Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22
Gossip: tasty morsels, and a Greek doublet
"The words of a talebearer are as wounds (mitlahamim), and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly." The same Hebrew verse appears at 26:22. The rare word mitlahamim is now usually read "tasty morsels." The library's Greek of 18:8 has a different saying entirely ("fear casts down the lazy; the souls of the effeminate will hunger"), and the Clementine Vulgate carries both: the Hebrew saying and the Greek one.
Read Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22 in every edition
Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording
The family tree
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✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Every witness, in order
Collections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)
The proverb as first composed
No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of Proverbs are two small Qumran fragments (4Q102, 4Q103, 1st century BC – 1st century AD, reported).
Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592
Latin Vulgate (Clementine)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia, et ipsa perveniunt usque ad interiora ventris. Pigrum dejicit timor; animæ autem effeminatorum esurient.
Latin position: Proverbs 18:8. Jerome translated Proverbs from Hebrew (c. AD 398); the Clementine Vulgate sometimes also carries lines from the Greek.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
דִּבְרֵ֣י נִ֭רְגָּן כְּמִֽתְלַהֲמִ֑ים וְ֝הֵ֗ם יָרְד֥וּ חַדְרֵי־בָֽטֶן׃
The words of a whisperer are like delicacies; they go down into the inner rooms of the belly
Hebrew position: Proverbs 18:8.
AD 1008
Proverbs 26:22 (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
דִּבְרֵ֣י נִ֭רְגָּן כְּמִֽתְלַהֲמִ֑ים וְ֝הֵ֗ם יָרְד֥וּ חַדְרֵי־בָֽטֶן׃
The same saying, word for word
The repeat.
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.
Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872
Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
La crainte abat les paresseux; les âmes des efféminés sont toujours affamées.
Greek (digital file) position: Proverbs 18:8. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). In these chapters the Greek verse positions in the digital file shift; the matching line was found by content. No Göttingen critical edition of Greek Proverbs is published; a C check needs Rahlfs–Hanhart and specialist studies.
What changed, and why
Mitlahamim occurs only here and at 26:22. Comparison with an Arabic root meaning "to swallow greedily," and the second line ("they go down into the innermost parts"), suggest "delicacies": gossip is eagerly swallowed and stays inside. The KJV's "as wounds" and the Vulgate's "as if simple" (quasi simplicia) are guesses.
The Greek of 18:8 reads a different saying, close to 19:15 in Greek. The Vulgate of 18:8 contains Jerome's translation of the Hebrew and then adds "Pigrum dejicit timor; animae autem effeminatorum esurient," the Greek line in Latin: a sign that the Latin tradition absorbed a Greek reading (C check: Weber–Gryson edition, to see whether the line belongs to Jerome or was added later).
At 26:22 the library's Greek has "the words of the deceiver are sweet, but they strike to the depths of the belly," closer to the Hebrew.
What the evidence shows
- Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22 are identical in the library's Hebrew.
- The library's Greek has a different saying at 18:8.
- The Clementine Vulgate of 18:8 includes a line from the Greek.
- Mitlahamim means 'tasty morsels.'
Sources
Related lessons
- Proverbs 18: Death and Life Are in the Power of the Tongue →Chapter 18 is above all about speech: words are "deep waters" (v. 4); a fool's mouth is his ruin (vv. 6–7); the words of a talebearer are like tasty morsels swallowed whole (v. 8); answering before listening is folly (v. 13); the first to speak in court seems right until cross-examined (v. 17); "Death and life are in the power of the tongue" (v. 21). Around these are sayings on isolation, wealth as a false wall, the name of the LORD as a strong tower (v. 10), a wounded spirit (v. 14), the lot (v. 18), a wife as a good thing from the LORD (v. 22), and the friend who sticks closer than a brother (v. 24).
- Proverbs 26: Answer a Fool, and Answer Not →Proverbs 26 is built of three portraits. The fool (vv. 1–12): honour fits him like snow in summer; and two sayings stand side by side that seem to contradict each other: "Answer not a fool according to his folly" (v. 4) and "Answer a fool according to his folly" (v. 5). A proverb in a fool's mouth is like a lame man's legs or a thorn in a drunkard's hand (vv. 7, 9). The sluggard (vv. 13–16): "As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed." The troublemaker and the liar (vv. 17–28): meddling is like grabbing a dog by the ears; "where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth."