{"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":5,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["Here a fourth rule of life follows the three already given, Pro 4:24, Pro 4:25, Pro 4:26-27 :\n1 My son, attend unto my wisdom,\nAnd incline thine ear to my prudence,\n2 To observe discretion,\nAnd that thy lips preserve knowledge.\n3 For the lips of the adulteress distil honey,\nAnd smoother than oil is her mouth;\n4 But her end is bitter like wormwood,\nSharper than a two-edged sword.\n5 Her feet go down to death,\nHer steps cleave to Hades.\n6 She is far removed from entering the way of life,\nHer steps wander without her observing it.\nWisdom and understanding increase with the age of those who earnestly seek after them. It is the father of the youth who here requests a willing ear to his wisdom of life, gained in the way of many years' experience and observation. In Pro 5:2 the inf. of the object is continued in the finitum, as in Pro 2:2, Pro 2:8. מזמּות (vid., on its etymon under Pro 1:4) are plans, projects, designs, for the most part in a bad sense, intrigues and artifices (vid., Pro 24:8), but also used of well-considered resolutions toward what is good, and hence of the purposes of God, Jer 23:20. This noble sense of the word מזמּה, with its plur., is peculiar to the introductory portion (chap. 1-9) of the Book of Proverbs. The plur. means here and at Pro 8:12 (placing itself with חכמות and תּבוּנות, vid., p. 68) the reflection and deliberation which is the presupposition of well-considered action, and שׁמר is thus not otherwise than at Pro 19:8, and everywhere so meant, where it has that which is obligatory as its object: the youth is summoned to careful observation and persevering exemplification of the quidquid agas, prudenter agas et respice finem. In 2b the Rebia Mugrash forbids the genitive connection of the two words דּעתו שׂפתיך; we translate: et ut scientiam labia tua tueantur. Lips which preserve knowledge are such as permit nothing to escape from them (Psa 17:3) which proceeds not from the knowledge of God, and in Him of that which is good and right, and aims at the working out of this knowledge; vid., Khler on Mal 2:7. שׂפתיך (from שׂפה, Arab. shafat, edge, lip, properly that against which one rubs, and that which rubs itself) is fem., but the usage of the language presents the word in two genders (cf. 3a with Pro 26:23). Regarding the pausal ינצרוּ for יצּרוּ, vid., under Mal 3:1; Mal 2:11. The lips which distil the honey of enticement stand opposite to the lips which distil knowledge; the object of the admonition is to furnish a protection against the honey-lips.\nPro 5:3\nזרה denotes the wife who belongs to another, or who does not belong to him to whom she gives herself or who goes after her (vid., Pro 2:16). She appears here as the betrayer of youth. The poet paints the love and amiableness which she feigns with colours from the Song of Songs, Sol 4:11, cf. Sol 5:16. נפת denotes the honey flowing of itself from the combs (צוּפים), thus the purest and sweetest; its root-word is not נוּף, which means to shake, vibrate, and only mediately (when the object is a fluid) to scatter, sprinkle, but, as Schultens has observed, as verb נפת = Arab. nafat, to bubble, to spring up, nafath, to blow, to spit out, to pour out. Parchon places the word rightly under נפת (while Kimchi places it under נוּף after the form בּשׁת), and explained it by חלות דבשׁ היצאים מי הכוורת קודם ריסוק (the words דבשׁ היוצא should have been used): the honey which flows from the cells before they are broken (the so-called virgin honey). The mouth, חך = Arab. ḥink (from חנך, Arab. hanak, imbuere, e.g., after the manner of Beduins, the mouth of the newly-born infant with date-honey), comes into view here, as at Pro 8:7, etc., as the instrument of speech: smoother than oil (cf. Psa 55:22), it shows itself when it gives forth amiable, gentle, impressive words (Pro 2:16, Pro 6:24); also our \"schmeicheln\" (= to flatter, caress) is equivalent to to make smooth and fair; in the language of weavers it means to smooth the warp.\nPro 5:4-5\nIn Pro 5:4 the reverse of the sweet and smooth external is placed opposite to the attraction of the seducer, by whose influence the inconsiderate permits himself to be carried away: her end, i.e., the last that is experienced of her, the final consequence of intercourse with her (cf. Pro 23:32), is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. The O.T. language regards bitterness and poison as related both in meaning and in reality; the word לענה (Aq. ἀψίνθιον = wormwood) means in Arab. the curse. חרב פּיּות is translated by Jerome after the lxx, gladius biceps; but פּיפיּות means double-edged, and חרב שׁני פיות (Jdg 3:16) means a doubled-edged sword. Here the plur. will thus poetically strengthen the meaning, like ξίφος πολύστομον, that which devours, as if it had three or four edges (Fl.). The