translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: PRO

label: NET translator note

text: The text again has “my son.” In this passage perhaps “son” would be the most fitting because of the warning against going to the adulterous woman. However, since the image of the adulterous woman probably represents all kinds of folly (through personification), and since even in this particular folly the temptation works both ways, the general address to either young men or women should be retained. The text was certainly not intended to convey that only women could seduce men.


text: Heb “keep, protect, guard.”


text: Heb “her palate.” The word חֵךְ ( khekh , “palate; roof of the mouth; gums”) is a metonymy of cause (= organ of speech) for what is said (= her seductive speech). The present translation clarifies this metonymy with the phrase “her seductive words.”


text: 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).


text: The term שְׁאוֹל ( she ’ ol , “grave”) is paralleled to “death,” so it does not refer here to the realm of the unblessed. sn The terms death and grave could be hyperbolic of a ruined life, but probably refer primarily to the mortal consequences of a life of debauchery.


text: The particle פֶּן ( pen ) means “lest” (probably from “for the aversion of”). It occurs this once, unusually, preceding the principal clause (BDB 814 s.v.). It means that some action has been taken to avert or avoid what follows. She avoids the path of life, albeit ignorantly.


text: Heb “the path of life.” The noun חַיִּים ( khayyim , “of life”) functions as a genitive of direction (“leading to”).


text: Heb “sons.”


text: Heb “the words of my mouth” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).


text: Heb “your way.”


text: Or “are sated, satisfied.”


text: The word כֹּחַ ( coakh , “strength”) refers to what laborious toil would produce (so a metonymy of cause). Everything that this person worked for could become the property for others to enjoy.


text: “labor, painful toil.”


text: The term “benefit” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.


text: Heb “at your end.”


text: The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context. 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 ).


text: 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.”


text: The vav that introduces this clause functions in an explanatory sense.


text: 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”).


text: The form is the Piel plural participle of לָמַד ( lamad ) used substantivally.


text: 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.”


text: Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).


text: The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.


text: The verb means “to be scattered; to be dispersed”; here the imperfect takes a deliberative nuance in a rhetorical question.


text: The ל ( lamed ) preposition denotes possession: “for you” = “yours.” The term לְבַדֶּךָ ( lÿvadekha ) is appositional, underscoring the possession as exclusive.


text: The form is a Qal imperative with a vav ( ו ) of sequence; after the jussive of the first half this colon could be given an equivalent translation or logically subordinated.


text: Or “in the wife you married when you were young” (cf. NCV, CEV); Heb “in the wife of your youth” (so NIV, NLT). The genitive functions as an attributive adjective: “young wife” or “youthful wife.” Another possibility is that it refers to the age in which a man married his wife: “the wife you married in your youth.”


text: The construct expression “a doe of loves” is an attributive genitive, describing the doe with the word “loves.” The plural noun may be an abstract plural of intensification (but this noun only occurs in the plural). The same construction follows with a “deer of grace” – a graceful deer. sn The imagery for intimate love in marriage is now employed to stress the beauty of sexual fulfillment as it was intended. The doe and deer, both implied comparisons, exhibit the grace and love of the wife.


text: In the interrogative clause the imperfect has a deliberative nuance.


text: Heb “foreigner” (so ASV, NASB), but this does not mean that the woman is non-Israelite. This term describes a woman who is outside the moral boundaries of the covenant community – she is another man’s wife, but since she acts with moral abandonment she is called “foreign.”


text: Heb “man.”


text: Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord ) has been specified in the translation for clarity.


text: BDB 814 s.v. פָּלַס 2 suggests that the participle מְפַּלֵּס ( mÿpalles ) means “to make level [or, straight].” As one’s ways are in front of the eyes of the Lord , they become straight or right. It could be translated “weighs” since it is a denominative from the noun for “balance, scale”; the Lord weighs or examines the actions.


text: Heb “all his”; the referent (the person mentioned in the first half of the verse) has been specified in the translation for clarity.


text: The suffix on the verb is the direct object suffix; “the wicked” is a second object by apposition: They capture him, the wicked. Since “the wicked” is not found in the LXX, it could be an old scribal error; or the Greek translator may have simply smoothed out the sentence. C. H. Toy suggests turning the sentence into a passive idea: “The wicked will be caught in his iniquities” ( Proverbs [ICC], 117).


text: The word is the subject of the clause, but the pronominal suffix has no clear referent. The suffix is proleptic, referring to the wicked.


text: Heb “his own iniquities will capture the wicked.” The translation shifts the syntax for the sake of smoothness and readability.


text: The Hebrew is structured chiastically: “his own iniquities will capture the wicked, by the cords of his own sin will he be held.”


text: The preposition בּ ( bet ) is used in a causal sense: “because” (cf. NCV, TEV, CEV).