Amsal 4:17

4:17 For they eat bread ¹  gained from wickedness ² 

and drink wine obtained from violence. ³ 

Amsal 5:16

5:16 Should your springs be dispersed ⁴  outside,

your streams of water in the wide plazas?

Amsal 8:28

8:28 when he established the clouds above,

when the fountains of the deep grew strong, ⁵ 

Amsal 9:5

9:5 “Come, eat ⁶  some of my food,

and drink some of the wine I have mixed. ⁷ 

Amsal 23:30

23:30 Those who linger over wine,

those who go looking for mixed wine. ⁸ 

[4:17]  ¹ tn The noun is a cognate accusative stressing that they consume wickedness.

[4:17]  ² tn Heb “the bread of wickedness” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV). There are two ways to take the genitives: (1) genitives of apposition: wickedness and violence are their food and drink (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT), or (2) genitives of source: they derive their livelihood from the evil they do (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 93).

[4:17]  ³ tn Heb “the wine of violence” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV). This is a genitive of source, meaning that the wine they drink was plundered from their violent crime. The Hebrew is structured in an AB:BA chiasm: “For they eat the bread of wickedness, and the wine of violence they drink.” The word order in the translation is reversed for the sake of smoothness and readability.

[5:16]  ⁴ tn The verb means “to be scattered; to be dispersed”; here the imperfect takes a deliberative nuance in a rhetorical question.

[8:28]  ⁵ tn To form a better parallel some commentators read this infinitive בַּעֲזוֹז (ba’azoz), “when [they] grew strong,” as a Piel causative, “when he made firm, fixed fast” (cf. NIV “fixed securely”; NLT “established”). But the following verse (“should not pass over”) implies the meaning “grew strong” here.

[9:5]  ⁶ tn The construction features a cognate accusative (verb and noun from same root). The preposition בּ (bet) has the partitive use “some” (GKC 380 §119.m).

[9:5]  ⁷ tn The final verb actually stands in a relative clause although the relative pronoun is not present; it modifies “wine.”

[9:5]  sn The expressions “eat” and “drink” carry the implied comparison forward; they mean that the simple are to appropriate the teachings of wisdom.

[23:30]  ⁸ sn The answer to the question posed in v. 29 is obviously one who drinks too much, which this verse uses metonymies to point out. Lingering over wine is an adjunct of drinking more wine; and seeking mixed wine obviously means with the effect or the purpose of drinking it.