end in which the disguised seduction terminates is bitter as the bitterest, and cutting as that which cuts the most: self-condemnation and a feeling of divine anger, anguish of heart, and destructive judgment. The feet of the adulteress go downward to death. In Hebr. this descendentes ad mortem is expressed by the genitive of connection; מות is the genitive, as in יורדי בור, Pro 1:12; elsewhere the author uses יורדות אל, Pro 7:27; Pro 2:18. Death, מות (so named from the stretching of the corpse after the stiffness of death), denotes the condition of departure from this side as a punishment, with which is associated the idea of divine wrath. In שׁאול (sinking, abyss, from שׁאל, R. של, χαλᾶν, vid., under Isa 5:14), lie the ideas of the grave as a place of corruption, and of the under-world as the place of incorporeal shadow-life. Her steps hold fast to Hades is equivalent to, they strive after Hades and go straight to it; similar to this is the Arab. expression, hdhâ âldrb yâkhdh âly âlbld: this way leads straight forward to the town (Fl.).\nPro 5:6\nIf we try to connect the clause beginning with פּן with 5b as its principal sentence: she goes straight to the abyss, so that by no means does she ever tread the way of life (thus e.g., Schultens), or better, with 6b: never more to walk in the way of life, her paths fluctuate hither and thither (as Gr. Venet. and Kamphausen in Bunsen's Bibelwerk, after Bertheau and Ewald, translate); then in the former case more than in the latter the difference of the subject opposes itself, and in the latter, in addition, the לא תדע, only disturbing in this negative clause. Also by the arrangement of the words, 6a appears as an independent thought. But with Jewish expositors (Rashi, Aben-Ezra, Ralbag, Malbim, etc.) to interpret תּפּלּס, after the Talmud (b. Mod katan 9a) and Midrash, as an address is impracticable; the warning: do not weigh the path of life, affords no meaning suitable to this connection - for we must, with Cartwright and J. H. Michaelis, regard 6a as the antecedent to 6b: ne forte semitam vitae ad sequendum eligas, te per varios deceptionum meandros abripit ut non noveris, ubi locorum sis; but then the continuation of the address is to be expected in 6b. No, the subject to תפלם is the adulteress, and פּן is an intensified לא. Thus the lxx, Jerome, Syr., Targ., Luther, Geier, Nolde, and among Jewish interpreters Heidenheim, who first broke with the tradition sanctioned by the Talmud and the Midrash, for he interpreted 6a as a negative clause spoken in the tone of a question. But פּן is not suitable for a question, but for a call. Accordingly, Bttcher explains: viam vitae ne illa complanare studeat! (פּלּס in the meaning complanando operam dare). But the adulteress as such, and the striving to come to the way of life, stand in contradiction: an effort to return must be meant, which, because the power of sin over her is too great, fails; but the words do not denote that, they affirm the direct contrary, viz., that it does not happen to the adulteress ever to walk in the way of life. As in the warning the independent פּן may be equivalent to cave ne (Job 32:13), so also in the declaration it may be equivalent to absit ut, for פּן (from פּנה, after the forms בּן = Arab. banj. עץ = Arab. 'aṣj) means turning away, removal. Thus: Far from taking the course of the way of life (which has life as its goal and reward) - for פּלּס, to open, to open a road (Psa 78:50), has here the meaning of the open road itself - much rather do her steps wilfully stagger (Jer 14:10) hither and thither, they go without order and without aim, at one time hither, at another time thither, without her observing it; i.e., without her being concerned at this, that she thereby runs into the danger of falling headlong into the yawning abyss. The unconsciousness which the clause לא תדע esu expresses, has as its object not the falling (Psa 35:8), of which there is here nothing directly said, but just this staggering, vacillation, the danger of which she does not watch against. נעו has Mercha under the ע with Zinnorith preceding; it is Milra [an oxytone] (Michlol 111b); the punctuation varies in the accentuations of the form without evident reason: Olsh. 233, p. 285. The old Jewish interpreters (and recently also Malbim) here, as also at Pro 2:16, by the זרה [strange woman] understand heresy (מינות), or the philosophy that is hostile to revelation; the ancient Christian interpreters understood by it folly (Origen), or sensuality (Procopius), or heresy (Olympiodorus), or false doctrine (Polychronios). The lxx, which translates, Pro 5:5, רגליה by τῆς ἀφροσύνης οἱ πόδες, looks toward this allegorical interpretation. But this is unnecessary, and it is proved to be false from Pro 5:15-20, where the זרה is contrasted with the married wife. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["The eighth discourse springs out of the conclusion of the seventh, and connects itself by its reflective מעליה so closely with it that it appears as its continuation; but the new beginning and its contents included in it, referring only to social life, secures its relative independence. The poet derives the warning against intercourse with the adulteress from the preceding discourse, and grounds it on the destructive consequences.\n7 And now, ye sons, hearken unto me,\nAnd depart not from the words of my mouth.\n8 Hold thy path far from her neighbourhood,\nAnd come not to the door of her house!\n9 That thou mayest not give the freshness of thy youth to another,\nNor thy years to the cruel one;\n10 That strangers may not sate themselves with thy possessions,\nAnd the fruit of thy toils come into the house of a stranger,\n11 And thou groanest at the end,\nWhen thy flesh and thy body are consumed.\nNeither here nor in the further stages of this discourse is there any reference to the criminal punishment inflicted on the adulterer, which, according to Lev 20:10, consisted in death, according to Eze 16:40, cf. John. Pro 8:5, in stoning, and according to a later traditional law, in strangulation (חנק). Ewald finds in Pro 5:14 a play on this punishment of adultery prescribed by law, and reads from Pro 5:9. that the adulterer who is caught by the injured husband was reduced to the state of a slave, and was usually deprived of his manhood. But that any one should find pleasure in making the destroyer of his wife his slave is a far-fetched idea, and neither the law nor the history of Israel contains any evidence for this punishment by slavery or the mutilation of the adulterer, for which Ewald refers to Grimm's Deutsche Rechtsaltertmer. The figure which is here sketched by the poet is very different. He who goes into the net of the wanton woman loses his health and his goods. She stands not alone, but has her party with her, who wholly plunder the simpleton who goes into her trap. Nowhere is there any reference to the husband of the adulteress. The poet does not at all think on a married woman. And the word chosen directs our attention rather to a foreigner than to an Israelitish woman, although the author may look upon harlotry as such as heathenish rather than Israelitish, and designate it accordingly. The party of those who make prostitutes of themselves consists of their relations and their older favourites, the companions of their gain, who being in league with her exhaust the life-strength and the resources of the befooled youth (Fl.). This discourse begins with ועתּה, for it is connected by this concluding application (cf. Pro 7:24) with the preceding.\nPro 5:8-9\nIn Pro 5:8, one must think on such as make a gain of their impurity. מעל, Schultens remarks, with reference to Eze 23:18, crebrum in rescisso omni commercio: מן denotes the departure, and על the nearness, from which one must remove himself to a distance. Regarding הוד gn (Pro 5:9), which primarily, like our Pracht (bracht from brechen = to break) pomp, magnificence, appears to mean fulness of sound, and then fulness of splendour, see under Job 39:20; here there is a reference to the freshness or the bloom of youth, as well as the years, against the sacrifice of which the warning is addressed - in a pregnant sense they are the fairest years, the years of youthful fulness of strength. Along with אחרים the singulare-tantum אכזרי (vid., Jer 50:42) has a collective sense; regarding the root-meaning, vid., under Isa 13:9. It is the adj. relat. of אכזר after the form אכזב, which is formed not from אך זר, but from an unknown verb כּזר. The ancients referred it to death and the devil; but the אכזרי belongs to the covetous society, which impels ever anew to sin, which is their profit, him who has once fallen into it, and thus brings bodily ruin upon him; they are the people who stand far aloof from this their sacrifice, and among them are barbarous, rude, inexorably cruel monsters (Unmenschen) (Graecus Venetus, τῷ ἀπανθρώπῳ), who rest not till their victim is laid prostrate on the ground and ruined both bodily and financially.\nPro 5:10\nThis other side of the ruin Pro 5:10 presents as an image of terror. For הוד refers to the person in his stately appearance, but כּח to his possessions in money and goods; for this word, as well as in the strikingly similar passage Hos 7:9, is used as the synonym of חיל (Gen 34:29, etc.), in the sense of ability, estate. This meaning is probably mediated by means of a metonymy, as Gen 4:12; Job 31:39, where the idea of the capability of producing is passed over into that of the produce conformable to it; so here the idea of work-power passes over into that of the gain resulting therefrom. ועצביך (and thy toils) is not, like כּחך, the accusative governed by ישׂבּעוּ; the carrying over of this verb disturbs the parallelism, and the statement in the passage besides does not accord therewith, which, interpreted as a virtual predicate, presents 10b as an independent prohibitive clause: neve sint labores tui in domo peregrini, not peregrina; at least נכרי according to the usage of the language is always personal, so that בּית נכרי (cf. Lam 5:2), like מלבושׁ נכרי, Zep 1:8, is to be explained after עיר נכרי, Jdg 19:12. עצב (from עצב, Arab. 