Proverbs 6:5-7

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Proverbs 6:5 tn Heb “from the hand.” Most translations supply “of the hunter.” The word “hand” can signify power, control; so the meaning is that of a gazelle freeing itself from a snare or a trap that a hunter set.
2. Proverbs 6:5 tc Heb “hand” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV). Some mss and versions have it as “trap,” which may very well represent an interpretation too.
3. Proverbs 6:6 sn The sluggard (עָצֵל, ʿatsel) is the lazy or sluggish person (cf. NCV “lazy person,” and NRSV and NLT “lazybones”).
4. Proverbs 6:6 sn A fact seemingly unknown until recent centuries is that although worker ants are sterile, they are female. The gender of the word “ant” in Hebrew is feminine.
5. Proverbs 6:7 tn The conjunction vav (ו) here has the classification of alternative, “or” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 71, §433).