Amsal 20:13

20:13 Do not love sleep, ¹  lest you become impoverished;

open your eyes so that ²  you might be satisfied with food. ³ 

Amsal 30:9

30:9 lest I become satisfied and act deceptively ⁴ 

and say, “Who is the Lord?”

Or lest I become poor and steal

and demean ⁵  the name of my God.

[20:13]  ¹ sn The proverb uses antithetical parallelism to teach that diligence leads to prosperity. It contrasts loving sleep with opening the eyes, and poverty with satisfaction. Just as “sleep” can be used for slothfulness or laziness, so opening the eyes can represent vigorous, active conduct. The idioms have caught on in modern usage as well – things like “open your eyes” or “asleep on the job.”

[20:13]  ² tn The second line uses two imperatives in a sequence (without the vav [ו]): “open your eyes” and then (or, in order that) you will “be satisfied.”

[20:13]  ³ tn Heb “bread” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV), although the term often serves in a generic sense for food in general.

[30:9]  ⁴ tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) means “to be disappointing; to deceive; to fail; to grow lean.” In the Piel stem it means “to deceive; to act deceptively; to cringe; to disappoint.” The idea of acting deceptively is illustrated in Hos 9:2 where it has the connotation of “disowning” or “refusing to acknowledge” (a meaning very close to its meaning here).

[30:9]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb literally means “to take hold of; to seize”; this produces the idea of doing violence to the reputation of God.