Proverbs מִשְׁלֵי

Mishlei — the Book of Proverbs — is the Torah's school of daily life. Ascribed by its opening verse to Solomon son of David, king of Israel, the wisest of men, it gathers the distilled counsel of Israel's sages on everything the day contains: speech and silence, work and sloth, wealth and want, friendship, anger, honesty in the marketplace, discipline in the home, and the two women between whom every soul must choose — Wisdom, who cries aloud in the streets and was Hashem's delight before the world began, and Folly, whose guests are in the depths of the nether-world. Its watchword stands at the gate: the fear of Hashem is the beginning of knowledge. Later collections join the core — proverbs copied out by the men of King Hezekiah, the words of Agur son of Jakeh, and the admonition of King Lemuel's mother — before the book closes with the golden alphabet of the woman of valor.

This edition presents each verse word by word: the Hebrew, its transliteration, its root, its gematria, and a form-true English gloss, beneath a complete modern English translation adapted from the public-domain Jewish Publication Society version of 1917, with the Divine Name rendered "Hashem." Six classical commentators accompany the text — Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ralbag, Metzudat David, Metzudat Zion, and the Malbim — so that the plain sense, the grammar, and the inner architecture of each proverb can be studied on a single page. May these words be a lamp for those who say them.