Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

or limit); for correct texts have ipna (Michlol 147a); and although a monosyllable follows, yet there is no throwing back of the tone, after the rule that words terminating in o in this case maintain their ultima accentuation (e.g. bx inwp, Num. xxiv. 23). Fleischer also finally decides for the explanation: guum delinearet circulum super abysso, when He marked out the region of the sea as with the circle. In 28, 29, these two features of the figure of the creation of the world return (the beginning of the firmament, and the embankment of the under waters); hence we see that the discourse here makes a fresh start with a new theme: 28 ‘* When He made firm the ether above, When He restrained the fountains of the waters; 29 When He set to the sea its bounds, That the waters should not pass their limits; When He settled the pillars of the earth; 80 Then was I with Him as director of the work, And was delighted day by day, Rejoic ng always before Him,

81 Rejoicing in His earth, And having my delight in the children of men.”

We have, with Symmachus, translated ὉΠ (from pny, Arab. shak, to grind, to make thin) by αἰθέρα, for so the fine transparent strata of air above the hanging clouds are called—a poetic name of the firmament)~9. The making firm 7/28 is not to be understood locally, but internally of the spreading out of the firmament over the earth settled for continuance (an expression such as Ps. Ixxvill. 23). In 285 the Masora notices the plur. ΠῚ" instead of niny with md as unicum (cf. Michlol 191a); the transition of the sound is as in nea from galajta. The inf. MY appears on the first look to require a transitive signification, as the LX X. and the Targ., the Grac. Venet. and Luther (da er festiget die Briinnen der tieffen = when He makes firm the fountains of the deep) have rendered it. Elster accordingly believes that this signification must be maintained, because 3 here introduces creative activity, and in itself is probably the transitive use of MY, as the Arab. ’azz shows: when He set His ty against the ὯΝ OD (Isa. xliii. 16). But the absence of the subject is in favour of the opinion that here, as everywhere else, it is intransitive; only we may not, with Hitzig, translate: when the fountains of the flood raged wildly; but, since 280, if not a creative efficiency, must yet express a creative work, either as Ewald, with reference to nyn, fortress: when they became firm, or better as Fleischer, with reference to ONY O%: when they broke forth with power, with strong fulness. Whether the suff. of ipn, 29a, refers back to the sea or to Jahve, is decided after the parallel 18. If this word is equivalent to its coast (cf. Ps. civ. 9), then both suffixes refer to the sea; but the coast of the sea, or of a river, is called NY, not 1B, which only means ostium (mouth), not ora. Also Isa. xix. 7 will require to be translated: by the mouth of the Nile; and that ‘», Ps. cxxxiii. 2, may denote the under edge, arises from this, that a coat has a mouth above as well as below, 1.6. is open. Thus both suff. are to be referred to God, and 2 is to be determined after Job xxiii. 12. The clause beginning with ὨΝΟῚ corresponds in periodizing discourse to a clause with ut, Ewald, ὃ 338. pina is the same form, only written plene, as ver. 27, ipha = ipna = ippna,?

1 One might regard it as modified from \ppna; but that "yW, Ps. xcii. 12, is modified from ‘yy, or in, Gen. xlix. 26, from 77; is by no means certain. co ἢ τ ic ia

Ver. 30. In this sentence, subordinating to itself these designations of time, the principal question is as to the meaning of jiD®, Hofmann’s interpretation (Schriftbew. i. 97) “ continually” (uf, absol. in an adverbial sense) is a judicious idea, and }28, to endure, remains indeed in NX (stability); but in this sense, which Ἰδὲ represents, it is not otherwise used. Also N32 (believing, trusting) of the Targ. (Grec. Venet. πίστις, asif the word used were 108) is linguistically inadmissible; the Hebr. P81 corresponds to the Aram. haimén. One of these two only is possible: 28 means either opifea or alumnus. The meaning alumnus (Aquila, τιθηνου- μένη; Meiri and Malbim, Syn pyna pos, ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ) would derive the word from ]28, to support, make firm, take care of; the form ought to have a passive sense (Symm. Theod. éornpuy- μένη), as 773, twined, pressed, strong, great, and be pointed ἽΡ) (with a moveable ἃ, different from the form 1433, ὙΠ, Isa. i. 17); and id&, in the meaning nursling, foster-child, favourite (Schultens, Euchel, Elster, and others, also Rashi and Kimchi, who all find in Nos the meaning of education, 577), would place itself with pdx, fostered, Lam. iv. 5, }28, fosterer, N28, foster-mother. This is the meaning of the word according to the connection, for Wisdom appears further on as the child of God; as such she had her joy before Him; and particularly God’s earth, where she rejoiced with the sons of men, was the scene of her mirth. But on this very account, because this is further said, we also lose nothing if fox should be interpreted otherwise. And it is otherwise to be interpreted, for Wisdom is, in consequence of *33p (viii. 22), and sn>din, which is twice used (viii. 24, 25), God’s own child; but the designation OX would make Him to be the [δὲς of Wisdom; and the child which an ΠΥ bears, Num. xi. 12, and fosters, Esth. ii. 7, is not his own. Hence it follows that }i>8 in this signification would be an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον; on the other hand, it really occurs elsewhere, Jer. lii. 15 (vid. Hitzig J.c.), in the sense of opifex. This sense, which recommends itself to Ewald, Hitzig, Bertheau, and Zockler, lies also at the foundation of the ἁρμόζουσα of the LXX., xopnn of the Syr., the cuncta componens of Jerome, and the designation of Wisdom as ἡ τῶν πάντων τεχνῖτις of the Book of Wisdom vii. 21. The workmaster is called }iox, for which, Cant. vii. 2, OX, or rather JON (ommdn), Aram. and Mishn. j38; not, perhaps, as he whom one entrusts with something in whom one confides or may confide in a work (vid. Fleischer, loc.), but from 28, to be firm, as one whio is strong in his art, as perhaps also the right hand, which has the name ἢ) as being the artifew among the members. The word occurs also as an adjective in the sense of “ experienced, skilful,” and does not form a fem. according to the use of the word in this case before us, only because handicraft (M28) belongs to men, and not to women; also in the Greek, δημιουργός, in the sense of τὰ δημόσια (εἰς τὸ δημόσιον) ἐργαζόμενος, has no fem.; and in Lat., art/fer is used as a substantive (e.g. in Pliny: artifex omnium natura), like an adj. of double gender. It is thus altogether according to rule that we read ΠΣ and not ΠΡ) δὲς (after the form 732); also we would make a mistake if we translated the word by the German “ Werkmeisterin” [work-mistress, directress] (Hitzig), for it is intended to be said that she took up the place of a workmaster with Him, whereby chiefly the artistic performances of a WN [artificer] are thought of. This self-designation of Wisdom is here very suitable; for after she has said that she was brought forth by God before the world was, and that she was present when it was created, this Πὲς now answers the question as to what God had in view when He gave to Wisdom her separate existence, and in what capacity she assisted in the creation of the world: it was she who transferred the creative thoughts originally existing in the creative will of God, and set in motion by His creative order, from their ideal into their real effectiveness, and, as it were, artistically carried out the delineations of the several creatures; she was the mediating cause, the demiurgic power which the divine creative activity made use of, as is said, 11]. 19, “ Jahve has by Wisdom founded the earth,” and as the Jerusalem Targ. Gen. i. 1, in connection with Prov. viil. 22, translates: SIN ΤῸ NYE My NID DEIN,

But—this is now the question—does the further unfolding of the thoughts here agree with this interpretation of pox? That we may not misunderstand what follows, we must first of all represent to ourselves, that if ox meant the foster-child, Wisdom could not yet, in what follows, be thought of as a little child (Num. xi. 12), for that would be an idea without any meaning; to rejoice [spielen = play] is certainly quite in accordance with youth, as 2 Sam. 1]. 14 shows (where ‘355 pn is said of the sportive combat of youthful warriors before the captain), not exclusively little children. So, then, we must guard against interpreting Dywy, with the LXX. and Syr., in the sense of "3;WyY,—an interpretation which tlie

Targ., Jerome, the Gree. Venet., and Luther have happily avoided; for mention is not made here of what Wisdom is for Jahve, but of what she is in herself. The expression is to be judged after Ps. cix. 4 (cf. Gen. xii. 2), where Hitzig rightly translates, “I am wholly prayer;” but Béttcher, in a way characteristic of his mode of interpretation, prefers, “I am ointment” (vid. Neue Aehrenlese, No. 1222). The delight is meant which this mediating participation in God’s creating work imparted to her—joy in the work in which she was engaged. The pluralet. ον is to be understood here, not after Jer. xxxi. 20, but after Isa. xi. 8, Ps. cxix. 70, where its root-word, the Pilpel νον (proceeding from the primary meaning of caressing, demulcere), signifies intransitively: to have his delight somewhere or in anything, to delight oneself,—a synonym to the idea of play (cf. Aram. 8Yt’, Ethpe. to play, Ethpa. to chatter); for play is in contrast to work, an occupation which has enjoyment in view. But the work, z.e. the occupation, which aims to do something useful, can also become a play if it costs no strenuous effort, or if the effort which it costs passes wholly into the background in presence of the pleasure which it yields) Thus Wisdom daily, ie. during the whole course of creation, went forth in pure delight; and the activity with which she translated into fact the creative thoughts was a joyful noise in the sight of God, whose commands she obeyed with childlike devotion; cf. 2 Sam. vi. 21, where David calls his dancing and leaping before the ark of the covenant a ‘7 BD pn’. But by preference, her delight was in the world, which i3 illustrated from the Persian Minokhired, which personifies Wisdom, and, among other things, says of her: ‘The creation of the earth, and its mingling with water, the springing up and the growth of the trees, all the different colours, the odour, the taste, and that which is pleasing in everything—all that is chiefly the endowment and the performance of Wisdom.”* She also there says that she was before all celestial and earthly beings, the first with Ormuzd, and that all that is celestial and earthly arose and also remains in existence by her. But the earth was the dearest object of her delight in the whole world; to help in establishing it (iii. 19) was her joyful occupation; to fashion it, and to provide it with the multiplicity of existences designed for it, was the most pleasant part of her creative activity. For the earth is the abode of man, and the heart-pleasure of Wisdom was with (ΠΣ, prep.) 1 Vid. Spiegel’s Grammatik der Parsisprache, p. 162, cf. 182.

the chikiren of men; with them she found her high enjoyment, these were her peculiar and dearest sphere of activity.

Ver. 31. Since the statements of Wisdom, as to her participation in the creation of the world, are at this point brought to a close, in this verse there is set forth the intimate relation into which she tiius entered to the earth and to mankind, and which she has continued to sustain to the present day. She turned her love to the earth for the sake of man, and to man not merely as a corporeal, but especially as a spiritual being, to whom she can disclose her heart, and whom, if he receives her, she can bring back to God (Book of Wisdom vii. 27). There are not here express references to Gen. i. or il. In df BY (day for day, as Gen. xxxix. 10, ef. Esth. ii. 4, di) Of) we have not to think of the six days of creation. But inasmuch as the whole description goes down to DN "33 as its central-point, it denotes that creation came to its close and its goal inman. The connection of j}7S 22n is as Job xxxvii. 12, where NMS for ΝΣ is wholly, as Πρ, ND, and the like, an original accusative.

