⁴ tn Or “slandered.”

⁴ tn Or “slandered.”

² tn The Greek word means “to insult strongly” or “slander.”

¹ tn Or “slanderer”; KJV, NAB “talebearer”; ASV, NRSV “whisperer.”

² tn L&N 33.393 has for λοιδορέω (loidoreō) “to speak in a highly insulting manner—‘to slander, to insult strongly, slander, insult.’”

² tn Heb “he does not slander upon his tongue.” For another example of רָגַל (ragal, “slander”) see 2 Sam 19:28.

² tn Grk “that the name…may not be slandered” (a continuation of the preceding sentence).

¹ tn Grk “(as we are slandered and some affirm that we say…).”

³ tn Aram “ate the pieces of.” This is a rather vivid idiom for slander.

¹ tn Heb “men of slander are in you in order to shed blood.”

¹ tn Heb “deeds of things”; NRSV “makes up charges against her”; NIV “slanders her.”

¹ tn The noun רֹכֶס (rokhes) occurs only here. Its meaning is debated; some suggest “snare,” while others propose “slander” or “conspiracy.”

² sn The idiom of eating the pieces of someone means “slander” in Aramaic (see Dan 3:8), Arabic and Akkadian.

¹ sn The word describes a slanderer (NASB), a tale-bearer (KJV, ASV), or an informer. BDB 940 s.v. רָכִיל says the Hebrew expression “goers of slander” means slanderous persons. However, W. McKane observes that these people are not necessarily malicious—they just talk too much (Proverbs [OTL], 537).

¹ tn Heb “going about in slander.” This expression refers to a slanderer. The noun means “slander” and so “tale-bearer” (so KJV, ASV, NASB), “informer.” The related verb (רָכַל, rakhal) means “to go about” from one person to another, either for trade or for gossip.

² sn What people say can lead to life or death. The Midrash on Psalms shows one way the tongue [what is said] can cause death: “The evil tongue slays three, the slanderer, the slandered, and the listener” (Midrash Tehillim 52:2). See J. G. Williams, “The Power of Form: A Study of Biblical Proverbs,” Semeia 17 (1980): 35-38.

² tn Heb “causes to go out.” The Hiphil of יָצָא (yatsaʾ) literally means “to cause to go out” (BDB 424 s.v. Hiph.1). This may refer to speech (“to utter”) in the sense of causing words to go out of one’s mouth, or it may refer to slander (“to spread”) in the sense of causing slander to go out to others.

⁴ sn The simile stresses the devastating way that slander hurts people. W. McKane says that this one “digs for scandal and…propagates it with words which are ablaze with misanthropy” (Proverbs [OTL], 494).

¹ tn Heb “a man of perverse things”; NAB “an intriguer.” This refers to someone who destroys lives. The parallelism suggests that he is a “slanderer” or “gossip”—one who whispers and murmurs (18:8; 26:20, 22).

⁴ sn The antithetical proverb states that a righteous person can escape devastating slander through knowledge. The righteous will have sufficient knowledge and perception to see through the hypocrisy and avoid its effect.