Amsal 6:9

6:9 How long, you sluggard, will you lie there?

When will you rise from your sleep? ¹ 

Amsal 9:4

9:4 “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,”

she says ²  to those ³  who lack understanding. ⁴ 

Amsal 9:16

9:16 “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here,”

she says to those who lack understanding. ⁵ 

Amsal 24:11

24:11 Deliver those being taken away to death,

and hold back those slipping to the slaughter. ⁶ 

Amsal 26:15

26:15 The sluggard plunges ⁷  his hand in the dish;

he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth. ⁸ 

[6:9]  ¹ sn The use of the two rhetorical questions is designed to rebuke the lazy person in a forceful manner. The sluggard is spending too much time sleeping.

[9:4]  ² tn Heb “lacking of heart she says to him.” The pronominal suffix is a resumptive pronoun, meaning, “she says to the lacking of heart.”

[9:4]  ³ tn Heb “him.”

[9:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “heart”; cf. NIV “to those who lack judgment.”

[9:16]  ⁵ tn This expression is almost identical to v. 4, with the exception of the addition of conjunctions in the second colon: “and the lacking of understanding and she says to him.” The parallel is deliberate, of course, showing the competing appeals for those passing by.

[24:11]  ⁶ tn The idea of “slipping” (participle from מוֹט, mot) has troubled some commentators. G. R. Driver emends it to read “at the point of” (“Problems in Proverbs,” ZAW 50 [1932]: 146). But the MT as it stands makes good sense. The reference would be general, viz., to help any who are in mortal danger or who might be tottering on the edge of such disaster – whether through sin, or through disease, war, or danger. Several English versions (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV) render this term as “staggering.”

[24:11]  sn God holds people responsible for rescuing those who are in mortal danger. The use of “death” and “slaughter” seems rather strong in the passage, but they have been used before in the book for the destruction that comes through evil.

[26:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “buries” (so many English versions); KJV “hideth”; NAB “loses.”

[26:15]  ⁸ sn The proverb is stating that the sluggard is too lazy to eat; this is essentially the same point made in 19:24 (see the note there).