of envy, has as its reverse side the curse:
The curse of Jahve is in the house of the godless, And the dwelling of the just He blesseth.
mx (a curse), like ΠΡΌΟ (a highway, from 45D), is formed from TIN (cf. Arab. harr, detestari, abhorrere, a word-imitation of an interjection used in disagreeable experiences). The curse is not merely a deprivation of external goods which render life happy, and the blessing is not merely the fulness of external possessions; the central-point of the curse lies in continuous disquiet of conscience, and that of the blessing in the happy consciousness that God is with us, in soul-rest and peace which is certain of the grace and goodness of God. The poetic ΠῚ) (from m3 = Arab. nwy, tetendit aliquo) signifies the place of settlement, and may be a word borrowed from a nomad life, since it denotes specially the pastureground; cf. xxiv. 15 (Fleischer). While the curse of God rests in the house of the wicked (vid. Kohler on Zech. v. 4), He blesses, on the contrary, the dwelling-place of the righteous. The LXX. and Jerome read 13", but 722" is more agreeable, since God continues to be the subject.
As for the scorners, He scorneth them, But to the lowly He giveth grace.
Most interpreters render the verse thus: “If the scorner He {even He, in return) scorneth, so He (on the other hand) giveth grace to the lowly.” For the sequence of the words in the consequence, in which the precedence of the verb is usual, e.g. Lev. xii. 5, we are referred to xxii. 18, cf. xxiv. 14; but why had the poet placed the two facts in the relation of condition and conseguence? ‘The one fact is not the consequence but the reverse of the other, and accordingly they are opposed to each other in coordinated passages, Ps. xviil. 26f. The Vav in such antitheses has generally the meaning of “and on the other hand,” 6.9. Job viii. 20, while the LXX., Targ., Syriac, and Jerome altogether pass over the O®8 as if it did not exist. Ziegler translates: “Truly! the scorner He scorneth;” but an affirmative D8 does not exist, the asseveration after the manner of an oath is negative. Bertheau’s expedient would be more acceptable, by which he makes the whole of ver. 34 the protasis to ver. 35; but if this were intended, another subject would not enter into ver. 35. Thus 34a and 346 are two independent parallel passages; Ὁ ΡΟ ΝΣ is the protasis: if as regards the scorners, 1.6. if His conduct is directed to the scorners, so He scorneth. The 5 denotes relation, and in this elliptical usage is like the 5 of superscription, e.g. Jer. xxiii. 9. ΝΠ is the emphatic αὐτός: He on the contrary, and in a decisive way (Ewald, ὃ 314ad). Instead of yo there might have been used Dy” (for yon, where it occurs as a governing word, has the accusative, xix. 28, Ps. exix. 51), but we do not miss the object: if it relates to scorners (thus also Lowenstein translates), so it is He in return who scorneth. The LX X. renders it: κύριος ὑπερηφάνοις ἀντιτάσσεται, ταπεινοῖς δὲ δίδωσι χάριν; cf. Jas. iv. 6, 1 Pet. v. 5. sin is used as a name of God (Deutsch. Moryenl. Zeitschr. xvi. 400), on which account it is rendered like mn’ by κύριος. A ὑπερήφανος (appearing above others, ze. overbearing) is the /2, according to the definition xxi. 24. The expression of the talio is generalized in ἀντιτάσ- σεται (resists them). For ὯΝ the Ker? has OY: Ὁ») (from ΠΩ, the ground-form 1)", Arab. ’anaw) is the lowly (ταπεινός), or he who bends himself, i.e. the gentle and humble, the patient, and the passive ‘2, he who is bowed down, the suffering; but the limits of the conception are moveable, since in ‘3y is presupposed the possession of fruit-virtues gained in the school of aftliction,
Ver. 35. This group of the proverbs of wisdom now suitably closes with the fundamental contrast between the wise and fools: The wise shall inherit honour,
But fools carry away shame. If we take DoD as the object, then we can scarcely interpret the clause: shame sweeps fools away (Umbreit, Zockler, Bertheau), for O°) [Hiph. of ov] signifies (Isa. lvii. 14, Ezek. xxi. 31) “to raise up anything high and far,” not “to sweep away.” Preferable is the rendering: τοὺς δ᾽ ἄφρονας ὑψοῖ ἀτιμία (Gree. Venet., and similarly Jerome), 1.6. only to it do they owe their celebrity as warning examples (Ewald), to which Oetinger compares “ whose glory is in their shame,” Phil. iii. 19;! but ἢ is the contrary of 133 (glory, Hab. ii. 16), and therefore is as much an object conception as is the latter, 35a. ΤΕ it is the object, then if we take 0% from 12 after the form of ῥ Neh. xiii. 21 = 0D» (Hos. iv. 7), it might be rendered: Yet fools exchange shame (Léwenstein). But 3», like the Arab. mrr, transire, means properly to pass over or to wander over; it is intransitive, and only in Hiph. signifies actively to exchange. O' thus will be the participle of D5; the plur. taken distributively (fools = whoever is only always a fool) is connected with the singular of the predicate. This change i in the number is here, however, more difficult than at ili. 18, and in other places, where the plur. of the part. permits the resolution into a relative clause with qguicungue, and more difficult than at xxviil. 1, where the sing. of the predicate is introduced by attraction; wherefore no may be an error in transcribing for oD or ‘ony (Bottcher). J. H. Michaelis (after the Targ. and Syr.) has properly rendered the clause: “ stulte tollunt ignominiam tanqguam portionem suam,” adding “que derivato nomine Ayn dicitur.” nn signifies, in the language of the sacrificial worship and of worship generally, to lift off from anything the best portion, the legitimate portion due to God and the priesthood (vid. at iii. 9); for which reason Rashi glosses O° by 19 wap, and Ralbag by δ mam. See xiv. 29. Honour is that which the wise inherit, it falls to them unsought as a possession, but fools receive etre as the offal (viz. of their foolish conduct). The fut. and part. are significantly interchanged. The life of the wise ends in glory, but
1 Jona Gerundi renders it otherwise: “ But shame raises the fools high;” 7.e.
only the infamous, he who has no sense of honour, makes much advancement out of fools.
fools inherit shame; the fruit of their conduct is shame and evermore shame.
The means are not yet exhausted by which the teacher of wisdom seeks to procure acceptance for his admonitions and warnings, and to give them emphasis. He has introduced the importance of his person in order that he might gain the heart of the disciple, and has presented as speaker, instead of himself, the revered person of Wisdom herself, who seeks to win, by means of warnings and promises, the souls of men.
Chap. iv. 1-4. He now confirms and explains the command to duty which he has placed at the beginning of the whole (i. 8). This he does by his own example, for he relates from the history of his own youth, to the circle of disciples by whom he sees himself surrounded, what good doctrine his parents had taught him regarding the way of life:
1 Hear, ye sons, the instruction of a father, And attend that ye may gain understanding; 2 For I give to you good doctrine, Forsake not my direction! 3 For I was a son to my father, A tender and only (son) in the sight of my mother. 4 And he instructed me, and said to me: ‘* Let thine heart hold fast my words: Observe my commandments and live!” That 0°23 in the address comes here into the place of “23, hitherto used, externally denotes that ‘92 in the progress of these discourses finds another application: the poet himself is so addressed by his father. Intentionally he does not say 03°2% (cf. i. 8): he does not mean the father of each individual among those addressed, but himself, who is a father in his relation to them as his disciples; and as he manifests towards them fatherly love, so also he can lay claim to paternal authority over them. ny is rightly vocalized, not ny. The words do not give the object of attention, but the design, the aim. The combination of ideas in 72°32 Ny (cf. i. 2), which appears to us singular, loses its strangeness when we remember that ny7 means, according to its etymon, deposition or reception into the conscience and life. Regarding??, apprehension, reception, lesson = doctrine, vid. 1. 5. ‘MN is the perf., which denotes as fixed and finished what is just now being done, Gesenius, δ 120,4. IY is here synonym of 03, i. 8, and the contrary of 12, xxviii. 4. The relative factum in the perfect, designating the circumstances under which the event happened, regularly precedes the chief factum ‘2%; see under Gen. i. 2f. Superficially understood, the expression 3a would be a platitude; the author means that the natural legal relation was also confirming itself as a moral one. It was a relation of many-sided love, according to 3a: he was esteemed of his mother—"25?, used of the reflex in the judgment, Gen. x. 9, and of loving care, Gen. xvii. 18, means this—as a tender child, and therefore tenderly to be protected (72 as Gen. xxxiil. 13), and as an only child, whether he were so in reality, or was only loved as if he were so. 7M (Aq., Sym., Theod., μονογενής) may with reference to number also mean unice dilectus (LXX. ἀγαπώμενος); cf. Gen. xxii. 2, 1 (where the LXX. translate τὸν ἀγαπητόν, without therefore having 7) before them). ὩΣ is maintained by all the versions; "22 is not a variant... The instruction of the father begins with the jussive, which is pointed? “72M! to distinguish it from “JN on account of thed. The L:XX. has incorrectly ἐρειδέτω, as if the word were 70D"; Symmachus has correctly cateyérw. The imper. 7M) is, as vii. 2, Gen. xx. 7, more than 7M; the teacher seeks, along with the means, at the same time their object: Observe my commandments, and so become a partaker of life! The Syriac, however, adds Try fives ‘nin [and my instruction as the apple of thine eye], a clause borrowed from vii. 2. Vers. 5, 6. The exhortation of the father now specializes itself:
5 Get wisdom, get understanding; Forget not and turn not from the words of my mouth.
1 Τὴ some editions Sa) is noted as Keri to 155, but erroneously and contrary to the express evidence of the Masora, which affirms that there are two passages in which we ought to read not 995, but 9995, viz. Ps. lxxx. 3 and Prov. iv. 3.
2 The writing of “yon with the grave Metheg (Gaja) and Kamets-Chatuph (6) is that of Ben Asher; on the other hand, “yon with Cholem (6) and the permanent Metheg is that of Ben Naphtali; vid. Michlol 21a (under the verbal form 25), ὃ 30.
6 Forsake her not, so shall she preserve thee; Love her, so shall she keep thee.
Wisdom and understanding are (5a) thought of as objects of merchandise (cf. xxiii. 23, ili. 14), like the one pearl of great price, Matt. xiii. 46, and the words of fatherly instruction (5d), accordingly, as offering this precious possession, or helping to the acquisition of it. One cannot indeed say correctly ΒΤ ΘΝ Ὁ novin-bx, but ‘SDN ὙΠῸ navin-bx (Ps. cil. 5); and in this sense ΓΞ ΟΝ goes before, or also the accus. object, which in nawn->x the author has in his mind, may, since he continues with prnN, now not any longer find expression as such. That the ‘s"08 are the means of acquiring wisdom is shown in ver. 6, where this continues to be the primary idea. The verse, consisting of only four words, ought to be divided by Mugrash;' the Vav (1) in both halves of the verse introduces the apodosis imperativi (cf. e.g. 111. 9f., and the apodosis prohibitivi, iii. 21f.). The actual representation of wisdom, ver. 5, becomes in ver. 6 personal.
