By: Joel & Lydia Ramirez
Recently in the Wednesday Adult class, we were given the homework of looking at Proverbs 12:26 and trying to understand why the King James Version, New King James Version, and New American Standard Bible translate this verse so differently. It is important to understand from the beginning that this is not a study intended to prove that one translation is better than another. Instead, the goal is to understand why three translations, all sharing the purpose of making God’s Word accessible to those of us who cannot read Hebrew, arrive at different conclusions. The textual and grammatical difficulty is found primarily in the first three Hebrew words of the verse: Yāṯēr mē-rēʿēhû ṣaddîq. The second half of the verse is comparatively straightforward and conveys essentially the same message in all three translations: “but the way of the wicked leads them astray.” So, let’s look more closely at those first three words. ṣaddîq = righteous [person] rēaʿ = neighbor, friend, companion. Then we come to the difficult word: yāṯēr. This word is at the heart of the different translations. Depending on how its root and grammatical function are understood, the phrase can convey different ideas. Among the possibilities are the ideas of searching or examining, guiding, or being superior or excellent. The KJV translators understood yāṯēr along the lines of excellence or superiority and translated the sentence: “The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them.” This should not be dismissed as a careless translation. It represents an older grammatical interpretation of a genuinely difficult Hebrew expression. However, when we consider the structure of the proverb, a question arises. Hebrew Proverbs frequently use deliberate poetic parallelism in which the second statement contrasts with, develops, or completes the first. Consider the two thoughts together: The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor BUT The way of the wicked leads them astray. Both statements make sense independently, but the relationship between them is not immediately obvious. The second line does not provide the strong contrast we might expect from the first. The NKJV takes a different approach. Its translators understand yāṯēr in the sense of searching out or examining. The idea becomes something like, “The righteous searches out or examines his companion,” which the NKJV expresses as: “The righteous should Choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.” This makes excellent sense and agrees with a theme found repeatedly throughout Scripture: our companions can influence the direction of our lives. In fact, the second half of the verse provides a natural reason for carefully choosing our companions in that the way of the wicked can lead us astray. This is a legitimate and compelling interpretation. However, there is another possibility that creates an even more direct contrast between the two halves of the proverb. The NASB understands the first phrase in the sense of one who guides: “The righteous person is a guide to his neighbor, But the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Here the parallelism becomes especially clear. The righteous guides. The wicked way misguides. One leads another person in the right direction, while the other leads a person astray. When we place the verse within the larger context of Proverbs 12, this interpretation becomes even more interesting. The chapter repeatedly contrasts two ways of life: righteous and wicked, wise and foolish, truthful and deceitful, diligent and lazy. These are not merely descriptions of two different kinds of people. They are characteristics of two different ways of living. In fact, the language of the “way” appears at important points in the chapter. Proverbs 12:15 tells us: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” Then, in verse 26: “The righteous person is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Finally, verse 28 brings the thought to its destination: “In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway, there is no death.” Now a larger pattern begins to emerge. The question is no longer simply, “Who is better, the righteous or the wicked?” Instead, Scripture turns the question back toward us: Which way are you walking, what kind of person is that path producing, and where does that path ultimately lead? Let us now tie this into our study of Psalm 37:37. Why does Scripture invite us to observe the righteous man? Perhaps the best place to begin answering that question is at the very beginning of the book of Psalms. In only six verses, Psalm 1 provides a remarkable connection between Psalm 37 and Proverbs 12. It begins with counsel, who influences me? “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.” Counsel then leads to a way or path, where am I walking? That path becomes visible through the fruit it produces. The righteous man is compared to a tree planted by streams of water, firmly rooted and bearing fruit in its season. Finally, the Psalm brings us to the destination of the two paths: “the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” Remarkably, when we continue to examine the Scriptures together, an extraordinary and undeniable pattern is unveiled that begins to shape our steps. To be continued…