A man of excessive wrath must suffer punishment;
For if thou layest hold of it, hindering it, thou makest it only worse. The LXX., Syr., and Targ. translate as if the words were mon 133 (as ΠῸΠ ὄν, xxix. 22). Theodotion, the Venet., and Luther render the Keri δ; Jerome’s impatiens is colourless. The Chethib 511 gives no appropriate meaning. The Arab. jaril means lapidosus (whence 9733, cf. Aram. 8D2 = ψῆφος), and Schultens translates accordingly aspere scruposus tracundia, which is altogether after the manner of his own heavy style.
Ewald translates 5) as derived from the Arab jazyl, largus, grandis; but thé possibility of the passing over of Ἵ into t, as maintained by Ewald and also by Hitzig, or the reverse, is physiologically undemonstrable, and is confirmed by no example worthy of mention. Jather it may be possible that the Heb. had an adj. 23 or δ in the sense of stony, gravel-like, hard as gravel, but tow rather than gravel would be appropriate to ΠΌΠ, Hitzig corrects Tn 203, “who acts in anger;” but he says non Dey, to recompense anger, Isa. lix. 18; npn Sy) is without support. This correction, however, is incomparably more feasible than Bottcher’s, ‘moderate inheritance bears expiation;” nid =X must mean not only thick [curdled] milk, but also moderation, and Bottcher finds this “sound.” From all these instances one sees that ΟΣ is an error in transcription; the Ker ΠΌΠ ΟἽ rightly improves it, a man is thus designated whose peculiarity it is to fall into a high degree of passionate anger (a) non, Dan. xi. 44): such an one has to bear W3, a fine, i.e. to compensate, for he has to pay compensation or smartmoney for the injury suffered, as e.g. he who in strife with another pushes against a woman with child, so that injury befalls her, Ex. xxi. 22. If we compare this passage with 2 Sam. xiv. 6, there appears for dyn the meaning of taking away of the object (whether a person or a thing) against which the passionate hothead directs himself. herewith the meaning of DIA Ἢ) accords. The meaning is not that, 87, once is not enough, but much rather must be repeated, and yet is without effect; but that one only increases and heightens the nnn thereby. It is in vain to seek to spare such a violent person the punishment into which he obstinately runs; much more advisable is it to let him rage till he ceases; violent opposition only makes the evil the greater. With O8 °3, “denn wenn” [for then], cf. ii. 3, “ja wenn” [yea if], and with 7} in the conclusion, Job xiv. 7 (a parallelism syntactically more appropriate than Ps. cxxxix. 18). Ver. 20 Hearken to counsel, and receive instruction, That thou mayest become wise afterwards. The rule of morals, xii. 154, receives here the parznetic tone which is the keynote of the introduction i.-ix. Loéwenstein translates: that thou mayest finally become wise. But 7082 corresponds rather to our “hinfort” [posthac| than to “ end-
But Jahve’s counsel, that stands. In 53pn lies, as at Isa. xl. 8, both: that the counsel of God (His plan of the world and of salvation) is accomplished and comes into actual fact, and that it continues. This counsel is the true reality elevated above the checkered manifoldness of human purposes, aims, and subjectivities, which penetrates and works itself out in history. The thoughts of a man thus gain unity, substance, endurance, only in so far as he subjects himself to this counsel, and makes his thoughts and actions conformable and subordinate to this counsel.
Ver. 22. The series makes a new departure with a proverb regarding the poor (cf. ver. 17):
A man’s delight is his beneficence;
And better is a poor man than a liar. The right interpretation will be that which presses upon M:xn no strange meaning, and which places the two parts of the verse in an inner mutual relation ethically right. In any case it lies nearer to interpret ΓΝ ΤΊ, in relation to man, actively than passively: that which makes man worthy of desire (Rashi), adorns and distinguishes him (Kimchi, Aben-Ezra); or, that which is desired by man, is above all things sought for (Luzzatto); and, in like manner, the Heb. meaning for Dn lies nearer than the Aram. (vid. xiv. 34): the pleasure of a man is his disgrace (Ralbag). Thus Bertheau’s translation: the desire of a man is his charitas, must mean: that which brings to a man true joy is to act amiably. But is that, thus generally expressed, true? Andif this were the thought, how much more correctly and distinctly would it be expressed by 709 nivy oN? Ano’ (cf. xxi. 15)! Hitzig is rightly reminded by 110n of the Pharisee who thanks God that he is not as other men; the word ought to have been ἽΣΠ to remove every trace of self-satisfaction. Hitzig therefore proposes from the LX X. and the Vulgate the text-correction nsand, and translates, “ from the revenue of a man is his kind gift;” and Ewald, who is satisfied with N13", “the gain of a man is his pious love.” ‘The latter is more judicious: ‘pn (love) distributed is in reality gain (according to ver. 17); but 226 corresponds rather with the former: “ better is he who from want does not give NIN, than he who could give and says he has nothing.” But was there then need for that καρπός of the LX X.? If a poor man is better than a lord given to lying,—for WS with 71 is a man of means and position,—i.e. a poor man who would give willingly, but has nothing, than that man who will not give, and therefore lies, saying that he has nothing; then 22a means that the will of a man (cf. nxn, xi. 23) is his doing good (vid. regarding ἼΘΠ, at 111. 3), ze. is its soul and very essence. Euchel, who accordingly translates: the philanthropy of a man consists properly in his goodwill, rightly compares the Rabbinical proverb, 292) myoon ἽΠΝΊ AINA INN aN, 7.e. one may give more or less, it all depends on the intention, the disposition.
Ver. 23 The fear of Jahve tendeth to life; Satisfied, one spendeth the night, not visited by evil.
The first line is a variation of xiv. 27a. How the fear of Ged thus reacheth to life, i.e. helps to a life that is enduring, free from care and happy, 290 says: the promises are fulfilled to the God-fearing, Deut. xi. 15 and Lev. xxvi. 6; he does not go hungry to bed, and needs fear no awakening in terror out of his soft slumber (iii. 24). With 1 ewplic., 23a is explained. yaw "2 means to spend the night (the long night) hungry, as Oy γ Ὁ, Job xxiv. 7, to pass the night in nakedness (cold). 3P5), of visitation of punishment, we read also at Isa. xxix. 6, and instead of 73, as it might be according to this passage, we have here the accus. of the manner placing the meaning of the Niph. beyond a doubt (cf. xi. 15, ¥2, in an evil manner). All is in harmony with the matter, and is good Heb.; on the contrary, Hitzig’s ingenuity introduces, instead of ¥3%1, an unheard of word, 91t", “and he stretches himself.” One of the Greeks excellently translates: καὶ ἐμπλησθεὶς αὐλισθήσεται ἄνευ ἐπισ- κοπῆς πονηρᾶς. The LXX., which instead of 3n, γνῶσις, translates thus, ¥3, discredits itself. The Midrash—Lagarde says of its translation—varies in colour like an opal. In other words, it handles the text like wax, and forms it according to its own taste, like the Midrash with its “read not so, but so.” Ver. 24 The slothful hath thrust his hand into the dish; He bringeth it not again to his mouth.
This proverb. is repeated in a different form, xxvi. 15. The figure appears, thus understood, an hyperbole, on which account the LX X. understand by nnvy the bosom or lap, κόλπον; Aquila and Symmachus understand by it the arm-pit, μασχάλην or μάλην; and the Jewish interpreters gloss it by pA (Kimchi) or pionn 3p, the slit (Ital. fenditura) of the shirt. But the domestic figure, 2 Kings xxi. 13, places before us a dish which, when it is empty, is wiped and turned upside down;' and that the slothful when he eats appears too slothful to bring his hand, e.g. with the rice or the piece of bread he has taken out of the dish, again to his mouth, is true to nature: we say of such a man that he almost sleeps when he eats. The fut. after the perf. here denotes that which is not done after the former thing, 1.6. that which is scarcely and only with difficulty done; ib... 03 may have the meaning of “ yet not,” as at Ps. cxxix. 2; but the sense of “ not once” =ne... quidem, lies here nearer Deut. xxiii. 3. Ver. 25 The scorner thou smitest, and the simple is prudent;
And if one reprove the man of understanding, he gaineth knowledge Hitzig translates in a way that is syntactically inexact:-smite the scorner, so the simple becomes prudent; that would have required at least the word D3": fut. and fut. connected by 1 is one of many modes of expression for the simultaneous, discussed by me at Hab. iii. 10. The meaning of the proverb has a complete commentary at xxi. 11, where its two parts are otherwise expressed with perfect identity of thought. In regard to the 72, with whom denunciation and threatening bear no fruit (xiii. 1, xv. 12), and perhaps even produce the contrary effect to that intended (ix. 7), there remains nothing
1 While nnpy, sah fat, in the sense of dish, is etymologically clear, for nnby, neither salah (to be good for), nor salakh (to be deaf, mangy), offers an appropriate verbal meaning. The Arab. zuluh (large dishes) stands under zalah (to taste, of the tasting of food), but is scarcely a derivative from it. Only my, which in the meaning of good for, proceeding from the idea of penetrating through, has retained the root-meaning of cleft, furnishes for nnby and γον a root-word in some measure useful, else than to vindicate the injured truths by means of the private justice of corporal punishment. Such words, if spoken to the right man, in the right spirit, at the right time, may affect him with wholesome terrors; but even though he is not made better thereby, yet the simple, who listens to the mockeries of such not without injury, will thereby become prudent (gain Onn = ΠῚ, prudence, as at xv. 5), 1.6. either arrive at the knowledge that the mockery of religion is wicked, or guard himself against incurring the same repressive measures. In 256 N31 is neither inf. (Umbreit), which after xxi. 114 must be 53193, nor impr. (Targ., Ewald), which according to rule is nin, but the hypothetic perf. (Syr.) with the most general subject (Merc., Hitzig): if one impart instruction to the (dat. obj. as ix. 7, xv. 2) man of understanding (vid. xvi. 21), then he acquires knowledge, z.e. gains an insight into the nature and value of that which one wishes to bring him to the knowledge of (ΠῚ P35, as xxix. 7; cf. viii. 5). That which the deterring lesson of exemplary punishment approximately effects with the wavering, is, in the case of the man of understanding, perfectly attained by an instructive word.
We have now reached the close of the third chief section of the older Book of Proverbs. All the three sections begin with ὯΣΠ 43, x. 1, xiii. 1, xv. 20. The Introduction, i.-ix., dedicates this collection of Solomonic proverbs to youth, and the three beginnings accordingly relate to the relative duties of a son to his father and mother. We are now no longer far from the end, for xxii. 17 resumes the tone of the Introduction. The third principal part would be disproportionately large if it extended from xv. 1 to xxii. 15. But there does not again occur a proverb beginning with the words “ son of man.” We can therefore scarcely go wrong if we take xix. 26 as the commencement of a fourth principal part. The Masora divides the whole Mishle into eight sedarim, which exhibit so little knowledge of the true division, that the parashas (sections) x. 1, xxii. 17 do not at all find their right place." The mss., however, contain evidences that this Hagiograph was also anciently divided into parashas, which were designated partly by spaces between the lines (sethumoth) and partly by breaks in the lines (phethucoth). In Baer’s Cod. Jamanensis,' after vi. 19, there is the letter 5 written on the margin as the mark of such a break. With vi. 20 (vid. l.c.) there indeed commences a new part of the introductory Mashal discourses. But, besides, we only seldom meet with? coincidences with the division and grouping which have commended themselves to us. In the ms. of the Grecus Venetus, xix. 11, 16, and 19 have their initial - letters coloured red; but why only these verses, is not manifest. A comparison of the series of proverbs distinguished by such initials with the Cod. Jaman. and Cod. 11. of the Leipzig City Library, makes it more than probable that it gives a traditional division of the Mishle, which may perhaps yet be discovered by a comparison of mss. But this much is clear, that a historicoliterary reconstruction of the Mishle, and of its several parts, can derive no help from this comparison.
