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Selected Verse: Proverbs 1:11 - Updated King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Pr 1:11	Updated King James	If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privately for the innocent without cause:
	King James	If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
Murder and robbery are given as specific illustrations. lay wait . . . lurk privily--express an effort and hope for successful concealment. swallow . . . grave--utterly destroy the victim and traces of the crime (Num 16:33; Psa 55:15). Abundant rewards of villainy are promised as the fruits of this easy and safe course.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

Murder and robbery are given as specific illustrations.

lay wait . . . lurk privily--express an effort and hope for successful concealment.

swallow . . . grave--utterly destroy the victim and traces of the crime (Num 16:33; Psa 55:15). Abundant rewards of villainy are promised as the fruits of this easy and safe course.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
The temptation against which the teacher seeks to guard his disciple is that of joining a band of highway robbers. The "vain men" who gathered around Jephthah Jdg 11:3, the lawless or discontented who came to David in Adullam Sa1 22:2, the bands of robbers who infested every part of the country in the period of the New Testament, and against whom every Roman governor had to wage incessant war, show how deeply rooted the evil was in Palestine. Compare the Psa 10:7, note; Psa 10:10 note. Without cause - Better, in vain; most modern commentators join the words with "innocent," and interpret them after Job 1:9. The evil-doers deride their victims as being righteous "in vain." They get nothing by it. It does them no good.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
Of the number of wicked men who gain associates to their palliation and strengthening, they are adduced as an example whom covetousness leads to murder. 11 If they say, "Go with us, we will lurk for blood, Lie in wait for the innocent without cause; 12 Like the pit we will swallow them alive And in perfect soundness like them that go down to the grave. 13 We find all manner of precious treasure, Fill our houses with spoil. 14 Thou shalt cast thy lot amongst us, We all have only one purse." Pro 1:11 The verb ארב signifies nectere, to bind fast (from רב, close, compact), (see under Isa 25:11), and particularly (but so that it bears in itself its object without ellipse) insidias nectere = insidiari. Regarding לדם Fleischer remarks: "Either elliptically for לשׁפּך־דּם (Jewish interp.), or, as the parallelism and the usage of the language of this book rather recommend, per synecd. for: for a man, with particular reference to his blood to be poured out (cf. our saying 'ein junges Blut,' a young blood = a youth, with the underlying conception of the blood giving colour to the body as shining through it, or giving to it life and strength), as Psa 94:21." As in post-biblical Heb. בּשׂר ודם (or inverted, αἱμα καὶ σάρξ, Heb 2:14), used of men as such, is not so used in the O.T., yet דּם, like נפשׁ, is sometimes used synecdochically for the person, but never with reference to the blood as an essentially constituent part of corporealness, but always with reference to violent putting to death, which separates the blood from the body (cf. my System der bibl. Psychologie, p. 242). Here לדם is explained by לדמים, with which it is interchanged, Mic 7:2 : let us lurk for blood (to be poured out). The verb צפן is never, like טמן (to conceal), connected with חבלים, מוקשׁים ,ח, פּח, רשׁת - thus none of these words is here to be supplied; the idea of gaining over one expressed in the organic root צף (whence צפּה, diducendo obducere) has passed over into that of restraining oneself, watching, lurking, hence צפן (cog. Aram. כּמן) in the sense of speculari, insidiari, interchanges with צפה (to spy), (cf. Psa 10:8; Psa 56:7 with Psa 37:32). The adv. חנּם (an old accus. from חן) properly means in a gracious manner, as a free gift (δωρεάν, gratis = gratiis), and accordingly, without reward, also without cause, which frequently = without guilt; but it never signifies sine effectu qui noceat, i.e., with impunity (Lwenst.). We have thus either to connect together נקי חנּם "innocent in vain" (as איבי חנּם, my enemies without a cause, Lam 3:52): his innocence helps him nothing whom God protects not against us notwithstanding his innocence (Schultens, Bertheau, Elster, and others); or connect חנם with the verb (lie in wait for), for which Hitzig, after the lxx, Syr., Rashi, (Note: Rashi, i.e., Rabbi Salomo Isaaki, of Troyes, died a.d. 1105. Ralbag, i.e., Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, usually referred to by Christian writers as Master Leo de Bannolis, or Gersonides, a native of Banolas near Gerona, died about 1342.) Ralbag, Immanuel, rightly decides in view of Sa1 19:5; Sa1 25:31; cf. also Job 9:17, where the succession of the accents is the same (Tarcha transmuted from Mugrash). Frequently there are combined together in his חנם (cf. Isa 28:14.), that