Amsal 3:10

3:10 then your barns will be filled completely, ¹ 

and your vats ²  will overflow ³  with new wine.

Amsal 7:8

7:8 He was passing by the street near her corner,

making his way ⁴  along the road to her house ⁵ 

Amsal 8:12

8:12 “I, wisdom, live with prudence, ⁶ 

and I find ⁷  knowledge and discretion.

Amsal 10:9

10:9 The one who conducts himself ⁸  in integrity ⁹  will live ¹⁰  securely,

but the one who behaves perversely ¹¹  will be found out.

Amsal 12:26

12:26 The righteous person is cautious in his friendship, ¹² 

but the way of the wicked leads them astray.

Amsal 14:6

14:6 The scorner ¹³  seeks wisdom but finds none, ¹⁴ 

but understanding is easy ¹⁵  for a discerning person.

Amsal 14:32

14:32 The wicked will be thrown down in his trouble, ¹⁶ 

but the righteous have refuge ¹⁷  even in the threat of death. ¹⁸ 

Amsal 15:11

15:11 Death and Destruction ¹⁹  are before the Lord –

how much more ²⁰  the hearts of humans! ²¹ 

Amsal 21:16

21:16 The one who wanders ²²  from the way of wisdom ²³ 

will end up ²⁴  in the company of the departed. ²⁵ 

Amsal 21:20

21:20 There is desirable treasure and olive oil ²⁶  in the dwelling of the wise,

but a foolish person ²⁷  devours all he has. ²⁸ 

Amsal 24:31

24:31 I saw ²⁹  that thorns had grown up all over it,

the ground ³⁰  was covered with weeds,

and its stone wall was broken down.

Amsal 25:25

25:25 Like cold water to a weary person, ³¹ 

so is good news from a distant land. ³² 

Amsal 27:20-21

27:20 As ³³  Death and Destruction are never satisfied, ³⁴ 

so the eyes of a person ³⁵  are never satisfied. ³⁶ 

27:21 As the crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold, ³⁷ 

so a person ³⁸  is proved ³⁹  by the praise he receives. ⁴⁰ 

[3:10]  ¹ tn Heb “with plenty” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “to overflowing.” The noun שָׂבָע (sava’, “plenty; satiety”) functions as an adverbial accusative of manner or contents: “completely.”

[3:10]  ² sn This pictures the process of pressing grapes in which the upper receptacle is filled with grapes and the lower one catches the juice. The harvest of grapes will be so plentiful that the lower vat will overflow with grape juice. The pictures in v. 10 are metonymies of effect for cause (= the great harvest that God will provide when they honor him).

[3:10]  ³ tn Heb “burst open.” The verb פָּרַץ (parats, “to burst open”) functions as hyperbole here to emphasize the fullness of the wine vats (BDB 829 s.v. 9).

[7:8]  ⁴ tn The verb צָעַד (tsa’ad) means “to step; to march.” It suggests that the youth was intentionally making his way to her house. The verb is the imperfect tense; it stresses continual action parallel to the active participle that began the verse, but within a context that is past time.

[7:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “way of her house.” This expression uses an adverbial accusative of location, telling where he was marching along. The term “house” is the genitive of location, giving the goal.

[8:12]  ⁶ tn The noun is “shrewdness,” i.e., the right use of knowledge in special cases (see also the discussion in 1:4); cf. NLT “good judgment.” The word in this sentence is an adverbial accusative of specification.

[8:12]  ⁷ tn This verb form is an imperfect, whereas the verb in the first colon was a perfect tense. The perfect should be classified as a gnomic perfect, and this form a habitual imperfect, because both verbs describe the nature of wisdom.

[10:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “he who walks.” The idiom is used widely in both OT and NT for conduct, behavior, or lifestyle.

[10:9]  ⁹ sn “Integrity” here means “blameless” in conduct. Security follows integrity, because the lifestyle is blameless. The righteous is certain of the course to be followed and does not fear retribution from man or God.

[10:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “walks.”

[10:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he who perverts his ways” (so NASB); NIV “who takes crooked paths” (NLT similar). The Piel participle מְעַקֵּשׁ (mÿ’aqqesh) means “make crooked; twisted; perverse.” It is stronger than simply taking crooked paths; it refers to perverting the ways. The one who is devious will not get away with it.

[12:26]  ¹² tn The line has several possible translations: (1) The verb יָתֵר (yater) can mean “to spy out; to examine,” which makes a good contrast to “lead astray” in the parallel colon. (2) יָתֵר could be the Hophal of נָתַר (natar, Hiphil “to set free”; Hophal “to be set free”): “the righteous is delivered from harm” [reading mera`ah] (J. A. Emerton, “A Note on Proverbs 12:26,” ZAW 76 [1964]: 191-93). (3) Another option is, “the righteous guides his friend aright” (cf. NRSV, NLT).

[14:6]  ¹³ sn The “scorner” (לֵץ, lets) is intellectually arrogant; he lacks any serious interest in knowledge or religion. He pursues wisdom in a superficial way so that he can appear wise. The acquisition of wisdom is conditioned by one’s attitude toward it (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 149).

[14:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and there is not.”

[14:6]  ¹⁵ sn The Niphal of קָלַל (qalal) means “to appear light; to appear trifling; to appear easy.”

[14:32]  ¹⁶ tn The prepositional phrase must be “in his time of trouble” (i.e., when catastrophe comes). Cf. CEV “In times of trouble the wicked are destroyed.” A wicked person has nothing to fall back on in such times.

