Proverbs 23

Proverbs 23 is the 23rd chapter of the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of several wisdom literature collections, with the heading in 1:1 may be intended to regard Solomon as the traditional author of the whole book, but the dates of the individual collections are difficult to determine, and the book probably obtained its final shape in the post-exilic period. This chapter specifically records "the sayings of wise".

Text

Hebrew

The following table shows the Hebrew text of Proverbs 23 with vowels alongside an English translation based upon the JPS 1917 translation.

Verse	Hebrew	English translation
1		When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider well him that is before thee;
2		And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.
3		Be not desirous of his dainties; seeing they are deceitful food.
4		Weary not thyself to be rich; Cease from thine own wisdom..
5		Wilt thou set thine eyes upon it? it is gone; For riches certainly make themselves wings, Like an eagle that flieth toward heaven.
6		Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, Neither desire thou his dainties;
7		For as one that hath reckoned within himself, so is he: ‘Eat and drink’, saith he to thee; But his heart is not with thee.
8		The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, And lose thy sweet words.
9		Speak not in the ears of a fool; for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
10		Remove not the ancient landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless;
11		For their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their cause with thee.
12		Apply thy heart unto instruction, And thine ears to the words of knowledge.
13		Withhold not correction from the child; For though thou beat him with the rod, he will not die.
14		Thou beatest him with the rod, And wilt deliver his soul from the nether-world.
15		My son, if thy heart be wise, My heart will be glad, even mine;
16		Yea, my reins will rejoice, When thy lips speak right things.
17		Let not thy heart envy sinners, But be in the fear of the LORD all the day;
18		For surely there is a future; And thy hope shall not be cut off.
19		Hear thou, my son, and be wise, And guide thy heart in the way.
20		Be not among winebibbers; Among gluttonous eaters of flesh;
21		For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; And drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
22		Hearken unto thy father that begot thee, And despise not thy mother when she is old.
23		Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
24		The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; and he that begetteth a wise child will have joy of him.
25		Let thy father and thy mother be glad, and let her that bore thee rejoice.
26		My son, give me thy heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways..
27		For a harlot is a deep ditch; and an alien woman is a narrow pit.
28		She also lieth in wait as a robber, and increaseth the faithless among men.
29		Who crieth: ‘Woe’? who: ‘Alas’? Who hath contentions? who hath raving? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?
30		They that tarry long at the wine; They that go to try mixed wine.
31		Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, When it glideth down smoothly;
32		At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like a basilisk.
33		Thine eyes shall behold strange things, and thy heart shall utter confused things.
34		Yea, 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.
35		’They have struck me, and I felt it not, they have beaten me, and I knew it not; when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.’

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text, which includes the Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BC. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus.

Analysis

This chapter is a part of the third collection in the book of Proverbs, which consists of seven instructions of various lengths:

1st instruction
2nd instruction
3rd instruction
4th instruction
5th instruction
6th instruction and
7th instruction

The sayings are predominantly in the form of synonymous parallelism, preceded by a general superscription of the entire collection in 22:17a: "The words of the wise". This collection consists of an introduction that the youths should be instructed and exhorted to listen to and obey their "teachers", followed by a series of admonitions and prohibitions coupled with a variety of clauses, primarily presented in short parental instructions.
The 'thirty sayings' in this collection are thought to be modelled on the 'thirty chapters' in Egyptian Instruction of Amen-em-ope the son of Kanakht, although the parallels extend only in Proverbs 22:17–23:11 and the extent of the dependence is debatable.

True riches (23:1–21)

This section forms the body of a collection titled "Sayings of the Wise", containing 5 of 7 sets of instruction.
Verses 1–3 give some further advice about table manners during a royal feast, that is, to 'put a knife to your throat' in front of 'deceptive food' because there could be an ulterior motive behind the abundant hospitality that can cause one's undoing. Verses 4–5 warn against accruing wealth as the main goal in life because riches are like a mirage: no sooner here than gone. Verses 10–11 warn against land appropriation of the defenseless people through the removal of the boundary stones, because although there is no human 'kinsman' to defend their rights, God himself will become their redeemer. Verses 13–14 affirm the value of disciplining of children, as this will save them from following the paths leading to death and direct them along the path of life. Verses 19–21 advise to avoid the company of drunkards and gluttons as excessive eating and drinking would lead to indiscipline, inertia and ultimately to poverty.

Verse 6

"A man who is stingy": or "a miser", literally, "one who has an evil eye".

Verse 7

They tell you, "Eat and drink,"

Listen to your father and mother (23:22–35)

A reminder to take heed of the advice from one's father and mother precedes the warning against the seductress, who is likened to a deep and narrow 'pit', or to a huntress who traps and to a robber who lies in wait for her victims. Verses 29–35 describe the seduction of a drunkard by the power of wine which 'eye' and 'smoothness' are comparable to the words of the seductress in chapters 1–9. In both cases the promise of pleasure and enjoyment will lead to degenerative effects—both physical and mental—on its victims.

Verse 31

"Swirls around smoothly" : or "goes around smoothly"