'aṣab, to bind fast, to tie together, then to make effort, ποιεῖν, laborare) is difficult work (Pro 10:22), and that which is obtained by it; Fleischer compares the Ital. i miei sudori, and the French mes sueurs.\nPro 5:11\nThe fut. ישׂבּעוּ and the יהיוּ needed to complete 10b are continued in Pro 5:11 in the consec. perf. נהם, elsewhere of the hollow roaring of the sea, Isa 5:30, the growling of the lion, Pro 28:15, here, as also Eze 24:23, of the hollow groaning of men; a word which echoes the natural sound, like הוּם, המה. The lxx, with the versions derived from it, has καὶ μεταμεληθήσῃ, i.e., ונחמתּ (the Niph. נחם, to experience the sorrow of repentance, also an echo-word which imitates the sound of deep breathing) - a happy quid pro quo, as if one interchanged the Arab. naham, fremere, anhelare, and nadam, poenitere. That wherein the end consists to which the deluded youth is brought, and the sorrowful sound of despair extorted from him, is stated in 11b: his flesh is consumed away, for sensuality and vexation have worked together to undermine his health. The author here connects together two synonyms to strengthen the conception, as if one said: All thy tears and thy weeping help thee nothing (Fl.); he loves this heaping together of synonyms, as we have shown at p. 33. When the blood-relation of any one is called שׁאר בּשׂרו, Lev 18:6; Lev 25:49, these two synonyms show themselves in subordination, as here in close relation. שׁאר appears to be closely connected with שׁרירים, muscles and sinews, and with שׁר, the umbilical cord, and thus to denote the flesh with respect to its muscular nature adhering to the bones (Mic 3:2), as בּשׂר denotes it with respect to its tangible outside clothed with skin (vid., under Isaiah, p. 418). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["The poet now tells those whom he warns to hear how the voluptuary, looking back on his life-course, passes sentence against himself.\n12 And thou sayest, \"Why have I then hated correction,\nAnd my heart despised instruction!\n13 And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers,\nNor lent mine ear to my instructors?\n14 I had almost fallen into every vice\nIn the midst of the assembly and the congregation!\"\nThe question 12a (here more an exclamation than a question) is the combination of two: How has it become possible for me? How could it ever come to it that.... Thus also one says in Arab.: Kyf f'alat hadhâ (Fl.). The regimen of איך in 12b is becoming faint, and in 13b has disappeared. The Kal נאץ (as Pro 1:30; Pro 15:5) signifies to despise; the Piel intensively, to contemn and reject (R. נץ, pungere).\nPro 5:13\nשׁמע בּ signifies to cleave to anything in hearing, as ראה ב is to do so in seeing; שׁמע ל yet more closely corresponds with the classic ἐπακούειν, obedire, e.g., Psa 81:9; שׁמע בּקול is the usual phrase for \"hearken!\"\nPro 5:14\nכּמעט with the perf. following is equivalent to: it wanted but a little that this or that should happen, e.g., Gen 26:10. It is now for the most part thus explained: it wanted but a little, and led astray by that wicked companionship I would have been drawn away into crime, for which I would then have been subjected to open punishment (Fl.). Ewald understands רע directly of punishment in its extreme form, stoning; and Hitzig explains כל־רע by \"the totality of evil,\" in so far as the disgraceful death of the criminal comprehends in it all other evils that are less. But בּכל־רע means, either, into every evil, misfortune, or into every wickedness; and since רע, in contradistinction to לב (Hitzig compares Eze 36:5), is a conception of a species, then the meaning is equivalent to in omni genere mali. The reference to the death-punishment of the adulteress is excluded thereby, though it cannot be denied that it might be thought of at the same time, if he who too late comes to consider his ways were distinctly designated in the preceding statements as an adulterer. But it is on the whole a question whether בכל־רע is meant of the evil which follows sin as its consequence. The usage of the language permits this, cf. Sa2 16:8; Exo 5:19; Ch1 7:23; Psa 10:6, but no less the reference to that which is morally bad, cf. Exo 32:22 (where Keil rightly compares with Jo1 5:19); and הייתי (for which in the first case one expected נפלתּי, I fell into, vid., Pro 13:17; Pro 17:20; Pro 28:14) is even more favourable to the latter reference. Also בּתוך קהל ועדה (cf. on the heaping together of synonyms under 11b), this paraphrase of the palam ac publice, with