Amsal 4:14

4:14 Do not enter the path of the wicked

or walk ¹  in the way of those who are evil.

Amsal 18:9

18:9 The one who ²  is slack ³  in his work

is a brother ⁴  to one who destroys. ⁵ 

Amsal 18:13

18:13 The one who gives an answer ⁶  before he listens ⁷  –

that is his folly and his shame. ⁸ 

Amsal 21:3-4

21:3 To do righteousness and justice

is more acceptable ⁹  to the Lord than sacrifice. ¹⁰ 

21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart –

the agricultural product ¹¹  of the wicked is sin.

Amsal 31:27

31:27 She watches over ¹²  the ways of her household,

and does not eat the bread of idleness. ¹³ 

[4:14]  ¹ tn The verb אָשַׁר (’ashar, “to walk”) is not to be confused with the identically spelled homonym אָשַׁר “to pronounce happy” as in BDB 80 s.v. אָשַׁר.

[18:9]  ² tn Heb “Also, the one who.” Many commentators and a number of English versions omit the word “also.”

[18:9]  ³ tn The form מִתְרַפֶּה (mitrappeh) is the Hitpael participle, “showing oneself slack.” The verb means “to sink; to relax,” and in the causative stem “to let drop” the hands. This is the lazy person who does not even try to work.

[18:9]  ⁴ sn These two troubling types, the slacker and the destroyer, are closely related.

[18:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “possessor of destruction.” This idiom means “destroyer” (so ASV); KJV “a great waster”; NRSV “a vandal.”

[18:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “returns a word”; KJV “He that answereth a matter.”

[18:13]  ⁷ sn Poor listening and premature answering indicate that the person has a low regard for what the other is saying, or that he is too absorbed in his own ideas. The Mishnah lists this as the second characteristic of the uncultured person (m. Avot 5:7).

[18:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “it is folly to him and shame.” The verse uses formal parallelism, with the second colon simply completing the thought of the first.

[21:3]  ⁹ tn The Niphal participle בָּחַר (bakhar, “to choose”) means “choice to the Lord” or “chosen of the Lord,” meaning “acceptable to the Lord”; cf. TEV “pleases the Lord more.”

[21:3]  ¹⁰ sn The Lord prefers righteousness above religious service (e.g., Prov 15:8; 21:29; 1 Sam 15:22; Ps 40:6-8; Isa 1:11-17). This is not a rejection of ritual worship; rather, religious acts are without value apart from righteous living.

[21:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the tillage [נִר, nir] of the wicked is sin” (so NAB). The subject picks up the subjects of the first half of the verse, indicating they are equal – the tillage consists of the arrogance and pride. The word “tillage” is figurative, of course, signifying that the agricultural product (the point of the comparison) of the wicked is sin. The relationship between the ideas is then problematic. Are pride and arrogance what the wicked produce? Some (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV) have followed the LXX and Tg. Prov 21:4 to read “lamp” instead (נֵר, ner), but that does not solve the difficulty of the relationship between the expressions. It does, however, say that the life ( = lamp), which is arrogance and pride, is sin.

[31:27]  ¹² tn The first word of the eighteenth line begins with צ (tsade), the eighteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[31:27]  ¹³ sn The expression bread of idleness refers to food that is gained through idleness, perhaps given or provided for her. In the description of the passage one could conclude that this woman did not have to do everything she did; and this line affirms that even though she is well off, she will eat the bread of her industrious activity.