Proverbs 14:13-14

14:13 Even in laughter the heart may ache, ¹ 

and the end ²  of joy may be ³  grief.

14:14 The backslider ⁴  will be paid back ⁵  from his own ways,

but a good person will be rewarded ⁶  for his.

[14:13]  ¹ sn No joy is completely free of grief. There is a joy that is superficial and there is underlying pain that will remain after the joy is gone.

[14:13]  ² tn Heb “and its end, joy, is grief.” The suffix may be regarded as an Aramaism, a proleptic suffix referring to “joy.”

[14:13]  ³ tn The phrase “may be” is not in the Hebrew but is supplied from the parallelism, which features an imperfect of possibility.

[14:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “a turning away of heart.” The genitive לֵב (lev, “heart”) functions as an attributive adjective: “a backslidden heart.” The term סוּג (sug) means “to move away; to move backwards; to depart; to backslide” (BDB 690 s.v. I סוּג). This individual is the one who backslides, that is, who departs from the path of righteousness.

[14:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “will be filled”; cf. KJV, ASV. The verb (“to be filled, to be satisfied”) here means “to be repaid,” that is, to partake in his own evil ways. His faithlessness will come back to haunt him.

[14:14]  ⁶ tn The phrase “will be rewarded” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.