which the author thinks, and that which those whom he introduces as speaking think. Pro 1:12 The first clause of this verse Hitzig translates: "as the pit (swallows) that which lives." This is untenable, because כּ with the force of a substantive (as instar, likeness) is regarded as a preposition, but not a conjunction (see at Psa 38:14.). חיּים (the living) is connected with נבלעם, and is the accus. of the state (hâl, according to the terminology of the Arab. grammarians) in which they will, with impunity, swallow them up like the pit (the insatiable, Pro 27:20; Pro 30:16), namely, while these their sacrifices are in the state of life's freshness, (Note: Only in this sense is the existing accentuation of this verse (cf. the Targ.) to be justified.) "the living," - without doubt, like Psa 55:16; Psa 63:10; Psa 124:3, in fact and in expression an allusion to the fate of the company of Korah, Num 16:30, Num 16:33. If this is the meaning of חיים, then תּמימים as the parallel word means integros not in an ethical sense, in which it would be a synonym of נקי of Pro 1:11 (cf. Pro 29:10 with Psa 19:14), but in a physical sense (Graec. Venet. καὶ τελείους; Parchon as Rashi, בריאים ושלמים, vid., Bttcher, De Inferis, 293). This physical sense is claimed for תּם, Job 21:23, for תּם probably, Psa 73:4, and why should not תמים, used in the law regarding sacrifices (e.g., Exo 12:5, "without blemish") of the faultlessness of the victim, also signify such an one אשׁר אין־בּו מתם (Isa 1:6)? In the midst of complete external health they will devour them like those that go down to the grave (cf. Psa 28:1; Psa 88:5, with Isa 14:19), i.e., like those under whose feet the earth is suddenly opened, so that, without leaving any trace behind, they sink into the grave and into Hades. The connection of the finite with the accus. of place, Psa 55:16, lies at the foundation of the genitive connection יורדי בור (with the tone thrown back): those that go down to the grave. Pro 1:13-14 (Note: Here, in Pro 1:14, גורלך is to be written with Munach (not Metheg) in the second syllable; vid., Torath Emeth, p. 20. Accentuationssystem, vii. 2.) To their invitation, bearing in itself its own condemnation, they add as a lure the splendid self-enriching treasures which in equal and just fellowship with them they may have the prospect of sharing. הון (from הוּן, levem, then facilem esse, tre ais, son aise) means aisance, convenience, opulence, and concretely that by which life is made agreeable, thus money and possessions (Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wrterbuch, i. 423f.). With this הון with remarkable frequency in the Mishle יקר (from יקר, Arab. waḳar, grave esse) is connected in direct contrast, according to its primary signification; cf. Pro 12:27; Pro 24:4 : heavy treasures which make life light. Yet it must not be maintained that, as Schultens has remarked, this oxymoron is intended, nor also that it is only consciously present in the language. מצא has here its primitive appropriate signification of attaining, as Isa 10:14 of reaching. שׁלל (from שׁלל, to draw from, draw out, from של, cf. שׁלה, שׁלף, Arab. salab, Comm. on Isa. p. 447) is that which is drawn away from the enemy, exuviae, and then the booty and spoil taken in war generally. נמלּא, to fill with anything, make full, governs a double accusative, as the Kal (to become full of anything) governs only one. In Pro 1:14, the invitation shows how the prospect is to be realized. Interpreters have difficulty in conceiving what is here meant. Do not a share by lot and a common purse exclude one another? Will they truly, in the distribution of the booty by lot, have equal portions at length, equally much in their money-bags? Or is it meant that, apart from the portion of the booty which falls to every one by lot, they have a common purse which, when their business is ebbing, must supply the wants of the company, and on which the new companion can maintain himself beforehand? Or does it mean only that they will be as mutually helpful to one another, according to the principle τὰ τῶν φίλων κοινά (amicorum omnia communia), as if they had only one purse? The meaning is perfectly simple. The oneness of the purse consists in this, that the booty which each of them gets, belongs not wholly or chiefly to him, but to the whole together, and is disposed of by lot; so that, as far as possible, he who participated not at all in the affair in obtaining it, may yet draw the greatest prize. This view harmonizes the relation between 14b and 14a. The common Semitic כּים is even used at the present day in Syria and elsewhere as the name of the Exchange ("Brse") (plur. akjâs); here it is the purse ("Kasse") (χρημάτων δοχεῖον, Procop.), which is made up of the profits of the business. This profit consists not merely in gold, but is here thought of in regard to its worth in gold. The apparent contradiction between distributing by lot and having a common purse disappears when the distribution by lot of the common property is so made, that the retaining of a stock-capital, or reserve fund, is not excluded.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

