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Proverbs 31:8
English Standard Version
Proverbs 31:8
English Standard Version
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Footnotes
- Proverbs 31:8 Hebrew are sons of passing away
Proverbs 31:8
New English Translation
Proverbs 31:8
New English Translation
8 Open your mouth[a] on behalf of those unable to speak,[b]
for the legal rights of all the dying.[c]
Footnotes
- Proverbs 31:8 sn The instruction to “open your mouth” is a metonymy of cause; it means “speak up for” (so NIV, TEV, NLT) or in this context “serve as an advocate in judgment” (cf. CEV “you must defend”).
- Proverbs 31:8 sn The instruction compares people who cannot defend themselves in court with those who are physically unable to speak (this is a figure of speech known as hypocatastasis, an implied comparison). The former can physically speak, but because they are the poor, the uneducated, the oppressed, they are unable to conduct a legal defense. They may as well be speechless.
- Proverbs 31:8 tn Or “of all the defenseless.” The noun חֲלוֹף (khalof) means “passing away; vanishing” (properly an infinitive); in this construction “the sons of the passing away” means people who by nature are transitory, people who are dying—mortals. But in this context it would indicate people who are “defenseless” as opposed to those who are healthy and powerful.
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
New English Translation (NET)
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