17:18

Notice the parallel parts:

18a A man lacking judgment strikes hands in pledge

18b and puts up security for his neighbor.

The underlined part in 17:18a refers to making an agreement. The part in 17:18b gives specific information about the agreement. It is a guarantee to pay a neighbor’s debt if he is unable to pay.

See the notes on 6:1, 11:15, and 22:26, where the same parallel terms occur. In those verses, they occur in the opposite order.

There are also other differences in these verses. Proverbs 6:1 describes the situation that is faced by a son who has guaranteed someone’s loan. Proverbs 11:15 describes the consequences of guaranteeing another person’s loan. This verse focuses on the foolishness of a person who guarantees a loan for his neighbor.

See the General Comment on 17:18a–b at the end of 17:18b for ways to combine the parallel parts.

17:18a

A man lacking judgment: This phrase refers to someone who lacks common sense and makes foolish decisions. This phrase last occurred in 15:21a.

strikes hands in pledge: In Hebrew, this phrase is literally “striking/clapping a palm.” The function of this gesture was to conclude a legal or financial agreement. See the note on 6:1b for ways to translate this gesture.

17:18b

puts up security: This phrase refers here to anything that the loan guarantor gives to the lender to guarantee future payment of the debt. The security could be the person’s oath. It could also be a piece of clothing or something else that belonged to him.

for his neighbor: In Hebrew, this phrase is literally “before” or “in the presence of” his neighbor. There are two main ways to interpret this phrase:

(1) It means that a person guarantees a loan for his neighbor. For example:

puts up financial security for his neighbor (NET Bible)

(2) It means that a person guarantees a loan in the presence of his neighbor. For example:

puts up security in the presence of his neighbor (English Standard Version)

It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1), along with most versions. Another way to translate this line is:

become responsible for a neighbor’s debts (New Living Translation (1996))

neighbor: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates here as neighbor is the same word that it translated as “friend” in 17:17a. It can refer to anyone with whom a person interacts, including a close friend or an acquaintance. See the note on 16:29a.

General Comment on 17:18a–b

In some languages, it may be clearer to combine and/or reorder the parallel parts to indicate that both lines refer to the same agreement. For example:

Only someone with no sense would promise to be responsible for someone else’s debts. (Good News Translation)
-or-
It’s stupid to guarantee someone else’s loan. (Contemporary English Version)

See also 17:18a–b (combined/reordered) in the Display.

© 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.