{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"PRO","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Proverbs","commonName":"Proverbs","introduction":"The Book of Proverbs\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe Book of Proverbs bears the external title ספר משׁלי, which it derives from the words with which it commences. It is one of the three books which are distinguished from the other twenty-one by a peculiar system of accentuation, the best exposition of which that has yet been given is that by S. Baer,\n\n(Note: Cf. Outlines of Hebrew Accentuation, Prose and Poetical, by Rev. A. B. Davidson, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Free Church College, Edinburgh, 1861, based on Baer's Torath Emeth, Rdelheim 1872.)\n\nas set forth in my larger Psalmen-commentar\n\n(Note: Vol. ii., ed. of 1860, pp. 477-511).\n\nThe memorial word for these three books, viz., Job, Mishle (Proverbs), and Tehillim (Psalms), is אמת, formed from the first letter of the first word of each book, or, following the Talmudic and Masoretic arrangement of the books, תאם.\n\nHaving in view the superscription משׁלי שׁלמת, with which the book commences, the ancients regarded it as wholly the composition of Solomon. The circumstance that it contains only 800 verses, while according to Kg1 5:12 (Kg1 4:32) Solomon spake 3000 proverbs, R. Samuel bar-Nachmani explains by remarking that each separate verse may be divided into two or three allegories or apothegms (e.g., Pro 25:12), not to mention other more arbitrary modes of reconciling the discrepancy.\n\n(Note: Pesikta, ed. Buber (1868), 34b, 35a. Instead of 800, the Masora reckons 915 verses in the Book of Proverbs.)\n\nThe opinion also of R. Jonathan, that Solomon first composed the Canticles, then the Proverbs, and last of all Ecclesiastes, inasmuch as the first corresponds\n\n(Note: Schir-ha-Schirim Rabba, c. i.f. 4a.)\n\nwith the spring-time of youth, the second with the wisdom of manhood, and the third with the disappointment of old age, is founded on the supposition of the unity of the book and of its Solomonic authorship.\n\nAt the present day also there are some, such as Stier, who regard the Book of Proverbs from first to last as the work of Solomon, just as Klauss (1832) and Randegger (1841) have ventured to affirm that all the Psalms without exception were composed by David. But since historical criticism has been applied to Biblical subjects, that blind submission to mistaken tradition appears as scarcely worthy of being mentioned. The Book of Proverbs presents itself as composed of various parts, different from each other in character and in the period to which they belong. Under the hands of the critical analysis it resolves itself into a mixed market of the most manifold intellectual productions of proverbial poetry, belonging to at least three different epochs.\n\n1. The External Plan of the Book of Proverbs, and Its Own Testimony as to Its Origin\n\nThe internal superscription of the book, which recommends it, after the manner of later Oriental books, on account of its importance and the general utility of its contents, extends from Pro 1:1 to Pro 1:6. Among the moderns this has been acknowledged by Lwenstein and Maurer; for Pro 1:7, which Ewald, Bertheau, and Keil have added to it, forms a new commencement to the beginning of the book itself. The book is described as \"The Proverbs of Solomon,\" and then there is annexed the statement of its object. That object, as summarily set forth in Pro 1:2, is practical, and that in a twofold way: partly moral, and partly intellectual. The former is described in Pro 1:3-5. It presents moral edification, moral sentiments for acceptance, not merely to help the unwise to attain to wisdom, but also to assist the wise. The latter object is set forth in Pro 1:6. It seeks by its contents to strengthen and discipline the mind to the understanding of thoughtful discourses generally. In other words, it seeks to gain the moral ends which proverbial poetry aims at, and at the same time to make familiar with it, so that the reader, in these proverbs of Solomon, or by means of them as of a key, learns to understand such like apothegms in general. Thus interpreted, the title of the book does not say that the book contains proverbs of other wise men besides those of Solomon; if it did so, it would contradict itself. It is possible that the book contains proverbs other than those of Solomon, possible that the author of the title of the book added such to it himself, but the title presents to view only the Proverbs of Solomon. If Pro 1:7 begins the book, then after reading the title we cannot think otherwise than that here begin the Solomonic proverbs. If we read farther, the contents and the form of the discourses which follow do not contradict this opinion; for both are worthy of Solomon. So much the more astonished are we, therefore, when at Pro 10:1 we meet with a new superscription, משׁלי שׁלמה, from which point on to Pro 22:16 there is a long succession of proverbs of quite a different tone and form - short maxims, Mashals proper - while in the preceding section of the book we find fewer proverbs than monitory discourses. What now must be our opinion when we look back from this second superscription to the part 1:7-9:18, which immediately follows the title of the book? Are 1:7-9:18, in the sense of the book, not the \"Proverbs of Solomon\"? From the title of the book, which declares them to be so, we must judge that they are. Or are they \"Proverbs of Solomon\"? In this case the new superscription (Pro 10:1), \"The Proverbs of Solomon,\" appears altogether incomprehensible. And yet only one of these two things is possible: on the one side, therefore, there must be a false appearance of contradiction, which on a closer investigation disappears. But on which side is it? If it is supposed that the tenor of the title, Pro 1:1-6, does not accord with that of the section 10:1-22:6, but that it accords well with that of 1:7-9:18 (with the breadth of expression in 1:7-9:18, it has also several favourite words not elsewhere occurring in the Book of Proverbs; among these, ערמה, subtilty, and מזמּה, discretion, Pro 1:4), then Ewald's view is probable, that chap. 1-9 is an original whole written at once, and that the author had no other intention than to give it as an introduction to the larger Solomonic Book of Proverbs beginning at Pro 10:1. But it is also possible that the author of the title has adopted the style of the section Prov 1:7-9:18. Bertheau, who has propounded this view, and at the same time has rejected, in opposition to Ewald, the idea of the unity of the section, adopts this conclusion, that in 1:8-9:18 there lies before us a collection of the admonitions of different authors of proverbial poetry, partly original introductions to larger collections of proverbs, which the author of the title gathers together in order that he may give a comprehensive introduction to the larger collection contained in 10:1-22:16. But such an origin of the section as Bertheau thus imagines is by no means natural; it is more probable that the author, whose object is, according to the title of the book, to give the proverbs of Solomon, introduces these by a long introduction of his own, than that, instead of beginning with Solomon's proverbs, he first presents long extracts of a different kind from collections of proverbs. If the author, as Bertheau thinks, expresses indeed, in the words of the title, the intention of presenting, along with the \"Proverbs of Solomon,\" also the \"words of the wise,\" then he could not have set about his work more incorrectly and self-contradictorily than if he had begun the whole, which bears the superscription \"Proverbs of Solomon\" (which must be regarded as presenting the proverbs of Solomon as a key to the words of the wise generally), with the \"words of the wise.\" But besides the opinion of Ewald, which in itself, apart from internal grounds, is more natural and probable than that of Bertheau, there is yet the possibility of another. Keil, following H. A. Hahn, is of opinion, that in the sense of the author of the title, the section 1-9 is Solomonic as well as 10-22, but that he has repeated the superscription \"Proverbs of Solomon\" before the latter section, because from that point onward proverbs follow which bear in a special measure the characters of the Mashal (Hvernick's Einl. iii. 428). The same phenomenon appears in the book of Isaiah, where, after the general title, there follows an introductory address, and then in Isa 2:1 the general title is repeated in a shorter form. That this analogy, however, is here inapplicable, the further discussion of the subject will show.\n\nThe introductory section Prov 1:7-9:18, and the larger section 10:1-22:16, which contains uniform brief Solomonic apothegms, are followed by a third section, 22:17-24:22. Hitzig, indeed, reckons 10:1-24:22 as the second section, but with Pro 22:17 there commences an altogether different style, and a much freer manner in the form of the proverb; and the introduction to this new collection of proverbs, which reminds us of the general title, places it beyond a doubt that the collector does not at all intend to set forth these proverbs as Solomonic. It may indeed be possible that, as Keil (iii. 410) maintains, the collector, inasmuch as he begins with the words, \"Incline thine ear and hear words of the wise,\" names his own proverbs generally as \"words of the wise,\" especially since he adds, \"and apply thine heart to my knowledge;\" but this supposition is contradicted by the superscription of a fourth section, Pro 24:23., which follows. This short section, an appendix to the third, bears the superscription, \"These things also are לחכמים.\" If Keil thinks here also to set aside the idea that the following proverbs, in the sense of this superscription, have as their authors \"the wise,\" he does unnecessary violence to himself. The ל is here that of authorship and if the following proverbs are composed by the חכמים, \"the wise,\" then they are not the production of the one חכם, \"wise man,\" Solomon, but they are \"the words of the wise\" in contradistinction to \"the Proverbs of Solomon.\"\n\nThe Proverbs of Solomon begin again at Pro 25:1; and this second large section (corresponding to the first, 10:1-22:16) extends to chap. 29. This fifth portion of the book has a superscription, which, like that of the preceding appendix, commences thus: \"Also (גּם) these are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah collected.