With xix. 26 there thus begins the fourth principal part of the Solomonic collection of proverbs introduced by i.-ix.
He that doeth violence to his father and chaseth his mother, Is a son that bringeth shame and disgrace.
The right name is given in the second line to him who acts as is described in the first. ὙΦ means properly to barricade [obstruere], and then in general to do violence to, here: to ruin one both as to life and property. The part., which has the force of an attributive clause, is continued in the finite: gut matrem fugat; this is the rule of the Heb. style, which is not φιλομέ- toxos, Gesen. ὃ 134, Anm. 2. Regarding 20, vid. at x. 5; regarding the placing together of VSN) W327, vid. xiii. 5, where for #27, to make shame, to be scandalous, the word W839, which is radically different, meaning to bring into bad odour, is used. The putting to shame is in wa (kindred with Arab.
1 Vid. the Prefatio to the Masoretico-Critical Edition of Isaiah by Baer and myself; Leipzig, 1872.
5 Vid. Gebhardt’s Prolegomena to his new edition of the Versio Veneta.
bath) thought of as disturbatio (cf. σύγχυσις) (cf. at Ps. vi. 11), in "2 (khfr) as opertio (cf. Cicero’s Cluent. 20: infamia et dedecore opertus), not, as I formerly thought, with Fiirst, as reddening, blushing (vid. Ps. xxxiv. 6). Putting to shame would in this connection be too weak a meaning for SnD, The pedagogic stamp which ver. 26 impresses on this fourth principal part is made yet further distinct in the verse that now follows. Ver. 27 Cease, my son, to hear instruction, To depart from the words of knowledge. Oetinger correctly: cease from hearing instruction if thou wilt make no other use of it than to depart, etc., i.e. cease to learn wisdom and afterwards to misuse it. The proverb is, as Ewald says, as “ bloody irony;” but it is a dissuasive from hypocrisy, a warning against the self-deception of which Jas. i. 22-24 speaks, against heightening one’s own condemnation, which is the case of that servant who knows his lord’s will and does it not, Luke xii. 47. 974, in the meaning to leave off doing something further, is more frequently construed with Ὁ seg. infin. than with jp (cf. e.g. Gen. xi. 8 with 1 Kings xv. 21); but if we mean the omission of a thing which has not yet been begun, then the construction is with 5, Num. ix. 13. Instead of nim, there might have been also used ni3v99 (omit rather... than...), and πὴ) yop would be more distinct; but as the proverb is expressed, nv is not to be mistaken as the subord. infin. of purpose. The LXX., Syr., Targ., and Jerome do violence to the proverb. Luther, after the example of older interpreters: instruction, that which leads away from prudent learning; but musar always means either discipline weaning from evil, or education leading to good. Ver. 28 A worthless witness scoffeth at right; And the mouth of the godless swalloweth up mischief.
The Mosaic law does not know the oath of witnesses; but the adjuring of witnesses to speak the truth, Lev. iv. 1, places a false statement almost in the rank of perjury. The Dw», which legally and morally binds witnesses, is just their duty to state the matter in accordance with truth, and without deceitful and malicious reservation; but a worthless witness (vid. regarding ΣΝ vi. 12) despiseth what is right (> with accus.- obj. like xiv. 9), 1.6. scornfully disregards this duty. Under 280 Hitzig remarks that yb2 only in Kal means to devour, but in Piel, on the contrary, to absorb = annihilate; therefore he reads with the LXX. and Syr.! [justice] instead of fi [mischief]: the mouth of the wicked murders that which is right, properly, swallows down his feeling of right. But "83 interchanges with ΜΞ in the sense of swallowing only, without the connected idea of annihilation; cf. 223 for the continuance [duration] of a gulp = for a moment, Num. iv. 20 with Job vii. 29; and one can thus understand 280 without any alteration of the text after - Job xv. 16; cf. xx. 12-15, as well as with the text altered after Isa. 111. 12, by no means so that one makes ix the subject: mischief swallows up, 1.6. destroys, the mouth of the wicked (Rashi); for when ‘ mouth” and “to swallow” stand connected, the mouth is naturally that which swallows, not that which is swallowed (cf. Eccles. x. 12: the mouth of the fool swallows, 1.6. destroys, him). Thus 28d means that wickedness, i.e. that which is morally perverse, is a delicious morsel for the mouth of the godless, which he eagerly devours; to practise evil is for him, as we say, “ ein wahrer Genuss” [a true enjoyment]. Ver. 29 Judgments are prepared for scorners, And stripes for the backs of fools.
o’o2Y never means punishment which a court of justice inflicts, but is always used of the judgments of God, even although they are inflicted by human instrumentality (vzd. 2 Chron. xxiv. 24); the singular, which nowhere occurs, is the segolate n. act. DEY = bibY, 2 Chron. xx. 9, plur. OMY, Hitzig’s remark: “the judgment may, after ver. 25, consist in stripes,” is misleading; the stroke, ni34, there is such as when, 6.9.) a stroke on the ear is applied to one who despises that which is holy, which, under the circumstances, may be salutary; but it does not fall under the category of shephuthim, nor properly under that of nindna, The former are providential chastisements with which history itself, or God in history, visits the despiser of religion; the latter are strokes which are laid on the backs of fools by one who is instructing them, in order, if possible, to bring them to thought and understanding. 3), here inflected as ΜΝ ρλ., is used, as Job xv. 23, as meaning to be placed in readiness, and thus to be surely imminent. Regarding mahaltimoth, vid. at xviii. 6.
with which free-thinking is intimately associated. Wine is a mocker, mead boisterous; And no one who is overtaken thereby is wise. The article stands with 1, Ewald maintains that in x.—xxii. 6 the article occurs only here and at xxi. 31, and that it is here, as the L_X-X. shows, not original. Both statements are incorrect. The article is found, e.g., at xix. 6, xviii. 18,17, and here the personification of “ wine” requires it; but that it is wanting to 12% shows how little poetry delights in it; it stands once for twice. The effects of wine and mead (12Y from 3¥, to stop, obstruct, become stupid) are attributed to these liquors themselves as their property. Wineis a mocker, because he who is intoxicated with it readily scoffs at that which is holy; mead is boisterous (cf. 73210, vii. 11), because he who is inebriated in his dissolute madness breaks through the limits of morality and propriety. He is unwise who, through wine and the like, i.e. overpowered by it (cf. 2 Sam. xiii. 28), staggers, z.e. he gives himself up to wine to such a degree that he is no longer master of himself. Atv. 19 we read, 3 73”, of the intoxication of love; here, as at Isa. xxviii. 7, ol the intoxication of wine, ie. of the passionate slavish psig of wine or for wine. The word “ Erpicht” [avidissimus], i.e. being indissolubly bound to a thing, corresponds at least in some degree to the idea. Fleischer compares the French: étre fou de quelque chose. Isa. xxviii. 7, however, shows that one has to think on actual staggering, being overtaken in wine. Ver. 2 A roaring as of a lion is the terror of the king; And he that provoketh him forfeiteth his life.
Line first is a variation of xix. 12. The terror which a king spreads around (12, gen. subjecti., as, ¢.g., at Job ix. 84 and generally) is like the growling of a lion which threatens danger. The thought here suggested is that it is dangerous to arouse a lion. Thus ayn does not mean: he who is angry at him (Venet.: χολούμενος αὐτῷ), but he who provokes him (LXX., Syr., Targ., Jerome, Luther). 20 signifies, as we saw at xiv. 16, to be in a state of excessive displeasure, extreme anger. Here the meaning must be: he who puts him into a state of anger (UX X., ὁ παροξύνων αὐτόν, in other versions with the addition of καὶ ἐπιμυγνύμενος, who conducts himself familiarly towards him=131~n»). But can mitharvo have this meaning? That the Hithpa. of transitive stems, eg. 13907 (1 Kings viii. 59) and WBAvT (Mic. vi. 16), is construed with the accus. of that which any one performs for himself (cf. Ewald’s Gramm. Arab. § 180), is not unusual; but ean the Hithpa. of the intrans. 13y, which signifies to fall into a passion, “express with the accusative the passion of another excited thereby ” (Ewald, §282a)? There is no evidence for this; and Hitzig’s conjecture, ayn (Tiphel of the Targ. 3yAn = 172Y), is thus not without occasion. But one might suppose that 12YN3, as the reflexive of a Piel or Hiphil which meant to be put into a state of anger, may mean to draw forth the anger of any one, as in Arab., the vitith form (Hithpa.) of hadr, to be present, with the accus. as reflexive of the rvth form, may mean: sibi aliquid presens sistere. Not so difficult is OM with the accus. of that which is missing, vid. viii. 36 and Hab. 11. 10. Ver. 3 It is an honour to a man to remain far from strife; But every fool showeth his teeth. Or better: whoever is a fool guisquis amens, for the emphasis does not lie on this, that every fool, ze. every single one of this sort, contends to the uttermost; ἐμάς that whoever is only always a fool finds pleasure in such strife. Regarding y23n9, vid. xvii. 14, xviii. 1. On the contrary, it is an honour to a man to be Seas or, as it is here expressed, to remain far from strife. The phrase may be translated: to desist from strife; but in this case the word would be pointed N3¥, which Hitzig prefers; for N2¥ from n2¥ means, 2 Sam. xxiii. 7, annihilation (the termination of ‘existence); also Ex. xxi. 19, in2v¥ does not mean to be keeping holy day; but to be sitting, viz. at home, in a state of incapability for work. Rightly Fleischer: ‘j' 3¥*, like Arab. k’ad san, to remain sitting quiet, and thus to hold oneself removed from any kind of activity.” He who is prudent, and cares for his honour, not only breaks off strife when it threatens to become passionate, but does not at all enter into it, keeps himself far removed from it. Ver. 4 At the beginning of the harvest the sluggard plougheth not; And so when he cometh to the reaping-time there is nothing.
preters (6.0. Rashi, Zickler) explain: propter frigus; but 97h is, according to its verbal import, not a synon. of 7p and ΠῸΝ, but means gathering = the time of gathering (synon. ἢ" 9 δ), from 0, carpere,* as harvest, the time of the καρπίζειν, the plucking off of the fruit; but the harvest is the beginning of the old Eastern agricultural year, for in Palestine and Syria the time of ploughing and sowing with the harvest or early rains ("7 =", Neh. vii. 24; Ezra ii. 18) followed the fruit harvest from October to December. The j@ is thus not that of cause but of time. Thus rendered, it may mean the beginning of an event and onwards (e.g. 1 Sam. xxx. 25), as well as its termination and onwards (Lev. xxvii. 17): here of the harvest and its ingathering and onwards. In 40, the Chethib and Keri vary as at xviii, 17. The fut. °8¥ would denote what stands before the slugeard; the perf. *8v1 places him in the midst of this, and besides has this in its favour, that, interpreted as perf. hypotheticum, it makes the absence of an object to δε δ᾽ more tenable. The Chethib, Nv, is not to be read after Ps. cix. 10: he will beg in harvest—in vain (Jerome, Luther), to which Hitzig well remarks: Why in vain? Amid the joy of harvest people dispense most liberally; and the right time for begging comes later. Hitzig conjecturally arrives at the translation:
‘‘ A pannier the sluggard provideth ποῦ; Seeketh to borrow in harvest, and nothing cometh of it.”
