Proverbs 23

When you sit down to eat with a ruler, pay close attention to what is set in front of you.

1When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee:

NoteChapters 22:17–24:22 form a separate collection headed "the words of the wise," and several sayings in it run closely parallel to an Egyptian instruction text, the Teaching of Amenemope. This one begins a short unit (verses 1–3) about eating at a powerful man's table, where a meal was rarely just a meal: hospitality from a ruler could be a test of the guest's self-control or the opening move in placing him under obligation.

2And if you are a person with a big appetite, put a knife to your own throat.

2And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.

NoteA deliberately shocking figure of speech, not advice to harm yourself. It means something like "treat your own appetite as a mortal danger", hold a blade to it.

3Do not crave his rich food, because that food is not what it seems.

3Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.

Note"Dainties" in 1611 English simply meant choice or luxurious food, not something delicate or small. Calling it "deceitful meat" (meat = food of any kind in the King James) means the food comes with strings attached: what looks like generosity may be a trap.

4Do not wear yourself out trying to get rich. Stop relying on your own wisdom.

4Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom.

5Will you fix your eyes on wealth, when it is already gone? Riches grow wings for themselves and fly off like an eagle into the sky.

5Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

NoteThe Hebrew has a wordplay the English loses: you make your eyes "fly" toward wealth, and the wealth flies away. "That which is not" is a blunt Hebrew phrase for something that has simply ceased to exist.

6Do not eat the food of a stingy man, and do not crave the rich dishes he serves.

6Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats:

Note"Evil eye" is a Hebrew idiom for stinginess or grudging generosity, a man who resents what he spends on you. It has nothing to do with cursing someone by looking at them. Its opposite, a "good eye," means openhanded.

7He is the kind of man who is counting the cost inside himself the whole time. "Eat and drink," he says to you, but he does not mean it.

7For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.

NoteThe King James reads "as he thinketh in his heart, so is he," and that line is often quoted on its own as a proverb about self-image. The Hebrew here is difficult and probably means something quite different: he is inwardly reckoning, tallying up the cost of what you eat. In Hebrew the "heart" is the seat of thought and decision, closer to what we call the mind than to the emotions.

8You will throw up the little you have eaten, and you will have wasted your kind words on him.

8The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.

9Do not bother talking to a fool, because he will only look down on your wise words.

9Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.

10Do not move an old boundary stone, and do not push into the fields that belong to children whose father has died.

10Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:

NoteProperty lines were marked by stones set in the ground. Quietly shifting one at night stole land from a neighbor who had no deed and no survey to appeal to, which is why the practice is condemned repeatedly in Israelite law. Orphans were targets because they had no adult male to defend the family holding.

11The one who defends them is strong. He will take up their case against you.

11For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.

Note"Redeemer" translates the Hebrew go'el, the nearest male relative, whose duty was to buy back land the family had lost, to buy relatives out of debt-slavery, and to press their claims in court when they could not. The saying's point is that the fatherless, who appear to have no such kinsman, in fact have a powerful one.

12Set your heart on being taught, and set your ears on words of knowledge.

12Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.

13Do not hold back correction from a child. If you strike him with a rod, he will not die.

13Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.

NoteThe "rod" is a shebet, the stick a shepherd or herdsman carried. "Correction" here covers the whole business of training and disciplining a child, of which physical punishment was one accepted part in this culture.

14Strike him with the rod, and you will save his life from the grave.

14Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

Note"Hell" in 1611 English translated the Hebrew Sheol, the shadowy underworld where all the dead were thought to go. It is not the place of punishment that the English word suggests today. The line means the discipline keeps the child from an early death.

15My son, if your heart is wise, then my own heart will be glad.

15My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.

Note"My son" is the standard way a teacher addresses a student throughout this kind of instruction literature; it need not mean a literal father speaking to his own child.

16Deep inside me I will be glad when your lips say what is right.

16Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.

NoteThe King James "reins" means the kidneys. Hebrew located the deepest emotions in the internal organs (kidneys, liver, bowels) much as English speakers locate them in the heart.

17Do not let your heart be jealous of sinners. Instead, keep living all day long in respect and awe of the LORD.

17Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long.

Note"The fear of the LORD" is a set phrase in this book for reverent loyalty toward God, closer to awe and allegiance than to being frightened. LORD in small capitals marks the personal name of Israel's God, which Jewish tradition avoided pronouncing.

18There is surely a future ahead, and what you hope for will not be cut off.

18For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.

NoteThe King James "there is an end" uses "end" in its older sense of outcome or final result. The Hebrew word means what comes afterward, a future, a hereafter.

19Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart headed down the right road.

19Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.

20Do not spend your time with heavy drinkers, or with people who stuff themselves with meat.

20Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:

NoteMeat was a rarity in ordinary Israelite diets, eaten mainly at festivals and sacrifices. Regularly gorging on it marks a person out as extravagant, not merely hungry.

21The drunk and the overeater end up poor, and sleeping the day away leaves a person dressed in rags.

21For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

22Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not look down on your mother when she is old.

22Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.

23Buy the truth and never sell it. Buy wisdom too, and training, and understanding.

23Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.

NoteBuying and selling are used here as a figure for what something costs you and what you refuse to part with. Truth and wisdom are things worth spending on and never trading away.

24The father of a person who does right will be very glad. Whoever has a wise child will find joy in that child.

24The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.

25So let your father and your mother be glad. Let the woman who gave birth to you be full of joy.

25Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.

26My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes watch how I live.

26My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.

27A prostitute is a deep pit, and another man's wife is a narrow well.

27For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

NoteA "deep ditch" and "narrow pit" are cisterns, bottle-shaped shafts cut into rock to store water, wide below and narrow at the neck. Falling in meant you could not climb out. The King James "strange woman" does not mean odd; it means a woman outside your own household or community, in these chapters usually another man's wife.

28She waits in hiding like a robber, and she adds to the number of men who break faith.

28She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.

Note"Transgressors" here translates a Hebrew word for people who break faith or betray a trust, rather than lawbreakers in general.

29Who ends up in misery? Who has sorrow? Who has fights? Who has complaints? Who has bruises for no reason? Who has bloodshot eyes?

29Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?

NoteVerses 29–35 are a small riddle: a string of questions whose answer is withheld until the next verse. "Babbling" in 1611 English meant grumbling or complaining, not chatter.

30It is those who sit over their wine too long, and those who go looking for mixed drinks.

30They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

NoteWine in this period was routinely diluted with water; "mixed wine" is the opposite, wine blended with spices or other additives to make it stronger and more potent, a connoisseur's drink.

31Do not stare at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and slides down so easily.

31Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.

Note"Moveth itself aright" is obscure old English for the wine going down smoothly. The three clauses describe the drink at its most appealing: the deep color, the sparkle in the cup, the easy swallow.

32In the end it bites like a snake and stings like a poisonous viper.

32At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

33Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will say twisted things.

33Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

NoteThe Hebrew word is genuinely ambiguous and has been read both ways since antiquity: it can mean "strange things," as in hallucinations, or "strange women." The King James chose the second, most modern translations the first.

34You will be like someone lying down out in the middle of the sea, or lying on top of a ship's mast.

34Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.

NoteIsraelites were not a seafaring people, and the open sea stood in their imagination for chaos and helplessness. The two pictures are of a man asleep in the middle of the ocean and a man lying on the rigging at the top of a mast, pitching about with no idea where he is.

35You will say, "They hit me, but I did not feel hurt. They beat me, but I did not even notice. When will I wake up? I will go looking for another drink."

35They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.