Ver. 32. After that Wisdom has shown in vers. 22-31 how worthy her fellowship is of being an object of desire from her mediating place between God and the world, she begins with this verse (as vii. 24, v. 7) the hortatory (pardnetische) concluding part of her discourse:

And salvation to those who keep my ways!” The LXX. omits ver. 33, and obviates the disturbing element of WS), 324, arising from its ἢ, by a transposition of the stichs. But this "wx is the same as the καὶ μακάριος, Matt. xi. 6; the organic connection lies hid, as Schleiermacher (/Zermeneutik, p. 72) well expresses it, in the mere sequence; the clause containing the proof is connected by } with that for which proof is to be assigned, instead of subordinating itself to it with 3. Such an exclamatory clause has already been met with in iii. 13; there ΘΝ follows as the governed genitive, here a complete sentence (instead of the usual participial construction, ‘977 12) forms this genitive, Gesen. § 123, 8, Anm. 1.

The summons 32a, and its reason 326, are repeated in these verses which follow:

83 ‘‘ Hear instruction, and be wise, And withdraw not.

84 Blessed is the man who hears me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors! 35 For whosoever findeth me has found life, And has obtained favour from Jahve; 36 And whoscever misseth me doeth wrong to himself; All they who hate me love death.” The imper. 2), 33a (et sapite), is to be judged after iv. 4, mn), cf. the Chethib, xiii. 20; one sees this from the words synen yy which folie, to silakes after xv. 32, as at iv. 13, to par}, DID is to be placed as abjdets and throw not to the αἷμαν (ne missam faciatis; vid. regarding J 5 at i. 25), viz. instruction (disctplinam).

Ver. 34. The W® here following °¥ is related to it as assigning a motive, like the “WN (ver. 326) following WO; according to the Masora, we have to write "WR with Mercha, and on the first syllable Ba (vid. Baer’s Torath Emeth, pp- 26, 29; cf. under Ps. i. 1). 1)? signifies to watch, not in the sense ne ad vigilandum, but vigilando, as Isa. v. 22, xxx. 1; Ewald, ὃ 380d. In contradistinction to YY and }*23, which denote watching as the consequence of wakefulness or an interruption of sleep, 1? signifies watching as a condition, and that as one which a person willingly maintains (Psychol. p. 275), the intentional watching (cf. Arab. shakidha, to fix penetrating eyes upon anything), with Sy of the place and object and aim (Jer. v. 6; cf. Sy wyn, Job viii. 6). The plurals ὭΣ (fores, as nin, Jer. i. 18, menia) and ὉΠ are amplifying plurs. of extension, suggesting the idea of a palace or temple; Nh) (postes porte, in quibus cardines ejus moventur, from tt, to move hither and thither) is intended to indicate that he to whom the discourse refers holds himself in closest nearness to the entrance, that he might not miss the moment when it is opened, or when she who dwells there presents herself to view. “The figure is derived from the service of a court: Wisdom is honoured by her disciples, as a queen or high patroness; cf. Samachschari’s Golden Necklaces, Pr. 35: Blessed is the man who knocks only at God’s door, and who departs not a nail’s breadth from God’s threshold” (ΕἸ.).

Ver. 35. This verse gives the reason for pronouncing those happy who honour Wisdom. The Chethid is-O%C ΝΑ ΝΑ 5, but the passing over into the sing. 35d is harsh and objectionable; the Ker? rightly regards the second ‘xy as a mistaken repetition of the first, and substitutes O° N¥ ‘N¥d ‘3, with which the 'NDM (ver.

36a) of the antithesis agrees. Regarding ‘sy, for which, less accurately, ND (only with the Dechi without Metheg) is generally written, vid. Accentuationssystem, vii. § 2. P87, to get out =reach, exchanged with 8¥1, 11. 13 (vid. there); according to its etymon, it is connected with 2, of him from or by whom one has reached anything; here, as xil. 2, xvill. 22, God’s favour, favorem a Jova ampetravit.

Ver. 36. KOA may, it is true, mean “ my sinning one=he who sins against me (8 ΝΠ), » as ‘2? is frequently equivalent to ὧν DOP; but the contrast of NSD places it beyond a doubt that xon stands ‘Wes in its oldest signification: to miss something after which one runs (xix. 2), seeks (Job v. 24), at which one shoots (Hiph. Judg. xx. 16), etc., ad non attingere quod petitur, Arab. d&khta, to miss, opposite to dsab, to hit (F1.). Just because it is the idea of missing, which, ethically applied, passes over into that of sin and guilt (of fault, mistake, false step, “ Fehls, Fehlers, Fehltritts”), son can stand not only with the accusative of the subject in regard to which one errs, Lev. v. 16, but also with the accusative of the subject which one forfeits, 1.6. misses and loses, xx. 2, cf. Hab. ii. 10; so that not only 52 DNb, xv. 32 (animam suam nihili facit), but also wp) NDIN, xx. 2 ewan suam pessumdat), is synonymous with Ww) DDH (anime sue h. ὁ. sibi ipsi injuriam facit). Whoever misses Wisdom by taking some other way than that which leads to her, acts suicidally: all they who wilfully hate (Piel) wisdom love death, for wisdom is the tree‘of life, iii. 18; wisdom and life are one, 35a, as the Incarnate Wisdom saith, John viii. 51, “If a man keep my sayings, he shall never see death.” In the Logos, Wisdom has her self-existence; in Him she has her personification, her justification, and her truth.

The preceding discourse pronounces those happy who, having taken their stand at the portal of Wisdom, wait for her appearance and her invitation. There is thus a house of Wisdom as there is a house of God, Ps. Ixxxiv. 11; and if now the discourse is of a house of Wisdom, and of an invitation to a banquet therein (like that in the parable, Matt. xxii., of the invitation to the marriage feast of the king’s son), it is not given without preparation: 1 Wisdom hath builded for herself an house, Hewn out her seven pillars; 2 Hath slaughtered her beasts, mingled her wine; Hath also spread her table;

8 Hath sent out her maidens; she waiteth On the highest points of the city.

Regarding Nidan, vid. at i. 20. It is a plur. eaxcellentie, which is a variety of the plur. extensivus. Because it is the expression of a plural unity, it stands connected (as for the most part also ὉΠΟΝ, Deus) with the sing. of the predicate. The perfects enumerate all that Wisdom has done to prepare for her invitation. If we hada parable before us, the perf. would have run into the historical novim; but it is, as the 81?N shows, an allegorical picture of the arrangement and carrying out of a present reality. Instead of n'a mp nn23 there is "M2 5N]2, for the house is already in its origin represented as hers, and 10 is to be translated: she has hewn out her seven pillars (Hitzig); more correctly: her pillars, viz. seven (after the scheme 7)7 0N37, Gen. xxxvii. 2); but the construction is closer. nyaw is, altogether like Ex. xxv. 37, the accusative of the second object, or of the predicate after the species of verba, with the idea: to make something, turn into something, which take to themselves a double accusative, Gesen. § 139, 2: excidit columnas suas ita ut septem essent. Since the figure is allegorical, we may not dispense with the interpretation of the number seven by the remark, “ No emphasis lies in the number” (Bertheau). First, we must contemplate architecturally the house with seven pillars: “ They are,” as Hitzig rightly remarks, “the pillars of the ὙΠ (porch) [wid. Bachmann under Judg. iii. 23, and Wetstein under Ps. cxliv. 12, where 207 is used of the cutting out and hewing of wood, as 33M of the cutting out and hewing of stone] in the inner court, which bore up the gallery of the first (and second) floors: four of these in the corners and three in the middle of three sides; through the midst of these the way led into the court of the house-floor [the area].” But we cannot agree with Hitzig in maintaining that, with the seven pillars of viii. and ix., the author looks back to the first seven chapters (Arab. dbwab, gates) of this book; we think otherwise of the component members of this Introduction to the Book of Proverbs; and to call the sections of a book “ gates, o»yvi,” is a late Arabico-Jewish custom, of which there is found no trace whatever in the O. T. To regard them also, with Heidenheim (cf. Dante's Prose Writings, translated by Streckfuss, p. 77), as representing the seven liberal arts (ΠΣ ΠῚ yaw’) is impracticable; for this division of the artes liberales into seven, consisting of the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectics) and Quadrivium (Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy), is not to be looked for within the old Israelitish territory, and besides, these were the sciences of this world which were so divided; but wisdom, to which the discourse here refers, is wholly a religious-moral subject. The Midrash thinks of the seven lieavens (D'y"pr nyaw), or the seven climates or parts of the earth (myx ΠΡ), as represented by them; but both references require artificial combinations, and have, as also the reference to the seven church-eras (Vitringa and Chr. Ben. Michaelis), this against them, that they are rendered probable neither from these introductory proverbial discourses, nor generally from the O.T. writings. The patristic and middle-age reference to the seven sacraments of the church passes sentence against itself; but the old interpretation is on the right path, when it suggests that the seven pillars are the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. The sevenfoldness of the manifestation of the Spirit, already brought near by the seven lamps of the sacred candelabra (the 73%), is established by Isa. xi. 2 (vid. l.c.); and that Wisdom is the possessor and dispenser of the Spirit she herself testifies, 1.23. Her Spirit is the “Spirit of wisdom;”’ but at the same time, since, born of God, she is mediatrix between God and the world, also the “Spirit of Jahve.” He is the “ spirit of understanding,” the “ spirit of counsel,” and the “spirit of might” (Isa. xi. 2); for she says, vill. 14, “Counsel is mine, and reflection; I am understanding, I have strensth.” He is also the “spirit of knowledge,” and the “ spirit of the fear of the Lord” (Isa. xi. 2); for fear and the knowledge of Jahve are, according to ix. 14, the beginning of wisdom, and essentially wisdom itself.

Ver. 2. If thus the house of Wisdom is the place of her fellowship with those who honour her, the system of arrangements made by her, so as, to disclose and communicate to her disciples the fulness of her strength and her gifts, then it is appropriate to understand by the seven pillars the seven virtues of her nature

Ver. 3. The verb N1?, when a feast is spoken of, means to invite; O'ND?, ver. 18 (cf. 1 Sam. ix. 13, etc.), are the guests. mnny2 the “LXX. translates τοὺς ἑαυτῆς δούλους, but certainly here the disciples are meant who already are in the service of Wisdom; but that those who are invited to Wisdom are thought of as feminine, arises from the tasteful execution of the picture. The invitation goes forth to be known to all far and wide, so that in her servants Wisdom takes her stand in the high places of the city. Instead of U3, viii. 2, i. 21, there is used here thé expression δ᾿, We must dnbadeia’ the Semitic ἢ) (= gan/), wings, from 433=5)3, to cover, and ἢ (= gaff or ganf), the bark, which is derived either from D3 or 523, Was>, converus, incurvus et ex-

Now follows the street-sermon of Wisdom inviting to her banquet:

4 * Who is simple? let him come hither!”

Whoso wanteth understanding, to him she saith: 5 ‘* Come, eat of my bread,

And drink of the wine which I have mingled! G Cease, ye simple, and live,

And walk straight on in the way of understanding.”

