Discovery Box| (0.25) | (Isa 3:25) | 1 tn The pronoun is feminine singular, suggesting personified Zion, as representative of its women, is the addressee. The reference to “her gates’ in v. 26 makes this identification almost certain. |
| (0.25) | (Isa 2:13) | 1 sn The cedars of Lebanon and oaks of Bashan were well-known for their size and prominence. They make apt symbols here for powerful men who think of themselves as prominent and secure. |
| (0.25) | (Ecc 1:4) | 3 tn The participle עֹמָדֶת (ʿomadet, “to stand”) emphasizes a continual, durative, uninterrupted state (present universal condition). Man, despite all his secular accomplishments in all generations, makes no ultimate impact on the earth. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 30:16) | 4 tn Most translations make the verb present tense (KJV, ESV, Holman, NASB, NIV). As the perfect form of a dynamic root, אָמְרָה (ʾamerah) should be understood as past or perfective, a fact known from past experience which is prototypical. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 30:13) | 2 tn Heb “its eyelids are lifted up,” a gesture indicating arrogance and contempt or disdain for others. To make this clear, the present translation supplies the adverb “disdainfully” at the end of the verse. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 29:27) | 1 sn The proverb makes a simple observation on life: The righteous detest the wicked, and the wicked detest the lifestyle of the righteous. Each is troublesome to the beliefs and the activities of the other. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 27:22) | 1 tn The verb means “to pound” in a mortar with a pestle (cf. NRSV “Crush”; NLT “grind”). The imperfect is in a conditional clause, an unreal, hypothetical condition to make the point. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 27:18) | 2 sn The principle is established in the first line with the emblem: Those who faithfully serve will be rewarded in kind. The second half of the proverb makes the point from this illustration. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 26:23) | 3 sn The analogy fits the second line very well. Glaze makes a vessel look beautiful and certainly different from the clay that it actually is. So is one who has evil intent (“heart”) but covers it with glowing speech. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 25:23) | 4 sn The verse implies a comparison between the two parts to make the point that certain things automatically bring certain results. Gossiping words will infuriate people as easily as the northerly winds bring the cold rain. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 24:13) | 1 sn The twenty-sixth saying teaches that one should develop wisdom because it has a profitable future. The saying draws on the image of honey; its health-giving properties make a good analogy to wisdom. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 22:22) | 1 sn Robbing or oppressing the poor is easy because they are defenseless. But this makes the crime tempting as well as contemptible. What is envisioned may be in bounds legally (just) but out of bounds morally. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 22:8) | 1 sn The verse is making an implied comparison (a figure of speech known as hypocatastasis) between sowing and sinning. One who sins is like one who sows, for there will be a “harvest” or a return on the sin—trouble. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 21:29) | 4 tc The Kethib is the imperfect of כּוּן (kun), “he establishes.” This reading has the support of the Syriac, Latin, and Tg., and is followed by ASV and NASB. The Qere is the imperfect tense of בִּין (bin), “he understands; he discerns.” It has the support of the LXX and is followed by NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT. The difficulty is that both make good sense in the passage and both have support. The contrast is between the wicked who [merely] puts up a bold front and the upright who either [actually] discerns his ways (Qere) or makes his ways solid (Kethib). And whichever reading is chosen, the meaning of the other is implied. It would not make sense for the verse to talk about someone who understands but does not act accordingly; on the other hand, to make his/her way solid, the upright person must understand it. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 20:12) | 2 sn The verse not only credits God with making these faculties of hearing and sight and giving them to people, but it also emphasizes their spiritual use in God’s service. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 19:13) | 4 tc The LXX makes this moralistic statement for 13b: “vows paid out of hire of a harlot are not pure.” It is not based on the MT and attempts to reconstruct a text using this have been unsuccessful. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 18:16) | 2 sn The two verbs here show a progression, helping to form the synthetic parallelism. The gift first “makes room” (יַרְחִיב, yarkhiv) for the person, that is, extending a place for him, and then “ushers him in” (יַנְחֵנּוּ, yankhennu) among the greats. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 17:8) | 5 sn As C. H. Toy points out, the sage is merely affirming a point without making a comment—those who use bribery meet with widespread success (Proverbs [ICC], 341). This does not amount to an endorsement of bribery. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 17:10) | 1 tn Heb “goes in deeper” (cf. NASB, NRSV). The verb נָחֵת (nakhet) “to go down; to descend” with the preposition ב (bet) means “to descend into; to make an impression on” someone. |
| (0.25) | (Pro 17:13) | 2 tn The verb מוּשׁ (mush) means “to depart; to remove.” The Kethib is a Hiphil, which would yield a meaning of “to take away”; so the Qere, which is the Qal, makes more sense in the line. |
