Amsal 19:7

19:7 All the relatives ¹  of a poor person hate him; ² 

how much more do his friends avoid him –

he pursues them ³  with words, but they do not respond. ⁴ 

Amsal 19:2

19:2 It is dangerous ⁵  to have zeal ⁶  without knowledge,

and the one who acts hastily ⁷  makes poor choices. ⁸ 

1 Samuel 12:6

12:6 Samuel said to the people, “The Lord is the one who chose Moses and Aaron and who brought your ancestors ⁹  up from the land of Egypt.

[19:7]  ¹ tn Heb “brothers,” but not limited only to male siblings in this context.

[19:7]  ² tn Heb “hate him.” The verb שָׂנֵא (sane’) may be nuanced “reject” here (metonymy of effect, cf. CEV). The kind of “dislike” or “hatred” family members show to a poor relative is to have nothing to do with him (NIV “is shunned”). If relatives do this, how much more will the poor person’s friends do so.

[19:7]  ³ tn The direct object “them” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness.

[19:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “not they.” The last line of the verse is problematic. The preceding two lines are loosely synonymous in their parallelism, but the third adds something like: “he pursues [them with] words, but they [do] not [respond].” Some simply say it is a corrupt remnant of a separate proverb and beyond restoration. The basic idea does make sense, though. The idea of his family and friends rejecting the poor person reveals how superficial they are, and how they make themselves scarce. Since they are far off, he has to look for them “with words” (adverbial accusative), that is, “send word” for help. But they “are nowhere to be found” (so NIV). The LXX reads “will not be delivered” in place of “not they” – clearly an attempt to make sense out of the cryptic phrase, and, in the process, showing evidence for that text.

[19:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “not good.” This is a figure known as tapeinosis (a deliberate understatement to emphasize a worst-case scenario): “it is dangerous!”

[19:2]  ⁶ tn The interpretation of this line depends largely on the meaning of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) which has a broad range of meanings: (1) the breathing substance of man, (2) living being, (3) life, (4) person, (5) seat of the appetites, (6) seat of emotions and passions, (7) activities of intellect, emotion and will, (8) moral character, etc. (BDB 659-61 s.v.). In light of the synonymous parallelism, the most likely nuance here is “zeal, passion” (HALOT 713 s.v. 8). NIV takes the word in the sense of “vitality” and “drive” – “it is not good to have zeal without knowledge” (cf. NCV, TEV, and NLT which are all similar).

[19:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “he who is hasty with his feet.” The verb אוּץ (’uts) means “to be pressed; to press; to make haste.” The verb is followed by the preposition בְּ (bet) which indicates that with which one hastens – his feet. The word “feet” is a synecdoche of part for the whole person – body and mind working together (cf. NLT “a person who moves too quickly”).

[19:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “misses the goal.” The participle חוֹטֵא (khote’) can be translated “sins” (cf. KJV, ASV), but in this context it refers only to actions without knowledge, which could lead to sin, or could lead simply to making poor choices (cf. NAB “blunders”; NASB “errs”; NCV “might make a mistake”).

[19:2]  sn The basic meaning of the verb is “to miss a goal or the way.” D. Kidner says, “How negative is the achievement of a man who wants tangible and quick rewards” – he will miss the way (Proverbs [TOTC], 132).

[12:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 7, 8).