The question ‘M2 Ὁ (thus with Munach, not with Makkeph, it is to be written here and at ver. 16; vid. Baer’s Torath Emeth, p. 40), quis est imperitus, is, as Ps. xxv. 12, only a more animated expression for quisquis est. The retiring into the background of the ny) (servants), and the immediate appearance of Wisdom herself, together with the interruption, as was to be expected, of her connected discourses by the #3 MON, are signs that the pure execution of the allegorical representation is here at an end. Hitzig seeks, by the rejection of vers. 4, 5, 7-10, to bring in a logical sequence; but these interpolations which he cuts out are yet far more inconceivable than the proverbial discourses in the mouth of Wisdom, abandoning the figure of a banquet, which besides are wholly in the spirit of the author of this book. That Folly invites to her, ver. 16, in the same words as are used by Wisdom, ver 4, is not strange; both address themselves to the simple (vid. on ‘NB at i. 4) and those devoid of understanding (as the youth, vii. 7), and seek to bring to their side those who are accessible to evil as to good, and do not fully distinguish between them, which the emulating devertat hue of bothimports. The fourth verse points partly backwards, and partly forwards; 4a has its introduction in the spn of ver. 3; on the contrary, 46 is itself the introduction of what follows. The setting forth of the nom. absolutus 2-70 is conditioned by the form of 4a; the Ἢ (cf. 4a) is continued (in 4) without its needing to be supplied: excors (= si quis est excors) dicit et (not dixit, because syntactically subordinating itself to the sipn). It is a nominal clause, whose virtual predicate (the devoid of understanding is thus and thus addressed by her) is in ver. 16. Ver. 5. The plur. of the address shows that the simple (inexperienced) and the devoid of understanding are regarded as essentially one and the same class of men. ‘The 3 after pn? and mn’ proceeds neither from the idea of eating into (hewing into) anything, nor from the eating with anything, 1.6. inasmuch as one makes use of it, nor of pampering oneself with anything (as 3 8); Michaelis at last makes a right decision (cf. Lev. xxii. 11, Judg.

xili, 16, Job xxi. 25, and particularly 3 Dn, Ps. exli. 4): communicationem et participationem in re fruenda denotat; the LXX. φάγετε τῶν ἐμῶν ἄρτων. The attributive ID On with backward ‘reference briefly for 93D), That Wisdom, ver. 2, offers flesh and wine, but here presents ‘bread and wine, is no contradiction, which would Jead us, with Hitzig, critically to reject vers. 4 and 5 as spurious; pn? is the most common, all-comprehensive name for nourishment. Bertheau suitably compares Jahve’s invitation, Isa lv. 1, and that of Jesus, John vi. 35.

Ver. 6. That O'NN5 is a plur. wake abstract signification (according to which the four Greek and the two Aramean translations render it; the Grec. Venet., however, renders τοὺς νηπίους) is improbable; the author forms the abstr. ver. 13 otherwise, and the expression here would be doubtful. For oxnd is here to be rendered as the object-accus.: leave the simple, 1.6. forsake this class of men (Ahron Ὁ. Joseph; Umbreit, Zéckler); or also, which we prefer (since it is always a singular thought that the “simple” should leave the “ simple”), as the vocative, and so that 331Y means not absolutely “leave off” (Hitzig), but so that the object to be thought of is to be taken from D°NNnD: give up, leave off, viz. the simple (Immanuel and others; on the contrary, Rashi, Meiri, and others, as Ewald, Bertheau, decide in favour of oNnd as n. abstr.). Regarding vm, Fas et vivetis, vid.iv.4. The LXX., paraphrasing: iva εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα βασιλεύσητε. WN is related to WW (TWN) as ὭΣ to 7; the Piel, not in its intrans. (vid. iv. 14) but in its trans. sense (Isa. i. 17, iii. 12, etc.), shows that the idea of going straight out and forwards connects itself therewith. The peculiarity of the ‘nd is just the absence of character.

In what now follows the discourse of Wisdom is continued; wherefore she directs her invitation to the simple, z.e. those who have not yet decided, and are perhaps susceptible of that which is better:

7 ‘* He who correcteth a scorner draweth upon himself insult; And he who communicateth instruction to a scorner, it is a dishonour to him. 8 Instruct not a scorner, lest he hate thee; Give instruction to the wise, so he will love thee. 9 Give to the wise, and he becomes yet wiser; Give knowledge to the upright, and he gains in knowledge.”

Zockler thinks that herewith the reason for the summons to the “simple” to forsake the fellowship of men of their own sort, is assigned (he explains Ga as Ahron Ὁ. Joseph: D’NnDn [2 wmnpn); but his remark that, under the term “ simple,” mockers and wicked persons are comprehended as belonging to the same category, confounds two sharply distinguished classes of men. Ὁ is the freethinker who mocks at religion and virtue (vid. i. 22), and ye the godless who shuns restraint by God and gives himself up to the unbridled impulse to evil. The course of thought in ver. 7 and onwards shows why Wisdom, turning from the wise, who already are hers, directs herself only to the simple, and those who are devoid of understanding: she must pass over the 7? and yen, because she can there hope for no receptivity for her invitation; she would, contrary to Matt. vii. 6, “ give that which is holy to the dogs, and cast her pearls before swine.” D°, παιδεύειν (with the prevailing idea of the bitter lesson of reproof and punishment), and ΠΡ Π, ἐλέγχειν, are interchangeable conceptions, Ps. xciv. 10; the? is here exponent of the object (to bring an accusation against any one), as ver. 8, xv. 12 (otherwise as Isa. ii. 4, xi. 4, where it is the dat. commodi: to bring unrighteousness to light, in favour of the injured). 12 1D§ is pointed with Mahpach of the penultima, and thus with the tone thrown back. The Pasek, placed in some editions between the two words, is masoretically inaccurate. He who reads the moral to the mocker brings disgrace to himself; the incorrigible replies to the goodwill with insult. Similar to the Ἢ πρὸ here, is ὩΣ tollit =reportat, iii. 35, iv. 27. In Τὺ {nx is by no means the object governed by 2523: and he who shows to the godless his fault (Meiri, Arama, Lowenstein: wm = wy, and thus also the Grae. Venet. μῶμον ἑαυτῷ, scil. λαμβάνει); plainly wo is parallel with dp. But win does not also subordinate itself to NP? as to the object. parallel p$p: maculam sibimet scil. acquirit; for, to be so understood, the author ought at least to have written 15 py. Much rather 110 is here, as at Deut. xxxii. 5, appos., thus pred. (Hitzig), without needing anything to be supplied: his blot it is, viz. this proceeding, which is equivalent to m2 sam δ 2) (Targ.), opprobrio ipsi est. Zéckler not incorrectly compares Ps. exv. 7 and Eccles. v. 16, but the expression (macula ejus = wpst) lies here less remote from our form of expression. In other words: Whoever correcteth the mockers has only to expect hatred (MaIn- ON with the tone thrown back, according to rule; cf., on the contrary, Judg. xviii. 25), but on the other hand, love from the wise.

Ver. 8. The } in 7298" is that of consequence (apodosis tmperativi): so he will love thee (as also Ewald now translates), not: that he may love thee (Syr., Targ.), for the author speaks here only of the consequence, not of something else, as an object kept ‘1 view. ‘The exhortation influences the mocker less than nothing, so much the more it bears fruit with the wise. Thus the proverb is confirmed habenti dabitur, Matt. xiii. 12, xxv. 29.

Ver. 9. If anything is to be supplied to }f, it 15 np? (iv. 2); but in, tradere, παραδιδόναι, is of itself correlat. of προ, accipere (postbibl. 30), παραλαμβάνειν, eg. Gal. i. 9. 2 yy = to communicate knowledge, nyt, follows the analogy of > Mav, to impart instruction, nnn. Regarding the jussive form ADI in the apod. imper., vid. Gesen. § 128, 2. Observe in this verse the interchange of pan and ΡΣ! Wisdom is not merely an intellectual power, it is a moral quality; in this is founded her receptivity of instruction, her embracing of every opportunity for self-improvement. She is humble; for, without self-will and self-sufficiency, she makes God’s will her highest and absolutely binding rule (iii. 7).

These words naturally follow:

10 “ΤῊ beginning of wisdom is the fear of Jahve, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

This is the highest principle of the Chokma, which stands (i. 7) as a motto at the beginning of the Book of Proverbs. The LXX. translate M87 there (i. 7), and nnn here, by ἀρχή. Gusset distinguishes the two synonyms as pars optima and primus actus; but the former denotes the fear of God as that which stands in the uppermost place, to which all that Wisdom accomplishes subordinates itself; the latter as that which begins wisdom, that which it proposes to itself in its course. With mm is interchanged, ii. 5, ovnbdx, as here Ὁ Ρ, as the internally multiplicative plur. (Dietrich, Abhandlungen, pp. 12, 45), as xxx. 3, Josh. xxiv. 9, Hos. xii. 1, of God, the “ Holy, holy, holy” (Isa. vi. 3),.6. Him who is absolutely Holy. Michaelis inaccurately, following the ancients, who understood not this non-numerical plur.: cognitio que sanctos facit et sanctis propria est. The Ny, parallel with NX, is meant of lively practical operative knowledge, which subordinates itself to this All-holy God as the normative but unapproachable pattern.

* For by me will thy days become many, And the years of thy life will be increased.”

Incorrectly Hitzig: “and years of life will increase to thee;’ O17 is always and everywhiere (e.g. also Job xxxviii. 11) transitive. In the similar passage, iii. 2, 12.0" had as its subject the doctrine of Wisdom; here ΠΌΣΠ and ΠΟ it is not practicable to interpret as subj., since Lla Wisdom is the subject discoursing—the expression follows the scheme, dicunt eos = dicuntur, as e.g. Job vii. 3; Gesen. § 137—a concealing of the operative cause, which lies near, where, as ii. 22, the discourse is of severe judgment, thus: they (viz. the heavenly Powers) will grant to thee years of life (ὉΠ in a pregnant sense, as iil. 2) in rich measure, so that constantly one span comes after another. But in what connection of consequence does this stand with the contents of the proverb, ver. 10? The ancients say that the clause with ‘3 refers back to ver.5f. The vers. 7-10 (according also to Fl.) are, as it were, parenthetic. Hitzig rejects these verses as an interpolation, but the connection of ver. 11 with 5 f. retains also something that is unsuitable: “ steps forward on the way of knowledge, for by me shall thy days become many;” and if, as Hitzig supposes, ver. 12 is undoubtedly genuine, whose connection with ver. 11 is in no way obvious, then also will the difficulty of the connection of vers. 7-10 with the preceding and the succeeding be no decisive mark of the want of genuineness of this course of thought. We have seen how the progress of ver. 6 to 7 is mediated: the invitation of Wisdom goes forth to the receptive, with the exclusion of the irrecoverable. And ver. 11 is related to ver. 10, as the proof of the cause from the effect. It is the fear of God with which Wisdom begins, the knowledge of God in which above all it consists, for by it is fulfilled the promise of life which is given to the fear of God, x. 27, xiv. 27, xix. 23, cf. Deut. iv. 40, and to humility, which is bound up with it, x. 17.

Ver. 12. This wisdom, resting on the fear of God, is itself a blessing to the wise:

‘« Tf thou art wise, thou art wise for thyself; And if thou mockest, thou alone shalt bear it.”

The LXX., with the Syr., mangle the thought of 12a, for they translate: if thou art wise for thyself, so also thou wilt be wise for thy neighbour. The dat. commodi "2 means that it is for the personal advantage of the wise to be wise. The contrast expressed by Job xxii. 2 f.: not profitable to God, but to thyself (Hitzig), is scarcely intended, although, so far as the accentuation is antithetic, it is the nearest. The perf. Fy? is the hypothetical; Gesen. δ 126, 1. To bear anything, viz. anything sinful (SON or HY), is equivalent to, to atone for it, Job xxxiv. 2, cf. Num. ix. 13, Ezek. xxiii. 35. Also 120 is a contrast scarcely aimed at. Wisdom is its own profit to man; libertinism is its own disgrace. Man decides, whenever he prefers to be wise, or to be a mocker of religion and of virtue, regarding his own weal and woe. With this nota bene the discourse of Wisdom closes.

