Proverbs 22:21-29
Pro 22:22-23 After these ten lines of preliminary exhortation, there now begins the collection of the “Words of the Wise” thus introduced. A tetrastich which, in its contents, connects itself with the last proverb of the Solomonic collection, Pro 22:16, forms the commencement of this collection: 22 Rob not the lowly because he is lowly; And oppress not the humble in the gate. 23 For Jahve will conduct their cause, And rob their spoilers of life. Though it may bring gain, as said Pro 22:16, to oppress the דּל, the lowly or humble, yet at last the oppressor comes to ruin. The poet here warns against robbing the lowly because he is lowly, and thus without power of defence, and not to be feared; and against doing injustice to the עני, the bowed down, and therefore incapable of resisting in the gate, i.e., in the court of justice. These poor men have not indeed high human patrons, but One in heaven to undertake their cause: Jahve will conduct their cause (יריב ריבם, as at Pro 23:10), i.e., will undertake their vindication, and be their avenger. דּכּא (דּכּה), Aram. and Arab. daḳḳ (cf. דּקק, Arab. daḳḳ), signifies to crush anything so that it becomes broad and flat, figuratively to oppress, synon. עשׁק (Fleischer). The verb קבע has, in Chald. and Syr., the signification to stick, to fix (according to which Aquila here translates καθηλοῦν, to nail; Jerome, configere); and as root-word to קבּעת, the signification to be arched, like (Arab.) ḳab', to be humpbacked; both significations are here unsuitable. The connection here requires the meaning to rob; and for Mal 3:8 also, this same meaning is to be adopted, robbery and taking from one by force (Parchon, Kimchi), not: to deceive (Köhler, Keil), although it might have the sense of robbing by withholding or refraining from doing that which is due, thus of a sacrilege committed by omission or deception. The Talm. does not know the verb קבע in this meaning; but it is variously found as a dialectic word for גזל. ▼▼Thus Rosch ha-schana 26b: Levi came once to N.N. There a man came to meet him, and cried out קבען פלניא. Levi knew not what he would say, and went into the Madrash-house to ask. One answered him: He is a robber (גזלן) said that one to thee; for it is said in the Scriptures (Mal 3:8), “Will a man rob God?” etc. (vid., Wissenschaft Kunst Judenthum, p. 243). In the Midrash, שׁוחר טוב, to Psa 57:1-11, R. Levi says that אתה קיבע לי is used in the sense of אתה גוזל לי. And in the Midrash Tanchuma, P. תרומה, R. Levi answers the question, “What is the meaning of קבע, Mal 3:8?” - It is an Arabic expression. An Arabian, when he wishes to say to another מה אתה גוזלני, says instead of it, מה אתה קובעני. Perhaps קבע is cogn. to קבץ; the R. קב coincides in several groups of languages (also the Turkish ḳb) with the Lat. capere.
Schultens’ etymological explanation, capitium injicere (after Arab. ḳab', to draw back and conceal the head), is not satisfactory. The construction, with the double accus., follows the analogy of הכּהוּ נפשׁ and the like, Gesen. §139. 2. Regarding the sing. נפשׁ, even where several are spoken of, vid., under Pro 1:19. Pro 22:24-25 Another tetrastich follows: 24 Have no intercourse with an angry man, And with a furious man go thou not; 25 Lest thou adopt his ways, And bring destruction upon thy soul. The Piel רעה, Jdg 14:20, signifies to make or choose any one as a friend or companion (רעה, רע); the Hithpa. התרעה (cf. at Pro 18:24), to take to oneself (for oneself) any one as a friend, or to converse with one; אל־תּתרע sounds like אל־תּשׁתּע, Isa 41:10, with Pathach of the closed syllable from the apocope. The angry man is called בּעל אף, as the covetous man בּעל נפשׁ, Pro 23:2, and the mischievous man בּעל מזמּות, Pro 24:8; vid., regarding בּעל at Pro 1:19 and Pro 18:9. אישׁ חמות is related superlat. to אישׁ חמה, Pro 15:18 (cf. Pro 29:22), and signifies a hot-head of the highest degree. לא תבוא is meant as warning (cf. Pro 16:10). בּוא את, or בוא עם, Psa 26:4, to come along with one, is equivalent to go into fellowship or companionship with one, which is expressed by הלך את, Pro 13:20, as בוא ב means, Jos 23:7, Jos 23:12, to enter into communion with one, venire in consuetudinem. This בוא את is not a trace of a more recent period of the language. Also תּאלף, discas, cannot be an equivalent for it: Heb. poetry has at all times made use of Aramaisms as elegancies. אלף, Arab. אלף, ילף, Arab. âlifa, signifies to be entrusted with anything = to learn (Piel אלּף, to teach, Job 15:15, and in Elihu’s speeches), or also to become confidential with one (whence אלּוּף, companion, confidant, Pro 2:17); this אלף is never a Heb. prose word; the bibl. אלּוּף is only used at a later period in the sense of teacher. ארחות .reh are the ways, the conduct (Pro 2:20, etc.), or manner of life (Pro 1:19) which any one enters upon and follows out, thus manners as well as lot, condition. In the phrase “to bring destruction,” לקח is used as in our phrase Schaden nehmen [to suffer injury]; the ancient language also represented the forced entrance of one into a state as a being laid hold on, e.g., Job 18:20, cf. Isa 13:8; here מוקשׁ is not merely equivalent to danger (Ewald, falsely: that thou takest not danger for thy soul), but is equivalent to destruction, sin itself is a snare (Pro 29:6); to bring a snare for oneself is equivalent to suffer from being ensnared. Whosoever comes into a near relation with a passionate, furious, man, easily accommodates himself to his manners, and, hurried forward by him and like him to outbreaks of anger, which does that which is not right before God, falls into ruinous complications. Pro 22:26-27 A third distich follows: 26 Be not among those who strike hands, Among those who become surety for loans. 27 If thou hast nothing to pay, Why shall he take away thy bed from under thee? To strike hands is equivalent to, to be responsible to any one for another, to stake one’s goods and honour for him, Pro 6:1; Pro 11:15; Pro 17:18 - in a word, ערב, seq. acc., to pledge oneself for him (Gen 43:9), or for the loan received by him, משּׁאה, Deu 24:10 (from השּׁה, with ב, of the person and accus. of the thing: to lend something to one on interest). The proverb warns against being one of such sureties (write בּערבים with Cod. 1294, and old impressions such as the Venice, 1521), against acting as they do; for why wouldest thou come to this, that when thou cast not pay (שׁלּם, to render a full equivalent reckoning, and, generally, to pay, Pro 6:31), ▼ he (the creditor) take away thy bed from under thee? - for, as Pro 20:16 says, thus improvident suretyships are wont to be punished. Pro 22:28 A fourth proverb - a distich - beginning with the warning אל: 28 Remove not the perpetual landmark Which thy ancestors have set up. 28a = Pro 23:10. Regarding the inviolability of boundaries established by the law, vid., at Pro 15:25. גּבוּל עולם denotes “the boundary mark set up from ancient times, the removal of which were a double transgression, because it is rendered sacred by its antiquity” (Orelli, p. 76). נסג = סוּג signifies to remove back, Hiph. to shove back, to move away. אשׁר has the meaning of (ὅριον) ὅ, τι, quippe quod. Instead of עולם, the Mishna reads, Pea v. 6, עולים, which in the Jerusalem Gemara one Rabbi understands of those brought up out of Egypt, another of the poor; for “to rise” (in the world) is a euphemism (לשׁון כבוד) for “to come down” (be reduced in circumstances). ▼▼As an analogical example, סגּי נהור, seeing clearly = blind.
Pro 22:29 After these four proverbs beginning with אל, a new series begins with the following tristich: 29 Seest thou a man who is expert in his calling - Before kings may he stand; Not stand before obscure men;i.e., he can enter into the service of kings, and needs not to enter into the service of mean men = he is entitled to claim the highest official post. חזית, in Pro 26:12 = Pro 29:20, interchanging with ראית, is perf. hypotheticum (cf. Pro 24:10; Pro 25:16): si videris; the conclusion which might begin with דּע כּי expresses further what he who sees will have occasion to observe. Rightly Luther: Sihestu einen Man endelich (vid., at Pro 21:5) in seinem geschefft, u.s.w. = seest thou a man expert in his business, etc.. מהיר denotes in all the three chief dialects one who is skilful in a manner not merely by virtue of external artistic ability, but also by means of intellectual mastery of it. התיצּב לפני, to enter on the situation of a servant before any one; cf. Job 1:6; Job 2:1. עמד לפני, 1Sa 16:21; 1Ki 10:8. Along with the pausal form יתיצּב, there is also found in Codd. the form יתיצּב (the ground-form to יתיצּב, whence that pausal form is lengthened), which Ben-Bileam defends, for he reckons this word among “the pathachized pausal forms.” חשׁכּים, in contrast to מלכים, are the obscuri = ignobiles. The Targ. translate the Heb. דּל and אביון by חשׁיך and חשׁוך. Kimchi compares Jer 39:10, where העם הדּלּים is translated by חשׁיכיּא (cf. 2Ki 24:14; 2Ki 25:12). חלכּה (חלכּה) is the old Heb. synonym in Ps 10. The poet seems here to transfer the Aram. usus loq. into the Heb. Proverbs 23
Pro 23:1-3 Pro 22:29, which speaks of a high position near the king, is appropriately followed by a hexastich referring to the slipperiness of the smooth ground of the king’s court. 1 When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, Consider well whom thou hast before thee. 2 And put thy knife to thy throat If thou art a man of good appetite. 3 Be not lustful after his dainties, Because it is deceitful food. The ל of ללחום is that of end: ad cibum capiendum, thus as one invited by him to his table; in prose the expression would be לאכל לחם; לחם, to eat, is poet., Pro 4:17; Pro 9:5. The fut. תּבין clothes the admonition in the form of a wish or counsel; the infin. intens. בּין makes it urgent: consider well him whom thou hast before thee, viz., that he is not thine equal, but one higher, who can destroy thee as well as be useful to thee. With ושׂמתּ the jussive construction begun by תבין is continued. Zöckler and Dächsel, after Ewald and Hitzig, translate incorrectly: thou puttest..., the perf. consec. after an imperf., or, which is the same thing, a fut. meant optatively (e.g., Lev 19:18 with לא, and also Lev 19:34 without לא) continues the exhortation; to be thus understood, the author ought to have used the expression שׂכּין שׂמתּ and not ושׂמת שׂכין. Rightly Luther: “and put a knife to thy throat,” but continuing: “wilt thou preserve thy life,” herein caught in the same mistake of the idea with Jerome, the Syr., and Targ., to which נפשׁ here separates itself. שׂכּין (סכּין) (Arab. with the assimilated a sikkı̂n, plur. sekâkı̂n, whence sekâkı̂ni, cutler) designates a knife (R. סך שך, to stick, vid., at Isa 9:10). לוע, from לוּע, to devour, is the throat; the word in Aram. signifies only the cheek, while Lagarde seeks to interpret בּלעך infinitively in the sense of (Arab.) bwlw'ak, if thou longest for (from wl'a); but that would make 2b a tautology. The verb לוּע (cf. Arab. l'al', to pant for) shows for the substantive the same primary meaning as glutus from glutire, which was then transferred from the inner organ of swallowing (Kimchi, בית הבליעה, Parchon; הוּשׂט, aesophagus) to the external. “Put a knife to thy throat, is a proverbial expression, like our: the knife stands at his throat; the poet means to say: restrain thy too eager desire by means of the strongest threatening of danger - threaten as it were death to it” (Fleischer). In בּעל נפשׁ, נפשׁ means, as at Pro 13:2, desire, and that desire of eating, as at Pro 6:30. Rightly Rashi: if thou art greedy with hunger, if thou art a glutton; cf. Sir. 34:12 (31:12), “If thou sittest at a great table, then open not widely thy throat (φάρυγγα), and say not: There is certainly much on it!” The knife thus denotes the restraining and moderating of too good an appetite. In 3a the punctuation fluctuates between תתאו (Michlol 131a) and תתאו; the latter is found in Cod. 1294, the Erfurt 2 and 3, the Cod. Jaman., and thus it is also to be written at Pro 23:6 and Pro 24:1; ויתאו, 1Ch 11:17 and Psa 45:12, Codd. and older Edd. (e.g., Complut. 1517, Ven. 1515, 1521) write with Pathach. מטעמּות, from טעם, signifies savoury dishes, dainties, like (Arab.) dhwâkt, from dhâk (to taste, to relish); cf. sapores, from sapere, in the proverb: the tit-bits of the king burn the lips (vid., Fleischer, Ali’s Hundred Proverbs, etc., pp. 71, 104). With והוּא begins, as at Pro 3:29, a conditioning clause: since it is, indeed, the bread of deceit (the connection like עד־כּחבים, Pro 21:28), food which, as it were, deceives him who eats it, i.e., appears to secure for him the lasting favour of princes, and often enough herein deceives him; cf. the proverb by Burckhardt and Meidani: whoever eats of the sultan’s soup burns his lips, even though it may be after a length of time (Fleischer). One must come near to a king, says Calovius, hitting the meaning of the proverb, as to a fire: not too near, lest he be burned; nor too remote, so that he may be warmed therewith. Pro 23:4-5 All the forms of proverbs run through these appended proverbs. There now follows a pentastich: 4 Do not trouble thyself to become rich; Cease from such thine own wisdom. 5 Wilt thou let thine eyes fly after it, and it is gone? For it maketh itself, assuredly it maketh itself wings, Like an eagle which fleeth toward the heavens. The middle state, according to Pro 30:8, is the best: he who troubleth himself (cf. Pro 28:20, hasteth) to become rich, placeth before himself a false, deceitful aim. יגע is essentially one with (Arab.) waji'a, to experience sorrow, dolere, and then signifies, like πονεῖν and κάμνειν, to become or to be wearied, to weary or trouble oneself, to toil and moil (Fleischer). The בּינה (cf. Pro 3:5) is just wisdom, prudence directed towards becoming rich; for striving of itself alone does not accomplish it, unless wisdom is connected with it, which is not very particular in finding out means in their moral relations; but is so much the more crafty, and, as we say, speculative. Rightly Aquila, the Venet., Jerome, and Luther: take not pains to become rich. On the contrary, the lxx reads אל תיגע להעשׁיר, stretch not thyself (if thou art poor) after a rich man; and the Syr. and Targ. אל תּגּע להעשׁיר, draw not near to the rich man; but, apart from the uncertainty of the expression and the construction in both cases, poetry, and proverbial poetry too, does not prefer the article; it never uses it without emphasis, especially as here must be the case with it not elided. These translators thought that 'בּו וגו, Pro 23:5, presupposed a subject expressed in Pro 23:4; but the subject is not העשׁיר, but the עשׁר [riches] contained in להעשׁיר. The self-intelligible it in “it maketh wings,” etc. is that about which trouble has been taken, about which there has been speculation. That is a deceitful possession; for what has been gained by many years of labour and search, often passes away suddenly, is lost in a moment. To let the eyes fly after anything, is equivalent to, to direct a (flying) look toward it: wilt thou let thine eyes rove toward the same, and it is gone? i.e., wilt thou expose thyself to the fate of seeing that which was gained with trouble and craft torn suddenly away from thee? Otherwise Luther, after Jerome: Let not thine eyes fly after that which thou cast not have; but apart from the circumstance that בּו ואיננּוּ cannot possibly be understood in the sense of ad opes quas non potes habere (that would have required באשׁר איננו), in this sense after the analogy of (ל) נשׂא נפשׁ אל, the end aimed at would have been denoted by לו and not by בו. Better Immanuel, after Rashi: if thou doublest, i.e., shuttest (by means of the two eyelids) thine eyes upon it, it is gone, i.e., has vanished during the night; but עוף, duplicare, is Aram. and not Heb. Rather the explanation is with Chajûg, after Isa 8:22.: if thou veilest (darkenest) thine eyes, i.e., yieldest thyself over to carelessness; but the noun עפעפּה shows that עוף, spoken of the eyes, is intended to signify to fly (to rove, flutter). Hitzig too artificially (altering the expression to להעשׁיר): if thou faintest, art weary with the eyes toward him (the rich patron), he is gone - which cannot be adopted, because the form of a question does not accord with it. Nor would it accord if ואיננו were thought of as a conclusion: “dost thou let thy look fly toward it? It is gone;” for what can this question imply? The ו of ואיננו shows that this word is a component part of the question; it is a question lla nakar, i.e., in rejection of the subject of the question: wilt thou cast thy look upon it, and it is gone? i.e., wilt thou experience instant loss of that which is gained by labour and acquired by artifice? On בו, cf. Job 7:8. 'עיניך וגו, “thou directest thine eyes to me: I am no more.” We had in Pro 12:19 another mode of designating viz. till I wink again an instant. The Chethı̂b 'התעוּף וגו is syntactically correct (cf. Pro 15:22; Pro 20:30), and might remain. The Kerı̂ is mostly falsely accentuated התּעיף, doubly incorrectly; for (1) the tone never retreats from a shut syllable terminating in î, e.g., להכין, Isa 40:20; בהכין, 1Ch 1:4; אבין, Job 23:8; and (2) there is, moreover, wanting here any legitimate occasion for the retrogression of the tone; thus much rather the form התּעיף (with Mehuppach of the last, and Zinnorith of the preceding open syllable) is to be adopted, as it is given by Opitz, Jablonsky, Michaelis, and Reineccius. The subject of 5b is, as of 5a, riches. That riches take wings and flee away, is a more natural expression than that the rich patron flees away - a quaint figure, appropriate however at Nah 3:16, where the multitude of craftsmen flee out of Nineveh like a swarm of locusts. עשׂה has frequently the sense of acquirere, Gen 12:5, with לו, sibi acquirere, 1Sa 15:1; 1Ki 1:15; Hitzig compares Silius Ital. xvi. 351: sed tum sibi fecerat alas. The inf. intensivus strengthens the assertion: it will certainly thus happen. In 5c all unnecessary discussion regarding the Chethı̂b ועיף is to be avoided, for this Chethı̂b does not exist; the Masora here knows only of a simple Chethı̂b and Kerı̂, viz., ועוּף (read יעוּף), not of a double one (ועיּף), and the word is not among those which have in the middle a י, which is to be read like ו. The manuscripts (e.g., also the Bragadin. 1615) have ועוּף, and the Kerı̂ יעוּף; it is one of the ten words registered in the Masora, at the beginning of which a י is to be read instead of the written ו. Most of the ancients translate with the amalgamation of the Kerı̂ and the Chethı̂b: and he (the rich man, or better: the riches) flees heavenwards (Syr., Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Jerome, and Luther). After the Kerı̂ the Venet. renders: ὡς ἀετὸς πτήσεται τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (viz., ὁ πλοῦτος). Rightly the Targ.: like an eagle which flies to heaven (according to which also it is accentuated), only it is not to be translated “am Himmel” [to heaven], but “gen Himmel” [towards heaven]: השּׁמים is the accusative of direction - the eagle flies heavenward. Bochart, in the Hierozoïcon, has collected many parallels to this comparison, among which is the figure in Lucian’s Timon, where Pluto, the god of wealth, comes to one limping and with difficulty; but going away, outstrips in speed the flight of all birds. The lxx translates ὥσπερ ἀετοῦ καὶ ὑποστρέφει εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ προεστηκότος αὐτοῦ. Hitzig accordingly reads שׁבו לבית משׂגּבּו, and he (the rich patron) withdraws from thee to his own steep residence. But ought not οἶκος τοῦ προεστηκότος αὐτοῦ to be heaven, as the residence of Him who administers wealth, i.e., who gives and again takes it away according to His free-will? Pro 23:6-8 There now follows a proverb with unequally measured lines, perhaps a heptastich: 6 Eat not the bread of the jealous, And let not thyself lust after his dainties; 7 For as one who calculates with himself, so is he: “Eat and drink,” saith he to thee; But his heart is not with thee. 8 Thy morsel which thou hast enjoyed wilt thou cast up, And hast lost thy pleasant words. As טוב עין, Pro 22:9, benignus oculo, denotes the pleasantness and joy of social friendship; so here (cf. Deu 15:9; Mat 15:15) רע עין, malignus oculo, the envy and selfishness of egoism seeking to have and retain all for itself. The lxx ἀνδρὶ βασκάνῳ, for the look of the evil eye, עין רע, עינא בישׁא (cattivo occhio), refers to enchantment; cf. βασκαίνειν, fascinare, to bewitch, to enchant, in modern Greek, to envy, Arab. 'an, to eye, as it were, whence ma‛jûn, ma‛ı̂n, hit by the piercing look of the envious eye, invidiae, as Apuleius says, letali plaga percussus (Fleischer). Regarding תּתאו with Pathach, vid., the parallel line 3a. 7a is difficult. The lxx and Syr. read שׂער [hair]. The Targ. renders תּרעא רמא, and thus reads שׁער [fool], and thus brings together the soul of the envious person and a high portal, which promises much, but conceals only deception behind (Ralbag). Joseph ha-Nakdan reads ▼▼In an appendix to Ochla We-Ochla, in the University Library at Halle, he reads שׂער, but with פליגא [doubtful] added.
