9:12 If you are wise, you are wise to your own advantage, 1
but if you are a mocker, 2 you alone must 3 bear it. 4
22:16 The one who oppresses the poor to increase his own gain
and the one who gives to the rich 5 – both end up only in poverty.
26:17 Like one who grabs a wild dog by the ears, 6
so is the person passing by who becomes furious 7 over a quarrel not his own.
28:10 The one who leads the upright astray in an evil way
will himself fall into his own pit, 8
but the blameless will inherit what is good. 9
1 tn The text simply has the preposition לְ (lamed) with a suffix; but this will be the use of the preposition classified as “interest,” either for advantage or disadvantage (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 48-49, §271).
2 tn The perfect tense is here in a conditional clause because of the conjunction following the first colon of the verse that begins with “if.” The perfect tense then lays down the antithetical condition – “if you mock,” or “if you are a mocker.”
3 tn The use of the imperfect tense here could be the simple future tense (cf. NASB, NRSV “you…will bear it”), but the obligatory nuance is more appropriate – “you must bear it.” These words anticipate James’ warnings that the words we speak will haunt us through life (e.g., James 3:1-12).
4 tc The LXX has an addition: “Forsake folly, that you may reign forever; and seek discretion and direct understanding in knowledge.”
5 tn Heb “oppressing the poor, it is gain; giving to the rich, it is loss.” The Hebrew is cryptic, but two sins are mentioned here that will be punished by poverty: extortion and bribery. Perhaps the proverb is simply saying it is easy to oppress the poor for gain, but it is a waste of money to try to buy or bribe a patron (D. Kidner, Proverbs [TOTC], 149).
6 tn Heb “grabs the ears of a dog. The word “wild” has been supplied in the translation to make clear that these were not domesticated pets. CEV, to accomplish the same point, has “a mad dog,” but there is no indication of that in context.
sn Someone who did this ran a serious risk of injury or harm. Dogs were not domestic pets in the ancient Near East; they were scavengers that ran in packs like jackals.
7 tn The word מִתְעַבֵּר (mit’abber) means “to put oneself in a fury” or “become furious” (BDB 720 s.v.). The Latin version apparently assumed the verb was עָרַב (’arav), for it has the sense of “meddle” (so also NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). However, the MT reading could easily fit the verse, referring to anyone passing by who gets furious over a fight that is not his.
8 sn The image of falling into a pit (a figure of speech known as hypocatastasis, involving implied comparison) is meant to say that the evil to which he guides people will ultimately destroy him.
9 sn This proverb is teaching that those who corrupt others will be destroyed, usually by their own devices, but those who manage to avoid being corrupted will be rewarded. According to this proverb the righteous can be led astray (e.g., 26:27).