6:8 yet it prepares its food in the summer;
it gathers at the harvest what it will eat. 1
7:14 “I have 2 fresh meat at home; 3
today I have fulfilled my vows!
9:13 The woman called Folly 4 is brash, 5
she is naive 6 and does not know 7 anything. 8
9:18 But they do not realize 9 that the dead 10 are there,
that her guests are in the depths of the grave. 11
11:7 When a wicked person dies, his expectation perishes, 12
and the hope of his strength 13 perishes. 14
16:4 The Lord works 15 everything for its own ends 16 –
even the wicked for the day of disaster. 17
16:5 The Lord abhors 18 every arrogant person; 19
rest assured 20 that they will not go unpunished. 21
28:14 Blessed is the one who is always cautious, 22
but whoever hardens his heart 23 will fall into evil.
31:27 She watches over 24 the ways of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness. 25
1 tc The LXX adds a lengthy section at the end of the verse on the lesson from the bee: “Or, go to the bee and learn how diligent she is and how seriously she does her work – her products kings and private persons use for health – she is desired and respected by all – though feeble in body, by honoring wisdom she obtains distinction.” The Greek translator thought the other insect should be mentioned (see C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 124).
tn Heb “its food.”
2 tn Heb “with me.”
3 tn Heb “I have peace offerings.” The peace offerings refer to the meat left over from the votive offering made at the sanctuary (e.g., Lev 7:11-21). Apparently the sacrificial worship meant as little to this woman spiritually as does Christmas to modern hypocrites who follow in her pattern. By expressing that she has peace offerings, she could be saying nothing more than that she has fresh meat for a meal at home, or that she was ceremonially clean, perhaps after her period. At any rate, it is all probably a ruse for winning a customer.
4 tn Heb “a woman of foolishness.” This could be translated as “foolish woman,” taking the genitive as attributive (cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV). But in view of the contrast with the personification of wisdom, this word probably also represents a personification and so can be taken as a genitive of apposition, the woman who is folly, or “the woman, Folly” (cf. NIV). For clarity and stylistic reasons the word “called” has been supplied in the translation.
5 tn The meaning of the word comes close to “riotous.” W. McKane describes her as restless and rootless (Proverbs [OTL], 366).
6 tn The noun means “foolishness” (cf. KJV “simple”; NAB “inane”). Here it could be classified as a metonymy of adjunct, or as a predictive apposition (when a substantive is used in place of a noun; see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 15, §67).
7 tn The ignorance here in Proverbs must be moral ignorance. But see D. W. Thomas for the idea that the verb means “become still,” “be at rest,” yielding here the idea of restless (“A Note on בַל־יָדְעָה in Proverbs 913,” JTS 4 [1953]: 23-24).
8 tc The text of v. 13 has been difficult for translators. The MT has, “The foolish woman is boisterous, simplicity, and knows not what.” The LXX reads, “A foolish and impudent woman comes to lack a morsel, she who knows not shame.” The Syriac has, “a woman lacking in discretion, seductive.” Tg. Prov 9:13 translates it, “a foolish woman and a gadabout, ignorant, and she knows not good.” The Vulgate has, “a woman foolish and noisy, and full of wiles, and knowing nothing at all.”
9 tn Heb “he does not know.”
10 sn The “dead” are the Rephaim, the “shades” or dead persons who lead a shadowy existence in Sheol (e.g., Prov 2:18-19; Job 3:13-19; Ps 88:5; Isa 14:9-11). This approximates an “as-if” motif of wisdom literature: The ones ensnared in folly are as good as in Hell. See also Ptah-hotep’s sayings (ANET 412-414).
11 tc The LXX adds to the end of v. 18: “But turn away, linger not in the place, neither set your eye on her: for thus will you go through alien water; but abstain from alien water, drink not from an alien fountain, that you may live long, that years of life may be added to you.”
sn The text has “in the depths of Sheol” (בְּעִמְקֵי שְׁאוֹל, bÿ’imqe shÿ’ol). The parallelism stresses that those who turn to this way of life are ignorant and doomed. It may signal a literal death lying ahead in the not too distant future, but it is more likely an analogy. The point is that the life of folly, a life of undisciplined, immoral, riotous living, runs counter to God’s appeal for wisdom and leads to ruin. That is the broad way that leads to destruction.
12 tn The first colon features an imperfect tense depicting habitual action, while the second has a perfect tense verb depicting gnomic action.
sn The subject of this proverb is the hope of the wicked, showing its consequences – his expectations die with him (Ps 49). Any hope for long life and success borne of wickedness will be disappointed.
13 tc There are several suggested changes for this word אוֹנִים (’onim, “vigor” or “strength”). Rashi, a Jewish scholar who lived
14 tc The LXX adds an antithesis to this: “When the righteous dies, hope does not perish.” The LXX translators wanted to see the hope of the righteous fulfilled in the world to come.
15 sn The Hebrew verb translated “works” (פָּעַל, pa’al) means “to work out; to bring about; to accomplish.” It is used of God’s sovereign control of life (e.g., Num 23:23; Isa 26:12).
16 tn Heb “for its answer.” The term לַמַּעֲנֵהוּ (lamma’anehu) has been taken to mean either “for his purpose” or “for its answer.” The Hebrew word is מַעֲנֶה (ma’aneh, “answer”) and not לְמַעַן (lÿma’an, “purpose”). So the suffix likely refers to “everything” (כֹּל, kol). God ensures that everyone’s actions and the consequences of those actions correspond – certainly the wicked for the day of calamity. In God’s order there is just retribution for every act.
17 sn This is an example of synthetic parallelism (“A, what’s more B”). The A-line affirms a truth, and the B-line expands on it with a specific application about the wicked – whatever disaster comes their way is an appropriate correspondent for their life.
18 tn Heb “an abomination of the
19 tn Heb “every proud of heart”; NIV “all the proud of heart.” “Heart” is the genitive of specification; the phrase is talking about people who have proud hearts, whose ideas are arrogant. These are people who set themselves presumptuously against God (e.g., 2 Chr 26:16; Ps 131:1; Prov 18:12).
20 tn Heb “hand to hand.” This idiom means “you can be assured” (e.g., Prov 11:21).
21 tc The LXX has inserted two couplets here: “The beginning of a good way is to do justly, // and it is more acceptable with God than to do sacrifices; // he who seeks the
tn The B-line continues the A-line, but explains what it means that they are an abomination to the
22 tn Most commentators (and some English versions, e.g., NIV) assume that the participle מְפַחֵד (mÿfakhed, “fears”) means “fears the
23 sn The one who “hardens his heart” in this context is the person who refuses to fear sin and its consequences. The image of the “hard heart” is one of a stubborn will, unyielding and unbending (cf. NCV, TEV, NLT). This individual will fall into sin.
24 tn The first word of the eighteenth line begins with צ (tsade), the eighteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
25 sn The expression bread of idleness refers to food that is gained through idleness, perhaps given or provided for her. In the description of the passage one could conclude that this woman did not have to do everything she did; and this line affirms that even though she is well off, she will eat the bread of her industrious activity.