But leaving out of view the “ pannier,” the meaning “ to obtain something as a loan,” which >xw from the connection may bear, is here altogether imaginary. Let one imagine to himself an indolent owner of land, who does not trouble himself about the tilling and sowing of his fields at the right time and with diligence, but leaves this to his people, who do only as much as is commanded them: such an one asks, when now the harvesttime has come, about the ingathering; but he receives the answer, that the land has lain unploughed, because he had not commanded it to be ploughed. When he asks, there is nothing, he asks in vain (Δ), as at xiv. 6, xiii. 4). Meiri rightly explains AN by Awyinn jor nbnnx, and 4b by: “so then, when he asks at harvest time, he will find nothing;” on the other 1 Vid. Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wérterbuch, i, 426, hand, the LXX. and Aram. think on 91N, carpere conviciis, as also in Codd. here and there is found the meaningless AAD, Ver. 5 The purpose in the heart of a man is deep water; But a man of understanding draweth it out. ‘Still waters are deep.” Like such deep waters (xviii. 4) is that which a man hath secretly (Isa. xxix. 15) planned in his heart. He keeps it secret, conceals it carefully, craftily misleads those who seek to draw it out; but the man of ΠΣ], ze. one who possesses the right criteria for distinguishing between good and bad, true and false, and at the same time has the" capacity to look through men and things, draws out (the Venet. well, ἀνέλξει) the secret TS), for he penetrates to the bottom of the deep water. Such an one does not deceive himself with men, he knows how to estimate their conduct according to its last underlying motive and aim; and if the purpose is one that is pernicious to him, he meets it in the process of realization. What is here said is applicable not only to the subtle statesman and the general, but also to the pragmatical historian and the expositor, as, 6.9.5) of a poem such as the book of Job, the idea of which lies like a pearl at the bottom of deep water. Ver. 6 Almost every one meeteth a man who is gracious to him; But a man who standeth the test, who findeth such an one?
As DNDN VS, xii. 17, signifies a messenger in whom there is confidence, and O28 TY, xiv. 5, a witness who is altogether truthful, so D'328 WX is a man who remains true to himself, and maintains fidelity toward others. Such an one it is not easy to find; but patrons who make promises and awaken expectations, finally to leave in the lurch him who depends on them—of such there are many. This contrast would proceed from 6a also, if we took 87? in the sense of to call, to call or cry out with ostentation: multi homines sunt quorum suam quisque humanitatem proclamat (Schelling, Fleischer, Ewald, Zickler, and also, e.g., Meiri). But ‘100 wx is certainly to be interpreted after xi. 17, Isa. lvii. 1. Recognising this, Hitzig translates: many a man one names his dear friend; but in point of style this would be as unsuitable as possible. Must 81?’ then mean vocat? A more appropriate parallel word to X¥D is 8IP=—7P, according to which, with Oetinger, Heidenheim, Euchel, and Lowenstein, we explain: the greater part of men meet one who shows himself to them (to this or that man) as 10% WN, a man well-affectioned and benevolent; but it is rare to find one who in his affection and its fruits proves himself to be true, and actually performs that which was hoped for from him. Luther translates, with the Syr. and Targ. after Jerome: Viel Menschen werden From gerhiimbt [many men are reputed pious]; but if SP! were equivalent to ἐδ, then 10h YS ought to have been used instead of ton wx. The LXX. read 30 Wx 7p’ DIN 33, man is something great, and a. compassionate man is eee reads precious; but it costs trouble to find out a true man. The fundamental thought remains almost the same in all these interpretations and readings: love is plentiful; fidelity, rare; therefore ἼΦΠ, of the right kind, after the image of God, is joined to nox. Ver. 7 He who in his innocence walketh as one upright, Blessed are his children after him!
We may not take the first line as a separate clause with P'S, as subject (Van Dyk, Elster) or predicate (Targ.); for, thus rendered, it does not appropriately fall in as parallel to the second line, because containing nothing of promise, and the second line would then strike in at least not so unconnectedly (cf. on the contrary, x. 9, xiv. 25). We have before us a substantival clause, of which the first line is the complex subject. But Jerome, the Venet., and Luther erroneously: the just man walking in his innocence; this placing first of the adj. is in opposition to the Hebr. syntax. We must, if the whole is to be interpreted as nom., regard p¥ as permutative: one walking in his innocence, a righteous one. But, without doubt, tsedek is the accus. of the manner; in the manner of one righteous, or in apposition: as one righteous; cf. Job xxxi. 26 with Mic. ii. 7. Thus Hitzig rightly also refers to these two passages, and Ewald also refers to xxii. 11, xxiv. 15. To walk in his innocence as a righteous man, is equivalent to always to do that which is right, without laying claim to any distinction or making any boast on that account; for thereby one only follows the impulse and the direction of his heart, which shows itself and can show itself not otherwise than in unreserved devotion to God and to that which is good. The children after him are not the children after his death (Gen. xxiv. 67); but, according to Deut. iv. 40, cf. Job xxi. 21, those who follow his example, and thus those who come after him; for already in the lifetime of such an one, the benediction begins to have its fulfilment in his children.
The following group begins with a royal proverb, which expresses what a king does with his eyes. ‘Two proverbs, of the seeing eye and the necessary opening of the eyes, close it.
Ver. 8 A king sitting on the seat of justice, Scattereth asunder all evil with his eyes. Excellently the Venet. ἐπὶ θρόνου δίκης, for PT-XD2 is the name | of the seat of rectitude (the tribunal), as the “throne of grace,” Heb. iv. 17, is the name of the capporeth as the seat of mercy; the seat of the judge is merely called xD3; on the other hand, PI"NDI is the contrast of Nii XDD, Ps. xciv. 20: the seat from which the decision that is in conformity with what is right (cf., e.g., Jer. v. 28) goes forth, and where it is sought. As little here as at ver. 26 is there need for a characterizing adj. to melek; but the LX -X. hits the meaning for it, understands sueh to pI: ὅταν βασιλεὺς δίκαιος καθίσῃ ἐπὶ θρόνου. By the ‘“‘eyes”’ are we then to understand those of the mind: he sifts, dignoscit, with the eyes of the mind all that is evil, 1.96. distinguishes it subjectively from that which is not evil? Thus Hitzig by a comparison of Ps. xi. 4, cxxxix. 3 (where Jerome has eventilasti, the Vulg. investigasti). Scarcely correctly, for it lies nearer to think on the eyes in the king’s head (vid. xvi. 15); in that case: to winnow (to sift) means to separate the good and the bad, but first mediately: to exclude the bad; finally, ver. 26 leads to the conclusion that 771 is to be understood, not of a subjective, but of an actual scattering, or separating, or driving away. Thus the penetrating, fear-inspiring eyes of the king are meant, as Immanuel explains: 259 ona YY NN mp S93 omsx stam. But in this explanation the personal rendering of yea is incorrect; for mezareh, meant of the driving asunder of persons, requires as its object a plur. (cf. 26a). Col-ra is understood as neut. like v.14. Before the look of a king to whom it belongs to execute righteousness and justice (Isa. xvi. 5), nothing evil stands; criminal acts and devices seen through, and so also judged by these eyes, are broken up and scattered to all the winds, along with the danger that thereby threatened the community. It is the command: “put away the evil” (Deut. xiii. 6), which the king carries into effect by the powerful influence of his look. With col-ra there is connected the thought that in the presence of the heavenly King no one is wholly free from sin. Ver. 9 Who can say I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sins? It it the same thought that Solomon expresses in his prayer at the consecration of the temple, 1 Kings viii. 46: there is no man who sinneth not. To cleanse his heart (as Ps. Ixxiii. 13), is equivalent to to empty it, by self-examination and earnest effort after holiness, of all impure motives and inclinations; vid. regarding 31, to be piercing, shining brightly, cloudlessly pure, Fleischer in Levy’s Chald. Worterbuch, i. 424. The consequence of Nid? is, becoming pure; and the consequence of 3? nist, i.e. of the purifying of the heart, the being pure from sinful conduct: I have become pure from my sins, 1.6. from such as I might fall into by not resisting temptations; the suffix is not understood as actual, but as potential, like Ps. xvill, 24. No one can boast of this, for man’s knowledge of himself and of his sins remains always limited (Jer. xvii. 9 f.; Ps. xix. 13); and sin is so deeply rooted in his nature (Job xiv. 4, xv. 14-16), that the remains of a sinful tendency always still conceal themselves in the folds of his heart, sinful thoughts still cross his soul, sinful inclinations still sometimes by their natural force overcome the moral resistance that opposes them, and stains of all kinds still defile even his best actions.
An abomination to Jahve are they both. The stones are, as at xi. 1, xvi. 11, those used as weights. Stone and stone, ephah and ephah, means that they are of diverse kinds, one large and one small (the LXX., in which the sequence of the proverbs from ver. 10 is different, has μέγα καὶ μικρόν), so that one may be able deceitfully to substitute the one for the other. 5’ (from 758, to bake) may originally have been used to designate such a quantity of meal as supplied a family of moderate wants; it corresponds to the lath (Ezek.
xlv. 11) as a measure for fluids, and stands here synecdochically instead of all the measures, including, e.g., the cor, of which the ephah was a tenth part, and the seah, which was a third part of it. 10 =xvii. 5, an echo of Lev. xix. 36; Deut. xxv. 13-16. Just and equal measure is the demand of a holy God; the contrary is to Him an abhorrence. Ver. 11 Even a child maketh himself known by his conduct, Whether his disposition be pure and whether it be right.
If ey may be here understood after the use of >2i¥, to play, to pass the time with anything, then 03 refers thereto: even’ by his play (Ewald). But granting that %2iyn [children], synon. with y2, had occasioned the choice of the word bby (vid. Fleischer on Isa. iii. 4), yet this word never means anything else than work, an undertaking of something, and accomplishing it; wherefore Bottcher proposes VOD, for Deyn may have meant play, in contradistinction to Deyn, This is possible, but conjectural. Thus gam is not taken along with Bamalalav. That the child also makes himself known by his actions, is an awkward thought; for if in anything else, in these he must show what one has té expect from him. Thus gam is after the syntactical method spoken of at xvii. 26, xix. 2, to be referred to 3 (also the child, even the child), although in this order it is referred to the whole clause. The verb 153 is, from its fundamental thought, to perceive, observe from an ἐναντιό- onuov: to know, and to know as strange, to disown (vid. under Isa. iii. 9); the Hithpa. elsewhere signifies, like (Arab.) tankkar, to make oneself unknowable, but here to make oneself knowable; Symmachus, ἐπυγνωρισθήσεται, Venet. γνωσθή- σεταί. Or does the proverb mean: even the child dissembles in his actions (Oetinger)? Certamly not, for that would be a statement which, thus generally made, is not justified by experience. We must then interpret 110 as a direct question, though it has the form of an indirect one: he gives himself to be known, viz. whether his disposition be pure and right. That one may recognise his actions in the conduct of any one, is a platitude; also that one may recognise his conduct in these, is not much better. yb is therefore referred by Hitzig to God as the Creator, and he interprets it in the sense of the Arab. khulk, being created =natura. We also in this way explain 2%, Ps.
cill. 14, as referable to God the Ν᾽: and that poal occurs, e.g. Isa. i. 31, not merely in the sense of action, but also in that of performance or structure, is favourable to this interpretation. But one would think that poal, if thus used in the sense of the nature of man, would have more frequently occurred. It everywhere else means action or work. And thus it is perhaps also here used to denote action, but regarded as habitual conduct, and according to the root-meaning, moral disposition. The N. Τ᾿, word ἔργον approaches this idea in such passages as Gal. vi. 4. It is less probable that 110 is understood with reference to the future (Luther and others); for in that case one does not see why the poet did not make use of the more intelligible phrase YD M7 Ww TON. It is like our (Germ.) proverb: Was ein Haken werden will kriimmt sich bald [what means to become a hook bends itself early]; or: Was ein Dornchen werden will spitzt sich bei Zeiten’ [what means to become a thorn sharpens itself early], and to the Aram. yy) Map ΝΣ pyia=that which will become a gourd shows itself in the bud, Berachoth 48a. Ver. 12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye— Jahve hath created them both.