Vers. 7-9. Referring to ver. 5, the father further explains that wisdom begins with the striving after it, and that this striving is itself its fundamental beginning:
7 The beginning of wisdom is ‘‘ Get wisdom,” And with [wm, at the price of] all thou hast gotten get understanding. 8 Esteem her, so shall she lift thee up; She will bring thee honour if thou dost embrace her. 9 She will put on thine head a graceful garland, She will bestow upon thee a glorious diadem. In the motto of the book, i. 7, the author would say that the fear of Jahve is that from which all wisdom takes its origin. 7. NN (i. 7) is the subject, and as such it stands foremost. Here he means to say what the beginning of wisdom consists in. 7227 NWSI is the subject, and stands forth as such. The predicate may also be read ΠΌΞΠ ΠΡ (=i), after xvi. 16. The beginning of wisdom is (consists in) the getting of wisdom; but the imperative mp, which also Aq., Sym., Theod. (κτῆσαι), Jerome, Syr., Targ. express (the LXX. leaves ver. 7 untranslated), is supported by 70. Hitzig, after Mercier, De Dieu, and Déderlein, translates the verse
1 According to correct readings in codd. and older editions, TOM has thus: “the highest thing is wisdom; get wisdom,” which Zéckler approves of; but the reasons which determine him to this rendering are subtleties: if the author had wished himself to be so understood, he ought at least to have written the words N12397 NWN, But 7227 NWN is a genitive of relation, as is to be expected from the relativity of the idea N's), and his intention is to say that the beginning of wisdom consists in the proposition 723 ΠΡ (cf. the similar formula, Eccles. xii. 13); this proposition is truly the lapis philosophorum, it contains all that is necessary in order to becoming wise. Therefore the Greek σοφία called itself modestly φιλο- copia; for ἀρχὴ αὐτῆς the Book of Wisdom has, vi. 18, ἡ ἀληθεστάτη παιδείας ἐπιθυμία. In 7b the proposition is expressed which contains the specificum helping to wisdom. The 3 denotes price: give all for wisdom (Matt. xiii. 46, 44); no price is too high, no sacrifice too great for it.
Ver. 8. The meaning of the dz. yeyp. bpp is determined by Di in the parallel clause; SoD signifies to raise, exalt, as a way or dam by heaping up; the Pilpel, here tropical: to value or estimate highly. Bottcher interprets well: hold it high in price, raise it (as a purchaser) always higher, make offer for it upon offer. The LXX. (approved by Bertheau), περιχαράκωσον αὐτήν, circumvallate it, 1.6. surround it with a wall (79°D)—a strange and here unsuitable figure, Hold it high, says the author, and so it will reward’ thee with a high place, and (with chiastic transposition of the performance and the consequence) she will honour? thee if (ἐάν) thou lovingly embracest her. P32 is used of embracing in the pressure of tender love, as in the Canticles ii. 6, vill. 3; the Piel is related to the Kal as amplexari to amplecti. Wisdom exalts her admirers, honours her lovers, and makes a man’s appearance pleasant, causing him to be reverenced when he approaches. Regarding IN-NN?, vid.i. 9. 1319, to deliver up (Gen. xiv. 20), to give up (Hos. xi. 8), is connected in the free poetic manner with two accusatives, instead of with an accus. and dat. LXX. has ὑπερασπίσῃ, but one does not defend himself (as with a shield) by a wreath or crown.
2 We read sy739n, not qi20n (Hahn) or w722n (Lowenstein); the tone lies on the penult., and the tone-syllable has the point Tsere, as in TE. Deut. xxxli. 7; vid. Michlol 666.
Vers. 10-12. There is no reason for the supposition that the warning which his father gave to the poet now passes over into warnings given by the poet himself (Hitzig); the admonition of the father thus far refers only in general to the endeavour after wisdom, and we are led to expect that the good doctrines which the father communicates to the son as a viaticum will be further expanded, and become more and more specific when they take a new departure.
10 Hearken, my son, and receive my sayings, So shall the years of life be increased to thee.
11 In the way of wisdom have I taught thee, Guided thee in the paths of rectitude.
12 When thou goest, thy step shall not be straitened; And if thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.
Regarding ΠΡ (of np?) of appropriating reception and taking up in succum et sanguinem, vid. i. 3; regarding O%N Ni’, years not merely of the duration of life, but of the enjoyment of life, iii. 2; regarding Day (Π53}0), path (track), ii. 9; regarding the 3 of min, of the department and subject of instruction, Ps. xxv. 8. The perfects, ver. 11, are different from ‘N32, 2a; they refer to rules of life given at an earlier period, which are summarily repeated in this address. The way of wisdom is that which leads to wisdom (Job xxviii. 23); the paths of rectitude, such as trace out the way which is in accordance with the rule of the good and the right. Ifthe youth holds to this direction, he will not go on in darkness or uncertainty with anxious footsteps; and if in youthful fervour he flies along his course, he will not stumble on any unforeseen obstacle and fall. ¥' is as a metaplastic fut. to ὙΝ or ὮΝ, to be narrow, to straiten, formed as if from ἢ, The Targ. after Aruch,! qmx pwn 8), thou shalt not need to bind together (constringere) or to hedge up thy way.
Vers. 13-17. The exhortations attracting by means of promises, now become warnings fitted to alarm:
13 Hold fast to instrustion, let her not go; Keep her, for she is thy life.
14 Into the path of the wicked enter not, And walk not in the way of the evil.
1(R. Nathan ben Jechiel, a.p. 1106, who is usually styled by the Jewish writers JY bya, Auctor Aruch, author of a Talmudical Lexicon. ]
15 Avoid it, enter not into it;
Turn from it and pass away. 16 For they cannot sleep unless they do evil,
And they are deprived of sleep unless they bring others to ruin. 17 For they eat the bread of wickedness,
And they drink the wine of violence.
Elsewhere 15% means also self-discipline, or moral religious education, i. 3; here discipline, 1.6. parental educative counsel. 517 is the segolated fut. apoc. Hiph. (indic. ΠΕ) from tarp, cf. the imper. Hiph. 1 from harp. ΝΣ 15 the imper. Kal (not Piel, as Aben Ezra thinks) with Dagesh dirimens; cf. the verbal substantive ΠΝ), Ps. exli. 3, with similar Dagesh, after the form 17>, Gen. xlix. 10..7039 (elsewhere always masc.) is here used in the fem, as the synonym of the name of wisdom: keep her (instruction), for she is thy life,’ ¢.e. the life of thy life. In ver. 14 the godless (vid. on the root-idea of YY under Ps, i. 1) and the habitually wicked, i.e. the vicious, stand in parallelism; xia and WS are related as entering and going on, ingressus and progressus. The verb WR signifies, like 1, to be straight, even, fortunate, whence “wit = Arab. yusdar, happiness, and to step straight out, ix. 6, of which meanings Wx is partly the intensive, as ‘here, partly the causative, xxiii. 19 (elsewhere causative of the meaning, to be happy, Gen. xxx. 13). The meaning progredi is not mediated by a supplementary ΡΥ; the derivative TWX (WR), a step, shows that it is derived immediately from the root-idea of a movement in a straight line. Still less justifiable is the rendering by Schultens, ne vestigia imprimas in via malorum; for the Arab. dththr is denom. of ithr, 08, the primitive verb roots of which, athr, 7NN=WR, are lost.
Ver 15. On 718, avoid it (the ont (opp. TOS, Ποῖ xvil. 9; yon, Ps. xvii. 5), see under i. 25. ποῦ, elsewhere he the Arab. shatt, to be without measure, insolent) used in malam partem, has here its fundamental meaning, to go aside. yeyD (expressed in French by de dessus, in Ital. by di sopra) denotes: so that thou comest not to stand on it. 3 means in both cases transire, but the second instance, “to go beyond (farther) ” (cf. 2 Sam. xv. 22, and under Hab. i. 11), coincides with “ to escape, evadere.”
1 Punctuate ny 3] the Zinnorith represents the place of the Alakkeph, vid. Torath Emeth, p. ‘9.
ditional clauses as well as in Virgil’s Et si non aliqua nocuisses, mortuus esses; but the fut., as in Eccles. v. 11, denotes that they (the O°99 and the O'yw) cannot sleep, and are deprived of their sleep, unless they are continually doing evil and bringing others into misery; the interruption of this course of conduct, which has become to them like a second nature, would be as the interruption of their diet, which makes them ill. For the Kal pivi>’, which here must have the meaning of the person sinning (cf. ver. 19), and would be feeble if used of the confirmed transgressors, the Keri rightly substitutes the Hiphil wD), which occurs also 2 Chron. xxv. 8, there without an object, in the meaning to cause to fall, as the contrast of ἽΝ (to help).
Ver. 17. The second 3 introduces the reason of their bodily welfare being conditioned by evil-doing. If the poet meant: they live on bread which consists in wickedness, 1.6. on wickedness as their bread, then in the parallel sentence he should have used the word DN; the genitives are meant of the means of acquisition: they live on unrighteous gain, on bread and wine which they procure by wickedness and by all manner of violence or injustice. On the etymon of Dn (Arab. hamas, durum, asperum, vehementem esse), vid. Schultens; the plur. 0.020 belongs to a more recent epoch (vid. under 2 Sam. xxii. 49 and Ps. xviii. 49). The change in the tense represents the idea that they having eaten such bread, set forth such wine, and therewith wash it down.
Vers. 18, 19. The two ways that lie for his choice before the youth, are distinguished from one another as light is from darkess:
18 And the path of the just is like the brightness of the morning light, Which shines more and more till the perfect day.
19 The way of the wicked is deep darkness, They know not at what they stumble.
The Hebr. style is wont to conceal in its Vav (1) diverse kinds of logical relations, but the Vav of 18a may suitably stand before 19a, where the discontinuance of this contrast of the two ways is unsuitable. The displacing of a Vav from its right position is not indeed without example (see under Ps. xvi. 3); but since ver. 19 joins itself more easily than ver. 18 to ver. 17 without missing a particle, thus it is more probable that the two verses are to be transposed, than that the 1 of 7) (ver. 17) is to be prefixed to 373 (ver. 18). Sinning, says ver. 16, has become to the godless as a second nature, so that they cannot sleep without it; they must continually be sinning, adds ver. 17, for thus and not otherwise do they gain for themselves their daily bread. With reference to this fearful self-perversion to which wickedness has become a necessity and a condition of life, the poet further says that the way of the godless is noBND,! as deep darkness, as the entire absence of light: it cannot be otherwise than that they fall, but they do not at all know whereat they fall, for they do not at all know wickedness as such, and have no apprehension of the punishment which from an inward necessity it brings along with it; on the contrary, the path of the just is in constantly increasing light—the light of knowledge, and the light of true happiness which is given? in and with knowledge. On 2 vid. under Isa. ii. 22; it is rivian, σκάν- δαλον, that is meant, stumbling against which (cf. Lev. xxvi. 37) they stumble to their fall. [335,5 used elsewhere than in the Bible, means the morning star (Venus), (Sirach |. 4, Syr.); when used in the Bible it means the early dawn, the light of the rising sun, the morning light, 2 Sam. xxiii. 4, Isa. lxii. 1, which announces itself. in the morning twilight, Dan. vi. 20. The light of this morning sunshine is δὼ πρὶ, going and shining, 1.6. becoming ever brighter. In the connection of 718) spin it might be a question
1 In gocd ss. and printed copies the 5 has the Pathach, as Kimchi states the rule in Michlol 45a: nnp nays 55, nnp oa 59, 5 Hitzig inverts the order of vers. 18 and 19, and connects the "5 of 16a immediately with ver. 19 (for the way of the wicked...). He moreover regards vers. 16, 17 as an interpolation, and explains ver. 16 as a gloss transforming the text of ver. 19. ‘‘ That the wicked commit wickedness,” says Hitzig, ‘‘is indeed certain (1 Sam. xxiv. 14), and the warning of ver. 15 ought not to derive its motive from their energy in sinning.” But the warning against the way of the wicked is founded not on their energy in sinning, but on their bondage to sin: their sleep, their food and drink—their life both when they sleep and when they wake—is conditioned by sin and is penetrated by sin. This foundation of the warning furnishes what is needed, and is in nothing open to objection. And that in vers. 16 and 19 wr xb and wT x5, divin’ and ΣΝ mon and NDBND seem to be alike, does not prove that ver. 16 originated as a parallel text from ver. 19—in the one verse as in the other the thoughts are original.
sensible impressions), as Silius, iv. 329, says of the light: percussit lumine campos.