\" The meaning of the word העתּיקוּ is not doubtful. It signifies, like the Arameo-Arabic נסח, to remove from their place, and denote that the men of Hezekiah removed from the place where they found them the following proverbs, and placed them together in a separate collection. The words have thus been understood by the Greek translator. From the supplementary words αἱ ἀδιάκριτοι (such as exclude all διάκρισις) it is seen that the translator had a feeling of the important literary historical significance of that superscription, which reminds us of the labours of the poetical grammarians appointed by Pisitratus to edit older works, such as those of Hesiod. The Jewish interpreters, simply following the Talmud, suppose that the \"also\" (גּם) belongs to the whole superscription, inclusive of the relative sentence, and that it thus bears witness to the editing of the foregoing proverbs also by Hezekiah and his companions;\n\n(Note: Vid., B. Bathra, 15a. From the fact that Isaiah outlived Hezekiah it is there concluded that the Hezekiah-collegium also continued after Hezekiah's death. Cf. Frst on the Canon of the O.T. 1868, p. 78f.)\n\nwhich is altogether improbable, for then, if such were the meaning of the words, \"which the men of Hezekiah,\" etc., they ought to have stood after Pro 1:1. The superscription Pro 25:1 thus much rather distinguishes the following collection from that going before, as having been made under Hezekiah. As two appendices followed the \"Proverbs of Solomon,\" 10:1-22:16, so also two appendices the Hezekiah-gleanings of Solomonic proverbs. The former two appendices, however, originate in general from the \"wise,\" the latter more definitely name the authors: the first, chap. 30, is by \"Agur the son of Jakeh;\" the second, Pro 31:1-9, by a \"King Lemuel.\" In so far the superscriptions are clear. The name of the authors, elsewhere unknown, point to a foreign country; and to this corresponds the peculiar complexion of these two series of proverbs. As a third appendix to the Hezekiah-collection, Pro 31:10. follows, a complete alphabetical proverbial poem which describes the praiseworthy qualities of a virtuous woman.\n\nWe are thus led to the conclusion that the Book of Proverbs divides itself into the following parts: - (1) The title of the book, Pro 1:1-6, by which the question is raised, how far the book extends to which it originally belongs; (2) the hortatory discourses, 1:7-9:18, in which it is a question whether the Solomonic proverbs must be regarded as beginning with these, or whether they are only the introduction thereto, composed by a different author, perhaps the author of the title of the book; (3) the first great collection of Solomonic proverbs, 10:1-22:16; (4) the first appendix to this first collection, \"The words of the wise,\" 22:17-24:22; (5) the second appendix, supplement of the words of some wise men, Pro 24:23.; (6) the second great collection of Solomonic proverbs, which the \"men of Hezekiah\" collected, chap. 25-29; (7) the first appendix to this second collection, the words of Agur the son of Makeh, chap. 30; (8) the second appendix, the words of King Lemuel, Pro 31:1-9; (9) third appendix, the acrostic ode, Pro 31:10. These nine parts are comprehended under three groups: the introductory hortatory discourses with the general title at their head, and the two great collections of Solomonic proverbs with their two appendices. In prosecuting our further investigations, we shall consider the several parts of the book first from the point of view of the manifold forms of their proverbs, then of their style, and thirdly of their type of doctrine. From each of these three subjects of investigation we may expect elucidations regarding the origin of these proverbs and of their collections.\n\n2. The Several Parts of the Book of Proverbs with Respect to the Manifold Forms of the Proverbs\n\nIf the Book of Proverbs were a collection of popular sayings, we should find in it a multitude of proverbs of one line each, as e.g., \"Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked\" (Sa1 24:13); but we seek for such in vain. At the first glance, Pro 24:23 appears to be a proverb of one line; but the line \"To have respect of persons in judgment is not good,\" is only the introductory line of a proverb which consists of several lines, Pro 24:24. Ewald is right in regarding as inadmissible a comparison of the collections of Arabic proverbs by Abu-Obeida, Meidani, and others, who gathered together and expounded the current popular proverbs, with the Book of Proverbs. Ali's Hundred Proverbs are, however, more worthy of being compared with it. Like these, Solomon's proverbs are, as a whole, the production of his own spirit, and only mediately of the popular spirit. To make the largeness of the number of these proverbs a matter of doubt were inconsiderate. Eichhorn maintained that even a godlike genius scarcely attains to so great a number of pointed proverbs and ingenious thoughts. But if we distribute Solomon's proverbs over his forty years' reign, then we have scarcely twenty for each year; and one must agree with the conclusion, that the composition of so many proverbs even of the highest ingenuity is no impossible problem for a \"godlike genius.\" When, accordingly, it is related that Solomon wrote 3000 proverbs, Ewald, in his History of Israel, does not find the number too great, and Bertheau does not regard it as impossible that the collection of the \"Proverbs of Solomon\" has the one man Solomon as their author. The number of the proverbs thus cannot determine us to regard them as having for the most part originated among the people, and the form in which they appear leads to an opposite conclusion. It is, indeed, probable that popular proverbs are partly wrought into these proverbs,\n\n(Note: Isaac Euchel (1804), in his Commentary on the Proverbs, regards Pro 14:4 and Pro 17:19 as such popular proverbs.)\n\nand many of their forms of expression are moulded after the popular proverbs; but as they thus lie before us, they are, as a whole, the production of the technical Mashal poetry.\n\nThe simplest form is, according to the fundamental peculiarity of the Hebrew verse, the distich. The relation of the two lines to each other is very manifold. The second line may repeat the thought of the first, only in a somewhat altered form, in order to express this thought as clearly and exhaustively as possible. We call such proverbs synonymous distichs; as e.g., Pro 11:25 :\n\nA soul of blessing is made fat,\n\nAnd he that watereth others is himself watered.\n\nOr the second line contains the other side of the contrast to the statement of the first; the truth spoken in the first is explained in the second by means of the presentation of its contrary. We call such proverbs antithetic distichs; as e.g., Pro 10:1 :\n\nA wise son maketh his father glad,\n\nAnd a foolish son is his mother's grief.\n\nSimilar forms, Pro 10:16; Pro 12:5. Elsewhere, as Pro 18:14; Pro 20:24, the antithesis clothes itself in the form of a question. sometimes it is two different truths that are expressed in the two lines; and the authorization of their union lies only in a certain relationship, and the ground of this union in the circumstance that two lines are the minimum of the technical proverb - synthetic distichs; e.g., Pro 10:18 :\n\nA cloak of hatred are lying lips,\n\nAnd he that spreadeth slander is a fool.\n\nNot at all infrequently one line does not suffice to bring out the thought intended, the begun expression of which is only completed in the second. These we call integral (eingedankige) distichs; as e.g., Pro 11:31 (cf. Pe1 4:18):\n\nThe righteous shall be recompensed on the earth -\n\nHow much more the ungodly and the sinner!\n\nTo these distichs also belong all those in which the thought stated in the first receives in the second, by a sentence presenting a reason, or proof, or purpose, or consequence, a definition completing or perfecting it; e.g., Pro 13:14; Pro 16:10; Pro 19:20; Pro 22:28.\n\n(Note: Such integral distichs are also Pro 15:3; Pro 16:7, Pro 16:10; Pro 17:13, Pro 17:15; Pro 18:9, Pro 18:13; Pro 19:26-27; Pro 20:7-8, Pro 20:10-11, Pro 20:20-21; Pro 21:4, Pro 21:13, Pro 21:16, Pro 21:21, Pro 21:23-24, Pro 21:30; Pro 22:4, Pro 22:11; Pro 24:8, Pro 24:26; Pro 26:16; Pro 27:14; Pro 28:8-9, Pro 28:17, Pro 28:24; Pro 29:1, Pro 29:5, Pro 29:12, Pro 29:14. In Pro 14:27; Pro 15:24; Pro 17:23; Pro 19:27, the second line consists of one sentence with ל and the infin.; in Pro 16:12, Pro 16:26; Pro 21:25; Pro 22:9; Pro 27:1; Pro 29:19, of one sentence with כּי; with כּי אם, Pro 18:2; Pro 23:17. The two lines, as Pro 11:31; Pro 15:11; Pro 17:7; Pro 19:7, Pro 19:10, Pro 20:27, form a conclusion a minori ad majus, or the reverse. The former or the latter clauses stand in grammatical relation in Pro 23:1-2, Pro 23:15., Pro 27:22; Pro 29:21 (cf. Pro 22:29; Pro 24:10; Pro 26:12; Pro 29:20, with hypoth. perf., and Pro 26:26 with hypoth. fut.); in the logical relation of reason and consequence, Pro 17:14; Pro 20:2, Pro 20:4; in comparative relation, Pro 12:9, etc. These examples show that the two lines, not merely in the more recent, but also in the old Solomonic Mashal, do not always consist of two parallel members.)\n\nBut there is also a fifth form, which corresponds most to the original character of the Mashal: the proverb explaining its ethical object by a resemblance from the region of the natural and every-day life, the παραβολή proper. The form of this parabolic proverb is very manifold, according as the poet himself expressly compares the two subjects, or only places them near each other in order that the hearer or reader may complete the comparison. The proverb is least poetic when the likeness between the two subjects is expressed by a verb; as Pro 27:15 (to which, however, Pro 27:16 belongs):\n\nA continual dropping in a rainy day\n\nAnd a contentious woman are alike.\n\nThe usual form of expression, neither unpoetic nor properly poetic, is the introduction of the comparison by כּ [as], and of the similitude in the second clause by כּן [so]; as Pro 10:26 :\n\nAs vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes,\n\nSo is the sluggard to them who give him a commission.\n\nThis complete verbal statement of the relation of likeness may also be abbreviated by the omission of the כּן; as Pro 25:13; Pro 26:11 :\n\nAs a dog returning to his vomit -\n\nA fool returning to his folly.