Lowenstein, like the L-X-X.: the ear hears and the eye sees— it is enough to refer to the contrary to ver. 10 and xvii. 15. In itself the proverb affirms a fact, and that is its sensus simplex; but besides, this fact may be seen from many points of view, and it has many consequences, none of which is to be rejected as contrary to the meaning: (1.) It lies nearest to draw the conclusion, vid eminentiw, which is drawn in Ps. xciv. 9. God is thus the All-hearing and the All-seeing, from which, on the one side, the consolation arises that everything that is seen stands under His protection and government, xv. 3; and on the other side, the warning, Aboth 11. 1: “ Know what is above thee; a Seeing eye and a Hearing ear, and all thy conduct is marked in His book.” (2.) With this also is connected the sense arising out of the combination in Ps. xl. 7: man ought then to use the ear and the eye in conformity with the design which they are intended to subserve, according to the purpose of the Creator (Hitzig compares xvi. 4); it is not first applicable to man with reference to the natural, but to the moral life: he shall not make himself deaf and blind to that which it is his duty to hear and to see; but he ought also not to hear and to see with pleasure that from which he should turn away (Isa. xxxili. 15),—in all his hearing and seeing he is responsible to the Creator of the ear and the eye. (3.) One may thus interpret “hearing” and “seeing” as commendable properties, as Fleischer suggests from comparison of xvi. 11: an ear that truly hears (the word of God and the lessons of Wisdom) and an eye that truly sees (the works of God) are a gift of the Creator, and are (Arab.) lillhi, are to be held as high and precious. Thus the proverb, like a polished gem, may be turned now in one direction and now in another; it is to be regarded as a many-sided fact.
Ver. 13 Love not sleep, lest thou become poor; Open thine eyes, and have enough to eat.
What is comprehended in the first line here ig presented in detail in vi. 9-11. The fut. Niph. of wx, to become poor (εἴ.
x. 4), is formed metaplastically from UV, xxiii. 21, xxx. 9, as at 1 Sam. ii. 7; Hitzig compares (Arab.) ryth, which, however, means to loiter or delay, not to come back or down. The R. wv signifies either to be slack without support (cf. 21), or to desire (cf. ax, Arab. fkyr, properly hiscens, R. pd, as in npp, to open widely, which here follows). Regarding the second imper. 130, vid. 11. 4: it has the force of a consequence, Las deine augen wacker sein, So wirstu brots gnug haben (Luth.) [Let thine eyes be open, so shalt thou have bread enough]. With these two proverbs of the eyes, the group beginning with ver. 8 rounds itself off.
The following group has its natural limit at the new point of departure at ver. 20, and is internally connected in a diversity of ways.
‘Bad, bad!” saith one if he hath it; But when it is gone, then he boasteth of it.
‘* Omne bonum prexsens minus est, sperata videntur Magna.” Schultens quotes the proverbs τὸ παρὸν βαρύ and Presentia laudato, for with Luther he refers 15 Six) to the present possession (518, as 1 Sam. ix. 7=(Arab.) zal, to cease, to be lost), and translates: at dilapsum sibi, tum demum pro splendido celebrat. But by this the Hithpa. does not receive its full meaning; and to extract from 72\p7 the idea to which 1 5) refers, if not unnecessary, is certainly worthless. Hakkoneh may also certainly mean the possessor, but the possessor by acquisition (LXX. and the Venet. ὁ κτώμενος); for the most part it signifies the possessor by purchase, the buyer (Jerome, emptor), as correlate of 13, Isa. xxiv. 2; Ezek. iv. 12. It is customary for the buyer to undervalue that which he seeks to purchase, so as to obtain it as cheaply as possible; afterwards he boasts that he has bought. that which is good, and yet so cheap. That is an every-day experience; but the proverb indirectly warns against conventional lying, and shows that one should not be startled and deceived thereby. The subject to 1b 5x) is thus the buyer; 5tx with 1 denotes, more definitely even than 1) Ἴδη, going from thence, s’en aller. Syntactically, the punctuation 0 aN [and he takes himself off] (perf. hypoth., Ewald, 357a) would have been near (Jerome: et cum recesserit); but yet it is not necessary, with Hitzig, thus to correct it. The poet means to say: making himself off, he then boasts. We cannot in German place the “alsdann” [then] as the Ἰδὲ here, and as. also, 6.9. at 1 Sam. xx. 12; but Theodotion, in good Greek: καὶ πορευθεὶς τότε καυχήσεται. We may write ib ore) with Mercha on the antepenult, on which the accent is thrown back, οἵ. j210, xix. 17, but not ib; for the rule for Dagesh does not here, with the retrogression of the tone, come into application, as, e.g., in "ond Oi, Ps, xli. 10. Singularly the Syr. and Targ. do not read YY, but we yi, and couple ver. 15 with 14. In the LXX., vers. 14-19 are wanting.
Ver. 15 There is indeed gold, and many pearls;
But a precious treasure are lips full of knowledge. In order to find a connection between this proverb and that which precedes, we need only be reminded of the parable of the merchantman who sought goodly pearls, Matt. xiii. 45 f. The proverb rises to a climax: there is gold, and there are pearls in abundance, the one of which has always a higher value than the other; but intelligent lips are above all such jewels—they are a precious treasure, which gold and all pearls cannot equal. In a similar manner the N. T. places the one pearl above the many goodly pearls. So might nyt (chokma) be called the pearl above all pearls (iii. 15, viii. 11); but the lips as the organ of knowledge are fittingly compared with a precious vessel, a vessel of more precious substance than gold and pearls are. Ver. 16 Take from him the garment, for he hath become surety for another; And for strangers take him as a pledge.
The same proverb xxvii. 13, where ΠΡ, with the usual apheresis, here interchanges with it the fuller form npe, which is also found at Ezek, xxxvil.16. To this imperative wean is parallel: take him as a pledge (Theodotion, Jerome, the Venet. and Luther); it is not a substantive: his pledge (Targ.), which would require the word in2an (03Π); nor is it to be read with the Syr. sn2an, one pledges him; but it is imperative, not however of the Piel, which would be sn2an, and would mean “destroy him;” but, as Aben Ezra rightly, the imperative of Kal of oan, to take as a pledge, Ex. xxi. 25, for span without any example indeed except °2227, Ps. ix.14; cf. Ixxx. 16. The first line is clear: take his garment, for he has become good for another (cf. xi. 15), who has left him in the lurch, so that he must now become wise by experience. ‘The second line also is intelligible if we read, according to the Chethib, 022 (Jerome, the Venet.), not 0°22, as Schultens incorrectly points it, and if we interpret this plur. like p21, Gen. xxi. 7, with Hitzig following Luther, as plur. of the category: take him as a pledge, hold fast by his person, so as not to suffer injury from strange people for whom he has become surety. But the Keri requires 1°33 (according to which Theodotion and the Syr., and, more distinctly still than these, the Targ. translates), and thus, indeed, it stands written, xxvii. 13, without the Ker7, thus Bathra 1736 reads and writes also here. Either 1°73) is a strange woman, a prostitute, a maitresse for whom the unwise has made himself surety, or it is neut. for aliena res (LUXX. xxvii. 13, τὰ ἀλλότρια), a matter not properly belonging to this unwise person. We regard 03) in this passage as original. "2 coincides with vi. 26: it does not mean ἀντί, but ὑπέρ; “ for strange people” is here equivalent to for the sake of, on account of strange people (χάριν τῶν ἀλλοτρίων, as the Venet. translates it). Ver. 17 Sweet to a man is the bread of deceit; Yet at last his mouth is full of gravel. ‘Bread of deceit” is not deceit itself, as that after which the desire of a man goes forth, and that for which he has a relish (thus, e.g., Immanuel and Hitzig); but that which is not gained by labour, and is not merited. Possession (vid. iv. 17) or enjoyment (ix. 17) obtained by deceit is thus called, as D213 On, xxiil. 8, denotes bread; but for him who has a relish for it, it is connected with deceit. Such bread of lies is sweet to a man, because it has come to him without effort, but in the end not only will he have nothing to eat, but his tongue, teeth, and mouth will be injured by small stones; 1.6. in the end he will have nothing, and there will remain to him only evil (Fleischer). Or: it changes itself (Job xx. 14) at last into gravel, of which his mouth is filled full, as we might say, “it lies at last in his stomach like lead.” $M is the Arab. hatny, gravel (Hitzig, grien = gries, coarse sand, grit), R. yn, scindere. Similarly in Arab. hajar, a stone, is used as the image of disappointed expectations, e.g. the adulterer finds a stone, i.e. experiences disappointment. Ver. 18 Plans are established by counsel, And with prudent government make war.
From the conception of a thought, practically influencing the formation of our own life and the life of the community, to its accomplishment there is always a long way which does not lead to the end unless one goes forward with counsel and strength combined, and considers all means and eventualities. The Niph. of v3 means, in a passive sense: to be accomplished or realized (Ps. cxli. 2). The clause 18a is true for times of war as well as for times of peace; war is disastrous, unless it is directed with strategic skill (wd. regarding nipann, i, 5). Grotius compares the proverb, Γνῶμαι πλέον κρατοῦσιν ἢ σθένος χειρῶν. In xxiv. 6, the necessity of counsel is also referred to the case of war. Ewald would read [the infin.] ΠΟ, or
ΠΟ: with management it is that one carries on war. But why? Because to him the challenge to carry on war appears to be contrary to the spirit of proverbial poetry. But the author of the proverb does certainly mean: if thou hast to carry on war, carry it on with the skill of a general; and the imper. is protected by xxiv. 6 against that infin., which is, besides, stylistically incongruous.
Ver. 19 He that goeth out gossiping revealeth a secret; And with the babbler have nothing to do.
And with the slanderer, and with the false (better: loquacious) mouth, so that δ and the warning apply to the threefold description, a rendering which Kimchi also, and Immanuel, and others at least suggest. But in connection with xi. 13, the first line has the force of a judicitum, which includes the warning to entrust nothing to a babbler which ought to be kept silent. Write Tid nia, as found in Codd. and old Edd., with AZunach on the penultima, on which the tone is thrown back, and Dagesh to Ὁ, after the rule of the pnt (Gesen. ὃ 20, 2a), altogether like 3? nip, xv. 382. 196 the Venet. translates after the first meaning of the word by Kimchi, τῷ ἀπαταιῶνι τοῖς χείλεσι, to him who slanders and befools, for it thus improves Theodotion’s τῷ ἀπατῶντι τὰ χείλη αὐτοῦ. But NB means, Job ν. 2, —cf. Hos. vii. 11,—not him who befools another, but him who is befooled, is slandered, by another (Aben Ezra: Ons wnnp), with which "BY here does not agree. But now he who is easily befooled is called “NB, as being open to influence (susceptible), patens; and if this particip. is used, as here, transitively, and, on account of the object "naw standing near cannot possibly be equivalent to ΠΗ͂ΞΙΣ, the usage of the language also just noticed is against it, then it means patefaciens or dilatans (cf. AMDT, Gen. ix. 27, Targ. ‘MB¥$=2779), and places itself as synon. to PW, xiii. 3; thus one is called who does not close his mouth, who cannot hold his mouth, who always idly babbles, and is therefore, because he can keep nothing to himself,adangerous companion. The Complut. rightly translates: μετὰ πλατύνοντος τὰ ἑαυτοῦ μὴ μίχθητι χείλη.
