translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: PRO

label: NET study note

text: Wise lips detest wickedness ; wisdom hates speaking wicked things. In fact, speaking truth results in part from detesting wickedness.


text: The verb פָּתַל ( patal ) means “to twist.” In the Niphal it means “to wrestle” (to twist oneself). It was used in Gen 30:8 for the naming of Naphtali, with the motivation for the name from this verb: “with great struggling.” Here it describes speech that is twisted. It is a synonym for the next word, which means “twisted; crooked; perverse.”


text: This verb יְחֹקְקוּ ( yÿkhoqqu ) is related to the noun חֹק ( khoq ), which is a “statute; decree.” The verb is defined as “to cut in; to inscribe; to decree” (BDB 349 s.v. חָקַק ). The point the verse is making is that when these potentates decree righteousness, it is by wisdom. History records all too often that these rulers acted as fools and opposed righteousness (cf. Ps 2:1-3 ). But people in power need wisdom to govern the earth (e.g., Isa 11:1-4 which predicts how Messiah will use wisdom to do this very thing). The point is underscored with the paronomasia in v. 15 with “kings” and “will reign” from the same root, and then in v. 16 with both “princes” and “rule” being cognate. The repetition of sounds and meanings strengthens the statements.


text: In contrast to the word for “hate” ( שָׂנֵא , shaneh ) the verb “love” ( אָהֵב , ’ ahev ) includes within it the idea of choosing spontaneously. So in this line loving and seeking point up the means of finding wisdom.


text: The language of the text with “fruit” and “ingathering” is the language of the harvest – what the crops yield. So the figure is hypocatastasis, comparing what wisdom produces to such crops.


text: The summary statements just given are now developed in a lengthy treatment of wisdom as the agent of all creation. This verse singles out “watery deeps” ( תְּהֹמוֹת , tÿhomot ) in its allusion to creation because the word in Genesis signals the condition of the world at the very beginning, and because in the ancient world this was something no one could control. Chaos was not there first – wisdom was.


text: The infinitive construct בְּחוּקוֹ ( bÿkhuqo , “to cut; to engrave; to mark”) and the noun חוּג ( khug , “horizon; circle”) form a paronomasia in the line.