Amsal 6:9

6:9 How long, you sluggard, will you lie there?

When will you rise from your sleep? ¹ 

Amsal 15:22

15:22 Plans fail ²  when there is no counsel,

but with abundant advisers they are established. ³ 

Amsal 19:21

19:21 There are many plans ⁴  in a person’s mind, ⁵ 

but it ⁶  is the counsel ⁷  of the Lord which will stand.

Amsal 24:16

24:16 Although ⁸  a righteous person may fall seven times, he gets up again,

but the wicked will be brought down ⁹  by calamity.

Amsal 24:22

24:22 for suddenly their destruction will overtake them, ¹⁰ 

and who knows the ruinous judgment both the Lord and the king can bring? ¹¹ 

Amsal 28:12

28:12 When the righteous rejoice, ¹²  great is the glory, ¹³ 

but when the wicked rise to power, people are sought out. ¹⁴ 

Amsal 28:28

28:28 When the wicked gain control, ¹⁵  people ¹⁶  hide themselves, ¹⁷ 

but when they perish, ¹⁸  the righteous increase.

Amsal 31:15

31:15 She also gets up ¹⁹  while it is still night,

and provides food ²⁰  for her household and a portion ²¹  to her female servants.

[6:9]  ¹ sn The use of the two rhetorical questions is designed to rebuke the lazy person in a forceful manner. The sluggard is spending too much time sleeping.

[15:22]  ² tn Heb “go wrong” (so NRSV, NLT). The verb is the Hiphil infinitive absolute from פָּרַר, parar, which means “to break; to frustrate; to go wrong” (HALOT 975 s.v. I פרר 2). The plans are made ineffectual or are frustrated when there is insufficient counsel.

[15:22]  ³ sn The proverb says essentially the same thing as 11:14, but differently.

[19:21]  ⁴ sn The plans (from the Hebrew verb חָשַׁב [khashav], “to think; to reckon; to devise”) in the human heart are many. But only those which God approves will succeed.

[19:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the heart of a man” (cf. NAB, NIV). Here “heart” is used for the seat of thoughts, plans, and reasoning, so the translation uses “mind.” In contemporary English “heart” is more often associated with the seat of emotion than with the seat of planning and reasoning.

[19:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand.” The construction draws attention to the “counsel of the Lord”; it is an independent nominative absolute, and the resumptive independent pronoun is the formal subject of the verb.

[19:21]  ⁷ tn The antithetical parallelism pairs “counsel” with “plans.” “Counsel of the Lord” (עֲצַת יְהוָה, ’atsat yehvah) is literally “advice” or “counsel” with the connotation of “plan” in this context (cf. NIV, NRSV, NLT “purpose”; NCV “plan”; TEV “the Lord’s will”).

[19:21]  sn The point of the proverb is that the human being with many plans is uncertain, but the Lord with a sure plan gives correct counsel.

[24:16]  ⁸ tn The clause beginning with כִּי (ki) could be interpreted as causal or conditional; but in view of the significance of the next clause it seems better to take it as a concessive clause (“although”). Its verb then receives a modal nuance of possibility. The apodosis is then “and he rises up,” which could be a participle or a perfect tense; although he may fall, he gets up (or, will get up).

[24:16]  sn The righteous may suffer adversity or misfortune any number of times – seven times here – but they will “rise” for virtue triumphs over evil in the end (R. N. Whybray, Proverbs [CBC], 140).

[24:16]  ⁹ tn The verb could be translated with an English present tense (“are brought down,” so NIV) to express what happens to the wicked in this life; but since the saying warns against being like the wicked, their destruction is more likely directed to the future.

[24:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will rise” (so NASB).

[24:22]  ¹¹ 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.

[28:12]  ¹² tn The form בַּעֲלֹץ (ba’alots) is the infinitive construct with the preposition indicating a temporal clause (“when…”); the “righteous” are the subject of this clause (subjective genitive). The word may be taken as a metonymy of adjunct – the righteous exult or rejoice because they are prosperous (cf. NLT “succeed”).

[28:12]  ¹³ sn “Glory” here may have the sense of elation and praise.

[28:12]  ¹⁴ tn The meaning of “sought out” (יְחֻפַּשׂ, yÿkhuppas) indicates that people have gone into hiding. So the development of the ideas for this proverb require in the first line that “rejoice” be connected with “triumph” that means they have come to power; and in the second line that “are sought out” means people have gone into hiding (cf. ASV, NIV, NRSV, NLT). C. H. Toy thinks this is too strained; he offers this rendering: “When the righteous are exalted there is great confidence, but when the wicked come into power men hide themselves” (Proverbs [ICC], 500). For the verb G. R. Driver posits an Arabic cognate hafasa, “prostrated; trampled on” (“Problems in the Hebrew Text of Proverbs,” Bib 32 [1951]: 192-93), which gives a clearer result of wicked rule, but is perhaps unnecessary (e.g., Prov 28:28; 29:2). See J. A. Emerton, “Notes on Some Passages in the Book of Proverbs,” JTS 20 (1969): 202-20.

[28:28]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the wicked rise,” referring to an accession to power, as in a government. Cf. TEV “come to power”; NLT “take charge.”

[28:28]  sn The proverb is essentially the same as 28:12 (e.g., Prov 11:10; 29:2, 16). It refers to the wicked “rising to power” in government.

[28:28]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a man” or “mankind” in a generic sense.

[28:28]  ¹⁷ tn The form is the Niphal imperfect of סָתַר (satar, “to hide”); in this stem it can mean “to hide themselves” or “to go into hiding.” In either case the expression would be a hyperbole; the populace would not go into hiding, but they would tread softly and move about cautiously. G. R. Driver suggests the Akkadian sataru instead, which means “to demolish,” and is cognate to the Aramaic “to destroy.” This would produce the idea that people are “destroyed” when the wicked come to power (“Problems in the Hebrew Text of Proverbs,” Bib 32 [1951]: 192-93). That meaning certainly fits the idea, but there is no reason for the change because the MT is perfectly readable as it is and makes good sense.

[28:28]  ¹⁸ tn The two clauses have parallel constructions: They both begin with infinitives construct with prepositions functioning as temporal clauses, followed by subjective genitives (first the wicked, and then the pronoun referring to them). This heightens the antithesis: “when the wicked rise…when they perish.”

[31:15]  ¹⁹ tn The first word of the sixth line begins with ו (vav), the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[31:15]  ²⁰ sn The word for “food” is טֶרֶף (teref, “prey”; KJV “meat”), another word that does not normally fit the domestic scene. This word also is used in a similar way in Ps 111:5, which says the Lord gives food. Here it is the noble woman who gives food to her family and servants.

[31:15]  ²¹ sn The word חֹק (khoq) probably means “allotted portion of food” as before, but some suggest it means the task that is allotted to the servants, meaning that the wise woman gets up early enough to give out the work assignments (Tg. Prov 31:15, RSV, NRSV, TEV, NLT). That is possible, but seems an unnecessary direction for the line to take. Others, however, simply wish to delete this last colon, leaving two cola and not three, but that is unwarranted.