The following group begins, for once more the aim of this older Book of Proverbs becomes prominent, with an inculcation of the fourth’ commandment.
Ver. 20 He that curseth his father and his mother, His light is extinguished in midnight darkness, The divine law, Ex. xxi. 17, Lev. xx. 9, condemns such an one to death. But the proverb does not mean this sentence against the criminal, which may only seldom be carried into execution, but the fearful end which, because of the righteousness of God ruling in history, terminates the life of such an unnatural son (xxx. 17). Of the godless, it has already been said that their light is extinguished, xiii. 9, there is suddenly an end to all that brightened, z.e. made happy and embellished their life; but he who acts wickedly (bp, R. bp, levem esse, synon. nopn, Deut. xxvii. 16), even to the cursing of his father and mother, will see himself surrounded by midnight darkness (Symmachus, σκοτομήνῃ, moonless night), not: he will see himself in the greatest need, forsaken by divine protection (Fleischer), for Jansen rightly: Luz et lucerna in scripturis et vite claritatem et posteritatem et prosperitatem significat. The apple of the eye, jit”®, of darkness (vid. vii. 9), is that which forms the centre or centralization of darkness. The Syr. renders it correctly by bobtho, pupil [of the eye], but the Targ. retains the RUS of the Keri, and renders it in Aram. by RX, which Rashi regards as an infin., Parchon as a particip. after the form JY; but it may be also an infin. substantive after the form MY, and is certainly nothing else than the abbreviated and vocally obscured ἡ δ, For the Talm. JX, to be hard, furnishes no suitable idea; and the same holds true of ‘AWN, times, Lev. xv. 25 of the Jerusalem Targ.; while the same abbreviation and the same passing over of ὁ into u represents this as the inflected iw’* (=ny). There is also no evidence for a verb }W&, to be black, dark; the author of Aruch interprets xnwx, Bereschith Rabba, c. 33, with reference to the passage before us, of a dark bathing apartment, but only tentatively, and pv*x is there quoted as the Targ. of oY, Gen. xix. 8, which the text lying before us does not ratify. Jshon means the little man (in the eye), and neither the blackness
(Buxtorf and others) nor the point of strength, the central point (Levy) of the eye. Ver. 21 An inheritance which in the beginning is obtained in haste, Its end will not be blessed. The partic. onan may, after Zech. xi. 8, cf. Syr. fliso, mauseans, mean “ detested,” but that affords here no sense; rather it might be interpreted after the Arab. bajila, to be avaricious, “ gotten by avarice, niggardliness,” with which, however, neither mons, inheritance, nor, since avarice is a chronic disease, MWNI2 agrees. On the contrary, the Kert nena [hastened] perfectly agrees, both linguistically (vid. xxvii. 22; cf. xiii. 11) and actually; for, as Hitzig remarks, the words following ver. 20 fully harmonize with the idea of an inheritance, into the possession of which one is put before it is rightly due to him; fora son such as that, the parents may live too long, and so he violently deprives them of the possession (cf. xix. 26); but on such a possession there rests no blessing. Since the Piel may mean to hasten, Esth. ii. 9, so on319 may mean hastened= speedy, Esth. viii. 14, as well as made in haste. All the old interpreters adopt the Keri; the Aram. render it well by 827700, from 17700, overturned; and Luther, like Jerome, hereditas ad quam festinatur. Ver. 22 Say not: I will avenge the evil; Hope in Jahve, so will He help thee. Men ought always to act toward their neighbours according to the law of love, and not according to the jus talionis, xxiv. 29; they ought not only, by requiting good with evil (xvi. 13; Ps. vii. 5a, xxxv. 12), not to transgress this law of requital, but they ought to surpass it, by also recompensing not evil with evil (vid. regarding D>¥, and synon. to xvii. 13); and that is what the proverb means, for 220 supposes injustice suffered, which might stir up a spirit of revenge. It does not, however, say that men ought to commit the taking of vengeance to God; but, in the sense of Rom. xii. 17-19, 1 Pet. iii. 9, that, renouncing all dependence on self, they ought to commit their deliverance out of the distress into which they have fallen, and their vindication, into the hands of God; forthe promise is not that He will avenge them, but that 1 Vid. Fleischer in Levy’s Chald. Wérterbuch, i. 419.
He will help them. The jussive yw (write ww, according to Metheg-setzung, ὃ 42, with Gaja as ΤΣ, with the y to secure distinct utterance to the final guttural) states as a consequence, like, e.g., 2 Kings v. 10, what will then happen (Jerome, Luther, Hitzig) if one lets God rule (Gesen. § 128, 2c); equally possible, syntactically, is the rendering: that He may help thee (LXX., Ewald); but, regarded as a promise, the words are more in accordance with the spirit of the proverb, and they round it off more expressively. Ver. 23 An abomination to Jahve are two kinds of weights; And deceitful balances are not good. A variant to ver. 10, xi. 1. The pred. sin-Nd (xvii. 26, xviii. 5, xix. 3) is conceived of as neut.; they are not good, much rather bad and pernicious, for the deceiver succeeds only in appearance; in reality he fails. Ver. 24 The steps of a man depend on Jahve; And a man—how can he understand his way?
Line first is from Ps. xxxvii. 23, but there, where the clause has the verbal predicate 19213, the meaning is that it is the gracious assistance of God, by virtue of which a man takes certain steps with his feet, while here we have before us a variation of the proverb “ der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt” [= man proposes, God disposes], xvi. 9, Jer. x. 23; for }2, as at 2 Sam. iii. 37, Ps. cxviii. 23, denotes God in general as conditioning, as the ultimate cause. Man is indeed free to turn himself hither or thither, to decide on this course of conduct or on that, and is therefore responsible for it; but the relations co-operating in all his steps as the possible and defining conditions are God’s contrivance and guidance, and the consequences which are connected with his steps and flow therefrom, lie beyond the power of man,— every one of his steps is a link of achain, neither the beginning nor the end of which he can see; while, on the other hand, God’s knowledge comprehends the beginning, middle, and end, and the wisdom of God ruling in the sphere of history, makes all human activity, the free action of man, subservient to his world-plan. The question, which has a negative answer, is applicable to man: what, 1.6. how shall he understand his way? mp is like, e.g., Ex. x. 26, Job ix. 2, xix. 28, accus., and fluctuates between the functions of a governed accusative: What does he understand... (Job xi. 8) and an adv.: how, z.e. how so little, how even not, for it is the ΠΟ of the negative question which has become in (Arab.) md a word of negation. The way of aman is his life’s-course. This he understands in the present life only relatively, the true unravelling of it remains for the future. Ver. 25 It is a snare to a man to cry out hastily “‘ holy;” And first after vows to investigate.
Two other interpretations of the first line have been proposed. The snare of a man devours, 1.6. destroys the holy; but then DIN ΟΡ must be an expression of an action, instead of an. expression of an endurance, which is impossible. The same is true against the explanation: the snare of a man devours, ὦ.6. consumes, eats up the holy, which as such is withdrawn from common use. Jerome with his devotare sanctos, and Luther with his das Heilige lestern [to calumniate the holy], give to 322 = yoa a meaning which loses itself in the arbitrary. Accordingly, nothing is to be done with the meaning κατα- πίεται (Aquila, the Venet.). But yor will be the abbreviated fut. of 3nd (from ys’), or yy (055), Job vi. 8=(Arab.) lughd temere loqui (proloqui); and WIP (after Hitzig: consecration, which is contrary to usage) is like xopBav, Mark vii. 11, the exclamation to which one suddenly gives utterance, thereby meaning that this or that among his possessions henceforth no longer belongs to him, but is consecrated to God, and thus ought to be delivered up to the temple. Such a sudden vow and halting deference to the oath that has been uttered is a snare to a man, for he comes to know that he has injured himself by the alienation of his property, which he has vowed beyond that which was due from him, or that the fulfilling of his vow is connected with difficulties, and perhaps also to others, with regard to whom its disposal was not permitted to him, is of evil consequences, or it may be he is overcome by repentance and is constrained to break his oath. The LXX. hits the true meaning of the proverb with rare success: Παγὶς ἀνδρὶ ταχύ τι τῶν ἰδίων ἁγιάσαι, μετὰ δὲ τὸ εὔξασθαι μετανοεῖν γίνεται. O72 is plur. of the category (cf. 16b Chethib), and "p23, as 2 Kings xvi. 15, Arab. bakr, examinare, inquirere, means to subject to investigation, viz. whether he ought to observe, and might observe, a vow such as this, or whether he might not and ought not rather to renounce it (Fleischer), Viewed syntactically, 25a is so difficult, that Bertheau, with Hitzig, punctuates yD; but this substantive must be formed from a verb yp? (cf. Hab. iii. 13), and this would mean, after (Arab.) wala’, “ to long eagerly for,” which is not suitable here. The punctuation shows yd» as the 3d. fut. What interpreters here say of the doubled accent of the word arises from ignorance: the correct punctuation is yor, with Gaja to y, to give the final guttural more force in utterance. The poet appears to place in the foreground: “a snare for a man,” asa rubrum; and then continuing the description, he cries out suddenly “ holy!” and after the vow, he proceeds to deliberate upon it. Fleischer rightly: post vota inquisiturus est (in ea) = "pap mim; vid. at Hab. i. 17, which passage Hitzig also compares as syntactically very closely related. Ver. 26 A wise king winnoweth the godless, And bringeth over them the wheel.
A variant to xx. 8, but here with the following out of the figure of the winnowing. For }5i8 with mM) is, without doubt, the wheel of the threshing-cart, m3, Isa. xxviii. 27 f.; and thus with nnd, the winnowing fork, 7719 is to be thought of; wid. a description of them along with that of the winnowing shovel, NM, in Wetzstein’s Excursus to Isa., p- 707 ff. Weare not to think of the punishment of the wheel, which occurs only as a terrible custom of war (e.g. Amosi. 3). It isonly meant that a wise king, by sharp and vigorous procedure, separates the godless, and immediately visits them with merited punishment, as he who works with the winnowing shovel gives the chaff to the wind. Most ancient interpreters think on ἸΒῚΝ (from j5X, vertere) in its metaphorical meaning: τρόπος (thus also Lowenstein, he deals with them according to merit), or the wheel of fortune, with reference to the constellations; thus, misfortune (Immanuel, Meiri). Arama, Oetinger, and others are, however, on the right track.
With a proverb of a light that was extinguished, ver. 20 began the group; the proverb of God’s light, which here follows, we take as the beginning of a new group.
Ver. 27 A candle of Jahve is the soul of man, Searching through all the chambers of the heart.