\n\nWe call the parabolic proverbs of these three forms comparisons. The last, the abbreviated form of the comparative proverb, which we will call, in contradistinction to the comparative, the emblematic, in which the contrast and its emblem are loosely placed together without any nearer expression of the similitude; as e.g., Pro 26:20; Pro 27:17-18, Pro 27:20. This takes place either by means of the couplative Vav, ו, as Pro 25:25 -\n\nCold water to a thirsty soul,\n\nAnd good news from a far country.\n\n(Note: This so-called Vav adaequationis, which appears here for the first time in the Proverbs as the connection between the figure and the thing itself without a verbal predicate (cf. on the other hand, Job 5:7; Job 12:11; Job 14:11.), is, like the Vav, ו, of comparison, only a species of that Vav of association which is called in Arab. Waw alajam'a, or Waw alam'ayat, or Waw al'asatsahab (vid., at Isa 42:5); and since usage attributes to it the verbal power of secum habere, it is construed with the accus. Vid., examples in Freytag's Arabum Proverbia, among the recent proverbs beginning with the Arabic letter k.)\n\nOr without the Vav; in which case the second line is as the subscription under the figure or double figure painted in the first; e.g., Pro 25:11., Pro 11:22 :\n\nA gold ring in a swine's snout -\n\nA fair woman without understanding.\n\nThese ground-forms of two lines, can, however, expand into forms of several lines. Since the distich is the peculiar and most appropriate form of the technical proverb, so, when two lines are not sufficient for expressing the thought intended, the multiplication to four, six, or eight lines is most natural. In the tetrastich the relation of the last two to the first two is as manifold as is the relation of the second line to the first in the distich. There is, however, no suitable example of four-lined stanzas in antithetic relation. But we meet with synonymous tetrastichs, e.g., Pro 23:15., Pro 24:3., 28f.; synthetic, Pro 30:5.; integral, Pro 30:17., especially of the form in which the last two lines constitute a proof passage beginning with כּי, Pro 22:22., or פּן, Pro 22:24., or without exponents, Pro 22:26.; comparative without expressing the comparison, Pro 25:16. (cf. on the other hand, Pro 26:18., where the number of lines is questionable), and also the emblematical, Pro 25:4.:\n\nTake away the dross from the silver,\n\nAnd there shall come forth a vessel for the goldsmith;\n\nTake away the wicked from before the king,\n\nAnd this throne shall be established in righteousness.\n\nProportionally the most frequently occurring are tetrastichs, the second half of which forms a proof clause commencing with כּי or פּן. Among the less frequent are the six-lined, presenting (Pro 23:1-3; Pro 24:11.) one and the same thought in manifold aspects, with proofs interspersed. Among all the rest which are found in the collection, Pro 23:12-14, Pro 23:19-21, Pro 23:26-28; Pro 30:15., Pro 30:29-31, the first two lines form a prologue introductory to the substance of the proverb; as e.g., Pro 23:12-14 :\n\nO let instruction enter into thine heart,\n\nAnd apply thine ears to the words of knowledge.\n\nWithhold not correction from the child;\n\nFor if thou beatest him with the rod - he dies not.\n\nThou shalt beat him with the rod,\n\nAnd deliver his soul from hell.\n\nSimilarly formed, yet more expanded, is the eight-lined stanza, Pro 23:22-28 :\n\nHearken unto thy father that begat thee,\n\nAnd despise not thy mother when she is old.\n\nBuy the truth and sell it not:\n\nWisdom, and virtue, and understanding.\n\nThe father of a righteous man greatly rejoices,\n\nAnd he that begetteth a wise child hath joy of him.\n\nThy father and thy mother shall be glad,\n\nAnd she that bare thee shall rejoice.\n\nThe Mashal proverb here inclines to the Mashal ode; for this octastich may be regarded as a short Mashal song, - like the alphabetical Mashal Psalm 37, which consists of almost pure tetrastichs.\n\nWe have now seen how the distich form multiplies itself into forms consisting of four, six, and eight lines; but it also unfolds itself, as if in one-sided multiplication, into forms of three, five, and seven lines. Tristichs arise when the thought of the first line is repeated (Pro 27:22) in the second according to the synonymous scheme, or when the thought of the second line is expressed by contrast in the third (Pro 22:29; Pro 28:10) according to the antithetic scheme, or when to the thought expressed in one or two lines (Pro 25:8; Pro 27:10) there is added its proof. The parabolic scheme is here represented when the object described is unfolded in two lines, as in the comparison Pro 25:13, or when its nature is portrayed by two figures in two lines, as in the emblematic proverb Pro 25:20 :\n\nTo take off clothing in cold weather,\n\nVinegar upon nitre,\n\nAnd he that singeth songs to a heavy heart.\n\nIn the few instances of pentastichs which are found, the last three lines usually unfold the reason of the thought of the first two: Pro 23:4., Pro 25:6., Pro 30:32.; to this Pro 24:13 forms an exception, where the כּן before the last three lines introduces the expansion of the figure in the first two. As an instance we quote Pro 25:6.:\n\nSeek not to display thyself in the presence of the king,\n\nAnd stand not in the place of the great.\n\nFor better that it be said unto thee, \"Come up hither,\"\n\nThan that they humble thee in the presence of the prince,\n\nWhile thine eyes have raised themselves.\n\nOf heptastichs I know of only one example in the collection, viz., Pro 23:6-8 :\n\nEat not the bread of the jealous,\n\nAnd lust not after his dainties;\n\nFor he is like one who calculates with himself: -\n\n\"Eat and drink,\" saith he to thee,\n\nAnd his heart is not with thee.\n\nThy morsel which thou hast eaten must thou vomit up,\n\nAnd thou hast wasted thy pleasant words.\n\nFrom this heptastich, which one will scarcely take for a brief Mashal ode according to the compound strophe-scheme, we see that the proverb of two lines can expand itself to the dimensions of seven and eight lines. Beyond these limits the whole proverb ceases to be משׁל in the proper sense; and after the manner of Ps 25; 34, and especially chap. 37, it becomes a Mashal ode. Of this class of Mashal odes are, besides the prologue, Pro 22:17-21, that of the drunkard, Pro 23:29-35; that of the slothful man, Pro 24:30-34; the exhortation to industry, Pro 27:23-27; the prayer for a moderate portion between poverty and riches, Pro 30:7-9; the mirror for princes, Pro 31:2-9; and the praise of the excellent wife, Pro 31:10. It is singular that this ode furnishes the only example of the alphabetical acrostic in the whole collection. Even a single trace of original alphabetical sequence afterwards broken up cannot be found. There cannot also be discovered, in the Mashal songs referred to, anything like a completed strophe-scheme; even in Pro 31:10. the distichs are broken by tristichs intermingled with them.\n\nIn the whole of the first part, Prov 1:7-9:18, the prevailing form is that of the extended flow of the Mashal song; but one in vain seeks for strophes. There is not here so firm a grouping of the lines; on the supposition of its belonging to the Solomonic era, this is indeed to be expected. The rhetorical form here outweighs the purely poetical. This first part of the Proverbs consists of the following fifteen Mashal strains: (1) Pro 1:7-19, (2) Pro 1:20., (3) chap. 2, (4) 3:1-18, (5) Pro 3:19-26, (6) Pro 3:27., (7) 4:1-5:6, (8) Pro 4:7., (9) Pro 6:1-5, (10) Pro 6:6-11, (11) Pro 6:12-19, (12) Pro 6:20., (13) chap. 7, (14) chap. 8, (15) chap. 9. In chap. 3 and chap. 9 there are found a few Mashal odes of two lines and of four lines which may be regarded as independent Mashals, and may adapt themselves to the schemes employed; other brief complete parts are only waves in the flow of the larger discourses, or are altogether formless, or more than octastichs. The octastich Pro 6:16-19 makes the proportionally greatest impression of an independent inwoven Mashal. It is the only proverb in which symbolical numbers are used which occurs in the collection from 1 to 29:\n\nThere are six things which Jahve hateth,\n\nAnd seven are an abhorrence to His soul:\n\nHaughty eyes, a lying tongue,\n\nAnd hands that shed innocent blood;\n\nAn heart that deviseth the thoughts of evil,\n\nFeet that hastily run to wickedness,\n\nOne that uttereth lies as a false witness,\n\nAnd he who soweth strife between brethren.\n\nSuch numerical proverbs to which the name מדּה has been given by later Jewish writers (see my Gesch. der Jd. Poesie, pp. 199, 202) are found in chap. 30. With the exception of Pro 30:7-9, Pro 30:24-28 (cf. Sir. 25:1, 2), the numerical proverb has this peculiarity, found also in most of the numerical proverbs of Sirach (Sir. 23:16; 25:7; 26:5, 28), that the number named in the first parallel line is in the second (cf. Job 5:9) increased by one. On the other hand, the form of the Priamel\n\n(Note: From praeambulum, designating a peculiar kind of epigram found in the German poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.)\n\nis used neither in the Book of Proverbs nor in that of Sirach. Proverbs such as Pro 20:10 (\"Diverse weights, diverse measures - an abomination to Jahve are they both\") and Pro 20:12 (\"The hearing ear, the seeing eye - Jahve hath created them both\"), to be distinguished from Pro 17:3; Pro 27:21, and the like, where the necessary unity, and from Pro 27:3, where the necessary resemblance, of the predicate is wanting, are only a weak approach to the Priamel - a stronger, Pro 25:3, where the three subjects form the preamble (\"The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings - are unsearchable\"). Perhaps Pro 30:11-14 is a greater mutilated Priamel. Here four subjects form the preamble, but there is wanting the conclusion containing the common predicate. This, we believe, exhausts the forms of the Mashal in the collection. It now only remains to make mention of the Mashal chain, i.e., the ranging together in a series of proverbs of a similar character, such as the chain of proverbs regarding the fool, Pro 26:1-12, the sluggard, Pro 26:13-16, the tale-bearer, Pro 26:20-22, the malicious, Pro 26:23-28 - but this form belongs more to the technics of the Mashal collection than to that of the Mashal poetry.