Sunday, June 9, 2024

Proverbs 2:6

A few weeks ago, I started reading Proverbs in the NKJV.  I noticed a minor feature in the second half of Proverbs 2:6:  "from His [the LORD's] mouth come knowledge and understanding."  The sentence structure is inverted so that the source (the LORD's mouth) precedes that which comes from it (knowledge and understanding), which obviously mirrors the meaning.

The ESV and NIV translations are the same as the NKJV, and this structure is also in the Hebrew:
מִפִּיו דַּעַת וּתְבוּנָֽה׃
the Latin Vulgate:
ex ore eius [veniunt] scientia et prudentia
and my German translation of Proverbs, albeit with a subject-verb disagreement:
aus seinem Munde kommt Erkenntnis und Einsicht