The poet now brings before us another figure, for he personifies Folly working in opposition to Wisdom, and gives her a feminine name, as the contrast to Wisdom required, and thereby to indicate that the seduction, as the 13th proverbial discourse (chap. vii.) has shown, appears especially in the form of degraded womanhood:

13 The woman Folly [Frau Thorheit] conducts herself boisterously, Wantonness, and not knowing anything at all;

14 And hath seated herself at the door of her house, On a seat high up in the city,

15 To call to those who walk in the way, Who go straight on their path.

The connection of ἜΣ NWS is genitival, and the genitive is not, as in 2 NWS, vi. 24, specifying, but appositional, as in pry-na (vid. under Isa. i. 8). 3217 [boisterous] is pred., as vii. 11: her object is sensual, and therefore her appearance excites passionately, overcoming the resistance of the mind by boisterousness. In 130 it is further said who and how she is. M75 she is called as wantonness personified. This abstract 3, derived from ‘nB, must be vocalized as MUNIN; Hitzig thinks it is written with @ on account of the following u sound, but this formation always ends in 7jith, not ajith. But as from 40 as well ἢ) Π τ ἡ Π as fitn is formed, so from NB as well ΓΒ like MI!, or Mn8 like mato, may, as nvnB (instead of which N*NB is preferred) can be formed; Kimehi rightly (Michlol 181a) presents the word under the form Moya, With on (xiv. 7) poetic, and stronger than NP, the designation of the subject is continued; the words 1d nyyon (thus with Mercha and without Makkeph following, py is to be written, after Codd. and old editions) have the value of an adjective: and not knowing anything at all ([9=7i, as Num. xxiii. 3, Job xiii. 13, and here in the negative clause, as in prose WI), ie. devoid of all knowledge. The Targ. translates explanatorily: not recognising. SAL, the good; and the L_XX. substitutes: she knows not shame, which, according to Hitzig, supposes the word M303, approved of by him; but ΠΟΘ means always pudefactio, not pudor. To know no ΠΣ would be equivalent to, to let no shaming from without influence one; for shamelessness the poet would have made use of the expression NWA mypoa, Τὴ nv the declaration regarding the subject beginning with Ayn is continued: Folly also has a house in which works of folly are carried on, and has set herself down by the door (Ane? as DD, vill. 3) of this house; she sits there NDI~Y. Most interpreters here think on a throne (LXX. ἐπὶ δίφρου, used especially of the sella curulis); and Zockler, as Umbreit, Hitzig, and others, connecting genitiv. therewith ‘2° nip, changes in 146 tlie scene, for he removes the “ high throne of the city” from the door of the house to some place elsewhere. But the sitting is in contrast to the standing and going on the part of Wisdom on the streets preaching (Evagrius well renders: in molli ignavaque sella); and if sD3 and house-door are named along with each other, the former is a seat before the latter, and the accentuation rightly separates by Mugrash Sd3 from np ‘DD. “ According to the accents and the meaning, Nip "271 is the ace. loci: on the high places of the city, as vil. 2f.” (F].) They are the high points of the city, to which, as Wisdom, ver. 3, viil. 2, so also Folly, her rival (wherefore Eccles. x. 6 does not appertain to this place), invites followers to herself. She sits before her door to call 377 "2299 (with Munach, as in Cod. 1294 and old editions, without the Jfukkeph), those who go along the way (genitive connection with the supposition of the accusative construction, transire viam, as ii. 7), to call (invite) ON (to be pointed with Ὁ. raphatum and Guja going before, according to Ben-Asher’s rule; vid. Methegsetz. ὃ 20), those who make straiglit their path, 1.6. who go straight on, directly before them (cf Isa. lvii. 2). The participial construction (the schemes amans Dei and amans Deum), as well as that of the verb xp (first with the dat. and then with the accus.), interchange.

The woman, who in her own person serves as a sign to her house, addresses those who pass by in their innocence (300, 2 Sam. xv. 11):

16 ‘‘ Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither!” And if any one is devoid of understanding, she saith to him:

17 ‘* Stolen waters taste sweet, And the bread of secrecy is pleasant.”

‘nB (folly, simplicity) has aside accessible to good and its contrary: Wisdom is connected with the one side, and Folly with the other. And as the 20" ἼΌΠ offers a vacuum to Wisdom which may perhaps be filled with the right contents, so is this vacuum welcome to Folly, because it meets there no resistance. In this sense, ver. 16 is like ver. 4 (excepting the addition of a connecting and of a concluding }: et st quis excors, tum dicit ec); the word is the same in both, but the meaning, according to the two speakers, is different. That to which they both invite is the pleasure of her fellowship, under the symbol of eating and drinking; in the one case it is intellectual and spiritual enjoyment, in the other sensual. That Wisdom offers (ix. 5) bread and wine, and Folly water and bread, has its reason in this, that the particular pleasure to which the latter invites is of a sensual kind; for to drink water out of his own or out of another fountain is (iil. 15-20) the symbol of intercourse in married life, or of intercourse between the unmarried, particularly of adulterous intercourse. °2123 DX) (correct texts have it thus, without the Makkeph) is sexual intercourse which is stolen from him who has a right thereto, thus carnal intercouse with vex NWN; and pnd pnp flesnly Just, which, because it is contrary to the law, must seek (cf. furtum, secret love intrigue) concealment (OND, extensive plur., as ΡΣ; Bottcher, ὃ 694). Just such pleasure, after which one wipes his mouth as if he had done nothing (xxx. 20), is for men who are without wisdom sweet (pnd, Job xx. 12) and pleasant; the prohibition of it gives to such pleasure attraction, and the secrecy adds seasoning; and just such enjoyments the mp3, personified carnality, offers. But woe to him who, befooled, enters her house! He goes within: 18 And he knows not that the dead are there; In the depths of Hades, her guests. How near to one another the house of the adulteress and Hades are, so that a man passes through the one into the other, is already stated in ii. 18, vii. 28. Here, in the concluding words of the introduction to the Book of Proverbs, addressed to youth, and for the most part containing warnings against sinful pleasures, these two further declarations are advanced: the company assembled in the house of lewdness consists of D'ND), ie. (cf. p. 83) the old, worn-out, who are only in appearance living, who have gone down to the seeming life of the shadowy existence of the kingdom of the dead; her - (mbyD3) invited ones (cf. vil. 26, her slaughtered ones) are in the depths of Hades (not in the panos as Umbreit, Lowenstein, and Ewald translate, but in the depths, Manele Symmachus, Theodotion, ἐπὶ τοῖς βαθέσι; for POY is not only plur. to Pd, but also per metaplasmum to Pdy, xxv. 3, as “IDS to Tk), thus in NANA ΠΩΣ (Deut. xxxii. 22); they have ΤΉΝ the fellowship of the life and of the love of God, and have sunk into the deepest destruction. The house of infamy into which Folly allures does not only lead to hell, it is hell itself; and they who permit themselves to be thus befooled are like wandering corpses, and already on this side of death are in the realm of wrath and of the curse.’

The superscription, πίον vin, here shows that now we have reached that which the title of ἐμὲ book, i. 1-6, presented to view. Here we have the commencement of that collection of Solomonic Proverbs which under this title forms, together with the introduction, i. 7-ix., the Older Book of Proverbs. The introduction is disproportionately long. It is the manner of the editor to extend himself in length and breadth; and besides, an educational zeal in behalf of youth, and his aim, which was without doubt to put them on their guard against certain prevailing moral evils of his time, make him thus persuasive; and if he detains his readers so long from the proper Solomonic Proverbs, yet this might be excused from the circumstance, that though his introduction does not strictly consist of Proverbs of Solomon, yet it consists of proverbs after the manner of Solomon, ζ.6. of proverbs which, as to their contents and form, take their structure from the pattern of those of Solomonic authorship.

In this introduction, i.—ix., there are larger sections of interconnected thoughts having one common aim. Even in vi. 1-19 there are manifestly three proverbial discourses distinguished from one another, shorter indeed, yet containing one fundamental thought.

1 The LXX. has considerable additions introduced after ver. 18, as also after ver. 12, of which we shall elsewhere speak.

Such proverbs as are primarily designed to form one completed little whole of themselves, are not here to be met with. On the contrary, the Solomonic collection which now follows consists of pure distichs, for the most part antithetical, but at the same time going over all the forms of the technical proverb, as we have already shown; vid. p. 16. Accordingly the exposition must from this point onward renounce reproduced combinations of thought. The succession of proverbs here is nevertheless not one that is purely accidental or without thought; it is more than a happy accident when three of the same character stand together; the collector has connected together proverb with proverb according to certain common characteristics (Bertheau). And yet more than that: the mass separates itself into groups, not merely succeeding one another, but because a certain connection of ideas connects together a number of proverbs, in such a way that the succession is broken, and a new point of departure is arrived at (Hitzig). There is no comprehensive plan, such as Oetinger in his summary view of its contents supposes; the progressive unfolding follows no systematic scheme, but continuously wells forth. But that the editor, whom we take also to be the arranger of the contents of the book, did not throw them together by good chance, but in placing them together was guided by certain reasons, the very first proverb here shows, for it is chosen in conformity with the design of this book, which is specially dedicated to youth: 1 A wise son maketh glad his father; A foolish son is his mother’s grief.

One sees here quite distinctly (cf. Hos. xiii. 13) that 029 (from DIN, properly to be thick, stout, solid, as πυκνός = σοφός) is primarily a practical and ethical conception. Similar proverbs are found further on, but consisting of synonymous parallel members, in which either the father both times represents the parents, as xvii. 21, xxiii. 24, or father and mother are separated, each being named in different members, as xvil. 25, xxii. 25, and particularly xv. 20, where 20a =1a of the above proverb. It is incorrect to say, with Hitzig, that this contrast draws the division after it: the division lies nearer in the synonymous distichs, and is there less liable to be misunderstood then in the antithetic. Thus, from this proverb before us, it might be concluded that grief on account of a befooled son going astray in bypaths, and not coming to the right way, falls principally on the mother, as (Sir. iil. 9) is often the case in unfortunate marriages. The idea of the parents is in this way only separated, and the two members stand in suppletive interchangeable relationship. mov" is the middle of the clause, and is the aha form in connection; nav. is the pausal form. Maw, from myn (73), has pass. ad, as THA, act.6. “The expression of the pred. 10 is like iii. 17, viii. 6, x. ve cf. e.g. Arab. dlastaksa furkat, oversharpening is ΓΕ, 1.6. ae it [inquiries become or lead to separation] (cf. our proverb, Allzuscharf macht schartig = too much sharpening makes full of notches); Burckhardt, Sprichw. Nr. 337” (F1.).

Ver. 2. There follows now a series of proverbs which place possessions and goods under a moral-religious point of view:

Treasures of wickedness bring no profit; But righteousness delivers from death.

Ver. 3. Another proverb, the members of which stand in chiastic relation to those of the preceding:

Jahve does not suffer the soul of the righteous to hunger; But the craving of the godless He disappointeth.

The thought is the same as xiii. 25. There, as also at vi. 30, the soul is spoken of as the faculty of desire, and that after nourishment, for the lowest form of the life of the soul is the impulse to self-preservation. The parallel 79, in which LXX. and Ar. erroneously find the meaning of 1, life, the Syr. Targ. the meaning of jin, possession, means the desire, without however being related to 78 (Berth.); it is the Arab. hawan, from ΠῚ, Arab. haway, which, from the fundamental meaning χαΐνειν, keawe to gape, yawn, signifies not only unrestrained driving along, and crashing overthrow (cf. xi. 6, xix. 13), but also the breaking forth, ferri in aliquid, whence 739, Arab. hawan, violent desire, in Hebr. generally (lere and Ps. lii. 9, Mic. vii. 3) of desire without limits and without restraint (cf. the plur. dhawd, arbitrary actions, caprices); the meanings deduced from this important verbal stem (of which also 717 15, accidere, and then esse, at least after the Arabic conception of speech, is an offshoot) are given by Fleischer under Job xxxvii. 6, and after Fleischer by Ethé, Schlafgemach der Phantasie, ii. p. Οἵ. The verb 475 signifies to push in the most manifold shades, here to push forth, repellere, as 2 Kings iv. 27 (cf. Arab. hadhaf, to push off =to discharge); the fut. is invariably 477, like mm. God gives satisfaction to the soul of the righteous, viz. in granting blessings. The desire of the wicked He does not suffer to be accomplished; it may appear for a long time as if that which was aimed at was realized, but in the end God pushes it back, so that it remains at a distance, because contrary to Him. Instead of Dyw nin), some editions (Plantin 1566, Bragadin 1615) have mm O23, but, in opposition to all decided testimony, only through a mistaken reference to xi. 6.

