Psalms 73:22

73:22 I was ignorant ¹  and lacked insight; ² 

I was as senseless as an animal before you. ³ 

Psalms 92:6-7

92:6 The spiritually insensitive do not recognize this;

the fool does not understand this. ⁴ 

92:7 When the wicked sprout up like grass,

and all the evildoers glisten, ⁵ 

it is so that they may be annihilated. ⁶ 

Psalms 94:8

94:8 Take notice of this, ⁷  you ignorant people! ⁸ 

You fools, when will you ever understand?

Proverbs 12:1

12:1 The one who loves discipline loves knowledge, ⁹ 

but the one who hates reproof is stupid. ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 30:2

30:2 Surely ¹¹  I am more brutish ¹²  than any other human being, ¹³ 

and I do not have human understanding; ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 10:8

10:8 The people of those nations ¹⁵  are both stupid and foolish.

Instruction from a wooden idol is worthless! ¹⁶ 

[73:22]  ¹ tn Or “brutish, stupid.”

[73:22]  ² tn Heb “and I was not knowing.”

[73:22]  ³ tn Heb “an animal I was with you.”

[92:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “the brutish man does not know, and the fool does not understand this.” The adjective בַּעַר (ba’ar, “brutish”) refers to spiritual insensitivity, not mere lack of intelligence or reasoning ability (see Pss 49:10; 73:22; Prov 12:1; 30:2, as well as the use of the related verb in Ps 94:8).

[92:7]  ⁵ tn Or “flourish.”

[92:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “in order that they might be destroyed permanently.”

[94:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “understand.” The verb used in v. 7 is repeated here for rhetorical effect. The people referred to here claim God is ignorant of their actions, but the psalmist corrects their faulty viewpoint.

[94:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “[you] brutish among the people.”

[12:1]  ⁹ sn Those who wish to improve themselves must learn to accept correction; the fool hates/rejects any correction.

[12:1]  ¹⁰ sn The word בָּעַר (ba’ar, “brutish; stupid”) normally describes dumb animals that lack intellectual sense. Here, it describes the moral fool who is not willing to learn from correction. He is like a dumb animal (so the term here functions as a hypocatastasis: implied comparison).

[30:2]  ¹¹ tn The particle כִּי (ki) functions in an asseverative sense, “surely; indeed; truly” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §449).

[30:2]  ¹² tn The noun בַּעַר (ba’ar) means “brutishness”; here it functions as a predicate adjective. It is followed by מֵאִישׁ (me’ish) expressing comparative degree: “more than a man” or “more than any man,” with “man” used in a generic sense. He is saying that he has fallen beneath the level of mankind. Cf. NRSV “I am too stupid to be human.”

[30:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “than man.” The verse is using hyperbole; this individual feels as if he has no intelligence at all, that he is more brutish than any other human. Of course this is not true, or he would not be able to speculate on the God of the universe at all.

[30:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the understanding of a man,” with “man” used attributively here.

[10:8]  ¹⁵ tn Or “Those wise people and kings are…” It is unclear whether the subject is the “they” of the nations in the preceding verse, or the wise people and kings referred to. The text merely has “they.”

[10:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “The instruction of vanities [worthless idols] is wood.” The meaning of this line is a little uncertain. Various proposals have been made to make sense, most of which involve radical emendation of the text. For some examples see J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 323-24, fn 6. However, this is probably a case of the bold predication that discussed in GKC 452 §141.d, some examples of which may be seen in Ps 109:4 “I am prayer,” and Ps 120:7 “I am peace.”