Sunday, August 4, 2024

Proverbs 29:27

While reading Proverbs in the NKJV a couple months ago, I found yet an-other significant chiasm, this time in Proverbs 29:27:
An unjust man
is an abomination to the righteous,
and he who is upright in the way
is an abomination to the wicked.
The same structure is present in the ESV:
An unjust man
is an abomination to the righteous,
but one whose way is straight
is an abomination to the wicked.
And, very bluntly, in the NIV:
The righteous
detest the dishonest;
the wicked
detest the upright.
It's also in my German translation of Proverbs:
Ein ungerechter Mensch
ist dem Gerechten ein Greuel;
und wer recht wandelt,
ist dem Gottlosen ein Greuel.
This structure is in the Hebrew but inverted from the above:
תּוֹעֲבַת צַדִּיקִים אִישׁ עָוֶל וְתוֹעֲבַת רָשָׁע יְשַׁר־דָּֽרֶךְ׃
The word order in the Latin Vulgate is comparable:
Abominantur iusti
virum impium
et abominantur impii
eos qui in recta sunt via
Something like:
An abomination to the righteous
is an unjust man
and an abomination to the wicked
are those who are in the straight way.
In the English and German translations, the order is [unjust | righteous || upright | wicked], where in the Hebrew and the Latin Vulgate, it's [righteous | unjust || wicked | upright], but in both, the structure highlights the mutual animosity.