WORD STUDY – SHOW HIMSELF FRIENDLY  LEHITERO’A’A  להתרע
Proverbs 18:24: “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”

The KJV of this verse never made sense. The two phrases just did not seem to fit. They are like two separate thoughts yet in the Hebrew this is a paraprosdokian or a figure of speech where the second half of the statement causes the hearer to reinterpret the first part to create a sense of emotion. Thus to maintain the paraprosdokia we need to tweek that first phrase “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly.” In Hebrew the entire phrase are just two words: ra’im lehitero’a’a. This is a very rare Hebraic form known as a Hothpael infinitive construct. It is in a reflexive tense with a passive voice. Both words are rooted in ra’ah which is generally rendered as evil. Literally it can be rendered as “An evil for getting an evil.” Ra’ah is also in rare cases rendered as a friend and you can render this as: “A friend for getting a friend. However, the word friend in the second phrase, “friend that sticketh closer than a brother” is ‘ohav from the root word ‘ahav or the word for love. The first friendship is rooted in evil the second is rooted in love. The first friendship is like a political friendship, you scratch my back I scratch yours. The second is rooted in love. I am you friend even if you give me nothing in return.