11:3 Will your idle talk 1 reduce people to silence, 2
and will no one rebuke 3 you when you mock? 4
24:25 “If this is not so, who can prove me a liar
and reduce my words to nothing?” 5
1 tn The word means “chatter, pratings, boastings” (see Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30).
2 tn The verb חָרַשׁ (kharash) in the Hiphil means “to silence” (41:4); here it functions in a causative sense, “reduce to silence.”
3 tn The form מַכְלִם (makhlim, “humiliating, mocking”) is the Hiphil participle. The verb כָּלַם (kalam) has the meaning “cover with shame, insult” (Job 20:3).
4 tn The construction shows the participle to be in the circumstantial clause: “will you mock – and [with] no one rebuking.”
5 tn The word אַל (’al, “not”) is used here substantivally (“nothing”).