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Journey of a Passage

Proverbs 9:18

"The dead are there" and a Greek ending

Folly's guests do not know "that the dead (rephaim) are there; and that her guests are in the depths of Sheol." The Greek and Latin translate rephaim as "giants." The library's Greek then adds a long exhortation: "but hasten away, do not linger… do not drink from a strange fountain, that you may live long."

Disputed addition: some witnesses include it, some do not

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ includes the disputed words · ✕ does not include them · ❝ quotes part of them · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The proverb as first composedCollections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed
Greek
  1. Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872Translated from the Old Greek Proverbs
Latin
  1. Latin Vulgate (Clementine)Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Collections from the monarchy to the Persian period (debated)

    The proverb as first composed

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of Proverbs are two small Qumran fragments (4Q102, 4Q103, 1st century BC – 1st century AD, reported).

  2. Jerome c. AD 398, from Hebrew; edition 1592

    Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

    ✓ Contains this passage (the disputed words)Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Et ignoravit quod ibi sint gigantes, et in profundis inferni convivæ ejus.

    Latin position: Proverbs 9:18. Jerome translated Proverbs from Hebrew (c. AD 398), so the Vulgate is an indirect witness to a Hebrew text, with Jerome's interpretation.

  3. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passage (the disputed words)Descends, through lost copies, from The proverb as first composed

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    וְֽלֹא־יָ֭דַע כִּֽי־רְפָאִ֣ים שָׁ֑ם בְּעִמְקֵ֖י שְׁא֣וֹל קְרֻאֶֽיהָ׃

    But he does not know that the rephaim (the dead) are there, her guests in the depths of Sheol

    Hebrew position: Proverbs 9:18.

  4. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passage (the disputed words)Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.

  5. Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872

    Greek Proverbs (library: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passage (the disputed words)Translated from the Old Greek Proverbs

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    Or il ne sait pas que des géants mêmes périssent auprès d’elle, et qu’il met le pied sur la trappe de l’enfer; mais hâte-toi, point de retard en ce lieu; n’arrête pas ton regard sur elle: ainsi tu t’abstiendras de l’eau étrangère; garde-toi de cette eau; ne bois pas à cette fontaine étrangère, afin que tu vives longtemps et que des années de vie s’ajoutent à tes années.

    Greek (digital file) position: Proverbs 9:18. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). No Göttingen critical edition of Greek Proverbs is published yet; a C check needs Rahlfs–Hanhart and specialist studies. Everything after "l'enfer" is the Greek addition.

What changed, and why

Rephaim has two meanings in the Hebrew Bible: the shades of the dead in Sheol (Isaiah 14:9; Psalm 88:10; Job 26:5), and an ancient people of giants (Genesis 14:5; Deuteronomy 2:11; 3:11). In Proverbs 9:18 the context (Sheol) requires the first. The Greek (gēgeneis, "earth-born") and Latin (gigantes) took the second, so readers of the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims met "giants" in Folly's house.

The Greek addition (often numbered 9:18a–d) draws on the water imagery of 5:15–17, warning against the "strange water" of adultery. It has no Hebrew counterpart. Like the bee of 6:8, it shows the Greek translator expanding and moralizing (C check: Rahlfs).

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedRephaim can mean 'the dead' or 'giants.'
  • Independently documentedThe library's Greek and the Vulgate read 'giants' in 9:18.
  • Independently documentedThe library's Greek adds an exhortation after 9:18.
  • Not independently verifiedThe Greek addition translates a lost Hebrew text.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Proverbs 9: Two Houses, Two Invitations →Proverbs 1–9 ends with two hostesses. Wisdom has built her house with seven pillars, prepared meat and wine, and sends her servant girls to call the simple: "Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled… Forsake the foolish, and live" (vv. 1–6). Between the two invitations stand sayings about correcting scorners and the wise, and the motto again: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (vv. 7–12). Then Woman Folly, loud and ignorant, sits at her door and calls the same passers-by: "Stolen waters are sweet"; but "the dead are there" (vv. 13–18).