Ver. 4. There follow two proverbs which say how one man fails and another succeeds:

He becomes poor who bears a sluggish hand; But the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

These three proverbs, xix. 15, xii. 24, 27, are similar. From the last two it is seen that 27 is a subst., as also from Ps. οχχ. 2 f. (17 iv, from a crafty tongue) that it is an adject., and from Lev. xiv. 15 f. (where ἘΞ is fem.) that it may be at the same time an adject. here also. The masc. is "9, like “Y to 7D, but neither of these occur; “ the fundamental idea is that of pdt te oneself down lazily, when one with unbent muscles holds himself no longer erect and stretched, Arab. taramy” (ΕἾ.). The translation: deceitful balances (Lowenstein after Rashi), is contrary to biblical usage, which knows nothing of 43 in this Mishnic meaning. But if ὮΞ is here regarded as fem., then it cannot be the subject (Jerome, egestatem operata est manus remissa), since we read NYY, not Ty. But Us) also is not suitable as the subject (LX X., Syr., Targ.), for poverty is called W™, Ὁ, UX); on the contrary, 1, plur. Dw or OWN, is used adjectively. Since now the adject. 4, 1 Sam. xii. 14, is also written WN, it may be translated: Poor is he who «ον (Bertheau); but we much rather expect the statement of that which happens to such an one, thus: Poor will he be... ws, 3 pret.=W1, Ps. xxxiv. 11, with the same (grammatically incorrect) full writing as OX?, Hos. x. 14. In the conception of the subject, M0772, after Jer. xlviii. 10, is interpreted as the accus. of the manner (Berth.: whoever works with sluggish hand); but since mp7 ny (in another sense indeed: to practise cunning) is a common phrase, Ps. lii. 4, ci. 7, so also will m277}D be regarded as the object: gui agit manum remissam, whoever carries or moves such a hand (Hitzig). In 46 working is placed opposite to bearing: the diligent hand makes rich, ditat or divitias parit; but not for itself (Gesen. and others: becomes rich), but for him who bears it. The diligent man is called 739, from 714, to sharpen, for, as in ὀξύς, acer, sharpness is transferred to energy; the form is the same as P32, smooth (for the @ is unchangeable, because recompensative), a kindred form to ΟΡ like yion, and Arab. (δ as fashawsh, a boaster, wind-bag, either of active (as }2%) or (as pion, prin, ἭΝ, 37) of passive signification.

Ver. 5. There is now added a proverb which, thus standing at the beginning of the collection, and connecting itself with ver. 1, stamps on it the character of a book for youth:

He that gathereth in summer is a wise son;

But he that is sunk in sleep in the time of harvest is a son that causeth shame.

Von Hofmann (Schriftd. ii. 2. 403) rightly interprets ΟΞ 3 and Ὁ Δ 13, with Cocceius and others, as the subject, and not with Hitzig as predicate, for in nominal clauses the rule is to place the predicate before the subject; and since an accurate expression of the inverted relation would both times require si referring to the subject, so we here abide by the usual syntax: he that gathers in summer time is... Also the relation of the members of the sentence, xix. 26, is a parallel from which it is evident that the miscuided son is called v3» as causing shame, although in wan the idea to put to shame (=to act so that others are ashamed) and to act shamefully (disgracefully), as in S2wn the ideas to have insight and to act intelligently, lie into one another (cf. xiv. 35); the root-meaning of 2m is determined after 23, which from ἜΑ complicare, designates the intellect as the faculty of intellectual configuration. w%32, properly disturbari, proceeds from a similar conception as the Lat. confundi (pudore). ὯΝ and VSP fall together, for »p (from p=, to be glowing hot) is just the time of the Wsp; wid. under Gen. viii. 22. To the activity of a thoughtful ingathering, 738, for a future store (vid. vi. 7), stands opposed deep sleep, 1.6. the state of one sunk in idleness, O73 means, as Schultens has already shown, somno penitus obrut, omni sensu obstructo et oppilato quasi, from D7, to fill, to shut up, to conclude; the derivation (which has been adopted since Gesenius)

from the Arab. word having the same sound, ΔΘ» stridere, to shrill, to rattle (but not stertere, to snore), lies remote in the Miph., and also contradicts the usage of the word, according to which it designates a state in which all free activity is bound, and all reference to the external world is interrupted; οἵ, M2717, xix. 15, of dulness, apathy, somnolency in the train of slothfulness. The LXX. has here one distich more than the Hebr. text.

Ver. 6. There now follow two proverbs regarding the blessings and the curses which come to men, and which flow forth from them. Here, however, as throughout, we take each proverb by itself, that it might not appear as if we had a tetrastich before us. The first of these two antithetic distichs is:

Blessings (come) on the head of the just;

But violence covereth the mouth of the godless. Blessings are, without being distinguished, bestowed as well as prayed for from above. Regarding the undistinguished uses of wINAD (of a recompense of reward), WX2 (of penal recompense), and vinamby (especially of punishment), vid. under Gen. xlix. 26. If we understand, with Ewald, Bertheau, Elster, Zockler, and others, the two lines after ver. 11, xix. 28, cf. x. 18: the mouth of the wicked covers (hides under a mask) violence, inasmuch as he speaks words of blessing while thoughts of malediction lurk behind them (Ps. Ixii. 5), then we renounce the sharpness of the contrast. On the contrary, it is preserved if we interpret Β) as object: the violence that has gone out from it covereth the mouth of the wicked, ἐν. it falls back upon his foul mouth; or as Fleischer (and Oetinger almost the same) paraphrases it: the deeds of violence that have gone forth from them are given back to them in curses and maledictions, so that going back they stop, as it were, their mouth, they bring them to silence; for it is unnecessary to take Β synecdochically for 25 (cf. e.g. Ps. Ixix. 8), since in nini2 6a are perhaps chiefly meant blessings of thankful acknowledgment on the part of men, and the giving prominence to the mouth of the wicked from which nothing good proceeds is well accounted for. The parallels do not hinder us thus to explain, since parts of proverbs repeating themselves in the Book of Proverbs often show a change of the meaning (vid. p. 24 f.). Hitzig’s conjecture, D>" (better D3‘), is unnecessary; for elsewhere we read, as here, that pon (violence), jure talionis, covers, 1D2°, the wicked, Hab. ii. 17, or that he, using “violence,” therewith covers the whole of his external appearance, 2.e. gives to it the branded impress of the unrighteousness he has done (vid. Kohler under Mal. ii. 16).

Ver. 7. Thus, as ver. 6 says how it goes with the righteous and the wicked in this life, so this verse tells how it fares with them after death:

The memory of the righteous remains in blessings, And the name of the godless rots. The tradition regarding the writing of 72? with five (03?) or six points (72) is doubtful (vid. Heidenheim in his ed. of the Pentateuch, Μόν Enajim, under Ex. xvii. 14); the Cod. 1294 and old printed copies have here 13. Instead of n312?, 73) might be used; the phrase naq25 mn (opp. neep> mn, often used by Jeremiah), subordinate to the substantival clause, paraphrases the passive, for it expresses a growing to something, and thus the entrance into a state of endurance. The remembrance of the righteous endures after his death, for he is thought of with thankfulness γι = noi3> p"y 131, the usual appendix to the name of an honoured, beloved man who has died), because his works, rich in blessing, continue; the name of the godless, on the contrary, far from continuing fresh and green (Ps. Ixii. 17) after his departure, becomes corrupt (2p3, from pr, to be or to become thin, to dissolve in fine parts, tabescere), like a worm-eaten decayed tree (Isa. xl. 20). The Talmud explains it thus, Joma 880: foulness comes over their name, so that we call no one after their name. Also the idea suggests itself, that his name becomes corrupt, as it were, with his bones; the Mishna, at least Ohaloth ii. 1, uses 227 of the dust of corruption.

Ver. 8. There follows now a series of proverbs in which reference to sins of the mouth and their contrary prevails:

He that is wise in heart receives precepts; But he that is of a foolish mouth comes to ruin.

A 2o-p3n, wise-hearted, is one whose heart is 035, xxiii. 15; ina word, a 123, a person of understanding or judgment, xvi. 21. Such an one does not make his own knowledge the ne plus ultra, nor does he make his own will the nolz me tangere; but he takes commands, 1.é. instructions directing or prohibiting, to which he willingly subordinates himself as the outflow of a higher knowledge and will, and by which he sets bounds and limits to himself. But a fool of the lips,.6. a braggart blunderer, one pleasing -himself with vain talk (xiv. 23), falls prostrate, for he thinks that he knows all things better, and will take no pattern; but while he boasts himself from on high, suddenly all at once—for he offends against the fundamental principle of common life and of morality—he comes to lie low down on the ground. The Syr. and Targ. translate 033" by, he is caught (Bertheau, ensnared); Aquila, Vulgate, Luther, dap7- σεται, he is slain; Symmachus, βασανισθήσεται; but all without any support in the usage of the language known to us. Theodotion, φυρήσεται, he is confounded, is not tenable; Joseph Kimchi, who after David Kimchi, under Hos. iv. 14, appeals in support of this meaning (vanv*, similarly Parchon: 5aban) to the Arabic, seems to think on ¢tibds, confusion. The demonstrable meanings of the verb ab are the following: 1. To occasion trouble. Thus Mechilta, under Ex. xvii. 14, 1025, one has imposed upon him trouble; Sifri, under Num. xi. 1, ὉΔΌΣ, we are tired, according to which Rashi: he fatigues himself, but which fits neither to the subj. nor to the contrast, which is to be supposed. The same may be said of the meaning of the Syr. Ja, to drive on, to press, which without doubt accords with the former meaning of the word in the language of the Midrash. 2. In Arab. labat (R. lab, vid. Wiinsche’s Hos. p. 172), to throw any one down to the earth, so that he falls with his whole body his whole length; the passive 253, to be thus thrown down by another, or to throw oneself thus down, figuratively of one who falls hoplessly into evil and destruction (F'.). The Arabic verb is also used of the springing run of the animal ridden on (to gallop), and of the being lame (to hop), according to which in the Lex. the explanations, he hurries, or he wavers hither and thither, are offered by Kimchi (Gree. Venet. πλανηθήσεται). But the former of these explanations, corruit (=in calamitatem ruit), placed much nearer by the Arabic, is confirmed by the LXX. ὑποσκελισθήσεται, and by the Beréshith rabba, c. 52, where v5 is used in the sense to be ruined (= 0722). Hitzig changes the passive into the active: “ he throws the offered npe scornfully to the ground,” but the contrast does not require this. The wanton, arrogant boasting lies aJready in the designation of the subj. onay Sys; and the sequel involves, as a consequence, the contrasted consequence of ready reception of the limitations and guidance of his own will by a higher.

He that walketh in innocence walketh securely; But he that goeth in secret ways is known.

