5:12 And you will say, “How I hated discipline!
My heart spurned reproof!
5:13 For 1 I did not obey my teachers 2
and I did not heed 3 my instructors. 4
5:14 I almost 5 came to complete ruin 6
in the midst of the whole congregation!” 7
1 tn The vav that introduces this clause functions in an explanatory sense.
2 tn The Hebrew term מוֹרַי (moray) is the nominal form based on the Hiphil plural participle with a suffix, from the root יָרָה (yarah). The verb is “to teach,” the common noun is “instruction, law [torah],” and this participle form is teacher (“my teachers”).
3 sn The idioms are vivid: This expression is “incline the ear”; earlier in the first line is “listen to the voice,” meaning “obey.” Such detailed description emphasizes the importance of the material.
4 tn The form is the Piel plural participle of לָמַד (lamad) used substantivally.
5 tn The expression כִּמְעַט (kim’at) is “like a little.” It means “almost,” and is used of unrealized action (BDB 590 s.v. 2). Cf. NCV “I came close to”; NLT “I have come to the brink of.”
6 tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).
7 tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.