Proverbs 5:14-16

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Proverbs 5:14 tn The expression כִּמְעַט (kimʿat) is “like a little.” It means “almost,” and is used of unrealized action (BDB 590 s.v. 2). Cf. NCV “I came close to”; NLT “I have come to the brink of.”
2. Proverbs 5:14 tn Heb “I was in all evil” (cf. KJV, ASV).
3. Proverbs 5:14 tn The text uses the two words “congregation and assembly” to form a hendiadys, meaning the entire assembly.
4. Proverbs 5:15 sn Paul Kruger develops this section as an allegory consisting of a series of metaphors. He suggests that what is at issue is private versus common property. The images of the cistern, well, or fountain are used of a wife (e.g., Song 4:15) because she, like water, satisfies desires. Streams of water in the street would then mean sexual contact with a lewd woman. According to 7:12 she never stays home but is in the streets and is the property of many (P. Kruger, “Promiscuity and Marriage Fidelity? A Note on Prov 5:15-18, ” JNSL 13 [1987]: 61-68).
5. Proverbs 5:16 tn The verb means “to be scattered; to be dispersed”; here the imperfect takes a deliberative nuance in a rhetorical question.
6. Proverbs 5:16 tc The verse is usually understood as a rhetorical question, expecting a “no” answer (e.g. NIV, NASB, ESV, NKJV). The LXX records a negative volitional statement “Let them not flow out.”