Amsal 6:33

6:33 He will be beaten and despised, ¹ 

and his reproach will not be wiped away; ² 

Amsal 8:33

8:33 Listen to my instruction ³  so that you may be wise, ⁴ 

and do not neglect it.

Amsal 14:34

14:34 Righteousness exalts ⁵  a nation,

but sin is a disgrace ⁶  to any people.

Amsal 16:12

16:12 Doing wickedness ⁷  is an abomination to kings,

because a throne ⁸  is established in righteousness.

Amsal 17:25

17:25 A foolish child is a grief ⁹  to his father,

and bitterness to the mother who bore him. ¹⁰ 

Amsal 18:7

18:7 The mouth of a fool is his ruin,

and his lips are a snare for his life. ¹¹ 

Amsal 18:9

18:9 The one who ¹²  is slack ¹³  in his work

is a brother ¹⁴  to one who destroys. ¹⁵ 

Amsal 21:4

21:4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart –

the agricultural product ¹⁶  of the wicked is sin.

Amsal 29:6

29:6 In the transgression of an evil person there is a snare, ¹⁷ 

but a righteous person can sing ¹⁸  and rejoice. ¹⁹ 

Amsal 30:22

30:22 under a servant ²⁰  who becomes king,

under a fool who is stuffed with food, ²¹ 

Amsal 31:12

31:12 She brings him ²²  good and not evil ²³ 

all the days of her life.

[6:33]  ¹ tn Heb “He will receive a wound and contempt.”

[6:33]  ² sn Even though the text has said that the man caught in adultery ruins his life, it does not mean that he was put to death, although that could have happened. He seems to live on in ignominy, destroyed socially and spiritually. He might receive blows and wounds from the husband and shame and disgrace from the spiritual community. D. Kidner observes that in a morally healthy society the adulterer would be a social outcast (Proverbs [TOTC], 75).

[8:33]  ³ tn Heb “discipline.”

[8:33]  ⁴ tn The construction uses two imperatives joined with the vav (ו); this is a volitive sequence in which result or consequence is being expressed.

[14:34]  ⁵ sn The verb תְּרוֹמֵם (tÿromem, translated “exalts”) is a Polel imperfect; it means “to lift up; to raise up; to elevate.” Here the upright dealings of the leaders and the people will lift up the people. The people’s condition in that nation will be raised.

[14:34]  ⁶ tn The term is the homonymic root II חֶסֶד (khesed, “shame; reproach”; BDB 340 s.v.), as reflected by the LXX translation. Rabbinic exegesis generally took it as I חֶסֶד (“loyal love; kindness”) as if it said, “even the kindness of some nations is a sin because they do it only for a show” (so Rashi, a Jewish scholar who lived a.d. 1040-1105).

[16:12]  ⁷ sn The “wickedness” mentioned here (רֶשַׁע, resha’) might better be understood as a criminal act, for the related word “wicked” can also mean the guilty criminal. If a king is trying to have a righteous administration, he will detest any criminal acts.

[16:12]  ⁸ tn The “throne” represents the administration, or the decisions made from the throne by the king, and so the word is a metonymy of adjunct (cf. NLT “his rule”).

[17:25]  ⁹ sn The Hebrew noun means “vexation, anger, grief.”

[17:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to the one who bore him.” Because the participle is feminine singular in Hebrew, this has been translated as “the mother who bore him.”

[17:25]  sn The proverb is similar to v. 21, 10:1, and 15:20.

[18:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “his soul” (so KJV, NASB, NIV).

[18:7]  sn What a fool says can ruin him. Calamity and misfortune can come to a person who makes known his lack of wisdom by what he says. It may be that his words incite anger, or merely reveal stupidity; in either case, he is in trouble.

[18:9]  ¹² tn Heb “Also, the one who.” Many commentators and a number of English versions omit the word “also.”

[18:9]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ sn These two troubling types, the slacker and the destroyer, are closely related.

[18:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “possessor of destruction.” This idiom means “destroyer” (so ASV); KJV “a great waster”; NRSV “a vandal.”

[21:4]  ¹⁶ 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.

[29:6]  ¹⁷ tn The Syriac and Tg. Prov 29:6 simplify the meaning by writing it with a passive verb: “the evil man is ensnared by his guilt.” The metaphor of the snare indicates that the evil person will be caught in his own transgression.

[29:6]  ¹⁸ tc The two verbs create some difficulty because the book of Proverbs does not usually duplicate verbs like this and because the first verb יָרוּן (yarun) is irregular. The BHS editors prefer to emend it to יָרוּץ (yaruts, “will rush”; cf. NAB “runs on joyfully”). W. McKane emends it to “exult” to form a hendiadys: “is deliriously happy” (Proverbs [OTL], 638). G. R. Driver suggests changing the word to יָדוֹן (yadon) based on two Hebrew mss and an Arabic cognate dana, “continue.” He translates it “but the righteous remains and rejoices” (“Problems in the Hebrew Text of Proverbs,” Bib 32 [1951]: 193-94). None of these changes are particularly helpful. The verb is unusual for a geminate root, but Gesenius shows several places where the same pattern can be seen in other geminate verbs (GKC 180 §67.q). In light of this it is preferable to retain the reading of the MT here.

[29:6]  ¹⁹ sn These two verbs express the confidence of the righteous – they have no fears and so can sing. So the proverb is saying that only the righteous can enjoy a sense of security.

[30:22]  ²⁰ sn A servant coming to power could become a tyrant if he is unaccustomed to the use of such power, or he might retain the attitude of a servant and be useless as a leader.

[30:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “filled with food” (so ASV); NASB “satisfied with food”; NAB, NRSV “glutted with food”; CEV “who eats too much”; NLT “who prospers.”

[30:22]  sn The expression stuffed with food probably represents prosperity in general. So the line portrays someone who suddenly comes into wealth, but continues to be boorish and irreligious.

[31:12]  ²² tn The first word of the third line begins with ג (gimel), the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[31:12]  ²³ sn The joining of these two words, “good” and “evil,” is frequent in the Bible; they contrast the prosperity and well-being of her contribution with what would be devastating and painful. The way of wisdom is always characterized by “good”; the way of folly is associated with “evil.”