1:26 so 1 I myself will laugh 2 when disaster strikes you, 3
I will mock when what you dread 4 comes,
11:24 One person is generous 5 and yet grows more wealthy, 6
but another withholds more than he should 7 and comes to poverty. 8
16:1 The intentions of the heart 9 belong to a man, 10
but the answer of the tongue 11 comes from 12 the Lord. 13
21:5 The plans of the diligent 14 lead 15 only to plenty, 16
but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. 17
1 tn The conclusion or apodosis is now introduced.
2 sn Laughing at the consequences of the fool’s rejection of wisdom does convey hardness against the fool; it reveals the folly of rejecting wisdom (e.g., Ps 2:4). It vindicates wisdom and the appropriateness of the disaster (D. Kidner, Proverbs [TOTC], 60).
3 tn Heb “at your disaster.” The 2nd person masculine singular suffix is either (1) a genitive of worth: “the disaster due you” or (2) an objective genitive: “disaster strikes you.” The term “disaster” (אֵיד, ’ed) often refers to final life-ending calamity (Prov 6:15; 24:22; BDB 15 s.v. 3). The preposition ב (bet) focuses upon time here.
4 tn Heb “your dread” (so NASB); KJV “your fear”; NRSV “panic.” The 2nd person masculine singular suffix is a subjective genitive: “that which you dread.”
5 tn Heb “There is one who scatters.” The participle מְפַזֵּר (mÿfazzer, “one who scatters”) refers to charity rather than farming or investments (and is thus a hypocatastasis). Cf. CEV “become rich by being generous”).
6 tn Heb “increases.” The verb means that he grows even more wealthy. This is a paradox: Generosity determines prosperity in God’s economy.
7 tn Heb “more than what is right.” This one is not giving enough, but saving for himself.
8 tn Heb “comes to lack.” The person who withholds will come to the diminishing of his wealth. The verse uses hyperbole to teach that giving to charity does not make anyone poor, and neither does refusal to give ensure prosperity.
9 tn Heb “plans of the heart” (so ASV, NASB, NIV). The phrase מַעַרְכֵי־לֵב (ma’arkhe-lev) means “the arrangements of the mind.”
sn Humans may set things in order, plan out what they are going to say, but God sovereignly enables them to put their thoughts into words.
10 tn Heb “[are] to a man.”
11 tn Here “the tongue” is a metonymy of cause in which the instrument of speech is put for what is said: the answer expressed.
12 sn The contrasting prepositions enhance the contrasting ideas – the ideas belong to people, but the words come from the
13 sn There are two ways this statement can be taken: (1) what one intends to say and what one actually says are the same, or (2) what one actually says differs from what the person intended to say. The second view fits the contrast better. The proverb then is giving a glimpse of how God even confounds the wise. When someone is trying to speak [“answer” in the book seems to refer to a verbal answer] before others, the
14 tn The word “diligent” is an adjective used substantivally. The related verb means “to cut, sharpen, decide”; so the adjective describes one who is “sharp” – one who acts decisively. The word “hasty” has the idea of being pressed or pressured into quick actions. So the text contrasts calculated expeditiousness with unproductive haste. C. H. Toy does not like this contrast, and so proposes changing the latter to “lazy” (Proverbs [ICC], 399), but W. McKane rightly criticizes that as unnecessarily forming a pedestrian antithesis (Proverbs [OTL], 550).
15 tn The term “lead” is supplied in the translation.
16 tn The Hebrew noun translated “plenty” comes from the verb יָתַר (yatar), which means “to remain over.” So the calculated diligence will lead to abundance, prosperity.
17 tn Heb “lack; need; thing needed”; NRSV “to want.”