its בּתוך (cf. Psa 111:1; Ch2 20:14), looks rather to a heightening of the moral self-accusation. He found himself in all wickedness, living and moving therein in the midst of the congregation, and thereby giving offence to it, for he took part in the external worship and in the practices of the congregation, branding himself thereby as a hypocrite. That by the one name the congregation is meant in its civil aspect, and by the other in its ecclesiastical aspect, is not to be supposed: in the congregation of the people of the revealed law, the political and the religious sides are not so distinguished. It is called without distinction קהל and עדה (from יעד). Rather we would say that קהל is the whole ecclesia, and עדה the whole of its representatives; but also the great general council bears sometimes the one name (Exo 12:3, cf. 21) and sometimes the other (Deu 31:30, cf. 28) - the placing of them together serves thus only to strengthen the conception. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["The commendation of true conjugal love in the form of an invitation to a participation in it, is now presented along with the warning against non-conjugal intercourse, heightened by a reference to its evil consequences.\n15 Drink water from thine own cistern,\nAnd flowing streams from thine own fountain.\n16 Shall thy streams flow abroad,\nThe water-brooks in the streets!\n17 Let them belong to thyself alone,\nAnd not to strangers with thee.\nOne drinks water to quench his thirst; here drinking is a figure of the satisfaction of conjugal love, of which Paul says, Co1 7:9, κρεῖσσόν ἐστι γαμῆσαι ἢ πυροῦσθαι, and this comes into view here, in conformity with the prevailing character of the O.T., only as a created inborn natural impulse, without reference to the poisoning of it by sin, which also within the sphere of married life makes government, moderation, and restraint a duty. Warning against this degeneracy of the natural impulse to the πάθος ἐπιθυμίας authorized within divinely prescribed limits, the apostle calls the wife of any one τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σκεῦος (cf. Pe1 3:7). So here the wife, who is his by covenant (Pro 2:17), is called \"cistern\" (בור)\n(Note: The lxx translate ἀπὸ σῶν ἀγγείων, i.e., מכּוריך (vid., Lagarde).)\nand \"fountain\" (בּאר) of the husband to whom she is married. The figure corresponds to the sexual nature of the wife, the expression for which is נקבה; but Isa 51:1 holds to the natural side of the figure, for according to it the wife is a pit, and the children are brought out of it into the light of day. Aben-Ezra on Lev 11:36 rightly distinguishes between בור and באר: the former catches the rain, the latter wells out from within. In the former, as Rashi in Erubin ii. 4 remarks, there are מים מכונסים, in the latter חיים מים. The post-biblical Hebrew observes this distinction less closely (vid., Kimchi's Book of Roots), but the biblical throughout; so far the Kerı̂, Jer 6:7, rightly changes בור into the form בּיר, corresponding to the Arab. byar. Therefore בור is the cistern, for the making of which חצב, Jer 2:13, and באר the well, for the formation of which חפר, Gen 21:30, and כרה, Gen 26:25, are the respective words usually employed (vid., Malbim, Sifra 117b). The poet shows that he also is aware of this distinction, for he calls the water which one drinks from the בור by the name מים, but on the other hand that out of the באר by the name נוזלים, running waters, fluenta; by this we are at once reminded of Sol 4:15, cf. 12. The בור offers only stagnant water (according to the Sohar, the בור has no water of its own, but only that which is received into it), although coming down into it from above; but the באר has living water, which wells up out of its interior (מתּוך, 15b, intentionally for the mere מן), and is fresh as the streams from Lebanon (נזל, properly labi, to run down, cf. אזל, placide ire, and generally ire; Arab. zâl, loco cedere, desinere; Arab. zll, IV, to cause to glide back, deglutire, of the gourmand). What a valuable possession a well of water is for nomads the history of the patriarchs makes evident, and a cistern is one of the most valuable possessions belonging to every well-furnished house. The figure of the cistern is here surpassed by that of the fountain, but both refer to the seeking and finding satisfaction (cf. the opposite passage, Pro 23:27) with the wife, and that, as the expressive possessive suffixes denote, with his legitimate wife.\nPro 5:16\nHere we meet with two other synonyms standing in a similar relation of progression. As עין denotes the fountain as to its point of outflow, so מעין (n. loci) means water flowing above on the surface, which in its course increases and divides itself into several courses; such a brook is called, with reference to the water dividing itself from the point of outflow, or to the way in which it divides, פּלג (from פּלג, Job 38:25), Arab. falaj (as also the Ethiop.) or falj, which is explained by nahar ṣaghayr (Fl.).