Proverbs 6:26
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
American King James Version (AKJV)
For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
American Standard Version (ASV)
For on account of a harlot a man is brought to a piece of bread; And the adulteress hunteth for the precious life.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
For a loose woman is looking for a cake of bread, but another man's wife goes after one's very life.
Webster's Revision
For by means of a lewd woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
World English Bible
For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life.
English Revised Version (ERV)
For on account of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress hunteth for the precious life.
Clarke's Proverbs 6:26 Bible Commentary
By means of a whorish woman - In following lewd women, a man is soon reduced to poverty and disease. The Septuagint gives this a strange turn: timh gar pornhv, osh kai enov artou. "For the price or hire of a whore is about one loaf." So many were they in the land, that they hired themselves out for a bare subsistence. The Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic, give the same sense. The old MS. Bible has it thus: The price forsothe of a strumpet is unneth oon lof: the woman forsothe taketh the precious liif of a mam. The sense of which is, and probably the sense of the Hebrew too, While the man hires the whore for a single loaf of bread; the woman thus hired taketh his precious life. She extracts his energy, and poisons his constitution. In the first clause אשה זונה ishshah zonah is plainly a prostitute; but should we render אשת esheth, in the second clause, an adulteress? I think not. The versions in general join אשת איש esheth ish, together, which, thus connected, signify no more than the wife of a man; and out of this we have made adulteress, and Coverdale a married woman. I do not think that the Old MS. Bible gives a good sense; and it requires a good deal of paraphrase to extract the common meaning from the text. Though the following verses seem to countenance the common interpretation, yet they may contain a complete sense of themselves; but, taken in either way, the sense is good, though the construction is a little violent.
Barnes's Proverbs 6:26 Bible Commentary
The two forms of evil bring, each of them, their own penalty. By the one a man is brought to such poverty as to beg for "a piece of bread" (compare 1 Samuel 2:36): by the other and more deadly sin he incurs a peril which may affect his life. The second clause is very abrupt and emphatic in the original; "but as for a man's wife; she hunts for the precious life."