Like 13.11, this saying makes a comment about wealth that is gained quickly or easily. Here the wealth is in the form of an inheritance. The two lines of the saying contrast situations at the beginning and at the end of the process of getting rich.

“An inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning”: “An inheritance” is wealth, probably in the form of property, passed on from a person’s parents. If the idea of receiving property by “inheritance” is difficult, we may render the term more generally as “wealth” (Good News Translation), “possessions” (Revised English Bible), or “property” (New Jerusalem Bible). There is some uncertainty in the Hebrew text about the term translated “gotten hastily”; in the official written text there is a verb that means “gained by greed,” but there are some manuscripts that support the form of the text that is usually read, which has the verb “gained hastily.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommends this form of the text with a “B” rating, and most translations say something like “an inheritance quickly gained” (New International Version).

“Will in the end not be blessed”: The words of this line are all easy to understand, but it is not easy to see what the point of the saying is. To “bless” someone or something in a context like this is to do good or cause good to happen to that person or make that thing good; and the meaning of wealth being “blessed” may be that it is good or does good for its owner. So Revised English Bible has “will bring you no blessing” and Good News Translation “the less good it will do you.” These are both good models for translators to follow.

The saying as a whole still does not make much sense, however, unless we can understand why this happens when an inheritance is gained quickly. Good News Translation seems to suggest that because the wealth is gained too easily it is not valued or not used wisely (see 13.11). Toy suggests that “gained hastily” points to the wealth being acquired by unfair means, possibly because the son has not been willing to wait to receive the inheritance but has forced the father to hand it over before the proper time. But the only translation that gives any support to this view is Contemporary English Version, which gives as an alternative rendering “Getting rich the wrong way. . ..”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .