A Good Name Cannot Be Weighed in Silver

In Hebrew thought a “name” is more than a label: it is reputation and remembrance, the person as others will speak of him after he is gone. Ecclesiastes 7:1 makes the same comparison with perfume: “A good name is better than precious ointment.” “Loving favour” is literally good grace, the goodwill a person carries into every room.

“Meet together” is the verb for two people coming face to face on a road, as Aaron met Moses in the wilderness in Exodus 4:27. The rich and the poor pass on the same path. 29:13 repeats the pattern: “The poor and the deceitful man meet together: the LORD lighteneth both their eyes.”

The prudent man is the ‘arum, the shrewd one, who sees trouble coming and takes cover. The simple “pass on”, keep walking straight into it, and “are punished”, literally pay the penalty. The verse returns almost unchanged at 27:12, one of the book’s many doubles.

“By humility” is literally “the heel of humility”, ‘eqev, the word for what follows on the heels of something, its consequence or reward. Psalm 19:11 uses the same word: “in keeping of them there is great reward.” Humility and the fear of the LORD are paired, and riches, honour and life follow behind.

The crooked man’s road is lined with thorns and snares, but the man who guards his life is not described as picking his way through them. He is “far from them”, on another road entirely. The verse treats safety as a matter of distance, of which route one takes, not of skill in walking a bad one.

“Train up” is hanakh, the verb for dedicating a new house (Deuteronomy 20:5) or the temple (1 Kings 8:63), and the root of the name Enoch and of Hanukkah. Abram’s “trained servants” in Genesis 14:14 come from the same root. “When he is old” is literally when he is bearded, a grown man.

“Servant” is ‘eved, slave, and it was not a figure of speech. A creditor could take a debtor’s children as bondservants; in 2 Kings 4:1 a widow’s two sons are about to be taken for her dead husband’s debt, and Nehemiah 5:5 records families forced to sell sons and daughters. The verse describes how things are.

Sowing and reaping trouble appears in Job 4:8, and Hosea 8:7 has “they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind”. “The rod of his anger” is the stick he beat others with, and it will be used up. The Greek adds a line, “God blesseth a cheerful and giving man”, which Paul seems to echo in 2 Corinthians 9:7.

A “bountiful eye” is literally a good eye, the Hebrew idiom for generosity; its opposite, the evil eye, means stinginess (23:6, 28:22). Jesus uses the same idiom in Matthew 20:15: “Is thine eye evil, because I am good?” This man “giveth of his bread”, a share from his own loaf, not from a surplus.

“Cast out” is garash, to drive out, the verb Sarah uses of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 21:10, “Cast out this bondwoman.” When the scorner leaves, contention walks out with him. “Cease” is shavat, the verb behind Sabbath: strife and insult take a day of rest.

The syntax is awkward in Hebrew and the King James keeps it so. The “king’s friend” was an official title at court: Hushai is “David’s friend” in 2 Samuel 15:37, and Zabud holds the post under Solomon in 1 Kings 4:5. Grace on the lips is also said of the king himself in Psalm 45:2.

The “transgressor” is boged, the one who breaks faith, the word Malachi 2:14 uses of a husband who deals “treacherously” with the wife of his youth. The eyes of the LORD, keeping watch in 15:3, here stand guard over knowledge, and the traitor’s words are toppled. Faithfulness is what knowledge needs to survive.

Lions did roam Israel’s countryside; a prophet is killed by one on the road in 1 Kings 13:24. But this lion is in the streets, inside the town. “Slain” is ratsah, the word for murder in “thou shalt not kill”, normally used of human killers. The sluggard imagines himself murdered by a lion on his own doorstep. 26:13 tells the joke again.

“Strange women” are the women outside the marriage whom chapters 5 to 7 warned against. Their mouth is a “deep pit”, like the trap dug for an animal; 23:27 repeats the image as “a deep ditch” and “a narrow pit”. “Abhorred of the LORD” is literally the one he is indignant with: the pit catches those already under his displeasure.