\n\nWe now turn to the separate parts of the book, to examine more closely the forms of their proverbs, and gather materials for a critical judgment regarding the origin of the proverbs which they contain. Not to anticipate, we take up in order the separate parts of the arrangement of the collection. Since, then, it cannot be denied that in the introductory paedagogic part, Pro 1:7-9, notwithstanding its rich and deep contents, there is exceedingly little of the technical form of the Mashal, as well as generally of technical form at all. This part, as already shown, consist not of proper Mashals, but of fifteen Mashal odes, or rather, perhaps, Mashal discourses, didactic poems of the Mashal kind. In the flow of these discourses separate Mashals intermingle, which may either be regarded as independent, or, as Pro 1:32; Pro 4:18., can easily be so understood. In the Mashal chains of chap. 4 and chap. 9 we meet with proverbs that are synonymous (Pro 9:7, Pro 9:10), antithetic (Pro 3:35; Pro 9:8), integral, or of one thought (Pro 3:29-30), and synthetic (Pro 1:7; Pro 3:5, Pro 3:7), of two lines and of four lines variously disposed (Pro 3:9., 11f., 31f., 33f.); but the parabolic scheme is not at all met with, separate proverbs such as Pro 3:27. are altogether without form, and keeping out of view the octastich numerical proverb, Pro 6:16-19, the thoughts which form the unity of separate groups are so widely expanded that the measure of the Mashal proper is far exceeded. The character of this whole part is not concentrating, but unfolding. Even the intermingling proverbs of two lines possess the same character. They are for the most part more like dissolved drops than gold coins with sharp outline an","order":20,"numberOfChapters":31,"sha256":"20e0bd64619dae6740a04b7a7d7b33f0f6666efc36cef9c3e29bae3b6bcbce14","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":31,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/31.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":31},"totalNumberOfVerses":633},"chapter":{"number":17,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["Pro 17:1\nA comparative proverb with טוב, pairing with Pro 16:32 :\nBetter a dry piece of bread, and quietness therewith,\nThan a house full of slain beasts with unquietness.\nSimilar to this in form and contents are Pro 15:16. and Pro 16:8. פּת חרבה is a piece of bread (פת, fem., as Pro 23:8) without savoury drink (Theodotion, καθ ̓ ἑαυτόν, i.e., nothing with it), cf. Lev 7:10, a meat-offering without the pouring out of oil. זבחים are not sacrificial gifts (Hitzig), but, as always, slain animals, i.e., either offerings or banquets of slain beasts; it is the old name of the שׁלמים (cf. Exo 18:12; Exo 24:5; Pro 7:14), part of which only were offered on the altar, and part presented as a banquet; and זבח (in contradist. to טבח, Lev 9:2; 43:16) denotes generally any kind of consecrated festival in connection with the worship of God, Sa1 20:29; cf. Gen 31:54. \"Festivals of hatred\" are festivals with hatred. מלא is part. with object.-accus.; in general מלא forms a constructive, מלא occurs only once (Jer 6:11), and מלאי not at all. We have already, Pro 7:14, remarked on the degenerating of the shelamı̂m feasts; from this proverb it is to be concluded that the merriment and the excitement bordering on intoxication (cf. with Hitzig, Sa1 1:13 and Sa1 1:3), such as frequently at the Kirmsen merry-makings, brought quarrels and strife, so that the poor who ate his dry bread in quiet peace could look on all this noise and tumult without envy.\nPro 17:2\n2 A prudent servant shall rule over the degenerate son;\nAnd he divides the inheritance among the brethren.\nRegarding the contrasts of משׂכּיל and מבישׁ, vid., at Pro 10:5; Pro 14:35. The printed editions present בּבן־מבישׁ in genit. connection: a son of the scandalous class, which is admissible; but Cod. 1294 and Cod. Jaman,\n(Note: The Cod. brought by Sapiir from Jemen, of which there is an account in the preface to the edition of Isaiah by Baer and me.)\nErf. No. 2, 3, write בּבן מבישׁ (with Tsere and Munach), and that is perhaps right, after Pro 10:5; Pro 17:25. The futures have here also a fut. signification: they say to what it will come. Grotius remarks, with reference to this: manumissus tutor filiis relinquetur; יחלק tutorio officio. But if he is a conscientious, unselfish tutor, he will not enrich himself by property which belongs to another; and thus, though not without provision, he is yet without an inheritance. And yet the supplanting of the degenerate is brought about by this, that he loses his inheritance, and the intelligent servant steps into his place. Has one then to suppose that the master of the house makes his servant a co-heir with his own children, and at the same time names him as his executor? That were a bad anachronism. The idea of the διαθήκη was, at the time when this proverb was coined, one unknown - Israelitish iniquity knows only the intestate right of inheritance, regulated by lineal and gradual succession. Then, if one thinks of the degenerate son, that he is disowned by the father, but that the intelligent servant is not rewarded during the life of his master for his true services, and that, after the death of the master, to such a degree he possesses the esteem and confidence of the family, that he it is who divides the inheritance among the brethren, i.e., occupies the place amongst them of distributor of the inheritance, not: takes a portion of the inheritance, for חלק has not the double meaning of the Lat. participare; it means to divide, and may, with בּ, mean \"to give a part of anything\" (Job 39:17); but, with the accus., nothing else than to distribute, e.g., Jos 18:2, where it is to be translated: \"whose inheritance had not yet been distributed (not yet given to them).\" Jerome, haereditatem dividet; and thus all translators, from the lxx to Luther.\nPro 17:3\n3 The fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold;\nAnd a trier of hearts is Jahve.\nAn emblematical proverb, which means that Jahve is for the heart what the smelting-pot (from צרף, to change, particularly to melt, to refine) is for silver, and what the smelting furnace (כוּר, from כּוּר, R. כר, to round, Exo 22:20) is for gold, that Jahve is for the heart, viz., a trier (בחן, to grind, to try by grinding, here as at Psa 7:10) of their nature and their contents, for which, of the proof of metals, is elsewhere (Pro 16:2; Pro 21:2; Pro 24:12) used the word (cf. בּחון, the essay-master, Jer 6:7) תּכן, weigher, or דּורשׁ, searcher (Ch1 28:9). Wherever the subject spoken of is God, the searcher of hearts, the plur. לבּות, once לבבות ecno ,, is used; the form לבבים occurs only in the status conjunctus with the suffix. In Pro 27:21 there follow the two figures, with which there is formed a priamel, as at Pro 26:3, another tertium comparationis.\nPro 17:4\n4 A profligate person giveth heed to perverse lips;\nFalsehood listeneth to a destructive tongue.\nThe meaning, at all events, is, that whoever gives ear with delight to words which are morally reprobate, and aimed at the destruction of neighbours, thereby characterizes himself as a profligate. Though מרע is probably not pred. but subj., yet so that what follows does not describe the מרע (the profligate hearkens...), but stamps him who does this as a מרע (a profligate, or, as we say: only a profligate...). מרע, for מרע, is warranted by Isa 9:16, where מרע (not מרע ton, according to which the Venet. here translates ἀπὸ κακοῦ) is testified to not only by correct codd. and editions, but also by the Masora (cf. Michlol 116b). הקשׁיב (from קשׁב, R. קש, to stiffen, or, as we say, to prick, viz., the ear) is generally united with ל or אל, but, as here and at Pro 29:12; Jer 6:19, also with על. און, wickedness, is the absolute contrast of a pious and philanthropic mind; הוּת, from הוּה, not in the sense of eagerness, as Pro 10:3; Pro 11:6, but of yawning depth, abyss, catastrophe (vid., at Psa 5:10), is equivalent to entire destruction - the two genitives denote the property of the lips and the tongue (labium nequam, lingua perniciosa), on the side of that which it instrumentally aims at (cf. Psa 36:4; Psa 52:4): practising mischief, destructive plans. שׁקר beginning the second line is generally regarded as the subj. parallel with מרע, as Luther, after Jerome, \"A wicked man gives heed to wicked mouths, and a false man listens willingly to scandalous tongues.\" It is possible that שׁקר denotes incarnate falsehood, as רמיּה, Pro 12:27, incarnate slothfulness, cf. מרמה, Pro 14:25, and perhaps also Pro 12:17; צדק, Psa 58:2, תּוּשׁיּה, Mic 6:9; יצר סמוּך, Isa 26:13, etc., where, without supplying אישׁ (אנשׁי), the property stands instead of the person possession that property. The clause, that falsehood listeneth to a deceitful tongue, means that he who listens to it characterizes himself thereby, according to the proverb, simile simili gaudet, as a liar. But only as a liar? The punctuation before us, which represents מרע by Dechi as subj., or also pred., takes שׁקר מזין as obj. with מזין as its governing word, and why should not that be the view intended? The representation of the obj. is an inversion less bold than Isa 22:2; Isa 8:22, and that על here should not be so closely connected with the verb of hearing, as 4a lies near by this, that הקשׁיב על is elsewhere found, but not האזין על. Jewish interpreters, taking שׁקר as obj., try some other meaning of מזין than auscultans; but neither זון, to approach, nor זין, to arm (Venet. ψεῦδος ὁπλίζει), gives a meaning suitable to this place. מזין is equivalent to מאזין. As אאזין, Job 32:11, is contracted into אזין, so must מאזין, if the character of the part. shall be preserved, become מזין, mediated by מיזין.\nPro 17:5\n5 He that mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker;\nHe that rejoiceth over calamity remains not unpunished.\nLine first is a variation of Pro 14:31. God is, according to Pro 22:2, the creator of the poor as well as of the rich. The poor, as a man, and as poor, is the work of God, the creator and governor of all things; thus, he who mocketh the poor, mocketh Him who called him into existence, and appointed him his lowly place. But in general, compassion and pity, and not joy (שׂמח ל, commonly with ל, of the person, e.g., Obad. Oba 1:12, the usual formula for ἐπιχαιρεκακία), is appropriate in the presence of misfortune (איד, from אוּד, to be heavily burdened), for such joy, even if he on whom the misfortune fell were our enemy, is a peccatum mortale, Job 31:29. There is indeed a hallowed joy at the actual revelation in history of the divine righteousness; but this would not be a hallowed joy if it were not united with deep sorrow over those who, accessible to no warning, have despised grace, and, by adding sin to sin, have provoked God's anger. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["With this verse this series of proverbs closes as it began:\nA diadem of the old are children's children,\nAnd the glory of children are their parents.