If the O. T. language has a separate word to denote the selfconscious personal human spirit in contradistinction to the spirit of a beast, this word, according to the usage of the language, as Reuchlin, in an appendix to Aben Ezra, remarks, is NWI; it is so called as the principle of life breathed immediately by God into the body (vid. at Gen. ii. 7, vii. 22). Indeed, that which is here said of the human spirit would not be said of the spirit of a beast: it is “the mystery of self-consciousness which is here figuratively represented” (Elster). The proverb intentionally does not use the word 53, for this is not the power of self-consciousness in man, but the medium of bodily life; it is related secondarily to ΠΟ) (nn), while now, on (ΠΥ) is used, ON ἘΣ is an expression unheard of. Hitzig is in error when he understands by ΠΟ) here the soul in contradistinction to the spirit, and in support of this appeals to an expression in the Cosmography of Kazwini: “the soul (Arab. dl-nefs) is like the lamp which moves about in the cliambers of the house;” here also en-nefs is the self-conscious spirit, for the Arab. and post-bibl. Heb. terminology influenced by philosophy reverses the biblical usage, and calls the rational soul was, and, on the contrary, the animal soul ADws, ΠῚ (Psychologie, p. 154). WBA is the particip. of YBN, Zeph. i. 12, without distinguishing the Kal and Piel. Regarding }02°770, LXX. ταμιεῖα κοιλίας, vid. at xviil. 8: [23 denotes the inner part of the body (R. ba, to be deepened), and generally of the personality; cf. Arab. bdtn dlrwh, the interior of the spirit, and xxii. 18, according to which Fleischer explains: ‘“ A candle of Jalive, 1.6. a means bestowed on man by God Himself to search out the secrets deeply hid in the spirit of another.” But the candle which God has kindled in man has as the nearest sphere of illumination, which goes forth from it, the condition of the man himself—the spirit comprehends all that belongs to the nature of man in the unity of self-consciousness, but yet more: it makes it the object of reflection; it penetrates, searching it through, and seeks to take it up into its knowledge, and recognises the problem proposed to it, to rule it by its power. The proverb is thus to be ethically understood: the spirit is that which penetrates that which is within, even into its many secret corners and folds, with its self-testing and self-knowing light
—it is, after Matt. vi. 22, the inner light, the inner eye. Man becomes known to himself according to his moral as well as his natural condition in the light of the spirit; “for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?” says Paul, 1 Cor. ii. 11. With reference to this Solomonic proverb, the seven-branched candlestick is an ancient symbol of the soul, e.g. on the Jewish sepulchral monuments of the Roman wié Portuensis. Our texts present the phrase 737. 12; but the Talm. Pesachim 7b, 8a, the Pesikta in part 8, the Midrash Othijoth de-Rabbi Alsba, under the letter 3, Alphasi (51) in Pesachim, and others, read DION 13; and fen this phrase the Targum translates, while the ‘Gyr. and the other old versions render by the word “ Lord” (Venet. ὀντωτής), and thus had mn before them. Ver. 28 Love and truth guard the king; And he supports his throne by love. We have not in the German [nor in the Eng.] language a couple of words that completely cover M281 107; when they are used of God, we translate them by grace ‘andi tach [ Gnade u. Wahrheit], Ps, x], 12 (28); when of men, by love and truth [Liebe τι. Treue], xvi. 6; and when of the wary divine forces, by kindness and truth, iii. 3. Love and truth are the two good spirits that guard the king. If it is elsewhere said that the king’s throne is supported “ with judgment and with justice,” Isa. ix. 6; here, on the other side, we see that the exercise of government must have love as its centre; he has not only to act on the line of right, 17 NNW; but, as the later proverb says, in such a way, that within this circle his conduct is determined by the central motive of love. In this sense we give the king not only the title of Grossmdchtigster [most high and mighty], but also that of “ Allergnddigster” [most gracious], for the king can and ought to exercise grace before other men; the virtue of condescension establishes his throne more than the might of greatness. Ver. 29 The ornament of young men is their strength; And the honour of the old is grey hairs.
Youth has the name 3 (different from 7M2, chosen), of the maturity (R.1n3, cogn. 723, 733, whence Mishn. 123, manhood, in contradistinction to My) into which he enters from the bloom of boyhood; and the old man is called δ᾽ (Arab.
dhikn, as Schultens says, a mento pendulo, from the hanging chin }Pt, (Arab.) dhakan, chin, beard on the chin). To stand in the fulness of fresh unwasted strength is to youth, as such, an ornament (NNSA, cf. W785, blooming colour of the countenance); on the contrary, to the old man sitio has spent his strength 1 in the duties of his office, or as it is said at xvi. 31, “in the way of righteousness,” grey hairs ([2”, from 2%, Arab. shdb, canescere) give an honourable appearance (174, from ὙΠ, turgidum, amplum esse, vid. at Isa. Ixiii. 1).
Luther otherwise (like Hitzig)—
Ver. 30 Cutting wounds cleanse away evil, And reach the inner parts of the body.
The two words for wounds in line first stand in the st. constr.; m33N (from 734, to be bound around with stripes, to be striped) is properly the streak, the stripe; but is here heightened by y¥B (from Y¥B, to cleave, split, tear open), beyond the idea of the stripe-wound: tearing open the flesh, cuts tearing into the flesh. The pred. is after the Keri PDN; but this substantive, found in the Book of Esther, where it signifies the purification of the women for the harem (according to which, e.g., Ahron B. Joseph explains pnd ma simv ows pron wo), is ay htdchidally hard, and scarcely original. For if we explain with Kimchi: θη βὸ of deep incision find their cleansing (cure) by evil, 1.6. by means which bring suffering (according to which, probably the Venet. μώλωπες τραύματος λάμψουσιν ἐν κακῷ), then jpn, with the pronoun pointing back, one would have expected, is used. But if we read after the Chethib py10A, then all is syntactically correct; for (1.) that the word ἢ PD, or IPN, is not used, is in accordance with a well-known rule, Gesen. § 146, 3; and (2.) that PDT is connected, not directly with an accus. obj., but with 3, has its analogy in 2 Ayn, Jer. xlii. 2, a wywn, Job xxxi. 12, and the like, and besides has its special pretend in the snebapWoukéal character of the cleansing.
erecting a building; but with W of the intellectual erection of a memorial (monument). It is the so-called Ba-dlmojéz; vid. de Sacy’s Chrest. Arab. i. 891. The verb P22 means in Talm. also, “to take away” (a metaph. of abstergere; cf. Arab. marak, to wipe off"); and that meaning is adopted, Schabbath 33a, for the interpretations of this proverb: stripes and wounds a preparedness for evil carries away, and sorrow in the innermost part of the body, which is explained by ΡΥ (a disease appearing in diverse forms; cf. “ Drachenschuss,” as the name of an animal disease); but granting that the biblical po» may bear this meaning, the 2 remains unaccountable; for we say pip mayo ΟΝ, for to prepare oneself for a transgression (sin of excess), and not 77293. We have thus to abide by the primary meaning, and to compare the proverb, Berachoth 5a: “ aftflictive providences wash away all the transgressions of a man.” But the proverb before us means, first at least, not the wounds which God inflicts, but those which human educational energy inflicts: deep-cutting wounds, i.e. stern discipline, leads to the rubbing off of evil, ἐ.6. rubs it, washes it, cleanses it away. It may now be possible that in 300 the subject idea is permutatively continued: et verbera penetralium corporis (thus the Venet.: πληγαὶ TOV ταμιέίων τοῦ γαστρός), 1.2. quorum vis ad intumos corporis et animi recessus penetrat (Fleischer). But that is eucumbered, and j02°°71N (cf. ver. 27, xviii. 8), as referring to the depths to which stern corporal discipline penetrates, has not its full force. Mi! is either a particip.: and that as touching (/ferientes) the inner chambers of the body, or [3 ὙΠ is with the 3, or immediately, the second object of pon to be supplied: and strokes (rub off, cleanse, make pure) the innermost part. Jerome and the Targ. also supply 3, but erroneously, as designating place: in secretioribus ventris, relatively better the LX-X. and Syr.: εἰς ταμιεῖα κοιλίας. Luther hits the sense at least, for he translates:
One must restrain evil with severe punishment, And with hard strokes which one feels.
Chap. xxi. 1. The group, like the preceding one, now closes with a proverb of the king.
A king’s heart in Jahve’s hand is like brooks of water; He turneth it whithersoever He will.
Brook and canal (the Quinta: ὑδραγωγοί) are both called 225, or 228, Job xx. 17, Arab. falaj (from 128, to divide, accbrding to ΘΝ Aquila, Symmachus, and Dhvciiclatieg, διαρέσεις; Venet. διανομαΐ; Jerome, divisiones); Jaékit has the explanation of the word: “ falaj is the name given to flowing water, particularly the brook from a spring, and every canal which is led from a spring out over flat ground.” Such brooks of water are the heart of a king, z.e. it is compared to such, in Jahve’s hand. The second line contains the point of comparison: He inclines it, gives to it the direction (787, causat. of 703, Num. xxi. 15) toward whatever He will (759 denotes willing, as a bending and inclining, viz. of the will; vid. atxvili.2). Rightly Hitzig finds it not accidental that just the expression “ brooks of water” is chosen as the figure for tractableness and subjection to government. In Isa. xxxii. 2, the princes of Judah are compared to “rivers of water in a dry place” with reference to the exhaustion of the land during the oppression of the Assyrian invasion; the proverb has specially in view evidences of kindness proceeding from the heart, as at xvi. 15 the favour of the king is compared to clouds of latter rain emptying themselves in beneficent showers, and at xix. 12 to the dew refreshing the plants. But the speciality of the comparison here is, that the heart of the king, however highly exalted above his subjects, and so removed from their knowledge he may be, has yet One above it by whom it is moved by hidden influences, e.g. the prayer of the oppressed; for man is indeed free, yet he acts under the influence of divinely-directed circumstances and divine operations; and though he reject the guidance of God, yet from his conduct nothing results which the Omniscient, who is surprised by nothing, does not make subservient to His will in the world-plan of redemption. Rightly the Midrash: God gives to the world good or bad kings, according as He seeks to bless it or to visit it with punishment; all decisions that go forth from the king’s mouth come ΠΌΠΠΣΡ, ie. in their first commencement and their last reason they come from the Holy One.
Ver. 2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes; But a weigher of hearts is Jahve. A proverb ar to xvi. 2 (where 211 for FT, TW for W, nin for nia πὰ God is also, xvii. 3, called a trier, }73, of hearts, as He is here called a ee 2h. The proverb indirectly admonishes us of the duty of constant self-examination, according to the objective norm of the revealed will of God, and warns us against the self-complacency of the fool, of whom xii. 15 says (as Trimberg in “ Renner”): “ all fools live in the pleasant feeling that their life is the best,” and against the self-deception which walks in the way of death and dreams of walking in the way of life, xiv. 12 (xvi. 25). Ver. 3 To practise justice and right Hath with Jahve the pre-eminence above sacrifice. We have already (vol. i. p. 42) shown how greatly this depreciation of the works of the ceremonial cultus, as compared with the duties of moral obedience, is in the spirit of the Chokma; cf. also at xv. 8. Prophecy also gives its testimony, e.g. Hos. vi. 7, according to which also here (cf. xx. 8b with Isa. ix. 8) the practising of 05121 ΠΡῚΝ (sequence of words as at Gen. xviii. 19, Ps. xxxili. 5, elsewhere dv) PTY, and yet more commonly ΠΡῚΝ wav) does not denote legal rigour, but the practising of the justum et wquum, or much rather the equum et bonum, thus in its foundation conduct proceeding from the principle of love. The inf. nvy (like MP, Xvi. 16) occurs three times (here and at Gen. ]. 20; Ps. ci. 3); once WY is written (Gen. xxxi. 18), as also in the injin. absol. the form TY and iy interchange (vid. Norzi at Jer. xxii. 4); once ὙΠῸ for inivy (Ex. xviii. 18) occurs in the status conjunctus. Ver. 4 Loftiness of eyes and swelling of heart— The husbandry of the godless is sin.
