Proverbs 1.8-19, otherwise known as the First Instruction, opens the series of “my son” poems which dominate the first nine chapters of Proverbs. The specific verses I reference in the title (11-18) contain several instances of double entendre.¹ In this post I will discuss how I think the double entendre within these verses was meant to play out. One should be warned, however, that these thoughts are really only tentative and preliminary. I’ve made two other posts on Proverbs recently, here and here.

I think that the double entendres within the first Instruction in Proverbs 1-9 are meant to be read a certain way on the first reading, and meant to reveal their alternative reading once one has completed the poem for the first time. I will illustrate this below.

The First Reading:
Verse 11

אם־יאמרו לכה אתנו נארבה לדם נצפנה לנקי חנם

English: “If they say, ‘Come with us! Let us lie in wait for blood/Let us ambush the innocent without reason”

Verse 11 is not one of the verses I feel contain a double entendre. Rather, it is one of two unambiguous verses which frame the inner section of the poem. If you refer back to this post you will see that I view verses 11-18 as a large protasis-apodosis (=”if-then” statement). The framing verses on either end are unambiguous, and I think this is important. In the case of verse 11, the meaning is clear: the sinners intend to shed the blood of innocent people.

Verse 12

נבלעם כשאול חיים ותמימים כיורדי בור

English: “Let us swallow them alive like Sheol/whole, like those who go down to the pit”

Verse 12 does contain a double entendre, in my opinion. The first time one reads the verse, the meaning appears clear: the sinners intend to swallow people alive, just like Sheol.² The second part of the verse is simple parallelism, they will swallow the innocent whole. The innocent people will be like those who go down to the pit.

Verse 16

כי רגליהם לרע ירוצו וימהרו לשפך דם

English: “For their feet run to evil/they make haste to shed blood”

This is the most apparent, and in some ways most striking, of the ambiguities in this section of Proverbs. During the initial reading the sense of the verse appears to be clear: the father warns the son that he should avoid the sinners’ path because they “make haste to spill blood” (ie, they kill people). The sinners run to evil, and that evil is–presumably, the shedding of blood.

Verse 18

והם לדמם יארבו יצפנו לנפשתם

English: “These people lie in wait for their own blood/they set an ambush for their own life”

Once the reader arrives at the end of the poem, the verses mentioned above take on a different meaning. Only at the end is the alternative reading revealed unambiguously. In fact, verse 11, with its unambiguous declaration concerning the sinners ensures that the reader will read the poem in a certain way. Once one arrives at verse 18, however, everything is seen in a different light. The sinners lie in wait for their own blood! Each of the verses mentioned above can now be seen in a different light. Interestingly, verse 18 borrows the vocabulary of verse 11. In both verses the sinners “lie in wait.”

The Second Reading:
Verse 12
This verse is the most difficult in which to see the alternative reading. It is here, however. The first stitch says plainly “let us swallow them, as Sheol, alive!” or in easier English, “let us swallow them alive, like Sheol.” The issue is not with the initial stitch, but rather with the second “and whole, like the ones going down to the pit.” During the first read-through of the poem verse 11 has already prepped the reader in how to understand this. However, during a second reading something doesn’t sit right. The issue is visible, even in translation. In the first stitch the sinners want to be “like Sheol.” The innocent are swallowed “alive.” The second stitch lacks a verb, and so the verb from the first stitch does double duty. This is a normal occurrence in poetry. So, the second stitch means “let us swallow them whole, like the ones going down to the pit.” This too is obvious even in translation, even on the initial reading. The question, of course, is to what is “like the ones going down to the pit” parallel? The answer is clear, it is parallel to “like Sheol.” In other words, the sinners declare that they themselves will go down to the pit.³

Verse 16
One way of understanding the Hebrew word רע in the first stitch (translated “evil”) is “trouble.” In other words, one might read the first stitch as “their feet rush to trouble,” (ie, they get themselves into trouble). As Waltke has written, “in 1:16 it [רע] can denote either moral evil or calamity.”⁴ This is not the most eye-popping double-meaning in the verse, but it is certainly interesting to note. The second stitch presents the most striking ambiguity, as well as the most easily recognized. On the first reading the meaning seems obvious, the sinners make haste to spill the blood of the innocent. Once one has read verse 18, however, things shift slightly and one realizes that the verse may easily be read to mean that the sinners make haste to shed their own blood.

---