Amsal 25:17-20

25:17 Don’t set foot too frequently ¹  in your neighbor’s house,

lest he become weary ²  of you and hate you.

25:18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow, ³ 

so is the one who testifies against ⁴  his neighbor as a false witness. ⁵ 

25:19 Like a bad tooth or a foot out of joint, ⁶ 

so is confidence ⁷  in an unfaithful person at the time of trouble. ⁸ 

25:20 Like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, ⁹ 

or like vinegar poured on soda, ¹⁰ 

so is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. ¹¹ 

[25:17]  ¹ 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]  ² 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).

[25:18]  ³ sn The first line identifies the emblem of the proverb: False witnesses are here compared to deadly weapons because they can cause the death of innocent people (e.g., Exod 20:16; Deut 5:20; and Prov 14:5).

[25:18]  ⁴ tn The verb עָנָה (’anah) followed by the preposition בְּ (bet) with its object means “to testify against” (answer against someone). With the preposition לְ (lamed) it would mean “to testify for” someone. Here the false witness is an adversary, hence the comparison with deadly weapons.

[25:18]  ⁵ tn While עֵד (’ed) could be interpreted as “evidence” (a meaning that came from a metonymy – what the witness gives in court), its normal meaning is “witness.” Here it would function as an adverbial accusative, specifying how he would answer in court.

[25:19]  ⁶ sn The similes in this emblematic parallelism focus on things that are incapable of performing certain activities – they are either too painful to use or are ineffective.

[25:19]  ⁷ tn Since there is no preposition to clarify the construction, there are two ways to take the term מִבְטָח (mivtakh, “confidence”) in the context. It can either refer (1) to reliance on an unfaithful person, or it can refer (2) to that on which the unfaithful person relies. C. H. Toy argues for the second, that what the faithless person relies on will fail him in the time of trouble (Proverbs [ICC], 466). This view requires a slight change in the MT to make “confidence” a construct noun (i.e., the confidence of the faithless); the first view, which fits better the MT as it stands, says that “confidence [in] a faithless person” is like relying on a decaying tooth or a lame foot. This is the view preferred in most English versions, including the present one.

[25:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the day of trouble”; KJV, NASB “in time of trouble.”

[25:20]  ⁹ tc The consonants of the Hebrew text of this verse are similar to the consonants in v. 19. The LXX has a much longer reading: “Like vinegar is bad for a wound, so a pain that afflicts the body afflicts the heart. Like a moth in a garment, and a worm in wood, so the pain of a man wounds the heart” (NRSV follows much of the LXX reading; NAB follows only the second sentence of the LXX reading). The idea that v. 20 is a dittogram is not very convincing; and the Greek version is too far removed to be of help in the matter.

[25:20]  ¹⁰ tn The second simile mentions pouring vinegar on soda. The LXX has “scab,” but that does not fit as a sensitive thing. The reference is to sodium carbonate (natural in Egypt) which can be neutralized with vinegar.

[25:20]  ¹¹ sn It is inappropriate and counterproductive to sing songs to a heavy heart. One needs to be sensitive to others (e.g., 1 Sam 19:9).