Amsal 1:25

1:25 because ¹  you neglected ²  all my advice,

and did not comply ³  with my rebuke,

Amsal 5:11

5:11 And at the end of your life ⁴  you will groan ⁵ 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ⁶ 

Amsal 6:7

6:7 It has no commander,

overseer, or ⁷  ruler,

Amsal 10:22

10:22 The blessing ⁸  from the Lord ⁹  makes a person rich, ¹⁰ 

and he adds no sorrow ¹¹  to ¹²  it.

Amsal 14:7

14:7 Leave the presence of a foolish person, ¹³ 

or ¹⁴  you will not understand ¹⁵  wise counsel. ¹⁶ 

Amsal 15:22

15:22 Plans fail ¹⁷  when there is no counsel,

but with abundant advisers they are established. ¹⁸ 

Amsal 18:3

18:3 When a wicked person ¹⁹  arrives, contempt ²⁰  shows up with him,

and with shame comes ²¹  a reproach.

Amsal 19:3

19:3 A person’s folly ²²  subverts ²³  his way,

and ²⁴  his heart rages ²⁵  against the Lord.

Amsal 21:4

21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart –

the agricultural product ²⁶  of the wicked is sin.

Amsal 22:19

22:19 So that ²⁷  your confidence may be in the Lord,

I am making them known to you today ²⁸  – even you.

Amsal 23:3-4

23:3 Do not crave that ruler’s ²⁹  delicacies,

for ³⁰  that food is deceptive. ³¹ 

23:4 Do not wear yourself out to become rich;

be wise enough to restrain yourself. ³² 

Amsal 23:32

23:32 Afterward ³³  it bites like a snake,

and stings like a viper.

Amsal 27:9

27:9 Ointment and incense make the heart rejoice, ³⁴ 

likewise the sweetness of one’s friend from sincere counsel. ³⁵ 

Amsal 27:23

27:23 Pay careful attention to ³⁶  the condition of your flocks, ³⁷ 

give careful attention ³⁸  to your herds,

Amsal 31:11

31:11 The heart of her husband has confidence ³⁹  in her,

and he has no lack of gain. ⁴⁰ 

[1:25]  ¹ tn Heb “and.”

[1:25]  ² tn The verb III פָּרַע means “to let go; to let alone” (BDB 828 s.v.). It can refer to unkempt hair of the head (Lev 10:6) or lack of moral restraint: “to let things run free” (Exod 32:25; Prov 28:19). Here it means “to avoid, neglect” the offer of wisdom (BDB 829 s.v. 2).

[1:25]  ³ tn The verbs are characteristic perfects or indefinite pasts. For the word “comply, consent,” see 1:20.

[5:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ⁵ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  sn The verb means “to growl, groan.” It refers to a lion when it devours its prey, and to a sufferer in pain or remorse (e.g., Ezek 24:23).

[5:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”

[6:7]  ⁷ tn The conjunction vav (ו) here has the classification of alternative, “or” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 71, §433).

[10:22]  ⁸ tn The term בְּרָכָּה (bÿrakhah, “blessing”) refers to a gift, enrichment or endowment from the Lord.

[10:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions here as a genitive of source.

[10:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “makes rich” (so NASB); NAB “brings wealth.” The direct object “a person” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the Hiphil verb; it is supplied in the translation.

[10:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “toil.” The noun עֶצֶב (’etsev) has a basic two-fold range of meanings: (1) “toil; labor” which produces pain and sorrow, and (2) “pain; sorrow” which is the result of toil and labor (BDB 780 s.v.). This is the word used of the curse of “toil” in man’s labor (Gen 3:17) and the “pain” in the woman’s child-bearing (Gen 3:16). God’s blessing is pure and untarnished – it does not bring physical pain or emotional sorrow.

[10:22]  ¹² tn Heb “with.”

[14:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “a man, a stupid fellow.”

[14:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and.” The vav (ו) that introduces this clause may be understood as meaning “or….”

[14:7]  ¹⁵ tc The MT reads וּבַל־יָדַעְתָּ (uval-yada’ta, “you did not know [the lips of knowledge]).” It must mean that one should leave the fool because he did not receive knowledge from what fools said. Tg. Prov 14:7 freely interprets the verse: “for there is no knowledge on his lips.” The LXX reflects a Hebrew Vorlage of וּכְלֵי־דַעַת (ukhÿle-da’at, “[wise lips] are weapons of discretion”). The textual variant involves wrong word division and orthographic confusion between ב (bet) and כ (kaf). C. H. Toy emends the text: “for his lips do not utter knowledge” as in 15:7 (Proverbs [ICC], 285). The MT is workable and more difficult.

[14:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “lips of knowledge” (so KJV, ASV). “Lips” is the metonymy of cause, and “knowledge” is an objective genitive (speaking knowledge) or attributive genitive (knowledgeable speech): “wise counsel.”

[15:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “go wrong” (so NRSV, NLT). The verb is the Hiphil infinitive absolute from פָּרַר, parar, which means “to break; to frustrate; to go wrong” (HALOT 975 s.v. I פרר 2). The plans are made ineffectual or are frustrated when there is insufficient counsel.

[15:22]  ¹⁸ sn The proverb says essentially the same thing as 11:14, but differently.

[18:3]  ¹⁹ tc The MT has “a wicked [person].” Many commentators emend the text to רֶשַׁע (resha’, “wickedness”) which makes better parallelism with “shame” (W. McKane, Proverbs [OTL], 521; R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes [AB], 112; C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 355; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV). However, there is no external evidence for this emendation.

[18:3]  ²⁰ sn “Contempt” (בּוּז, buz) accompanies the wicked; “reproach” (חֶרְפָּה, kherpah) goes with shame. This reproach refers to the critical rebukes and taunts of the community against a wicked person.

[18:3]  ²¹ tn The term “comes” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[19:3]  ²² tn Heb “the folly of a man.”

[19:3]  ²³ tn The verb סָלַף (salaf) normally means “to twist; to pervert; to overturn,” but in this context it means “to subvert” (BDB 701 s.v.); cf. ASV “subverteth.”

[19:3]  sn J. H. Greenstone comments: “Man’s own failures are the result of his own folly and should not be attributed to God” (Proverbs, 201).

[19:3]  ²⁴ tn The clause begins with vav on the nonverb phrase “against the Lord.” While clause structure and word order is less compelling in a book like Proverbs, this fits well as a circumstantial clause indicating concession.

[19:3]  ²⁵ sn The “heart raging” is a metonymy of cause (or adjunct); it represents the emotions that will lead to blaming God for the frustration. Genesis 42:28 offers a calmer illustration of this as the brothers ask what God was doing to them.

[21:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the tillage [נִר, nir] of the wicked is sin” (so NAB). The subject picks up the subjects of the first half of the verse, indicating they are equal – the tillage consists of the arrogance and pride. The word “tillage” is figurative, of course, signifying that the agricultural product (the point of the comparison) of the wicked is sin. The relationship between the ideas is then problematic. Are pride and arrogance what the wicked produce? Some (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV) have followed the LXX and Tg. Prov 21:4 to read “lamp” instead (נֵר, ner), but that does not solve the difficulty of the relationship between the expressions. It does, however, say that the life ( = lamp), which is arrogance and pride, is sin.

[22:19]  ²⁷ tn The form לִהְיוֹת (lihyot, “to be”) is the infinitive construct indicating the purpose (or result) of the teaching (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[22:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “I cause you to know.” The term “today” indicates that the verb should have the instantaneous nuance, and so an English present tense is used in the translation (“am making…known”).

[23:3]  ²⁹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (the ruler mentioned in v. 1) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:3]  ³⁰ sn The final line gives the causal clause: The impressive feast is not what it appears to be; the king is not doing you a favor, but rather wants something from you or is observing you (K&D 17:104); cf. TEV “he may be trying to trick you.”

[23:3]  ³¹ sn Verses 1-3 form the sixth saying about being cautious before rulers (cf. Instruction of Amememope, chap. 23, 23:13-18). One should not get too familiar with rulers, for they always have ulterior motives. The Mishnah cites Gamaliel as warning that a ruler only draws someone into his court for his purpose, but in their day of trouble he will not be there to help them (m. Abot 2:3).

[23:4]  ³² tn Heb “from your understanding cease.” In the context this means that the person should have enough understanding to stop wearing himself out trying to be rich (cf. NRSV “be wise enough to desist”).

[23:32]  ³³ tn Heb “its end”; NASB “At the last”; TEV (interpretively) “The next morning.”

[27:9]  ³⁴ sn The first line of the proverb provides the emblem to the parallel point. The emblem is the joy that anointing oil (ointment) and incense bring, and the point is the value of the advice of a friend.

[27:9]  ³⁵ tn Some think the MT is unintelligible as it stands: “The sweetness of his friend from the counsel of the soul.” The Latin version has “the soul is sweetened by the good counsels of a friend.” D. W. Thomas suggests, “counsels of a friend make sweet the soul” (“Notes on Some Passages in the Book of Proverbs,” VT 15 [1965]: 275). G. R. Driver suggests, “the counsel of a friend is sweeter than one’s own advice” (literally, “more than the counsel of the soul”). He also suggests “more than of fragrant wood.” See G. R. Driver, “Hebrew Notes,” ZAW 52 (1934): 54; idem, “Suggestions and Objections,” ZAW 55 (1937): 69-70. The LXX reads “and the soul is rent by misfortunes.” The MT, for want of better or more convincing readings, may be interpreted to mean something like “[Just as] ointment and incense brings joy to the heart, [so] the sweetness of one’s friend [comes] from his sincere counsel.”

[27:23]  ³⁶ tn The sentence uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect from יָדַע (yada’, “to know”). The imperfect here has been given the obligatory nuance, “you must know,” and that has to be intensified with the infinitive.

[27:23]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the faces of your flock.”

[27:23]  ³⁸ tn The idiom is “place [it on] your heart” or “take to heart.” Cf. NLT “put your heart into.”

[27:23]  sn The care of the flock must become the main focus of the will, for it is the livelihood. So v. 23 forms the main instruction of this lengthy proverb (vv. 23-27).

[31:11]  ³⁹ tn The first word of the second line begins with בּ (bet), the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The verb בָּטַח (batakh) means “to trust; to have confidence in.” With the subject of the verb being “the heart of her husband,” the idea is strengthened – he truly trusts her. Cf. NCV “trusts her completely”; NIV “has full confidence in her.”

[31:11]  ⁴⁰ sn The Hebrew word used here for “gain” (שָׁלָל, shalal) is unusual; it means “plunder; spoil” of war primarily (e.g., Isa 8:1-4 and the name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz). The point is that the gain will be as rich and bountiful as the spoils of war. The wife’s capabilities in business and domestic matters guarantee a rich profit and inspire the confidence of her husband.