\nChildren are a blessing from God (Ps 127-128); thus, a family circle consisting of children and grandchildren (including great-grandchildren) is as a crown of glory surrounding the grey-haired patriarch; and again, children have glory and honour in their parents, for to have a man of an honoured name, or of a blessed memory, as a father, is the most effective commendation, and has for the son, even though he is unlike his father, always important and beneficial consequences. In 6b a fact of experience is expressed, from which has proceeded the rank of inherited nobility recognised among men - one may abnegate his social rights, but yet he himself is and remains a part of the moral order of the world. The lxx has a distich after Pro 17:4 the Vatican text places it after Pro 17:6 : \"The whole world of wealth belongs to the faithful, but to the unfaithful not even an obolus.\" Lagarde supposes that ὄλος ὁ κόσμος τῶν χρημάτων is a translation of שׁפעת יתר, instead of שׂפת יתר, 7a. But this ingenious conjecture does not amount to the regarding of this distich as a variation of Pro 17:7. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["The proverbs following, Pro 17:7-10, appear to be united acrostically by the succession of the letters ש (שׂ, שׁ) and ת.\nPro 17:7\n7 It does not become a fool to speak loftily,\nHow much less do lying lips a noble!\nAs at Isa 32:5., נבל and נדיב are placed opposite to one another; the latter is the nobly magnanimous man, the former the man who thinks foolishly and acts profligately, whom it does not become to use lofty words, who thereby makes the impression of his vulgarity so much the more repulsive (cf. Job 2:10). שּׂפת יתר (not יתר, for the word belongs to those which retain their Pathach or Segol, in pausa) is neither elevated (soaring) (Ewald) nor diffuse (Jo. Ernst Jungius in Oetinger: lingua dicax ac sermonem ultra quam decorum verbis extendere solita), rather imperative (Bertheau), better presumptuous (Hitzig) words, properly words of superfluity, i.e., of superabundant self-consciousness and high pretension (cf. the transitive bearing of the Arab. watr with ὑβρίζειν, from ὑπέρ, Aryan upar, Job, p. 363). Rightly Meri, שׂפת נאוה ושׂררה. It produces a disagreeable impression, when a man of vulgar mind and of rude conduct, instead of keeping himself in retirement, makes himself of importance, and weighty in a shameless, impudent manner (cf. Ps. 12:9, where זלּוּת, vilitas, in a moral sense); but yet more repulsive is the contrast, when a man in whom one is justified in expecting nobility of mind, in accordance with his life-position and calling, degrades himself by uttering deceitful words. Regarding the אף כּי, concluding a minori ad majus, we have already spoken at Pro 11:31; Pro 15:11. R. Ismael, in Bereschith Rabba, at 44:8, reckons ten such conclusions a minori ad majus in the Scriptures, but there are just as many quanto magis. The right accentuation (e.g., in Cod. 1294) is here אף כי־לנדיב, transformed from אף כי־לנדיב, according to Accentuationssystem, xviii. 2.\nPro 17:8\n8 The gift of bribery appears a jewel to its receiver;\nWhitherso'er he turneth himself he acteth prudently.\nHow 8b is to be understood is shown by Sa1 14:47, cf. Jos 1:7; the quoque se vertit, prudenter rem agit, has accordingly in both sentences the person meant by בּעליו as subject, not the gift (Hitzig), of which ישׂכּיל, \"it maketh prosperous,\" is not said, for השׂכּיל means, used only of persons, prudent, and therefore successful, fortunate conduct. Such is said of him who has to give (Luther): he presses through with it whithersoever he turns. But the making of בּעיני the subj. does not accord with this: this means gift to one who has to give, appears to open doors and hearts, not merely as a golden key, it is truly such to him. Thus בעליו, as at Pro 3:27, will be meant of him to whom the present is brought, or to whom a claim thereto is given. But שׂחד means here not the gift of seasonable liberality (Zckler), but, as always, the gift of bribery, i.e., a gift by which one seeks to purchase for himself (Pro 17:23) preference on the part of a judge, or to mitigate the displeasure of a high lord (Pro 21:14); here (for one does not let it depend merely on the faithfulness of another to his duty) it is that by which one seeks to secure an advantage to himself. The proverb expresses a fact of experience. The gift of bribery, to which, as to a well-known approved means, השּׂחד, refers, appears to him who receives and accepts it (Targ.) as a stone of pleasantness, a charming, precious stone, a jewel (Juwl from joie = gaudium); it determines and impels him to apply all his understanding, in order that he may reach the goal for which it shall be his reward. What he at first regarded as difficult, yea, impossible, that he now prudently carries out, and brings to a successful conclusion, wherever he turns himself, overcoming the seemingly insurmountable hindrances; for the enticement of the gift lifts him, as with a charm, above himself, for covetousness is a characteristic feature of human nature - pecuniae obediunt omnia (Ecc 10:19, Vulg.).\nPro 17:9\n9 He covereth transgressions who seeketh after love,\nAnd he who always brings back a matter separateth friends.\nThe pred. stands first in the simple clause with the order of the words not inverted. That מכסה פשׁע is also to be interpreted here as pred. (cf. 19a) is shown by Pro 10:12, according to which love covereth all transgressions. We write מכסּה־פּשׂע with Dag. forte conjunctivum of פ (as of ב in Eze 18:6), and Gaja with the Sheva, according to the Meth.-Setzung, 37; the punctuation מכסּה פּשׁע also occurs. What the expression \"to seek love\" here means, is to be judged, with Hitzig, after Zep 2:3; Co1 14:1. It is in no case equivalent to seek to gain the love of another, rather to seek to preserve the love of men towards one another, but it is to be understood not after 9b, but after Pro 10:12 : he seeks to prove love who does not strike on the great bell when his neighbour has sinned however grievously against him, does not in a scandal-loving manner make much ado about it, and takes care not thereby to widen the breach between men who stand near to one another, but endeavours by a reconciling, soothing, rectifying influence, to mitigate the evil, instead of making it worse. He, on the contrary, who repeats the matter (שׁנה with ב of the obj., to come back with something, as Pro 26:11), i.e., turns always back again to the unpleasant occurrence (Theodotion, δευτερῶν ἐν λόγῳ; Symmachus, δευτερῶν λόγον, as Sir. 7:14; 19:7), divides friends (vid., Pro 16:28), for he purposely fosters the strife, the disharmony, ill-will, and estrangement which the offence produced; while the noble man, who has love for his motive and his aim, by prudent silence contributes to bring the offence and the division which it occasioned into forgetfulness.\nPro 17:10\n10 One reproof maketh more impression on a wise man\nThan if one reckoned a hundred to the fool\nOne of the few proverbs which begin with a future, vid., Pro 12:26. It expresses what influence there is in one reproof with a wise man (מבין, Pro 8:9); גּערה is the reproof expressed by the post-bibl. נזיפה .lbib, as the lowest grade of disciplinary punishment, admonitio, connected with warning. The verbal form תהת is the reading of the lxx and Syr. (συντρίβει ἀπειλὴ καρδίαν φρονίμου) for they read תחת גערה לב מבין, derived from חתת, and thus תּחת (from Hiph. החת); thus Luther: reproof alarms more the intelligent, but חחת with ב of the obj. is not Hebr.; on the contrary, the reading of the lxx is in accordance with the usage of the language, and, besides, is suitable. It is, however, first to be seen whether the traditional text stands in need of this correction. As fut. Niph. תּחת, apart from the ult. accent. to be expected, gives no meaning. Also if one derives it from חתה, to snatch away, to take away, it gives no appropriate thought; besides, חתה is construed with the object. accus., and the fut. Apoc., in itself strange here, must be pointed either תּהת or תּחתּ (after יחדּ) (Bttcher, Lehrb. ii. p. 413). Thus יחת, as at Job 21:13; Jer 21:13, will be fut. Kal of נחת = ינחת, Psa 38:3 (Theodotion, Targ., Kimchi). With this derivation, also, תּחת is to be expected; the reference in the Handwrterbuch to Gesen. Lehrgebude, 51, 1, Anm. 1, where, in an extremely inadequate way, the retrogression of the tone (נסוג אחור) is spoken of, is altogether inappropriate to this place; and Bttcher's explanation of the ult. tone from an intended expressiveness is ungrammatical; but why should not תּחת, from נחת, with its first syllable originating from contraction, and thus having the tone be Milel as well as Milra, especially here, where it stands at the head of the sentence? With ב connected with it, נחת means: to descend into anything, to penetrate; Hitzig appropriately compares altius in pectus descendit of Sallust, Jug. 11. Jerome rightly, according to the sense: plus proficit, and the Venet. ἀνεῖ (read ὀνεῖ) ἀπειλὴ τῷ συνίοντι. In 10b מכּה (cf. Deu 25:3; Co2 11:24) is to be supplied to מאה, not פאמים (an hundred times, which may be denoted correctly by מאה as well as מאת, Ecc 8:12). With the wise (says a Talmudic proverb) a sign does as much as with the fool a stick does. Zehner, in his Adagia sacra (1601), cites Curtius (vii. 4): Nobilis equus umbra quoque virgae regitur, ignavus ne calcari quidem concitari potest. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Five proverbs of dangerous men against whom one has to be on his guard:\n11 The rebellious seeketh only after evil,\nAnd a cruel messenger is sent out against him.