Amsal 5:11-14

5:11 And at the end of your life ¹  you will groan ² 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ³ 

5:12 And you will say, “How I hated discipline!

My heart spurned reproof!

5:13 For ⁴  I did not obey my teachers ⁵ 

and I did not heed ⁶  my instructors. ⁷ 

5:14 I almost ⁸  came to complete ruin ⁹ 

in the midst of the whole congregation!” ¹⁰ 

Amsal 9:7-9

9:7 Whoever corrects ¹¹  a mocker is asking for ¹²  insult; ¹³ 

whoever reproves a wicked person receives ¹⁴  abuse.

9:8 Do not reprove ¹⁵  a mocker or ¹⁶  he will hate you;

reprove a wise person and he will love you.

9:9 Give instruction ¹⁷  to a wise person, ¹⁸  and he will become wiser still;

teach ¹⁹  a righteous person and he will add to his ²⁰  learning.

Amsal 13:1

13:1 A wise son accepts ²¹  his father’s discipline, ²² 

but a scoffer ²³  does not listen to rebuke.

Amsal 13:18

13:18 The one who neglects ²⁴  discipline ends up in ²⁵  poverty and shame,

but the one who accepts reproof is honored. ²⁶ 

[5:11]  ¹ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ² tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  sn The verb means “to growl, groan.” It refers to a lion when it devours its prey, and to a sufferer in pain or remorse (e.g., Ezek 24:23).

[5:11]  ³ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”

[5:13]  ⁴ tn The vav that introduces this clause functions in an explanatory sense.

[5:13]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term מוֹרַי (moray) is the nominal form based on the Hiphil plural participle with a suffix, from the root יָרָה (yarah). The verb is “to teach,” the common noun is “instruction, law [torah],” and this participle form is teacher (“my teachers”).

[5:13]  ⁶ sn The idioms are vivid: This expression is “incline the ear”; earlier in the first line is “listen to the voice,” meaning “obey.” Such detailed description emphasizes the importance of the material.

[5:13]  ⁷ tn The form is the Piel plural participle of לָמַד (lamad) used substantivally.

[5:14]  ⁸ tn The expression כִּמְעַט (kim’at) is “like a little.” It means “almost,” and is used of unrealized action (BDB 590 s.v. 2). Cf. NCV “I came close to”; NLT “I have come to the brink of.”

[5:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).

[5:14]  ¹⁰ tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.

[9:7]  ¹¹ tn The active participle יֹסֵר (yoser) describes one who tries to correct by means of instruction and discipline; it is paralleled by the Hiphil participle which refers to someone who rebukes or reproves another. Anyone trying this on these types of people would be inviting trouble.

[9:7]  ¹² tn Heb “receives for himself.”

[9:7]  ¹³ tn The word means “dishonor” or “disgrace.” It is paralleled with מוּמוֹ (mumo), translated “abuse.” The latter term means “blemish,” although some would emend the text to read “reproach.” The MT is figurative but not impossible to interpret: Whoever tries to rebuke a wicked person will receive only insults and perhaps physical attack.

[9:7]  ¹⁴ tn The verb “receives” is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[9:8]  ¹⁵ tn In view of the expected response for reproof, the text now uses a negated jussive to advise against the attempt. This is paralleled antithetically by the imperative in the second colon. This imperative is in an understood conditional clause: “if you reprove a wise person.”

[9:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “lest he hate you.” The particle פֶּן (pen, “lest”) expresses fear or precaution (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 79, §476). The antonyms “love” and “hate” suggest that the latter means “reject” and the former means “choosing and embracing.”

[9:9]  ¹⁷ tn The noun “instruction” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation.

[9:9]  ¹⁸ sn The parallelism shows what Proverbs will repeatedly stress, that the wise person is the righteous person.

[9:9]  ¹⁹ tn The Hiphil verb normally means “to cause to know, make known”; but here the context suggests “to teach” (so many English versions).

[9:9]  ²⁰ tn The term “his” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied for the sake of smoothness and clarity.

[13:1]  ²¹ tn The term “accepts” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and clarity.

[13:1]  ²² tc G. R. Driver suggested reading this word as מְיֻסַּר (mÿyussar, “allows himself to be disciplined”); see his “Hebrew Notes on Prophets and Proverbs,” JTS 41 (1940): 174. But this is not necessary at all; the MT makes good sense as it stands. Similarly, the LXX has “a wise son listens to his father.”

[13:1]  tn Heb “discipline of a father.”

[13:1]  ²³ sn The “scoffer” is the worst kind of fool. He has no respect for authority, reviles worship of God, and is unteachable because he thinks he knows it all. The change to a stronger word in the second colon – “rebuke” (גָּעַר, ga’ar) – shows that he does not respond to instruction on any level. Cf. NLT “a young mocker,” taking this to refer to the opposite of the “wise son” in the first colon.

[13:18]  ²⁴ tn The verb III פָּרַע (para’) normally means “to let go; to let alone” and here “to neglect; to avoid; to reject” (BDB 828 s.v.).

[13:18]  ²⁵ tn The phrase “ends up in” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the parallelism; it is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness.

[13:18]  ²⁶ sn Honor and success are contrasted with poverty and shame; the key to enjoying the one and escaping the other is discipline and correction. W. McKane, Proverbs (OTL), 456, notes that it is a difference between a man of weight (power and wealth, from the idea of “heavy” for “honor”) and the man of straw (lowly esteemed and poor).