Amsal 14:2

14:2 The one who walks in his uprightness fears the Lord, ¹ 

but the one who is perverted in his ways ²  despises him.

Amsal 19:23

19:23 Fearing the Lord ³  leads ⁴  to life, ⁵ 

and one who does so will live ⁶  satisfied; he will not be afflicted ⁷  by calamity.

Amsal 28:9

28:9 The one who turns away his ear ⁸  from hearing the law,

even his prayer ⁹  is an abomination. ¹⁰ 

[14:2]  ¹ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive.

[14:2]  ² tn Heb “crooked of ways”; NRSV “devious in conduct.” This construct phrase features a genitive of specification: “crooked in reference to his ways.” The term “ways” is an idiom for moral conduct. The evidence that people fear the Lord is uprightness; the evidence of those who despise him is the devious ways.

[19:23]  ³ tn Heb “the fear of the Lord.” This expression features an objective genitive: “fearing the Lord.”

[19:23]  ⁴ tn The term “leads” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and style.

[19:23]  ⁵ tn Here “life” is probably a metonymy of subject for “blessings and prosperity in life.” The plural form often covers a person’s “lifetime.”

[19:23]  ⁶ tn The subject of this verb is probably the one who fears the Lord and enjoys life. So the proverb uses synthetic parallelism; the second half tells what this life is like – it is an abiding contentment that is not threatened by calamity (cf. NCV “unbothered by trouble”).

[19:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “he will not be visited” (so KJV, ASV). The verb פָּקַד (paqad) is often translated “visit.” It describes intervention that will change the destiny. If God “visits” it means he intervenes to bless or to curse. To be “visited by trouble” means that calamity will interfere with the course of life and change the direction or the destiny. Therefore this is not referring to a minor trouble that one might briefly experience. A life in the Lord cannot be disrupted by such major catastrophes that would alter one’s destiny.

[28:9]  ⁸ sn The expression “turn away the ear from hearing” uses a metonymy to mean that this individual will not listen – it indicates a deliberate refusal to follow the instruction of the law.

[28:9]  ⁹ sn It is hard to imagine how someone who willfully refuses to obey the law of God would pray according to the will of God. Such a person is more apt to pray for some physical thing or make demands on God. (Of course a prayer of repentance would be an exception and would not be an abomination to the Lord.)

[28:9]  ¹⁰ sn C. H. Toy says, “If a man, on his part, is deaf to instruction, then God, on his part, is deaf to prayer” (Proverbs [ICC], 499). And W. McKane observes that one who fails to attend to God’s law is a wicked person, even if he is a man of prayer (Proverbs [OTL], 623).