Arabie levi ial and Fl Bue The figure is probably de- rived from the balance (cf. Lucan’s Pharsalia, lib. 9: quum cardine summo Stat librata dies): before and after midday the tongue on the balance of the day bends to the left and to the right, but at the point of midday it stands directly in the midst” (Fleischer). It is the midday time that is meant, when the clearness of day has reached its fullest intensity,—the point between increasing and decreasing, when, as we are wont to say, the sun stands in the zenith (=Arab. samt, the point of support, 1.6. the vertex). Besides Mark iv. 28, there is no biblical passage which presents like these two a figure of gradual development. The progress of blissful knowledge is compared to that of the clearness of the day till it reaches its midday height, having reached to which it becomes a knowing of all in Ged, xxviii. 5, 1 John ii. 20.
20 My son, attend unto my words, Incline thine ear to my sayings.
21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; Keep them in the midst of thine heart.
22 For they are life to all who get possession of them, And health to their whole body.
it with yon, instead of the meaning to take away, efficere ut recedat (cf. under ii. 15). This supposed causative meaning it has also here: may they=may one (vid. under 11. 22) not remove them from thine eyes; the object is (ver. 20) the words of the paternal admonition. Hitzig, indeed, observes that “the accusative is not supplied;” but with greater right it is to be remarked that arb (fut. Hiph. of nb) and sno? (fut. Kal of id.) are not one and the same, and the less so as ron is not, like pon, intrinsically transitive. Here and there ane? occurs, but the masoretical and grammatical authorities (e.g. Kimchi) demand >. The plur. Dm ΝΟ is continued, 225, in the sing., for that which is said refers to each one of the many (ili. 18, 28,35). S32 is fundamentally an active conception, like our “ finden,” to find; it means to attain, to produce, to procure, etc. ΝΒ means, according as the Ὁ is understood of the “that = wé” of the action or of the “what” of its performance, either health or the means of health; here, like MN, 111. 8, not with the underlying conception of sickness, but of the fluctuations connected with the bodily life of man, which make needful not only a continual strengthening of it, but also its being again and again restored. Nothing preserves soul and body in a healthier state than when we always keep before our eyes and carry in our hearts the good doctrines; they give to us true guidance on the way of life: “Godliness has the promise of this life, and of that which is to come.” 1 Tim. iv. 8. Vers. 23-27. After this general preface the exhortation now becomes special: 23 Above all other things that are to be guarded, kcep thy heart, For out from it life has its issues. 24 Put away from thee perverseness of mouth, And waywardness of lips put far from thee. 25 Thine eyes should Jook straight forward, And thine eyelids look straight to the end before thee. 26 Make even the path of thy feet, And let all thy ways be correct.
27 Turn not aside to the right and to the left; Remove thy foot from evil.
Although 7 in itself and in this connection may mean the object to be watchfully avoided (cavendi) (vid. under ii. 200): thus the usage of the language lying before us applies it, yet only as denoting the place of watching or the object observandi; so that it is not to be thus explained, with Raschi and others: before all from which one has to protect himself (ab omni re cavenda), guard thine heart; but: before all that one has to guard (pr@ omni re custodienda), guard it as the most precious of possessions committed to thy trust. The heart, which according to its etymon denotes that which is substantial (Kernhafte) in man (cf. Arab. lubb, the kernel of the nut or almond), comes here into view not as the physical, but as the intellectual, and specially the ethical centrum.
Ver. 24. The nixyin are the point of a thing, 6.9. of a boundary, from which it goes forth, and the linear course proceeding from thence. If thus the macileey says that the ὉΠ Nixsin go out from the heart,! he therewith implies that the life has not only its fountain in the heart, but also that the direction which it takes is determined by the beni Physically considered, the heart is the receptacle for the blood, in which the soul lives and rules; the pitcher at the blood-fountain which draws it and pours it forth; the chief vessel of the physically self-subsisting blood-life from which it goes forth, and into which it disembogues (Syst. der bib. Psychol. p. 232). What is said of the heart in the lower sense of corporeal vitality, is true in the higher sense of the intellectual soul-life. The Scripture names the heart also as the intellectual soul-centre of man, in its concrete, central unity, its dynamic activity, and its ethical determination on all sides. All the radiations of corporeal and of soul life concentrate there, and again unfold themselves from thence; all that is implied in the Hellenic and Hellenistic words νοῦς, λόγος, συνείδησις, θυμός, lies in the word καρδία; and all whereby 1W3 (the body) and 5) (the spirit, anima) are affected comes in 2? into the light of consciousness (Id. p. 251). The heart is the instrument of the thinking, willing, perceiving life of the spirit; it is the seat of the knowledge of self, of the knowledge of God, of the knowledge of our solasion to Gini. and also of the law of God impressed on our moral nature; it is the workshop of our individual spiritual and ethical form of life brought about by self-activity,—the life in its higher and in its lower sense goes out from it, and receives from it the impulse of the direction which it takes; and how earnestly, therefore, must we feel ourselves admonished, how sacredly bound to preserve the heart in purity (Ps. Ixxiii. 1), so that from this spring of life may
1 The correct form here is 331)19""D, with the Makkeph to "3.
go forth not mere seeming life and a caricature of life, but a true life well-pleasing to God! How we have to carry into execution this careful guarding of the heart, is shown in ver. 24 and the golden rules which follow. Mouth and lips are meant (ver. 24) as instruments of speech, and not of its utterance, but of the speech going forth from them. Miwpy, distorsio, refers to the mouth (vi. 12), when what it speaks is disfiguring and deforming, thus falsehood as the contrast of truth and love (ii. 12); and to the lips mid, when that which they speak turns aside from the true and the right to side-ways and by-ways. Since the Kametz of such abstracta, as well of verbs 1"y like ΠῚ, Ezek. xxxu. 5, as of verbs n"5 like ἼΩΝ Isa. xlv. 18, mn, Isa. xxviii. 18, is elsewhere treated as unalterable, there lies in this mi either an inconsistency of punctuation, or it is presupposed that the form mit? was vocalized like MAW—M2v, Num. xxi. 29.
Ver. 25. Another rule commends gathering together (concentration) in opposition to dissipation. It is also even externally regarded worthy of consideration, as Ben-Sira, ix. 5, expresses it: μὴ περιβλέπου ἐν ῥύμαις mows — purposeless, curious staring about operates upon the soul, always decentralizing and easily defiling it. But the rule does not exhaust itself in this meaning with reference to external self-discipline; it counsels also straightforward, unswerving directness toward a fixed goal (and what else can this be in such a connection than that which wisdom places before man?), without the turning aside of the eye toward that which is profitless and forbidden, and in this inward sense it falls in with the demand for a single, not squinting eye, Matt. vi. 22, where Bengel explains ἁπλοῦς by simplex et bonus, intentus in celum, in Deum, unice. 33 (R. 42) means properly fixing, or holding fast with the look, and 73) (as the Arab. najad, to be clear, to be in sight, shows) the rising up which makes the object stand conspicuous before the eyes; both denote here that which lies straight before us, and presents itself to the eye looking straight out. The naming of the D*BYSy (from AYDY, to flutter, to move tremblingly), which belongs not to the seeing apparatus of the eye but to its protection, is introduced by the poetical parallelism; for the eyelids, including in this word the twinkling, in their movement follow the direction of the seeing eye. On the form 1 (fut. Hiph. of WW, to be straight), defective according to the Masora,
Gen. viii. 17; the softened form 7 does not occur, we find only Ye or ὙΠ,
Ver. 26. The understanding of this rule is dependent on the right interpretation of pba, which means neither “ weigh off ” (Ewald) nor “measure off” (Hitzig, Zéckler). DDB has once, Ps. lviii. 3, the meaning to weigh out, as the denom. of D>B, a level, a steelyard;* everywhere else it means to make even, to make level, to open a road: vid. under Isa. xxvi. 7, xl. 12. The admonition thus refers not to the careful consideration which measures the way leading to the goal which one wishes to reach, but to the preparation of the way by the removal of that which prevents unhindered progress and makes the way insecure. The same meaning appears if pda, of cognate meaning with {3", denoted first to level, and then to make straight with the level (Fleischer). We must remove all that can become a moral hindrance or a dangerous obstacle in our life-course, in order that we may make right steps with our feet, as the LXX. (Heb. xii. 13) translate. 266 is only another expression for this thought. 1377 [23 (2 Chron. xxvii. 6) means to give a direction to his way; a right way, which keeps in and facilitates the keeping in the straight direction, is accordingly called i32 771; and “let all thy ways be right” (cf. Ps. cxix. 5, LXX. κατευθυνθείησαν) will thus mean: see to it that all the ways which thou goest lead straight to the end.
Ver. 27. In closest connection with the preceding, 27a cautions against by-ways and indirect courses, and 27) continues it in the briefest moral expression, which is here 37? Wen ἽΡΠ instead of “1D yD, iii. 7, for the figure is derived from the way. The LXX. has other four lines after this verse (27), which we have endeavoured to retranslate into the Hebrew (Introd. p. 47). They are by no means genuine; for while in 27a right and left are equivalent to by-ways, here the right and left side are distinguished as that of truth and its contrary; and while there [in LX X.] the ὀρθὰς τροχιὰς ποιεῖν is required of man, here it is promised as the operation of God, which is no contradiction, but in this similarity of expression betrays poverty of style. Hitzig disputes also the genuineness of the Hebrew ver. 27. But it continues explanatorily ver. 26, and is related to it, yet not as a gloss, and in the general
1 The Arabic word teflis, said to be of the same signification (a balance), and which is given in the most recent editions of Gesenius’ Lexicon, has been already shown under Job xxxvii. 16 to be a word devoid of all evidence.
relation of 26 and 27a there comes a word, certainly not unwelcome, such as 27), which impresses the moral stamp on these thoughts.
That with ver. 27 the admonition of his father, which the poet, placing himself back into the period of his youth, reproduces, is not yet concluded, the resumption of the address 3, v. 1, makes evident; while on the other hand the address 0.22 in v. 7 shows that at that point there is advance made from the recollections of his father’s house to conclusions therefrom, for the circle of young men by whom the poet conceives himself to be surrounded. That in v. 7 ff. a subject of the warning with which the seventh address closes is retained and further prosecuted, does not in the connection of all these addresses contradict the opinion that with v. 7 a new address begins. But the opinion that the warning against adultery does not agree (Zéckler) with the designation 71, iv. 3, given to him to whom it is addressed, is refuted by 1 Chron. xxii. 5, 2 Chron. xiil. 7.
Chap. v. 1-6. Here a fourth rule of life follows the three already given, iv. 24, 25, 26-27:
1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, And incline thine ear to my prudence,
2 To observe discretion, And that thy lips preserve knowledge.
3 For the lips of the adulteress distil honey, And smoother than oil is her mouth;
4 But her end is bitter like wormwood, Sharper than a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death, Her steps cleave to Hades.
6 She is far removed from entering the way of life, Her steps wander without her observing it.
Wisdom and understanding increase with the age of those who earnestly seek after them. It is the father of the youth who here requests a willing ear to his wisdom of life, gained in the way of many years’ experience and observation. In ver. 2 the inf. of the object is continued in the finitum, as in 11. 2, 8. ΤῊ} (vid. on its etymon under i. 4) are plans, projects, designs, for the most part in a bad sense, intrigues and artifices (vid. xxiv. 8), but also used of well-considered resolutions toward what is good, and hence of the purposes of God, Jer. xxiii. 20. This noble sense of the word m%2, with its plur., is peculiar to the introductory portion (i.-1x.)
of the Book of Proverbs. The plur. means here and at viii. 12 (placing itself with MiO3 and Ninan, vid. p. 68) the reflection and deliberation which is the presupposition of well-considered action, and "bY is thus not otherwise than at xix. 8, and everywhere so meant, where it has that which is obligatory as its object: the youth is summoned to careful observation and persevering exemplification of the quidquid agas, prudenter agas et respice finem. In 2) the Rebia Mugrash forbids the genitive connection of the two words PNSY NYN; we translate: et ut sctentiam labia tua tueantur. Lips which preserve knowledge are such as permit nothing to escape from them (Ps. xvii. 3b) which proceeds not from the knowledge of God, and in Him of that which is good and right, and aims at the working out of this knowledge; vid. KGéhler on Mal. ii. 7. N5Y (from MY, Arab. shafat, edge, lip, properly that against which one rubs, and that which rubs itself) is fem., but the usage of the language presents the word in two genders (cf. 3a with xxvi. 23). Regarding the pausal ¥2° for 18, vid. under iii. 1, ii. 11, The lips which distil the honey of enticement stand opposite to the lips which distil knowledge; the object of the admonition is to furnish a protection against the honey-lips.
