Proverbs 11:16
New American Standard Bible 1995
16 A gracious woman attains honor, And ruthless men attain riches.
Proverbs 11:16
English Standard Version
16 A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches.
Proverbs 11:16
New King James Version
16 A gracious woman retains honor, But ruthless men retain riches.
Proverbs 11:16
King James Version
16 A gracious woman retaineth honour: and strong men retain riches.
Some Biblehub.com commentaries
( Reference: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/proverbs/11-16.htm )
Matthew Poole's Commentary A gracious woman, Heb. a woman of grace and favour, i.e. one who by her meekness, and modesty, and prudence, and other virtues, renders herself acceptable and amiable to God and to men.
Retaineth honour, or holdeth fast her honour or good reputation, with no less care and resolution than strong men do riches, as it here follows.
And strong men retain riches; or, as strong men, &c.; for so this conjunction is oft used in this book, of which we have seen some, and may afterwards see more instances.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Or, "The gracious woman wins and keeps honor, as (the conjunction may be so rendered) strong men win riches."
Most of the bible translations that I quickly reviewed seem to just equate the following 2 clauses:
A) A gracious woman attains honor
B) ruthless men attain riches
which seems wrong. The reason being is that it is understandable to view a gracious woman in a good light because she attains honor for her graciousness. However, it seems Wrong to uphold the ruthless/violent man for attaining riches due to his ruthlessness/violent nature.
However, based on the biblehub.com 's various commentaries, I'm inferring that the Hebrew conjunction used in Proverbs 11:16 to join the aforementioned 2 clauses is more like "as" or "like" as opposed to an "and" which is used in most english bible translations.
I even looked at the more thought-for-thought bible translations, however, they use "but"
Proverbs 11:16
New International Version
16 A kindhearted woman gains honor, but ruthless men gain only wealth.
Proverbs 11:16
New International Reader's Version
16 A woman who has a kind heart gains honor. But men who are not kind gain only wealth.
and the paraphrase bible translation even uses "but":
Proverbs 11:16
The Message
16 A woman of gentle grace gets respect, but men of rough violence grab for loot.
I'm kind of surprised that the thought-for-thought and paraphrase bible translations do Not use "as" or "like" or something to that effect in their translations for Proverbs 11:16.
11:16 Hebrew OT: Westminster Leningrad Codex
אֵֽשֶׁת־חֵ֭ן תִּתְמֹ֣ךְ כָּבֹ֑וד וְ֝עָרִיצִ֗ים יִתְמְכוּ־עֹֽשֶׁר׃
Could someone please read the original Hebrew, and provide some explanation as to what the original Hebrew states in Proverbs 11:16? ( More specifically, please feel free to give some explanation on the conjunction being used)