A group of friends and I get together once a week to translate ... for fun (we're nerds). We've been doing this for a while, but I've recently realized that it might be interesting to have my translation notes online so that I can go back and look at them later. Because of that, I'm not starting at the very beginning of a book. I'll likely go back and add the first chapter of Proverbs, but for now, I'll be starting with chapter 2. Mostly this will provide my translation with comments through in... but largely a very literal translation.
2.1 My child, if you will take my words and my commandments hide within you 2to cause your ear to attend to wisdom, to stretch-out your heart to discernment, 3surely to understanding you will call, to understanding you will give your voice. 4If you seek her [understanding] like silver/money and like treasure you dig/seek her, 5then you will understand the fear/reverence of Y and the knowledge of God you will find. 6For Y will give (you) wisdom and from his mouth (are) knowledge and understanding. 7He treasures-up (Q) for the righteous, success; a shield for those-walking in perfection, 8guarding the paths of justice and the way of his faithful ones, keeping. 9Then you will understand righteousness and justice and uprightness, all the good ruts. 10For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge to your soul will be pleasing. 11Discretion will keep/guard/watch-over you, understanding will guard you 12to deliver you from the way of evil, from the person speaking perversity, 13the ones forsaking upright paths, to walk in the ways of darkness, 14the ones rejoicing to do evil, they delight in (the) perverseness of evil, 15whose paths are twisted and crooked are their ruts [and] 16to deliver you from the strange woman, the foreign-woman who makes her words smooth, 17the one who forsakes the friend of her youth and the covenant of her gods she has forgotten. 18For her house sinks to death and to Rephaim (are) her ruts. 19All who come to her will not return and they do not reach the paths of life. 20Therefore, walk in the way of good (ones) and to the paths of the righteous keep. 21For the upright will dwell in the land and the perfect (ones) will remain in it. 22But the wicked from the land will be cut off, and those-who-deal-treacherously will tear away from it.
2.1 Most translations translate yniB. as “son,” however, the word often refers to more than just male children/people and thus I will try to be gender-inclusive in my translations]
2.3 “Understanding” = discernment rather than the ability to sympathize or “understand” others and their feelings.
2.5 I will typically just write a ‘Y’ for the divine name rather than writing it out.
“knowledge of God” = grammatically this could be a superlative, i.e. “you will find the greatest knowledge”. Practically, I doubt it would have made much difference in the mind of the author (knowledge of God = the greatest knowledge). (See Waltke & O’Connor 14.5)
2.7 (Q) = I’m following the qere. There are some times in the manuscripts where the massoretes think that the consonantal text (the Ketiv/written form) is wrong and they indicate the way they think it is supposed to be read (the Qere). The Ketib has the imperative “treasure up.” The Qere makes more sense.
“success” Interestingly the LXX alters this to “salvation” reading the letters hyvwt as [vwt. Given that the manuscripts were handwritten, this is certainly possible. The problem is that the latter form is a verbal form not a noun form and they translate it as a noun. But it’s interesting to think about the way they interpreted the phrase.
“perfection” = ~To implies completeness and is often translated as “integrity”
2.8 “faithful ones” = from dsx, which is hard to translate.
2.9 “upright” note that while we tend to think vertically (downtrodden, upright, etc.) the Hebrew imagery follows the language of “straight,” “crooked” etc.. So the word “upright” in Hebrew (√rvy) literally means “the straight ones”
“ruts” = typically this is translates as “paths,” but that misses the point of the continual habits created by the action. The implication here is that these good paths develop into ruts from habitual use.
2.16 “To deliver you” this infinitive is a subordinate clause parallel to the began in verse 12 “to deliver you from the way of evil” (so verses 11- 17 are technically all one sentence).
“foreign-woman” hrz and rkn Tons of ink has been spilled on what this really means. The general idea is that they don’t like people who are outside the group. Foreigners bring in all sorts of questionable practices, like the worship of foreign gods and strange sexual practices. So, there is a lot of vilification of foreigners, especially in Proverbs.
“makes her words smooth” = i.e., she’s a persuasive, conniving bitch who lies through her teeth.
2.17 “17the one who forsakes the friend of her youth and forgets covenant of her gods she has forgotten”
I thought this was really interesting. Is it implying that she has abandoned her gods and converted? The text implies that it’s talking about a foreign woman who is among the people of Israel. So, is it saying that it would have been better for her to have remained loyal to her former gods? It doesn’t say that she’s loyal to Y now, just that she abandoned her former gods. Are they trying to make a claim for constancy or have they sort of lost their train of thought in this super long sentence? It's interesting that elsewhere foreign women are encouraged to abandon their gods and worship Y.
2.18 “her ruts” see note to 2.9
2.22 “and those-who-deal-treacherously will tear away from it.” This was really interesting. Most translations say “they will be torn away from it.” However, for that to be the correct translation, this would have to be in the Niphal (a passive verbal form), but it’s not. It’s active. It’s not action being done to them, it’s a part of their actions. [It’s can be Niphal or you’d have WxSny not WxS.yI]
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