“The root of the righteous flourishes” is a better translation from Hebrew than most English translations because “fruit” does not appear in the Hebrew text “shoresh saddiq natan (a transliteration)”. The translators consider the widely used and defined “natan” to refer to yielding something, yet the text does not say what. So they add fruit to the proverb. So I consider my own translation. Here it is: “<The> deep root <of the> righteous delivers (that is, it gives).” LOL: I can take time to look at the Hebrew because it is a cold rainy winter Saturday morning and the coffee tastes mighty fine and I had my first good night sleep in 3 days since the outpatient surgery.
“The wicked desire the plunder of evil men.” So why does someone desire (covets) the plunder of evil (people)? And does that make them evil, or is the desire the result of their evil soul? The original Hebrew text in the first half of this proverb is “rasha hamad mesoda ra” (a transliteration). A word for “men” does not appear in the original Hebrew though many translators speculated people were the evil owners of stuff that other wicked people desired to be like and take from. I am going to consider a simpler translation, “<The> ungodly wicked desires (and covets) the snare (and net) of evil (and wickedness).” This simple translation really ridicules the wicked.
Now I am going to put together the two parts of the proverb as translated by BDBD. “The ungodly wicked desires the snare of evil, whereas the deep root of the righteous delivers.” This is the main theme of the whole book of Proverbs repeated in varying ways in differing parables.
Jesus corrected his disciples misunderstanding about the human soul with these words, “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean'” (Matthew 15:18-20a) The heart seeks what the heart is. If it is evil it desires evil. If it is pure it seeks the pure. The sad fact is that all are born with an evil soul. “No one is righteous, not one.” (Psalm 143:2; Romans 3:10; Galatians 3:11)
Jesus made it clear that the only way to have a pure heart was to ask God to purify it through him. Then will a person escape the snare of evil, and a person will naturally and automatically be delivered.