“Bound” is qashar, to tie or knot. The same verb is used when the son is told to bind the teaching on his heart in 6:21 and on his fingers in 7:3. Folly is tied to a child’s heart; wisdom must be tied there too, and the rod of correction loosens the first knot.

The closing verse of the long collection that began at 10:1. Its ending, “only to want”, is the phrase that ended 21:5 for the hasty. The collection contains 375 verses, and a curious fact long noticed is that the letters of Solomon’s name, the title of 10:1, add up to 375 in Hebrew numbering.

A new section begins, and “the words of the wise” may once have been its title, just as 24:23 announces “These things also belong to the wise.” Since 1924 scholars have noted close parallels with the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope, which opens: “Give thy ears, hear what is said, give thy heart to understand them.”

“Keep them within thee” is literally “in thy belly”, the inner chamber of 18:8 and 20:27. The Egyptian Amenemope has a similar picture, telling the pupil to let the words rest in the casket of the belly. Held there, they will be “fitted in thy lips”, set ready together on the tongue for use.

“Even to thee” doubles the pronoun: to you, yes you. The teaching is dated “this day”, now rather than later. The stated purpose is trust in the LORD, and whatever this collection shares with Egyptian teaching, the Hebrew text sets it all under Israel’s God; that contrast is an observation about the parallels rather than a claim made by the verse.

“Excellent things” reflects a word the Hebrew text spells two ways: shilshom, “formerly”, and shalishim, officers or noble things. Because Amenemope is arranged in thirty chapters, many modern translations read sheloshim, “thirty sayings”, and the section from 22:17 to 24:22 can be divided into about thirty units.

“Certainty” is qoshet, truth, a rare word found elsewhere only in Psalm 60:4. The pupil is being trained as an official who must carry an accurate reply back to those who sent him. The Egyptian parallel states the same aim: to bring back a report to the one who sent him. Truth received becomes truth delivered.

The Hebrew plays on one word: rob not the dal, the poor, because dal he is. His weakness is what makes him tempting. “The gate” was where the elders sat to hear cases, as Boaz convenes them in Ruth 4:1. Amenemope begins its second chapter: “Beware of robbing a wretch, of attacking a cripple.”

The LORD takes the poor man’s case as his advocate. “Spoil” renders a rare verb, qava‘, to rob, the one in Malachi 3:8, “Will a man rob God?” Here God robs the robbers, and what he takes is “the soul”, their life. The punishment is phrased with the criminal’s own verb.

An “angry man” is literally a master of anger, and a “furious man” is a man of heats. The second line forbids even travelling the road with him. Amenemope has a close parallel, warning against associating with the heated man or approaching him for conversation.

“Learn” is a rare verb from the same root as alluf, the close friend of 16:28: to learn is to become familiar with. Friendship is how the habit passes over. What is acquired is “a snare to thy soul”, a trap that goes with the man everywhere, because it is now part of how he behaves.

The verse asks the son not to join a class of people: “them that strike hands”, “them that are sureties for debts”. The word for debts means loans made on security. The warning of 6:1–5 told a man already caught how to get free; this one tells him not to get caught.

Exodus 22:26–27 allowed a poor man’s cloak to be taken in pledge only by day. Here the creditor comes for the bed, one of the few pieces of furniture a household owned, and takes it “from under thee”, pulled out while you lie on it. The question is posed as if the answer were obvious: why let it come to that?

The landmark is called “ancient”, ‘olam, age-old, set by the fathers when the land was divided. Hosea 5:10 compares corrupt princes to “them that remove the bound”, and Naboth refuses to give up “the inheritance of my fathers” in 1 Kings 21:3. Amenemope also forbids moving the markers on the borders of fields.

“Diligent” is mahir, quick and skilled, the word for Ezra as “a ready scribe” (Ezra 7:6) and for “the pen of a ready writer” in Psalm 45:1. “Mean men” are literally obscure ones, men in the dark. Amenemope ends with a similar promise: the scribe skilled in his office will be found worthy to be a courtier.