“For he is like one who is inwardly reckoning”: As the footnotes in various versions indicate, the Hebrew of this verse is difficult. The Hebrew text as we have it, which Hebrew Old Testament Text Project favors (“C” rating), is literally “Because as he has calculated in his soul, thus he.” Revised Standard Version and some others take the Hebrew nefesh (“soul”) as the mind, and regard this line as referring to the host who is counting up the cost of what his guest eats. So New International Version, for instance, has “he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost,” and Contemporary English Version “People like that take note of how much you eat.” However, some take the verb “calculated” in the more general sense as “thinks,” which fits better with the next line. Good News Translation, for instance, reverses the order of the two lines, and says for this line, “What he thinks is what he really is.” New Jerusalem Bible also takes this approach but with a difference: “what he is really thinking about is himself.” A third possibility is that the Hebrew nefesh can also mean “throat,” and the verb “calculated” can be read with different vowels as the word “hair,” giving a rendering such as “for like a hair in the throat, so are they” (New Revised Standard Version), or more naturally “for they will stick in your throat like a hair” (Revised English Bible). In this case “they” refers back to “delicacies” in the previous line. Given the uncertainty of the Hebrew, translators may choose to follow any of the above possibilities.

““Eat and drink!” he says to you”: The literal sense of this line is clear, but it may not be clear from this form of words that it is an encouragement to the guest to eat plenty of food. This is well expressed in English by Good News Translation “Come on and have some more”; in most languages there are similar natural or idiomatic ways of inviting guests to eat plenty.

“But his heart is not with you”: This line shows that the words of the host are not sincere—he is saying one thing but thinking another. New Revised Standard Version makes a change from Revised Standard Version and says “but they do not mean it”; this is also the rendering of Contemporary English Version, and Good News Translation is similar. In some languages it is important to bring out the contrast between the words and the thoughts. One translation, for instance, says: “When you are eating he will say to you, ‘Go on, eat and drink as much as you like.’ But his words are not true. In his thinking he has decided how much food he is going to give you.”

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 .