\n(Note: The latter idea (vid., under Psa 1:3) lies nearer, after Job 38:25 : the brook as dividing channels for itself, or as divided into such; falj (falaj) signifies, according to the representation Isa 58:8, also like fajr, the morning-light (as breaking forth from a cleft).)\nWe cannot in this double figure think of any reference to the generative power in the sperma; similar figures are the waters of Judah, Isa 48:1, and the waters of Israel flowing forth as if from a bucket, Num 24:7, where זרעו is the parallel word to מים, cf. also the proper name מואב (from מו = מוי from מוה, diffluere), aqua h.e. semen patris, and שׁגל, Deu 28:30, = Arab. sajal (whence sajl = דּלי, situla), which is set aside by the Kerı̂. Many interpreters have by חוּצה and בּרחבות been here led into the error of pressing into the text the exhortation not to waste the creative power in sinful lust. The lxx translates יפצוּ by ὑπερεκχείσθω; but Origen, and also Clemens Alexandrinus, used the phrase μὴ ὑπερεκχείσθω, which is found in the Complut., Ald., and several codd., and is regarded by Lagarde, as also Cappellus, as original: the three Gttingen theologians (Ewald, Bertheau, and Elster) accordingly make the emendation אל־יפצוּ. But that μή of the lxx was not added till a later period; the original expression, which the Syro-Hexapl. authorizes, was ὑπερεκχείσθω without μή, as also in the version of Aquila, διασκορπιζέσθωσαν without μή (vid., Field). The Hebrew text also does not need אל. Clericus, and recently Hitzig, Zckler, Kamphausen, avoid this remedy, for they understand this verse interrogatively - an expedient which is for the most part and also here unavailing; for why should not the author have written אם יפצו? Schultens rightly remarks: nec negationi nec interrogationi ullus hic locus, for (with Fleischer and von Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, ii. 2, 402) he regards Pro 5:16 as a conclusion: tunc exundabunt; so that he strengthens the summons of Pro 5:15 by the promise of numerous descendants from unviolated marriage. But to be so understood, the author ought to have written ויפצו. So, according to the text, יפצו as jussive continues the imper. שׁתה (15a), and the full meaning according to the connection is this: that within the marriage relation the generative power shall act freely and unrestrained. חוּץ and רחבות denote (Pro 1:20) the space free from houses, and the ways and places which lead towards and stretch between them; חוּץ (from חוּץ, Arab. khass, to split, seorsim ponere) is a very relative conception, according as one thinks of that which is without as the contrast of the house, the city, or the country. Here חוץ is the contrast of the person, and thus that which is anywhere without it, whereto the exercise of its manly power shall extend. The two figurative expressions are the description of the libero flumine, and the contrast, that restriction of self which the marriage relation, according to Co1 7:3-5, condemns.\nPro 5:17\nThat such matters as there are thought of, is manifest from this verse. As זרע comprehends with the cause (sperma) the effect (posterity), so, in Pro 5:16, with the effusio roboris virilis is connected the idea of the beginnings of life. For the subjects of Pro 5:17 are the effusiones seminis named in Pro 5:16. These in their effects (Pro 5:17) may belong to thee alone, viz., to thee alone (לבדּך, properly in thy separateness) within thy married relation, not, as thou hast fellowship with other women, to different family circles, Aben-Ezra rightly regards as the subject, for he glosses thus: הפלגים שׁהם הבנים הבשׁרים, and Immanuel well explains יהיוּ־לך by יתיחסו לך. The child born out of wedlock belongs not to the father alone, he knows not to whom it belongs; its father must for the sake of his honour deny it before the world. Thus, as Grotius remarks: ibi sere ubi prolem metas. In ואין the יהיו is continued. It is not thus used adverbially for לא, as in the old classic Arabic lyas for l' (Fl.), but it carries in it the force of a verb, so that יהיו, according to rule, in the sense of ולא היו = ולא יהיו, continues it. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["With Pro 5:18 is introduced anew the praise of conjugal love. These three verses, Pro 5:18-21, have the same course of thought as Pro 5:15-17.\n18 Let thy fountain be blessed,\nAnd rejoice in the wife of thy youth.\n19 The lovely hind and the graceful gazelle - \nMay her bosom always charm thee;\nIn her love mayest thou delight thyself evermore.\n20 But why wilt thou be fascinated with a stranger,\nAnd embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?