Week 18 Proverbs 22
One who is generous will be blessed, because he gives some of his food to the poor.
In my bible’s margin there’s a sidenote about the word generous. It says: Lit. has a good eye. The Abbreviation List says that Lit. is the shortform for a literal translation. Which means that generous should actually say has a good eye. It means that if I had a Hebrew bible (and if I could read it) it would say the person has a good eye would be blessed. That’s what Solomon actually said.
I know that even though Solomon used the phrase that a person with a good eye will be blessed that can’t be what he literally meant. If he did then a guy who had cataracts or macular degeneration or glaucoma wouldn’t ever be blessed.
I checked some other versions. More than a dozen used Solomon’s expression a good eye (or something similar). But quite a few exchanged the good eye phrase for words like generous or kindly.
So anyway it’s a reminder that the bible I’m using doesn’t necessarily give me the exact words that Solomon wrote. Which is okay since I don’t figure the translators are intentionally trying to pull-the-wool-over-my-eyes. But on balance I think I prefer a translated text that toes-the-line. One that says what the writer actually said. And that means it’s telling me it’ll be me that has to cope with figures of speech.
Note: quote from Proverbs 22:9 (NASB)