Of the number of wicked men who gain associates to their palliation and strengthening, they are adduced as an example whom covetousness leads to murder.

11 If they say, "Go with us, we will lurk for blood,

Lie in wait for the innocent without cause;

12 Like the pit we will swallow them alive

And in perfect soundness like them that go down to the grave.

13 We find all manner of precious treasure,

Fill our houses with spoil.

14 Thou shalt cast thy lot amongst us,

We all have only one purse."

Pro 1:11

The verb ארב signifies nectere, to bind fast (from רב, close, compact), (see under Isa 25:11), and particularly (but so that it bears in itself its object without ellipse) insidias nectere = insidiari. Regarding לדם Fleischer remarks: "Either elliptically for לשׁפּך־דּם (Jewish interp.), or, as the parallelism and the usage of the language of this book rather recommend, per synecd. for: for a man, with particular reference to his blood to be poured out (cf. our saying 'ein junges Blut,' a young blood = a youth, with the underlying conception of the blood giving colour to the body as shining through it, or giving to it life and strength), as Psa 94:21." As in post-biblical Heb. בּשׂר ודם (or inverted, αἱμα καὶ σάρξ, Heb 2:14), used of men as such, is not so used in the O.T., yet דּם, like נפשׁ, is sometimes used synecdochically for the person, but never with reference to the blood as an essentially constituent part of corporealness, but always with reference to violent putting to death, which separates the blood from the body (cf. my System der bibl. Psychologie, p. 242). Here לדם is explained by לדמים, with which it is interchanged, Mic 7:2 : let us lurk for blood (to be poured out). The verb צפן is never, like טמן (to conceal), connected with חבלים, מוקשׁים ,ח, פּח, רשׁת - thus none of these words is here to be supplied; the idea of gaining over one expressed in the organic root צף (whence צפּה, diducendo obducere) has passed over into that of restraining oneself, watching, lurking, hence צפן (cog. Aram. כּמן) in the sense of speculari, insidiari, interchanges with צפה (to spy), (cf. Psa 10:8; Psa 56:7 with Psa 37:32). The adv. חנּם (an old accus. from חן) properly means in a gracious manner, as a free gift (δωρεάν, gratis = gratiis), and accordingly, without reward, also without cause, which frequently = without guilt; but it never signifies sine effectu qui noceat, i.e., with impunity (Lwenst.). We have thus either to connect together נקי חנּם "innocent in vain" (as איבי חנּם, my enemies without a cause, Lam 3:52): his innocence helps him nothing whom God protects not against us notwithstanding his innocence (Schultens, Bertheau, Elster, and others); or connect חנם with the verb (lie in wait for), for which Hitzig, after the lxx, Syr., Rashi,