\nIt is a question what is subj. and what obj. in 11a. It lies nearest to look on מרי as subj., and this word (from מרה, stringere, to make oneself exacting against any, to oppose, ἀντιτείνειν) is appropriate thereto; it occurs also at Eze 2:7 as abstr. pro concreto. That it is truly subj. appears from this, that בּקּשׁ רע, to seek after evil (cf. Pro 29:10; Kg1 20:7, etc.), is a connection of idea much more natural than בּקּשׁ מרי to seek after rebellion. Thus אך will be logically connected with רע, and the reading אך מרי will be preferred to the reading אך־מרי; אך (corresponding to the Arab. âinnama) belongs to those particles which are placed before the clause, without referring to the immediately following part of the sentence, for they are much more regarded as affecting the whole sentence (vid., Pro 13:10): the rebellious strives after nothing but only evil. Thus, as neut. obj. רע is rendered by the Syr., Targ., Venet., and Luther; on the contrary, the older Greek translators and Jerome regard רע as the personal subject. If now, in reference to rebellion, the discourse is of a מלאך אכזרי, we are not, with Hitzig, to think of the demon of wild passions unfettered in the person of the rebellious, for that is a style of thought and of expression that is modern, not biblical; but the old unpoetic yet simply true remark remains: Loquendi formula inde petita quod regis aut summi magistratus minister rebelli supplicium nunciat infligitque. מלאך is n. officii, not naturae. Man as a messenger, and the spiritual being as messenger, are both called מלאך. Therefore one may not understand מלאך אכזרי, with the lxx, Jerome, and Luther, directly and exclusively of an angel of punishment. If one thinks of Jahve as the Person against whom the rebellion is made, then the idea of a heavenly messenger lies near, according to Psa 35:5., Psa 78:49; but the proverb is so meant, that it is not the less true if an earthly king sends out against a rebellious multitude a messenger with an unlimited commission, or an officer against a single man dangerous to the state, with strict directions to arrest him at all hazards. אכזרי we had already at Pro 12:10; the root קש חש means, to be dry, hard, without feeling. The fut. does not denote what may be done (Bertheau, Zckler), which is contrary to the parallelism, the order of the words, and the style of the proverb, but what is done. And the relation of the clause is not, as Ewald interprets it, \"scarcely does the sedition seek out evil when an inexorable messenger is sent.\" Although this explanation is held by Ewald as \"unimprovable,\" yet it is incorrect, because אך in this sense demands, e.g., Gen 27:3, the perf. (strengthened by the infin. intensivus). The relation of the clause is, also, not such as Bttcher has interpreted it: a wicked man tries only scorn though a stern messenger is sent against him, but not because such a messenger is called אכזרי, against whom this \"trying of scorn\" helps nothing, so that it is not worth being spoken of; besides, שׁלּח or משׁלּח would have been used if this relation had been intended. We have in 11a and 11b, as also e.g., at Pro 26:24; Pro 28:1, two clauses standing in internal reciprocal relation, but syntactically simply co-ordinated; the force lies in this, that a messenger who recognises no mitigating circumstances, and offers no pardon, is sent out against such an one. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["12 Meet a bear robbed of one of her whelps,\nOnly not a fool in his folly.\nThe name of the bear, as that of the cow, Job 21:10; Psa 144:14, preserves its masculine form, even when used in reference to sexual relationship (Ewald, 174b); the ursa catulis orbata is proverbially a raging beast. How the abstract expression of the action פּגושׁ [to meet], here as e.g., Psa 17:5, with the subj. following, must sound as finite (occurrat, may always meet), follows from ואל = ואל־יפגּשׁ (non autem occurrat). פּגושׁ has on the last syllable Mehuppach, and Zinnorith on the preceding open syllable (according to the rule, Accentssystem, vi. 5d).\n(Note: In the Torath Emeth, p. 18, the word is irregularly represented as Milel - a closed syllable with Cholem can suffer no retrogression of the tone.)\nשׁכּוּל, in the state of his folly, i.e., when he is in a paroxysm of his anger, corresponds with the conditional noun-adjective שׁכּוּל, for folly morbidly heightened is madness (cf. Hos 11:7; Psychol. p. 291f.). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["13 He that returneth evil for good,\nFrom his house evil shall not depart.\nIf ingratitude appertains to the sinful manifestations of ignoble selfishness, how much more sinful still is black ingratitude, which recompenses evil for good! (משׁיב, as Sa1 25:21, syn. גּמל, to requite, Pro 3:30; Pro 31:12; שׁלּם, to reimburse, Pro 20:22). Instead of תמישׁ, the Kerı̂ reads תמוּשׁ; but that this verb, with a middle vowel, may be 'י'ע as well as 'ו'ע, Psa 55:2 shows. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["14 As one letteth out water is the beginning of a strife;\nBut cease thou from such strife ere it comes to showing teeth.\nThe meaning of this verb פּטר is certain: it means to break forth; and transitively, like Arab. faṭr, to bring forth from a cleft, to make to break forth, to let go free (Theodotion, ἀπολύων; Jerome, dimittit; Venet. ἀφιείς). The lxx, since it translates by ἐξουσίαν δίδωσι, thinks on the juristic signification, which occurs in the Chronicles: to make free, or to declare so; but here פּוטר מים (vid., regarding the Metheg at Pro 14:31) is, as Luther translates, one who tears away the dam from the waters. And ראשׁית מדון is not accus. dependent on פוטר, to be supplied (Hitzig: he unfetters water who the beginning of strife, viz., unfetters); but the part. is used as at Pro 10:17 : one who unfetters the water is the beginning of strife, i.e., he is thus related to it as when one... This is an addition to the free use of the part. in the language of the Mishna, where one would expect the infin., e.g., בּזורע (= בּזרע), if one sows, בּמזיד (= בּזדון), of wantonness. It is thus unnecessary, with Ewald, to interpret פוטר as neut., which lets water go = a water-outbreak; פוטר is meant personally; it represents one who breaks through a water-dam, withdraws the restraint of the water, opens a sluice, and then emblematically the proverb says: thus conditioned is the beginning of a strife. Then follows the warning to let go such strife (הריב, with the article used in the more elevated style, not without emphasis), to break from it, to separate it from oneself ere it reach a dangerous height. This is expressed by לפני התגּלּע, a verb occurring only here and at Pro 18:1; Pro 20:3, always in the Hithpa. The Targum (misunderstood by Gesenius after Buxtorf; vid., to the contrary, Levy, under the word צדי II) translates it at Pro 18:1; Pro 20:3, as the Syr., by \"to mock,\" also Aquila, who has at Pro 20:3, ἐξυβρισθήσεται, and the lxx at Pro 18:1, ἐπονείδιστος ἔσται, and Jerome, who has this in all the three passages, render the Hithpa. in this sense, passively. In this passage before us, the Targ., as Hitzig gives it, translates, \"before it heats itself,\" but that is an error occasioned by Buxtorf; vid., on the contrary, Levy, under the word קריא (κύριος); this translation, however, has a representative in Haja Gaon, who appeals for גלע, to glow, to Nidda viii. 2.\n(Note: Vid., Simon Nascher's Der Gaon Haja u. seine giest. Thtig. p. 15.)\nElsewhere the lxx, at Pro 20:3, συμπλέκεται (where Jerome, with the amalgamation of the two significations, miscentur contumeliis); Kimchi and others gloss it by התערב, and, according to this, the Venet. translates, πρὸ τοῦ συνχυθῆναι (τὴν ἔριν); Luther, \"before thou art mingled therein.\" But all these explanations of the word: insultare, excandescere, and commisceri, are etymologically inadmissible. Bertheau's and Zckler's \"roll itself forth\" is connected at least with a meaning rightly belonging to the R. גל. But the Arab. shows, that not the meaning volvere, but that of retegere is to be adopted. Aruch\n(Note: Vid., p. 109, note.)\nfor Nidda viii. 2 refers to the Arab., where a wound is designated as יכולה להגּלע ולהוציא דם, i.e., as breaking up, as it were, when the crust of that which is nearly healed is broken off (Maimuni glosses the word by להתקלף, were uncrusted), and blood again comes forth. The meaning retegere requires here, however, another distinction. The explanation mentioned there by Aruch: before the strife becomes public to thee, i.e., approaches thee, is not sufficient. The verbal stem גלע is the stronger power of גלה, and means laying bare; but here, not as there, in the Mishna of a wound covered with a crust. The Arab. jal' means to quarrel with another, properly to show him the teeth, the Pol or the tendency-stem from jali'a, to have the mouth standing open, so that one shows his teeth; and the Syr. glaṣ, with its offshoots and derivatives, has also this meaning of ringi, opening the mouth to show, i.e., to make bare the teeth. Schultens has established this explanation of the words, and Gesenius further establishes it in the Thesaurus, according to which Fleischer also remarks, \"גלע, of showing the teeth, the exposing of the teeth by the wide opening of the mouth, as happens in bitter quarrels.\" But הריב does not agree with this. Hitzig's translation, \"before the strife shows its teeth,\" is as modern as in Pro 17:11 is the passion of the unfettered demon, and Fleischer's prius vero quam exacerbetur rixa renders the Hithpa. in a sense unnecessarily generalized for Pro 18:1 and Pro 20:3. The accentuation, which separates להתגלע from הריב by Rebia Mugrash, is correct. One may translate, as Schultens, antequam dentes stringantur, or, since the Hithpa. has sometimes a reciprocal signification, e.g., Gen 42:1; Psa 41:8 : ere one reciprocally shows his teeth, Hitzig unjustly takes exception to the inversion הריב נטושׁ. Why should not the object precede, as at Hos 12:1-14 :15, the נטוש, placed with emphasis at the end? The same inversion for a like reason occurs at Ecc 5:6. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["15 He that acquitteth the guilty and condemneth the righteous - \nAn abomination to Jahve are they both.\nThe proverb is against the partisan judge who is open to bribery, like Pro 24:24, cf. Isa 5:23, where, with reference to such, the announcement of punishment is emphatically made. רשׁע and צדּיק, in a forensic sense, are equivalent to sons (reus) and insons. גּם (cf. the Arab. jmy'na, altogether, but particularly the Pers. ham and the Turkish dkhy standing wholly thus in the numeral) is here, as at Gen 27:45, equivalent to יחדּיו, Jer 46:12 (in its unions = united). Whoever pronounces sentence of justification on the guilty, appears as if he must be judged more mildly than he who condemns the guiltless, but both the one and the other alike are an abhorrence to God. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["We take Pro 17:16-21 together. This group beings with a proverb of the heartless, and ends with one of the perverse-hearted; and between these there are not wanting noticeable points of contact between the proverbs that follow one another.\nPro 17:16\n16 Why the ready money in the hand of the fool;\nTo get wisdom when he has yet no heart?\nThe question is made pointed by זה, thus not: why the ready money when...? Is it to obtain wisdom? - the whole is but one question, the reason of which is founded in לבו אין (thus to be accented with Mugrash going before).