Ver. 3. ΠῚ denotes the wife who belongs to another, or who does not belong to him to whom she gives herself or who goes after her (vid. ii. 16). She appears here as the betrayer of youth. The poet paints the love and amiableness which she feigns with colours from the Canticles, iv. 11, cf. v.16. ΠΕΣ denotes the honey flowing of itself from the combs (O0°5'¥), thus the purest and sweetest; its root-word is not 932, which means to shake, vibrate, and only mediately (when the object is a fluid) to scatter, sprinkle, but, as Schultens has observed, a verb ND} = Arab. nafat, to bubble, to spring up, nafath, to blow, to spit out, to pour out. Parchon places the word rightly under N52 (while Kimchi places it under 433 after the form NW), and explains it by Man» ONY’ ΟῚ mon pio Dp (the words xyvn ΟῚ should have been used): the honey which flows from the cells before they are broken (the so-called virgin honey). The mouth, 7=Arab. hink (from 727, Arab. hanak, imbuere, e.g., after the manner of Beduins, the mouth of the newly-born infant with date-honey), comes into view here, as at viii. 7, etc., as the instrument of speech: smoother than oil (cf. Ps. lv. 22), it shows itself when it gives forth amiable, gentle, impressive words (ii. 16, vi. 24); also our “schmeicheln” (=to flatter, caress) 1s equivalent to to make smooth and fair; in the language of weavers it means to smooth the warp.
Vers. 4, 5. In verse 4 the reverse of the sweet and smooth external is placed opposite to the attraction of the seducer, by whose influence the inconsiderate permits himself to be carried away: her end, 1.6. the last that is experienced of her, the final consequence of intercourse with her (cf. xxiii. 32), is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. The O. T. language regards bitterness and poison as related both in meaning and in reality; the word mayo (Aq. ἀψώνθιον = wormwood) means in Arab. the curse. ΤῊ Ξ 290 is translated by Jerome after the LXX., gladius biceps; but N58 means double-edged, and ν᾽ 27n nip (Judg. iii. 16) means a double-edged sword. Here the plur. will thus poetically strengthen the meaning, like ξίφος πολύστομον, that which devours, as if it had three or four edges (Fl.). The end in which the disguised seduction terminates is bitter as the bitterest, and cutting as that which cuts the most: self-condemnation and a feeling of divine anger, anguish of heart, and destructive judgment. The feet of the adulteress go downward to death. In Hebr. this descendentes ad mortem is expressed by the genitive of connection; MY) is the genitive, as in 2 "Ti, i. 12; elsewhere the author uses ON NITW, vii. 27, ii. 18. Death, MY (so named from the stretching of the corpse after the stiffness of death), denotes the condition of departure from this side as a punishment, with which is associated the idea of divine wrath. In DiNw (sinking, abyss, from ONY, R. ὃν, χαλᾶν, vid. under Isa. v. 14), lie the ideas of the grave as a place of corruption, and of the under-world as the place of incorporeal shadow-life. Her steps hold fast to Hades is equivalent to, they strive after Hades and go straight to it; similar to this is the Arab. expression, hdhd dldrb yakhdh Gly albld: this way leads straight forward to the town (ΕἸ.).
Ver. 6. If we try to connect the clause beginning with 18 with 5b as its principal sentence: she goes straight to the abyss, so that by no means does she ever tread the way of life (thus e.g. Schultens), or better, with 65: never more to walk in the way of life, her paths fluctuate hither and thither (as Gr. Venet. and Kamphausen in Bunsen’s Bibelwerk, after Bertheau and Ewald, translate); then in the former case more than in the latter the difference of the subject opposes itself, and in the latter, in addition, the YIN ND, only disturbing in this negative clause. Also by the arrangement of the words, 6a appears as an independent thoucht. But with Jewish expositors (Rashi, Aben-Ezra, Ralbag, Malbim, etc.) to interpret ppan, after the Talmud (Ὁ. Mo¢d katan 9a) and Midrash, as an address is impracticable; the warning: do not weigh the path of life, affords no meaning suitable to this connection—for we must, with Cartwright and J. H. Michaelis, regard 6a as the antecedent to 6b: ne forte semitam vite ad sequendum eligas, te per varios deceptionum meardros abripit ut non noveris, ubi locorum sis; but then the continuation of the address is to be expected in 6D. No, the subject to pban is the adulteress, and {5 is an intensified xd. Thus the LXX., Jerome, Syr., Targ., Luther, Geier, Nolde, and among Jewish interpreters Heidenheim, whi first broke with the tradition sanctioned by the Talmud and the Midrash, for he interpreted 6a as a negative clause spoken in the tone of a question. But {8 is not suitable for a question, but for a call. Accordingly, Bottcher explains: viam vite ne illa complanare studeat! (D>3 in the meaning complanando operam dare). But the adulteress as such, and the striving to come to the way of life, stand in contradiction: an effort to return must be meant, which, because the power of sin over her is too great, fails; but the words do not denote that, they affirm the direct contrary, viz. that it does not happen to the adulteress ever to walk in the way of life. As in the warning the independent }2 may be equivalent to cave ne (Job xxxii. 13), so also in the declaration it may be equivalent to adsit ut, for 19 (from ΓΒ, after the forms J2= Arab. banj, 7Y = Arab.’asj) means turning away, removal. Thus: Far from taking the course of the way of life (which has life as its goal and reward)—for DPB, to open, to open a road (Ps. Ixxviii. 50), has here the meaning of the open road itself—much rather do her steps wilfully stagger (Jer. xiv. 10) hither and thither, they go without order and without aim, at one time hither, at another time thither, without her observing it; i.e. without her being concerned at this, that she thereby runs into the danger of falling headlong into the yawning abyss. The unconsciousness which the clause ΡΠ N? expresses, has as its object not the falling (Ps. xxxv. 8), of which there is here nothing directly said, but just this staggering, vacillation, the danger of which she does not watch against. v2 has Mercha under the y with Zinnorith preceding; it is Milra [an oxytone] (Michlol 1110); the punctuation varies in the accentuation of the form without evident reason:
Olsh. § 233, p. 285. The old Jewish interpreters (and recently also Malbim) here, as also at ii. 16, by the 7 [strange woman] understand heresy (m3), or the philosophy that is hostile to revelation; the ancient Christian interpreters understood by it folly (Origen), or sensuality (Procopius), or heresy (Olympiodorus), or false doctrine (Polychronios). The LXX., which translates, ver. 5, 5x1 by τῆς ἀφροσύνης οἱ πόδες, looks toward this allegorical interpretation. But this is unnecessary, and it is proved to be false from v. 15-20, where the ΠῚ is contrasted with the married wife.
With v. 1-6, which like iv. 20 commences it once more, the seventh discourse is brought to a conclusion. The address 3 is three times repeated in similar connections, iv. 10, 20, v.1. There is no reason for breaking off the fatherly admonition (introduced with the words, * And he said to me,” iv. 4), which was addressed to the author in the period of his youth, earlier than here, where the author again resumes the 0°32 32’ with which he had begun (iv. 1) this seventh narrative address. ‘That after the father has ceased speaking he does not express himself in a rounded manner, may be taken as a sign that toward the end he had become more and more unmindful of the réle of the reporter, if this D2 7A following, with which he realizes for his circle of hearers the admonition which had been in part addressed to himself, does not prove the contrary.
Vers. 7-11. The eighth discourse springs out of the conclusion of the seventh, and connects itself by its reflective moyen so closely with it that it appears as its continuation; but the new beginning and its contents included in it, referring only to social life, secures its relative independence. The poet derives the warning against intercourse with the adulteress from the preceding discourse, and grounds it on the destructive consequences.
7 And now, ye sons, hearken unto me, And depart not from the words of my mouth.
8 Hold thy path far from her neighbourhood, And come not to the door of her house! 9 That thou mayest not give the freshness of thy youth to another, Nor thy years to the cruel one; 10 That strangers may not sate themselves with thy possessions, And the fruit of thy toils come into the house of a stranger, 11 And thou groanest at the end, When thy flesh and thy body are consumed.
Neither here nor in the further stages of this discourse is there any reference to the criminal punishment inflicted on the adulterer, which, according to Lev. xx. 10, consisted in death, according to Ezek. xvi. 40, ef. John viii. 5, in stoning, and according to a later traditional law, in strangulation (P30). Ewald finds in ver. 14 a play on this punishment of adultery prescribed by law, and reads from ver. 9f, that the adulterer who is caught by the injured husband was reduced to the state of a slave, and was usually deprived of his manhood. But that any one should find pleasure in making the destroyer of his wife his slave is a far-fetched idea, and neither the law nor the history of Israel contains any evidence for this punishment by slavery or the mutilation of the adulterer, for which Ewald refers to Grimm’s Deutsche Rechtsaltertimer. The figure which is here sketched by the poet is very different. He who goes into the net of the wanton woman loses his health and his goods. She stands not alone, but has her party with her, who wholly plunder the simpleton who goes into her trap. Nowhere is there any reference to the husband of the adulteress. The poet does not at all think on a married woman. And the word chosen directs our attention rather to a foreigner than to an Israelitish woman, although the author may look upon harlotry as such as heathenish rather than Israelitish, and designate it accordingly. The party of those who make prostitutes of themselves consists of their relations and their older favourites, the companions of their gain, who being in league with her exhaust the life-strength and the resources of the befooled youth (ΕἾ.). This discourse begins with TAY, for it is connected by this concluding application (cf. vii. 24) with the preceding.
Vers. 8, 9. In verse 8, one must think on such as make a gain of their impurity. by, Schultens remarks, with reference to Ezek. xxiii. 18, crebrum in rescisso omni commercio: {2 denotes the departure, and °Y the nearness, from which one must remove himself toadistance. Regarding sin (ver. 9), which primarily, like our
Pracht (bracht from brechen=to break) [pomp, magnificence], appears to mean fulness of sound, and then fulness of splendour, see under Job xxxix. 20; here there is a reference to the freshness or the bloom of youth, as well as the years, against the sacrifice of which the warning is addressed—in a pregnant sense they are the fairest years, the years of youthful fulness of strength. Along with DYINS the singulare-tantum "2 (vid. Jer. 1. 42) has a collective sense; regarding the root-meaning, vid. under Isa. xiii. 9. It is the adj. relat. of W28 after the form 338, which is formed not from Ἢ ἢν, but from an unknown verb 3, The ancients referred it to death and the devil; but the "13% belongs to the covetous society, which impels ever anew to sin, which is their profit, him who has once falien into it, and thus brings bodily ruin upon him: they are the people who stand far aloof from this their sacrifice, and among them are barbarous, rude, inexorably cruel monsters (Unmenschen) (Grecus Venetus, τῷ ἀπανθρώπῳ), who rest not till their victim is laid prostrate on the ground and ruined both bodily and financially.
