“Save yourself like a gazelle from the hunter”: “Save yourself” translates the same verb as in verse 3 and means to save your life or escape with your life. “Gazelle” renders a word that refers to a fast-running and graceful antelope. “Gazelle” is used here to emphasize the need to move swiftly. If the “gazelle” or a similar antelope is unknown, another animal known for its speed may be used. “Hunter”, as the Revised Standard Version footnote shows, is literally “from the hand.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project rates the Hebrew text as “B” and suggests that “from the hand” can be taken to mean “out of the hand” or “out of the trap.”

“Like a bird from the hand of the fowler”: This line is a parallel illustration to that in the first line. “Bird” here is a general word and probably refers to a small bird. The verb used in the first line is understood in this second line and may need to be expressed. “From the hand” means from what the hand does, that is, grasp, catch, or take hold of. The Septuagint says “from the net,” as in the Hebrew of Psa 91.3. “The fowler” refers to a person who traps fowls, that is, a bird hunter. New Jerusalem Bible says “break free like a gazelle from the trap, like a bird from the fowler’s clutches.” We may also say, for example, “Free yourself from the promise to that debtor as a deer or a bird escapes from a hunter.”

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 .