Amsal 13:2-3

13:2 From the fruit of his speech ¹  a person eats good things, ² 

but the faithless ³  desire ⁴  the fruit of violence. ⁵ 

13:3 The one who guards his words ⁶  guards his life,

but ⁷  whoever is talkative ⁸  will come to ruin. ⁹ 

[13:2]  ¹ tn Heb “lips” (so NIV); KJV “mouth.” The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause for what the lips produce: speech.

[13:2]  ² tn Heb “he eats [what is] good.”

[13:2]  ³ tn Heb “the desire of the faithless.” The noun “faithless” is a subjective genitive: “the faithless desire….”

[13:2]  ⁴ tn The noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, traditionally “soul”) has a broad range of meanings, and here denotes “appetite” (e.g., Ps 17:9; Prov 23:3; Eccl 2:24; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5; BDB 660 s.v. 5.c) or (2) “desire” (e.g., Deut 12:20; Prov 13:4; 19:8; 21:10; BDB 660 s.v. 6.a).

[13:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “violence.” The phrase “the fruit of” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the parallelism. The term “violence” is probably a metonymy of cause: “violence” represents what violence gains – ill-gotten gains resulting from violent crime. The wicked desire what does not belong to them.

[13:2]  tc The LXX reads “the souls of the wicked perish untimely.” The MT makes sense as it stands.

[13:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “mouth” (so KJV, NAB). The term פֶּה (peh, “mouth”) functions as a metonymy of cause for speech.

[13:3]  ⁷ tn The term “but” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[13:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “opens wide his lips.” This is an idiom meaning “to be talkative” (BDB 832 s.v. פָּשַׂק Qal). Cf. NIV “speaks rashly”; TEV “a careless talker”; CEV “talk too much.”

[13:3]  ⁹ sn Tight control over what one says prevents trouble (e.g., Prov 10:10; 17:28; Jas 3:1-12; Sir 28:25). Amenemope advises to “sleep a night before speaking” (5:15; ANET 422, n. 10). The old Arab proverb is appropriate: “Take heed that your tongue does not cut your throat” (O. Zockler, Proverbs, 134).