שׂער with sîn; and Rashi, retaining the schîn, compares the “sour figs,” Jer 29:17. According to this, Luther translates: like a ghost (a monster of lovelessness) is he inwardly; for, as it appears in שׂער, the goat-like spectre שׂעיר hovered before him. Schultens better, because more in conformity with the text: quemadmodum suam ipsius animam abhorret (i.e., as he does nothing to the benefit of his own appetite) sic ille (erga alios multo magis). The thought is appropriate, but forced. Hitzig for once here follows Ewald; he does not, however, translate: “like as if his soul were divided, so is it;” but: “as one who is divided in his soul, so is he;” but the verb שׁער, to divide, is inferred from שׁער, gate = division, and is as foreign to the extra-bibl. usus loq. as it is to the bibl. The verb שׁער signifies to weigh or consider, to value, to estimate. These meanings Hitzig unites together: in similitudinem arioli et conjectoris aestimat quod ignorat, perhaps meaning thereby that he conjecturally supposes that as it is with him, so it is with others: he dissembles, and thinks that others dissemble also. Thus also Jansen explains. The thought is far-fetched, and does not cover itself by the text. The translation of the Venet. also: ὡς γὰρ ἐμέτρησεν ἐν ψυχῇ οἱ οὕτως ἐστίν (perhaps: he measures to others as penuriously as to himself), does not elucidate the text, but obscures it. Most moderns (Bertheau, Zöckler, Dächsel, etc.): as he reckons in his soul, so is he (not as he seeks to appear for a moment before thee). Thus also Fleischer: quemadmodum reputat apud se, ita est (sc. non ut loquitur), with the remark that שׁער (whence שׁער, measure, market value, Arab. si'r), to measure, to tax to as to determine the price, to reckon; and then like חשׁב, in general, to think, and thus also Meîri with the neut. rendering of ita est. But why this circumlocution in the expression? The poet ought in that case just to have written כי לא למו דבּר בשׂפתיו כן הוא, for he is not as he speaks with his mouth. If one read שׁער (Symmachus, εἰκάζων), then we have the thought adapted to the portrait that is drawn; for like one calculating by himself, so is he, i.e., he is like one who estimates with himself the value of an object; for which we use the expression: he reckons the value of every piece in thy mouth. However, with this understanding the punctuation also of שׁער as finite may be retained and explained after Isa 26:18 : for as if he reckoned in his soul, so is he; but in this the perf. is inappropriate; by the particip. one reaches the same end ▼▼We may write כּן הוּא: the Mehuppach (Jethîb) sign of the Olewejored standing between the two words represents also the place of the Makkeph; vid., Thorath Emeth, p. 20.
by a smoother way. True, he says to thee: eat and drink (Sol 5:1), he invites thee with courtly words; but his heart is not with thee (בּל, like Pro 24:23): he only puts on the appearance of joy if thou partakest abundantly, but there lurks behind the mask of liberal hospitality the grudging niggardly calculator, who poisons thy every bite, every draught, by his calculating, grudging look. Such a feast cannot possibly do good to the guest: thy meal (פּת, from פּתת; cf. κλᾶν τὸν ἄρτον, Aram. פּרס לחמא, to divide and distribute bread, whence פּרנס, to receive aliment, is derived) which thou hast eaten thou wilt spue out, i.e., wilt vomit from disgust that thou hast eaten such food, so that that which has been partaken of does thee no good. פּתּך is also derived from פּתּה: ▼▼Immanuel makes so much of having recognised the verb in this פּתּך (and has he persuaded thee), that in the concluding part of his Divan (entitled Machberoth Immanuel), which is an imitation of Dante’s Divina Commedia, he praises himself on this account in the paradise of King Solomon, who is enraptured by this explanation, and swears that he never meant that word otherwise.
has he deceived thee (with his courtly words), but with this אכלתּ, which, as the Makkeph rightly denotes, stands in an attributive relation to פתך, does not agree. תקיאנּה is Hiph. of קוא, as transitive: to make vomiting; in Arab. the fut. Kal of ka terminates in î. The fair words which the guest, as the perf. consec. expresses, has lavished, are the words of praise and thanks in which he recognises the liberality of the host appearing so hospitable. Regarding the penult. accenting of the perf. consec. by Mugrasch, as Pro 30:9, vid., under Psa 27:1. Pinsker (Babyl.-Hebr. Punktationssystem, p. 134) conjectures that the line 8b originally formed the concluding line of the following proverb. But at the time of the lxx (which erroneously expresses ושׁחת) it certainly stood as in our text. Pro 23:9 Another case in which good words are lost: Speak not to the ears of a fool, For he will despise the wisdom of thy words. To speak in the ears of any one, does not mean to whisper to him, to so to speak that it is distinctly perceived. כּסיל, as we have no often explained, is the intellectually heavy and dull, like pinguis and tardus; Arab. balyd, clumsy, intellectually immoveable (cf. bld, the place where one places himself firmly down, which one makes his point of gravity). The heart of such an one is covered over (Psa 119:70), as with grease, against all impressions of better knowledge; he has for the knowledge which the words spoken design to impart to him, no susceptibility, no mind, but only contempt. The construction בּוּז ל has been frequently met with from Pro 6:30. Pro 23:10-11 The following proverb forms a new whole from component parts of Pro 22:28 and Pro 22:22.: 10 Remove not ancient landmarks; And into the fields of orphans enter thou not. 11 For their Saviour is a mighty one; He will conduct their cause against thee. בּוא ב separates itself here to the meaning of injuste invadere et occupare; French, empiéter sur son voisin, advance not into the ground belonging to thy neighbour (Fleischer). If orphans have also no goel among their kindred (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, ἀγχιστεύς) to redeem by purchase (Lev 25:25) their inheritance that has passed over into the possession of another, they have another, and that a mighty Saviour, Redemptor, who will restore to them that which they have lost - viz. God (Jer 50:34) - who will adopt their cause against any one who has unjustly taken from them. Pro 23:12 The following proverb warrants us to pause here, for it opens up, as a compendious echo of Pro 22:17-21, a new series of proverbs of wisdom: 12 Apply thine heart to instruction, And thine ear to the utterances of knowledge. We may, according as we accent in למּוּסר the divine origin or the human medium, translate, offer disciplinae (Schultens), or adhibe ad disciplinam cor tuum (Fleischer). This general admonition is directed to old and young, to those who are to be educated as well as to those who are educated. First to the educator: Pro 23:13-14 13 Withhold not correction from the child; For thou will beat him with the rod, and he will not die. 14 Thou beatest him with the rod, And with it deliverest his soul from hell. The exhortation, 13a, presupposes that education by word and deed is a duty devolving on the father and the teacher with regard to the child. In 13b, כּי is in any case the relative conjunction. The conclusion does not mean: so will he not fall under death (destruction), as Luther also would have it, after Deu 19:21, for this thought certainly follows Pro 23:14; nor after Pro 19:18 : so may the stroke not be one whereof he dies, for then the author ought to have written אל־תּמיתנּוּ; but: he will not die of it, i.e., only strike if he has deserved it, thou needest not fear; the bitter medicine will be beneficial to him, not deadly. The אתּה standing before the double clause, Pro 23:14, means that he who administers corporal chastisement to the child, saves him spiritually; for שׁאול does not refer to death in general, but to death falling upon a man before his time, and in his sins, vid., Pro 15:24, cf. Pro 8:26. Pro 23:15-16 The following proverb passes from the educator to the pupil: 15 My son, if thine heart becometh wise, My heart also in return will rejoice; 16 And my reins will exult If thy lips speak right things. Wisdom is inborn in no one. A true Arab. proverb says, “The wise knows how the fool feels, for he himself was also once a fool;” ▼▼The second part of the saying is, “But a fool knows not how a wise man feels, for he has never been a wise man.” I heard this many years ago, from the mouth of the American missionary Schaufler, in Constantinople.
and folly is bound up in the heart of a child, according to Pro 22:15, which must be driven out by severe discipline. 15b, as many others, cf. Pro 22:19, shows that these “words of the wise” are penetrated by the subjectivity of an author; the author means: if thy heart becomes wise, so will mine in return, i.e., corresponding to it (cf. גּם, Gen 20:6), rejoice. The thought of the heart in Pro 23:15 repeats itself in Pro 23:16, with reference to the utterance of the mouth. Regarding מישׁרים, vid., Pro 1:5. Regarding the “reins,” כּליות (perhaps from כּלה, to languish, Job 19:21), with which the tender and inmost affections are connected, vid., Psychologie, p. 268f. Pro 23:17-18 The poet now shows how one attains unto wisdom - the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God: 17 Let not thine heart strive after sinners, But after the fear of Jahve all the day. 18 Truly there is a future, And thy hope shall not come to naught. The lxx, Jerome, the Venet., and Luther, and the Arab. interpreters, render 17b as an independent clause: “but be daily in the fear of the Lord.” That is not a substantival clause (cf. Pro 22:7), nor can it be an interjectional clause, but it may be an elliptical clause (Fleischer: from the prohibitive אל־תקנא is to be taken for the second parallel member the v. subst. lying at the foundation of all verbs); but why had the author omitted היה dettim? Besides, one uses the expressions, to act (עשׂה), and to walk (הלך) in the fear of God, but not the expression to be (היה) in the fear of God. Thus בּיראת, like בחטּאים, is dependent on אל־תּקנּא; and Jerome, who translates: Non aemuletur cor tuum peccatores, sed in timore Domini esto tota die, ought to have continued: sed timorem Domini tota die; for, as one may say in Latin: aemulari virtutes, as well as aemulari aliquem, so also in Heb. קנּא ב, of the envying of those persons whose fortune excites to dissatisfaction, because one has not the same, and might yet have it, Pro 3:31; Pro 24:1, Pro 24:19, as well as of emulation for a thing in which one might not stand behind others: envy not sinners, envy much rather the fear of God, i.e., let thyself be moved with eager desire after it when its appearance is presented to thee. There is no O.T. parallel for this, but the Syr. tan and the Greek ζηλοτυποῦν are used in this double sense. Thus Hitzig rightly, and, among the moderns, Malbim; with Aben Ezra, it is necessary to take ביראת for באישׁ יראת, this proverb itself declares the fear of God to be of all things the most worthy of being coveted. In Pro 23:18, Umbreit, Elster, Zöckler, and others interpret the כּי as assigning a reason, and the אם as conditioning: for when the end (the hour of the righteous judgment) has come; Bertheau better, because more suitable to the ישׁ and the אחרית: when an end (an end adjusting the contradictions of the present time) comes, as no doubt it will come, then thy hope will not be destroyed; but, on the other hand, the succession of words in the conclusion (vid., at Pro 3:34) opposes this; also one does not see why the author does not say directly כי ישׁ אחרית, but expresses himself thus conditionally. ▼ If אם is meant hypothetically, then, with the lxx ἐὰν γὰρ τηρήσῃς αὐτὰ ἔκγονα, we should supply after it תּשׁמרנּה, that had fallen out. Ewald's: much rather there is yet a future (Dächsel: much rather be happy there is...), is also impossible; for the preceding clause is positive, not negative. The particles כּי אם, connected thus, mean: for if (e.g., Lam 3:32); or also relatively: that if (e.g., Jer 26:15). After a negative clause they have the meaning of “unless,” which is acquired by means of an ellipsis; e.g., Isa 55:10, it turns not back thither, unless it has watered the earth (it returns back not before then, not unless this is done). This “unless” is, however, used like the Lat. nisi, also without the conditioning clause following, e.g., Gen 28:17, hic locus non est nisi domus Dei. And hence the expression כי אם, after the negation going before, acquires the meaning of “but,” e.g., 17b: let not thy heart be covetous after sinners, for thou canst always be zealous for the fear of God, i.e., much rather for this, but for this. This pleonasm of אם sometimes occurs where כי is not used confirmatively, but affirmatively: the “certainly if” forms the transition, e.g., 1Ki 20:6 (vid., Keil’s Comm. l.c.), whose “if” is not seldom omitted, so that כי אם has only the meaning of an affirmative “certainly,” not “truly no,” which it may also have, 1Sa 25:34, but “truly yes.” Thus כי אם is used Jdg 15:7; 2Sa 15:21 (where אם is omitted by the Kerı̂); 2Ki 5:20; Jer 51:14; and thus it is also meant here, 18a, notwithstanding that כי אם, in its more usual signification, “besides only, but, nisi,” precedes, as at 1Sa 21:6, cf. 5. The objection by Hitzig, that with this explanation: “certainly there is a future,” Pro 23:18 and Pro 23:17 are at variance, falls to the ground, if one reflects on the Heb. idiom, in which the affirmative signification of כי is interpenetrated by the confirmative. אחרית used thus pregnantly, as here (Pro 24:14), is the glorious final issue; the word in itself designates the end into which human life issues (cf. Psa 37:37.); here, the end crowning the preceding course. Jeremiah (Jer 29:11) in this sense connects אחרית ותקוה [end and expectation]. And what is here denied of the תּקיה, the hope (not as certain Jewish interpreters dream, the thread of life) of him who zealously strives after the fear of God, is affirmed, at Psa 37:38, of the godless: the latter have no continuance, but the former have such as is the fulfilling of his hope. Pro 23:19-21 Among the virtues which flow from the fear of God, temperance is made prominent, and the warning against excess is introduced by the general exhortation to wisdom: 19 Hear thou, my son, and become wise, And direct thy heart straight forward on the way. 20 And be not among wine-drinkers, And among those who devour flesh; 21 For the drunkard and glutton become poor, And sleepiness clotheth in rags. The אתּה, connected with שׁמע, imports that the speaker has to do with the hearer altogether by himself, and that the latter may make an exception to the many who do not hear (cf. Job 33:33; Jer 2:31). Regarding אשּׁר, to make to go straight out, vid., at Pro 4:14; the Kal, Pro 9:6, and also the Piel, Pro 4:14, mean to go straight on, and, generally, to go. The way merely, is the one that is right in contrast to the many byways. Fleischer: “the way sensu eximio, as the Oriental mystics called the way to perfection merely (Arab.) âlaṭryḳ; and him who walked therein, âlsâlak, the walker or wanderer.” ▼▼Rashi reads בדרך לבך (walk), in the way of thy heart (which has become wise), and so Heidenheim found it in an old MS; but בדרך is equivalent to בדרך בינה, Pro 9:6.
