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Proverbs 5:13-15
New English Translation
Proverbs 5:13-15
New English Translation
13 For[a] I did not obey[b] my teachers[c]
and I did not heed[d] my instructors.[e]
14 I almost[f] came to complete ruin[g]
in the midst of the whole congregation!”[h]
15 Drink water from your own cistern
and running water from your own well.[i]
Footnotes
- Proverbs 5:13 tn The vav that introduces this clause functions in an explanatory sense.
- 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.
- 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”).
- Proverbs 5:13 tn The idiom is based on attentiveness: “did not incline my ear to.”
- Proverbs 5:13 tn The form is the Piel plural participle of לָמַד (lamad) used substantivally.
- 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.”
- Proverbs 5:14 tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).
- Proverbs 5:14 tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.
- 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).
New English Translation (NET)
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