Amsal 16:5

16:5 The Lord abhors ¹  every arrogant person; ² 

rest assured ³  that they will not go unpunished. ⁴ 

Amsal 25:17

25:17 Don’t set foot too frequently ⁵  in your neighbor’s house,

lest he become weary ⁶  of you and hate you.

Amsal 26:15

26:15 The sluggard plunges ⁷  his hand in the dish;

he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth. ⁸ 

Amsal 29:19

29:19 A servant ⁹  cannot be corrected ¹⁰  by words,

for although ¹¹  he understands, there is no answer. ¹² 

[16:5]  ¹ tn Heb “an abomination of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) is a subjective genitive: “the Lord abhors.”

[16:5]  ² tn Heb “every proud of heart”; NIV “all the proud of heart.” “Heart” is the genitive of specification; the phrase is talking about people who have proud hearts, whose ideas are arrogant. These are people who set themselves presumptuously against God (e.g., 2 Chr 26:16; Ps 131:1; Prov 18:12).

[16:5]  ³ tn Heb “hand to hand.” This idiom means “you can be assured” (e.g., Prov 11:21).

[16:5]  ⁴ tc The LXX has inserted two couplets here: “The beginning of a good way is to do justly, // and it is more acceptable with God than to do sacrifices; // he who seeks the Lord will find knowledge with righteousness, // and they who rightly seek him will find peace.” C. H. Toy reminds the reader that there were many proverbs in existence that sounded similar to those in the book of Proverbs; these lines are in the Greek OT as well as in Sirach (Proverbs [ICC], 321-22).

[16:5]  tn The B-line continues the A-line, but explains what it means that they are an abomination to the Lord – he will punish them. “Will not go unpunished” is an understatement (tapeinosis) to stress first that they will certainly be punished; those who humble themselves before God in faith will not be punished.

[25:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “make your foot rare.” The verb is הֹקַר (hoqar), the Hiphil imperative of יָקַר (yaqar, “to be rare; to be precious”). To “make one’s foot rare” would mean to keep the visits to a minimum as well as making them valuable – things increase in value, according to the nuances of this word, when they are rare.

[25:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “gets full.” This verb means “to be sated; to be satisfied; to be filled.” It is often used with reference to food, but here it refers to frequent visits that wear out one’s welcome (cf. NLT).

[26:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “buries” (so many English versions); KJV “hideth”; NAB “loses.”

[26:15]  ⁸ sn The proverb is stating that the sluggard is too lazy to eat; this is essentially the same point made in 19:24 (see the note there).

[29:19]  ⁹ sn Servants could not be corrected by mere words; they had to be treated like children for they were frequently unresponsive. This, of course, would apply to certain kinds of servants. The Greek version translated this as “a stubborn servant.”

[29:19]  ¹⁰ tn The Niphal imperfect here is best rendered as a potential imperfect – “cannot be corrected.” The second line of the verse clarifies that even though the servant understands the words, he does not respond. It will take more.

[29:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for he understands, but there is no answer.” The concessive idea (“although”) is taken from the juxtaposition of the two parts.

[29:19]  ¹² sn To say “there is no answer” means that this servant does not obey – he has to be trained in a different way.