Proverbs Chapter 6 Verses 6-11

Original Hebrew

ו  לֵךְ אֶל נְמָלָה עָצֵל    רְאֵה דְרָכֶיהָ וַחֲכָם.

ז  אֲשֶׁר אֵין-לָהּ קָצִין    שֹׁטֵר וּמֹשֵׁל.

ח  תָּכִין בַּקַּיִץ לַחְמָהּ    אָגְרָה בַקָּצִיר מַאֲכָלָהּ.

ט  עַד-מָתַי עָצֵל תִּשְׁכָּב    מָתַי תָּקוּם מִשְּׁנָתֶךָ.

י  מְעַט שֵׁנוֹת, מְעַט תְּנוּמוֹת    מְעַט חִבֻּק יָדַיִם לִשְׁכָּב.

יא  וּבָא-כִמְהַלֵּךְ רֵאשֶׁךָ    וּמַחְסֹרְךָ כְּאִישׁ מָגֵן.

Translation A:

1. Go to the ant, slacker; see her paths and be wise.

2. She does not have an commander, overseer or ruler,

3. Prepares in the summer her bread, and gathers in the harvest her food.

4. Till when, slacker, will you lie down? When will you arise from your slumber?

5. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little embrace of hands to nap”.

6. So will come as a runner thy poverty; thy lacking as a guardsman.

Notes:

In A, I decided to translate the Hebrew text as literally as possible. That meant not only providing the most literal interpretation for each individual word, but also meticulously following each line’s specific sentence structure to the greatest extent possible. That also meant not adding any words of emphasis or clarification.

Translation B

1. Go to the ant, bum, contemplate her ways and be wise.

2. Though she is without a commander, overseer or ruler,

3. She prepares her bread from the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.

4. Till when will you sleep, O bum? When will you arise from your slumber?

5. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little embrace of the hands to nap.”

6. So will come as a sprinter thy poverty; thy lacking as an armed man.

Notes:

Translation B is an attempt to present the poem to a contemporary audience, better obey English conventions, and clarify the intentions of the narrator. The result is a more liberal translation.

Line by line differences:

1. Slacker vs bum–I chose the more colloquial “bum” in B because it closely resembles the terseness of the word עָצֵל, and is said with as much contempt. Still, “slacker” may technically be a closer interpretation of the word in this context, because it more immediately brings to mind someone who has substantial ability but not the work ethic, a trait these verses are strongly rebuking.

2-3 Addition of words “though” “She” and “from” in version B, and different sentence structures: These three words, especially the latter, were added to make the metaphor clearer and more easily understandable. In A, I followed the hebrew word order exactly, and put “summer” and “harvest” in the middle of the sentence. I tried to make it flow better in B, which kept the parallel structure of the original hebrew but reordered the sentence so that the verb immediately preceded the noun, without a qualifier in between.

4. Similar idea to the above: Version A followed the hebrew sentence, resulting in an awkward spot for “bum”. In B, I moved it to the end of the rhetorical question. Also, תִּשְׁכָּב literally means to lie down”, so I felt obligated to include that in the first translation.

6. In B, I changed “runner” to “sprinter” to emphasize the narrator’s point about the swift connection between laziness and negative consequences. Finally, though “אִישׁ מָגֵן” literally means a shields-man or a guard, I decided to just use armed men so as to avoid confusing the reader and clarify that the final phrase is a warning, not some type of promise of protection for the willfully lazy.