“And you say, “How I hated discipline””: This may be taken as a statement or as a “Why did I?” rhetorical question as in Good News Translation. Either way the quotation is to be understood as said with remorse and regret. The word “How” in “How I hated . . .” has the sense of “How bad for me that I. . .” or “Too bad that I did not love. . ..” “Discipline” translates the word rendered “instruction” in 1.2 and “discipline” in 3.11. Here the sense is “correction.”

“My heart despised reproof!”: “My heart” matches “I” in the first line and represents the thinking, reflective part of the personality. “Despised” renders a word meaning to scorn or treat with contempt, and matches “hated” in line 1. Refer to 1.7, 30 for “despise”. “Reproof” is as in 1.23, and is similar in meaning to “discipline”. Revised English Bible translates verses 11-12: “When you shrink to skin and bone you will end by groaning and saying, ‘Oh, why did I hate correction and set my heart against reproof?'” Contemporary English Version has “(11) When it’s all over, your body will waste away, as you groan (12) and shout, ‘I hated advice and correction!'”

In some languages translators feel that a short opening expression of feeling is required before the string of questions or statements in the speech that runs through this verse and the next two. For example, one translation begins, “I am so stupid! Why was my head big, and I would not let others put me straight?”

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 .