Amsal 8:13

8:13 The fear of the Lord is to hate ¹  evil;

I hate arrogant pride ²  and the evil way

and perverse utterances. ³ 

Amsal 16:6

16:6 Through loyal love and truth ⁴  iniquity is appeased; ⁵ 

through fearing the Lord ⁶  one avoids ⁷  evil. ⁸ 

[8:13]  ¹ tn The verb שָׂנֵא (sane’) means “to hate.” In this sentence it functions nominally as the predicate. Fearing the Lord is hating evil.

[8:13]  sn The verb translated “hate” has the basic idea of rejecting something spontaneously. For example, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Mal 1:2b, 3a). It frequently has the idea of disliking or loathing (as English does), but almost always with an additional aspect of rejection. To “hate evil” is not only to dislike it, but to reject it and have nothing to do with it.

[8:13]  ² tn Since both גֵּאָה (ge’ah, “pride”) and גָּאוֹן (ga’on, “arrogance; pride”) are both from the same verbal root גָּאָה (ga’ah, “to rise up”), they should here be interpreted as one idea, forming a nominal hendiadys: “arrogant pride.”

[8:13]  ³ tn Heb “and a mouth of perverse things.” The word “mouth” is a metonymy of cause for what is said; and the noun תַהְפֻּכוֹת (tahpukhot, “perverse things”) means destructive things (the related verb is used for the overthrowing of Sodom).

[16:6]  ⁴ sn These two words are often found together to form a nominal hendiadys: “faithful loyal love.” The couplet often characterize the Lord, but here in parallel to the fear of the Lord it refers to the faithfulness of the believer. Such faith and faithfulness bring atonement for sin.

[16:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “is atoned”; KJV “is purged”; NAB “is expiated.” The verb is from I כָּפַר (kafar, “to atone; to expiate; to pacify; to appease”; HALOT 493-94 s.v. I כפר). This root should not be confused with the identically spelled Homonym II כָּפַר (kafar, “to cover over”; HALOT 494 s.v. II *כפר). Atonement in the OT expiated sins, it did not merely cover them over (cf. NLT). C. H. Toy explains the meaning by saying it affirms that the divine anger against sin is turned away and man’s relation to God is as though he had not sinned (Proverbs [ICC], 322). Genuine repentance, demonstrated by loyalty and truthfulness, appeases the anger of God against one’s sin.

[16:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive: “fearing the Lord.”

[16:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “turns away from”; NASB “keeps away from.”

[16:6]  ⁸ sn The Hebrew word translated “evil” (רַע, ra’) can in some contexts mean “calamity” or “disaster,” but here it seems more likely to mean “evil” in the sense of sin. Faithfulness to the Lord brings freedom from sin. The verse uses synonymous parallelism with a variant: One half speaks of atonement for sin because of the life of faith, and the other of avoidance of sin because of the fear of the Lord.