\nLike בור and באר, מקור is also a figure of the wife; the root-word is קוּר, from קר, כר, the meanings of which, to dig and make round, come together in the primary conception of the round digging out or boring out, not קוּר = קרר, the Hiph. of which means (Jer 6:7) to well out cold (water). It is the fountain of the birth that is meant (cf. מקור of the female ערוה, e.g., Lev 20:18), not the procreation (lxx, ἡ σὴ φλέψ, viz., φλὲψ γονίμη); the blessing wished for by him is the blessing of children, which בּרוּך so much the more distinctly denotes if בּרך, Arab. barak, means to spread out, and בּרך thus to cause a spreading out. The מן, 18b, explains itself from the idea of drawing (water), given with the figure of a fountain; the word בּאשׁת found in certain codices is, on the contrary, prosaic (Fl.). Whilst שׂמח מן is found elsewhere (Ecc 2:20; Ch2 20:27) as meaning almost the same as שׂמח בּ; the former means rejoicing from some place, the latter in something. In the genitive connection, \"wife of thy youth\" (cf. Pro 2:17), both of these significations lie: thy youthful wife, and she who was chosen by thee in thy youth, according as we refer the suffix to the whole idea or only to the second member of the chain of words.\nPro 5:19\nThe subject, 19a, set forth as a theme courts love for her who is to be loved, for she presents herself as lovely. איּלת is the female of the stag, which may derive its name איּל from the weapon-power of its horns, and יעלה (from יעל, Arab. w'al, to climb), that of the wild-goat (יעל); and thus properly, not the gazelle, which is called צבי on account of its elegance, but the chamois. These animals are commonly used in Semitic poetry as figures of female beauty on account of the delicate beauty of their limbs and their sprightly black eyes. אהבים signifies always sensual love, and is interchanged in this erotic meaning (Pro 7:18) with דּודים. In 19b the predicate follows the subject. The Graec. Venet. translates as if the word were דודיה, and the Syr. as if it were דרכיה, but Aquila rightly translates τίτθοι αὐτῆς. As τίτθος is derived (vid., Curtius, Griech. Etymologie, Nr. 307) from dhâ, to suck (causative, with anu, to put to sucking), so דּד, שׁד, תּד, Arab. thady (commonly in dual thadjein), from שׁדה, Arab. thdy, rigare, after which also the verb ירוּוּך is chosen: she may plentifully give thee to drink; figuratively equivalent to, refresh or (what the Aram. רוּי precisely means) fascinate\n(Note: Many editions have here בּכל־; but this Dagesh, which is contrary to rule, is to be effaced.)\nthee, satisfy thee with love. דּדּים also is an erotic word, which besides in this place is found only in Ezekiel (Eze 23:3, Eze 23:8, Eze 23:21). The lxx obliterates the strong sensual colouring of this line. In 19c it changes תּשׁגּה into תשׂגה, πολλοστὸς ἔσῃ, perhaps also because the former appeared to be too sensual. Moses ha-Darshan (in Rashi) proposes to explain it after the Arab. sjy, to cover, to cast over, to come over anything (III = עסק, to employ oneself with something): engage thyself with her love, i.e., be always devoted to her in love. And Immanuel himself, the author of a Hebrew Divan expatiating with unparalleled freedom in erotic representations, remarks, while he rightly understands תשׁגה of the fascination of love: קורא התמדת חשׁקו אפילו באשׁתו שׁגגה, he calls the husband's continual caressing of the wife an error. But this moral side-glance lies here at a distance from the poet. He speaks here of a morally permissible love-ecstasy, or rather, since תמיד excludes that which is extraordinary, of an intensity of love connected with the feeling of superabundant happiness. שׁגה properly signifies to err from the way, therefore figuratively, with ב of a matter, like delirare ea, to be wholly captivated by her, so that one is no longer in his own power, can no longer restrain himself - the usual word for the intoxication of love and of wine, Pro 20:1 (Fl.).\nPro 5:20\nThe answer to the Why? in this verse is: no reasonable cause - only beastly sensuality, only flagitious blindness can mislead thee. The ב of בזרה is, as 19b and Isa 28:7, that of the object through which one is betrayed into intoxication. חק (thus, according to the Masora, four times in the O.T. for חיק) properly means an incision or deepening, as Arab. hujr (from hjr, cohibere), the front of the body, the part between the arms or the female breasts, thus the bosom, Isa 40:11 (with the swelling part of the clothing, sinus vestis, which the Arabs call jayb), and the lap; חבּק (as Pro 4:8), to embrace, corresponds here more closely with the former of these meanings; also elsewhere the wife of any one is called אשת חיקו or השׁכבת בחיקו, as she who rests on his breast. The ancients, also J. H. Michaelis, interpret Pro 5:15-20 allegorically, but without thereby removing sensual traces from the elevated N.T. consciousness of pollution, striving against all that is fleshly; for the castum cum Sapientia conjugium would still be always represented under the figure of husband and wife dwelling together. Besides, though זרה might be, as the contrast of חכמה, the personified lust of the world and of the flesh, yet 19a is certainly not the חכמה, but a woman composed of flesh and blood. Thus the poet means the married life, not in a figurative sense, but in its reality - he designedly describes it thus attractively and purely, because it bears in itself the preservative against promiscuous fleshly lust. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["That the intercourse of the sexes out of the married relationship is the commencement of the ruin of a fool is now proved.\n21 For the ways of every one are before the eyes of Jahve,\nAnd all his paths He marketh out.\n22 His own sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer,\nAnd in the bands of his sins is he held fast.\n23 He dies for the want of correction,\nAnd in the fulness of his folly he staggers to ruin.\nIt is unnecessary to interpret נכח as an adverbial accusative: straight before Jahve's eyes; it may be the nominative of the predicate; the ways of man (for אישׁ is here an individual, whether man or woman) are an object (properly, fixing) of the eyes of Jahve. With this the thought would suitably connect itself: et onmes orbitas ejus ad amussim examinat; but פּלּס, as the denom. of פּלס, Psa 58:3, is not connected with all the places where the verb is united with the obj. of the way, and Psa 78:50 shows that it has there the meaning to break though, to open a way (from פל, to split, cf. Talmudic מפלּשׁ, opened, accessible, from פלשׁ, Syriac pelaa, perfodere, fodiendo viam, aditum sibi aperire). The opening of the way is here not, as at Isa 26:7, conceived of as the setting aside of the hindrances in the way of him who walks, but generally as making walking in the way possible: man can take no step in any direction without God; and that not only does not exempt him from moral responsibility, but the consciousness of this is rather for the first time rightly quickened by the consciousness of being encompassed on every side by the knowledge and the power of God. The dissuasion of Pro 5:20 is thus in Pro 5:21 grounded in the fact, that man at every stage and step of his journey is observed and encompassed by God: it is impossible for him to escape from the knowledge of God or from dependence on Him. Thus opening all the paths of man, He has also appointed to the way of sin the punishment with which it corrects itself: \"his sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer.\" The suffix יו does not refer to אישׁ of Pro 5:21, where every one without exception and without distinction is meant, but it relates to the obj. following, the evil-doer, namely, as the explanatory permutative annexed to the \"him\" according to the scheme, Exo 2:6; the permutative is distinguished from the apposition by this, that the latter is a forethought explanation which heightens the understanding of the subject, while the former is an explanation afterwards brought in which guards against a misunderstanding. The same construction, Pro 14:13, belonging to the syntaxis ornata in the old Hebrew, has become common in the Aramaic and in the modern Hebrew. Instead of ילכּדוּהוּ (Pro 5:22), the poet uses poetically ילכּדנו; the interposed נ may belong to the emphatic ground-form ילכּדוּן, but is epenthetic if one compares forms such as קבנו (R. קב), Num 23:13 (cf. p. 73). The חמּאתו governed by חבלי, laquei (חבלי, tormina), is either gen. exeg.: bands which consist in his sin, or gen. subj.: bands which his sin unites, or better, gen. possess.: bands which his sin brings with it. By these bands he will be held fast, and so will die: he (הוּא referring to the person described) will die in insubordination (Symm. δι ̓ ἀπαιδευσίαν), or better, since אין and רב are placed in contrast: in want of correction. With the ישׁגּה (Pro 5:23), repeated purposely from Pro 5:20, there is connected the idea of the overthrow which is certain to overtake the infatuated man. In Pro 5:20 the sense of moral error began already to connect itself with this verb. אוּלת is the right name of unrestrained lust of the flesh. אולת is connected with אוּל, the belly; אול, Arab. âl, to draw together, to condense, to thicken (Isaiah, p. 424). Dummheit (stupidity) and the Old-Norse dumba, darkness, are in their roots related to each other. Also in the Semitic the words for blackness and darkness are derived from roots meaning condensation. אויל is the mind made thick, darkened, and become like crude matter. \n"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/5.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":5},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/6.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":6},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/PRO/4.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"PRO","chapter":4},"numberOfVerses":6}