Proverbs 20:16 New English Translation
16 Take a man’s[a] garment[b] when he has given security for a stranger,[c]
and hold him[d] in pledge on behalf of strangers.
Footnotes
- Proverbs 20:16 tn Heb “his garment.”
- Proverbs 20:16 sn Taking a garment was the way of holding someone responsible to pay debts. In fact, the garment was the article normally taken for security (Exod 22:24-26; Deut 24:10-13). People normally had few changes of clothes, so a garment represented giving a necessity as collateral. (In the case of a poor person the cloak should be returned for the nighttime to keep them warm.)
- Proverbs 20:16 tc The Kethib has the masculine plural form, נָכְרִים (nokhrim), suggesting a reading “strangers.” But the Qere has the feminine form נָכְרִיָּה (nokhriyyah), “strange woman” or “another man’s wife” (e.g., 27:13). The parallelism would suggest “strangers” is the correct reading, although theories have been put forward for the interpretation of “strange woman” (see below).tn M. Dahood argues that the cloak was taken in pledge for a harlot (cf. NIV “a wayward woman”). Two sins would then be committed: taking a cloak and going to a prostitute (“To Pawn One’s Cloak,” Bib 42 [1961]: 359-66; also Snijders, “The Meaning of זָר,” 85-86). In the MT the almost identical proverb in 27:13 has a feminine singular form here.sn The one for whom the pledge is taken is called “a stranger” and “foreign.” These two words do not necessarily mean that the individual or individuals are non-Israelite—just outside the community and not well known.
- Proverbs 20:16 tn Or “hold it” (so NIV, NCV).
New English Translation (NET)
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