אל־תּתי ב, as at Pro 22:26, the “Words of the Wise,” are to be compared in point of style. The degenerate and perverse son is more clearly described, Deu 21:20, as זולל וסבא. These two characteristics the poet distributes between 20a and 20b. סבא means to drink (whence סבא, drink = wine, Isa 1:22) wine or other intoxicating drinks; Arab. sabâ, vinum potandi causa emere. To the יין here added, בּשׂר in the parallel member corresponds, which consequently is not the fleshly body of the gluttons themselves, but the prepared flesh which they consume at their luxurious banquets. The lxx incorrectly as to the word, but not contrary to the sense, “be no wine-bibber, and stretch not thyself after picknicks (συμβολαῖς), and buying in of flesh (κρεῶν τε ἀγορασμοῖς),” whereby זללי is translated in the sense of the Aram. זבני (Lagarde). זלל denotes, intransitively, to be little valued (whence זולל, opp. יקר, Jer 15:19), transitively to value little, and as such to squander, to lavish prodigally; thus: qui prodigi sunt carnis sibi; למו is dat. commodi. Otherwise Gesenius, Fleischer, Umbreit, and Ewald: qui prodigi sunt carnis suae, who destroy their own body; but the parallelism shows that flesh is meant wherewith they feed themselves, not their own flesh (בּשׂר למו, like חמת־למו, Psa 58:5), which, i.e., its health, they squander. זולל also, in phrase used in Deu 21:20 (cf. with Hitzig the formula φάγος καὶ οἰνοπότης, Mat 11:19), denotes not the dissolute person, as the sensualist, πορνοκόπος (lxx), but the συμβολοκόπος (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion), κρεωβόρος (Venet.), זלל בּסר (Onkelos), i.e., flesh-eater, ravenous person, glutton, in which sense it is rendered here, by the Syr. and Targ., by אסוט (אסיט), i.e., ἄσωτος. Regarding the metaplastic fut. Niph. יוּרשׁ (lxx πτωχεύσει), vid., at Pro 20:13, cf. Pro 11:25. נוּמה (after the form of בּוּשׁה, דּוּגה, צוּרה) is drowsiness, lethargy, long sleeping, which necessarily follows a life of riot and revelry. Such a slothful person comes to a bit of bread (Pro 21:17); and the disinclination and unfitness for work, resulting from night revelry, brings it about that at last he must clothe himself in miserable rags. The rags are called קרע and ῥάκος, from the rending (tearing), Arab. ruk'at, from the patching, mending. Lagarde, more at large, treats of this word here used for rags. Pro 23:22-25 The parainesis begins anew, and the division is open to question. Pro 23:22-24 can of themselves be independent distichs; but this is not the case with Pro 23:25, which, in the resumption of the address and in expression, leans back on Pro 23:22. The author of this appendix may have met with Pro 23:23 and Pro 23:24 (although here also his style, as conformed to that of Pro 1:9, is noticeable, cf. 23b with Pro 1:2), but Pro 23:22 and Pro 23:25 are the form which he has given to them. Thus Pro 23:22-25 are a whole: - 22 Hearken to thy father, to him who hath begotten thee, And despise not thy mother when she has grown old. 23 Buy the truth, and sell it not, Wisdom and discipline and understanding. 24 The father of a righteous man rejoiceth greatly; (And) he that is the father of a wise man - he will rejoice. 25 Let thy father and thy mother be glad; And her that bare thee exult. The octastich begins with a call to childlike obedience, for שׁמע ל, to listen to any one, is equivalent to, to obey him, e.g., Psa 81:9, Psa 81:14 (cf. “hearken to his voice,” Psa 95:7). זה ילדך is a relative clause (cf. Deu 32:18, without זה or אשׁר), according to which it is rightly accentuated (cf. on the contrary, Psa 78:54). 22b, strictly taken, is not to be translated neve contemne cum senuerit matrem tuam (Fleischer), but cum senuerit mater tua, for the logical object to אל־תּבוּז is attracted as subj. of זקנה (Hitzig). There now follows the exhortation comprehending all, and formed after Pro 4:7, to buy wisdom, i.e., to shun no expense, no effort, no privation, in order to attain to the possession of wisdom; and not to sell it, i.e., not to place it over against any earthly possession, worldly gain, sensual enjoyment; not to let it be taken away by any intimidation, argued away by false reasoning, or prevailed against by enticements into the way of vice, and not to become unfaithful to it by swimming with the great stream (Exo 23:2); for truth, אמת, is that which endures and proves itself in all spheres, the moral as well as the intellectual. In 23b, in like manner as Pro 1:3; Pro 22:4, a threefold object is given to קנה instead of אמת: there are three properties which are peculiar to truth, the three powers which handle it: חכמה is knowledge solid, pressing into the essence of things; מוּסר is moral culture; and בּינה the central faculty of proving and distinguishing (vid., Pro 1:3-5). Now Pro 23:24 says what consequences are for the parents when the son, according to the exhortation of Pro 23:23, makes truth his aim, to which all is subordinated. Because in אמת the ideas of practical and theoretical truth are inter-connected. צדּיק and חכם are also here parallel to one another. The Chethı̂b of 24a is גּול יגוּל, which Schultens finds tenable in view of (Arab.) jal, fut jajûlu (to turn round; Heb. to turn oneself for joy) but the Heb. usus loq. knows elsewhere only גּיל יגיל, as the Kerı̂ corrects. The lxx, misled by the Chethı̂b, translates καλῶς ἐκτρέφει (incorrect ἐκτρυφήσει), i.e., גּדּל יגדּל. In 24b, וישׂמח is of the nature of a pred. of the conclusion (cf. Gen 22:24; Psa 115:7), as if the sentence were: has one begotten a wise man, then (cf. Pro 17:21) he has joy of him; but the Kerı̂ effaces this Vav apodosis, and assigns it to יולד as Vav copul. - an unnecessary mingling of the syntactically possible, more emphatic expression. This proverbial whole now rounds itself off in Pro 23:25 by a reference to Pro 23:22 - the Optative here corresponding to the Impr. and Prohib. there: let thy father and thy mother rejoice (lxx εὐφρανέσθω), and let her that bare thee exult (here where it is possible the Optat. form ותגל). Pro 23:26-28 This hexastich warns against unchastity. What, in chap. 1-9, extended discourses and representations exhibited to the youth is here repeated in miniature pictures. It is the teacher of wisdom, but by him Wisdom herself, who speaks: 26 Give me, my son, thine heart; And let thine eyes delight in my ways. 27 For the harlot is a deep ditch, And the strange woman a narrow pit. 28 Yea, she lieth in wait like a robber, And multiplieth the faithless among men We have retained Luther’s beautiful rendering of Pro 23:26, ▼▼The right punctuation of 26a is תּנה־בני לבּך, as it is found in the editions: Ven. 1615; Basel 1619; and in those of Norzi and Michaelis.
in which this proverb, as a warning word of heavenly wisdom and of divine love, has become dear to us. It follows, as Symmachus and the Venet., the Chethı̂b תּרצנה (for תרצינה, like Exo 2:16; Job 5:12), the stylistic appropriateness of which proceeds from Pro 16:7, as on the other hand the Kerı̂ תּצּרנה (cf. 1Sa 14:27) is supported by Pro 22:12, cf. Pro 5:2. But the correction is unnecessary, and the Chethı̂b sounds more affectionate, hence it is with right defended by Hitzig. The ways of wisdom are ways of correction, and particularly of chastity, thus placed over against “the ways of the harlot,” Pro 7:24. Accordingly the exhortation, Pro 23:26, verifies itself; warning, by Pro 23:27, cf. Pro 22:14, where עמקּה was written, here as at Job 12:22, with the long vowel עמוּקה (עמקה). בּאר צרה interchanges with שׁוּחה עמוקה, and means, not the fountain of sorrow (Löwenstein), but the narrow pit. בּאר is fem. gen., Pro 26:21., and צר means narrow, like étroit (old French, estreit), from strictus. The figure has, after Pro 22:14, the mouth of the harlot in view. Whoever is enticed by her syren voice falls into a deep ditch, into a pit with a narrow mouth, into which one can more easily enter than escape from. Pro 23:28 says that it is the artifice of the harlot which draws a man into such depth of wickedness and guilt. With אף, which, as at Jdg 5:29, belongs not to היא but to the whole sentence, the picture of terror is completed. The verb חתף (whence Arab. ḥataf, death, natural death) means to snatch away. If we take חתף as abstr.: a snatching away, then it would here stand elliptically for חתף (בּעל) אישׁ, which in itself is improbable (vid., Pro 7:22, עכס) and also unnecessary, since, as מלך, עבד, הלך, etc. show, such abstracta can pass immediately into concreta, so that חתף thus means the person who snatches away, i.e., the street robber, latro (cf. חטף .fc(, Arab. khaṭaf, Psa 10:9, rightly explained by Kimchi as cogn.). In 28b, תוסיף cannot mean abripit (as lxx, Theodotion, and Jerome suppose), for which the word תּספּה (תּאסף) would have been used. ▼▼The Targ. translates 28b (here free from the influence of the Peshito) in the Syro-Palestinian idiom by וצאד אבניּא שׁברי, i.e., she seizes thoughtless sons.
But this verbal idea does not harmonize with the connection; תוסיף means, as always, addit (auget), and that here in the sense of multiplicat. The same thing may be said of בּוגדים as is said (Pro 11:15) of תּוקעים. Hitzig’s objection, “הוסיף, to multiply, with the accusative of the person, is not at all used,” is set aside by Pro 19:4. But we may translate: the faithless, or: the breach of faith she increases. Yet it always remains a question whether בּאדם is dependent on בוגדים, as Ecc 8:9, cf. 2Sa 23:3, on the verb of ruling (Hitzig), or whether, as frequently בּאדם, e.g., Psa 78:60, it means inter homines (thus most interpreters). Uncleanness leads to faithlessness of manifold kinds: it makes not only the husband unfaithful to his wife, but also the son to his parents, the scholar to his teacher and pastor, the servant (cf. the case of Potiphar’s wife) to his master. The adulteress, inasmuch as she entices now one and now another into her net, increases the number of those who are faithless towards men. But are they not, above all, faithless towards God? We are of opinion that not בוגדים, but תוסיף, has its complement in באדם, and needs it: the adulteress increases the faithless among men, she makes faithlessness of manifold kinds common in human society. According to this, also, it is accentuated; ובוגדים is placed as object by Mugrasch, and באדם is connected by Mercha with תוסיף. Pro 23:29-35 The author passes from the sin of uncleanness to that of drunkenness; they are nearly related, for drunkenness excites fleshly lust; and to wallow with delight in the mire of sensuality, a man, created in the image of God, must first brutalize himself by intoxication. The Mashal in the number of its lines passes beyond the limits of the distich, and becomes a Mashal ode. 29 Whose is woe? Whose is grief? Whose are contentions, whose trouble, whose wounds without cause? Whose dimness of eyes? 30 Theirs, who sit late at the wine, Who turn in to taste mixed wine. 31 Look not on the wine as it sparkleth red, As it showeth its gleam in the cup, Glideth down with ease. 32 The end of it is that it biteth like a serpent, And stingeth like a basilisk. 33 Thine eyes shall see strange things, And thine heart shall speak perverse things; 34 And thou art as one lying in the heart of the sea, And as one lying on the top of a mast. 35 “They have scourged me-it pained me not; They have beaten me - I perceived it not. When shall I have wakened from sleep? Thus on I go, I return to it again.” The repeated למי ▼▼We punctuate למי אוי, for that is Ben Asher’s punctuation, while that of his opponent Ben Naphtali is למי־אוי. Vid., Thorath Emeth, p. 33.
asks who then has to experience all that; the answer follows in Pro 23:30. With אוי, the אבוי occurring only here accords; it is not a substantive from אבה (whence אבון) after the form of צחק, in the sense of egestas; but, like the former [אוי], an interjection of sorrow (Venet. τίνι αἲ, τίνι φεῦ). Regarding מדינים (Chethı̂b מדונים), vid., at Pro 6:14. שׂיח signifies (vid., at Pro 6:22) meditation and speech, here sorrowful thought and sorrowful complaint (1Sa 1:16; Psa 55:18; cf. הגה, הגיג), e.g., over the exhausted purse, the neglected work, the anticipated reproaches, the diminishing strength. In the connection פּצעים חנּם (cf. Psa 35:19) the accus. adv. חנם (French gratuitement) represents the place of an adjective: strokes which one receives without being in the situation from necessity, or duty to expect them, strokes for nothing and in return for nothing (Fleischer), wounds for a long while (Oetinger). חכללוּת עינים is the darkening (clouding) of the eyes, from חצל, to be dim, closed, and transferred to the sensation of light: to be dark (vid., at Gen 49:12; Psa 10:8); the copper-nose of the drunkard is not under consideration; the word does not refer to the reddening, but the dimming of the eyes, and of the power of vision. The answer, Pro 23:30, begins, in conformity with the form of the question, with ל (write למאחרים, with Gaja to ל, according to Metheg-Setzung, §20, Michlol 46b): pain, and woe, and contention they have who tarry late at the wine (cf. Isa 5:11), who enter (viz., into the wine-house, Ecc 2:4, the house of revelry) “to search” mingled drink (vid., at Pro 9:2; Isa 5:22). Hitzig: “they test the mixing, as to the relation of the wine to the water, whether it is correct.” But לחקור is like גּבּרים, Isa 5:22, meant in mockery: they are heroes, viz., heroes in drinking; they are searchers, such, namely, as seek to examine into the mixed wine, or also: thoroughly and carefully taste it (Fleischer). The evil consequences of drunkenness are now registered. That one may not fall under this common sin, the poet, Pro 23:31, warns against the attraction which the wine presents to the sight and to the sense of taste: one must not permit himself to be caught as a prisoner by this enticement, but must maintain his freedom against it. התאדּם, to make, i.e., to show oneself red, is almost equivalent to האדים; and more than this, it presents the wine as itself co-operating and active by its red play of colours (Fleischer). Regarding the antiptosis (antiphonesis): Look not on the wine that is..., vid., at Gen 1:3; yet here, where ראה means not merely “to see,” but “to look at,” the case is somewhat different. In 31b, one for the most part assumes that עינו signifies the eye of the wine, i.e., the pearls which play on the surface of the wine (Fleischer). And, indeed, Hitzig’s translation, after Num 11:7 : when it presents its appearance in the cup, does not commend itself, because it expresses too little. On the other hand, it is saying too much when Böttcher maintains that עין never denotes the mere appearance, but always the shining aspect of the object. But used of wine, עין appears to denote not merely aspect as such, but its gleam, glance; not its pearls, for which עיני would be the word used, but shining glance, by which particularly the bright glance, as out of deep darkness, of the Syro-Palestinian wine is thought of, which is for the most part prepared from red (blue) grapes, and because very rich in sugar, is thick almost like syrup. Jerome translates עינו well: (cum splenduerit in vitro) color ejus. But one need not think of a glass; Böttcher has rightly said that one might perceive the glittering appearance also in a metal or earthen vessel if one looked into it. The Chethı̂b בכיס is an error of transcription; the Midrash makes the remark on this, that בּכּיס fits the wine merchant, and בּכּוס the wine drinker. From the pleasure of the eye, 31c passes over to the pleasures of the taste: (that, or, as it) goeth down smoothly (Luther); the expression is like Ecc 7:10. Instead of הלך (like jâry, of fluidity) there stands here התהלך, commonly used of pleasant going; and instead of למישׁרים with ל, the norm בּמישׁרים with ב of the manner; directness is here easiness, facility (Arab. jusr); it goes as on a straight, even way unhindered and easily down the throat. ▼▼The English version is, “when it moveth itself aright,” which one has perceived in the phenomenon of the tears of the wine, or of the movement in the glass. Vid., Ausland, 1869, p. 72.
Pro 23:32 shows how it issues with the wine, viz., with those who immoderately enjoy it. Is אחריתו [its end] here the subject, as at Pro 5:4? We must in that case interpret ישּׁך and יפרשׁ as attributives, as the Syr. and Targ. translate the latter, and Ewald both. The issue which it brings with it is like the serpent which bites, etc., and there is nothing syntactically opposed to this (cf. e.g., Psa 17:12); the future, in contradistinction to the participle, would not express properties, but intimations of facts. But the end of the wine is not like a serpent, but like the bite of a serpent. The wine itself, and independent of its consequences, is in and of itself like a serpent. In accordance with the matter, אחריתו may be interpreted, with Hitzig (after Jerome, in novissimo), as acc. adverb. = באחריתו, Jer 17:11. But why did not the author more distinctly write this word 'בא? The syntactic relation is like Pro 29:21 : אחריתו is after the manner of a substantival clause, the subject to that which follows as its virtual predicate: “its end is: like a serpent it biteth = this, that it biteth like a serpent.” Regarding צפעני, serpens regulus (after Schultens, from צפע = (Arab.) saf', to breathe out glowing, scorching), vid., at Isa 7:8. The Hiph. הפרישׁ Schultens here understands of the division of the liver, and Hitzig, after the lxx, Vulgate, and Venet., of squirting the poison; both after the Arab. farth. But הפרישׁ, Syr. afrês, also signifies, from the root-idea of dividing and splitting, to sting, poindre, pointer, as Rashi and Kimchi gloss, whence the Aram. פּרשׁ, an ox-goad, with which the ancients connect פרשׁ (of the spur), the name for a rider, eques, and also a horse (cf. on the contrary, Fleischer in Levy, W.B. ii. 574); a serpent’s bite and a serpent’s sting (Lat. morsus, ictus, Varro: cum pepugerit colubra) are connected together by the ancients. ▼▼However, we will not conceal it, that the post-bibl. Heb. does not know הפרישׁ in the sense of to prick, sting (the Midrash explains the passage by יפרישׁ בין לחיים, i.e., it cuts off life); and the Nestorian Knanishu of Superghan, whom I asked regarding aphrish, knew only of the meanings “to separate” and “to point out,” but not ”to sting.”
