Proverbs 3:10
Context3:10 then your barns will be filled completely, 1
and your vats 2 will overflow 3 with new wine.
Proverbs 4:17
Context4:17 For they eat bread 4 gained from wickedness 5
and drink wine obtained from violence. 6
Proverbs 9:2
Context9:2 She has prepared her meat, 7 she has mixed her wine;
she also has arranged her table. 8
Proverbs 9:5
Context9:5 “Come, eat 9 some of my food,
and drink some of the wine I have mixed. 10
1 tn Heb “with plenty” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “to overflowing.” The noun שָׂבָע (sava’, “plenty; satiety”) functions as an adverbial accusative of manner or contents: “completely.”
2 sn This pictures the process of pressing grapes in which the upper receptacle is filled with grapes and the lower one catches the juice. The harvest of grapes will be so plentiful that the lower vat will overflow with grape juice. The pictures in v. 10 are metonymies of effect for cause (= the great harvest that God will provide when they honor him).
3 tn Heb “burst open.” The verb פָּרַץ (parats, “to burst open”) functions as hyperbole here to emphasize the fullness of the wine vats (BDB 829 s.v. 9).
4 tn The noun is a cognate accusative stressing that they consume wickedness.
5 tn Heb “the bread of wickedness” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV). There are two ways to take the genitives: (1) genitives of apposition: wickedness and violence are their food and drink (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT), or (2) genitives of source: they derive their livelihood from the evil they do (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 93).
6 tn Heb “the wine of violence” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV). This is a genitive of source, meaning that the wine they drink was plundered from their violent crime. The Hebrew is structured in an AB:BA chiasm: “For they eat the bread of wickedness, and the wine of violence they drink.” The word order in the translation is reversed for the sake of smoothness and readability.
7 tn Heb “she has killed her killing.” Cf. KJV “hath killed her beasts”; NAB “has dressed her meat”; NASB “has prepared her food.”
8 sn Wisdom has prepared a sumptuous banquet in this house and sends out her maids to call the simple to come and eat (M. Lichtenstein, “The Banquet Motif in Keret and in Proverbs 9,” JANESCU 1 [1968/69]: 19-31). The figures of meat and wine represent the good teaching of wisdom that will be palatable and profitable (implied comparisons). Compare Isaiah 55:1-2 and John 6:51, 55 for similar uses of the figures. The idea of mixing wine could refer to the practice of mixing wine with spices or with water (as the LXX text assumes; e.g., Prov 23:30; Isa 5:22). Mixed wine was the most intoxicating; thus, her wisdom is attractive. All the imagery lets the simple know that what wisdom has to offer is marvelous.
9 tn The construction features a cognate accusative (verb and noun from same root). The preposition בּ (bet) has the partitive use “some” (GKC 380 §119.m).
10 tn The final verb actually stands in a relative clause although the relative pronoun is not present; it modifies “wine.”
sn The expressions “eat” and “drink” carry the implied comparison forward; they mean that the simple are to appropriate the teachings of wisdom.