CHAPTER 27
1Do not boast about tomorrow,
for you know not what the day will bring forth.
2Let a stranger praise you and not your own mouth,
another, and not your own lips.
3The weight of a stone and the heft of sand—
the dolt’s anger is heavier than both.
4The cruelty of fury and anger’s rush—
but who can stand up to envy?
5Better open reproof
than hidden love.
6The wounds from a friend are faithful
but the kisses of a foe are profuse.
7A sated appetite disdains honeycomb
but to a hungry appetite all bitter is sweet.
8Like a bird wandering from its nest
is a man wandering from his place.
9Oil and incense gladden the heart,
and a friend’s sweetness more than inward counsel.
10Do not forsake your friend or your father’s friend
nor enter your brother’s house on the day of your ruin.
than a distant brother.
11Get wisdom, my son, and gladden my heart,
that I may give back an answer to my insulter.
12The shrewd man saw evil and hid.
Dupes passed on and were punished.
13Take his garment, for he stood bond for another,
for an alien woman, take his pledge.
14Who greets his neighbor in a loud voice
first thing in the morning,
it is reckoned to him a curse.
15A maddening drip on a cloudy day
and a nagging wife are alike.
16Who conceals her conceals the wind,
and her name is called “right hand.”
17Iron together with iron,
and a man together with his friend.
18Who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit,
and who guards his master will be honored.
19Like water face to face
thus the heart of man to man.
20Sheol and Perdition are not sated,
and the eyes of man are not sated.
21Smelter for silver and kiln for gold,
and a man according to his praise.
22Though you grind down a dolt with a mortar,
in the pestle among the groats,
his folly will not swerve from him.
23You must surely know the look of your flock,
put your mind on the herds.
24For wealth is not forever
25The grass is gone, new grass appears,
the mountains’ grasses are gathered.
26There are sheep for your clothing,
he-goats, the price of a field.
27Enough goat’s milk for your food,
for the food of your house,
and viands for your young women.
CHAPTER 27 NOTES
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3. The weight of a stone and the heft of sand. After the two preceding proverbs, which are prudential exhortations, this verse reverts to the riddle form, as does the next verse.
6. The wounds from a friend are faithful. Both the content of the second verset and the larger context of Proverbs suggest that “wounds” here means something like “cutting words of rebuke” (in contrast to the hypocritical kisses of an enemy). They are “faithful” in the sense that they are meant to serve one’s best interest, and are an expression of loyal friendship.
profuse. This is what the Hebrew term means. The implication is that the kisses are excessive, and suspect.
9. a friend’s sweetness more than inward counsel. The Hebrew is somewhat cryptic, or perhaps merely elliptical. “Sweetness” might be an ellipsis for “sweet counsel.” The phrase rendered as “inward counsel,” or perhaps “one’s own counsel,” is ʿatsat nafesh, which could mean literally “the counsel of the essential self,” “the counsel of the spirit,” or simply “a person’s counsel.”
10. Do not forsake your friend. Fox understands the verb in context to mean “ignore,” although the evidence for that sense of ʿazav elsewhere is scant.
nor enter your brother’s house. The implication is that a true friend is a better resource in life than a brother.
Better a close neighbor / than a distant brother. Despite the verse breaks, this is obviously a separate proverb, bracketed editorially with the previous one because of the comparison of friend and brother.
12. The shrewd man. This proverb duplicates 22:3.
13. Take his garment. This is still another doublet—of 20:16—with minor changes.
14. Who greets his neighbor in a loud voice. This proverb is an amusing observation on social behavior: when you are barely awake in the morning, the last thing you want is a bellowed—and perhaps ostentatious—greeting from a neighbor.
15. A maddening drip. This proverb is a somewhat different formulation of 19:13.
16. Who conceals her conceals the wind, / and her name is called “right hand.” The Hebrew is unintelligible, as the translation indicates, and even with emendation it is hard to make sense of this verse. The “her” may refer to the nagging wife of the previous verse, in which case the idea is that it is impossible to hide her because she is everywhere. (The verb for the initial “conceals” is plural in the Hebrew but has been emended to a singular to accord with the second “conceals.”) The literal sense of the second verset in the received text is “and the oil of his right hand will call [or will be called],” weshemen yemino yiqraʾ. This has been emended, partly in accordance with the Septuagint, to read weshemah yamin yiqareiʾ. Even so, the meaning is unclear. Perhaps, by a stretch, it could mean, she is thought of as the right hand—that is, powerful—because there is no way to conceal or repress her. Amid all this confusion, Fox interestingly detects a pun: tsafan, “conceal,” suggests tsafon, “north”; and yamin, “right hand,” is an alternate term for “south.”
17. Iron together with iron. This is usually understood to refer to magnetized iron, which clings to iron, and so does a man to his friend. The force of the proverb is in its terrific compactness, which the translation tries to preserve.
19. Like water face to face. Again, the translation reproduces the strong compactness of the original. The reference is obviously to someone seeing his own reflection in water. But water is unstable and therefore an undependable or distorting mirror, unlike an actual mirror of polished bronze (there were no glass mirrors in this era). Thus one man’s heart provides a tricky or deceptive image of what is in the heart of another.
21. a man according to his praise. A man’s reputation tests him, burns out the dross, as a smelter tries silver or gold.
23. You must surely know the look of your flock. These words begin a multiline proverb on the virtues of responsible pastoralism that runs to the end of verse 27.
24. wealth. In a pastoral economy, wealth would be measured chiefly in flocks.
a crown. This term represents an intensification of the initial verset: not only is wealth transient, but even a crown (and the power and possessions that go with it) is not forever.
for time to come. Literally, “for generation after generation.”
25. The grass is gone, new grass appears. The grass, of course, is vital for feeding the flocks, and so it is important that there is a new growth each year.
26. he-goats, the price of a field. Fox’s explanation seems plausible: you can always sell off some of your goats to purchase more fields to pasture the rest.
27. goat’s milk. The word for goat means “she-goat” and is entirely different from the masculine term used in the previous verse.
viands. The literal sense is “life.” The usage may reflect an etymology analogous to “viands”—that which you live on.