Amsal 5:4

5:4 but in the end ¹  she is bitter ²  as wormwood, ³ 

sharp as a two-edged ⁴  sword.

Amsal 8:3

8:3 beside the gates opening into ⁵  the city,

at the entrance of the doorways she cries out: ⁶ 

Amsal 21:23

21:23 The one who guards his mouth and his tongue ⁷ 

keeps his life ⁸  from troubles. ⁹ 

Amsal 30:28

30:28 a lizard ¹⁰  you can catch with the hand,

but it gets into the palaces of the king. ¹¹ 

[5:4]  ¹ sn Heb “her end” (so KJV). D. Kidner notes that Proverbs does not allow us to forget that there is an afterward (Proverbs [TOTC], 65).

[5:4]  ² sn The verb “to be bitter” (מָרַר, marar) describes things that are harmful and destructive for life, such as the death of the members of the family of Naomi (Ruth 1:20) or finding water that was undrinkable (Exod 15:22-27). The word indicates that the sweet talking will turn out badly.

[5:4]  ³ tn The Hebrew term translated “wormwood” refers to the aromatic plant that contrasts with the sweetness of honey. Some follow the LXX and translate it as “gall” (cf. NIV). The point is that there was sweetness when the tryst had alluring glamour, but afterward it had an ugly ring (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 74).

[5:4]  ⁴ sn The Hebrew has “like a sword of [two] mouths,” meaning a double-edged sword that devours/cuts either way. There is no movement without damage. There may be a wordplay here with this description of the “sword with two mouths,” and the subject of the passage being the words of her mouth which also have two sides to them. The irony is cut by the idiom.

[8:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “at the mouth of.”

[8:3]  ⁶ tn The cry is a very loud ringing cry that could not be missed. The term רָנַן (ranan) means “to give a ringing cry.” It is often only a shrill sound that might come with a victory in battle, but its use in the psalms for praise shows that it also can have clear verbal content, as it does here. For wisdom to stand in the street and give such a ringing cry would mean that it could be heard by all. It was a proclamation.

[21:23]  ⁷ sn “Mouth” and “tongue” are metonymies of cause, signifying what one says (cf. NCV, TEV, CEV).

[21:23]  ⁸ tn This part could also be translated “keeps himself” (so NIV), for נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) often simply means “the whole person.” The participle שֹׁמֵר (shomer) is repeated from the first line in the parallelism – to guard what is said is to guard against difficulty.

[21:23]  ⁹ sn The “troubles” (צָרוֹת, tsarot) here could refer to social and legal difficulties into which careless talk might bring someone (e.g., 13:3; 18:21). The word means “a strait, a bind, difficulty.” Careless and free talking could get the person into a tight spot.

[30:28]  ¹⁰ tn The KJV, agreeing with Tg. Prov 30:28, translated this term as “spider.” But almost all modern English versions and commentators, following the Greek and the Latin versions, have “lizard.”

[30:28]  sn The point of this saying is that a weak creature like a lizard, that is so easily caught, cannot be prevented from getting into the most significant places.

[30:28]  ¹¹ tn Although the Hebrew noun translated “king” is singular here, it is traditionally translated as plural: “kings’ palaces” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).