“He who forgives an offense seeks love”: This line should be compared with 10.12, where “love” is said to “cover all offenses.” The motive for forgiveness is “love”, which refers here to friendly relations with others. As in 10.12, the Hebrew verb used here means “to cover.” See there for discussion and for comments on “offense”. “Seeks love” means wanting to have good social relations with others. Bible en français courant says “To forgive a wrong fosters friendship,” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “Whoever wishes to keep a friendship forgives offenses.” We may also say, for example, “If you wish to have friends, forgive their wrongs.”

“But he who repeats a matter alienates a friend”: This line contrasts with the first. There forgiving wrongs keeps friends, but here talking about a friend’s wrongs ruins that friendship. “Repeats a matter” means “talks repeatedly about a matter,” that is, “gossips or tells others about a friend’s faults.” Contemporary English Version has “if you keep talking about what they did wrong.” “Alienates” translates a word meaning to separate or divide. To “alienate a friend” is to make the friend become a stranger or enemy. See 16.28, where Revised Standard Version translates the same Hebrew expression as “separates close friends.” We may translate this whole saying, for example: “Whoever forgives a person’s wrongs makes friends, but whoever talks about a friend’s wrongs loses his friends.”

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 .