(Note: Rashi, i.e., Rabbi Salomo Isaaki, of Troyes, died a.d. 1105. Ralbag, i.e., Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, usually referred to by Christian writers as Master Leo de Bannolis, or Gersonides, a native of Banolas near Gerona, died about 1342.)

Ralbag, Immanuel, rightly decides in view of Sa1 19:5; Sa1 25:31; cf. also Job 9:17, where the succession of the accents is the same (Tarcha transmuted from Mugrash). Frequently there are combined together in his חנם (cf. Isa 28:14.), that which the author thinks, and that which those whom he introduces as speaking think.

Pro 1:12

The first clause of this verse Hitzig translates: "as the pit (swallows) that which lives." This is untenable, because כּ with the force of a substantive (as instar, likeness) is regarded as a preposition, but not a conjunction (see at Psa 38:14.). חיּים (the living) is connected with נבלעם, and is the accus. of the state (hâl, according to the terminology of the Arab. grammarians) in which they will, with impunity, swallow them up like the pit (the insatiable, Pro 27:20; Pro 30:16), namely, while these their sacrifices are in the state of life's freshness,

(Note: Only in this sense is the existing accentuation of this verse (cf. the Targ.) to be justified.)

"the living," - without doubt, like Psa 55:16; Psa 63:10; Psa 124:3, in fact and in expression an allusion to the fate of the company of Korah, Num 16:30, Num 16:33. If this is the meaning of חיים, then תּמימים as the parallel word means integros not in an ethical sense, in which it would be a synonym of נקי of Pro 1:11 (cf. Pro 29:10 with Psa 19:14), but in a physical sense (Graec. Venet. καὶ τελείους; Parchon as Rashi, בריאים ושלמים, vid., Bttcher, De Inferis, 293). This physical sense is claimed for תּם, Job 21:23, for תּם probably, Psa 73:4, and why should not תמים, used in the law regarding sacrifices (e.g., Exo 12:5, "without blemish") of the faultlessness of the victim, also signify such an one אשׁר אין־בּו מתם (Isa 1:6)? In the midst of complete external health they will devour them like those that go down to the grave (cf. Psa 28:1; Psa 88:5, with Isa 14:19), i.e., like those under whose feet the earth is suddenly opened, so that, without leaving any trace behind, they sink into the grave and into Hades. The connection of the finite with the accus. of place, Psa 55:16, lies at the foundation of the genitive connection יורדי בור (with the tone thrown back): those that go down to the grave.

Pro 1:13-14

(Note: Here, in Pro 1:14, גורלך is to be written with Munach (not Metheg) in the second syllable; vid., Torath Emeth, p. 20. Accentuationssystem, vii. 2.)