Ver. 10. This other side of the ruin ver. 10 presents as an image of terror. For ἫΠ refers to the person in his stately appearance, but 15 to his possessions in money and goods; for this word, as well as in the strikingly similar passage Hos. vii. 9, is used as the synonym of on (Gen. xxxiv. 29, etc.), in the sense of ability, estate. This meaning is probably mediated by means of a metonymy, as Gen. iv. 12, Job xxxi. 3, where the idea of the capability of producing is passed over into that of the produce conformable to it; so here the idea of work-power passes over into that of the gain resulting therefrom. ‘21 (and thy toils) is not, like ἽΠ5, the accusative governed by *Y2"; the carrying over of this verb disturbs the parallelism, and the statement in the passage besides does not accord therewith, which, interpreted as a virtual predicate, presents 106 as an independent prohibitive clause: neve sint labores tui in domo peregrini, not peregrina; at least 3) according to the usage of the language is always personal, so that "32 Δ (cf. Lam. v. 2), like 23 ΠΝ Zeph. i. 8, is to be explained after 22 VY, Judg. xix. 12. AY (from yy, Kral. ‘asab, to bind fast, to tie towbthel then to make effort, ποιεῖν, labor “ is difficult work (x. 22), and that which is obtained by it; Fleischer compares the Ital. ὁ miez sudori, and the French mes sueurs.
continued in ver. 11 in the consec. perf. 013, elsewhere of the hollow roaring of the sea, Isa. v. 30, the growling of the lion, xxvill. 15, here, as also Ezek. xxiv. 23, of the hollow groaning of men; a word which echoes the natural sound, like on, 727. The LXX., with the versions derived from it, has καὶ μεταμεληθήσῃ, te. MINN (the Miph. ὉΠ), to experience the sorrow of repentance, also an echo-word which imitates the sound of deep breathing)—a happy guid pro quo, as if one interchanged the Arab. naham, fremere, anhelare, and nadam, penitere. That wherein the end consists to which the deluded youth is brought, and the sorrowful sound of despair extorted from him, is stated in 110: his flesh is consumed away, for sensuality and vexation have worked together to undermine his health. ‘The author here connects together two synonyms to strengthen the conception, as if one said: All thy tears and thy weeping help thee nothing (F1.); he loves this heaping together of synonyms, as we have shown at p. 33. When the blood-relation of any one is called Wa WNY, Lev. xviii. 6, xxv. 49, these two synonyms show themselves in subordination, as here in close relation. δ appears to be closely connected with OU, muscles and sinews, and with 7, the umbilical cord, and thus to denote the flesh with respect to its muscular nature adhering to the bones (Mic. iii. 2), as "#3 denotes it with respect to its tangible outside clothed with skin (vid. under Isaiah, p. 418).
Vers. 12-14. The poet now tells those whom he warns to hear how the voluptuary, looking back on his life-course, passes sentence against himself.
12 And thou sayest, ‘‘ Why have I then hated correction, And my heart despised instruction!
18 And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, Nor lent mine ear to my instructors?
14 I had almost fallen into every vice In the midst of the assembly and the congregation!”
The question 12a (here more an exclamation than a question) is the combination of two: How has it become possible for me? How could it ever come to it that... Thus also one says in Arab.: Kyf falat hadhé (ΕἸ.). The regimen of 78 in 126 is becoming faint, and in 18 has disappeared. The Kal 7/82 (as i. 80, xv. 5) signifies to despise; the Piel intensively, to contemn and reject (R. 72, pungere).
Ver. 14. ὈΝῸΞ with the perf. following is equivalent to: it wanted but a little that this or that should happen, e.g. Gen. xxvi. 10. It is now for the most part thus explained: it wanted but a little, and led astray by that wicked companionship I would have been drawn away into crime, for which I would then have been subjected to open punishment (F'l.). Ewald understands Μὴ directly of punishment in its extreme form, stoning; and Hitzig explains yop by “the totality of evil,” in so far as the disgraceful death of the criminal comprehends in it all other evils that are less. But yyo2a means, either, into every evil, misfortune, or into every wickedness; and since Y1, in contradistinction to 25 (Hitzig compares Ezek. xxxvi. 5), is a conception of a species, then the meaning is equivalent to in omni genere mali. The reference to the deathpunishment of the adulteress is excluded thereby, though it cannot be denied that it might be thought of at the same time, if he who too late comes to consider his ways were distinctly designated in the preceding statements as an adulterer. But it is on the whole a question whether y77922 is meant of the evil which follows sin as its consequence. The usage of the language permits this, cf. 2 Sam. xvi. 8, Ex. v. 19, 1 Chron. vii. 23, Ps. x. 6, but not less the reference to that which is morally bad, cf. Ex. xxxii. 22 (where Keil rightly compares with 1 John v. 19); and ΝΠ (for which in the first case one expected *FIDB3, I fell into, wid. xiii. 17, xvii. 20, xxviil. 14) is even more favourable to the latter reference. Also my on 7)N2 (cf. on the heaping together of synonyms under 118), this paraphrase of the palam ae publice, with its 7iNa (cf. Ps. cxi. 1, 2 Chron. xx. 14), looks rather to a heightening of the moral selfaccusation. He found himself in all wickedness, living and moving therein in the midst of the congregation, and thereby giving offence to it, for he took part in the external worship and in the practices of the congregation, branding himself thereby as a hypocrite. That by the one name the congregation is meant in its civil aspect, and by the other in its ecclesiastical aspect, is not to be supposed: in the congregation of the people of the revealed law, the political and the religious sides are not so distinguished. It is called without distinction 9? and MY (from Ἵν). Rather we would say that Snp is the whole ecclesia, and ny the whole of its representatives; but also the great general council bears sometimes the one name (Ex. xii. 3, cf. 21) and sometimes the other (Deut. xxxi. 30, ef. 28) —the placing of them together serves thus only to strengthen the conception.
Vers. 15-17. The commendation of true conjugal love in the form of an invitation to a participation in it, is now presented along with the warning against non-conjugal intercourse, heightened by a reference to its evil consequences.
15 Drink water from thine own cistern,
And flowing streams from thine own fountain. 16 Shall thy streams flow abroad,
The water-brooks in the streets!
17 Let them belong to thyself alone, And not to strangers with thee.
One drinks water to quench his thirst; here drinking is a figure of the satisfaction of conjugal love, of which Paul says, 1 Cor. vii. 9, κρεῖσσόν ἐστι γαμῆσαι ἢ πυροῦσθαι, and this comes into view here, in conformity with the prevailing character of the O. T., only as a created inborn natural impulse, without reference to the poisoning of it by sin, which also within the sphere of married life makes government, moderation, and restraint a duty. Warning against this degeneracy of the natural impulse to the πάθος ἐπιθυμίας authorized within divinely prescribed limits, the apostle calls the wife of any one τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σκεῦος (cf. 1 Pet. iii. 7). So here the wife, who is his by covenant (ii. 17), is called “cistern” (nia)' and “ fountain” (183) of the husband to whom she is married. The figure corresponds to the sexual nature of the wife, the expression for which is ΝΡ); but Isa. li. 1 holds to the natural side of the figure, for according to it the wife is a pit, and the children are brought out of it into the light of day. Aben-Ezra on Lev. xi. 36 rightly distinguishes between 12 and ἽΝ: the former catches the rain, the latter wells out from within. In the former, as Rashi in Erubin ii. 4 remarks, there are Ὁ ΟΣ Ὁ, in the latter DN Ὁ. The post-biblical Hebrew observes this distinction less closely (vid. Kimchi’s Book of Roots), but the biblical throughout; so far the Keri, Jer. vi. 7, rightly changes 12 into the form 1!3, corresponding to the Arab. byar. Therefore 12 is the cistern, for the making of which 23N, Jer. ii. 13, and 183 the well, for the formation of which non, Gen. xxi. 30, and ΠῚ, xxvi. 25, are the respective words usually employed (vid. Malbim, Sifra 1170). The poet shows that he also is aware of this distinction, for he calls the water which one drinks from the 2 by the name Ὡ 2, but on the other hand that out of the 1x2 by the name Dri, running waters, fluenta; by this we are at once reminded of Cant. iv. 15, cf. 12. The 2 offers only stagnant water (according to the Sohar, the 2 has no water of its own, but only that which is received into it), although coming down into it from above; but the 182 has living water, which wells up out of its interior (7)M'2, 15d, intentionally for the mere 1), and is fresh as the streams from Lebanon ΟἿ», properly ἰαδὶ,
What a valuable possession a well of water is for nomads the history of the patriarchs makes evident, and a cistern is one of the most valuable possessions belonging to every well-furnished house, The figure of the cistern 1s here surpassed by that of the fountain, but both refer to the seeking and finding satisfaction (cf. the opposite passage, xxiil. 27) with the wife, and that, as the expressive possessive suffixes denote, with his legitimate wife.
Ver. 16. Here we meet with two other synonyms standing in a similar relation of progression. As ἢ) denotes the fountain as to its point of outflow, so j}¥2 (n. loci) means water flowing above on the surface, which in its course increases and divides itself into several courses; such a brook is called, with reference to the water dividing itself from the point of outflow, or to the way in which it divides, 108 (from 398, Job xxxviii. 25), Arab. fale? (as also the Ethiop.) or falj, which is explained by nahar saghayr (ΕἸ.).} We cannot in this double figure think of any reference to the generative power in the sperma; similar figures are the waters of Judah, Isa. xlvili. 1, and the waters of Israel flowing forth as if from a bucket, Num. xxiv. 7, where ἸΜ is the parallel word to oO», cf. also the proper name 2 Ν 5 (from ip =%n from 1M, diffluere), aqua he. semen patris, and iY, Deut. xxviii. 30, = Arab. sajal (whence sajl =‘, situla), which is set aside by the Keri. Many interpreters
1 The latter idea (vid. under Ps. i. 3) lies nearer, after Job xxxviii. 25: the brook as dividing channels for itself, or as divided into such; fal/ (/falaj) signifies, according to the representation Isa. lviii. 8, also like fajr, the morninglight (as breaking forth from a cleft).
have by 73 and M373 been here led into the error of pressing into the text the exhortation not to waste the creative power in sinful lust. The LXX. translates 385 by ὑπερεκχείσθω;; but Origen, and also Clemens Alexandrinus, used the phrase μὴ ὑπερ- εκχείσθω, which is found in the Complut., Ald., and several codd., and is regarded by Lagarde, as also Cappellus, as original: the three Gottingen theologians (Ewald, Bertheau, and Elster) accordingly make the emendation WDWON, But that μή of the LXX. was not added till a later period; the original expression, which the Syro-Hexapl. authorizes, was ὑπερεκχείσθω without μή, as also in the version of Aquila, διασκορπιζέσθωσαν without μή (vid. Field). The Hebrew text also does not need 5x. Clericus, and recently Hitzig, Zéckler, Kamphausen, avoid this remedy, for they understand this verse interrogatively—an expedient which is for the most part and also here unavailing; for why should not the author have written 1¥5° O08? Schultens rightly remarks: nec negationt nec interrogationi ullus hic locus, for (with Fleischer and von Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, 11. 2, 402) he regards ver. 16 as a conclusion: tunc exundabunt; so that he strengthens the summons of ver. 15 by the promise of numerous descendants from unviolated marriage. But to be so understood, the author ought to have written 1¥8%. So, according to the text, 1¥B’ as jussive continues the imper. ΠῚ (15a), and the full meaning according to the connection is this: that within the marriage relation the generative power shall act freely and unrestrained. yin and ni2m denote (i. 20) the space free from houses, and the ways and places which lead towards and stretch between them; yin (from yan, Arab. khass, to split, seorsim ponere) is a very relative conception, according as one thinks of that which is without as the contrast of the house, the city, or the country. Here yin is the contrast of the person, and thus that which is anywhere without it, whereto the exercise of its manly power shall extend. The two figurative expressions are the description of the libero flumine, and the contrast, that restriction of self which the marriage relation, according to 1 Cor. vii. 3-9, condemns.