[14:32]  ¹⁷ sn The righteous have hope in a just retribution – they have a place of safety even in death.

[14:32]  ¹⁸ tc The LXX reads this as “in his integrity,” as if it were בְּתוּמּוֹ (bÿtumo) instead of “in his death” (בְּמוֹתוֹ, bÿmoto). The LXX is followed by some English versions (e.g., NAB “in his honesty,” NRSV “in their integrity,” and TEV “by their integrity”).

[14:32]  tn Heb “in his death.” The term “death” may function as a metonymy of effect for a life-threatening situation.

[15:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Sheol and Abaddon” (שְׁאוֹל וַאֲבַדּוֹן (shÿ’ol va’adon); so ASV, NASB, NRSV; cf. KJV “Hell and destruction”; NAB “the nether world and the abyss.” These terms represent the remote underworld and all the mighty powers that reside there (e.g., Prov 27:20; Job 26:6; Ps 139:8; Amos 9:2; Rev 9:11). The Lord knows everything about this remote region.

[15:11]  ²⁰ tn The construction אַף כִּי (’af ki, “how much more!”) introduces an argument from the lesser to the greater: If all this is open before the Lord, how much more so human hearts. “Hearts” here is a metonymy of subject, meaning the motives and thoughts (cf. NCV “the thoughts of the living”).

[15:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “the hearts of the sons of man,” although here “sons of man” simply means “men” or “human beings.”

[21:16]  ²² tn The text uses “man” as the subject and the active participle תּוֹעֶה (to’eh) as the predicate. The image of “wandering off the path” signifies leaving a life of knowledge, prudence, and discipline.

[21:16]  ²³ tn Or “prudence”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV “understanding”; NLT “common sense.”

[21:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “will remain” or “will rest.” The Hebrew word נוּחַ (nuakh) does not here carry any of the connotations of comforting repose in death that the righteous enjoy; it simply means “to remain; to reside; to dwell.” The choice of this verb might have an ironic twist to it, reminding the wicked what might have been.

[21:16]  ²⁵ sn The departed are the Shades (the Rephaim). The literal expression “will rest among the Shades” means “will be numbered among the dead.” So once again physical death is presented as the punishment for folly.

[21:20]  ²⁶ tn The mention of “olive oil” (שֶׁמֶן, shemen) is problematic in the line – how can a fool devour it? Several attempts have been made to alleviate the problem. The NIV interprets “treasure” as “choice food,” so that food and oil would make more sense being swallowed. C. H. Toy (Proverbs [ICC], 406) suggests dropping “oil” altogether based on the reading in the LXX, but the Greek is too general for any support: It has “precious treasure will rest on the mouth of the sage.” W. McKane wants to change “oil” to an Arabic word “expensive” to read “desirable and rare wealth” (Proverbs [OTL], 552), but this idea does not match the metaphor any better. The figure of “devouring” in the second line simply means the fool uses up whatever he has.

[21:20]  ²⁷ tn Heb “a fool of a man.”

[21:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he swallows it.” The imagery compares swallowing food with consuming one’s substance. The fool does not prepare for the future.

[24:31]  ²⁹ tn The Hebrew term וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh, traditionally “and, lo” [KJV, ASV]) is a deictic particle that calls attention to what comes next. “And look” is too abrupt here; “I saw” calls attention to the field that was noticed.

[24:31]  ³⁰ tn Heb “its face” (so KJV, ASV).

[25:25]  ³¹ tn Heb “a weary [or, faint] soul” (so NASB, NIV); KJV, ASV, NRSV “a thirsty soul,” but “soul” here refers to the whole person.

[25:25]  ³² sn The difficulty of getting news of any kind from a distant land made its reception all the more delightful when it was good (e.g., Gen 45:27; Prov 15:30).

[27:20]  ³³ tn The term “as” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation in light of the analogy.

[27:20]  ³⁴ sn Countless generations of people have gone into the world below; yet “death” is never satisfied – it always takes more. The line personifies Death and Destruction. It forms the emblem in the parallelism.

[27:20]  ³⁵ tn Heb “eyes of a man.” This expression refers to the desires – what the individual looks longingly on. Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:34 (one of the rabbinic Midrashim) says, “No man dies and has one-half of what he wanted.”

[27:20]  ³⁶ tc The LXX contains a scribal addition: “He who fixes his eye is an abomination to the Lord, and the uninstructed do not restrain their tongues.” This is unlikely to be original.

[27:21]  ³⁷ sn Once again this proverb uses emblematic parallelism. The crucible and the furnace are used to refine and thus reveal the pure metals. The analogy is that praise will reveal the person because others will examine and evaluate what an individual has done in order to make the public acclamation.

[27:21]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and a man,” but the context does not indicate this is limited only to males.

[27:21]  ³⁹ tn The verb “is proved” was supplied in the translation in view of the analogy. Many English versions supply “tested” for the same reason.

[27:21]  sn The proverb is saying that public praise is usually a good measure of the qualities and contributions of a person. The other side of it is that righteousness is often denounced, but the proverb is not addressing everything that people say.

[27:21]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “by [the] praise of him.” The pronominal suffix is an objective genitive, meaning “the praise about him” (= “the praise he receives”). Some commentators would take the suffix as a subjective genitive, meaning “the praise he gives”; this would mean people stand revealed by what they praise (D. Kidner, Proverbs [TOTC], 168). That does not seem to work as well with the emblem of the first line which indicates being tested. The LXX adds a couplet: “The heart of the transgressor seeks evil; but the upright heart seeks knowledge.”