If ¹  someone pampers his servant from youth, he will be a weakling ²  in the end.

biblegateway Pro 29:21

He who pampers his slave from childhood Will in the end find him to be a son.

A slave pampered from his youth will become arrogant later on.

Pamper a slave from childhood, and later he will be ungrateful.

biblegateway Pro 29:21

If a man pampers his servant from youth, he will bring grief in the end.

Whoever pampers his servant from childhood will in the end find him his heir.

bibleoremus Pro 29:21

A slave pampered from childhood will come to a bad end.

Pamper a slave from childhood, and in the end he will prove ungrateful.

biblegateway Pro 29:21

He who pampers his servant from childhood Will have him as a son in the end.

He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become [his] son at the length.

biblegateway Pro 29:21

If ¹  someone pampers his servant from youth, he will be a weakling ²  in the end.

¹ tn There is no conditional particle at the beginning of the verse; however, the relationship of the clauses, which lay down the condition first and then (with a vav) the consequences, indicates a conditional construction here. Cf. also NAB, NIV, NCV, TEV.

² tn The word מָגוֹן (magon) is a hapax legomenon; accordingly, it has been given a variety of interpretations. The LXX has “grief,” and this has been adopted by some versions (e.g., NIV, NCV). The idea would be that treating the servant too easily for so long would not train him at all, so he will be of little use, and therefore a grief. J. Reider takes the word to mean “weakling” from the Arabic root na’na (“to be weak”), with a noun/adjective form muna’ana’ (“weak; feeble”); see his “Etymological Studies in Biblical Hebrew,” VT 4 [1954]: 276-95. This would give a different emphasis to the sentence, but on the whole not very different than the first. In both cases the servant will not be trained well. Rashi, a Jewish scholar who lived a.d. 1040-1105, had the translation “a master.” The servant trained this way will assume authority in the household even as the son. This may be behind the KJV translation “son” (likewise ASV, NASB). Tg. Prov 29:21 and the Syriac have “to be uprooted,” which may reflect a different text entirely.