“He who pampers his servant from childhood”: “Pampers”, meaning in English to treat someone with excessive care and attention, translates a Hebrew verb found only here in the Old Testament. According to Whybray, the word is found in later Hebrew with this sense. Good News Translation “If you give your servants everything they want from childhood on” is a good model translation. We may also say, for example, “The master who spoils his servant.”

“Will in the end find him his heir”: The Revised Standard Version footnote shows that the word rendered “heir” is uncertain. Numerous changes have been proposed in the Hebrew, but there is little agreement among interpreters. Some translators, for example Scott, follow the Vulgate and say “In the end he [the servant] will prove refractory,” meaning that the servant will become unmanageable. Note that this is one of the meanings given in the Good News Translation footnote, “you will not be able to control them.” The Good News Translation text follows Revised Standard Version by expressing “heir” as “they will take over everything you own.” Contemporary English Version expresses another guess for the Hebrew: “will cause you sorrow.” As there is no certainty in any of these interpretations, translators are free to make a choice. One translation that follows Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation says, for example, “If you give everything to your servant from the time he is a child, one day he will take away everything you own; it will all be his.”

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 .