Proverbs 10:10-12

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Proverbs 10:10 tn The participle (קָרַץ, qarats) describes a person who habitually “winks” his eye maliciously as a secretive sign to those conspiring evil (Prov 6:13). This is a comparison rather than a contrast. Devious gestures are grievous, but not as ruinous as foolish talk. Both are to be avoided.
2. Proverbs 10:10 tn Heb “the eye.”
3. Proverbs 10:10 tn Heb “gives.”
4. Proverbs 10:10 tn Heb “the fool of lips”; cf. NASB “a babbling fool.” The phrase is a genitive of specification: “a fool in respect to lips.” The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause (= lips) for effect (= speech). The word for fool (אֶוִיל, ʾevil) refers to someone who despises knowledge and discernment.
5. Proverbs 10:11 tn Heb “mouth.” The word “mouth” is metonymy of cause, representing what the righteous say and teach.
6. Proverbs 10:11 tn Heb “a fountain of life is the mouth of the righteous” (NAB similar). The subject (“a fountain of life”) and the predicate (“the mouth of the righteous”) in the Hebrew text are reversed in the present translation (as in most English versions) for the sake of clarity and smoothness. The idea of this metaphor, “the fountain of life,” may come from Ps 36:9 (e.g., also Prov 13:14; 14:27; 16:22). What the righteous say is beneficial to life or life-giving. Their words are life-giving but the words of the wicked are violent. See R. B. Y. Scott, “Wise and Foolish, Righteous and Wicked,” VT 29 (1972): 145-65.
7. Proverbs 10:11 tn Heb “the mouth.” The term פֶּה (peh, “mouth”) functions as a metonymy of cause for speech.
8. Proverbs 10:11 tn Heb “covers.” Behind the speech of the wicked is aggressive violence (W. McKane, Proverbs [OTL], 422).
9. Proverbs 10:11 tn The syntax of this line is ambiguous. The translation takes “the mouth of the wicked” as the nominative subject and “violence” as the accusative direct object; however, the subject might be “violence,” hence: “violence covers the mouth of the wicked.”
10. Proverbs 10:12 sn This contrasts the wicked motivated by hatred (animosity, rejection) with the righteous motivated by love (kind acts, showing favor).
11. Proverbs 10:12 sn Love acts like forgiveness. Hatred looks for and exaggerates faults, but love seeks ways to make sins disappear (e.g., 1 Pet 4:8).