PROV 1:11 Interlinear View

SIL Open Translator’s Notes:

Section 1:8–19: First lesson: Avoid evil companions

This first lesson may be summarized as follows:

Introduction: Pay attention to your parents’ advice, because it will improve your character (1:8–9).
Lesson: If robbers try to persuade you to do evil (1:10–14), refuse to join them (1:15), because they will destroy their own lives (1:16–18).
Conclusion: People who are greedy and try to obtain wealth illegally will die (1:19).This outline is based on “The Design of Lecture 1” in Fox (page 92).

Some other headings for this section are:

Warnings against Bad Friends (CEV)

Advice to a young man to not be tempted by evil people

Paragraph 1:10–14

In this paragraph, the quote that starts in 1:11a and ends in 1:14b gives the words that the “sinners” use to “entice” the young man. The concluding exhortation of 1:10b is parallel to the concluding exhortations of 1:15a–b.

1:11

The three lines of this verse each contain part of the sinners’ invitation to the young man, so all three lines are parallel. However, the last two lines are more closely related to each other, since they have parallel parts that are similar in meaning.

^11aIf they say, “Come along,

^11b let us lie in wait for blood,

^11c let us ambush the innocent without cause,

1:11a

If they say, “Come along,

Do not pay^(sing) any attention to them if they say, “Come, join us^(excl).
When they invite you^(sing) to join them, they may say,

If they say: The words If they say introduce one long quotation that contains several different statements (1:11–14). The conclusion to these statements does not occur until 1:15. In some languages, it is not natural to separate an “if” clause from its conclusion in this way. If that is true in your language, there are a number of possible solutions:

Start 1:11 with a command that is similar to the command in 1:10b to not give in to these sinners. For example:
Do not listen to them if they say, “Come, join us^(excl).
Do not use an “if” clause to introduce the quotation. For example:
They may say, “Come and join us… (NLT)

Come along: This is an invitation for the young man to join a gang of highway robbers.

1:11b–c

(combined/reordered)

Let us^(incl) hide and wait for a chance to murder someone for absolutely no reason.
Let us ambush and kill some people even though they have not done anything wrong.

let us lie in wait for…let us ambush: The Hebrew verbs that the BSB translates as let us lie in wait for and let us ambush are very similar in meaning. The first verb is often used about animals that hide and wait for a chance to kill their prey. The second verb means “to hide.” In this context, the purpose of hiding is to attack someone from ambush.

blood…the innocent: In this verse, blood is a figure of speech that represents a person who will be murdered. To “lie in wait for blood” means to hide and wait for a chance to murder someone.

“Innocent blood” is a common word pair in the Old Testament. In this verse, it is separated into two lines because of the parallelism. By putting innocent in the last line, the author builds to a climax. Not only are these sinners planning to ambush and kill someone, they are actually intending to kill a person who is totally innocent.This insight, of splitting the word pair for the sake of building to a climax, is from Waltke (page 191).

1:11b

let us lie in wait for blood,

Let us^(incl) ambush someone.
“We will hide and wait for someone to kill.

1:11c

let us ambush the innocent without cause,

Let us^(incl) kill an innocent person for no reason.
We will murder someone without cause, someone who has not harmed us.

without cause: The Hebrew phrase that the BSB translates as without cause emphasizes that there is no valid reason for the attack.

Here are some other ways to translate this:

wantonly ambush the innocent (RSV)

plan an ambush for the innocent without provocation (NJB)

attack some innocent people for the fun of it (GNT)

waylay some innocent person who has done us no harm (REB)

In some languages, it may be redundant or awkward to have both the ideas of “innocent” and without cause in the same sentence. This may especially be true if the word “innocent” is expressed by a phrase such as “someone who has done no wrong.” If that is true in your language, you may need to leave one of these two ideas implicit. For example:

waylay someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong

General Comment on 1:11b–c

In some languages, it may be clearer or more natural to combine and/or reorder the parallel parts in 1:11b–c. If that is true in your language, be sure that you communicate the meaning of both verse parts. For example:

Let us ambush and kill some innocent people for no reason.

uW Translation Notes:

Note 1 topic: grammar-connect-condition-hypothetical

אִם־יֹאמְרוּ֮

if say

Solomon is using a hypothetical situation to help his readers understand how sinners might entice someone to join them in sinning. Use the natural form in your language for expressing a hypothetical situation. Alternate translation: “Suppose they say”

Note 2 topic: writing-pronouns

יֹאמְרוּ֮

say

Here, the pronoun they refers to sinners, as mentioned in the previous verse. If it would be helpful in your language, you could state this explicitly. Alternate translation: “those sinners say”

Note 3 topic: figures-of-speech / exclusive

אִ֫תָּ֥⁠נוּ נֶאֶרְבָ֥ה & נִצְפְּנָ֖ה

with,us lie_in_wait & ambush

By us, the sinners are referring to themselves but not other people, so use the exclusive form of that word in your translation if your language marks that distinction.

Note 4 topic: figures-of-speech / parallelism

נֶאֶרְבָ֥ה & נִצְפְּנָ֖ה

lie_in_wait & ambush

These two phrases mean basically the same thing. The second emphasizes the meaning of the first by repeating the same idea with different words. If it would be helpful to your readers, you could use a word that shows the connection between these two phrases. Alternate translation: “Let us lie in wait … Yes, let us hide to ambush”

Note 5 topic: figures-of-speech / metonymy

לְ⁠דָ֑ם

for,blood

Here, blood refers to violently murdering someone, which usually causes blood to come out of the person who is murdered. If it would be helpful in your language, you could express the meaning plainly. Alternative translation: “to shed blood” or “to murder someone”

Note 6 topic: grammar-connect-logic-goal

לְ⁠דָ֑ם נִצְפְּנָ֖ה

for,blood ambush

Here, for and to introduce the purposes for these actions. The purpose for lying in wait is to shed blood. The purpose for hiding is to ambush someone. Use the most natural way in your language to indicate purposes. Alternate translation: “for the purpose of shedding blood. Let us hide for the purpose of ambushing”

Note 7 topic: figures-of-speech / genericnoun

לְ⁠נָקִ֣י

for,an_innocent_[one]

The sinners are speaking of an innocent person in general, not of one particular innocent one. If it would be helpful in your language, you could use a more natural phrase. Alternate translation: “some innocent person”

OET-LV English word order (‘Reverse’ interlinear)

Note: The OET-RV is still only a first draft, and so far only a few words have been (mostly automatically) matched to the Hebrew or Greek words that they’re translated from.

Acknowledgements: The Hebrew text, lemmas, and morphology are all thanks to the OSHB and some of the glosses are from Macula Hebrew.

OET interlinear PROV 1:11

Hebrew word order