The excited condition of the drunkard is now described. First, Pro 23:33 describes the activity of his imagination as excited to madness. It is untenable to interpret זרות here with Rashi, Aben Ezra, and others, and to translate with Luther: “so shall thine eyes look after other women” (circumspicient mulieres impudicas, Fleischer, for the meaning to perceive, to look about for something, to seek something with the eyes, referring to Gen 41:33). For זרות acquires the meaning of mulieres impudicae only from its surrounding, but here the parallel תּהפּכות (perverse things) directs to the neut. aliena (cf. Pro 15:28, רעות), but not merely in the sense of unreal things (Ralbag, Meîri), but: strange, i.e., abnormal, thus bizarre, mad, dreadful things. An old Heb. parable compares the changing circumstances which wine produces with the manner of the lamb, the lion, the swine, the monkey; here juggles and phantoms of the imagination are meant, which in the view and fancy of the drunken man hunt one another like monkey capers. Moreover, the state of the drunken man is one that is separated from the reality of a life of sobriety and the safety of a life of moderation, 34a: thou act like one who lies in the heart of the sea. Thus to lie in the heart, i.e., the midst, of the sea as a ship goes therein, Pro 30:19, is impossible; there one must swim but swimming is not lying, and to thing on a situation like that of Jonah; Jon 1:5, one must think also of the ship; but שׁכב does not necessarily mean “to sleep,” and, besides, the sleep of a passenger in the cabin on the high sea is of itself no dangerous matter. Rightly Hitzig: on the depth of the sea (cf. Jon 2:4) - the drunken man, or the man overcome by wine (Isa 28:7), is like one who has sunk down into the midst of the sea; and thus drowned, or in danger of being drowned, he is in a condition of intellectual confusion, which finally passes over into perfect unconsciousness, cut off from the true life which passes over him like one dead, and in this condition he has made a bed for himself, as שׁכב denotes. With בלב, בּראשׁ stands in complete contrast: he is like one who lies on the top of the mast. חבּל, after the forms דּבּר, שׁלּם, is the sail-yard fastened by ropes, חבלים ,sepo (Isa 33:23). To lay oneself down on the sail-yard happens thus to no one, and it is no place for such a purpose; but as little as one can quarter him who is on the ridge of the roof, in the 'Alîja, because no one is able to lie down there, so little can he in the bower [Mastkorb] him who is here spoken of (Böttcher). The poet says, but only by way of comparison, how critical the situation of the drunkard is; he compares him to one who lies on the highest sail-yard, and is exposed to the danger of being every moment thrown into the sea; for the rocking of the ship is the greater in proportion to the height of the sail-yard. The drunkard is, indeed, thus often exposed to the peril of his life; for an accident of itself not great, or a stroke, may suddenly put an end to his life. The poet represents the drunken man as now speaking to himself. He has been well cudgelled; but because insensible, he has not felt it, and he places himself now where he will sleep out his intoxication. Far from being made temperate by the strokes inflicted on him, he rejoices in the prospect, when he has awaked out of his sleep, of beginning again the life of drunkenness and revelry which has become a pleasant custom to him. חלה means not only to be sick, but generally to be, or to become, affected painfully; cf. Jer 5:3, where חלוּ is not the 3rd pl. mas. of חיל, but of חלה. The words מתי אקיץ are, it is true, a cry of longing of a different kind from Job 7:4. The sleeping man cannot forbear from yielding to the constraint of nature: he is no longer master of himself, he becomes giddy, everything goes round about with him, but he thinks with himself: Oh that I were again awake! and so little has his appetite been appeased by his sufferings, that when he is again awakened, he will begin where he left off yesterday, when he could drink no more. מתי is here, after Nolde, Fleischer, and Hitzig, the relative quando (quum); but the bibl. usus loq. gives no authority for this. In that case we would have expected הקיצותי instead of אקיץ. As the interrog. מתי is more animated than the relat., so also אוסיף אבקשׁנּוּ is more animated (1Sa 2:3) than אוסיף לבקּשׁ. The suffix of אבקשׁנו refers to the wine: raised up, he will seek that which has become so dear and so necessary to him. Proverbs 24
Pro 24:1-2 After this divergence (in Pro 23:29-35) from the usual form of the proverb, there is now a return to the tetrastich: 1 Envy not evil men, And desire not to have intercourse with them. 2 For their heart thinketh of violence, And their lips speak mischief. The warning, not to envy the godless, is also found at Pro 3:31; Pro 23:17; Pro 24:19, but is differently constructed in each of these passages. Regarding תּתאו with Pathach, vid., at Pro 23:3. אנשׁי רעה (cf. רע, Pro 28:5) are the wicked, i.e., such as cleave to evil, and to whom evil clings. The warning is grounded in this, that whoever have intercourse with such men, make themselves partners in greater sins and evil: for their heart broodeth (write כּי שׁד, Munach Dechî) violence, i.e., robbery, plunder, destruction, murder, and the like. With שׁד (in the Mishle only here and at Pro 21:7, cf. שׁדּד, Pro 19:26) connects itself elsewhere חמס, here (cf. Hab 1:3) עמל, labor, molestia, viz., those who prepare it for others by means of slanderous, crafty, uncharitable talk. Pro 24:3-4 The warning against fellowship with the godless is followed by the praise of wisdom, which is rooted in the fear of God. 3 By wisdom is the house builded, And by understanding is it established. 4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled With all manner of precious and pleasant goods. What is meant by the “building of the house” is explained at Pro 14:1. It is wisdom, viz., that which originates from God, which is rooted in fellowship with Him, by which every household, be it great or small, prospers and attains to a successful and flourishing state; כּונן, as parallel word to בּנה (Pro 3:19; Pro 2:12), is related to it as statuere to extruere; the Hithpal (as at Num 21:17) means to keep oneself in a state of continuance, to gain perpetuity, to become established. That ימּלאוּ by Athnach has not passed over into the pausal ימּלאוּ, arises from this, that the Athnach, by the poetical system of accents, has only the force of the prose accent Sakef; the clause completes itself only by 4b; the pausal form on that account also is not found, and it is discontinued, because the Athnach does not produce any pausal effect (vid., at Psa 45:6). The form of expression in Pro 24:4 is like Pro 1:13; Pro 3:10. But the חדרים, of storerooms (lxx as Isa 26:20, ταμιεῖα), and נעים, like Pro 22:18; Pro 23:8, is peculiar to this collection. Pro 24:5-6 The praise of wisdom is continued: it brings blessings in the time of peace, and gives the victory in war. 5 A wise man is full of strength; And a man of understanding showeth great power. 6 For with wise counsel shalt thou carry on successful war; And safety is where counsellors are not wanting. The ב of בּעוז (thus with Pathach in old impressions, Cod. 1294, Cod. Jaman., and elsewhere with the Masoretic note לית ומלא) introduces, as that of בכּח, Psa 24:4, the property in which a person or thing appears; the article (cf. העזבים, Pro 2:13, Gesen, §35, 2A) is that of gender. The parallel מאמץ כח, a Greek translates by ὑπὲρ κραταιὸν ἰσχύΐ = מאמּיץ כּח (Job 9:4; Isa 40:26). But after 5a it lies nearer that the poet means to express the power which lies in wisdom itself (Ecc 7:19), and its superiority to physical force (Pro 21:22); the lxx, Syr., and Targ. also, it is true, translate 5a as if מעז (prae potente) were the words used. אמּץ כּח means to strengthen the strength, and that is (Nah 2:2) equivalent to, to collect the strength (to take courage), here and at Amo 2:14, to show strong (superior) strength. The reason is gathered from Pro 20:18 and Pro 11:14. The לך here added, Hitzig is determined to read תּעשׂה: for with prudent counsel the war shall be carried out by thee. The construction of the passive with ל of the subject is correct in Heb. (vid., at Pro 14:20) as well as in Aram., ▼▼Vid., Nöldeke’s Neusyrische Gram. p. 219, Anm., and p. 416.
and עשׂה frequently means, in a pregnant sense: to complete, to carry out, to bring to an end; but the phrase עשׂה מלחמה means always to carry on war, and nothing further. לך is the dat. commod., as in נלחם ל, to wage war (to contend) for any one, e.g., Exo 14:14. Instead of ברב, the lxx reads בלב; regarding γεωργίου μεγάλου for מאמץ כח, without doubt a corrupt reading, vid., Lagarde. Pro 24:7 Till now in this appendix we have found only two distichs (vid., vol. i. p. 17); now several of them follow. From this, that wisdom is a power which accomplishes great things, it follows that it is of high value, though to the fool it appears all too costly. 7 Wisdom seems to the fool to be an ornamental commodity; He openeth not his mouth in the gate. Most interpreters take ראמות for רמות (written as at 1Ch 6:58; cf. Zec 14:10; ראשׁ, Pro 10:4; קאם, Hos 10:14), and translate, as Jerome and Luther: “Wisdom is to the fool too high;” the way to wisdom is to him too long and too steep, the price too costly, and not to be afforded. Certainly this thought does not lie far distant from what the poet would say; but why does he say חכמות, and not חכמה? This חכמות is not a numerical plur., so as to be translated with the Venet.: μετέωροι τῷ ἄφρονι αἱ ἐπιστῆμαι; it is a plur., as Psa 49:4 shows; but, as is evident from the personification and the construction, Pro 1:20, one inwardly multiplying and heightening, which is related to חכמה as science or the contents of knowledge is to knowledge. That this plur. comes here into view as in chap. 1-9 (vid., vol. i. p. 34), is definitely accounted for in these chapters by the circumstance that wisdom was to be designated, which is the mediatrix of all wisdom; here, to be designated in intentional symphony with ראמות, whose plur. ending ôth shall be for that very reason, however, inalienable. Thus ראמות will be the name of a costly foreign bijouterie, which is mentioned in the Book of Job, where the unfathomableness and inestimableness of wisdom is celebrated; vid., Job 27:18, where we have recorded what we had to say at the time regarding this word. But what is now the meaning of the saying that wisdom is to the fool a pearl or precious coral? Joël Bril explains: “The fool uses the sciences like a precious stone, only for ornament, but he knows not how to utter a word publicly,” This is to be rejected, because ראמות is not so usual a trinket or ornament as to serve as an expression of this thought. The third of the comparison lies in the rarity, costliness, unattainableness; the fool despises wisdom, because the expenditure of strength and the sacrifices of all kinds which are necessary to put one into the possession of wisdom deter him from it (Rashi). This is also the sense which the expression has when ראמות = רמות; and probably for the sake of this double meaning the poet chose just this word, and not פנינים, גבישׁ, or any other name, for articles of ornament (Hitzig). The Syr. has incorrectly interpreted this play upon words: sapientia abjecta stulto; and the Targumist: the fool grumbles (מתרעם) against wisdom. ▼▼This explanation is more correct than Levy's: he lifts himself up (boasts) with wisdom.
He may also find the grapes to be sour because they hang too high for him; here it is only said that wisdom remains at a distance from him because he cannot soar up to its attainment; for that very reason he does not open his mouth in the gate, where the council and the representatives of the people have their seats: he has not the knowledge necessary for being associated in counselling, and thus must keep silent; and this is indeed the most prudent thing he can do. Pro 24:8 From wisdom, which is a moral good, the following proverb passes over to a kind of σοφία δαιμονιώδης: He that meditateth to do evil, We call such an one an intriguer. A verbal explanation and definition like Pro 21:24 (cf. p. 29), formed like Pro 16:21 from נבון. Instead of בּעל־מזמּות [lord of mischief] in Pro 12:2, the expression is 'אישׁ מ (cf. at Pro 22:24). Regarding מזמות in its usual sense, vid., Pro 5:2. Such definitions have of course no lexicographical, but only a moral aim. That which is here given is designed to warn one against gaining for himself this ambiguous title of a refined (cunning, versutus) man; one is so named whose schemes and endeavours are directed to the doing of evil. One may also inversely find the turning-point of the warning in 8b: “he who projects deceitful plans against the welfare of others, finds his punishment in this, that he falls under public condemnation as a worthless intriguer” (Elster). But מזמות is a ῥῆμα μέσον, vid., Pro 5:2; the title is thus equivocal, and the turning-point lies in the bringing out of his kernel: מחשּׁב להרע = meditating to do evil. Pro 24:9 This proverb is connected by זמת with Pro 24:8, and by אויל with Pro 24:7; it places the fool and the mocker over against one another. The undertaking of folly is sin; And an abomination to men is the scorner. Since it is certain that for 9b the subject is “the scorner,” so also “sin” is to be regarded as the subject of 9a. The special meaning flagitium, as Pro 21:27, זמּה will then not have here, but it derives it from the root-idea “to contrive, imagine,” and signifies first only the collection and forthputting of the thoughts towards a definite end (Job 17:11), particularly the refined preparation, the contrivance of a sinful act. In a similar way we speak of a sinful beginning or undertaking. But if one regards sin in itself, or in its consequences, it is always a contrivance or desire of folly (gen. subjecti), or: one that bears on itself (gen. qualitatis) the character of folly; for it disturbs and destroys the relation of man to God and man, and rests, as Socrates in Plato says, on a false calculation. And the mocker (the mocker at religion and virtue) is תועבת לאדם. The form of combination stands here before a word with ל, as at Job 18:2; Job 24:5, and frequently. but why does not the poet say directly תועבת אדם? Perhaps to leave room for the double sense, that the mocker is not only an abomination to men, viz., to the better disposed; but also, for he makes others err as to their faith, and draws them into his frivolous thoughts, becomes to them a cause of abomination, i.e., of such conduct and of such thoughts as are an abomination before God (Pro 15:9, Pro 15:26). Pro 24:10 The last of these four distichs stands without visible connection: Hast thou shown thyself slack in the day of adversity, Then is thy strength small. The perf. 10a is the hypothetic, vid., at Pro 22:29. If a man shows himself remiss (Pro 18:9), i.e., changeable, timorous, incapable of resisting in times of difficulty, then shall he draw therefrom the conclusion which is expressed in 10b. Rightly Luther, with intentional generalization, “he is not strong who is not firm in need.” But the address makes the proverb an earnest admonition, which speaks to him who shows himself weak the judgment which he has to pronounce on himself. And the paronomasia צרה and צר may be rendered, where possible, “if thy strength becomes, as it were, pressed together and bowed down by the difficulty just when it ought to show itself (viz., להרחיב לך), then it is limited, thou art a weakling.” Thus Fleischer accordingly, translating: si segnis fueris die angustiae, angustae sunt vires tuae. Hitzig, on the contrary, corrects after Job 7:11, רוּחך “Klemm (klamm) ist dein Mut” [= strait is thy courage]. And why? Of כסה [strength], he remarks, one can say כשׁל [it is weak] (Psa 31:11), but scarcely צר [strait, straitened]; for force is exact, and only the region of its energy may be wide or narrow. To this we answer, that certainly of strength in itself we cannot use the word כסה drow eht esu t in the sense here required; the confinement (limitation) may rather be, as with a stream, Isa 59:19, the increasing (heightening) of its intensity. But if the strength is in itself anything definite, then on the other hand its expression is something linear, and the force in view of its expression is that which is here called צר, i.e., not extending widely, not expanding, not inaccessible. צר is all to which narrow limits are applied. A little strength is limited, because it is little also in its expression. Pro 24:11-12 Now, again, we meet with proverbs of several lines. The first here is a hexastich: 11 Deliver them that are taken to death, And them that are tottering to destruction, oh stop them! 12 If thou sayest, “We knew not of it indeed,” - It is not so: The Weigher of hearts, who sees through it, And He that observeth thy soul, He knoweth it, And requiteth man according to his work. If אם is interpreted as a particle of adjuration, then אם־תּחשׂוך is equivalent to: I adjure thee, forbear not (cf. Neh 13:25 with Isa 58:1), viz., that which thou hast to do, venture all on it (lxx, Syr., Jerome). But the parallelism requires us to take together מטים להרג (such as with tottering steps are led forth to destruction) as object along with אם־תחשׂוך, as well as לקחים למּות (such as from their condition are carried away to death, cf. Exo 14:11) as object to הצּל, in which all the old interpreters have recognised the imper., but none the infin. (eripere ... ne cesses, which is contrary to Heb. idiom, both in the position of the words and in the construction). אם also is not to be interpreted as an interrogative; for, thus expressed, an retinetis ought rather to have for the converse the meaning: thou shalt indeed not do it! (cf. e.g., Isa 29:16). And אם cannot be conditional: si prohibere poteris (Michaelis and others), for the fut. after אם has never the sense of a potential. Thus אם is, like לוּ, understood in the sense of utinam, as it is used not merely according to later custom (Hitzig), but from ancient times (cf. e.g., Exo 32:32 with Gen 23:13). כּי־תאמר (reminding ▼▼Vid., my hebräischen Römerbrief, p. 14f.
