Amsal 11:28

11:28 The one who trusts in his riches will fall,

but the righteous ¹  will flourish like a green leaf. ² 

Amsal 14:14

14:14 The backslider ³  will be paid back ⁴  from his own ways,

but a good person will be rewarded ⁵  for his.

Amsal 23:7

23:7 for he is ⁶  like someone calculating the cost ⁷  in his mind. ⁸ 

“Eat and drink,” he says to you,

but his heart is not with you;

Amsal 25:14

25:14 Like cloudy skies and wind that produce no rain, ⁹ 

so is the one who boasts ¹⁰  of a gift not given. ¹¹ 

Amsal 26:12

26:12 Do you see ¹²  a man wise in his own eyes? ¹³ 

There is more hope for a fool ¹⁴  than for him.

Amsal 28:28

28:28 When the wicked gain control, ¹⁵  people ¹⁶  hide themselves, ¹⁷ 

but when they perish, ¹⁸  the righteous increase.

[11:28]  ¹ sn The implication from the parallelism is that the righteous do not trust in their own riches, but in the Lord.

[11:28]  ² tn Heb “leafage” or “leaf” (cf. KJV “as a branch”); TEV “leaves of summer”; NLT “leaves in spring.” The simile of a leaf is a figure of prosperity and fertility throughout the ancient Near East.

[14:14]  ³ tn Heb “a turning away of heart.” The genitive לֵב (lev, “heart”) functions as an attributive adjective: “a backslidden heart.” The term סוּג (sug) means “to move away; to move backwards; to depart; to backslide” (BDB 690 s.v. I סוּג). This individual is the one who backslides, that is, who departs from the path of righteousness.

[14:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “will be filled”; cf. KJV, ASV. The verb (“to be filled, to be satisfied”) here means “to be repaid,” that is, to partake in his own evil ways. His faithlessness will come back to haunt him.

[14:14]  ⁵ tn The phrase “will be rewarded” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[23:7]  ⁶ tc The line is difficult; it appears to mean that the miser is the kind of person who has calculated the cost of everything in his mind as he offers the food. The LXX has: “Eating and drinking with him is as if one should swallow a hair; do not introduce him to your company nor eat bread with him.” The Hebrew verb “to calculate” (שָׁעַר, sha’ar) with a change of vocalization and of sibilant would yield “hair” (שֵׂעָר, se’ar) – “like a hair in the throat [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh], so is he.” This would picture an irritating experience. The Instruction of Amenemope uses “blocking the throat” in a similar saying (chapt. 11, 14:7 [ANET 423]). The suggested change is plausible and is followed by NRSV; but the rare verb “to calculate” in the MT would be easier to defend on the basis of the canons of textual criticism because it is the more difficult reading.

[23:7]  ⁷ tn The phrase “the cost” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the verb; it is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[23:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “soul.”

[25:14]  ⁹ sn The emblem now is one of clouds and winds that would be expected to produce rain; they gain attention and raise people’s expectations but prove to be disappointing when no rain is forthcoming, and hence could be thought of as deceitful.

[25:14]  ¹⁰ tn The form מִתְהַלֵּל (mithallel) is the Hitpael participle of the well-known word for “praise”; but in this stem it means “to praise oneself” or “to boast.” The description of “windbag” seems appropriate in this context.

[25:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a gift of falsehood.” This would mean that the individual brags about giving a gift, when there is no gift.

[26:12]  ¹² tn The verse simply uses a perfect tense. The meaning of the verse would be the same if this were interpreted as an affirmation rather than as an interrogative. The first line calls such a person to one’s attention.

[26:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “in his own eyes” (so NAB, NASB, NIV).

[26:12]  sn The subject matter of the verse is the person who is wise in his own opinion. Self-conceit is actually part of the folly that the book of Proverbs criticizes; those who think they are wise even though they are not are impossible to help. For someone to think he is wise when he is not makes him a conceited ignoramus (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 268).

[26:12]  ¹⁴ sn Previous passages in the book of Proverbs all but deny the possibility of hope for the fool. So this proverb is saying there is absolutely no hope for the self-conceited person, and there might be a slight hope for the fool – he may yet figure out that he really is a fool.

[28:28]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the wicked rise,” referring to an accession to power, as in a government. Cf. TEV “come to power”; NLT “take charge.”

[28:28]  sn The proverb is essentially the same as 28:12 (e.g., Prov 11:10; 29:2, 16). It refers to the wicked “rising to power” in government.

[28:28]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a man” or “mankind” in a generic sense.

[28:28]  ¹⁷ tn The form is the Niphal imperfect of סָתַר (satar, “to hide”); in this stem it can mean “to hide themselves” or “to go into hiding.” In either case the expression would be a hyperbole; the populace would not go into hiding, but they would tread softly and move about cautiously. G. R. Driver suggests the Akkadian sataru instead, which means “to demolish,” and is cognate to the Aramaic “to destroy.” This would produce the idea that people are “destroyed” when the wicked come to power (“Problems in the Hebrew Text of Proverbs,” Bib 32 [1951]: 192-93). That meaning certainly fits the idea, but there is no reason for the change because the MT is perfectly readable as it is and makes good sense.

[28:28]  ¹⁸ tn The two clauses have parallel constructions: They both begin with infinitives construct with prepositions functioning as temporal clauses, followed by subjective genitives (first the wicked, and then the pronoun referring to them). This heightens the antithesis: “when the wicked rise…when they perish.”