Proverbs 6:5
save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
English Standard Version (ESV)
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The imagery isn't just about speed, but about an animal's desperate, instinctual struggle to escape any hand that has trapped it. This isn't about getting away from a specific person, but from the grip of the entanglement itself.
This passage is a stern warning against the folly of co-signing loans or becoming a guarantor for someone else's debt. Solomon has just explained how quickly a person can become entangled by rashly pledging their financial support for a stranger. The verse then uses vivid imagery of swift animals struggling to escape a hunter's grasp to emphasize the urgent and desperate action needed to free oneself from such a dangerous financial entanglement.
Imagine the sheer panic of a gazelle caught by a hunter, or a bird ensnared. Their very survival depends on immediate, desperate action. This verse paints a vivid picture of the kind of urgency you need.
The Need for Immediate Action
This verse is a powerful image of how you should react when you find yourself in a dangerous situation, specifically warning against becoming a surety for someone else's debt.
Why use a gazelle or a bird? These creatures, though lacking human reason, possess incredible instincts for survival. Solomon points us to their desperate struggle as a model for our own wisdom.
Learning from Nature's Warnings
The wisdom in Proverbs often draws parallels between the natural world and human life. Here, the behavior of animals serves as a stark lesson.
Understand the original words
tsebi · Hebrew Noun
A swift, graceful animal used metaphorically in Scripture to represent alertness, agility, and the desperate need for rapid escape from impending doom or the traps of the wicked.
yaqosh · Hebrew Noun
One who traps animals; metaphorically used to describe someone who seeks to destroy, entrap, or ruin another person, often through deceit or cunning schemes.
This psalm uses similar imagery of fleeing danger, likening trust in God to a bird flying to the mountains for safety, echoing the urgency of escaping peril described in Proverbs.
Jeremiah 17:17Jeremiah cries out to God for deliverance from his enemies, invoking a similar plea for rescue from those who pursue him, highlighting the desperation that can drive such flight.
1 Samuel 26:20David, pursued by Saul, likens himself to a flea or a partridge hunted on the mountains, expressing the vulnerability and relentless pursuit that necessitates desperate escape, much like the gazelle or bird.
John 10:12Jesus contrasts the shepherd who protects his sheep with the hired hand who flees when danger approaches, illustrating the instinct to escape threats when one's own well-being is at stake.
pulpitProverbs 6:5: "Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler."
Verse 5. - The struggles of the roe and the bird to escape from the snare are employed figuratively to describe the efforts which the surety is to make to tear and free himself from his friend. From the hand of the hunter (Hebrew, miyyad); literally, from the hand, as shown by the italics. The variation in all the ancient versions, with the exception of the Vulgate and Venetian, whic…
clarkeProverbs 6:5: "Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler."
Deliver thyself as a roe - צבי tsebi, the antelope. If thou art got into the snare, get out if thou possibly canst; make every struggle and excertion, as the antelope taken in the net, and the bird taken in the snare would, in order to get free from thy captivity.
The imagery isn't just about speed, but about an animal's desperate, instinctual struggle to escape any hand that has trapped it. This isn't about getting away from a specific person, but from the grip of the entanglement itself.
This passage is a stern warning against the folly of co-signing loans or becoming a guarantor for someone else's debt. Solomon has just explained how quickly a person can become entangled by rashly pledging their financial support for a stranger. The verse then uses vivid imagery of swift animals struggling to escape a hunter's grasp to emphasize the urgent and desperate action needed to free oneself from such a dangerous financial entanglement.
This passage is a stern warning against the folly of co-signing loans or becoming a guarantor for someone else's debt. Solomon has just explained how quickly a person can become entangled by rashly pledging their financial support for a stranger. The verse then uses vivid imagery of swift animals struggling to escape a hunter's grasp to emphasize the urgent and desperate action needed to free oneself from such a dangerous financial entanglement.
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"save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler." — The imagery isn't just about speed, but about an animal's desperate, instinctual struggle to escape any hand that has trapped it. This isn't about getting away from a specific person, but from the…
