Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

Let me try a translation. First, literally:

RFB- )OKEL NIYR       RF)$IYM
much food  light (of) poor ones
W:Y"$        NIS:P.EH         B.:LO) MI$:P.F+
and there is being taken away in not justice

This is based on taking RF)$ as an alternative spelling of RF$, which is
attested also in 2 Sam 12:1,4; this seems to fit the context much better
than "heads".

As this is a couplet and in the context of Proverbs, the two lines are very
likely in antithetical parallelism. So we can interpret "being taken away"
as an antonym of "much food", so perhaps "starvation" or even "death from
starvation". The antithesis also reminds us that the root of RF)$IYM here,
RW$ or YR$, means "dispossess, reduce to poverty", a concept antithetical to
MI$:P.F+, "justice".

On that basis, the second line means something like "where there is
injustice, people will starve". This seems to be dashing the hope of the
first half of the verse.

So how about:
Abundance of food is a light for the dispossessed,
But where there is injustice people starve.

All that without consulting any translations. I see many of them understand
NIYR in its less common sense of "fallow ground"; but the poor will hardly
leave their ground fallow, and the root YR$ tends to suggest that they are
landless anyway. Or maybe someone else has dispossessed them then abandoned
the ground? A common result of injustice. So possibly the point is that
although there is plenty of food in the stolen fields the poor are left to
starve.

Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-hebrew-
> bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jim West
> Sent: 12 May 2003 15:45
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [b-hebrew] Prov 13:23
> 
> This verse is unbelievably unclear.  A literal translation makes no sense
> at
> all, so if anyone has a suggestion I would love to hear it.  The
> commentators too, by the way, are unsure.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Jim
> 
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> Jim West
> 
> Biblical Studies Resources
> http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
> 
> Quantum ad sensum tribuis, tantum spiritui detraxeris-  Zwingli.
>