9:9 Give instruction 1 to a wise person, 2 and he will become wiser still;
teach 3 a righteous person and he will add to his 4 learning.
9:10 The beginning 5 of wisdom is to fear the Lord, 6
and acknowledging 7 the Holy One 8 is understanding.
1 tn The noun “instruction” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation.
2 sn The parallelism shows what Proverbs will repeatedly stress, that the wise person is the righteous person.
3 tn The Hiphil verb normally means “to cause to know, make known”; but here the context suggests “to teach” (so many English versions).
4 tn The term “his” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for the sake of smoothness and clarity.
5 sn The difference between תְּחִלַּת (tÿkhillat) here and רֵאשִׁית (re’shit) of 1:7, if there is any substantial difference, is that this term refers to the starting point of wisdom, and the earlier one indicates the primary place of wisdom (K&D 16:202).
6 tn Heb “fear of the
7 tn Heb “knowledge of the Holy One” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
8 tn The word is in the plural in the Hebrew (literally “holy ones”; KJV “the holy”). It was translated “holy men” in Tg. Prov 9:10. But it probably was meant to signify the majestic nature of the