The full form of Din3 does not, as Hitzig supposes, stand in causal connection with the Dechi, for the consonant text lying before us is at least 500 years older than the accentuation. For DA qh at ii. 7, there is here bina 42m =: o1n 773 727; so Ὁ Way denotes, after ii. 15, such an one DWPy 31 Wx. Expressed in the language of the N. T., nin is the property of the ἁπλοῦς or ἀκέραιος, for the fundamental idea of fulness is here referred to full submission, full integrity. Such an one goes nba (Aquila, ἀμερίμνως), for there is nothing designedly concealed by him, of which he has reason to fear that it will come to the light; whoever, on the contrary, makes his ways crooked, 1.6. turns into crooked ways, is perceived, or, as we might also explain it (vid. under Gen. iv. 15): if one (qui = st quis) makes his ways crooked, then it is known—nothing, however, stands opposed to the reference of ¥7" to the person: he is finally known, 1.6. unmasked (LXX. Jerome, γνωσθήσεται, manifestus fiet). Usually it is explained: he is knowing, clever, with the remark that y7)) is here the passive of yn (Gesen., Ewald, Hitzig); Hiph. to give to feel; Niph. to become to feel, properly to be made to know (Luth.: made wise); but the passive of the Hiph. is the Hoph. Such a Niph. in which the causative (not simply transitive) signification of the Hiph. would be applied passively is without example (vid. Ewald, § 133); the meaning of Jer. xxxi. 19 also is: after I have become known, i.e. been made manifest, uncovered, drawn into the light.

parallel with the half of ver. 8:

He that winketh with the eye causeth trouble;

And a foolish mouth comes to ruin. Regarding the winking or nipping, 7.e. the repeated nipping of the eyes (cf. nictare, frequent. of nicére), as the conduct of the malicious or malignant, which aims at the derision or injury of him to whom it refers, vid. under vi. 13; there ~>p was connected with 23 of the means of the action; here, as Ps. xxxv. 19, cf. Prov. xvi. 30, it is connected with the object accus. He who so does produces trouble (heart-sorrow, xv. 13), whether it be that he who is the butt of this mockery marks it, or that he is the victim of secretly concerted injury; {M. is not here used impersonally, as xiii. 10, but as xxix. 15, cf. Lev. xix. 28, xxiv. 20, in the sense of the cause. 10d forms a striking contrast to 10a, according to the text of the LX X.: ὁ δὲ ἐλέγχων μετὰ παῤῥησίας εἰρηνοποιεῖ. The Targ., however, abides, contrary to the Syr., by the Hebrew text, which certainly is older than this its correction, which Ewald and Lagarde unsuccessfully attempt to translate into Hebrew. The foolish mouth, here understood in conformity with 10a, is one who talks at random, without examination and deliberation, and thus suddenly stumbles and falls over, so that he comes to lie on the ground, to his own disgrace and injury.

A fountain of life is the mouth of the righteous;

But the mouth of the godless hideth violence. If we understand 116 wholly as 6b: os tmproborum obteget violentia, then the meaning of 1la would be, that that which the righteous speaks tends to his own welfare (F1.). But since the words spoken are the means of communication and of intercourse, one has to think of the water as welling up in one, and flowing forth to another; and the meaning of 11d has to accommodate itself to the preceding half proverb, whereby it cannot be mistaken that D2 (violence), which was 66 subj., bears here, by the contrast, the stamp of the obj.; for the possibility of manifold windings and turnings is a characteristic of the Mashal. In the Psalms and Prophets it is God who is called 5%N pp, Ps. xxxvi. 10, Jer. ii. 13, xvii. 13; the proverbial poetry plants the figure on ethical ground, and understands by it a living power, from which wholesome effects accrue to its possessor, xiv. 27, and go forth from him to others, xiii, 14.. Thus the mouth of the righteous is here called a fountain of life, because that which he speaks, and as he speaks it, is morally strengthening, intellectually elevating, and inwardly quickening in its effect on the hearers; while, on the contrary, the mouth of the godless covereth wrong (violentiam), i.e. conceals with deceitful words the intention, directed not to that which is best, but to the disadvantage and ruin of his neighbours; so that words which in the one case bring to light a ground of life and of love, and make it effectual, in the other case serve for a covering to an immoral, malevolent background.

of love: Hate stirreth up strife, And love covereth all transgressions.

Regarding 07, for which the Keré elsewhere substitutes 0°27, vid. under vi. 14, Hatred of one’s neighbour, which is of itself an evil, has further this bad effect, that it calls forth hatred, and thus stirreth up strife, feuds, factions, for it incites man against man (cf. 1), Job iii. 8); on the contrary, love covers not merely little errors, but also greater sins of every kind (Ο»υΒ 53), viz. by pardoning them, concealing them, excusing them, if possible, with mitigating circumstances, or restraining them before they are executed. All this lies inthe covering. James, however, vives it, v. 20, another rendering: love covers them, viz. from the eyes of a holy God; for it forgives them to the erring brother, and turns him from the error of his way. The LXX. improperly translate πάντας δὲ τοὺς μὴ φιλονεικοῦντας κελόπτει φιλία; but Peter (1 Pet. iv. 8) as well as James, but none of the Greek versions: ἡ ἀγάπη καλύψει πλῆθος ἁμαρτιῶν. The Romish Church makes use of this passage as a proof for the introduction of the /ides formata, viz. caritate, in justification, which is condemned in thie Apology of the Augsburg Confession; and, indeed, the multitudo peccatorum is not meant of the sins of him who cherishes love, but of the sins of the neighbour. Sin stirs up hatred in men in their relation to one another; but love covers the already existing sins, and smooths the disturbances occasioned by them.

On the lips of the man of understanding wisdom is found; And the rod for the back of the fool.

With Lowenstein, Hitzig. and others, it is inadmissible to regard Ὁ: "ἢ as second subject to 8¥8M, The mouth itself, or the word of the mouth, may be called a rod, viz. a rod of correction (Isa. xi. 4); but that wisdom and such a rod are found on the lips of the wise would be a combination and a figure in bad taste. Thus 130 is a clause by itself, as Luther renders it: “but a rod belongs to the fool’s back;” and this will express a contrast to 13a, that while wisdom is to be sought for on the lips of the man of understanding (cf. Mal. ii. 7), aman devoid of understanding, on the contrary, gives himself to such hollow and corrupt talk, that in order to educate him to something better, if possible, the rod must be applied to his back; for, according to the Talmudic proverb: that which a wise man gains by a hint, a fool only obtains by a club. The rod is called D2¥, from Dv, to be smooth, to go straight down (as the hair of the head); and the back 13, from 3, to be rounded, 1.6. concave or convex. Ver. 14 Wise men store up knowledge; But the mouth of the fool is threatening destruction. Ewald, Bertheau, Hitzig, Oetinger: “ The mouth of the fool blunders out, and is as the sudden falling in of a house which one cannot escape from.” But since NN is a favourite Mishle-word to denote the effect and issue of that which is dangerous and destructive, so the sense is perhaps further to be extended: the mouth of the fool is for himself (xiii. 3) and others a near, 1.0. an always threatening and unexpectedly occurring calamity; unexpectedly, because suddenly he blunders out with his inconsiderate shamebringing talk, so that such a fool’s mouth is to every one a presens periculum. As to 283, it is worthy of remark that in the Beduin, wis, fut. ἐν, signifies to be still, to be thoughtful, to be absorbed in oneself (vid. Wetstein on Job, p. 281). According to Codd. and editions, in this correct, 5) is to be written instead of bye ‘I; vid. the law concerning the MMaukkeph in the three poetical books, Baer’s Torath Emeth, p. 40. A pair of proverbs regarding possession and gain. Ver. 15. Regarding possession: The rich man’s wealth is his strong city; The destruction of the poor is their poverty.

The first line=xviii. 11. One may render the idea according to that which is internal, and according to that which is external; and the proverb remains in both cases true. As ty may mean, of itself alone, power, as means of protection, or a bulwark (Ps. viii. 3), or the consciousness of power, high feeling, pride (Judg. v. 21); so iv ΠΡ may be rendered as an object of self-confidence, and 4AM, on the contrary, as an object of terror (Jer. xlviii. 39): the rich ‘man, to whom his estate (vid. on jin, p. 63) affords a sure reserve and an abundant source of help, can appear confident and go forth energetically; on the contrary, the poor man is timid and bashful, and is easily dejected and discouraged. Thus e.g. Oetinger and Hitzig. But the objective interpretation is allowable, and lies also much nearer: the rich man stands thus independent, changes and adversities cannot so easily overthrow him, he is also raised above many hazards and temptaticns; on the contrary, the poor man is overthrown by little misfortunes, and his despairing endeavours to save himself, when they fail, ruin him completely, and perhaps make him at the same time a moral outlaw. It is quite an experienced fact which this proverb expresses, but one from which the double doctrine is easily derived: (1) That it is not only advised, but also commanded, that man make the firm establishing of his external life-position the aim of his endeavour; (2) That one ought to treat with forbearance the humble man; and if he always sinks deeper and deeper, one ought not to judge him with unmerciful harshness and in proud self-exaltation. Ver. 16. Regarding gain: The gain of the righteous tendeth to life; The income of the godless to sin.

Intentionally, that which the righteous receives is called ΠΡΡΒ (as Lev. xix. 13), as a reward of his labour; that which the godless receives is called M833", as income which does not need to be the reward of labour, and especially of his own immediate labour. And with Dene, ΤΠ runs parallel, from the supposition that sin carries the germ of death in itself. The reward of his labour serves to the righteous to establish his life, i.e. to make sure his lifeposition, and to elevate his life-happiness. On the contrary, the income of the godless serves only to ruin his life; for, made thereby full and confident, he adds sin to sin, whose wages is death. Hitzig translates: for expiation, i.e. to lose it again as atonement for past sins; but if on and nxon are contrasted with each other, then nxon is death-bringing sin (viii. 35 f.).

The group of proverbs now following bring again to view the good and bad effects of human speech. The seventeenth verse introduces the transition: Ver. 17 There is a way to life when one gives heed to correction; And whoever disregards instruction runs into error. Instead of ὉΠ MS (v. 6), there is here ayn Ms; and then this proverb falls into rank with ver. 16, which contains the same word pnd. The accentuation denotes ms as subst.; for Ms [way, road] = TS [a wayfarer, part. of my] would, as YO’, Lev. xi. 7, yo3, Ps. xciv. 9, have the tone on the rina: It is necessary neither to shail a the tone, nor, with Ewald, to interpret MS as abstr. pro concreto, like 27, for the expression “ wanderer to life” has no support in the Mishle. Michaelis has given the right interpretation: via ad vitam est si quis custodiat disciplinam. The syntactical contents, however, are different, as e.g. 1 Sam. ii. 13, where the participle has the force of a hypothetical clause; for the expression: ‘a way to life is he who observes correction,” is equivalent to: he is on the way to life who..; a variety of the manner of expression: “the porch was twenty cubits,” 2 Chron. 111. 4, particularly adapted to the figurative language of proverbial poetry, as if the poet said: See there one observant of correction— that (viz. the 7Y ["D, to watch] representing itself in this 9) is the way to life. 7D) and nN3\F are related to each other as παιδεία and ἔλεγχος; AY [AlY, to leave, forsake] is equivalent to Dw ἮΡΞ, mynd would be unsuitable as a contrast in the causative sense: who guides wrong, according to which Bertheau understands 17a, that only he who observes correction can guide others to life. We expect to hear what injuries he who thinks to raise himself above all reproach brings on himself. Hitzig, in his Commentary (1858), for this reason places the Aithpa. MYM (rather write MYM) in the place of the Hiph.; but in the Comm. on Jeremiah (1866), xlii. 20, he rightly remarks: “To err, not as an involuntary condition, but as an arbitrary proceeding, is suitably expressed by the Hiph.” In like manner ἢ ἿΠ, 137 (to touch), PN] (to go to a distance), denote the active conduct of a being endowed with reason; Ewald, ὃ 122,6. Jewish interpreters gloss nynd by supplying i’); but it signifies only as inwardly transitive, to accomplish the action of the niyn, Ver. 18 He that hideth hatred is a mouth of falsehood; And he that spreadeth slander is a fool.

fers, and which has given occasion to Hitzig to makea remarkable conjecture (“ He who conceals hatred, close lips,” which no one understands without Hitzig’s comment. to this his conjecture). But (1) to hide hatred (cf. ver. 11, xxvi. 24) is something altogether different from to cover sin (ver. 12, xvii. 9), or generally to keep anything secret with discretion (x. 13); and (2) that δίκαια is a corrupt reading for ἄδικα (as Grabe supposes, and Symmachus translates) or δόλια (as Lagarde supposes, and indeed is found in Codd.). Michaelis well remarks: odium tectum est dolosi, manifesta sycophantia stultorum. Whoever conceals hateful feelings behind his words is PUNY, a mouth of falsehood (cf. the mouth of the fool, ver. 14); one does not need to supply wx, but much rather has hence to conclude that a false man is simply so named, as 15 proved by Ps. cxx. ὃ. There is a second moral judgment, 180: he who spreadeth slander (8¥15:, according to the Masoretic writing: he who divulges it, the correlate to 824, to bring to, Gen. xxxvii. 2) is a Thor [fool, stupid, dull], *D2 (not a Narr [fool, godless person], ON); for such slandering can generally bring no advantage; it injures the reputation of him to whom the 737, i. the secret report, the slander, refers; it sows discord, has incalculable consequences, and finally brings guilt on the tale-bearer

Ver. 19 In a multitude of words transgression is not wanting; But he who restrains his lips shows wisdom.

We do not, with Bertheau, understand 19a: by many words a transgression does not cease to be what it is; the contrast 19d requires a more general condemnation of the multitude of words, and 27 not only means to cease from doing (to leave off), and to cease from being (to take away), but also not at all to do (to intermit, Ezek. iii. 11; Zech. xi. 12), and not at all to be (to fail, to be absent), thus: ubi verborum est abundantia non deest peccatum (F1l.). Michaelis suitably compares πολυλογία πολλὰ σφάλματα ἔχει by Stobaus, and son x20 OTT AINA 49 in the tractate A both i. 17, wherewith Rashi explains the proverb. vA is not here, as elsewhere, e.g. Ps. xix. 14, with special reference to the sin of falling away from favour, apostasy, but, like the post-biblical 729, generally with reference to every kind of violation (YWD= (ju3 dirumpere) of moral restraint; here, as Jansen remarks, peccatwin sive mendacit, sive detractionis, sive allerius indiscrete lwsionts, sive vanitatis, sive denique verbi otiosi. In 19} it is more appropriate to regard man as the present of the internal transitive (intelligenter agit) than to interpret it in the attributive sense (éntelligens).

Ver. 20 Choice silver is the tongue of the righteous; But the heart of the godless is little worth.

Choice silver is, as vill. 19, cf. 10, pure, freed from all base mixtures. Like it, pure and noble, is whatever the righteous speaks; the heart, 1.6. the manner of thought and feeling, of the godless is, on the contrary, like little instar nihilt, 1,6. of little or no worth, Arab. yasway kdlyla (FI.). UXX.: the heart of the godless ἐκλείψει, 1.6. ὮΝ", at first arrogant and full of lofty plans, it becomes always the more dejected, discouraged, empty. But 20a leads us to expect some designation of its worth. The Targ. (according to which the Peshito is to be corrected; vid. Levy’s Worterbuch, ii. 26): the heart of the godless is 8M (from ΠΠ)), refuse, dross. The other Greek versions accord with the text before us.

Ver. 21 The lips of the righteous edify many; But fools die through want of understanding.

The LXX. translate 21a: the lips of the righteous ἐπέσταται ὑψηλά, which would at least require ΠῚ 17. ΠΡ is, like the postbib]. DIB (vid. the Hebr. Rémerbrief, p. 97), another figure for the N. T. οἰκοδομεῖν: to afford spiritual nourishment and strengthening, to which Fleischer compares the ecclesiastical expressions: pastor, ovile ecclesic, les ouailles; AY means leader, Jer. x. 21, as well as teacher, Eccles. xii. 11, for it contains partly the prevailing idea of leading, partly of Faaatie WT stands for ΠΣ ΣΙ, as ver. 32, v.2. In 210, Bertheau incorrectly explains, as Euchel and Michaelis: séuléi ἐδ ῥπωιβξο per dementem unum moriuntur; the fool has truly enough in his own folly, and needs not to be first drawn by others into destruction. ὙΠ is not here the connective form of ἽΡΠ (Jewish interpreters: for that reason, that he is such an one), nor of 10 (Hitzig, Zockler), which ΠΣ Υ̓ a concluded idea, penuria, but like 3m, xxi. 4, 13¥, vi. 10, and ἢ bY, xvi. 19, infin.: they die by want of Gadantianiing (cf. v. 23); this amentia is the cause of their death, for it leads Foals to meet destruction without their observing it (Hos. iv. 6).

Three proverbs which say that good comes from above, and is as a second nature to the man of understanding:

Ver. 22 Jahve’s blessine—it maketh rich: And labour addeth nothing thereto Like 24a, 8") limits the predicate to this and no other subject: “all depends on God’s blessing.” Here is the first half of the ora et labora. The proverb is a compendium of Ps. exxvii. 1,2. 220 is to be understood, according to ver. 2 of this Solomonic psalm, not that God adds to His blessing no sorrow, much rather with the possession grants at the same time a joyful, peaceful mind (LXX., Targ., Syriac, Jerome, Aben-Ezra, Michaelis, and others), which would require the word Moy; but that trouble, labour, z.e. strenuous self-endeavours, add not (anything) to it, 1.6. that it does not associate itself with the blessing (which, as the Jewish interpreters rightly remark, is, according to its nature, naDIN, as the curse is jpn) as the causa efficiens, or if we supply guidquam, as the complement to *®y [along with it]: nothing is added thereto, which goes along with that which the blessing of God grants, and completes it. Thus correctly Rashi, Luther, Ziegler, Ewald, Hitzig,

Zockler. The now current accentuation, ΠΡ} I¥y AD" NO, is incorrect. Older editions, as Venice 1525, 1615, Basel 1618, have my ASy DYNO, the transformation of 23 FIDY-NDY, Besides, ayy has double Segol (vid. Kimchi’s Lew.), and py is written, according to the Masora, in the first syllable plene, in the last defective. Ver. 23 Like sport to a fool is the commission of a crime; And wisdom to a man of understanding.

Otherwise Lowenstein: to a fool the carrying out of a plan is as sport; to the man of understanding, on the contrary, as wisdom. 2}, from 01%, to press together, mentally to think, as Job xvii. 11, and according to Gesenius, also Prov. xxi. 27, xxiv. 9. But ΠῚ has the prevailing signification of an outrage against morality, a sin of unchastity; and especially the phrase Mt NYY is in Judg. xx. 6 and in Ezekiel not otherwise used, so that all the old interpreters render it here by patrare scelus; only the Targum has the equivocal XAT IY IY; the Syriac, however, [Aso,as. Sinful conduct appears to the fool, who places himself above the solemnity of the moral law, as sport; and wisdom, on the contrary, (appears as sport) to a man of understanding. We would not venture on this acceptation of Pinw> if pn’ were not attributed, viii. 30f., to wisdom itself. This alternate relationship recommends itself by the indetermination of 122M, which is not favourable to the interpretation:

sed sapientiam colit vir intelligens, or as Jerome has it: sapientia autem est viro prudentia. The subjects of the antithesis chiastically combine within the verse: 492n, in contrast to wicked conduct, is acting in accordance with moral principles. This to the man of understanding is as easy as sporting, just as to the fool is shame- Jess sinning; for he follows in this an inner impulse, it brings to him joy, it is the element in which he feels himself satisfied. Ver. 24 That of which the godless is afraid cometh upon him, And what the righteous desires is granted to him. _

The formation of the clause 24a is like the similar proverb, xi. 27); the subject-idea has there its expression in the genitival annexum, of which Gen. ix. 66 furnishes the first example; in this passage before us it stands at the beginning, and is, as in ver. 22, emphatically repeated with 87. 713, properly the turning oneself away, hence shrinking back in terror; here, as Isa. Ixvi. 4, of the object of fear, parallel to MSN, wishing, of the object of the wish. In 240 Ewald renders {m' as adj. from [Π) (whence {0°8), after the form np, and translates: yet to the righteous desire is always green. But whether | is probably formed from jn‘, and not from jn), is a question in xii. 12, but not here, where wishing and giving (fulfilling) are naturally correlata. Hitzig corrects jm’, and certainly the supplying of ‘hn is as little appropriate here as at xiii, 21. Alsoa “one gives” is scarcely intended (according to which the Targ., Syr., and Jerome translate passively), in which case the Jewish interpreters are wont to explain jn’, sci. jnun; for if the poet thought of jn’ with a personal subject, why did he not rescue it from the dimness of such vague generality? Thus, then, jn is, with Bottcher, to be interpreted as impersonal, like xiii. 10, Job xxxvii. 10, and perhaps also Gen. xxxviii. 28 (Ewald, ὃ 295a): what the righteous wish, that there is, ὁ.6. it becomes actual, is fulfilled. In this we have not directly and exclusively to think of the destiny at which the godless are afraid (Heb. x. 27), and toward which the desire of the righteous goes forth; but the clause has also truth which is realized in this world: just that which they greatly fear, e.g. sickness, bankruptcy, the loss of reputation, comes upon the godless; on the contrary, that which the righteous wish realizes itself, because their wish, in its intention, and kind, and content, stands in harmony with the order of the moral world.

There now follows a series of proverbs, broken by only one dissimilar proverb, on the immoveable continuance of the righteous:

Ver. 25 When the storm sweeps past, it is no more with the wicked; But the righteous is a building firm for ever.

How ver. 25 is connected with ver. 24 is shown in the Book of Wisdom ν. 15 (the hope of the wicked like chaff which the wind pursues). The Aram., Jerome, and Grec. Venet. interpret > of comparison, so that the destruction of the godless is compared in suddenness and rapidity to the rushing past of a storm; but then ΠῚ ought to have been used instead of M5:D; and instead of YW ps) with the 1 apodosis, a disturbing element in such a comparison, would have been used "7 nom, or at least {8 yw. The thought is no other than that of Job xxi. 18: the storm, which is called na), from ἢ), to rush forth, is meant, as sweeping forth, and 3 the temporal, as Ex. xi. 4 (LX X. παραπορευομένης xatavyldos), with ἡ apod. following, like e.g., after a similar member of a temporal sentence, Isa. x. 25. EID is a figure of God-decreed calamities, as war and pestilence, under which the godless sink, while the righteous endure them; cf. with 25a, i. 27, Isa. xxviii. 18; and with 250, 11.25, Hab. ii. 4, Ps. xci. ‘ An everlasting foundation,” since DAY is understood as looking forwards, not as at Isa. lviii. 12, backwards, is a foundation capable of being shaken by nothing, and synecdoch. generally a building. The proverb reminds us of the close of the Sermon on the Mount, and finds the final confirmation of its truth in this, that the death of the godless is a penal thrusting of them away, but the death of the righteous a lifting them up te their home. The righteous also often enough perish in times of war and of pestilence; but the proverb, as it is interpreted, verifies itself, even although not so as the poet, viewing it from his narrow QO, T. standpoint, understood it; for the righteous, let him die when and how he may, is preserved, while the godless perishes.

As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, So is the sluggard to them who give him a commission.