To their invitation, bearing in itself its own condemnation, they add as a lure the splendid self-enriching treasures which in equal and just fellowship with them they may have the prospect of sharing. הון (from הוּן, levem, then facilem esse, tre ais, son aise) means aisance, convenience, opulence, and concretely that by which life is made agreeable, thus money and possessions (Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wrterbuch, i. 423f.). With this הון with remarkable frequency in the Mishle יקר (from יקר, Arab. waḳar, grave esse) is connected in direct contrast, according to its primary signification; cf. Pro 12:27; Pro 24:4 : heavy treasures which make life light. Yet it must not be maintained that, as Schultens has remarked, this oxymoron is intended, nor also that it is only consciously present in the language. מצא has here its primitive appropriate signification of attaining, as Isa 10:14 of reaching. שׁלל (from שׁלל, to draw from, draw out, from של, cf. שׁלה, שׁלף, Arab. salab, Comm. on Isa. p. 447) is that which is drawn away from the enemy, exuviae, and then the booty and spoil taken in war generally. נמלּא, to fill with anything, make full, governs a double accusative, as the Kal (to become full of anything) governs only one. In Pro 1:14, the invitation shows how the prospect is to be realized. Interpreters have difficulty in conceiving what is here meant. Do not a share by lot and a common purse exclude one another? Will they truly, in the distribution of the booty by lot, have equal portions at length, equally much in their money-bags? Or is it meant that, apart from the portion of the booty which falls to every one by lot, they have a common purse which, when their business is ebbing, must supply the wants of the company, and on which the new companion can maintain himself beforehand? Or does it mean only that they will be as mutually helpful to one another, according to the principle τὰ τῶν φίλων κοινά (amicorum omnia communia), as if they had only one purse? The meaning is perfectly simple. The oneness of the purse consists in this, that the booty which each of them gets, belongs not wholly or chiefly to him, but to the whole together, and is disposed of by lot; so that, as far as possible, he who participated not at all in the affair in obtaining it, may yet draw the greatest prize. This view harmonizes the relation between 14b and 14a. The common Semitic כּים is even used at the present day in Syria and elsewhere as the name of the Exchange ("Brse") (plur. akjâs); here it is the purse ("Kasse") (χρημάτων δοχεῖον, Procop.), which is made up of the profits of the business. This profit consists not merely in gold, but is here thought of in regard to its worth in gold. The apparent contradiction between distributing by lot and having a common purse disappears when the distribution by lot of the common property is so made, that the retaining of a stock-capital, or reserve fund, is not excluded.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
If they say, Come with us - From all accounts, this is precisely the way in which the workers of iniquity form their partisans, and constitute their marauding societies to the present day. Let us lay wait for blood - Let us rob and murder. Let us lurk privily - Let us lie in ambush for our prey.

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¹⁵ Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.

³³ They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

⁹ Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Does Job fear God for nothing?

¹⁰ He crouches, and humbles himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.

⁷ His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.

² And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.

³ Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.

¹⁴ Cast in your lot among us; let us all have one purse:

¹⁴ And my hand has found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathers eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.

⁴ And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

²⁷ The slothful man roasts not that which he took in hunting: but the substance of a diligent man is precious.

¹⁴ Cast in your lot among us; let us all have one purse:

¹³ We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:
¹⁴ Cast in your lot among us; let us all have one purse:

¹⁶ As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.

¹⁹ But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet.

⁵ Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom you remember no more: and they are cut off from your hand.

¹ Unto you will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if you be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

⁶ From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and rotting sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: all of you shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:

⁴ For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.

²³ One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.

¹⁴ Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

¹⁰ The bloodthirsty hate the upright: but the just seek his soul.

¹¹ If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privately for the innocent without cause:

³³ They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

³⁰ But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then all of you shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD.

³ Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:

¹⁰ They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.

¹⁶ As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.

¹⁶ The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that says not, It is enough.

²⁰ Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

¹⁴ Thus I was as a man that hears not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs.

¹² Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

¹⁴ Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, all of you scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

¹⁷ For he breaks me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause.

³¹ That this shall be no grief unto you, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that you have shed blood causeless, or that my lord has avenged himself: but when the LORD shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember your handmaid.

⁵ For he did put his life in his hand, and slew the Philistine, and the LORD wrought a great salvation for all Israel: you saw it, and did rejoice: wherefore then will you sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause?

⁵² Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.

³² The wicked watches the righteous, and seeks to slay him.

⁷ Shall they escape by iniquity? in your anger cast down the people, O God.

⁸ He sits in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places does he murder the innocent: his eyes are privately set against the poor.

² The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

¹⁴ Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

²¹ They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

¹¹ And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swins spreads forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands.

¹¹ If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privately for the innocent without cause: