Amsal 15:4

15:4 Speech ¹  that heals ²  is like ³  a life-giving tree, ⁴ 

but a perverse tongue ⁵  breaks the spirit.

Amsal 19:18

19:18 Discipline your child, for ⁶  there is hope,

but do not set your heart ⁷  on causing his death. ⁸ 

Amsal 24:10

24:10 If you faint ⁹  in the day of trouble, ¹⁰ 

your strength is small! ¹¹ 

Amsal 24:22

24:22 for suddenly their destruction will overtake them, ¹² 

and who knows the ruinous judgment both the Lord and the king can bring? ¹³ 

[15:4]  ¹ tn Heb “a tongue.” The term “tongue” is a metonymy of cause for what is produced: speech.

[15:4]  ² tn Heb “a tongue of healing.” A healing tongue refers to speech that is therapeutic or soothing. It is a source of vitality.

[15:4]  ³ tn The comparative “like” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the metaphor; it is supplied for the sake of clarity.

[15:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “tree of life.”

[15:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “perversion in it.” The referent must be the tongue, so this has been supplied in the translation for clarity. A tongue that is twisted, perverse, or deceitful is a way of describing deceitful speech. Such words will crush the spirit (e.g., Isa 65:14).

[19:18]  ⁶ tn The translation understands כִּי (ki) as causal. Some prefer to take כִּי as temporal and translate, “while there is hope” (so KJV, NASB, NCV, NRSV, NLT), meaning that discipline should be administered when the child is young and easily guided. In the causal reading of כִּי, the idea seems to be that children should be disciplined because change is possible due to their youth and the fact that they are not set in their ways.

[19:18]  ⁷ tn The expression “do not lift up your soul/life” to his death may mean (1) “do not set your heart” on his death (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV), or it may mean (2) “do not be a willing partner” (cf. NIV). The parent is to discipline a child, but he is not to take it to the extreme and destroy or kill the child.

[19:18]  ⁸ tn The Hiphil infinitive construct הֲמִיתוֹ (h^amito) means “taking it to heart” in this line. The traditional rendering was “and let not your soul spare for his crying.” This involved a different reading than “causing his death” (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 206-7).

[24:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “show yourself slack” (NASB similar). The verb רָפָה (rafah) means “to sink; to relax.” In the causative stems it means “to let slacken; to let go; to refrain; to fail; to do nothing.” In the Hitpael stem BDB 952 s.v. defines it as “to show yourself slack.” It has also been rendered as “give up” (NCV, CEV); “fail” (NLT); “falter” (NIV). The colon implies a condition, for which the second part of the verse is the apodosis.

[24:10]  ¹⁰ tn The verse employs a paronomasia to underscore the point: “trouble” is צָרָה (tsarah), literally “a bind; a strait [or, narrow] place”; “small” is צַר (tsar), with the same idea of “narrow” or “close.”

[24:10]  ¹¹ sn The test of strength is adversity, for it reveals how strong a person is. Of course a weak person can always plead adverse conditions in order to quit. This is the twenty-fourth saying.

[24:22]  ¹² tn Heb “will rise” (so NASB).

[24:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “the ruin of the two of them.” Judgment is sent on the rebels both by God and the king. The term פִּיד (pid, “ruin; disaster”) is a metonymy of effect, the cause being the sentence of judgment (= “ruinous judgment” in the translation; cf. NLT “punishment”). The word “two of them” is a subjective genitive – they two bring the disaster on the rebels. The referents (the Lord and the king) have been specified in the translation for clarity.

[24:22]  sn The reward for living in peace under God in this world is that those who do will escape the calamities that will fall on the rebellious. Verse 21a is used in 1 Peter 2:17, and v. 22 is used in Romans 13:1-7 (v. 4). This is the thirtieth and last of this collection.