us of the same formula of the Rabbinical writings) introduces an objection, excuse, evasion, which is met by הלא; introducing “so say I on the contrary,” it is of itself a reply, vid., Deu 7:17. זה we will not have to interpret personally (lxx τοῦτον); for, since Pro 24:11 speaks of several of them, the neut. rendering (Syr., Targ., Venet., Luther) in itself lies nearer, and זה, hoc, after ידע, is also in conformity with the usus loq.; vid., at Psa 56:10. But the neut. זה does not refer to the moral obligation expressed in Pro 24:11; to save human life when it is possible to do so, can be unknown to no one, wherefore Jerome (as if the words of the text were אין לאל ידנוּ זה): vires non suppetunt. זה refers to the fact that men are led to the tribunal; only thus is explained the change of ידעתי, which was to be expected, into ידענוּ: the objection is, that one certainly did not know, viz., that matters had come to an extremity with them, and that a short process will be made with them. To this excuse, with pretended ignorance, the reply of the omniscient God stands opposed, and suggests to him who makes the excuse to consider: It is not so: the Searcher of hearts (vid., at Pro 16:2), He sees through it, viz., what goes on in thy heart, and He has thy soul under His inspection (נצר, as Job 7:20 : lxx καὶ ὁ πλάσας; יצרו, which Hitzig prefers, for he thinks that נצר must be interpreted in the sense of to guard, preserve; Luther rightly); He knows, viz., how it is with thy mind, He looks through it, He knows (cf. for both, Psa 139:1-4), and renders to man according to his conduct, which, without being deceived, He judges according to the state of the heart, out of which the conduct springs. It is to be observed that Pro 24:11 speaks of one condemned to death generally, and not expressly of one innocently condemned, and makes no distinction between one condemned in war and in peace. One sees from this that the Chokma generally has no pleasure in this, that men are put to death by men, not even when it is done legally as punishment for a crime. For, on the one side, it is true that the punishment of the murderer by death is a law proceeding from the nature of the divine holiness and the inviolability of the divine ordinance, and the worth of man as formed in the image of God, and that the magistrate who disowns this law as a law, disowns the divine foundation of his office; but, on the other side, it is just as true that thousands and thousands of innocent persons, or at least persons not worthy of death, have fallen a sacrifice to the abuse or the false application of this law; and that along with the principle of recompensative righteousness, there is a principle of grace which rules in the kingdom of God, and is represented in the O.T. by prophecy and the Chokma. It is, moreover, a noticeable fact, that God did not visit with the punishment of death the first murderer, the murderer of the innocent Abel, his brother, but let the principle of grace so far prevail instead of that of law, that He even protected his life against any avenger of blood. But after that the moral ruin of the human race had reached that height which brought the Deluge over the earth, there was promulgated to the post-diluvians the word of the law, Gen 9:6, sanctioning this inviolable right of putting to death by the hand of justice. The conduct of God regulates itself thus according to the aspect of the times. In the Mosaic law the greatness of guilt was estimated not externally (cf. Num 35:31), but internally, a very flexible limitation in its practical bearings. And that under certain circumstances grace might have the precedence of justice, the parable having in view the pardon of Absalom (2 Sam 14) shows. But a word from God, like Eze 18:23, raises grace to a principle, and the word with which Jesus (Joh 8:11) dismisses the adulteress is altogether an expression of this purpose of grace passing beyond the purpose of justice. In the later Jewish commonwealth, criminal justice was subordinated to the principle of predominating compassion; practical effect was given to the consideration of the value of human life during the trial, and even after the sentence was pronounced, and during a long time no sentence of death was passed by the Sanhedrim. But Jesus, who was Himself the innocent victim of a fanatical legal murder, adjudged, it is true, the supremacy to the sword; but He preached and practised love, which publishes grace for justice. He was Himself incarnate Love, offering Himself for sinners, the Mercy which Jahve proclaims by Eze 18:23. The so-called Christian state [“Citivas Dei”] is indeed in manifest opposition to this. But Augustine declares himself, on the supposition that the principle of grace must penetrate the new ear, in all its conditions, that began with Christianity, for the suspension of punishment by death, especially because the heathen magistrates had abused the instrument of death, which, according to divine right, they had control over, to the destruction of Christians; and Ambrosius went so far as to impress it as a duty on a Christian judge who had pronounced the sentence of death, to exclude himself from the Holy Supper. The magisterial control over life and death had at that time gone to the extreme height of bloody violence, and thus in a certain degree it destroyed itself. Therefore Jansen changes the proverb (Pro 24:11) with the words of Ambrosius into the admonition: Quando indulgentia non nocet publico, eripe intercessione, eripe gratia tu sacerdos, aut tu imperator eripe subscriptionie indulgentiae. When Samuel Romilly’s Bill to abolish the punishment of death for a theft amounting to the sum of five shillings passed the English House of Commons, it was thrown out by a majority in the House of Lords. Among those who voted against the Bill were one archbishop and five bishops. Our poet here in the Proverbs is of a different mind. Even the law of Sinai appoints the punishment of death only for man-stealing. The Mosaic code is incomparably milder than even yet the Carolina. In expressions, however, like the above, a true Christian spirit rules the spirit which condemns all blood-thirstiness of justice, and calls forth to a crusade not only against the inquisition, but also against such unmerciful, cruel executions even as they prevailed in Prussia in the name of law in the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm I, the Inexorable. Pro 24:13-14 The proverb now following stands in no obvious relation with the preceding. But in both a commencement is made with two lines, which contain, in the former, the principal thought; in this here, its reason: 13 My son, eat honey, for it is good, And honeycomb is sweet to thy taste. 14 So apprehend wisdom for thy soul; When thou hast found it, there is a future, And thy hope is not destroyed. After its nearest fundamental thought, טוב, Arab. ṭejjib, means that which smells and tastes well; honey (דּבשׁ, from דּבשׁ, to be thick, consistent) has, besides, according to the old idea (e.g., in the Koran), healing virtue, as in general bitterness is viewed as a property of the poisonous, and sweetness that of the wholesome. נפתו is second accus. dependent on אכל־, for honey and honeycomb were then spoken of as different; נפת (from נפת, to pour, to flow out) is the purest honey (virgin-honey), flowing of itself out of the comb. With right the accentuation takes 13b as independent, the substantival clause containing the reason, “for it is good:” honeycomb is sweet to thy taste, i.e., applying itself to it with the impression of sweetness; על, as at Neh 2:5; Psa 16:6 (Hitzig). In the כּן of 14a, it is manifest that Pro 24:13 is not spoken for its own sake. To apprehend wisdom, is elsewhere equivalent to, to receive it into the mind, Pro 1:2; Ecc 1:17 (cf. דעת בינה, Pro 4:1, and frequently), according to which Böttcher also here explains: learn to understand wisdom. But כן unfolds itself in 14bc: even as honey has for the body, so wisdom has for the soul, beneficent wholesome effects. דעה חכמה is thus not absolute, but is meant in relation to these effects. Rightly Fleischer: talem reputa; Ewald: sic (talem) scito spaientiam (esse) animae tuae, know, recognise wisdom as something advantageous to thy soul, and worthy of commendation. Incorrectly Hitzig explains אם־מצאת, “if the opportunity presents itself.” Apart from this, that in such a case the words would rather have been כּי תמצא, to find wisdom is always equivalent to, to obtain it, to make it one’s own, Pro 3:13; Pro 8:35; cf. Pro 2:5; Pro 8:9. דּעה ▼▼Write דּעה with Illuj after the preceding Legarmeh, like 12b, הוּא (Thorath Emeth, p. 28).
stands for דּעה, after the form רדה; שׁבה (after Böttcher, §396, not without the influence of the following commencing sound), cf. the similar transitions of ā into ě placed together at Psa 20:4; the form דּעה is also found, but דּעה is the form in the Cod. Hilleli, ▼▼Vid., Strack’s Prolegomena critica in V.T. (1872), p. 19.
as confirmed by Moses Kimchi in Comm., and by David Kimchi, Michlol 101b. With ישׁו begins the apodosis (lxx, Jerome, Targ., Luther, Rashi, Ewald, and others). In itself, וישׁ (cf. Gen 47:6) might also continue the conditional clause; but the explanation, si inveneris (eam) et ad postremum ventum erit (Fleischer, Bertheau, Zöckler), has this against it, that ישׁ אחרית does not mean: the end comes, but: there is an end, Pro 23:18; cf. Pro 19:18; here: there is an end for thee, viz., an issue that is a blessed reward. The promise is the same as at Pro 23:18. In our own language we speak of the hope of one being cut off; (Arab.) jaz'a, to be cut off, is equivalent to, to give oneself up to despair. Pro 24:15-16 15 Lie not in wait, oh wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; Assault not his resting-place. 16 For seven times doth the righteous fall and rise again, But the wicked are overthrown when calamity falls on them. The ארב [lying in wait] and שׁדּד [practising violence], against which the warning is here given, are not directed, as at Pro 1:11; Pro 19:26, immediately against the person, but against the dwelling-place and resting-place (רבץ, e.g., Jer 50:6, as also נוה, 3:33) of the righteous, who, on his part, does injustice and wrong to no one; the warning is against coveting his house, Exo 20:17, and driving him by cunning and violence out of it. Instead of רשׁע, Symmachus and Jerome have incorrectly read רשׁע daer, and from this misunderstanding have here introduced a sense without sense into Pro 24:15; many interpreters (Löwenstein, Ewald, Elster, and Zöckler) translate with Luther appositionally: as a wicked man, i.e., “with mischievous intent,” like one stealthily lurking for the opportunity of taking possession of the dwelling of another, as if this could be done with a good intent: רשׁע is the vocative (Syr., Targ., Venet.: ἀσεβές), and this address (cf. Psa 75:5.) sharpens the warning, for it names him who acts in this manner by the right name. The reason, 16a, sounds like an echo of Job 5:19. שׁבע signifies, as at Psa 119:164, seven times; cf. מאה, Pro 17:10. וקם (not וקם) is perf. consec., as וחי, e.g., Gen 3:22 : and he rises afterwards (notwithstanding), but the transgressors come to ruin; בּרעה, if a misfortune befall them (cf. Pro 14:32), they stumble and fall, and rise no more. Pro 24:17-18 Warning against a vindictive disposition, and joy over its satisfaction. 17 At the fall of thine enemy rejoice not, And at his overthrow let not thine heart be glad; 18 That Jahve see it not, and it be displeasing to Him, And He turns away His anger from Him. The Chethı̂b, which in itself, as the plur. of category, אויביך, might be tolerable, has 17b against it: with right, all interpreters adhere to the Kerı̂ אויבך (with i from ē in doubled close syllable, as in the like Kerı̂, 1Sa 24:5). וּבבּשׁלו, for וּבהכּשׁלו, is the syncope usual in the inf. Niph. and Hiph., which in Niph. occurs only once with the initial guttural (as בּעטף) or half guttural (לראות). רעו is not adj. here as at 1Sa 25:3, but perf. with the force of a fut. (Symmachus: καὶ μὴ ἀρέσῃ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ). The proverb extends the duty of love even to an enemy; for it requires that we do good to him and not evil, and warns against rejoicing when evil befalls him. Hitzig, indeed, supposes that the noble morality which is expressed in Pro 24:17 is limited to a moderate extent by the motive assigned in 18b. Certainly the poet means to say that God could easily give a gracious turn for the better, as to the punishment of the wicked, to the decree of his anger against his enemy; but his meaning is not this, that one, from joy at the misfortune of others, ought to desist from interrupting the process of the destruction of his enemy, and let it go on to its end; but much rather, that one ought to abstain from this joy, so as not to experience the manifestation of God’s displeasure thereat, but His granting grace to him against whom we rejoice to see God’s anger go forth. ▼▼This proverb, according to Aboth iv. 24, was the motto of that Samuel with the surname הקטן, who formulated ברכת המינים (the interpolation in the Schemone-Esre prayer directed against the schismatics): he thus distinguished between private enemies and the enemies of the truth.
Pro 24:19-20 Warning against envying the godless for their external prosperity: 19 Be not enraged on account of evil-doers, Envy not the godless; 20 For the wicked men shall have no future, The light of the godless is extinguished. Ver. 19 is a variation of Psa 37:1; cf. also Pro 3:21 (where with בכל־דרכיו following the traditional תבחר is more appropriate than תתחר, which Hupfeld would here insert). תּתחר is fut. apoc. of התחרה, to be heated (to be indignant), distinguished from the Tiphel תּחרה, to be jealous. The ground and occasion of being enraged, and on the other side, of jealousy or envy, is the prosperity of the godless, Psa 73:3; cf. Jer 12:1. This anger at the apparently unrighteous division of fortune, this jealousy at the success in which the godless rejoice, rest on short-sightedness, which regards the present, and looks not on to the end. אחרית, merely as in the expression 'ישׁ אח, 14b (cf. Psa 37:37), always denotes the happy, glorious issue indemnifying for past sufferings. Such an issue the wicked man has not; his light burns brightly on this side, but one day it is extinguished. In 20b is repeated Pro 13:9; cf. Pro 20:20. Pro 24:21-22 A warning against rebellious thoughts against God and the king: 21 My son, honour Jahve and the king, And involve not thyself with those who are otherwise disposed; 22 For suddenly their calamity ariseth, And the end of their years, who knoweth it? The verb שׁנה, proceeding from the primary idea of folding (complicare, duplicare), signifies transitively to do twice, to repeat, Pro 17:9; Pro 26:11, according to which Kimchi here inappropriately thinks on relapsing; and intransitively, to change, to be different, Est 1:7; Est 3:8. The Syr. and Targ. translate the word שׁטיי, fools; but the Kal (טעמו) שׁנה occurs, indeed, in the Syr., but not in the Heb., in the meaning alienata est (mens ejus); and besides, this meaning, alieni, is not appropriate here. A few, however, with Saadia (cf. Deutsch-Morgenländische Zeitschr. xxi. 616), the dualists (Manichees), understand it in a dogmatic sense; but then שׁונים must be denom. of שׁנים, while much more it is its root-word. Either שׁונים means those who change, novantes = novarum rerum studiosi, which is, however, exposed to this objection, that the Heb. שׁנה, in the transitive sense to change, does not elsewhere occur; or it means, according to the usus loq., diversos = diversum sentientes (C. B. Michaelis and others), and that with reference to 21a: הממרים דבריהם ומצותם (Meîri, Immanuel), or משׁנים מנהג החכמה (Ahron b. Joseph). Thus they are called (for it is a common name of a particular class of men) dissidents, oppositionists, or revolutionaries, who recognise neither the monarchy of Jahve, the King of kings, nor that of the earthly king, which perhaps Jerome here means by the word detractoribus (= detractatoribus). The Venet. incorrectly, σὺν τοῖς μισοῦσι, i.e., שׂונאים. with ב at Pro 14:10, התערב meant to mix oneself up with something, here with עם, to mix oneself with some one, i.e., to make common cause with him. The reason assigned in Pro 24:22 is, that although such persons as reject by thought and action human and divine law may for a long time escape punishment, yet suddenly merited ruin falls on them. איד is, according to its primary signification, weighty, oppressive misfortune, vid., i. 27. In יקוּם it is thought of as hostile power (Hos 10:14); or the rising up of God as Judge (e.g., Isa 33:10) is transferred to the means of executing judgment. פּיד (= פּוד of פוד or פיד ro פו, Arab. fâd, fut. jafûdu or jafı̂du, a stronger power of bâd, cogn. אבד) is destruction (Arab. fied, fı̂d, death); this word occurs, besides here, only thrice in the Book of Job. But to what does שׁניהם refer? Certainly not to Jahve and the king (lxx, Schultens, Umbreit, and Bertheau), for in itself it is doubtful to interpret the genit. after פיד as designating the subject, but improper to comprehend God and man under one cipher. Rather it may refer to two, of whom one class refuse to God, the other to the king, the honour that is due (Jerome, Luther, and at last Zöckler); but in the foregoing, two are not distinguished, and the want of reverence for God, and for the magistrates appointed by Him, is usually met with, because standing in interchangeable relationship, in one and the same persons. Is there some misprint then in this word? Ewald suggests שׁניהם, i.e., of those who show themselves as שׁונים (altercatores) towards God and the king. In view of קמיהם, Exo 32:25, this brevity of expression must be regarded as possible. But if this were the meaning of the word, then it ought to have stood in the first member (איד שׁניהם), and not in the second. No other conjecture presents itself. Thus שׁניהם is perhaps to be referred to the שׁונים, and those who engage with them: join thyself not with the opposers; for suddenly misfortune will come upon them, and the destruction of both (of themselves and their partisans), who knows it? But that also is not satisfactory, for after the address שׁניכם was to have been expected, 22b. Nothing remains, therefore, but to understand שׁניהם, with the Syr. and Targ., as at Job 36:11; the proverb falls into rhythms פּתאם and פּיד, שׁונים and שׁניהם. But “the end of their year” is not equivalent to the hour of their death (Hitzig), because for this פּידם (cf. Arab. feid and fı̂d, death) was necessary; but to the expiring, the vanishing, the passing by of the year during which they have succeeded in maintaining their ground and playing a part. There will commence a time which no one knows beforehand when all is over with them. In this sense, “who knoweth,” with its object, is equivalent to “suddenly ariseth,” with its subject. In the lxx, after Pro 24:22, there follow one distich of the relations of man to the word of God as deciding their fate, one distich of fidelity as a duty towards the king, and the duty of the king, and one pentastich or hexastich of the power of the tongue and of the anger of the king. The Heb. text knows nothing of these three proverbs. Ewald has, Jahrb. xi. 18f., attempted to translate them into Heb., and is of opinion that they are worthy of being regarded as original component parts of chap. 1-29, and that they ought certainly to have come in after Pro 24:22. We doubt this originality, but recognise their translation from the Heb. Then follows in the lxx the series of Prov; Pro 30:1-14, which in the Heb. text bear the superscription of “the Words of Agur;” the second half of the “Words of Agur,” together with the “Words of Lemuel,” stand after Pro 24:34 of the Heb. text. The state of the matter is this, that in the copy from which the Alexandrines translated the Appendix 30:1-31:9, stood half of it, after the “Words of the Wise” [which extend from Pro 22:17 to Pro 24:22], and half after the supplement headed “these also are from wise men” [Pro 24:23-34], so that only the proverbial ode in praise of the excellent matron [Pro 31:10] remains as an appendix to the Book of Hezekiah’s collection, chap. 25-29. Pro 24:23-25 The curse of partiality and the blessing of impartiality: Respect of persons in judgment is by no means good: 24 He that saith to the guilty, “Thou art in the right,” Him the people curse, nations detest. 