3:7 Do not be wise in your own estimation; 1
fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 2
4:24 Remove perverse speech 3 from your mouth; 4
keep devious talk far from your lips. 5
11:26 People will curse 6 the one who withholds grain, 7
but they will praise 8 the one who sells it. 9
12:16 A fool’s annoyance 10 is known at once, 11
but the prudent 12 overlooks 13 an insult.
19:20 Listen to advice 14 and receive discipline,
that 15 you may become wise 16 by the end of your life. 17
1 tn Heb “in your own eyes” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.”
2 sn The second colon clarifies the first. If one fears the
3 tn Heb “crookedness.” The noun עִקְּשׁוּת (’iqqÿshut) refers to what is morally twisted or perverted. Here it refers to things that are said (cf. NAB “dishonest talk”; NRSV “crooked speech”). The term “mouth” functions as a metonymy of cause for perverse speech. Such perverse talking could be subtle or blatant.
4 tn Heb “crookedness of mouth.”
5 tn Heb “deviousness of lips put far from you.”
6 tn The direct object suffix on the verb picks up on the emphatic absolute phrase: “they will curse him – the one who withholds grain.”
7 sn The proverb refers to a merchant who holds back his grain from the free market to raise prices when there is a great need for the produce. It is assumed that merchants are supposed to have a social conscience.
8 tn Heb “but a blessing is for the head of the one who sells.” The parallelism with “curse” suggests that בְּרָכָה (berakhah) “blessing” means “praise.”
9 tn Heb “for the head of the one who sells.” The term “head” functions as a synecdoche of part (= head) for the whole (= person). The head is here emphasized because it is the “crowning” point of praise. The direct object (“it”) is not in the Hebrew text but is implied.
10 tn Heb “The fool, at once his vexation is known.” This rhetorically emphatic construction uses an independent nominative absolute, which is then followed by the formal subject with a suffix. The construction focuses attention on “the fool,” then states what is to be said about him.
11 tn Heb “on the day” or “the same day.”
sn The fool is impatient and unwise, and so flares up immediately when anything bothers him. W. McKane says that the fool’s reaction is “like an injured animal and so his opponent knows that he has been wounded” (Proverbs [OTL], 442).
12 tn Heb “shrewd.”
13 tn Heb “covers.” The verb כָּסָה (casah) means “covers” in the sense of ignores or bides his time. The point is not that he does not respond at all, but that he is shrewd enough to handle the criticism or insult in the best way – not instinctively and irrationally.
14 sn The advice refers in all probability to the teachings of the sages that will make one wise.
15 tn The proverb is one continuous thought, but the second half of the verse provides the purpose for the imperatives of the first half.
16 tn The imperfect tense has the nuance of a final imperfect in a purpose clause, and so is translated “that you may become wise” (cf. NAB, NRSV).
17 tn Heb “become wise in your latter end” (cf. KJV, ASV) which could obviously be misunderstood.