salaph

The verb is attested only in the piel, seven times, and the lexica agree on a two-branch range. BDB gives (1) twist, pervert, with דָּבָר or דֶּרֶךְ as object (Exodus 23:8; Deuteronomy 16:19; Proverbs 19:3; Proverbs 22:12), and (2) ruin, overturn, with a person or a personified abstraction as object (Job 12:19; Proverbs 13:6; Proverbs 21:12); HALOT and DCH divide the material the same way, HALOT glossing the second branch as to bring to ruin, to subvert. The bribery formula וִיסַלֵּף דִּבְרֵי צַדִּיקִים is fixed, appearing verbatim in Exodus 23:8 and Deuteronomy 16:19 in parallel with יְעַוֵּר, and דִּבְרֵי is widely taken there in the forensic sense of the pleas the righteous are pressing rather than their speech in general. Proverbs 22:12 reverses the moral polarity of that same collocation, with YHWH as subject and דִּבְרֵי בֹגֵד as object, which is why some treat it as a distinct nuance of frustrating or nullifying rather than of corrupting. Proverbs 13:6 is contested at the level of its nouns rather than its verb: רִשְׁעָה and חַטָּאת are read either as the abstract pair wickedness and sin or, by metonymy, as the wicked and the sinner. Proverbs 21:12 is the standing crux, since מַשְׂכִּיל צַדִּיק may name a righteous man observing the house of the wicked or, as Waltke argues, God as the Righteous One who brings the wicked to ruin; the participle מְסַלֵּף carries the same sense under either construal. The root also yields the noun סֶלֶף (Proverbs 11:3; 15:4), crookedness of speech or conduct, and a link with Arabic salafa, to overturn or level ground, is commonly proposed though not decisive.