25 But to them who rightly decide, it is well, And upon them cometh blessing with good. Partiality is either called שׂאת פנים, Pro 18:5, respect to the person, for the partisan looks with pleasure on the פני, the countenance, appearance, personality of one, by way of preference; or הכּר־פּנים, as here and at Pro 28:21, for he places one person before another in his sight, or, as we say, has a regard to him; the latter expression is found in Deu 1:17; Deu 16:19. הכּיר (vid., Pro 20:11) means to regard sharply, whether from interest in the object, or because it is strange. בּל Heidenheim regards as weaker than לא; but the reverse is the case (vid., vol. i. p. 204), as is seen from the derivation of this negative (= balj, from בּלה, to melt, to decay); thus it does not occur anywhere else than here with the pred. adj. The two supplements delight in this בל, Deu 22:29; Deu 23:7, 35. The thesis 23b is now confirmed in Pro 24:24 and Pro 24:25, from the consequences of this partiality and its opposite: He that saith (אמר, with Mehuppach Legarmeh from the last syllable, as rightly by Athias, Nissel, and Michaelis, vid., Thorath Emeth, p. 32) to the guilty: thou art right, i.e., he who sets the guilty free (for רשׁע and צדּיק have here the forensic sense of the post-bibl. חיּב and זכּי), him they curse, etc.; cf. the shorter proverb, Pro 17:15, according to which a partial, unjust judge is an abomination to God. Regarding נקב (קבב) here and at Pro 11:26, Schultens, under Job 3:8, is right; the word signifies figere, and hence to distinguish and make prominent by distinguishing as well as by branding; cf. defigere, to curse, properly, to pierce through. Regarding זעם, vid., at Pro 22:14. עמּים and לאמּים (from עמם and לאם, which both mean to bind and combine) are plur. of categ.: not merely individuals, not merely families, curse such an unrighteous judge and abhor him, but the whole people in all conditions and ranks of society; for even though such an unjust judge bring himself and his favourites to external honour, yet among no people is conscience so blunted, that he who absolves the crime and ennobles the miscarriage of justice shall escape the vox populi. On the contrary, it goes well (ינעם, like Pro 2:10; Pro 9:17, but here with neut. indef. subj. as ייטב, Gen 12:13, and frequently) with those who place the right, and particularly the wrong, fully to view; מוכיח is he who mediates the right, Job 9:33, and particularly who proves, censures, punishes the wrong, Pro 9:7, and in the character of a judge as here, Amo 5:10; Isa 29:21. The genitive connection ברכּת־טוב is not altogether of the same signification as יין הטּוב, wine of a good sort, Sol 7:10, and אושׁת רע, a woman of a bad kind, Pro 6:24, for every blessing is of a good kind; the gen. טוב thus, as at Psa 21:4, denotes the contents of the blessing; cf. Eph 1:3, “with all spiritual blessings,” in which the manifoldness of the blessing is presupposed. Pro 24:26 Then follows a distich with the watchword נצחים: 26 He kisseth the lips Who for the end giveth a right answer. The lxx, Syr., and Targ. translate: one kisseth the lips who, or: of those who...; but such a meaning is violently forced into the word (in that case the expression would have been שׂפתי משׁיב or שׂפתים משׁיבים). Equally impossible is Theodotion’s χείλεσι καταφιληθήσεται, for ישּׁק cannot be the fut. Niph. Nor is it: lips kiss him who... (Rashi); for, to be thus understood, the word ought to have been למשׁיב. משׁיב is naturally to be taken as the subj., and thus it supplies the meaning: he who kisseth the lips giveth an excellent answer, viz., the lips of him whom the answer concerns (Jerome, Venet., Luther). But Hitzig ingeniously, “the words reach from the lips of the speaker to the ears of the hearer, and thus he kisses his ear with his lips.” But since to kiss the ear is not a custom, not even with the Florentines, then a welcome answer, if its impression is to be compared to a kiss, is compared to a kiss on the lips. Hitzig himself translates: he commends himself with the lips who...; but נשׁק may mean to join oneself, Gen 41:40, as kissing is equivalent to the joining of the lips; it does not mean intrans. to cringe. Rather the explanation: he who joins the lips together...; for he, viz., before reflecting, closed his lips together (suggested by Meîri); but נשׁק, with שׂפתים, brings the idea of kissing, labra labris jungere, far nearer. This prevails against Schultens’ armatus est (erit) labia, besides נשׁק, certainly, from the primary idea of connecting (laying together) (vid., Psa 78:9), to equip (arm) oneself therewith; but the meaning arising from thence: with the lips he arms himself... is direct nonsense. Fleischer is essentially right, Labra osculatur (i.e., quasi osculum oblatum reddit) qui congrua respondet. Only the question has nothing to do with a kiss; but if he who asks receives a satisfactory answer, an enlightening counsel, he experiences it as if he received a kiss. The Midrash incorrectly remarks under דּברים נצחים, “words of merited denunciation,” according to which the Syr. translates. Words are meant which are corresponding to the matter and the circumstances, and suitable for the end (cf. Pro 8:9). Such words are like as if the lips of the inquirer received a kiss from the lips of the answerer. Pro 24:27 Warning against the establishing of a household where the previous conditions are wanting: Set in order thy work without, And make it ready for thyself beforehand in the fields, - After that then mayest thou build thine house. The interchange of בּחוּץ and בּשּׂדה shows that by מלאכת השּׂדה field-labour, 1Ch 27:26, is meant. הכין, used of arrangement, procuring, here with מלאכה, signifies the setting in order of the word, viz., the cultivation of the field. In the parallel member, עתּדה, carrying also its object, in itself is admissible: make preparations (lxx, Syr.); but the punctuation עתּדהּ (Targ., Venet.; on the other hand, Jerome and Luther translate as if the words were ועתדה השּׂדה) is not worthy of being contended against: set it (the work) in the fields in readiness, i.e., on the one hand set forward the present necessary work, and on the other hand prepare for that which next follows; thus: do completely and circumspectly what thy calling as a husbandman requires of thee - then mayest thou go to the building and building up of thy house (vid., at Pro 24:3, Pro 14:1), to which not only the building and setting in order of a convenient dwelling, but also the bringing home of a housewife and the whole setting up of a household belongs; prosperity at home is conditioned by this - one fulfils his duty without in the fields actively and faithfully. One begins at the wrong end when he begins with the building of his house, which is much rather the result and goal of an intelligent discharge of duty within the sphere of one’s calling. The perf., with ו after a date, such as אחר, עוד מעט, and the like, when things that will or should be done are spoken of, has the fut. signification of a perf. consec., Gen 3:5; Exo 16:6., Pro 17:4; Ewald, §344b. Pro 24:28 Warning against unnecessary witnessing to the disadvantage of another: Never be a causeless witness against thy neighbour; And shouldest thou use deceit with thy lips? The phrase עד־חנּם does not mean a witness who appears against his neighbour without knowledge of the facts of the case, but one who has no substantial reason for his giving of testimony; חנּם means groundless, with reference to the occasion and motive, Pro 3:30; Pro 23:29; Pro 26:2. Other designations stood for false witnesses (lxx, Syr., Targ.). Rightly Jerome, the Venet., and Luther, without, however, rendering the gen. connection עד־חנם, as it might have been by the adj. In 28b, Chajûg derives והפתּית from פּתת, to break in pieces, to crumble; for he remarks it might stand, with the passing over of ô into î, for והפתּות [and thou wilt whisper]. But the ancients had no acquaintance with the laws of sound, and therefore with naive arbitrariness regarded all as possible; and Böttcher, indeed, maintains that the Hiphil of פתת may be הפתּית as well as הפתּות; but the former of these forms with î could only be metaplastically possible, and would be הפתּית (vid., Hitzig under Jer 11:20). And what can this Hiph. of פתת mean? “To crumble” one’s neighbours (Chajûg) is an unheard of expression; and the meanings, to throw out crumbs, viz., crumbs of words (Böttcher), or to speak with a broken, subdued voice (Hitzig), are extracted from the rare Arab. fatâfit (faṭafiṭ), for which the lexicographers note the meaning of a secret, moaning sound. When we see והפתית standing along with בּשׂפתיך, then before all we are led to think of פתה [to open], Pro 20:19; Ps. 73:36. But we stumble at the interrog. ה, which nowhere else appears connected with ו. Ewald therefore purposes to read והפתּית [and will open wide] (lxx μηδὲ πλατύνου): “that thou usest treachery with thy lips;” but from הפתה, to make wide open, Gen 9:27, “to use treachery” is, only for the flight of imagination, not too wide a distance. On וה, et num, one need not stumble; והלוא, 2Sa 15:35, shows that the connection of a question by means of ו is not inadmissible; Ewald himself takes notice that in the Arab. the connection of the interrogatives 'a and hal with w and f is quite common; ▼▼We use the forms âwa, âba, âthûmm, for we suppose the interrogative to the copula; we also say fahad, vid., Mufaṣsal, p. 941.
and thus he reaches the explanation: wilt thou befool then by thy lips, i.e., pollute by deceit, by inconsiderate, wanton testimony against others? This is the right explanation, which Ewald hesitates about only from the fact that the interrog. ה comes in between the ו consec. and its perf., a thing which is elsewhere unheard of. But this difficulty is removed by the syntactic observation, that the perf. after interrogatives has often the modal colouring of a conj. or optative, e.g., after the interrog. pronoun, Gen 21:7, quis dixerit, and after the interrogative particle, as here and at 2Ki 20:9, iveritne, where it is to be supplied (vid., at Isa 38:8). Thus: et num persuaseris (deceperis) labiis tuis, and shouldest thou practise slander with thy lips, for thou bringest thy neighbour, without need, by thy uncalled for rashness, into disrepute? “It is a question, âl'nakar (cf. Pro 23:5), for which 'a (not hal), in the usual Arab. interrogative: how, thou wouldest? one then permits the inquirer to draw the negative answer: “No, I will not do it” (Fleischer). Pro 24:29 The following proverb is connected as to its subject with the foregoing: one ought not to do evil to his neighbour without necessity; even evil which has been done to one must not be requited with evil: Say not, “As he hath done to me, so I do to him: I requite the man according to his conduct.” On the ground of public justice, the talio is certainly the nearest form of punishment, Lev 24:19.; but even here the Sinaitic law does not remain in the retortion of the injury according to its external form (it is in a certain manner practicable only with regard to injury done to the person and to property), but places in its stead an atonement measured and limited after a higher point of view. On pure moral grounds, the jus talionis (“as thou to me, so I to thee”) has certainly no validity. Here he to whom injustice is done ought to commit his case to God, Pro 20:22, and to oppose to evil, not evil but good; he ought not to set himself up as a judge, nor to act as one standing on a war-footing with his neighbour (Jdg 15:11); but to take God as his example, who treats the sinner, if only he seeks it, not in the way of justice, but of grace (Exo 34:6.). The expression 29b reminds of Pro 24:12. Instead of לאדם, there is used here, where the speaker points to a definite person, the phrase לאישׁ. Jerome, the Venet., and Luther translate: to each one, as if the word were vocalized thus, לאישׁ (Ps. 62:13). Pro 24:30-34 A Mashal ode of the slothful, in the form of a record of experiences, concludes this second supplement (vid., vol. i. p. 17): 30 The field of a slothful man I came past, And the vineyard of a man devoid of understanding. 31 And, lo! it was wholly filled up with thorns; Its face was covered with nettles; And its wall of stones was broken down. 32 But I looked and directed my attention to it; I saw it, and took instruction from it: 33 “A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest. 34 Then cometh thy poverty apace, And thy want as an armed man.” The line 29b with לאישׁ is followed by one with אישׁ. The form of the narrative in which this warning against drowsy slothfulness is clothed, is like Psa 37:35. The distinguishing of different classes of men by אישׁ and אדם (cf. Pro 24:20) is common in proverbial poetry. עברתּי, at the close of the first parallel member, retains its Pathach unchanged. The description: and, lo! (הנּהו, with Pazer, after Thorath Emeth, p. 34, Anm. 2) it was... refers to the vineyard, for נדר אבניו (its stone wall, like Isa 2:20, “its idols of silver”) is, like Num 22:24; Isa 5:5, the fencing in of the vineyard. עלה כלּו, totus excreverat (in carduos), refers to this as subject, cf. in Ausonius: apex vitibus assurgit; the Heb. construction is as Isa 5:6; Isa 34:13; Gesen. §133, 1, Anm. 2. The sing. קמּשׁון of קמּשׁונים does not occur; perhaps it means properly the weed which one tears up to cast it aside, for (Arab.) kumâsh is matter dug out of the ground. ▼▼This is particularly the name of what lies round about on the ground in the Bedouin tents, and which one takes up from thence (from ḳamesh, cogn. קבץ קמץ, ramasser, cf. the journal המגיד, 1871, p. 287b); in modern Arab., linen and matter of all kinds; vid., Bocthor, under linge and étoffe.
The ancients interpret it by urticae; and חרוּל, plur. חרלּים (as from חרל), R. חר, to burn, appears, indeed, to be the name of the nettle; the botanical name (Arab.) khullar (beans, pease, at least a leguminous plant) is from its sound not Arab., and thus lies remote. ▼▼Perhaps ὄλυρα, vid., Lagarde’s Gesamm. Abhandl. p. 59.
The Pual כּסּוּ sounds like Psa 80:11 (cf. כּלּוּ, Psa 72:20); the position of the words is as this passage of the Psalm; the Syr., Targ., Jerome, and the Venet. render the construction actively, as if the word were כּסּוּ. In Pro 24:32, Hitzig proposes to read ואחזה: and I stopped (stood still); but אחז is trans., not only at Ecc 7:9, but also at Ecc 2:15 : to hold anything fast; not: to hold oneself still. And for what purpose the change? A contemplating and looking at a thing, with which the turning and standing near is here connected, manifestly includes a standing still; ראיתי, after ואחזה, is, as commonly after הביט (e.g., Job 35:5, cf. Isa 42:18), the expression of a lingering looking at an object after the attention has been directed to it. In modern impressions, ואחזה אנכי are incorrectly accentuated; the old editions have rightly ואחזה with Rebîa; for not אנכי 'וא, but אנכי אשׁית are connected. In Pro 8:17, this prominence of the personal pronoun serves for the expression of reciprocity; elsewhere, as e.g., Gen 21:24; 2Ki 6:3, and particularly, frequently in Hosea, this circumstantiality does not make the subject prominent, but the action; here the suitable extension denotes that he rightly makes his comments at leisure (Hitzig). שׁית לב is, as at Pro 22:17, the turning of attention and reflection; elsewhere לקח מוּסר, to receive a moral, Pro 8:10, Jer 7:28, is here equivalent to, to abstract, deduce one from a fact, to take to oneself a lesson from it. In Pro 24:33 and Pro 24:34 there is a repetition of Pro 6:9-10. Thus, as Pro 24:33 expresses, the sluggard speaks to whom the neglected piece of ground belongs, and Pro 24:34 places before him the result. Instead of כמהלּך of the original passage [Pro 6:9-10], here מתהלך, of the coming of poverty like an avenging Nemesis; and instead of וּמחסרך, here וּמחסריך (the Cod. Jaman. has it without the י), which might be the plene written pausal form of the sing. (vid., at Pro 6:3, cf. Pro 6:11), but is more surely regarded as the plur.: thy deficits, or wants; for to thee at one time this, and at another time that, and finally all things will be wanting. Regarding the variants ראשׁך and רישׁך (with א in the original passage, here in the borrowed passage with י), vid., at Pro 10:4. כּאישׁ מגן is translated in the lxx by ὥσπερ ἀγαθὸς δρομεύς (vid., at Pro 6:11); the Syr. and Targ. make from it a גּברא טבלרא, tabellarius, a letter-carrier, coming with the speed of a courier. Proverbs 25:1-21
Pro 25:1 1 These also are proverbs of Solomon, Which the men of Hezekiah the king of Judah have collected. Hezekiah, in his concern for the preservation of the national literature, is the Jewish Pisistratos, and the “men of Hezekiah” are like the collectors of the poems of Homer, who were employed by Pisistratos for that purpose. גּם־אלּה is the subject, and in Cod. 1294, and in the editions of Bomberg 1515, Hartmann 1595, Nissel, Jablonsky, Michaelis, has Dechî. This title is like that of the second supplement, Pro 24:23. The form of the name חזקיּה, abbreviated from יחזקיּהוּ (חזקיּהוּ), is not favourable to the derivation of the title from the collectors themselves. The lxx translates: Αὗται αἱ παιδεῖαι Σαλωμῶντος αἱ ἀδιάκριτοι (cf. Jam 3:17), ἃς ἐξεγράψαντο οἱ φίλοι Ἐζεκίου, for which Aquila has ἃς μετῆραν ἄνδρες ἐζεκίου, Jerome, transtulerunt. העתיק signifies, like (Arab.) nsaḥ, נסח, to snatch away, to take away, to transfer from another place; in later Hebrew_Bible_to transcribe from one book into another, to translate from one language into another: to take from another place and place together; the Whence? remains undetermined: according to the anachronistic rendering of the Midrash מגניזתם, i.e., from the Apocrypha; according to Hitzig, from the mouths of the people; more correctly Euchel and others: from their scattered condition, partly oral, partly written. Vid., regarding העתיק, Zunz, in Deutsch-Morgenl. Zeitsch. xxv. 147f., and regarding the whole title, vol. i. pp. 5, 6; regarding the forms of proverbs in this second collection, vol. i. p. 17; regarding their relation to the first, and their end and aim, vol. i. pp. 25, 26. The first Collection of Proverbs is a Book for Youth, and this second a Book for the People. Pro 25:2 It is characteristic of the purpose of the book that it begins with proverbs of the king: It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; And the glory of the king to search out a matter. That which is the glory of God and the glory of the king in itself, and that by which they acquire glory, stand here contrasted. The glory of God consists in this, to conceal a matter, i.e., to place before men mystery upon mystery, in which they become conscious of the limitation and insufficiency of their knowledge, so that they are constrained to acknowledge, Deu 29:28, that “secret things belong unto the Lord our God.” There are many things that are hidden and are known only to God, and we must be contented with that which He sees it good to make known to us. ▼▼Cf. von Lasaulx, Philosophie der Geschichte, p. 128f.: “God and Nature love to conceal the beginning of things.”
