Amsal 10:9

10:9 The one who conducts himself ¹  in integrity ²  will live ³  securely,

but the one who behaves perversely ⁴  will be found out.

Amsal 10:24

10:24 What the wicked fears ⁵  will come on him;

what the righteous desire ⁶  will be granted. ⁷ 

Amsal 10:30

10:30 The righteous will never be moved,

but the wicked will not inhabit the land. ⁸ 

Amsal 10:32

10:32 The lips of the righteous know ⁹  what is pleasing, ¹⁰ 

but the speech ¹¹  of the wicked is perverse.

Amsal 11:4

11:4 Wealth does not profit in the day of wrath, ¹² 

but righteousness delivers from mortal danger. ¹³ 

Amsal 11:6

11:6 The righteousness of the upright will deliver them, ¹⁴ 

but the faithless will be captured ¹⁵  by their own desires. ¹⁶ 

Amsal 12:22

12:22 The Lord ¹⁷  abhors a person who lies, ¹⁸ 

but those who deal truthfully ¹⁹  are his delight. ²⁰ 

Amsal 14:2

14:2 The one who walks in his uprightness fears the Lord, ²¹ 

but the one who is perverted in his ways ²²  despises him.

Amsal 15:8

15:8 The Lord abhors ²³  the sacrifices ²⁴  of the wicked, ²⁵ 

but the prayer ²⁶  of the upright pleases him. ²⁷ 

Amsal 17:26

17:26 It is terrible ²⁸  to punish ²⁹  a righteous person,

and to flog ³⁰  honorable men is wrong. ³¹ 

Amsal 20:11

20:11 Even a young man ³²  is known ³³  by his actions,

whether his activity is pure and whether it is right. ³⁴ 

Amsal 21:18

21:18 The wicked become ³⁵  a ransom ³⁶  for the righteous,

and the faithless ³⁷  are taken ³⁸  in the place of the upright.

Amsal 22:11

22:11 The one who loves a pure heart ³⁹ 

and whose speech is gracious ⁴⁰  – the king will be his friend. ⁴¹ 

[10:9]  ¹ tn Heb “he who walks.” The idiom is used widely in both OT and NT for conduct, behavior, or lifestyle.

[10:9]  ² sn “Integrity” here means “blameless” in conduct. Security follows integrity, because the lifestyle is blameless. The righteous is certain of the course to be followed and does not fear retribution from man or God.

[10:9]  ³ tn Heb “walks.”

[10:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “he who perverts his ways” (so NASB); NIV “who takes crooked paths” (NLT similar). The Piel participle מְעַקֵּשׁ (mÿ’aqqesh) means “make crooked; twisted; perverse.” It is stronger than simply taking crooked paths; it refers to perverting the ways. The one who is devious will not get away with it.

[10:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “the dread of the wicked.” The noun רָשָׁע (rasha’, “wicked”) is a subjective genitive. The noun מְגוֹרַת (mÿgorat) refers to “the feared thing,” that is, what the wicked dread. The wicked are afraid of the consequences of their sinful actions; however, they cannot escape these consequences.

[10:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “the desire of the righteous.” The noun צַדִּיק (tsadiq, “righteous”) is a subjective genitive.

[10:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “it will give.” When used without an expressed subject, the verb יִתֵּן (yitten) has a passive nuance: “it will be granted.”

[10:30]  ⁸ sn This proverb concerns the enjoyment of covenant blessings – dwelling in the land of Israel. It is promised to the righteous for an eternal inheritance, and so the wicked cannot expect to settle there – they will be exiled.

[10:32]  ⁹ sn The verb “know” applied to “lips” is unusual. “Lips” is a metonymy for what the righteous say; and their words “know” (a personification) what is pleasing, i.e., they are acquainted with.

[10:32]  ¹⁰ sn The righteous say what is pleasing, acceptable, or delightful; but the wicked say perverse and destructive things.

[10:32]  ¹¹ tn Heb “lips.” The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause for what is said.

[11:4]  ¹² sn The “day of wrath” refers to divine punishment in this life (R. N. Whybray, Proverbs [CBC], 67; e.g., also Job 21:30; Ezek 7:19; Zeph 1:18). Righteousness and not wealth is more valuable in anticipating judgment.

[11:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “from death.”

[11:6]  ¹⁴ sn The contrast is between being rescued or delivered (נָצַל, natsal) and being captured (לָכַד, lakhad). Righteousness is freeing; [evil] desires are enslaving.

[11:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “taken captive” (so NRSV); NIV, TEV “are trapped.”

[11:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “but by the desire of the faithless are they taken captive.”

[12:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “an abomination of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) is a subjective genitive.

[12:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “lips of lying.” The genitive שָׁקֶר (shaqer, “lying”) functions as an attributive genitive: “lying lips.” The term “lips” functions as a synecdoche of part (= lips) for the whole (= person): “a liar.”

[12:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “but doers of truthfulness.” The term “truthfulness” is an objective genitive, meaning: “those who practice truth” or “those who act in good faith.” Their words and works are reliable.

[12:22]  ²⁰ sn The contrast between “delight/pleasure” and “abomination” is emphatic. What pleases the Lord is acting truthfully or faithfully.

[14:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive.

[14:2]  ²² tn Heb “crooked of ways”; NRSV “devious in conduct.” This construct phrase features a genitive of specification: “crooked in reference to his ways.” The term “ways” is an idiom for moral conduct. The evidence that people fear the Lord is uprightness; the evidence of those who despise him is the devious ways.

[15:8]  ²³ tn Heb “an abomination of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as a subjective genitive: “the Lord abhors.” Cf. NIV “the Lord detests”; NCV, NLT “the Lord hates”; CEV “the Lord is disgusted.”

[15:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “sacrifice” (so many English versions).

[15:8]  ²⁵ sn The sacrifices of the wicked are hated by the Lord because the worshipers are insincere and blasphemous (e.g., Prov 15:29; 21:3; 28:9; Ps 40:6-8; Isa 1:10-17). In other words, the spiritual condition of the worshiper determines whether or not the worship is acceptable to God.

[15:8]  ²⁶ sn J. H. Greenstone notes that if God will accept the prayers of the upright, he will accept their sacrifices; for sacrifice is an outer ritual and easily performed even by the wicked, but prayer is a private and inward act and not usually fabricated by unbelievers (Proverbs, 162).

[15:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “[is] his pleasure.” The 3rd person masculine singular suffix functions as a subjective genitive: “he is pleased.” God is pleased with the prayers of the upright.

[17:26]  ²⁸ tn Heb “not good.” This is an example of tapeinosis – an understatement that implies the worst-case scenario: “it is terrible.”

[17:26]  ²⁹ tn The verb עָנַשׁ, here a Qal infinitive construct, properly means “to fine” (cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT) but is taken here to mean “to punish” in general. The infinitive functions as the subject of the clause.

[17:26]  ³⁰ tn The form is the Hiphil infinitive construct from נָכָה (nakhah, “to strike; to smite”). It may well refer to public beatings, so “flog” is used in the translation, since “strike” could refer to an individual’s action and “beat” could be taken to refer to competition.

[17:26]  ³¹ tn Heb “[is] against uprightness.” The expression may be rendered “contrary to what is right.”

[17:26]  sn The two lines could be synonymous parallelism; but the second part is being used to show how wrong the first act would be – punishing the righteous makes about as much sense as beating an official of the court for doing what is just.

[20:11]  ³² sn In the first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs the Hebrew term נַעַר (na’ar) referred to an adolescent, a young person whose character was being formed in his early life.

[20:11]  ³³ sn The Hebrew verb נָכַר (nakhar) means “to recognize” more than simply “to know.” Certain character traits can be recognized in a child by what he does (cf. NCV “by their behavior”).

[20:11]  ³⁴ sn Character is demonstrated by actions at any age. But the emphasis of the book of Proverbs would also be that if the young child begins to show such actions, then the parents must try to foster and cultivate them; if not, they must try to develop them through teaching and discipline.

[21:18]  ³⁵ tn The term “become” is supplied in the translation.

[21:18]  ³⁶ sn The Hebrew word translated “ransom” (כֹּפֶר, kofer) normally refers to the price paid to free a prisoner. R. N. Whybray (Proverbs [CBC], 121) gives options for the meaning of the verse: (1) If it means that the wicked obtain good things that should go to the righteous, it is then a despairing plea for justice (which would be unusual in the book of Proverbs); but if (2) it is taken to mean that the wicked suffers the evil he has prepared for the righteous, then it harmonizes with Proverbs elsewhere (e.g., 11:8). The ideal this proverb presents – and the future reality – is that in calamity the righteous escape and the wicked suffer in their place (e.g., Haman in the book of Esther).

[21:18]  ³⁷ tn Or “treacherous” (so ASV, NASB, NLT); NIV “the unfaithful.”

[21:18]  ³⁸ tn The phrase “are taken” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the parallelism; it is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[22:11]  ³⁹ sn The “heart” is a metonymy of subject; it represents the intentions and choices that are made. “Pure of heart” uses “heart” as a genitive of specification. The expression refers to someone who has honest and clear intentions.

[22:11]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “grace of his lips” (so KJV, ASV). The “lips” are a metonymy of cause representing what is said; it also functions as a genitive of specification.

[22:11]  sn This individual is gracious or kind in what he says; thus the verse is commending honest intentions and gracious words.

[22:11]  ⁴¹ tn The syntax of the line is somewhat difficult, because “grace of his lips” seems to be intruding on the point of the verse with little explanation. Therefore the LXX rendered it “The Lord loves the pure in heart; all who are blameless in their ways are acceptable to him.” This has very little correspondence with the Hebrew; nevertheless commentators attempt to reconstruct the verse using it, and the NAB follows the first clause of the LXX here. Some have suggested taking “king” as the subject of the whole verse (“the king loves…”), but this is forced.