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Proverbs 14:5
New English Translation
Proverbs 14:5
New English Translation
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Footnotes
- Proverbs 14:5 tn Heb “a witness of faithfulness.” The genitive functions in an attributive sense: “faithful witness” (so KJV, NRSV); TEV “reliable witness.”
- Proverbs 14:5 tn Heb “a witness of falsehood.” The genitive functions in an attributive sense: “false witness.”
- Proverbs 14:5 sn This saying addresses the problem of legal testimony: A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness does lie—naturally. The first colon uses the verb כָּזַב (kazav, “to lie”) and the second colon uses the noun כָּזָב (kazav, “lie; falsehood”).
Proverbs 14:5
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 14:5
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 14:25
New English Translation
Proverbs 14:25
New English Translation
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Footnotes
- Proverbs 14:25 tn Heb “a witness of truth”; cf. CEV “an honest witness.”
- Proverbs 14:25 tn The noun נְפָשׁוֹת (nefashot) often means “souls,” but here “lives”—it functions as a metonymy for life (BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 3.c).sn The setting of this proverb is the courtroom. One who tells the truth “saves” (מַצִּיל [matsil, “rescues; delivers”]) the lives of those falsely accused.
- Proverbs 14:25 tc In the MT the verb lacks agreement with the two nouns in either gender or number so that there is no clear subject: “but he breathes lies, deceit.” Revocalizing the consonants from וְיָפִחַ (veyafiakh, “and he breathes/testifies”) to וִיפֵחַ (vifeakh, “and a witness [of lies]”) and from מִרְמָה (mirmah, “deceit”) to the Piel participle מְרַמֶּה (merammeh, “betrays, deceives, leads astray”) produces a grammatically acceptable text. One may also supply by parallelism “…betrays lives.”
Proverbs 14:25
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 14:25
New American Standard Bible
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Footnotes
- Proverbs 14:25 Lit a fraud
Proverbs 19:5
New English Translation
Proverbs 19:5
New English Translation
5 A false witness[a] will not go unpunished,
and the one who spouts out[b] lies will not escape punishment.[c]
Footnotes
- Proverbs 19:5 tn Heb “a witness of lies.” This expression is an attributive genitive: “a lying witness” (cf. CEV “dishonest witnesses”). This is paralleled by “the one who pours out lies.”
- Proverbs 19:5 tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”
- Proverbs 19:5 tn Heb “will not escape” (so NAB, NASB); NIV “will not go free.” Here “punishment” is implied, and has been supplied in the translation for clarity. sn This proverb is a general statement, because on occasion there are false witnesses who go unpunished in this life (e.g., Prov 6:19; 14:5, 25; 19:9). The Talmud affirms, “False witnesses are contemptible even to those who hire them” (b. Sanhedrin 29b).
Proverbs 19:5
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 19:5
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 19:9
New English Translation
Proverbs 19:9
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- Proverbs 19:9 tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”
- Proverbs 19:9 sn The verse is the same as v. 5, except that the last word changes to the verb “will perish” (cf. NCV “will die”; CEV, NLT “will be destroyed”; TEV “is doomed”).
Proverbs 19:9
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 19:9
New American Standard Bible
9 A (A)false witness will not go unpunished,
And one who declares lies will perish.
Proverbs 19:22
New English Translation
Proverbs 19:22
New English Translation
22 What is desirable[a] for a person is to show loyal love,[b]
and a poor person is better than a liar.[c]
Footnotes
- Proverbs 19:22 tn Heb “the desire of a man” (so KJV). The noun in construct is תַּאֲוַת (taʾavat), “desire [of].” Here it refers to “the desire of a man [= person].” Two problems surface here, the connotation of the word and the kind of genitive. “Desire” can also be translated “lust,” and so J. H. Greenstone has “The lust of a man is his shame” (Proverbs, 208). But the sentence is more likely positive in view of the more common uses of the words. “Man” could be a genitive of possession or subjective genitive—the man desires loyal love. It could also be an objective genitive, meaning “what is desired for a man.” The first would be the more natural in the proverb, which is showing that loyal love is better than wealth.
- Proverbs 19:22 tn Heb “[is] his loyal love”; NIV “unfailing love”; NRSV “loyalty.”