The honour of kings, on the contrary, who as pilots have to steer the ship of the state (Pro 11:14), and as supreme judges to administer justice (1Ki 3:9), consists in this, to search out a matter, i.e., to place in the light things that are problematical and subjects of controversy, in conformity with their high position, with surpassing intelligence, and, in conformity with their responsibility, with conscientious zeal. The thought that it is the glory of God to veil Himself in secrecy (Isa 55:1-13 :15; cf. 1Ki 8:12), and of the king, on the contrary, not to surround himself with an impenetrable nimbus, and to withdraw into inaccessible remoteness - this thought does not, immediately at least, lie in the proverb, which refers that which is concealed, and its contrary, not to the person, but to a matter. Also that God, by the concealment of certain things, seeks to excite to activity human research, is not said in this proverb; for 2b does not speak of the honour of wise men, but of kings; the searching out, 2b, thus does not refer to that which is veiled by God. But since the honour of God at the same time as the welfare of men, and the honour of the king as well as the welfare of his people, is to be thought of, the proverb states that God and the king promote human welfare in very different ways - God, by concealing that which sets limits to the knowledge of man, that he may not be uplifted; and the king, by research, which brings out the true state of the matter, and thereby guards the political and social condition against threatening danger, secret injuries, and the ban of offences unatoned for. This proverb, regarding the difference between that which constitutes the honour of God and of the king, is followed by one which refers to that in which the honour of both is alike. Pro 25:3 3 The heavens in height, and the earth in depth, And the heart of kings are unsearchable. This is a proverb in the priamel-form, vid., p. 13. The praeambulum consists of three subjects to which the predicate אין חקר [= no searching out] is common. “As it is impossible to search through the heavens and through the earth, so it is also impossible to search the hearts of common men (like the earth), and the hearts of kings (like the heavens)” (Fleischer). The meaning, however, is simple. Three unsearchable things are placed together: the heavens, with reference to their height, stretching into the impenetrable distance; the earth, in respect to its depth, reaching down into the immeasurable abyss; and the heart of kings - it is this third thing which the proverb particularly aims at - which in themselves, and especially with that which goes on in their depths, are impenetrable and unsearchable. The proverb is a warning against the delusion of being flattered by the favour of the king, which may, before one thinks of it, be withdrawn or changed even into the contrary; and a counsel to one to take heed to his words and acts, and to see to it that he is influenced by higher motives than by the fallacious calculation of the impression on the view and disposition of the king. The ל in both cases is the expression of the reverence, as e.g., at 2Ch 9:22. וארץ, not = והארץ, but like Isa 26:19; Isa 65:17, for וארץ, which generally occurs only in the st. constr. Pro 25:4-5 There now follows an emblematic (vid., vol. i. p. 10) tetrastich: 4 Take away the dross from silver, So there is ready a vessel for the goldsmith; 5 Take away the wicked from the king, And his throne is established by righteousness. The form הגו (cf. the inf. Poal הגו, Isa 59:13) is regarded by Schultens as showing a ground-form הגו; but there is also found e.g., עשׂו, whose ground-form is עשׂי; the verb הגה, R. הג (whence Arab. hajr, discedere), cf. יגה (whence הגה, semovit, 2Sa 20:13 = Syr. âwagy, cf. Arab. âwjay, to withhold, to abstain from), signifies to separate, withdraw; here, of the separation of the סיגים, the refuse, i.e., the dross (vid., regarding the plena scriptio, Baer’s krit. Ausg. des Jesaia, under Pro 1:22); the goldsmith is designated by the word צרף, from צרף morf, to turn, change, as he who changes the as yet drossy metal by means of smelting, or by purification in water, into that which is pure. In 5a הגה is, as at Isa 27:8, transferred to a process of moral purification; what kind of persons are to be removed from the neighbourhood of the king is shown by Isa 1:22-23. Here also (as at Isa. l.c.) the emblem or figure of Pro 25:4 is followed in Pro 25:5 by its moral antitype aimed at. The punctuation of both verses is wonderfully fine and excellent. In Pro 25:4, ויצא is not pointed ויצא, but as the consecutive modus ויּצא; this first part of the proverb refers to a well-known process of art: the dross is separated from the silver (inf. absol., as Pro 12:7; Pro 15:22), and so a vessel (utensil) proceeds from the goldsmith, for he manufactures pure silver; the ל is here similarly used as the designation of the subject in the passive, Pro 13:13; Pro 14:20. In Pro 25:5, on the contrary, ויּכּון (ויּכּן) is not the punctuation used, but the word is pointed indicatively ויכּון; this second part of the proverb expresses a moral demand (inf. absol. in the sense of the imperative, Gesen. §131, 4b like Pro 17:12, or an optative or concessive conjunction): let the godless be removed, לפני מלך, i.e., not from the neighbourhood of the king, for which the words are מלּפני מלך; also not those standing before the king, i.e., in his closest neighbourhood (Ewald, Bertheau); but since, in the absolute, הגה, not an act of another in the interest of the king, but of the king himself, is thought of: let the godless be removed from before the king, i.e., because he administers justice (Hitzig), or more generally: because after that Psalm (101), which is the “mirror of princes,” he does not suffer him to come into his presence. Accordingly, the punctuation is בּצּדק, not בּצדק (Pro 16:12); because such righteousness is meant as separates the רשׁע from it and itself from him, as Isa 16:5 (vid., Hitzig), where the punctuation of בּחסד denotes that favour towards Moab seeking protection. Pro 25:6-7 There now follows a second proverb with מלך, as the one just explained was a second with מלכים: a warning against arrogance before kings and nobles. 6 Display not thyself before the king, And approach not to the place of the great. 7 For better than one say to thee, “Come up hither,” Than that they humble thee before a prince, Whom thine eyes had seen. The גּדלים are those, like Pro 18:16, who by virtue of their descent and their office occupy a lofty place of honour in the court and in the state. נדיב (vid., under Pro 8:16) is the noble in disposition and the nobleman by birth, a general designation which comprehends the king and the princes. The Hithpa. התהדּר is like the reflex forms Pro 12:9; Pro 13:7, for it signifies to conduct oneself as הדוּר or נהדּר (vid., Pro 20:29), to play the part of one highly distinguished. עמד has, 6b, its nearest signification: it denotes, not like נצּב, standing still, but approaching to, e.g., Jer 7:2. The reason given in Pro 25:7 harmonizes with the rule of wisdom, Luk 14:10.: better is the saying to thee, i.e., that one say to thee (Ewald, §304b), עלה הנּה (so the Olewejored is to be placed), προσανάβηθι ἀνώτερον (thus in Luke), than that one humble thee לפני נדיב, not: because of a prince (Hitzig), for לפני nowhere means either pro (Pro 17:18) or propter, but before a prince, so that thou must yield to him (cf. Pro 14:19), before him whom thine eyes had seen, so that thou art not excused if thou takest up the place appropriate to him. Most interpreters are at a loss to explain this relative. Luther: “which thine eyes must see,” and Schultens: ut videant oculi tui. Michaelis, syntactically admissible: quem videre gestiverunt oculi tui, viz., to come near to him, according to Bertheau, with the request that he receives some high office. Otherwise Fleischer: before the king by whom thou and thine are seen, so much the more felt is the humiliation when it comes upon one after he has pressed so far forward that he can be perceived by the king. But נדיב is not specially the king, but any distinguished personage whose place he who has pressed forward has taken up, and from which he must now withdraw when the right possessor of it comes and lays claim to his place. אשׁר is never used in poetry without emphasis. Elsewhere it is equivalent to נתנש, quippe quem, here equivalent to רפנש, quem quidem. Thine eyes have seen him in the company, and thou canst say to thyself, this place belongs to him, according to his rank, and not to thee - the humiliation which thou endurest is thus well deserved, because, with eyes to see, thou wert so blind. The lxx, Syr., Symmachus (who reads 8a, לרב, εις πλῆθος), and Jerome, refer the words “whom thine eyes had seen” to the proverb following; but אשר does not appropriately belong to the beginning of a proverb, and on the supposition that the word לרב is generally adopted, except by Symmachus, they are also heterogeneous to the following proverb: Pro 25:8-10 8 Go not forth hastily to strife, That it may not be said, “What wilt thou do in the end thereof, When now thy neighbour bringeth disgrace upon thee?” 9 Art thou striving with thy neighbour? strive with him, But disclose not the secret of another; 10 That he who heareth it may not despise thee, And thine evil name depart no more. Whether ריב in לריב is infin., as at Jdg 21:22, or subst., as at 2Ch 19:8, is not decided: ad litigandum and ad litem harmonize. As little may it be said whether in אל־תּצא [go not forth], a going out to the gate (court of justice), or to the place where he is to be met who is to be called to account, is to be thought of; in no respect is the sense metaphorical: let not thyself transgress the bounds of moderation, ne te laisse pas emporter; יצא לרב is correlate to בּוא לרוב, Jdg 21:22. The use of פּן in 8b is unprecedented. Euchel and Löwenstein regard it as an imper.: reflect upon it (test it); but פּנה does not signify this, and the interjectional הס does not show the possibility of an imper. Kal פּן, and certainly not פּן (פּן). The conj. פּן is the connecting form of an original subst. (= panj), which signifies a turning away. It is mostly connected with the future, according to which Nolde, Oetinger, Ewald, and Bertheau explain מה indefinite, something, viz., unbecoming. In itself, it may, perhaps, be possible that פן מה was used in the sense of ne quid (Venet. μήποτέ τι); but “to do something,” for “to commit something bad,” is improbable; also in that case we would expect the words to be thus: פן תעשׂה מה. Thus מה will be an interrogative, as at 1Sa 20:10 (vid., Keil), and the expression is brachyogical: that thou comest not into the situation not to know what thou oughtest to do (Rashi: פן תבא לידי לא תדע הם לעשׂות), or much rather anakoluth.; for instead of saying פּן־לא תדע מה־לּעשׂות, the poet, shunning this unusual פן לא, adopts at once the interrogative form: that it may not be said at the end thereof (viz., of the strife); what wilt thou do? (Umbreit, Stier, Elster, Hitzig, and Zöckler). This extreme perplexity would occur if thy neighbour (with whom thou disputest so eagerly and unjustly) put thee to shame, so that thou standest confounded (כלם, properly to hurt, French blesser). If now the summons 9a follows this warning against going out for the purpose of strife: fight out thy conflict with thy neighbour, then ריבך, set forth with emphasis, denotes not such a strife as one is surprised into, but that into which one is drawn, and the tuam in causam tuam is accented in so far as 9b localizes the strife to the personal relation of the two, and warns against the drawing in of an אחר, i.e., in this case, of a third person: and expose not the secret of another אל־תּגל (after Michlol 130a, and Ben-Bileam, who places the word under the 'פ'פתחין בס, is vocalized with Pathach on ג, as is Cod. 1294, and elsewhere in correct texts). One ought not to bring forward in a dispute, as material of proof and means of acquittal, secrets entrusted to him by another, or secrets which one knows regarding the position and conduct of another; for such faithlessness and gossiping affix a stigma on him who avails himself of them, in the public estimation, Pro 25:10; that he who hears it may not blame thee (חסּד = Aram. חסּד, vid., under Pro 14:34), and the evil report concerning thee continue without recall. Fleischer: ne infamia tua non recedat i.e., nunquam desinat per ora hominum propagari, with the remark, “in דבּה, which properly means in stealthy creeping on of the rumour, and in שׁוּב lies a (Arab.) tarshyḥ,” i.e., the two ideas stand in an interchangeable relation with a play upon the words: the evil rumour, once put in circulation, will not again retrace its steps; but, on the contrary, as Virgil says:Mobilitate viget viresque acquirit eundo. In fact, every other can sooner rehabilitate himself in the public estimation that he who is regarded as a prattler, who can keep no secret, or as one so devoid of character that he makes public what he ought to keep silent, if he can make any use of it in his own interest. In regard to such an one, the words are continually applicable, hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto, Pro 20:19. The lxx has, instead of ודבתך 10b, read ומריבתך, and translated it with the addition of a long appendix: “They quarrel, and hostilities will not cease, but will be to thee like death. Kindness and friendship deliver, let these preserve thee, that thou mayest not become one meriting reproaches (Jerome: ne exprobrabilis fias), but guard thy ways, εὐσυναλλάκτως.” Pro 25:11 The first emblematical distich of this collection now follows: 11 Golden apples in silver salvers. A word spoken according to its circumstances. The Syr. and Jerome vocalize דּבר דּבר, and the Targ. דּבר דּבר; both are admissible, but the figure and that which is represented are not placed in so appropriate a relation as by דּבר דּבר; the wonderfully penetrating expression of the text, which is rendered by the traditional nikkud, agrees here with the often occurring דּבר (= מדבּר), also its passive דּבוּר. The defective writing is like, e.g., בּטח, Psa 112:7, and gives no authority to prefer דּבּר = מדבּר (Böttcher). That דּברי, corresponding to the plur. תּפּוּחי, is not used, arises from this, that דבר is here manifestly not a word without connection, but a sentence of motive, contents, and aim united. For על־אפניו, the meaning of בּעתּו presents itself from Pro 15:23, according to which, among the old interpreters, Symmachus, Jerome, and Luther render “at its time.” Abulwalîd compared the Arab. âiffan (âibban, also 'iffan, whence 'aly 'iffanihi, justo tempore), which, as Orelli has shown in his Synon. der Zeitbegriffe, p. 21f., comes from the roots af ab, to drive (from within) going out, time as consisting of individual moments, the one of which drives on the other, and thus denotes time as a course of succession. One may not hesitate as to the prep. על, for אפנים would, like עתּות, denote the circumstances, the relations of the time, and על would, as e.g., in על־פּי and על־דּברתי, have the meaning of κατά. But the form אפניו, which like חפניו, Lev 16:12, sounds dualistic, appears to oppose this. Hitzig supposes that אפנים may designate the time as a circle, with reference to the two arches projecting in opposite directions, but uniting themselves together; but the circle which time describes runs out from one point, and, moreover, the Arab. names for time âfaf, âifaf, and the like, which interchange with âiffan, show that this does not proceed from the idea of circular motion. Ewald and others take for אפניו the meaning of wheels (the Venet., after Kimchi, ἐπὶ τῶν τροχῶν αὐτῆς), whereby the form is to be interpreted as dual of אפן = אופן, “a word driven on its wheels,” - so Ewald explains: as the potter quickly and neatly forms a vessel on his wheels, thus a fit and quickly framed word. But דבר signifies to drive cattle and to speak = to cause words to follow one another (cf. Arab. syâḳ, pressing on = flow of words), but not to drive = to fashion in that artisan sense. Otherwise Böttcher, “a word fitly spoken, a pair of wheels perfect in their motion,” to which he compares the common people “in their jesting,” and adduces all kinds of heterogeneous things partly already rejected by Orelli (e.g., the Homeric ἐπιτροχάδην, which is certainly no commendation). But “jesting” is not appropriate here; for what man conceives of human speech as a carriage, one only sometimes compares that of a babbler to a sledge, or says of him that he shoves the cart into the mud. ▼▼It is something different when the weaver’s beam, minwâl in Arab., is metaph. for kind and manner: they are 'aly minwâl wâḥad, is equivalent to they are of a like calibre, Arab. kalib, which is derived from καλόπους (καλοπόδιον), a shoemaker’s last.
Is it then thus decided that אפניו is a dual? It may be also like אשׂריו, the plur. especially in the adverbial expression before us, which readily carried the abbreviation with it (vid., Gesen. Lehrgebr. §134, Anm. 17). On this supposition, Orelli interprets אפן from אפן, to turn, in the sense of turning about, circumstances, and reminds of this, that in the post-bibl. Heb. this word is used as indefinitely as τρόπος, e.g., באופן מה, quodammodo (vid., Reland’s Analecta Rabbinica, 1723, p. 126). This late Talm. usage of the word can, indeed, signify nothing as to the bibl. word; but that אפנים, abbreviated אפנים, can mean circumstances, is warranted by the synon. אודות. Aquila and Theodotion appear to have thus understood it, for their ἐπὶ ἁρμόζουσιν αὐτῷ, which they substitute for the colourless οὕτως of the lxx, signifies: under the circumstances, in accordance therewith. So Orelli thus rightly defines: “אפנים denote the âḥwâl, circumstances and conditions, as they form themselves in each turning of time, and those which are ascribed to דבר by the suffix are those to which it is proper, and to which it fits in. Consequently a word is commended which is spoken whenever the precise time arrives to which it is adapted, a word which is thus spoken at its time as well as at its place (van Dyk, fay mahllah), and the grace of which is thereby heightened.” Aben Ezra’s explanation, על פנים הראויים, in the approved way, follows the opinion of Abulwalîd and Parchon, that אפניו is equivalent to פניו (cf. aly wajhihi, sua ratione), which is only so far true, that both words are derived from R. פן, to turn. In the figure, it is questionable whether by תּפּוּחי זהב, apples of gold, or gold-coloured apples, are meant (Luther: as pomegranates and citrons); thus oranges are meant, as at Zec 4:12. הזּהב denotes golden oil. Since כסף, besides, signifies a metallic substance, one appears to be under the necessity of thinking of apples of gold; cf. the brazen pomegranates. But (1) apples of gold of natural size and massiveness are obviously too great to make it probable that such artistic productions are meant; (2) the material of the emblem is usually not of less value than that of which it is the emblem (Fleischer); (3) the Scriptures are fond of comparing words with flowers and fruits, Pro 10:31; Pro 12:14; Pro 13:2; Pro 18:20, and to the essence of the word which is rooted in the spirit, and buds and grows up to maturity through the mouth and the lips, the comparison with natural fruits corresponds better in any case than with artificial. Thus, then, we interpret “golden apples” as the poetic name for oranges, aurea mala, the Indian name of which with reference to or (gold) was changed into the French name orange, as our pomeranze is equivalent to pomum aurantium. משׂכּיּות is the plur. of משׂכּית, already explained, Pro 18:11; the word is connected neither with שׂכך, to twist, wreathe (Ewald, with most Jewish interpreters) ▼▼On this proceeds also the beautiful interpretation by Maimuni in the preface to More Nebuchim: Maskiyyôth sont des ciselures réticulaires, etc., according to Munk’s translation from the Arab. text, vid., Kohut’s Pers. Pentateuch-Uebers. (1871), p. 356. Accordingly Jewish interpreters (e.g., Elia Wilna) understand under אפניו the four kinds of writing: פשׁט, רמז, דרושׁ, and סוד, which are comprehended under the memorial word פרדס.
nor with שׂכה, to pierce, infigere (Redslob, vid., under Psa 73:7); it signifies medal or ornament, from שׂכה, to behold (cf. שׂכיּה, θέα = θέαμα, Isa 2:6), here a vessel which is a delight to the eyes. In general the Venet. rightly, ἐν μορφώμασιν ἀργύρου; Symmachus and Theodotion, more in accordance with the fundamental idea, ἐν περιβλέπτοις ἀργύρου; the Syr. and Targ. specially: in vessels of embossed work (נגוּדי, from נגד, to draw, to extend); yet more specially the lxx, ἐν ὁρμίσκῳ σαρδίου, on a chain of cornelian stone, for which, perhaps, ἐν φορμίσκῳ (Jäger) ἀργυρίου, in a little silver basket, is the original phrase. Aquila, after Bereschith rabba c. 93, translates by μῆλα χρύσου ἐν δίσκοις ἀργυφίου. Jerome: in lectis argenteis, appears to have fallen into the error of taking משב for משכב, lectus. Hitzig here emends a self-made ἅπαξ λεγ. Luther’s “golden apples in silver baskets” is to be preferred. ▼▼A favourite expression of Goethe’s, vid., Büchmann’s Geflügelte Worte, 1688.
