Paragraph 22:29 Saying 5
The overall meaning of this saying is that a person who does high quality work can expect to be hired by kings rather than common people.
22:29
Notice the contrasting parallel parts:
29a Do you see a man skilled in his work?
29b He will be stationed in the presence of kings ;
29c he will not stand before obscure men.
22:29a
Do you see a man skilled in his work?: In Hebrew, this clause is a statement. For example:
You see an artisan skillful at his craft (Revised English Bible)
Most versions, including the Berean Standard Bible, translate this clause as a rhetorical question. The purpose of the clause is to encourage the listener to think about a person who has a reputation for doing high-quality work. Some other ways to translate this clause are:
Show me someone who is a truly competent worker
-or-
When a person does his job well
-or-
Think about a person who is very skillful in his work
work: In Hebrew, this word can refer to any kind of work or duties, including the work of a scribe, craftsman, or businessman.
22:29b–c
He will be stationed in the presence of kings; he will not stand before obscure men: These two lines describe a benefit that the skilled worker can expect to receive. He can expect to serve kings (22:29b). By contrast, he will not be employed by ordinary people (22:29c).
He will be stationed in the presence of kings: In Hebrew, this clause is literally, “before kings he will take his stand.” This clause indicates that the skilled worker will enter the service of kings. It may indicate specifically that he will be employed in the king’s court. It may also indicate more generally that he will work for the king.
kings: In some languages, it will be more appropriate to use a general word. For example:
you will work for a ruler (Contemporary English Version)
obscure men: In Hebrew, this phrase is literally “the darknesses.” The contrast with “kings” suggests that this unusual phrase refers to people who are insignificant or relatively unknown. Many languages will have idioms that refer to such people.
Some ways to translate these two lines are:
he will serve kings, not common men (Revised English Bible)
-or-
They will work for kings, not for ordinary people. (New Century Version)
-or-
He will serve kings. He will not serve unknown people. (God’s Word)
General Comment on 22:29b–c
In some languages, it may be more natural to reorder these two lines. For example:
The ones he will work for 29c will not be people of low status 29b but rather kings.
© 2012, 2016, 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.