Amsal 5:11

5:11 And at the end of your life ¹  you will groan ² 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ³ 

Amsal 5:14

5:14 I almost ⁴  came to complete ruin ⁵ 

in the midst of the whole congregation!” ⁶ 

Amsal 18:3

18:3 When a wicked person ⁷  arrives, contempt ⁸  shows up with him,

and with shame comes ⁹  a reproach.

[5:11]  ¹ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ² 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]  ³ 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.”

[5:14]  ⁴ tn The expression כִּמְעַט (kim’at) is “like a little.” It means “almost,” and is used of unrealized action (BDB 590 s.v. 2). Cf. NCV “I came close to”; NLT “I have come to the brink of.”

[5:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).

[5:14]  ⁶ tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.

[18:3]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn The term “comes” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.