9:4 “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,”
she says 1 to those 2 who lack understanding. 3
9:16 “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here,”
she says to those who lack understanding. 4
13:13 The one who despises instruction 5 will pay the penalty, 6
but whoever esteems instruction 7 will 8 be rewarded. 9
14:21 The one who despises his neighbor sins,
but whoever is kind to the needy is blessed.
15:5 A fool rejects his father’s discipline,
but whoever heeds reproof shows good sense. 10
15:27 The one who is greedy for gain 11 troubles 12 his household, 13
but whoever hates bribes 14 will live.
15:32 The one who refuses correction despises himself, 15
but whoever hears 16 reproof acquires understanding. 17
17:9 The one who forgives 18 an offense seeks 19 love,
but whoever repeats a matter separates close friends. 20
17:19 The one who loves a quarrel loves transgression; 21
whoever builds his gate high seeks destruction. 22
27:16 Whoever hides her hides the wind 23
or grasps 24 oil with his right hand. 25
1 tn Heb “lacking of heart she says to him.” The pronominal suffix is a resumptive pronoun, meaning, “she says to the lacking of heart.”
2 tn Heb “him.”
3 tn Heb “heart”; cf. NIV “to those who lack judgment.”
4 tn This expression is almost identical to v. 4, with the exception of the addition of conjunctions in the second colon: “and the lacking of understanding and she says to him.” The parallel is deliberate, of course, showing the competing appeals for those passing by.
5 tn Heb “the word.” The term “word” means teaching in general; its parallel “command” indicates that it is the more forceful instruction that is meant. Both of these terms are used for scripture.
6 tc The MT reads יֵחָבֶל (yekhavel, “he will pay [for it]”; cf. NAB, NIV) but the BHS editors suggest revocalizing the text to יְחֻבָּל (yÿkhubal, “he will be broken [for it]”; cf. NRSV “bring destruction on themselves”).
tn Heb “will be pledged to it.” The Niphal of I חָבַל (khaval) “to pledge” means “to be under pledge to pay the penalty” (BDB 286 s.v. Niph). Whoever despises teaching will be treated as a debtor – he will pay for it if he offends against the law.
7 tn Heb “fears a commandment”; NIV “respects a command.”
8 tn Heb “he” or “that one” [will be rewarded].
9 tc The LXX adds: “A crafty son will have no good thing, but the affairs of a wise servant will be prosperous; and his path will be directed rightly.”
10 tn Heb “is prudent” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NCV, NLT “is wise.” Anyone who accepts correction or rebuke will become prudent in life.
11 tn Heb “the one who gains.” The phrase בּוֹצֵעַ בָּצַע (botseakh batsa’) is a participle followed by its cognate accusative. This refers to a person who is always making the big deal, getting the larger cut, or in a hurry to get rich. The verb, though, makes it clear that the gaining of a profit is by violence and usually unjust, since the root has the idea of “cut off; break off; gain by violence.” The line is contrasted with hating bribes, and so the gain in this line may be through bribery.
12 sn The participle “troubles” (עֹכֵר, ’okher) can have the connotation of making things difficult for the family, or completely ruining the family (cf. NAB). In Josh 7:1 Achan took some of the “banned things” and was put to death: Because he “troubled Israel,” the
13 tn Heb “his house.”
14 tn Heb “gifts” (so KJV). Gifts can be harmless enough, but in a setting like this the idea is that the “gift” is in exchange for some “profit [or, gain].” Therefore they are bribes (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), and to be hated or rejected. Abram, for example, would not take anything that the king of Sodom had to offer, “lest [he] say, “I have made Abram rich” (Gen 14:22-24).
15 sn To “despise oneself” means to reject oneself as if there was little value. The one who ignores discipline is not interested in improving himself.
16 tn Or “heeds” (so NAB, NIV); NASB “listens to.”
17 tn The Hebrew text reads קוֹנֶה לֵּב (qoneh lev), the participle of קָנָה (qanah, “to acquire; to possess”) with its object, “heart.” The word “heart” is frequently a metonymy of subject, meaning all the capacities of the human spirit and/or mind. Here it refers to the ability to make judgments or discernment.
18 tn Heb “covers” (so NASB); NIV “covers over.” How people respond to the faults of others reveals whether or not they have love. The contrast is between one who “covers” (forgives, cf. NCV, NRSV) the fault of a friend and one who repeats news about it. The former promotes love because he cares about the person; the latter divides friends.
19 sn The participle מְבַקֵּשׁ (mÿvaqesh) means “seeks” in the sense of seeking to secure or procure or promote love. There can be no friendship without such understanding and discretion.
20 sn W. G. Plaut notes that harping on the past has destroyed many friendships and marriages (Proverbs, 188). W. McKane observes that this line refers to the person who breaks up friendships by his scandalous gossip, even if it is done with a kind of zeal for the welfare of the community, for it will destroy love and trust (Proverbs [OTL], 508-9).
21 tn Heb “the one who loves transgression the one who loves a quarrel.” There is some ambiguity in the first line. The meaning would not differ greatly if either were taken as the subject; but the parallelism suggests that the proverb is about a quarrelsome and arrogant person who loves sin and invites destruction.
22 tn Some have taken this second line literally and interpreted it to mean he has built a pretentious house. Probably it is meant to be figurative: The gate is the mouth (the figure would be hypocatastasis) and so to make it high is to say lofty things – he brags too much (e.g., 1 Sam 2:3; Prov 18:12; 29:23); cf. NCV, TEV, NLT. C. H. Toy (Proverbs [ICC], 348) wishes to emend פִּתְחוֹ (pitkho, “his gate”) to פִּיו (piv, “his mouth”), but that is unnecessary since the idea can be obtained by interpretation.
23 tn The participle and verb both are from the root צָפַן (tsafan, “to hide”). This combination could be translated “hiding her is [like] hiding the wind.”
sn A contentious woman is uncontrollable. The wind can gust at any moment; so too the contentious woman can nag or complain without warning. If anyone can hide the wind he can hide her.
24 sn The verb is the Qal imperfect of קָרָא (qara’); BDB 895 s.v. 5.b defines it here as “call for = demand, require,” but acknowledge that it is probably corrupt. R. B. Y. Scott interprets it to mean “grasping” oil in the hand, an expression he compares to the modern “butterfingers” (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes [AB], 163). Others have interpreted it to mean “betrays” – “ointment of his right hand betrays itself,” meaning its smell persists. However, the connection to the proverb does not seem obvious with that interpretation.
25 tc The LXX took an etymologizing approach to the whole verse and translated it “the north wind is a severe wind, but by its name is termed auspicious.” In this rendering the Hebrew text’s “oil” became “its name,” “right hand” became “auspicious,” and “grasp” became “called.”