Proverbs 1:12

Pro 1:12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

Ver. 12. Let us swallow them up alive.] As the devil doth. {1Pe 5:8 2Ti 2:26} Homo homini demon. The poor Indians have been heard to say, it had been better that their country had been given to the devils of hell than to the Spaniards; and that if the cruel Spaniards go to heaven when they die, they, for their parts, desire not to come there.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1:12 like the grave: Hebrew like Sheol. In the Old Testament, Sheol is the abode of the dead. It is not necessarily associated with punishment.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

As the grave is never satiated, so the avarice of the wicked and their cruelty hath none end.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 12. Let us swallow them up alive] Give them as hasty a death as if the earth were suddenly to swallow them up. This seems to refer to the destruction of a whole village. Let us destroy man, woman, and child; and then we may seize on and carry away the whole of their property, and the booty will be great.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(12) Alive.—Comp. the death of Dathan and Abiram (Num_16:30).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. the grave] or, Sheol, R.V. text, ᾅδης LXX., infernus Vulg.

whole] Some (as R.V. marg. even the perfect) give the Heb. word here the moral sense, which it has elsewhere. But both the parallelism and the force are better preserved by the rendering of A.V. and R.V. text. Let us make away with them in a moment in the full vigour of life, as though Hades should open her mouth and swallow them up (comp. Num_16:30; Num_16:33): yea, let us sweep them from the earth in perfect soundness, as completely as those who go down to the grave are swallowed up by it. The LXX. give a different turn (paraphrase, not translation) to the 2nd clause, ἄρωμεν αὐτοῦ τὴν μνήμην ἐκ γῆς, let us take away the remembrance of him from the earth, as though by whole they understood, wholly, leaving not the memory of him behind.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let us swallow them up alive as the grave,.... The innocent person, and those that are with him, his servants; our gang is so numerous that we can very easily dispatch him and all his attendants, and bury them out of sight at once, as if they were swallowed up alive in a grave, and so no more to be seen or heard of; and consequently we shall be in the utmost safety and security, there being no traces of what is done, nor any left to make a relation of it, or to give any information of us, or to pursue us;

and whole, as those that go down into the pit; who though whole and in perfect health, shall in a moment be destroyed and cast into the pit, being first plundered of all the riches they have about them; for this swallowing them up alive and whole, which is an allusion to a beast of prey swallowing up another creature all at once, not only intends their cruelty in taking away life, but their rapaciousness in seizing upon their substance.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

i. e., “We will be as all-devouring as Sheol. The destruction of those we attack shall be as sudden as that of those who go down quickly into the pit.” Some render the latter clause, and upright men as those that go down to the pit. “Pit” here is a synonym for Sheol, the great cavernous depth, the shadow-world of the dead.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Pit. Grave, or hell, like Dathan, Numbers xvi. This shews the greatest rage, Job xxxi. 31.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

As the grave; which speedily covers and consumes dead bodies. See Psa 55:15; 124:3. We shall do our work quickly, easily, and without fear of discovery.

Into the pit; into some deep pit, into which a traveller falls unawares, and is utterly lost, and never discovered.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Swallow… as the grave — כשׁאול, (kishol,) “like hell,” hades, orcus, the underworld, a favourite expression of bloodthirsty men in all ages. (See Excursus on Sheol, p. 72.) The strong passions excited by even regular warfare in a good cause afford a temptation to, and, we are sorry to say, often an excuse for, shocking profanity. This is a prominent vice of military men; but it should be left to those who fight in a bad cause and for bad ends. The men here represented are as voracious as the grave. The idea of the verse is that of sudden and complete destruction. Some suppose there is an allusion to the case of Korah and his associates, (Num_16:31-33,) where the earth opened and swallowed them up, “and they went down alive into the pit.”