Ver. 17. That such matters as these are thought of, is manifest from this verse. As ΜῊ comprehends with the cause (sperma) the effect (posterity), so, in ver. 16, with the effusio roboris virilis 18 connected the idea of the beginnings of life. For the subjects of ver. 17 are the effusiones seminis named in ver. 16. These in their effects (ver. 17) may belong to thee alone, viz. to thee alone (72, properly in thy separateness) within thy married relation, not, as thou hast fellowship with other women, to different family circles, Aben-Ezra rightly regards as the subject, for he glosses thus: o”won oan ony odpm, and Immanuel well explains aM by jinn’. The child born out of wedlock belongs not to the father alone, he knows not to whom it belongs; its father must for the sake of his honour deny it before the world. Thus, as Grotius remarks: ἰδὲ sere ubt prolem metas. In }s\ the 0 is continued. It is not thus used adverbially for x5, as in the old classic Arabic lyas for [ (FI.), but it carries in it the force of a verb, so that 17, according to rule, in the sense of 1n xb) = yy hs, continues it.
Vers. 18-20. With ver 18 is introduced anew the praise of conjugal love. These three verses, 18-21, have the same course of thought as 15-17.
18 Let thy fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of thy youth. 19 The lovely hind and the graceful gazelle— May her bosom always charm thee; Tn her love mayest thou delight thyself evermore. 20 But why wilt thou be fascinated with a stranger, And embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?
Like "2 and 183, 712 is also a figure of the wife; the root-word is “3p, from 1p, 13, the meanings of which, to dig and make round, come together in the primary conception of the round digging out or boring out, not "p= ὙΡ, the Hiph. of which means (Jer. vi. 7) to well out cold (water). It is the fountain of the birth that is meant (cf. ip) of the female ΠΝ, e.g., Juev. xx. 18), not the procreation (LXX., ἡ σὴ ry, viz. φλέψ' yoviun); the blessing wished for by him is the blessing of children, which 73 so much the more distinctly denotes if 773, Arab. barak, means to spread out, and 33 thus to cause a spreading out. The >, 18d, explains itself from the idea of drawing (water), given with the figure of a fountain; the word NW&2 found in certain codices is, on the contrary, prosaic (F1.). Whilst > no’ is found elsewhere (Eccles. ii. 20, 2 Chron. xx. 27) as meaning almost the same as 2 NO’; the former means rejoicing from some place, the latter in something. In the genitive connection, “ wife of thy youth” (cf. ii. 17), both of these significations lie: thy youthful wife, and she who was chosen by thee in thy youth, according as we refer the suffix to the whole idea or only to the,second member of the chain of words,
Ver. 19. The subject, 19a, set forth as a theme courts love for her who is to be loved, for she presents herself as lovely. now is the female of the stag, which may derive its name DN from the weapon-power of its horns, and 723" (from >y, Arab. w’al, to climb), that of the wild-goat Ὁ»); and thus properly, not the gazelle, which is called ‘3¥ on account of its elegance, but the chamois. These animals are commonly used in Semitic poetry as figures of female beauty on account of the delicate beauty of their limbs and their sprightly black eyes. ὈΠῸΣ signifies always sensual love, and is interchanged in this erotic meaning (vii. 18) with ὉΠ, In 194 the predicate follows the subject. The Grac. Venet. translates as if the word were ΠΥ, and the Syr. as if it were m’35, but Aquila rightly translates τέτθοι αὐτῆς. As τέτθος is derived (vid. Curtius, Griech. Etymologie, Nr. 307) from dha, to suck (causative, with anu, to put to sucking), so 17, 1%, IA, Arab. thady (commonly in dual thadjein), from NW, Arab. ἐμάν, rigare, after which also the verb FAT is chosen: she may plentifully give thee to drink; figuratively equivalent to, refresh or (what the Aram. ‘2? precisely means) fascinate’ thee, satisfy thee with love. 0°17 also is an erotic word, which besides in this place is found only in Ezekiel (xxiii. 3, 8, 21). The LXX. obliterates the strong sensual colouring of this line. In 19¢ it changes ΠΡ into mivn, πολλοστὸς ἔσῃ, perhaps also because the former appeared to be too sensual. Moses ha-Darshan
(in Rashi) proposes to explain it after the Arab. «πε, to cover, to cast over, to come over anything (III.=ppy, to employ oneself with something): engage thyself with her love, z.e. be always devoted to her in love. And Immanuel himself, the author of a Hebrew Divan expatiating with unparalleled freedom in erotic representations, remarks, while he rightly understands ΠΣ of the fascination of love: mw inwN ISDN \pyin MINNA Np, he calls the husband’s continual caressing of the wife an error. But this moral side-glance lies here at a distance from the poet. He speaks here of a morally permissible love-ecstasy, or rather, since 1"9n excludes that which is extraordinary, of an intensity of love connected with the feeling of superabundant happiness. 42% properly signifies to err from the way, therefore figuratively, with 2 of a matter, like
1 Many editions have here chaz; but this Dagesh, which is contrary to rule, is to be effaced.
delirare ea, to be wholly captivated by her, so that one is no longer in his own power, can no longer restrain himself—the usual word for the intoxication of love and of wine, xx. 1 (ΕἸ.).
Ver. 20. The answer to the Why? in this verse is: no reasonable cause,—only beastly sensuality, only flagitious blindness can mislead thee. ‘The 3 of ΠῚ is, as 195 and Isa. xxviii. 7, that of the object through which one is betrayed into intoxication. ΡΠ (thus, according to the Masora, four times in the O. T. for ΡΠ)
tv properly means an incision or deepening, as = (from =, cohibere), the front of the body, the part between the arms or the female breasts, thus the bosom, Isa. x]. 11 (with the swelling part of the clothing, sinus vestis, which the Arabs call jayb), and the lap; Pan (as iv. 8), to embrace, corresponds here more closely with the former of these meanings; also elsewhere the wife of any one is called 1pn nwx or ἸΡῚ ΠΣ naawn, as she who rests on his breast. The ancients, also J. H. Michaelis, interpret vers. 15-20 allegorically, but without thereby removing sensual traces from the elevated N. T. consciousness of pollution, striving against all that is fleshly; for the castum cum Sapientia conjugium would still be always represented under the figure of husband and wife dwelling together. Besides, though mr might be, as the contrast of moan, the personified lust of the world and of the flesh, yet 19a is certainly not the npn, but a woman composed of flesh and blood. Thus the poet means the married life, not in a figurative sense, but in its reality—he designedly describes it thus attractively and purely, because it bears in itself the preservative against promiscuous fleshly lust.
Vers. 21-23. That the intercourse of the sexes out of the married relationship is the commencement of the ruin of a fool is now proved.
21 For the ways of every one are before the eyes of Jahve, And all his paths He marketh out.
22 His own sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer, And in the bands of his sins is he held fast.
23 He dies for the want of correction, And in the fulness of his folly he staggers to ruin.
It is unnecessary to interpret [32 as an adverbial accusative: straight before Jahve’s eyes; it may be the nominative of the predicate: the ways of man (for &*8 is here an individual, whether man or woman) are an object (properly, fixing) of the eyes of Jahve. With this the thought would suitably connect itself: et omnes orbilas ejus ad amussim examinat; but DDB, as the denom. of DDB, Ps, lviii. 3, is not connected with all the places where the verb is united with the obj. of the way, and Ps. Ixxviii. 50 shows that it has there the meaning to break through, to open a way (from 5p, to split, cf. Talmudic wPDD, opened, accessible, from ws,
WN oy perfodere, fodiendo viam, aditum sibi aperire). The opening of the way is here not, as at Isa. xxvi. 7, conceived of as the setting aside of the hindrances in the way of him who walks, but generally as making walking in the way possible: man can take no step in any direction without God; and that not only does not exempt him from moral responsibility, but the consciousness of this is rather for the first time rightly quickened by the consciousness of being encompassed on every side by the knowledge and the power of God. The dissuasion of ver. 20 is thus in ver. 21 grounded in the fact, that man at every stage and step of his journey is observed and encompassed by God: it is impossible for him to escape from the knowledge of God or from dependence on Him. Thus opening all the paths of man, He has also appointed to the way of sin the punishment with which it corrects itself: “his sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer.” The suffix '— does not refer to WX of ver. 21, where every one without exception and without distinction is meant, but it relates to the obj. following, the evil-doer, namely, as the explanatory permutative annexed to the “him” according to the scheme, Ex. ii. 6; the permutative is distinguished from the apposition by this, that the latter is a forethought explanation which heightens the understanding of the subject, while the former is an explanation afterwards brought in which guards against a misunderstanding. ‘The same construction, xiv. 13), belonging to the syntaxis ornata in the old Hebrew, has become common in the Aramaic and in the modern Hebrew. Instead of ὙΠΥΊΞΟΝ (ver. 22), the poet uses poetically 12732; the interposed 3 may belong to the emphatic ground-form 130", but is epenthetic if one compares forms such as 133? (R. 37), Num. xxiii. 13 (cf. p. 18). The insxen governed by an, laquet (°239, tormina), is either gen. exeg.: bands which consist in his sin, or gen. subj.: bands which his sin unites, or better, gen. possess.: bands which his sin brings with it. By these bands he will be held fast, and so will die: he (#37 referring to the person described) will die in insubordination (Symm. δὲ
ἀπαιδευσίαν), or better, since | and 35 are placed in contrast: in want of correction. With the 73% (ver. 235), repeated purposely from ver. 20, there is connected the idea of the overthrow which is certain to overtake the infatuated man. In ver. 20 the sense of moral errer began already to connect itself with this verb. MAX is the right name of unrestrained lust of the flesh. now is connected with Six, the belly; ix, Arab. dl, to draw together, to condense, to thicken (Isaiah, p. 494), Dummheit (stupidity) and the Old-Norse @umba, darkness, are in their roots related to each other. Also in the Semitic the words for blackness and darkness are derived from roots meaning condensation. 5x is the mind made thick, darkened, and become like crude matter.
The author does not return to the subject of chastity till the twelfth discourse, vi. 20 ff. Between the eighth and the twelfth three other groups of moral proverbs are introduced, which are neither connected with one another nor with the eight discourses which precede them. Must we therefore, with Hitzig and Kamphausen, hold vi. 1-5, 6-11, 12-19, to be an interpolation here introduced from some other place? We find here the fondness for synonynis and words similar in sound peculiar to the author of the introduction, vi. 2, 3, 5, and meet with the same interchange of words, vi. 4, cf. iv. 25, and figurative expressions, vi. 18, cf. iii. 29 (wn), word-formations, vi. 10 (P20), cf. iii, 8 ("PY), ideas, vi. 12, cf. iv. 28 (MB mwpy), vi. 14, cf. ii. 12, 14 (ma5AN), and ommusctesionle vi. 12 (AB mwpy spin), ef. ii. 7 (on 560); like delineations of character, vi. 180, cf. i. 16, and threatenings, vi. 15, cf. i. 26 f., iii. 25—as many marks of identity of the authorship as could be expected. And what had moved the interpolators to introduce the three groups of proverbs, vi. 1-5, 6-11, 12-19, just here? In vain does Hitzig seek to extract from chap. v. certain words and ideas common to it with chap. vi. which shall make it clear that the groups of proverbs in question are here an interpolation; the points of contrast are not prominent. If now the poet has already in iii.
1-18, but still more in iii. 27 ff., connected together all manner of rules of life without any close or visible connection, it is not strange if at vi. 1, where besides the ‘33 denotes the new section, he breaks off to a new subject out of the fulness of his matter; and the connection wanting between vi. 1 and v. 23, as well as between iii. 27 and 111. 26, does not therefore warrant critical suspicion.
