appear in the Hebrew but has been supplied in the translation from context for the sake of smoothness.

[11:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “true” (so NASB, NRSV); KJV, NAB, NIV “sure.”

[11:18]  ²⁰ sn A wordplay (paronomasia) occurs between “deceptive” (שָׁקֶר, shaqer) and “reward” (שֶׂכֶר, sekher), underscoring the contrast by the repetition of sounds. The wages of the wicked are deceptive; the reward of the righteous is sure.

[16:27]  ²¹ tn Heb “a man of belial.” This phrase means “wicked scoundrel.” Some translate “worthless” (so ASV, NASB, CEV), but the phrase includes deep depravity and wickedness (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 125-26).

[16:27]  ²² tn Heb “digs up” (so NASB). The “wicked scoundrel” finds out about evil and brings it to the surface (Prov 26:27; Jer 18:20). What he digs up he spreads by speech.

[16:27]  ²³ tn Heb “on his lips” (so NAB) The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause. To say that “evil” is on his lips means that he talks about the evil he has dug up.

[16:27]  ²⁴ sn The simile stresses the devastating way that slander hurts people. W. McKane says that this one “digs for scandal and…propagates it with words which are ablaze with misanthropy” (Proverbs [OTL], 494).

[18:8]  ²⁵ tn Or “slanderer”; KJV, NAB “talebearer”; ASV, NRSV “whisperer.”

[18:8]  ²⁶ tn The word כְּמִתְלַהֲמִים (kÿmitlahamim) occurs only here. It is related to a cognate verb meaning “to swallow greedily.” Earlier English versions took it from a Hebrew root הָלַם (halam, see the word לְמַהֲלֻמוֹת [lÿmahalumot] in v. 6) meaning “wounds” (so KJV). But the translation of “choice morsels” fits the idea of gossip better.

[18:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they go down [into] the innermost parts of the belly”; NASB “of the body.”

[18:21]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in the hand of.”

[18:21]  ²⁹ sn What people say can lead to life or death. The Midrash on Psalms shows one way the tongue [what is said] can cause death: “The evil tongue slays three, the slanderer, the slandered, and the listener” (Midrash Tehillim 52:2). See J. G. Williams, “The Power of Form: A Study of Biblical Proverbs,” Semeia 17 (1980): 35-38.

[18:21]  ³⁰ tn The referent of “it” must be the tongue, i.e., what the tongue says (= “its use”). So those who enjoy talking, indulging in it, must “eat” its fruit, whether good or bad. The expression “eating the fruit” is an implied comparison; it means accept the consequences of loving to talk (cf. TEV).

[3:5]  ³¹ tn Grk “a small member.”

[3:5]  ³² tn Grk “boasts of great things.”

[3:5]  ³³ tn Grk “Behold.”

[3:6]  ³⁴ tn Grk “makes itself,” “is made.”

[3:6]  ³⁵ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[3:6]  ³⁶ sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36).

[3:7]  ³⁷ tn Grk (plurals), “every kind of animals and birds, of reptiles and sea creatures.”

[3:7]  ³⁸ tn Grk “the human species.”

[3:8]  ³⁹ tc Most mss (C Ψ 1739^c Ï as well as a few versions and fathers) read “uncontrollable” (ἀκατασχετόν, akatasceton), while the most important witnesses (א A B K P 1739* latt) have “restless” (ἀκατάστατον, akatastaton). Externally, the latter reading should be preferred. Internally, however, things get a bit more complex. The notion of being uncontrollable is well suited to the context, especially as a counterbalance to v. 8a, though for this very reason scribes may have been tempted to replace ἀκατάστατον with ἀκατασχετόν. However, in a semantically parallel early Christian text, ἀκατάστατος (akatastato") was considered strong enough of a term to denounce slander as “a restless demon” (Herm. 27:3). On the other hand, ἀκατάστατον may have been substituted for ἀκατασχετόν by way of assimilation to 1:8 (especially since both words were relatively rare, scribes may have replaced the less familiar with one that was already used in this letter). On internal evidence, it is difficult to decide, though ἀκατασχετόν is slightly preferred. However, in light of the strong support for ἀκατάστατον, and the less-than-decisive internal evidence, ἀκατάστατον is preferred instead.