\n(Note: If we write ולב־ with Makkeph, then we have to accentuate לקנות חכמה with Tarcha Munach, because the Silluk word in this writing has not two syllables before the tone. This sequence of accents if found in the Codd. Ven. 1521, 1615, Basel 1619, while most editions have לקנות חכמה ולב־אין, which is false. But according to MSS we have ולב without Makkeph, and that is right according to the Makkeph rules of the metrical Accentuationssystem; vid., Torath Emeth, p. 40.)\nThe fool, perhaps, even makes some endeavours, for he goes to the school of the wise, to follow out their admonitions, קנה חכמה (Pro 4:5, etc.), and it costs him something (Pro 4:7), but all to no purpose, for he has no heart. By this it is not meant that knowledge, for which he pays his honorarium, remains, it may be, in his head, but goes not to his heart, and thus becomes an unfruitful theory; but the heart is equivalent to the understanding, in the sense in which the heart appears as the previous condition to the attainment of wisdom (Pro 18:15), and as something to be gained before all (Pro 15:32), viz., understanding, as the fitting intellectual and practical habitus to the reception, the appropriation, and realization of wisdom, the ability rightly to comprehend the fulness of the communicated knowledge, and to adopt it as an independent possession, that which the Greek called νοῦς, as in that \"golden proverb\" of Democrates: πολλοὶ πολυμαθέες νοῦν οὐκ ἔχουσι, or as in Luk 24:25, where it is said that the Lord opened τὸν νοῦν of His disciples to understand the Scriptures. In the lxx a distich follows Pro 17:16, which is made up of 19b and 20b, and contains a varied translation of these two lines.\nPro 17:17\n17 At all times the right friend shows himself loving;\nAnd as a brother is he born for adversity.\nBrother is more than friend, he stands to one nearer than a friend does, Psa 35:14; but the relation of a friend may deepen itself into a spiritual, moral brotherhood, Psa 18:24, and there is no name of friend that sounds dearer than אחי, Sa2 1:26. 17a and 17b are, according to this, related to each other climactically. The friend meant in 17a is a true friend. Of no other is it said that he loves בּכל־עת, i.e., makes his love manifest; and also the article in הרע not only here gives to the word more body, but stamps it as an ideal-word: the friend who corresponds to the idea of such an one.\n(Note: The Arab. grammarians say that the article in this case stands, l'astfrâgh khsânas âljnas, as an exhaustive expression of all essential properties of the genus, i.e., to express the full ideal realization of the idea in that which is named.)\nThe inf. of the Hiph., in the sense \"to associate\" (Ewald), cannot therefore be הרע, because רע is not derived from רעע, but from רעה. Thus there exists no contrast between 17a and 17b, so that the love of a friend is thought of, in contradistinction to that of a brother, as without permanency (Fl.); but 17b means that the true friend shows himself in the time of need, and that thus the friendship becomes closer, like that between brothers. The statements do not refer to two kinds of friends; this is seen from the circumstance that אח has not the article, as הרע has. It is not the subj. but pred., as אדם, Job 11:12 : sooner is a wild ass born or born again as a man. The meaning of הוּלד there, as at Psa 87:5., borders on the notion of regenerari; here the idea is not essentially much less, for by the saying that the friend is born in the time of need, as a brother, is meant that he then for the first time shows himself as a friend, he receives the right status or baptism of such an one, and is, as it were, born into personal brotherly relationship to the sorely-tried friend. The translation comprobatur (Jerome) and erfunden [is found out] (Luther) obliterates the peculiar and thus intentional expression, for נולד is not at all a metaphor used for passing into the light - the two passages in Proverbs and in Job have not their parallel. לצרה is not equivalent to בּצרה (cf. Psa 9:10; Psa 10:1), for the interchange of the prep. in 17a and 17b would then be without any apparent reason. But Hitzig's translation also: as a brother he is born of adversity, is impossible, for ל after נודל and ילּד always designates that for which the birth is an advantage, not that from which it proceeds. Thus ל will be that of the purpose: for the purpose of the need, - not indeed to suffer (Job 5:7) on account of it, but to bear it in sympathy, and to help to bear it. Rightly Fleischer: frater autem ad aerumnam (sc. levandam et removendam) nascitur. The lxx gives this sense to the ל: ἀδελφοὶ δὲ ἐν ἀνάγκαις χρήσιμοι ἔστωσαν, τοῦτο γὰρ χάριν γεννῶνται.\nPro 17:18\n18 A man void of understanding is he who striketh hands,\nWho becometh surety with his neighbour.\nCf. Pro 6:1-5, where the warning against suretyship is given at large, and the reasons for it are adduced. It is incorrect to translate (Gesen., Hitzig, and others) לפני רעהוּ, with the lxx, Jerome, the Syr., Targ., and Luther, \"for his neighbour;\" to become surety for any one is ערב ל, Pro 6:1, or, with the object. accus. Pro 11:15, another suitable prep. is בּעד; but לפני never means pro (ὑπέρ), for at Sa1 1:16 it means \"to the person,\" and Sa2 3:31, \"before Abner's corpse (bier).\" רעהוּ is thus here the person with whom the suretyship is entered into; he can be called the רע of him who gives bail, so much the more as the reception of the bail supposes that both are well known to each other. Here also Fleischer rightly translates: apud alterum (sc. creditorem pro debitore).\nPro 17:19\n19 He loveth sin who loveth strife;\nHe who maketh high his doors seeketh destruction.\nA synthetic distich. Bttcher finds the reason of the pairing of these two lines in the relationship between a mouth and a door (cf. Mic 7:6, פּתחי פיך). Hitzig goes further, and supposes that 19b figuratively expresses what boastfulness brings upon itself. Against Geier, Schultens, and others, who understand פּתחו directly of the mouth, he rightly remarks that הגדּיל פה is not heard of, and that הגדּיל פה taht dn would be used instead. But the two lines harmonize, without this interchangeable reference of os and ostium. Zanksucht [quarrelsomeness] and Prunksucht [ostentation] are related as the symptoms of selfishness. But both bear their sentence in themselves. He who has pleasure in quarrelling has pleasure in evil, for he commits himself to the way of great sinning, and draws others along with him; and he who cannot have the door of his house high enough and splendid enough, prepares thereby for himself, against his will, the destruction of his house. An old Hebrew proverb says, כל העוסק בבנין יתמסכן, aedificandi nimis studiosus ad mendicitatem redigitur. Both parts of this verse refer to one and the same individual, for the insanum aedificandi studium goes only too often hand in hand with unjust and heartless litigation.\nPro 17:20\n20 He that is of a false heart findeth no good;\nAnd he that goeth astray with his tongue falleth into evil.\nRegarding עקּשׁ־לב, vid., Pro 11:20. In the parallel member, נהפּך בּלשׁונו is he who twists or winds (vid., at Pro 2:12) with his tongue, going about concealing and falsifying the truth. The phrase ונהפּך (the connecting form before a word with a prep.) is syntactically possible, but the Masora designates the word, in contradistinction to ונהפּך, pointed with Pathach, Lev 13:16, with לית as unicum, thus requires ונהפּך, as is also found in Codd. The contrast of רעה is here טוב, also neut., as Pro 13:21, cf. Pro 16:20, and רע, Pro 13:17.\nPro 17:21\nThe first three parts of the old Solomonic Book of Proverbs ((1) Prov 10-12; (2) 13:1-15:19; (3) 15:20-17:20) are now followed by the fourth part. We recognise it as striking the same keynote as Pro 10:1. In Pro 17:21 it resounds once more, here commencing a part; there, Pro 10:1, beginning the second group of proverbs. The first closes, as it begins, with a proverb of the fool.\n21 He that begetteth a fool, it is to his sorrow;\nAnd the father of a fool hath no joy.\nIt is admissible to supply ילדו, developing itself from ילד, before לתוּגה לו (vid., regarding this passive formation, at Pro 10:1, cf. Pro 14:13), as at Isa 66:3, מעלה (Fl.: in maerorem sibi genuit h. e. ideo videtur genuisse ut sibi maerorem crearet); but not less admissible is it to interpret לתוגה לו as a noun-clause corresponding to the ולא־ישׂמח (thus to be written with Makkeph): it brings grief to him. According as one understands this as an expectation, or as a consequence, ילד, as at Pro 23:24, is rendered either qui gignit or qui genuit. With נבל, seldom occurring in the Book of Proverbs (only here and at Pro 17:7), כּסיל, occurring not unfrequently, is interchanged. Schultens rightly defines the latter etymologically: marcidus h. e. qui ad virtutem, pietatem, vigorem omnem vitae spiritualis medullitus emarcuit; and the former: elumbis et mollitie segnitieve fractus, the intellectually heavy and sluggish (cf. Arab. kasal, laziness; kaslân, the lazy).\n(Note: Nldeke's assertion (Art. Orion in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon) that the Arab. kasal corresponds to the Hebr. כּשׁל proceeds from the twofold supposition, that the meaning to be lazy underlies the meaning to totter (vid., also Dietrich in Gesenius' Heb. Wrterbuch), and that the Hebr. ס must correspond with the Arab. š. The former supposition is untenable, the latter is far removed (cf. e.g., כּסּא and kursı̂, ספר and sifr, מסכּן and miskı̂n). The verb כּשׁל, Aram. תּקל, is unknown in the Arab.) \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["22 A joyful heart bringeth good recovery;\nAnd a broken spirit drieth the bones.