Amsal 23:20

23:20 Do not spend time ¹  among drunkards, ² 

among those who eat too much ³  meat,

Amsal 26:11

26:11 Like a dog that returns to its vomit, ⁴ 

so a fool repeats his folly. ⁵ 

Amsal 26:22

26:22 The words of a gossip are like delicious morsels;

they go down into a person’s innermost being. ⁶ 

[23:20]  ¹ tn Heb “do not be among,” but in the sense of “associate with” (TEV); “join” (NIV); “consort…with” (NAB).

[23:20]  ² tn The verb סָבָא (sava’) means “to imbibe; to drink largely.” The participial construction here, סֹבְאֵי־יַיִן (sov’e-yayin), describes “drunkards” (cf. NLT) which is somewhat stronger than saying it refers to “people who drink too much” (cf. NIV, TEV).

[23:20]  ³ tn The verb זָלַל (zalal) means “to be light; to be worthless; to make light of.” Making light of something came to mean “to be lavish with; to squander,” especially with regard to food. So it describes “gluttons” primarily; but in the expression there is also room for the person who wastes a lot of food as well.

[26:11]  ⁴ sn The simile is graphic and debasing (cf. 2 Peter 2:22).

[26:11]  ⁵ sn The point is clear: Fools repeat their disgusting mistakes, or to put it another way, whenever we repeat our disgusting mistakes we are fools. The proverb is affirming that no matter how many times a fool is warned, he never learns.

[26:22]  ⁶ tn The proverb is essentially the same as 18:8; it observes how appealing gossip is.