If 2, in the sense of light, gives a satisfactory meaning, then one might appeal to 1 Kings xi. 36 (cf. 2 Sam. xxi. 17), where ὋΣ appears to signify lamp, in which meaning it is once (2 Sam. xxii. 29) written 12 (like PD); or since Y3=72 ground-form, nawir, lightening) is as yet certainly established neither in the Heb. nor Syr., one might punctuate ἋΣ instead of 73, according to which the Greeks, Aram., and Luther, with Jerome, translate. But of the lamp of the godless we read at xiii. 9 and elsewhere, that it goeth out. We must here understand by 1) the brilliant prosperity (Bertheau and others) of the wicked, or their “ proud spirit flaming and flaring like a bright light” (Zockler), which is contrary to the use of the metaphor as found elsewhere, which does not extend to a prosperous condition. We must then try another meaning for 13; but not that of yoke, for this is not Heb., but Aram.-Arab., and the interpretation thence derived by Lagarde: “ Haughtiness and pride; but the godless for all that bear their yoke, viz. sin,’ seeks in vain to hide behind the “ for all that” the breaking asunder of the two lines of the verse. In Heb. 13 means that which lightens (burning) = lamp, 42, the shining (that which burns) = fire, and 3, xiii. 23, from 73, to plough up (Targ. 1 Sam. viii. 12, 1292 = wane) the fresh land, i.e. the breaking up of the fallow land; according to which the Venet. as Kimchi: νέωμα ἀσεβῶν ἁμαρτία, which as Ewald and Elster explain: “ where a disposition of wicked haughtiness, of unbridled pride, prevails, there will also sin be the first-fruit on the field of action; "2, novale, the field turned up for the first time, denotes here the firstfruits of sin.” But why just the first-fruits, and not the fruit in general? Weare better to abide by the field itself, which is here styled 73, not 77 (or as once in Jer. xxxix. 10, 33°); because with this word, more even than with ΠῚ, is connected the idea of agricultural work, of arable land gained by the digging up or the breaking up of one or more years’ fallow ground (cf. Pea ii. 1, V2, Arab. sikdk, opp. ria, Arab. δῶν, Menachoth 85a, niny nw, a fresh broken-up field, Erachin 29, 73, opp. 124, to let lie fallow), so that D'Y¥ 12 may mean the cultivation of the fields, and generally the husbandry, 1.6. the whole conduct and life of the godless. 12 is here ethically metaph., but not like Hos. x. 12, Jer. iv. 3, where it means a new moral commencement of life; but like wn, arare, Job iv. 8, Hos. x. 13; cf. Prov. iii. 29. 3AM is not adj. like xxvili. 25, Ps. ci. 5, but infin. like OM, x. 21; and accordingly also ov is not adj. like nin, or past like aD, but infin. like Isa. x.12. And ΝΠ is the pred. of the complex subject, which consists of DY OF, a haughty looking down with the eyes, 237m, breadth of heart, ie. excess of self-consciousness, and o'yv 4) taken as an asyndeton summativum: pride of look, and making oneself large of heart, in short, the whole husbandry of the godless, or the whole of the field cultivated by them, with all that grows thereon, is sin.
And hastening all [excessive haste] only to loss; or in other words, and agreeably to the Heb. construction:
And every one who hastens—it (this his hastening) is only to loss. Vid. at xvii. 21. At x. 4, Luther translates “the hand of the diligent,” here “the plans of an expert [endelichen],” 1.6. of one actively striving (xxi. 29, endelich=“2) to the end. The 78, hastening overmuch, is contrasted with the diligent; Luther well: but he who is altogether too precipitant. Everywhere else in the Proverbs 7s has acloser definition with it, wherefore Hitzig reads "88, which must mean: he who collects together; but yx along with yrn is perfectly distinct. The thought is the same as our “ Eile mit Weile” [= festina lente], and Goethe’s
Drehe sich jeder
Um die eigne Last.
“ Like the stars, without haste but without rest, let every one carry about his own burden,” viz. of his calling that lies upon him. The fundamental meaning of y's is to throng, to urge (Ex. v. 18), here of impatient and inconsiderate rashness. While on the side of the diligent there is nothing but gain, such haste brings only loss; over-exertion does injury, and the work will want care, circumspection, and thoroughness. Inthe Book of Proverbs, the contrasts “ gain” and “loss” frequently occur, xi: 24, xiv. 23, xxii. 16: profit (the increase of capital by interest), opp. loss (of capital, or of part thereof), as commercial terms.
Ver. 6 The gaining of treasures by a lying tongue Is a fleeting breath of such as seek death.
blances and comparisons, regard “ fleeting breath ” and “ such as seek death” as two separated predicates: such gain is fleeting breath, so those who gain are seeking death (Caspari’s Beztrdge zu Jes. p. 53). But it is also syntactically admissible to interpret the words rendered “seekers of death” as gen.; for such interruptions of the st. constr., as here by ἢ) [fleeting], frequently occur, 6.0. Isa. xxviii. 1, xxxii. 13; 1 Chron. ix. 13; and that an idea, in spite of such interruption, may be thought of as gen., is seen from the Arab.’ But the text is unsettled. Symmachus, Syr., Targ., the Venet., and Luther render the phrase ‘pip [seekers]; but the LXX. and Jerome read ‘wpin [snares] (cf. 1 Tim. vi. 9); this word Rashi also had before him (vid. Norzi), and Kennicott found it in several Codd. Bertheau prefers it, for he translates:... is fleeting breath, snares of death; Ewald and Hitzig go further, for, after the LXX., they change the whole proverb into: *wpiID-PN AT oan md (‘wpina), with Sys in the first line. But διώκει of the LXX. is an incorrect rendering of 472, which the smuggling in of the ἐπὶ (παγίδας θανάτου) drew after it, without our concluding therefrom that ‘vip1-dx, or *vipnd (Lagarde), lay before the translators; on the contrary, the word which (Cappellus) Jay before them, ΡΥ, certainly deserves to be preferred to ‘wpin: the possession is first, in view of him who has gotten it, compared to a fleeting (41713, as Isa. xlii. 2) breath (cf. 6.0. smoke, Ps. lxviii. 3), and then, in view of the inheritance itself and its consequences, is compared to the snares of death (xiii. 14, xiv. 27); for in YB (here equivalent to NivY, acguisitio, Gen. xxxi. 1; Deut. viii. 17) lie together the ideas of him who procures and of the thing that is procured or effected (vid. at yo AOR Ver. 7 The violence of the godless teareth them away, For they have refused to do what is right.
The destruction which they prepare for others teareth or draggeth them away to destruction, by which wicked conduct brings punishment on itself; their own conduct is its own executioner (cf. i. 19); for refusing to practise what is right, with such constructions as (Arab.) mdn’u fadlah Glmahtdji, i.e. a refuser of the needy, his beneficence=one who denies to the needy his beneficence.
they have pronounced judgment against themselves, and fallen under condemnation. Rightly Jerome, detrahent, with Aquila, κατασπάσει =j gurrem (as Hab. i. 15), from 773; on the contrary, the LXX. incorrectly, ἐπιξενωθήσεται, from “33, to dwell, to live as a guest; and the Venet., as Luther, in opposition to the usus log.: δεδίξεται (fut. of δεδίσσεσθαι, to terrify), from ii, to dread, fear, which also remains intrans., with the accus. following, Deut. xxxii. 27. The Syr. and the Targ. freely: robbery (Targ. 8235, perhaps in the sense of usury) will seize them, viz. in the way of punishment. In Arab. jarr (jariyratn) means directly to commit a crime; not, as Schultens explains, admittere crimen penam trahens, but attrahere (arripere), like (Arab.) jany (jindyatn), contrahere crimen; for there the crime is thought of as violent usurpation, here as wicked accumulation. Ver. 8 Winding is the way of a man laden with guilt; But the pure—his conduct is right.
Rightly the accentuation places together “the way of a man” as subject, and “ winding” as predicate: if the poet had wished to say (Schultens, Bertheau) “ one crooked in his way” (quoad viam), he would have contented himself with the phrase 727 773. But, on the other hand, the accentuation is scarcely correct (the second Munach is a transformed Mugrash), for it interprets ἽΝ 85 a second pred.; but WN is adj. tow. As B51 (synon. oheNs, >popy) is a hapa leg., so also vazar, which is equivalent to (Arab.) mawzwr, crimine onustus, from wazira, crimen committere, properly to charge oneself with a crime. The ancient interpreters have, indeed, no apprehension of this meaning before them; the LXX. obtain from the proverb a thought reminding us of Ps. xviii. 27, in which vazar does not at all appear; the Syr. and Targ. translate as if the vav of vazar introduces the conclusion: he is a barbarian (nuchrojo); Luther: he is crooked; Jerome also sets aside the syntax: perversa via viri aliena est; but, syntactically admissible, the Venet. and Kimchi, as the Jewish interpreters generally, διαστροφωτάτη ὁδὸς ἀνδρὸς Kal ἀλλόκοτος. Fleischer here even renounces the help of the Arab., for he translates: Zortuosa est via viri criminibus onustt, gui autem sancte vivit, is recte facit; but he adds thereto the remark that “ vazar thus explained, with Cappellus, Schultens, and Gesenius, would, it is true, corresponding to the Arab. wazar, have first the abstract meaning of a verbal noun from wazira;* the old explanation is therefore perhaps better: tortuosa est via viri et deflectens (scil. a recta linea, thus devia est), when the ‘vivi’ is to be taken in the general sense of ‘many, this and that one;’ the closer definition is reflected from the Ἴ of the second clause.” But (1) Yas an adj. signifies peregrinus; one ought thus rather to expect 1D, degenerated, corrupt, although that also does not rightly accord; (2) the verbal noun also, e.g. all, passes over into a subst. and adj.. signification (the latter without distinction of number and gender); (3) 1h, after its adj. signification, is related to (Arab.) wazyr, as DIN is to hakym, AM to rahyb; itis of the same form as 129, with which it has in common its derivation from a root of similar meaning, and its ethical signification. In 86, 3M is rightly accented as subj. of the complex pred. 4! is the pure in heart and of a good conscience. The laden with guilt (guilty) strikes out all kinds of crooked ways; but the pure needs no stealthy ways, he does not stand under the pressure of the bondage of sin, the ban of the guilt of sin; his conduct is straightforward, directed by the will of God, and not by cunning policy. Schultens: Jnteger vite scelerisque purus non habet cur vacillet, cur titubet, cur sese contorqueat. The choice of the designation Ἵ [and the pure] may be occasioned by ἽΝ (Hitzig); the expression 8d reminds us of xx. 11.
The group now following extends to ver. 18, where a new one begins with a variation of its initial verse.
Ver. 9 Better to sit on the pinnacle of a house-roof, Than a contentious wife and a house in common.
We have neither to supplement the second line: than with a contentious wife... (Symmachus, Theodotion, Jerome, Luther), nor: than that one have a contentious...; but the meaning is, that sitting on the roof-top better befits one, does better than a quarrelsome wife and a common house (rightly the Targ. and Venet.), 1.6. in a common house; for the connecting together of the wife and the house by vav is a Semitic hendiadys, a juxtaposition of two ideas which our language would place in a relation of subordination (Fleischer). This hendiadys would, indeed, be scarcely possible if the idea of the married wife were Pea to NWS; for that such an one has with her husband a “ house of companionship, i.e. a common house,” is self-evident. But may it not with equal right be understood of the imperious positive mother-in-law of a widower, a splenetic shrewish aunt, a sickly female neighbour disputing with all the world, and ΜΝ like? A man must live together with his wife in so τὰ as he does not divorce her; he must then escape from her; but a man may also be constrained by circumstances to live in a house with a quarrelsome mother-in-law, and such an one may, even during the life of his wife, and in spite of her affection, make his life so bitter that he would rather, in order that he might have rest, sit on the pinnacle or ridge of a house-roof. 38 is the battlement (Zeph. i. 16) of the roof, the edge of the roof, or its summit; he who sits there does so not without danger, and is exposed to the storm, but that in contrast with the alternative is even to be preferred; he sits alone. Regarding the Chethib Ὁ ΠΟ, Kert 0120, vid. at vi. 14; and cf. the figures of the “continual dropping” for the continual scolding of such a wife, embittering the life of her husband, xix. 13. Ver. 10 The soul of the godless hath its desire after evil; His neighbour findeth no mercy in his eyes.