\nThe heart is the centre of the individual life, and the condition and the tone of the heart communicates itself to this life, even to its outermost circumference; the spirit is the power of self-consciousness which, according as it is lifted up or broken, also lifts up or breaks down the condition of the body (Psychol. p. 199), vid., the similar contrasted phrases לב שׂמח and רוּח נכאה, Pro 15:13. The ἄπ. λεγ. גּהה (here and there in Codd. incorrectly written גּיהה) has nothing to do with the Arab. jihat, which does not mean sight, but direction, and is formed from wjah (whence wajah, sight), like עדה, congregation, from ועד (יעד). The Syr., Targ. (perhaps also Symmachus: ἀγαθύνει ἡλικίαν; Jerome: aetatem floridam facit; Luther: makes the life lstig [cheerful]) translate it by body; but for this גּוה (גּויּה) is used, and that is a word of an entirely different root from גּהה. To what verb this refers is shown by Hos 5:13 : ולא־יגהה מכּם מזור, and healed not for you her ulcerous wound. מזור is the compress, i.e., the bandage closing up the ulcer, then also the ulcer-wound itself; and גּהה is the contrary of עלה, e.g., Jer 8:22; it means the removing of the bandage and the healing of the wound. This is confirmed by the Syr. gho, which in like manner is construed with min, and means to be delivered from something (vid., Bernstein's Lex. Syr. to Kirsch's Chrestomathie). The Aethiop. quadriliteral gâhgěh, to hinder, to cause to cease, corresponds to the causative Syr. agahish. Accordingly גּהה means to be in the condition of abatement, mitigation, healing; and גּהה (as synonym of כּהה, Neh 3:19, with which Parchon combines it), levamen, levatio, in the sense of bodily healing (lxx εὐεκτεῖν ποιεῖ; Venet., after Kimchi, ἀγαθυνεῖ θεραπείαν); and היטיב גּהה (cf. Pro 15:2) denotes, to bring good improvement, to advance powerfully the recovery. Schultens compares the Arab. jahy, nitescere, disserenari, as Menahem has done ננהּ, but this word is one of the few words which are explained exclusively from the Syriac (and Aethiop.). גּרם (here and at Pro 25:15) is the word interchanging with עצם, Pro 15:30; Pro 16:24. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["23 Bribery from the bosom the godless receiveth,\nTo pervert the ways of justice.\nRegarding שׂחד, vid., Pro 17:8. The idea of this word, as well as the clause containing the purpose, demand for the רשׁע a high judicial or administrative post. The bosom, חק (חיק), is, as Pro 16:23, that of the clothing. From the bosom, מחק, where it was kept concealed, the gift is brought forth, and is given into the bosom, בּחק, Pro 21:14, of him whose favour is to be obtained - an event taking place under four eyes, which purposely withdraws itself from the observation of any third person. Since this is done to give to the course of justice a direction contrary to rectitude, the giver of the bribe has not right on his side; and, under the circumstances, the favourable decision which he purchases may be at once the unrighteous sentence of a צדיק, accusing him, or accused by him, Pro 18:5. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["24 The understanding has his attention toward wisdom;\nBut the eyes of a fool are on the end of the earth.\nMany interpreters explain, as Euchel:\n\"The understanding finds wisdom everywhere;\nThe eyes of the fool seek it at the end of the world.\"\nEwald refers to Deu 30:11-14 as an unfolding of the same thought. But although it may be said of the fool (vid., on the contrary, Pro 15:14) that he seeks wisdom, only not at the right place, as at Pro 14:6, of the mocker that he seeks wisdom but in vain, yet here the order of the words, as well as the expression, lead us to another thought: before the eyes of the understanding את־פּניע, as Gen 33:18; Sa1 2:11, and frequently in the phrase 'את־פני ה, e.g., Sa1 1:22) wisdom lies as his aim, his object, the end after which he strives; on the contrary, the eyes of the fool, without keeping that one necessary thing in view, wander in alia omnia, and roam about what is far off, without having any fixed object. The fool is everywhere with his thoughts, except where he ought to be. Leaving out of view that which lies nearest, he loses himself in aliena. The understanding has an ever present theme of wisdom, which arrests his attention, and on which he concentrates himself; but the fool flutters about fantastically from one thing to another, and that which is to him precisely of least importance interests him the most. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["The series of proverbs, v. 25-18:2, begins and closes in the same way as the preceding, and only Pro 17:26 stands by itself without apparent connection.\nThis verse begins connecting itself with Pro 17:21 :\nA grief to his father is a foolish son,\nAnd a bitter woe for her that bare him.\nThe ἅπ. λεγ. ממר is formed from מרר (to be bitter, properly harsh), as מכס from כּסס. The Syr. and Targ. change the subst. into participles; some codd. also have ממר (after the forms מחל, מסב, מפר, מרע), but as may be expected in 25a, מבעיס. The dat. obj. instead of the accus. may be possible; the verse immediately following furnishes a sufficient example of this. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["26 Also to inflict punishment on the righteous is not good;\nThis, that one overthrows the noble on account of his rectitude.\nDoes the גּם [also] refer to a connection from which the proverb is separated? or is it tacitly supposed that there are many kinds of worthless men in the world, and that one from among them is brought forward? or is it meant, that to lay upon the righteous a pecuniary punishment is also not good? None of all these. The proverb must have a meaning complete in itself; and if pecuniary punishment and corporeal punishment were regarded as opposed to one another, 26b would then have begun with אף כּי (quanto magis percutere ingenuos). Here it is with גם as at Pro 20:11, and as with אך at 11a, and רק at Pro 13:10 : according to the sense, it belongs not to the word next following, but to לצּדּיק; and ענשׁ (whence inf. ענושׁ, as Pro 21:11, with the ǎ in ע, cf. also עבד, Pro 11:10, for אבד) means here not specially to inflict a pecuniary fine, but generally to punish, for, as in mulctare, the meaning is generalized, elsewhere with the accus., Deu 22:19, here to give to any one to undergo punishment. The ruler is the servant of God, who has to preserve rectitude, εἰς ὀργὴν τῷ τὸ κακὸν πράσσοντι (Rom 13:14). It is not good when he makes his power to punish to be felt by the innocent as well as by the guilty.\nIn 26b, instead of הכּות, the proverb is continued with להכּות; לא־טוב, which is to be supplied, takes the inf. alone when it precedes, and the inf. with ל when it follows, Pro 18:5; Pro 28:21; Pro 21:9 (but cf. Pro 21:19). הכּות is the usual word for punishment by scourging, Deu 25:1-3, cf. Co2 11:24, N.T. μαστιγοῦν, δίρειν, Rabb. מכּות, strokes, or מלקוּת from לקה, vapulare, to receive stripes. נדיבים are here those noble in disposition. The idea of נדיב fluctuates between generosus in an outward and in a moral sense, wherefore על־ישׁר, or rather עלי־ישׁר, is added; for the old editions, correct MSS, and e.g., also Soncin. 1488, present עלי (vid., Norzi). Hitzig incorrectly explains this, \"against what is due\" (ישׁר, as Pro 11:24); also Psa 94:20, עלי־חק does not mean κατὰ προστάγματος (Symmachus), but ἐπὶ προστάγματι (lxx and Theod.), on the ground of right = praetextu juris (Vatabl.). Thus עלי־ישׁר means here neither against nor beyond what is due, but: on the ground of honourable conduct, making this (of course mistakenly) a lawful title to punishment; Aquila, ἐπὶ εὐθύτητι, cf. Mat 5:10, ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης. Besides, for על after הכּה, the causal signification lies nearest Num 22:32, cf. Isa 1:5 (על־מה, on account of anything). If the power of punishment is abused to the punishing of the righteous, yea, even to the corporeal chastisement of the noble, and their straight, i.e., conscientious, firm, open conduct, is made a crime against them, that is not good - it is perversion of the idea of justice, and an iniquity which challenges the penal rectitude of the Most High (Ecc 5:7 [8]). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["27 He that keepeth his words to himself hath knowledge,\nAnd the cool of temper is a man of understanding.\nThe first line here is a variation of Pro 10:19. The phrase ידע דּעת (here and at Dan 1:4) means to possess knowledge (novisse); more frequently it is בּינה ידע, e.g., Pro 4:1, where ידע has the inchoative sense of noscere. In 27b the Kerı̂ is יקר־רוח. Jerome translates it pretiosi spiritus, the Venet. τίμιος τὸ πνεῦμα. Rashi glosses יקר here, as at Sa1 3:1, by מנוע (thus to be read after codd.), retentus spiritu; most interpreters remark that the spirit here comes into view as expressing itself in words. It is scarcely correct to say that יקר דּברים could designate one who is sparing in his words, but יקר־רוּח is, according to the fundamental conception of the verb יקר, gravis spiritu (Schultens), of a dignified, composed spirit; it is a quiet seriousness proceeding from high conscientiousness, and maintaining itself in self-control, which is designated by this word. But the Chethı̂b וקר־רוּח presents almost the same description of character. קר from קרר (of the same root as יקר) means to be firm, unmoveable, καρτερὸν εἶναι, hence to be congealed, frozen, cold (cf. frigus with rigere, rigor), figuratively to be cold-blooded, passionless, quiet, composed (Fl.); cf. post-bibl. קרת רוּח (Arab. ḳurrat‛ain), cooling = refreshing, ἀνάψυξις (Act 3:20).\n(Note: \"He has made my eye glowing\" (askhn, cf. שׁחין) is in Arab. equivalent to \"he has deeply troubled me.\" The eye of the benevolent is bârid, and in the Semitic manner of expression, with deep psychological significance, it is said that the tears of sorrow are hot, but those of joy cold.)\nWhether we read יקר or קר, in any case we are not to translate rarus spiritu, which, apart from the impossibility of the expression, makes 27b almost a tautological repetition of the thought of 27a. The first line recommends bridling of the tongue, in contrast to inconsiderate and untimely talk; the second line recommends coldness, i.e., equanimity of spirit, in contrast to passionate heat. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["Ver. 28 continues the same theme, the value of silence:\nEven a fool, when he keeps silence, is counted wise;\nWhen he shutteth his mouth, discreet.\nThe subj. as well as the pred. of the first line avail for the second. אטם, obturare, occludere, usually of the closing the ear, is here transferred to the mouth. The Hiph. החרישׁ means mutum agere (cf. Arab. khrs, mutum esse), from חרשׁ, which, like κωφός, passes from the meaning surdus to that of mutus (Fl.). The words of Job 13:5, and also those of Alexander: si tacuisses sapiens mansisses, are applicable to fools. An Arab. proverb says, \"silence is the covering of the stupid.\" In the epigrammatical hexameter,\nπᾶς τις ἀπαίδευτος φρονιμώτατός ἐστι σιωπῶν,\nthe word σιωπῶν has the very same syntactical position as these two participles.\n(Note: Cf. C. Schultze's Die bibl. Sprichwrter (1860), p. 60f.) \n"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/17.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":17},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/18.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":18},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/16.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":16},"numberOfVerses":16}