“In the twilight, in the evening”: The word rendered “twilight” can mean the dim period of morning light when the sun is still below the horizon or the “twilight” of evening. Here it is the evening when nighttime is approaching.

“At the time of night and darkness”: This line seems to go beyond the first in terms of passing from twilight of evening to darkness of night. The word rendered “time” by Revised Standard Version is the same as the word for “pupil of the eye” in verse 2. Here it is taken by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project to mean “middle of the night.” This, however, seems to conflict with the sense in the first line, and so Revised Standard Version and others (without a footnote) make a slight change in the Hebrew word to get “time”. New Revised Standard Version supports Revised Standard Version, as does also Good News Translation “in the evening after it was dark.” No doubt the poetic movement of thought from “twilight” to “middle of the night” is normal in Hebrew parallelism. However, from the point of view of meaningful text, Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation are better and are recommended.

Translators may find that verse 9, which expresses the time of the action in this short narrative, fits more naturally at the beginning of verse 8. In that case we may reverse the order of verses 8 and 9 by translating, for example, “(8-9) Late in the evening as night was approaching, a young man was walking along the street near the corner where a certain woman lived.”

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 .