- Proverbs 19:22 sn The second half of the proverb presents the logical inference: The liar would be without “loyal love” entirely, and so poverty would be better than this. A poor person who wishes to do better is preferable to a person who makes promises and does not keep them.
Proverbs 19:22
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 19:22
New American Standard Bible
22 What is desirable in a person is his [a]kindness,
And it is better to be a poor person than a liar.
Footnotes
- Proverbs 19:22 Or loyalty
Proverbs 19:28
New English Translation
Proverbs 19:28
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Footnotes
- Proverbs 19:28 tn Heb “a witness who is worthless and wicked” (עֵד בְּלִיַּעַל, ʿed beliyyaʿal). Cf. KJV “an ungodly witness”; NAB “an unprincipled witness”; NCV “an evil witness”; NASB “a rascally witness.”sn These are crooked or corrupt witnesses who willfully distort the facts and make a mockery of the whole legal process.
- Proverbs 19:28 tn The parallel line says the mouth of the wicked “gulps down” or “swallows” (יְבַלַּע, yevallaʿ) iniquity. The verb does not seem to fit the line (or the proverb) very well. Some have emended the text to יַבִּיעַ (yabbiaʿ, “gushes”) as in 15:28 (cf. NAB “pours out”). Driver followed an Arabic balaga to get “enunciates,” which works well with the idea of a false witness (W. McKane, Proverbs [OTL], 529). As it stands, however, the line indicates that in what he says the wicked person accepts evil—and that could describe a false witness.
Proverbs 19:28
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 19:28
New American Standard Bible
28 A worthless witness makes a mockery of justice,
And the mouth of the wicked [a](A)swallows wrongdoing.
Footnotes
- Proverbs 19:28 Another reading is pours out
Proverbs 21:28
New English Translation
Proverbs 21:28
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Footnotes
- Proverbs 21:28 tn Heb “a witness of lies,” an attributive genitive.
- Proverbs 21:28 tn The Hebrew verb translated “will perish” (יֹאבֵד, yoʾved) could mean that the false witness will die, either by the hand of God or by the community. But it also could be taken in the sense that the false testimony will be destroyed. This would mean that “false witness” would be a metonymy of cause—what he says will perish (cf. NCV “will be forgotten”).
- Proverbs 21:28 tn Heb “but a man who listens speaks forever.” The first part of it may mean (1) a true witness, one who reports what he actually hears. But it may also refer to (2) someone who listens to the false testimony given by the false witness. The NIV follows the suggestion of a homonym for the Hebrew word with the meaning “will perish/be destroyed”: “will be destroyed forever.” This suggests a synonymous pair of ideas rather than a contrast. Others accept antithetical parallelism. C. H. Toy suggested an idea like “be established” to contrast with “will perish” (Proverbs [ICC], 411). W. McKane suggested it meant the truthful witness “will speak to the end” without being put down (Proverbs [OTL], 556). It is simpler to interpret the words that are here in the sense of a contrast. The idea of speaking forever/to the end would then be hyperbolic.
Proverbs 21:28
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 21:28
New American Standard Bible
28 A (A)false witness will perish,
But a person who listens will speak forever.
Proverbs 25:18
New English Translation
Proverbs 25:18
New English Translation
18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow,[a]
so is the one who testifies against[b] his neighbor as a false witness.[c]
Footnotes
- Proverbs 25:18 sn The first line identifies the emblem of the proverb: False witnesses are here compared to deadly weapons because they can cause the death of innocent people (e.g., Exod 20:16; Deut 5:20; Prov 14:5).
- Proverbs 25:18 tn The verb עָנָה (ʿanah) followed by the preposition ב (bet) with its object means “to testify against” (answer against someone). With the preposition ל (lamed) it would mean “to testify for” someone. Here the false witness is an adversary, hence the comparison with deadly weapons.
- Proverbs 25:18 tn While עֵד (ʿed) could be interpreted as “evidence” (a meaning that came from a metonymy—what the witness gives in court), its normal meaning is “witness.” Here it would function as an adverbial accusative, specifying how he would answer in court.
Proverbs 25:18
New American Standard Bible
Proverbs 25:18
New American Standard Bible
18 Like a club, a (A)sword, and a sharp (B)arrow
Is a person who gives (C)false testimony against his neighbor.
New English Translation (NET)
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