A parabolic proverb (vid. p. 9), priamel-like in its formation (p. 13). Here and there p'3v? is found with Mugrash, but in correct texts it has Rebia-magnum; the verse is divided into two by Athnach, whose subordinate distributive is (Accentssystem, xi. § 1) Rebia-magnum. Smoke makes itself disagreeably perceptible to the sense of smell, and particularly to the eyes, which it causes to smart so that they overflow with tears; wherefore Virgil speaks of it as amarus, and Horace lacrimosus. 2h (from 27, to be sour, harsh) signifies properly that which is sour, as acetum, ὄξος; here, after the LX X. ὄμφαξ, the unripe grapes, but which are called 1D3 (102) (vid. under Job xv. 33), by which the Syr., here following the LXX., translates, and which also in the Talmud, Demaiz i. 1, is named ΚΠ, after a doubtful meaning (vid. Aruch, and on the other side Rashi), thus: vinegar, which the word commonly means, and which also accords with the object of the comparison, especially if one thinks of the sharp vinegar-wine of the south, which has an effect on the teeth denoted by the Hebr. verb nn, as the effect of smoke is by ππὸ (F].).. The ρίαν. γ πρὶ» is that of the category, like xxii. 21, xxv. 13; the parallel '278 of the latter passage does not at least make it necessary to regard it, like this, as a plur. excellentio (Bertheau, Hitzig, Ewald). They who send a sluggard, t.e. who make him their agent, do it to their own sorrow; his slothfulness is for them, and for that which they have in view, of dull, z.e. slow and restrained, of biting, ¢.e. sensibly injurious operation. From this point the proverbs fall into the series connecting themselves with ver. 25:

But the years of the godless are shortened.

This parable, like ver. 25, also corresponds with the O.'T. standpoint, having in view the present life. The present-life history confirms it, for vice destroys body and soul; and the fear of God, which makes men contented and satisfied in God, is truly the right principle of longevity. But otherwise also the pious often enough die early, for God carries them away 7y7n ‘aD [from the face of the evil], Isa. lvii. 1 f.; or if they are martyrs for the truth (Ps. xliv. 23, cf. lx. 6), the verification of the above proverb in such cases moves forward (Wisd. iv. 7 ff.) into eternity, in which the life of the pious continues for ever, while that of the godless loses itself with his death in the state of everlasting death. ix. 11, cf. iii. 2, resembles 27a. Instead of 727¥PA, APN was to be expected; but the flexion does not distinguish the transitive 1¥? (Arab. kasara) and intransitive ΣΡ (Arab. kasura) as it ought.

And the hope of the godless comes to nothing.

nonin as well as 7\?F proceed on the fundamental idea of a strained earnest looking back upon something, the same fundamental idea which in another view gives the meaning of strength (27, Arab. hayl; kuwwat, kawtyy, cf. 21, Arab. jdl, plectere, and 5173, strong and strength). The substantival clause 28a denotes nothing more than: it is gladness (cf. iii. 17, all their steps are gladness), but which is equivalent to, it is that in its issue, in gaudium desinit. Hitzig’s remark that ndmn is the chief idea for hope and fear, is not confirmed by the usage of the language; it always signifies joyful, not anxious, expectation; cf. the interchange of the same two synonyms xiii. 7, and Msn, Ps. cxii. 10, instead of MPN (here and Job viii. 13). While the expectation of the one terminates in the joy of the fulfilment, the hope of the other (73x, R. 12, to separate) perishes, i.e. comes to nothing. Ver. 29 Jahve’s way is a bulwark to the righteous; But ruin to those that do evil.

Of the two meanings which "YD (HYD) has: a stronghold from my, and asylum (= Arab. m’adz) from ny, the contrast here demands the former. ‘7 70 and ‘n AX, understood objectively, are the two O. T. names of true religion. It means, then, the way which the God of revelation directs men to walk in (Ps. exliii. 8), the way of His precepts, Ps. cxix. 27, His way of salvation, Ps. Ixvii. 3 (4); in the N. T. ἡ ὁδὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, Matt. xxii. 16, Acts xviii. 25 f.; cf. ἡ ὁδός simply, Acts ix. 2, xxiv. 14, This way of Jahve is a fortress, bulwark, defence for innocence, or more precisely, a disposition wholly, ie. unreservedly and without concealment, directed toward God and that which is good. All the old interpreters, also Luther, but not the Gree. Venet., translate as if the expression were ὩΣ; but the punctuation has preferred the abstr. pro conereto, perhaps because the personal DA nowhere else occurs with any such prefix; on the contrary, dh is frequently connected with 3, obo naan ond, tntegro vie (vite), are by no means to be connected in one conception (Ziegler, Umbr., Elster), for then the poet ought to have written J77-DN> Mn typ. 290 cannot be intrepreted as a thought by itself: and ruin (vid. regarding nh, ruina, and subjectively consternatio, ver. 16) comes to those who do evil; but the thought, much more comprehensive, that religion, which is for the righteous a strong protection and safe retreat, will be an overthrow to those who delight only in wickedness (vid. on ᾿ξ, p. 143), is confirmed by the similarly formed distich, xxi. 15. Also almost all the Jewish interpreters, from Rashi to Malbim, find here expressed the operation of the divine revelation set over against the conduct of men,— essentially the same as when the Tora or the Chokma present to men for their choice life and death; or the gospel of salvation, according to 2 Cor. ii. 15, is to one the savour of life unto life, to another the savour of death unto death. Ver. 30 The righteous is never moved; But the godless abide not in the land.

Love of home is an impulse and emotion natural to man; but to no people was fatherland so greatly delighted in, to none was exile and banishment from fatherland so dreadful a thought, as it was to the people of Israel. Expatriation is the worst of all evils with which the prophets threatened individuals and the people, Amos vii. 17, cf. Isa. xxii. 17 f.; and the history of Israel in their exile, which was a punishment of their national apostasy, confirms this proverb and explains its form; cf. 11, 21 f., Ps. xxxvii. 29. 22 is, like ix. 18, the emphatic No of the more elevated style; pins, the opposite of fi23, xii. 3; and }2¥ signifies to dwell, both inchoative: to come to dwell, and consecutive: to continue to dwell (e.g. Isa. lvii. 15, of God who inhabiteth eternity). In general, the proverb means that the righteous fearlessly maintains the position he takes; while, on the contrary, all they who have no hold on God lose also their outward position. But often enough this saying is fulfilled in this, that they, in order that they may escape disgrace, became wanderers and fugitives, and are compelled to conceal themselves among strangers.

Ver. 31. For the third time the favourite theme already handled in three appendixes is taken up:

The mouth of the righteous bringeth forth wisdom, And the tongue of falsehood shall be rooted up.

Regarding the biblical comparison of thoughts with branches, and of words with flowers and fruits, vid. my Psychol. p. 181; and regarding the root 33 (with its weaker 3s), to swell up and to spring up (to well, grow, etc.), vid. what is said in the Comm. on Genesis on &'3), and in Jsaiah on 218. We use the word 339 of that which sprouts or grows, and 323 of that which causes that something sprout; but also 31) may, after the manner of verbs of being full (iii. 10), of flowing (Gesen. § 138, 1, Anm. 2), take the object accus. of that from which anything sprouts (xxiv. 31), or which sprouting, it raises up and brings forth (cf. Isa. lvii. 19). The mouth of the righteous sprouts, brings forth (in Ps. xxxvii. 30, without a figure, 73), 7.e. utters) wisdom, which in all relations knows how to find out that which is truly good, and suitable for the end intended, and happily to unriddle difficult complications.

The conception of wisdom, in itself practical (from osn, to be thick = solid, firm), here gains such contents by the contrast: the tongue—whose character and fruit is falsehood, which has its delight in intentional perversions of fact, and thus increaseth complications (vid. regarding MBN, ii. 12)—is rooted up, whence it follows as regards the mouth of the righteous, that it continues for ever with that its wholesome fruit.

Ver. 32 The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable; But the mouth of the godless is mere falsehood.

Hitzig, instead of YT, reads PY3); the ἀποστάζει [they distil or send forth] of the LX -X. does not favour this, for it is probably only a corruption of ἐπίσταται, which is found in several Mss. The Grec. Venet., which translates ποιμανοῦσι, makes use of a MS. which it sometimes misreads. The text does not stand in need of any emendations, but rather of a corrected relation between the clauses, for the relation of 31a with 326, and of 32a with 310, strongly commends itself (Hitzig); in that case the explanation lies near: the lips of the righteous find what is acceptable, viz. to God. But this thought in the Mashal language is otherwise expressed (xii. 2 and paral.); and also 32a and 326 fit each other as contrasts, if by }i¥9, as xi. 27, xiv. 9, is to be understood that which is acceptable in its widest generality, equally then in relation to God and man. It is a question whether pis means that they have knowledge of it (as one ¢g. says 15D Y7', to understand writing, 1.6. the reading of it), or that they think thereupon (cf. xxvii. 23). Fundamentally the two ideas, according to the Hebrew conception of the words, lie in each ρων for the central conception, perceiving g, is biblically equivalent to a delighted searching into or going towards the object. Thus: the lips of the righteous think of that which is acceptable (jn, cogn. to jn, gracefulness; χάρις, Col. iv. 6); while the mouth of the godless is mere falsehood, which God (the wisdom of God) hates, and from which discord on all sides arises. We might transfer pyt to 325; but this line, interpreted as a clause by itself, is stronger and more pointed (F'l.)

The next three proverbs treat of honesty, discretion, and innocence or dove-like simplicity: xi. 1 Deceitful balances are an abomination to Jahve; But a full weight is His delight. The very same proverb, with slightly varied expression, is found in xx. 23; and other such like proverbs, in condemnation of false and in approbation of true balances, are found, xx. 10, xvi. 11; similar predicates, but connected with other subjects, are found at xii. 22, xv. 8. “An abomination to J ahve” is an expression we have already twice met with in the introduction, iii. 32, vi. 16, cf, vill, 7; 72¥iF is, like TYin, a participial noun, in which the active conception of abhorring is transferred to the action accomplished. f¥) is in post-biblical Hebr. the designation of the arbitrium and the voluntas; but here 43137 signifies not that which God wishes, but that which He delights in having. “Ἢ ΠΟ (here for the first time in Proverbs), from 721, the Piel of which means (xxvi. 19) aliquem dolo et fraude petere. {38, like the Pers. sanak, sanakh, Arab. sajat, a stone for weight; and finally, without any reference to its root signification, like Zech. v. 8, MDWA aN, a leaden weight, as when we say: a horseshoe of gold, a chess-man of ivory.”

There cometh arrogance, so also cometh shame; But with the humble is wisdom. Interpreted according to the Hebr.: if the former has come, so immediately also comes the latter. The general truth as to the causal connection of the two is conceived of historically; the fact, confirmed by many events, is represented in the form of a single occurrence as a warning example; the preterites are like the Greek aoristi gnomici (vid. p. 52): and the perf., with the fut. consec. following, is the expression of the immediate and almost simultaneous consequence (vid. at Hab. 11]. 10): has haughtiness (jit after the form Hye, from Tt, to boil, to run over) appeared, then immediately also disgrace appeared, in which the arrogant behaviour 'ς overwhelmed. ‘The harmony of the sound of the Hebr. fit? and dP cannot be reproduced in German [nor in English]; Hitzig and Ewald try to do so, but such a quid pro quo as « Komint UOnglimpf kommt an thn Schimpf”’ [there comes arrogance, there comes to him disgrace] is not a translation, but a distortion of the text. If, now, the antithesis says that with the humble is wisdom, wisdom ‘5 meant which avoids such disgrace as arrogance draws along with it; for the Y2¥ thinks not more highly of himself than he ought to think (R. }8, subsidere, demittt, Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitsch. xxv. 185). Ver. 3 The integrity of the upright guideth them; But the perverseness of the ungodly destroyeth them.