Vers. 1-5. The author warns against suretyship; or rather, he advises that if one has made himself surety, he should as quickly as possible withdraw from the snare.
1 My son, if thou hast become surety for thy neighbour, Hast given thy hand for another:
2 Thou art entangled in the words of thy mouth, Ensnared in the words of thy mouth.
8 Do this then, my son, and free thyself— For thou hast come under the power of thy neighbour— Go, instantly entreat and importune thy neighbour.
4 Give no sleep to thine eyes, And no slumber to thine eyelids;
5 Tear thyself free like a gazelle from his hand, And as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
The chief question here is, whether δ after 3 introduces him for whom or with whom one becomes surety. Elsewhere ny (R. 3, whence also 228, nectere, to twist close and compact) with the accusative of the person means to become surety for any one, to represent him as a surety, xi. 15, xx. 16 (xxvii. 13), Gen. xhii. 9, xliv. 33 (as with the accusative of the matter, to pledge anything, to deposit it as a pledge, Jer. xxx. 21, Neh. v. 8, =0¥, Arab. wad’a, Job xvii. 3); and to become surety with any one is expressed, xvil. 18, by ΣΡ 2»), The phrase δ ΔΝ is not elsewhere met with, and is thus questionable. If we look to ver. 3, the Y) (77) mentioned there cannot possibly be the creditor with whom one has become surety, for so impetuous and urgent an application to him would be both purposeless and unbecoming. But if he is meant for whom one has become surety, then certainly wr? is also to be understood of the same person, and? is thus dat. commodi; similar to this is the Targumic oy xMi37Y, suretyship for any one, xvii. 18, xxii. 26. But is the 1?, 10, distinguished from 4, the stranger with whom one has become surety? ‘The parallels xi, 15, xx. 16, where Ἵ; denotes the person whom one represents, show that in both lines one and the same person is meant; Ἢ 18. in tlie Proverbs equivalent to M8, each different from the person in the discourse, v. 17, xxvii. 2,—thus, like 799, denotes not the friend, but generally him to whom one stands in any kind of relation, even a very external one, in a word, the fellow-creatures or neighbours, xxiv. 28 (cf. the Arab. sahbk and karynk, which are used as vaguely and superficially). It is further a question, whether we have to explain 16: if thou hast given thine hand to another, or for another. Here also we are without evidence from the usage of the language; for the phrase ἢΞ ΜΙ, or merely YPA, appears to be used of striking the hand in suretyship where it elsewhere occurs without any further addition, xvil. 18, xxii. 26, xi. 15; however, Job xvii. 3, 1 ΠΣ appears the same: to strike into the hand of any one, i.e. to give to him the hand-stroke. From this passage Hitzig concludes that the surety gave the hand-stroke, without doubt in the presence of witnesses, first of all of the creditor, to the debtor, as a sign that he stood for him. But this idea is unnatural, and the “ without doubt” melts into air. He on whose hand the stroke falls is always the person to whom one gives suretyship, and contirms it by the hand-stroke. Job also, ἰ.6., means to say: who else but Thou, O Lord, could give to me a pledge, viz. of my innocence? If now the 1, ver. 10, is, as we have shown, not the creditor,’ but the debtor, then is the 5 the dat. commodi, as 1a, and the two lines perfectly correspond. YP properly means to drive, to strike with a resounding noise, cogn. with the Arab. wak’a, which may be regarded as its intrans. (F].); then particularly to strike the hand or with the hand. He to whom this hand-pledge is given for another remains here undesignated. A new question arises, whether in ver. 6, where wid (illagueart) and 71393 (comprehendi) follow each other as Isa. vii. 15, cf. Jer. ]. 24, the hypothetical antecedent is continued or not. We agree with Schultens, Ziegler, and Fleischer against the continuance of the Ὁ, The repetition of the 7 ΝΞ (cf. i. 14) serves rightly to strengthen the representation of the thought: thou, thou thyself and no cther, hast then ensnared thyself in the net; but this strengthening of the expression would greatly lose in force
1 A translation by R. Joseph Joel of Fulda, 1787, whose autograph Ms. Baer possesses, renders the passage not badly thus:—‘‘ My son, if thou hast become surety for thy friend, and hast given the hand to another, then thou art bound by thy word, held by thy promise. Yet do what I say to thee, my son: Be at pains as soon as thou canst to get free, otherwise thou art in the power of thy friend; shun no trouble, be urgent with thy friend.”
by placing ver. 2 in the antecedent, while if ver. 2 is regarded as the conclusion, and thus as the principal proposition, it appears in its full strength.
Ver. 3. The new commencement needs no particle denoting a conclusion; the 8i5%, making the summons emphatic (cf. 2 Kings x. 10, frequently in interrogative clauses), connects it closely enough. Nxt, neut., refers to what follows. The 1 before ὄν} Π is explanatory, as we say in familiar language: Be so good as tell me, or do me the favour to come with me; while no Frenchman would say, Faites-moi le (ce) plaisir et venez avec moi (F1|.).1_ The clause NX °D? is not to be translated: in case thou art fallen into the hand of thy neighbour; for this is represented (vers. 1, 2) as having already in fact happened. On two sides the surety is no longer sui juris: the creditor has him in his hand; for if the debtor does not pay, he holds the surety, and in this way many an honourable man has lost house and goods, Sirach xxix. 18, cf. viii. 13;—and the debtor has him, the surety, in his hand; for the performance which is due, for which the suretyship avails, depends on his conscientiousness. The latter is here meant: thou hast made thy freedom and thy possessions dependent on the will of thy neighbour for whom thou art the surety. The clause introduced with ‘3 gives the reason for the call to set himself free (Osan from ὃν), R. by. Oy, to draw out or off); it is a parenthetical sentence. The meaning of DBI is certain. The verb 057 (#5, DD) signifies to stamp on, calcare, conculcare; the Kamtis* explains rafas by rakad balarjal. The Hithpa. might, it is true, mean to conduct oneself in a trampling manner, to tread roughly, as 82207, and the medial Niph. 833, to conduct oneself speaking (in an impassioned manner); but Ps. Ixviil. 31 and the analogy of DDian] favour the meaning to throw oneself in a stamping manner, 1.6. violently, to the ground, to trample upon oneself,—z.e. let oneself be trampled upon, to place oneself in the attitude of most earnest humble prayer. Thus the Grec. Venet.
1 For the right succession of the accents here (three serviles before the Pazer), vid. Torath Emeth, p. 30; Accentuationssystem, xii. ὃ 4. According to Ben- Naphtali, Mercha is to be given to the ΓΝ).
2 The Zinnorith before the Mahpach in these words represents at the same time the Makkeph. But Ben-Naphtali differs here from Ben-Asher, for he adopts the Makkeph and rejects the Zinnorith; vid. Torath Emeth, p. 16, and my Psalmencomm. Bad. ii. (1860), p. 460, note 2.
πατήθητι, Rashi (“ humble thyself like to the threshold which is trampled and trode upon”), Aben-Ezra, Immanuel (“humble thyself under the soles of his feet”); so Cocceius, J. H. Michaelis, and others: conculcandum te prebe. 371 is more controverted. The Talmudic-Midrash explanation (b. Joma, 87a; Bathra, 1736, and elsewhere): take with thee in great numbers thy friends (27 21), is discredited by this, that it has along with it the explanation of DEIN by (7°) DB AN, solve palmam (manus), t.e. pay what thou canst. Also with the meaning to rule (Parchon, Immanuel), which 37 besides has not, nothing is to be done. The right meaning of 3 377 is to rush upon one boisterously, Isa. iii. 5. 377 means in general to be violently excited (Arab. rahiba, to be afraid), and thus to meet one, here with the accusative: assail impetuously thy neighbour (viz. that he fulfil his engagement). Accordingly, with a choice of words more or less suitable, the LX X. translates by παρόξυνε, Symm., Theodotion by παρόρμησον, the Grec. Venet. by ἐνίσχυσον, the Syr. (which the Targumist copies) by.393 (solicita), and Kimchi glosses by: lay an arrest upon him with pacifying words. The Talmud explains 'Y7 as plur.;* but the plur., which was permissible in iii. 28, is here wholly inadmissible: it is thus the plena scriptio for 1) with the retaining of the third radical of the ground-form of the root-word (¥1=Y9), or with » as mater lectionis, to distinguish the pausal-form from that which is without the pause; cf. xxiv. 34. LXX., Syr., Jerome, etc., rightly translate it in the sing. The immediateness lying in sh (cf. ὕπαγε, Matt. v. 24) is now expressed as a duty, ver.4f. One must not sleep and slumber (an expression quite like Ps. exxxii. 4), not give himself quietness and rest, till the other has released him from his bail by the performance of that for which he is surety. One must set himself free as a gazelle or as a bird, being caught, seeks to disentangle itself by calling forth all its strength and art.
Ver. 5. The naked 7% is not to be translated “ immediately;” for in this sense the word is rabbinical, not biblical. The versions (with exception of Jerome and the Grec. Venet.) translate as if the word were NBD [out of the snare]. Bertheau prefers this reading, and Béttcher holds ἽΝ [a hunter] to have fallen out after ™. It is not a parallelism with reservation; for a bird-catcher is not at
1 There is here no distinction between the Kethtb and the Keri. The Masora remarks, ‘‘ This is the only passage in the Book of Proverbs where the word is written with Yod (5);” it thus recognises only the undisputed Ty the same time a gazelle-hunter. The author, if he has so written, has conceived of 32, as at 1 Kings xx. 42, as absolute, and connected it with Oya: tear thyself free like the gazelle from the hand into which thou hast fallen (Hitzig); according to which, the section should be accentuated thus: 7’ "2.2 osm, 2%, Aram. °20, Arab. zaby, is the gazelle (Arab. ghazal), so called ἊΝ its sede j ἽΝ, the bird, from its whistling (1a¥, Arab. safar, R. ἢν, cf. Arab. saffdrat, the whistling of a aia), Arab. safar, whistler (with prosthesis, ’asafwar, warbler, Psalm. p. 794). The bird-catcher is called VAP’ (from wp, after the form ᾿ΕΝ cog. Wip, Isa. xxix. 21, wpa, R. wp), after the form i132 (fem. 77132), or Wp’; one would think that the Kameiz, after the form kétwl (vid. under Isa. i. 17), must here be fixed, but in Jer, v. 26 the word is vocalized O'vAp’.
Altera parenesis (remarks J. H. Michaelis) ad debitorem potius directa, sicut prima ad fidejussorem. But this connection is a subtle invention. These brief proverbial discourses, each of which forms.a completed whole, have scarcely been a priori destined for this introduction to the Salomonic Book of Proverbs edited by the author; but he places them in it; and that he so arranges them that this section regarding sluggards follows that regarding sureties, may have been occasioned by accidental points of contact of the one with the other (cf 7, θα, with 30; ni... nioun, ver. 10, with ver. 4), which may also further determine the course in ere the proverbs follow each other.
Vers. 6-8. As Elihu (Job xxxv. 11) says that God has set the beasts as our teachers, so he sends the sluggard to the school of the ant (Ameise), so named (in Germ.) from its industry (EZimsigkeit):
6 Go to the ant, sluggard; Consider her ways, and be wise!
7 She that hath no judge, Director, and ruler:
8 She prepareth in summer her food, Has gathered in harvest her store.
The Dechi written mostly under the τ separates the inseparable. The thought, Go to the ant, sluggard! permits no other distinction than in the vocative; but the Dechi of ΠΡΟΣ ριὲ 72 is changed into Munach*' on account of the nature of the Athnach-word, which consists of only two syllables without the counter-tone. The ant has for its Hebrew-Arabic name mn), from the R. 03 (Jsatah, p. 687), which is first used of the sound, which expresses the idea of the low, dull, secret,—thus of its active and yet unperceived motion; its Aramaic name in the Peshito, L1Soeas, and in the Targ. δ ΟΣ. (also Arab. sumsum, simsim, of little red ants), designates it after its quick activity, its busy running hither and thither (vd. Fleischer in Levy’s Chald. Worterb. ii. 578). She is a model of unwearied and well-planned labour. From the plur. 277 it is to be concluded that the author observed their art in gathering in and laying up in store, carrying burdens, building their houses, and the like (vid. the passages in the Talmud and Midrash in the Hamburg Real-Encyclopadie fiir Bibel und Tulmud, 1868, p. 83 f.). To the ant the slugeard (8D, Aram. and Arab. δον, with the fundamental idea of weight and dulness) is sent, to learn from her to be ashamed, and to be taught wisdom.
