17:1

Notice the parallel parts that contrast in meaning:

1a Better a dry morsel in quietness

1b than a house full of feasting with strife.

The first line describes an inadequate meal where the people who eat together are in harmony. This situation is better than a family that has lots of good food but the family members quarrel together. The reason is that harmonious relationships are more important than the quality of the food. Also, even the most delicious food is ruined by tension and quarreling.

This is another four-part “better than” proverb. This proverb has the following pattern:

It is better to have A (bad/undesirable situation) + B (very good/desirable situation)

than to have C (good/desirable situation) + D (very bad/undesirable situation)

For 17:1, the four parts are:

A: an inadequate meal (undesirable)

B: harmonious relationships (very desirable)

C: frequent, delicious meals (desirable)

D: quarreling (very undesirable)

See the note on 12:9 for more details on this kind of proverb.

17:1a

Better a dry morsel: The phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as a dry morsel in the context of Palestine, probably refers to a piece/scrap of bread that people ate dry or by itself. In other words, there was no accompanying sauce or other foods. The word dry may also imply that the bread or other food was leftover or stale. It represented a simple meal that was inadequate and not very tasty.

Some ways to express the meaning of this phrase are:

• Use a phrase that refers specifically to bread. For example:

a mouthful of dry bread (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
a dry crust of bread (Good News Translation)

• In areas where bread is not considered to be a plain or common food, use a more general term. For example:

a little leftover food
-or-
a small and simple meal

• Use a term that refers to a simple or inadequate meal in your language. For example:

a few bites of rice

in quietness: The phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as quietness is a single Hebrew word. It contrasts with the parallel word “strife” in 17:1b. So it refers here to peaceful or harmonious relationships among those who are eating together. It does not refer to silence. Some ways to translate this Hebrew word are:

with peace of mind (Good News Translation)
-or-
where there is peacefulness and harmony

17:1b

than a house full of feasting: The phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as full of feasting is literally “full of sacrifices.” When a family offered an animal sacrifice to the LORD, they had a fellowship meal afterward to eat the meat. In this proverb, the emphasis is on the quantity and quality of the food. The fact that it was a sacrifice is not important. So the phrase “full of sacrifices” refers to a house where the family members frequently held feasts or banquets.

with strife: The strife referred to here is probably quarrels/arguments between the family members.

Some other ways to translate this line are:

than a family feast filled with strife (God’s Word)
-or-
than have a banquet in a house full of trouble (Good News Translation)
-or-
than to have a feast where there is quarreling (New Century Version)

© 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.