Mishlei 21:8 - The Purity of Actions
משלי כא:ח
הֲפַכְפַּךְ דֶּרֶךְ אִישׁ וָזָר וְזַךְ יָשָׁר:
Mishlei 21:8
A man's path may be inconsistent and strange, but his action pure and upright.
Notes on Translation
Most of the commentaries attempt to translate this pasuk in accordance with the typical Mishleic structure of "Bad person + bad quality/consequence, and good person + good quality/effect." Here are some examples of alternative translations which follow this approach:
Rashi: "A man who is strange [in that he turns away from mitzvos] - his path is changeable; but a man who is pure [and follows mitzvos] is upright [in his path]."
Saadia Gaon: "[You might encounter] a man whose path is inconsistent, and [consequently it will become] strange to him; but the pure one - his action is upright."
Metzudas David: "[If] a person is inconsistent [in his actions, sometimes] the human path [will be with him] and [sometimes he will be] estranged [from the human path], but the [path of the] pure man [will always be] upright."
The difficulty with these translations is that they require quite a bit of shoehorning, as is evident in the number of bracketed words and phrases.
In order to avoid this, I sought to read the pasuk in the most literal and straightforward manner possible. This necessitated deviating from the typical Mishleic structure. If you take the pasuk at face value, it is making a general statement about man: "A man's derech is inconsistent and strange, and/but his action is pure and upright." That is what led me to my final translation. Subsequently I saw that Rabbeinu Yonah translates the pasuk in a similarly generalized manner, though he takes a different approach in his interpretation.
Major Questions / Difficulties
What does the pasuk mean by the terms "inconsistent," "strange," "pure," and "upright"?
What is the meaning of "derech" ("way" or "path") in this context?
How can a person's actions be pure and upright if his path is inconsistent and strange?
Why do we need to know this? What point is Shlomo ha'Melech trying to get across?
Artwork: Edgewalker, by Ben Thompson
Four Sentence Summary of the Main Idea
This pasuk comes to refute two common misconceptions: (1) that if a person’s derech (i.e. personality, philosophy, way of living, etc.) is inconsistent and strange, then his actions cannot be pure and upright, and (2) that, conversely, if a person’s actions are pure and upright, then his derech cannot possibly be inconsistent and strange. In other words, we are psychologically prone to feeling that good actions are somehow “tainted” if they come from an individual whose derechwe consider to be inconsistent, strange, or otherwise defective. From the standpoint of a person’s overall perfection and personal development, this may be true, in a certain sense – but in the cause-and-effect, Mishleic framework of actions and consequences, it is false: a person’s actions will produce its effects on the world, regardless of the derech from which it came. Likewise, we must guard against the corresponding pair of misconceptions which are implied by the pasuk: (3) that if a person’s derech is pure and upright, then his actions cannot be inconsistent and strange, and (4) that if a person’s actions are inconsistent and strange, then his derechcannot be pure and upright.