The interchange of perf. and fut. cannot be without intention. Lowenstein renders the former as perf. hypotheticum: if the soul of the wicked desires anything evil...; but the YY" wishes evil not merely now and then, but that is in general his nature and tendency. The perf. expresses that which is actually the case: the soul of the wicked has its desire directed (write AM8 with Munach, after Codd. and old Ed., not with Makkeph) tow: ard evil, and the fut. expresses that ἡδίω proceeds from this: he who stands near him is not spared. NM is, as at Isa. xxvi. 10, Hoph. of }34, to incline, viz. oneself, compassionately toward any one, or to bend to him. But in what sense is '‘Y2 added? It does not mean, as frequently, e.g. ver. 2, according to his judgment, nor, as at xx. 8, vi. 13: with his eyes, but is to be understood after the phrase ‘2,3 1Π S¥D: his neighbour finds no mercy in his eyes, so that in these words the sympathy ruling within him expresses itself: “ his eyes will not spare his friends,” vid. Isa. xiii. 18.
Ver. 11 When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise; And when insight is imparted to a wise man, he receives knowledge.
The thought is the same as at xix. 25. The mocker at religion and virtue is incorrigible, punishment avails him nothing, but yet it is not lost; for as a warning example it teaches the simple, © who might otherwise be easily drawn into the same frivolity. On the other hand, the wise man needs no punishment, but only strengthening and furtherance: if “instruction” is imparted to him, he embraces it, makes it his own NY; for, being accessible to better insight, he gains more and more knowledge. De Dieu, Bertheau, and Zoéckler make “ the simple ” the subject also in 116: and if a wise man prospers, he (the simple) gains knowledge. But? Dawn, used thus impersonally, is unheard of; wherefore Hitzig erases the 2 before D030: if a wise man has prosperity. But 52m does not properly mean to have prosperity, but only mediately: toact with insight, and on that account with success. The thought that the simple, on the one side, by the merited punishment of the mocker; on the other, by the intelligent prosperous conduct of the wise, comes to reflection, to reason, may indeed be entertained, but the traditional form of the proverb does not need any correction. abn may be used not only transitively: to gain insight, Gen. iii. 6, Ps. ii. 10, and elsewhere, but also causatively: to make intelligent, with the accus. following, xvi. 23, Ps. xxxii. 8, or: to offer, present insight, as here with the dat.-obj. following (cf. xvii. 26). Instead of “23, the Kametz of which is false, Codd. and good Edd. have, rightly, “293. Hitzig, making “ the wise” the subject to 2vna (and accordingly “the scorner” would be the subject in 11a), as a correct consequence reads W2ya = vayna, For us, with that first correction, this second one also fails. “ Both infinitivi constr.,” Fleischer remarks, “are to be taken passively; for the Semitic infin., even of transitive form, as it has no designation of gender, time, and person, is an indeterminate modus, even in regard to the generis verbi (Act. and
Pass.)” + To this proverb with u-behaskil there is connected the one that follows, beginning with maskil.
Ver. 12 A righteous One marketh the house of the godless; He hurleth the godless to destruction.
If we understand by the word ΓΝ a righteous man, then 12a would introduce the warning which he gives, and the unexpressed subject of 125 must be God (Umbreit). But after such an introitus, n\n ought not to be wanting. If in12a “the righteous man” is the subject, then it presents itself as such also for the second parallel part. But the thought that the righteous, when he takes notice of the house of the godless, shows attention which of itself hurls the godless into destruction (Lowenstein), would require the sing. ywn in the conclusion; also, instead of App the fut. ADDY would have been found; and besides, the judicial ADD (vid. regarding this word at xi. 3, xix. 3) would not be a suitable word for this confirmation in evil. Thus by py the proverb means God, and 4>pDp has, as at xxii. 12, Job xii. 19, this word as its subject. “ A righteous One” refers to the All-righteous, who is called, Job xxxiv. 17, “the Alljust One,” and by Rashi, under the passage before us, "ον ipyy DY. Only do not translate with Bertheau and Zickler: The Righteous One (All-righteous), for (1) this would require P'1¥9, and (2) p'tyn is never by itself used as an attributive designation of God. Rightly, Fleischer and Ewald: a Righteous One, viz. God. It is the indetermination which seeks to present the idea of the great and dreadful: a Righteous One, and such a Righteous One!? wn with Sy, xvi. 20, or δὲ, Ps. xli. 2, Neh. viii. 13, here with?, signifies to give attention to anything, to look attentively on it. The two participles stand in the same line: animum advertit... evertit. Hitzig changes
1 The Arab. National Grammarians, it is true, view the matter otherwise. When katlu zydn, the putting to death of Zeid, is used in the sense of Zeid’s becoming dead, according to their view the /@’l (the gen. subjectt) is omitted; the full expression would be katlu’amrnzaydnd@. Since now 'amrn is omitted, zaydn has in the gen. form taken the place of the /a’l, but this gen. is the representative of the acc. objecti. Without thus going round about, we say: it is the gen. objecti.
wr mad into imap, and makes Y¥1 the subject of 125; but the proverb as it lies before us is far more intelligible. Ver. 13 He that stoppeth his ear at the cry of the poor— He also calls and is not heard.
Only the merciful find mercy, Matt. v. 7; the unmerciful rich man, who has no ear for the cry of the 24, 1.6. of him who is without support and means of subsistence, thus of one who is needing support, will also remain unheard when he himself, in the time of need, calls upon God for help. Cf. the parable of the unmerciful servant of the merciful king, Matt. xviii. 28 ff. 1) in NPY, as Isa. xxiii. 15, Gen. iv. 13, xxvii. 1; no preposition of our [German] ae [nor English] expresses, as Fleischer here remarks, such a fulness of meaning as this | does, to which, after a verb of shutting up such as now (cf. xvii. 28), the Arab...,° would correspond, 6.9. @my ’n dliryk: blind, so that he does not see the way.
Ver. 14 A gift in secret turneth away anger; And a bribe into the bosom violent wrath.
Hitzig reads with Symmachus, the Targ., and Jerome, 733", and translates: “extinguishes anger;”’ but it does not follow that they did read 713°; for the Talm. Heb. 752 signifies to cover by turning over, eg. of a vessel, Sanhedrin 77a, which, when it is done to a candle or a fire, may mean its extinction. But 753 of the post-bibl. Heb. also means to bend, and thence to force out (Aram. ND, °B2), according to which Kimchi hesitates whether to explain: overturns = smothers, or: bends = forces down anger. The Venet. follows the latter signification: κάμψει (for Villoison’s καλύψει rests on a false reading of the MS.). But there is yet possible another derivation from the primary signification, curvare, jlectere, vertere, according to which the LXX. translates ἀνατρέπει, for which ἀποτρέπει would be yet better: ΠΕΣ, to bend away, to turn off, ἀρκεῖν, arcere, altogether like the Arab. (compared by Schultens) 4/4, and k/y, ἀρκεῖν, to prevent, whence, e.g., ikfint hada: hold that away from me, or: spare me that (Fleischer); with the words hafika sharran (Lat. defendaris semper a malo) princes were anciently saluted; kfy signifies “to suffice,” because enough is there, where there is a keeping off of want. Accordingly we translate: Donum clam acceptum avertit tram, which also the
Syr. meant by mephadka (P75). This verb is naturally to be supplied to 140, which the L XX. has recognised (it translates: but he who spares gifts, excites violent anger). Regarding Inw, vid. at xvii. 8; and regarding PN3, at xvii. 23. Also here Pn (Ρ Ξε ΡΠ), like Arab. jayb, ’ubb, 3h, denotes the bosom of the garment; on the contrary, (Arab.) hijr, hidn,!8F, is more used of that of the body, or that formed by the drawing together of the body (e.g. of the arm in carrying a child). A present is meant which one brings with him concealed in his bosom; perhaps 136 called to mind the judge that took gifts, Ex. xxill. 8 (Hitzig). Ver. 15 It is a joy to the just to do justice, And a terror for them that work iniquity. To act according to the law of rectitude is to these as unto death; injustice has become to them a second nature, so that their heart strives against rectitude of conduct; it also enters so little into their plan of life, and their economy, that they are afraid of ruining themselves thereby. So we believe, with Hitzig, Elster, Zockler, and Luther, this must be explained in accordance with our interpretation of x. 29. Fleischer and others supplement the second parallel member from the first: Ds voy NAM. pix OYE; others render 15) as an independent sentence: ruin falls on those who act wickedly. But that ellipsis is hard ἀπ scarcely possible; but in general nnn», as contrasted correlate to 7NDY, can scarcely have the pure objective sense of ruin or destruction. It must mean a revolution in the heart. Right-doing is to the righteous a pleasure (cf. x. 23); and for those who have }\&, and are devoid of moral worth, and thus simply immoral as to the aim and sphere of their conduct, right-doing is something which alarms them: when they act in conformity with what is right, they do so after an external impulse only against their will, as if it were death to them. Ver. 16 A man who wanders from the way of understanding, Shall dwell in the assembly of the dead.
Regarding 925, vid. i. 3; and regarding 0859, ii. 18. The verb ™) means to repose, to take rest, Job iii. 13, and to dwell anywhere, xiv. 33; but originally like (Arab.) nih and hadd, to lay oneself down anywhere, and there to come to rest; and that is the idea which is here connected with 3, for the figurative description of 738’ or MD‘ is formed after the designation of the subject, 16a: he wko, forsaking the way of understanding, walks in the way of error, at length comes to the assembly of the dead; for every motion has an end, and every journey a goal, whether it be one that is self-appointed or which is appointed for him. Here also it is intimated that the way of the soul which loves wisdom and follows her goes in another direction than earthwards down into hades; hades and death, its background appear here as punishments, and it is true that as such one may escape them. Ver. 17 He who loveth pleasure becometh a man of want; He who loveth wine and oil doth not become rich. In Arab. samh denotes the joyful action of the “cheerful giver,” 2 Cor. ix. 7; in Heb. the joyful affection; here, like farah, pleasure, delight, festival of joy. Jerome: qui diligit epulas. For feasting is specially thought of, where wine was drunk, and oil and other fragrant essences were poured (cf. xxvii. 9; Amos vi. 6) on the head and the clothes. He who loves such festivals, and is commonly found there, becomes a man of want, or suffers want (cf. Judg. xii. 2, 2% YS, a man of strife); such an one does not become rich (Wyn, like x. 4,= wy nvy, Jer. xvii. 11); he does not advance, and thus goes backwards. Ver. 18 The godless becometh a ransom for the righteous; And the faithless cometh into the place of the upright.
The thought is the same as at xi. 8. An example of this is, that the same world-commotion which brought the nations round Babylon for its destruction, put an end to Israel’s exile: Cyrus, the instrument in God’s hands for inflicting punishment on many heathen nations, was Israel’s liberator, Isa. xliii. 3. Another example is in the exchange of places by Haman and Mordecai, to which Rashi refers. 53 is equivalent to λύτρον, ransom; but it properly signifies price of atonement, and generally, means of reconciliation, which covers or atones for the cuilt of any one; the poll-tax and “oblations” also, Ex. xxx. 15 f., Num. xxxi. 50, are placed under this point of view, as blotting out guilt: if the righteousness of God obtains satisfaction, it makes its demand against the godless, and lets the righteous go frees or, as the substantival clause 18 expresses, the faithless steps into the place of the upright, for the wrath passes by the latter and falls upon the former. Regarding 73/3, vid. ii. 22. Thus, in contrast to the 1, he is designated, who keeps faith neither with God nor man, and with evil intention enters on deceitful ways,—the faithless, the malicious, the assassin.