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Let us swallow them up alive as the grave. A continuation of ver. 11, expanding the idea of bloodshed ending in murder, and showing the determination of the sinners to proceed to the most violent means to effect their covetous ends. The enticement here put before youth is the courage and boldness of their exploits (Wardlaw). The order of the words in the original is, "Let us swallow them up, as the grave, living," which sufficiently indicates the meaning of the passage. Alive; (khayyim), i.e. "the living," refers to the pronomiual suffix in (niv"laem), as in the Authorized Version and Zockler. (cf. Psa_55:15 Psa_124:3) Umbreit and Hitzig are grammatically incorrect in connecting lwOavKi (kish"ol) "as the grave," with "the living," and translating "like the pit (swallows) that which lives." The Ki (ki) with a substantive, as here in kish"ol, is a preposition, said not a conjunction (see Gesenius, "Lexicon"). It denotes a kind of resemblance, but does not introduce a coordinate sentence. The allusion is undoubtedly in the teacher"s mind to the fate of Korah and his company, (Num_16:30-33) and as in that case "the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up" in the flush of life, so here the robbers say that they will as suddenly and effectively destroy their victims, lB (dala); from which niv"laem, in a figurative sense, means "to destroy utterly" (Geseuius). The change from the singular, "the innocent" (yqinl, l"naki), to the plural in "let us swallow them up," is noticeable. Like the pit (lwOavKi, kish"ol); literally, like Sheol, or Hades, the great subterranean cavity or world of the dead. The all-devouring and insatiable character of sheol is described in Pro_27:20, where the Authorized Version translates "Hell (sheol) and destruction are never full," and again in Pro_30:15, where it (sheol, Authorized Version, "the grave") is classed with the four things that are never satisfied. Vulgate, infernus; LXX, adhv . And whole, as those that go down into the pit. The parallelism of ideas requires that the word "whole" ( tmimim) should be understood of those physically whole (see Mercerus, Delitzsch), and not in a moral sense, as the upright (Luther, Grief, Holden, Plumptre). The word is used in an ethical signification in Pro_2:21. Gesenius gives it the meaning of "safe, secure." Those that go down into the pit. (rwOb yderwOy, yorde vor); i.e. the dead. The phrase also occurs in Psa_28:1 Psa_30:4 Psa_88:4 Psa_143:7 Isa_38:18) The pit (rwOb, vor); or, the sepulchre, the receptacle of the dead, is here synonymous with sheol. The LXX substitutes for the latter part of the verse, Kai arwmen autou thmhn ek ghv , "And let us remove his memory from the earth." The robbers, by drawing a comparison between themselves and Hades and the grave, which consign to silence all who are put therein, imply their own security against detection. They will so utterly destroy their victims that none will be left to tell the tale (see Musset, in loc. ). This, we know, is a fancied, and at the best only a temporary, security.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

grave

Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

General Information:

Verses 12-14 end the imagined statement of the sinners who are trying to entice others to sin.

Let us swallow them up alive, like Sheol takes away those who are healthy

The sinners speak of murdering innocent people as if they were Sheol and they would take a living and healthy person down to the place where dead people go. (See: Metaphor)

Let us swallow ... like Sheol takes away

This speaks of the grave as if it were a person that swallows humans and takes them down to the place of the dead. (See: Personification)

like Sheol takes away those who are healthy

The wicked expect to destroy their victims in the same way Sheol, the place of the dead, takes away even healthy people.

make them like those who fall into the pit

Possible meanings are 1) this refers to travelers who fall into a deep hole where no one will ever find them or 2) here "pit" is another word that means Sheol or the place where dead people go.

Throw in your lot with us

This is an idiom. AT: "Join us" (See: Idiom)

we will all have one purse together

Here "purse" represents everything that they steal. AT: "we will equally share everything that we steal" (See: Metonymy)

purse

a bag for carrying money

translationWords

life

like

Hades

pit

house

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

let us swallow them up The innocent when they are alive.

like the grave which swallows up the entire body.

and the whole ones Heb. ותמימים. This is not an expression of righteous men, but an expression of whole ones. Let us swallow them up when they are whole, like a man who descends into a pit when he is whole; i.e., when they are still wealthy, let us slay them and inherit their property.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.