Proverbs 5:13-15

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Proverbs 5:13 tn The vav that introduces this clause functions in an explanatory sense.
2. Proverbs 5:13 tn Heb “did not listen to the voice of.” The picture is that of treating the teacher’s instruction as background noise instead of paying attention to it or obeying it.
3. Proverbs 5:13 tn 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”).
4. Proverbs 5:13 tn The idiom is based on attentiveness: “did not incline my ear to.”
5. Proverbs 5:13 tn The form is the Piel plural participle of לָמַד (lamad) used substantivally.
6. Proverbs 5:14 tn The expression כִּמְעַט (kimʿat) 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.”
7. Proverbs 5:14 tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).
8. Proverbs 5:14 tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.
9. Proverbs 5:15 sn Paul Kruger develops this section as an allegory consisting of a series of metaphors. He suggests that what is at issue is private versus common property. The images of the cistern, well, or fountain are used of a wife (e.g., Song 4:15) because she, like water, satisfies desires. Streams of water in the street would then mean sexual contact with a lewd woman. According to 7:12 she never stays home but is in the streets and is the property of many (P. Kruger, “Promiscuity and Marriage Fidelity? A Note on Prov 5:15-18, ” JNSL 13 [1987]: 61-68).