Ver. 7. This relative clause describes the subject of ver. 8 more fully: it is like a clause with ‘3 03, quamquam.’? The community of ants exhibits a peculiar class of workers; but it is not, like that of bees, composed of grades terminating in the queen-bee as the head. The three offices here named represent the highest judiciary, police, and executive powers; for P¥? (from ΠΝ, to distinguish, with the ending tn, vid. Jesurun, p. 215s.) is the judge; 10Y (from sow, Arab. satr, to draw lines, to write) is the overseer (in war the director, controller), or, as Saalschiitz indicates the province of the schotrim both in cities and in the camp, the office of police; Sui (vid. Isaiah, p. 691), the governors of the whole state organism subordinated to the schoftim and the schotrim. The Syr., and the Targ. slavishly following it, translate psp by 8180 (harvest), for they interchange this word with yp.
Ver. 8. In this verse the change of the time cannot be occasioned by this, that 7"? and ‘SP are distinguislied as the earlier and the later period of the year; for 7? (= Arab. kayt, from kat, to be glowing hot, cf. Arab. kghyyt of the glow of the mid-day heat) is the late summer, when the heat rises to the highest degree; but the son of the Shunammite succumbed to the sun-stroke in the time of harvest (2 Kings iv. 18 f.). Lowenstein judiciously remarks that [2H refers to immediate want, 7738 to that which is future; or, better, the former shows them engaged in persevering industry during the summer glow, the latter as at the end of the harvest, and engaged in the bringing home of the winter stores. The words of the procuring of food in summer are again used by Agur, Prov. xxx. 25; andthe Aramaic fable of the ant and the grasshopper,’ which is also found among those of Adsop and of Syntipas, serves as an illustration of this whole verse. The LXX. has, after the “ Go to the ant,” a proverb of five lines, ἢ πορεύθητι πρὸς τὴν μέλισσαν. Hitzig regards it as of Greek origin; and certainly, as Lagarde has shown, it contains idiomatic Greek expressions which would not occur to a translator from the Hebrew. In any case, however, it is an interpolation which disfigures the Hebrew text by overlading it.
Vers. 9-11. After the poet has admonished the sluggard to take the ant as an example, he seeks also to rouse him out of his sleepiness and indolence:
9 How long, O sluggard, wilt thou lie? When wilt thou rise up from thy sleep? 10 ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest!” 11 So comes like a strong robber thy poverty, And thy want as an armed man.
Vers. 9, 10. The awakening cry, ver. 9, is not of the kind that Paul could have it in his mind, Eph. v. 14. Ὅν» has, as the vocative, Pasek after it, and is, on account of the Pasek, in correct editions accentuated not with Munach, but Mercha. The words, ver. 10, are not an ironical call (sleep only yet a little while, but in truth a long while), but per mimesin the reply of the sluggard with which he turns away the unwelcome disturber. The plurals with DY sound like self-delusion: yet a little, but asufficient! To fold the hands, i.e. to cross them over the breast, or put them into the bosom, denotes also, Eccles. iv. 5, the idler. P34, complicatio
(cf. in Livy, compressis quod aiunt manibus sidere; and Lucan, il. 292, compressas tenuisse manus), is formed like ‘pw, ili. 8, and the inf. 33¥ like ἼΘΠ, x. 21, and Pav, xvi. 19. The perf. consec. connects itself with the words heard from the mouth of the sluggard, which are as a hypothetical antecedent thereto: if thou so sayest, and always again sayest, then this is the consequence, that suddenly and inevitably poverty and want come upon thee. That 3270 denotes the grassator, i.e. vagabond (Arab. dawwar, one who wanders much about), or the robber or foe (like the Arab. ’aduww, properly transgressor fintum), is not justified by the usage of the language; 7en signifies, 2 Sam. xii. 4, the traveller, and ἸΡΠῸ 15 one who rides quickly forward, not directly ἃ κακὸς ὁδοιπόρος (LXX.).
Ver. 11. The point of comparison, 11a, is the unforeseen, as in quick march or assault (Bottcher), and 116 the hostile and irretrievable surprise; for a man in armour, as Hitzig remarks, brings no good in his armour: he assails the opponent, and he who is without defence yields to him without the possibility of withstanding him. The LXX. translate Ὁ w*xa by ὥσπερ ἀγαθὸς δρομεύς (cf. δρομεύς = MN, Job vii. 6, LXX., Aq.), for what reason we know not. After ver. 11 they interpose two other lines: “ but if thou art assiduous, thy harvest will come to thee as a fountain, but want will go away ὥσπερ κακὸς δρομεύς. Also this “ bad runner” we must let go; for Lagarde’s retranslation, 362 vexa wind FOND, no one can understand. The four lines, vers. 10, 11, are repeated in the appendix of Words of the Wise, xxiv. 33 f.; and if this appendix originated in the time of Hezekiah, they may have been taken therefrom by the poet, the editor of the older Book of Proverbs. Instead of 32003, yen is there used (so comes forward thy poverty, i.e. again and again, but certainly moving forward); and instead of JON», PDN» is written, as also here, ver. 6, for ἼΠΟΝ is found the variant TWD with Jod as mater lectionis of the pausal Segol.
There follows now a third brief series of instructions, which run to a conclusion with a deterring prospect similar to the foregoing. 12 A worthless man, a wicked man, Is he who practiseth falsehood with his mouth; 13 Who winketh with his eyes, scrapeth with his foot, Pointeth with his fingers. 14 Malice is in his heart, He deviseth evil at all times, He spreadeth strife. 15 Therefore suddenly his destruction shall come, Suddenly shall he be destroyed, and there is no remedy. It is a question, what is the subject and what the predicate in ver. 12. Thus much is clear, that upon him who is here described according to his deceitful conduct the sentence of condemnation shall fall. He who is so described is thus subject, and δυο DIN is without doubt predicate. But does the complex subject begin with 18 YX? Thus eg. Hitzig: “ A worthless man is the wicked man who...” But the interchange of O7N and ws is a sign of parallel relation; and if 126 belonged attributively to px wx, then since [XT YS is not used, it ought at least to have been continued by win, The general moral categories, 12a, are thus predicates, as was indeed besides probable; the copious division of the subject demands also in point of style a more developed predicate. xvi. 27 is simpler in plan, and also logically different. There the expression is, as is usual, oyyoa wit, Since px ooN is not possible, the author uses instead 553. This word, composed of oa and ὃν" (from oy, 1, to be useful, to be good for), so fully serves as one word, that it even takes the article, 1 Sam. xxv. 25. It denotes worthlessness, generally in a chain of words in the genitive, but also the worthless, Job xxxiv. 18; and it is to be so taken here, for DIX does not form a constructivus, and never governs a genitive. 55a is thus a virtual adjective (as neguam in homo nequam); the connection is like that of }¥ O58, xi. 7, and elsewhere, although more appositional than this pure attributive. Synonymous with S52 is ἢ (from an, to breathe), wickedness, i.e. want of all moral character. Thus worthless and wicked is he who practises deceit with his mouth (cf. iv. 24), 1.6. who makes language the means of untruthfulness and uncharitableness. 5 ip is meant in a moral sense, but without excluding that distortion of the mouth which belongs to the mimicry of the malicious. It is the accus. of the object; for yen is also bound in a moral sense with the accusative
Ver. 13. 12 ya YHP is translated according to the sense: who winks (nictat) with his éyes; but that is not the proper meaning of the word, for yop is used not only of the eyes, x. 10 (cf. xvi. 30, qui oculos morsicat or connivet), Ps. xxxv. 19, but also of the lips, xvi. 80. Thus Lowenstein’s explanation: who opens up the eyes, is incorrect. The verb /p unites in it the meanings of (2/3, to pinch off with a sharp implement, and (6,4, with a blunt instru- ment (Arab. mikrad, pincers). It means to pince, to nip, as Arab. kars, pincer,—e.g. kars balskyn alarsasat, he cuts off with the knife the leaden seal,—hence frequently, to nip together the eyes, provincially: to wink (“ zwickern,” frequent. of “ zwicken,” to nip) with the eyes—the action of the deceiver, who thereby gives the sign to others that they help or at least do not hinder him from bantering and mocking, belying and deceiving a third person (FI.); cf. Ali’s proverb, “ O God, pardon to us the culpable winking with the eye (ramzat),” and Fleischer’s notes thereon, the Proverbs of Ali, Ρ. 100 f.
That the words which follow, you Seid, are meant of discourse, i.e. the giving of signs, with the feet, and, so to say, significant oratio pedestris (LX X., Aben-Ezra, Bertheau, Hitzig, and others), is very improbable, since the usage of language has set apart the Piel ob for the meaning logui, and >5v» admits another suitable signification, for δ᾽ means in Talmudic fricare, confricare,—e.g. mo Sdyon, he who grinds the parched ears of corn (ὁ. Beza 126; Ma’seroth, iv. 5), —after which Syr., Targ., 020 (stamping), Aq. τρίβων, Symm. προστρίβων, Jerome, (qui) terit pede, and Rashi wav (grinding, scratching); it means one who scrapes with his feet, draws them backwards and forwards on the ground in order thereby to give a sign to others; also the Arab. nine levem et agilem esse, which as the synonym of a | is connected with | 3 of the way, signifies properly to move the feet quickly hither and thither (ΕἸ.).} Mb
1 The root-idea of the Arab. mall is unquietness of motion; the Arab. noun mallt signifies the glow with its flickering light and burning: glowing ashes, inner agitation, external haste; Arab. malil (bn) is the feverish patient, but also one quickly hastening away, and generally an impatient or hasty person (vid. Wetstein in Baudissin in his Job. Tischendorfianus, vii.6). The grinding
Ver. 14. In this verse is continued the description of the subject, only once returning to the particip. The clauses are arranged independently, but logically according to the complex conception of the subject. M5BIn are just the knaveries, i.e. the malicious wickedness which comes to light in word and deportment as mwvpy mp. Regarding the double figure of the smithy and of agriculture underlying wan, machinari, vid. at 111. 29, and regarding the omission of the xin to Yh, at Ps. vii. 10 The phrase O70 nv (as ver. 19, xvi. 28), to let loose disputes, so that they break forth, reminds us rather of the unfettering of the winds by AZolus than of the casting in of the apple of discord. Instead of Ὁ) the Kert has "3D; on the other hand, 0°27) remains uncorrected vi. 19, x. 12. The form 02% occurs once, xviii. 18, and its constr. “2. once, xix. 13. Everywhere else the text has O21», for which the Keri has Ὁ), xviii. 19, xxi. 9, 19, xxiii. 29, xxv. 24, xxvi. 21, xxvii. 15. The forms }"1 and {7 are also recognised: the former stands alone without any analogous example; the latter is compared at least with 78, Arab. masdd (Psalmen, p. 163, 3). Probably these two forms are warranted by Gen. xxv. 2, cf. xxxvii. 28, 36, where }"1 and {79 occur as the names of two sons of Abraham by Keturah. But the national name 0°2'79 is no reason for the seven times laying aside of the regular form 02170, ¢.e. D'70, which is the plur. of 79 after the forms OD IND, OND, although D7, after the forms D'VAID, OYP¥ID, is also found.