Proverbs 3:26

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Proverbs 3:26 tn Heb “your confidence” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV) or “at your side.” BDB (492) lists both meanings under one entry for כֶּסֶל (kesel). HALOT (489) sees two homonyms, I כֶּסֶל (“loin, side”) and II כֶּסֶל (“confidence”). The preposition ב (bet) either functions locatively meaning “at your side,” or as a bet essentiae (GKC 379 §119.i, BDB 88 s.v. 7 בְּ; HALOT 104 s.v. 3 בְּ), emphasizing the quality or nature of the noun (but which typically cannot be rendered in English) meaning here “your confidence.” It may then be viewed as a metonymy standing either for the object or the source of your confidence. The Vulgate reads “at your side (latus).” The LXX appears to have read כֹּל מְסִלֹּתֶיךָ (kol m^esillotekha, “[over] all your ways.”
2. Proverbs 3:26 tn The term “foot” functions as a synecdoche, where the part stands for the whole (“your foot” stands for “you”). This device helps build a comparison between a hunter’s snare and calamity that afflicts the wicked.
3. Proverbs 3:26 tn Heb “from capture,” a figure for the calamity of v. 25.