A piece of sculpture which represents fruit by golden little disks or points within groups of leaves is not meant - for the proverb does not speak of such pretty little apples - but golden oranges are meant. A word in accordance with the circumstances which occasion it, is like golden oranges which are handed round in silver salvers or on silver waiters. Such a word is, as adopting another figure we might say, like a well-executed picture, and the situation into which it appropriately fits is like its elegant frame. The comparison with fruit is, however, more significant; it designates the right word as a delightful gift, in a way which heightens its impression and its influences. Pro 25:12 Another proverb continues the commendation of the effective word; for it represents, in emblem, the interchangeable relation of speaker and hearer: A golden earring and an ornament of fine gold - A wise preacher to an ear that heareth;i.e., as the former two ornaments form a beautiful ensemble, so the latter two, the wise preacher of morality and an attentive ear, form a harmonious whole: על, down upon, is explained by Deu 32:2. נזם, at Pro 11:12, standing along with באף, meant a ring for the nose; but here, as elsewhere, it means an earring (lxx, Jerome, Venet.), translated by the Syr. and Targ. by קדשׁא, because it serves as a talisman. A ring for the nose ▼▼Vid., Gieger’s Zeitschrift, 1872, pp. 45-48, where it is endeavoured to be shown that נזם, as an earring, is rejected from the later biblical literature, because it had become “an object used in the worship of idols,” and that the word was used only of a ring for the nose as a permissible ornament, while עגיל was used for the earring. But that does not apply to the Solomonic era; for that, in the passage under review, נזם signifies a ring for the nose, is only a supposition of Geiger’s, because it accords with his construction of history.
cannot also be here thought of, because this ornament is an emblem of the attentive ear: willingly accepted chastisement or instruction is an ear-ornament to him who hears (Stier). But the gift of the wise preacher, which consists in rightly dividing the word of truth, 2Ti 2:15, is as an ornament for the neck or the breast חלי (= Arab. khaly, fem. חליה = ḥilyt), of fine gold (כּתם, jewel, then particularly precious gold, from כּתם, Arab. katam, recondere). ▼▼Hitzig compares Arab. kumêt; but this means bayard, as Lagarde remarks, the Greek κόμαιθος; and if by כתם gold foxes (gold money) are to be thought of, yet they have nothing whatever to do with bayards (red-brown horses); cf. Beohmer, de colorum nominibus equinorum, in his Roman. Stud. Heft 2, 1872, p. 285.
The Venet. well: κόσμος ἀπυροχρύσου (fine gold); on the contrary (perhaps in want of another name for gold), כתם is translated, by the lxx and Syr., by sardine; by the Targ., by emerald; and by Jerome, by margaritum. ▼▼Another Greek translates πίνωσις χρυσῆ. This πίνωσις is a philological mystery, the solution of which has been attempted by Bochart, Letronne, and Field.
It looks well when two stand together, the one of whom has golden earrings, and the other wears a yet more precious golden necklace - such a beautiful mutual relationship is formed by a wise speaker and a hearer who listens to his admonitions. Pro 25:13 The following comparative tristich refers to faithful service rendered by words: Like the coolness of snow on a harvest day Is a faithful messenger to them that send him: He refresheth the soul of his master. The coolness (צנּה from צנן, צנן, to be cool) of snow is not that of a fall of snow, which in the time of harvest would be a calamity, but of drink cooled with snow, which was brought from Lebanon or elsewhere, from the clefts of the rocks; the peasants of Damascus store up the winter’s snow in a cleft of the mountains, and convey it in the warm months to Damascus and the coast towns. Such a refreshment is a faithful messenger (vid., regarding ציר, Pro 13:17, here following קציר as a kind of echo) to them that send him (vid., regarding this plur. at Pro 10:26, cf. Pro 22:21); he refreshes, namely (ו explicativum, as e.g., Eze 18:19, etenim filius, like the ו et quidem, Mal 1:11, different from the ו of conditional clause Pro 23:3), the soul of his master; for the answer which he brings to his master refreshes him, as does a drink of snow-cooled water on a hot harvest day. Pro 25:14 This proverb relates to the word which promises much, but remains unaccomplished: Clouds and wind, and yet no rain - A man who boasteth with a false gift. Incorrectly the lxx and Targ. refer the predicate contained in the concluding word of the first line to all the three subjects; and equally incorrectly Hitzig, with Heidenheim, interprets מתּת שׁקר, of a gift that has been received of which one boasts, although it is in reality of no value, because by a lying promise a gift is not at all obtained. But as לחם כזבים, Pro 23:3, is bread which, as it were, deceives him who eats it, so מתת שׁקר is a gift which amounts to a lie, i.e., a deceitful pretence. Rightly Jerome: vir gloriosus et promissa non complens. In the Arab. ṣaliḍ, which Fleischer compares, the figure 14a and its counterpart 14b are amalgamated, for this word signifies both a boaster and a cloud, which is, as it were, boastful, which thunders much, but rains only sparsely or not at all. Similar is the Arab. khullab, clouds which send forth lightning, and which thunder, but yet give no rain; we say to one, magno promissor hiatu: thou art (Arab.) kabaraḳn khullabin, i.e., as Lane translates it: “Thou art only like lightning with which is no rain.” Schultens refers to this proverbial Arabic, fulmen nubis infecundae. Liberality is called (Arab.) nadnay, as a watering, cf. Pro 11:25. The proverb belongs to this circle of figures. It is a saying of the German peasants, “Wenn es sich wolket, so will es regnen” [when it is cloudy, then there will be rain]; but according to another saying, “nicht alle Wolken regnen” [it is not every cloud that yields rain]. “There are clouds and wind without rain.” Pro 25:15 Three proverbs follow, which have this in common, that they exhort to moderation: 15 By forbearance is a judge won over, And a gentle tongue breaketh the bone. קצין (vid., Pro 6:7) does not denote any kind of distinguished person, but a judge or a person occupying a high official position. And פּתּה does not here mean, to talk over or delude; but, like Jer 20:7, to persuade, to win over, to make favourable to one; for ארך אפּים (vid., Pro 14:29) is dispassionate calmness, not breaking out into wrath, which finally makes it manifest that he who has become the object of accusation, suspicion, or of disgrace, is one who nevertheless has right on his side; for indecent, boisterous passion injures even a just cause; while, on the contrary, a quiet, composed, thoughtful behaviour, which is not embarrassed by injustice, either experienced or threatened, in the end secures a decision in our favour. “Patience overcomes” is an old saying. The soft, gentle tongue (cf. רך, Pro 15:1) is the opposite of a passionate, sharp, coarse one, which only the more increases the resistance which it seeks to overcome. “Patience,” says a German proverb, “breaks iron;” another says, “Patience is stronger than a diamond.” So here: a gentle tongue breaketh the bone (גּרם = עצם, as at Pro 17:22), it softens and breaks to pieces that which is hardest. Sudden anger makes the evil still worse; long-suffering, on the contrary, operates convincingly; cutting, immoderate language, embitters and drives away; gentle words, on the contrary, persuade, if not immediately, yet by this, that they remain as it were unchangeable. Pro 25:16 Another way of showing self-control: Hast thou found honey? eat thy enough, Lest thou be surfeited with it, and vomit it up. Honey is pleasant, salutary, and thus to be eaten sparingly, Pro 24:13, but ne quid nimis. Too much is unwholesome, 27a: αὐτοῦ καὶ μέλιτος τὸ πλέον ἐστὶ χολή, i.e., even honey enjoyed immoderately is as bitter as gall; or, as Freidank says: des honges süeze erdruizet sô mans ze viel geniuzet [the sweetness of honey offends when one partakes too much of it]. Eat if thou hast found any in the forest or the mountains, דּיּךּ, thy enough (lxx τὸ ἱκανόν; the Venet. τὸ ἀρκοῦν σοι), i.e., as much as appeases thine appetite, that thou mayest not become surfeited and vomit it out (והקאתו with Tsere, and א quiesc., as at 2Sa 14:10; vid., Michlol 116a, and Parchon under קוא). Fleischer, Ewald, Hitzig, and others, place Pro 25:16 and Pro 25:17 together, so as to form an emblematic tetrastich; but he who is surfeited is certainly, in Pro 25:16, he who willingly enjoys, and in 17, he to whom it is given to enjoy without his will; and is not, then, Pro 25:16 a sentence complete in itself in meaning? That it is not to be understood in a purely dietetic sense (although thus interpreted it is a rule not to be despised), is self-evident. As one can suffer injury from the noblest of food if he overload his stomach therewith, so in the sphere of science, instruction, edification, there is an injurious overloading of the mind; we ought to measure what we receive by our spiritual want, the right distribution of enjoyment and labour, and the degree of our ability to change it in succum et sanguinem, - else it at last awakens in us dislike, and becomes an evil to us. Pro 25:17 This proverb is of a kindred character to the foregoing. “If thy comrade eats honey,” says an Arabic proverb quoted by Hitzig, “do not lick it all up.” But the emblem of honey is not continued in this verse: Make rare thy foot in thy neighbour’s house, Lest he be satiated with thee, and hate thee. To make one’s foot rare or dear from a neighbour’s house is equivalent to: to enter it seldom, and not too frequently; הוקר includes in itself the idea of keeping at a distance (Targ. כּלה רגלך; Symmachus, ὑπόστειλον; and another: φίμωσον πόδα σου), and מן has the sense of the Arab. 'an, and is not the comparative, as at Isa 13:12 : regard thy visit dearer than the house of a neighbour (Heidenheim). The proverb also is significant as to the relation of friend to friend, whose reciprocal love may be turned into hatred by too much intercourse and too great fondness. But רעך is including a friend, any one with whom we stand in any kind of intercourse. “Let him who seeks to be of esteem,” says a German proverb, “come seldom;” and that may be said with reference to him whom his heart draws to another, and also to him who would be of use to another by drawing him out of the false way and guiding on the right path - a showing of esteem, a confirming of love by visiting, should not degenerate into forwardness which appears as burdensome servility, as indiscreet self-enjoyment; nor into a restless impetuosity, which seeks at once to gain by force that which one should allow gradually to ripen. This group of proverbs has the word רע in each of them, connecting them together. The first of the group represents a false tongue: Pro 25:18 18 A hammer, and a sword, and a sharp arrow - A man that beareth false witness against his neighbour. An emblematic, or, as we might also say, an iconological proverb; for 18a is a quodlibet of instruments of murder, and 18b is the subscription under it: that which these weapons of murder accomplish, is done to his neighbour by a man who bears false witness against him - he ruins his estate, takes away his honour, but yet more: he murders him, at one time more grossly, at another time with more refinement; at one time slowly, at another time more quickly. מפיץ, from פּוּץ, is equivalent to מפּץ, and מפּץ from נפץ; the Syr. and Targ. have instead פדועא (פדיעא) from פּדע = פּצע; the word פּריעא, on which Hitzig builds a conjecture, is an error of transcription (vid., Lagarde and Levy). The expression, 18b, is from the decalogue, Exo 20:16; Deu 5:17. It is for the most part translated the same here as there: he who speaks against his neighbour as a false witness. But rightly the lxx, Jerome, the Venet., and Luther: false testimony. As אל sA .y signifies both that which is mighty = power, and Him who is mighty = God, so עד signifies both him who bears testimony and the testimony that is borne, properly that which repeats itself and thereby strengthens itself; accordingly we say ענה עד, to give testimony in reply - viz. to the judge who asks - or generally to offer testimony (even unasked); as well as ענה לעד, Deu 31:21, i.e., as evidence (Jerome, pro testimonio). The prep. ב with this ענה has always the meaning of contra, also at 1Sa 12:3; Gen 30:33 is, however, open to question. Pro 25:19 19 A worthless tooth and an unsteady foot - Trust in a faithless man in the day of need. The form רעה (with Mercha on the antepenult), Isa 29:19, takes the place of an inf. absol.; רעה here (about the tone syllable of which Dechî does not decide, thus without doubt Milra) is certainly not a subst.: tooth of breaking (Gesen.); for how strange such a designation of a worthless tooth! שׁן is indeed mas. in 1Sa 14:5, but it can also be used as fem., as רגל, which is for the most part fem., also occurs as mas., Göttche. §650. Böttcher, in the new Aehrenlese, and in the Lehrbuch, takes רעה as fem. of an adj. רע, after the form חל; but חל is not an adj., and does not form a fem., although it means not merely profanity, but that which is profane; this is true also of the Aram. חוּל; for חוּלתּא, Est 2:9, Targ., is a female name mistaken by Buxtorf. Are we then to read רעה, with Hitzig, after the lxx? - an unimportant change. We interpret the traditional רעה, with Fleischer, as derived from רועעה, from רועע, breaking to pieces (crumbling), in an intransitive sense. The form מוּעדת is also difficult. Böttcher regards it as also, e.g., Aben Ezra after the example of Gecatilia as part. Kal. = מועדת, “only on account of the pausal tone and the combination of the two letters מע with û instead of ô.” But this vocal change, with its reasons, is merely imaginary. מוּעדת is the part. Pual, with the preformative מ struck out, Ewald 169d. The objection that the part. Pual should be ממעד, after the form מבער, does not prove anything to the contrary; for מועדת cannot be the fem. so as not to coincide with the fem. of the part. Kal, cf. besides to the long û the form without the Dagesh יוּקשׁים, Ecc 9:12 = מיקּשׁים (Arnheim, Gramm. p. 139). רגל מוּעדת is a leg that has become tottering, trembling. He who in a time of need makes a faithless man his ground of confidence, is like one who seeks to bite with a broken tooth, and which he finally crushes, and one who supports himself on a shaking leg, and thus stumbles and falls. The gen. connection מבטח בוגד signifies either the ground of confidence consisting in a faithless man, or the confidence placed in one who is faithless. But, after the Masora, we are to read here, as at Psa 65:6, מבטח, which Michlol 184a also confirms, and as it is also found in the Venice 1525, Basel 1619, and in Norzi. This מבטה is constr. according to Kimchi, notwithstanding the Kametz; as also משׁקל, Ezr 8:30 (after Abulwalîd, Kimchi, and Norzi). In this passage before us, מבטח בוגד may signify a deceitful ground of confidence (cf. Hab 2:5), but the two other passages present a genit. connection of the words. We must thus suppose that the ā of מבטח and משׁקל, in these three passages, is regarded as fixed, like the â of the form (Arab.) mif'âl. Pro 25:20 The above proverb, which connects itself with Pro 25:18, not only by the sound רע, but also by שׁן, which is assonant with שׁנון, is followed by another with the catchword רע: 20 He that layeth aside his coat on a day of frost, vinegar on nitre, And he who welcomes with songs a dejected heart. Is not this intelligible, sensible, ingenious? All these three things are wrong. The first is as wrong as the second, and the third, which the proverb has in view, is morally wrong, for one ought to weep with those that weep, Rom 12:15; he, on the contrary, who laughs among those who weep, is, on the most favourable judgment, a fool. That which is wrong in 20a, according to Böttcher in the Aehrenlese, 1849, consists in this, that one in severe cold puts on a fine garment. As if there were not garments which are at the same time beautiful, and keep warm? In the new Aehrenlese he prefers the reading משׁנּה: if one changes his coat. But that surely he might well enough do, if the one were warmer than the other! Is it then impossible that מעדה, in the connection, means transire faciens = removens? The Kal עדה, tarnsiit, occurs at Job 28:8. So also, in the poetic style. העדה might be used in the sense of the Aram. אעדּי. Rightly Aquila, Symmachus, περιαιρῶν; the Venet. better, ἀφαιρούμενος (Mid.). בּגד is an overcoat or mantle, so called from covering, as לבוּשׁ (R. לב, to fasten, fix), the garment lying next the body, vid., at Psa 22:19. Thus, as it is foolish to lay off upper clothing on a frosty day, so it is foolish also to pour vinegar on nitre; carbonic acid nitre, whether it be mineral (which may be here thought of) or vegetable, is dissolved in water, and serves diverse purposes (vid., under Isa 1:25); but if one pours vinegar on it, it is destroyed. לב־רע ▼▼The writing wavers between על לב־רע (cf. על עם־דּל) and על־בל רע dna )על ע.
is, at Pro 26:23 and elsewhere, a heart morally bad, here a heart badly disposed, one inclined to that which is evil; for שׁר שׁיר is the contrast of קונן קינה, and always the consequence of a disposition joyfully excited; the inconsistency lies in this, that one thinks to cheer a sorrowful heart by merry singing, if the singing has an object, and is not much more the reckless expression of an animated pleasure in view of the sad condition of another. שׁיר על .rehtona signifies, as at Job 33:27, to sing to any one, to address him in singing; cf. דּבּר על, Jer 6:10, and particularly על־לב, Hos 2:16; Isa 40:2. The ב of בּשּׁרים is neither the partitive, Pro 9:5, nor the transitive, Pro 20:30, but the instrumental; for, as e.g., at Exo 7:20, the obj. of the action is thought of as its means (Gesen. §138, Anm. 3*); one sings “with songs,” for definite songs underlie his singing. The lxx, which the Syr., Targ., and Jerome more or less follow, has formed from this proverb one quite different: “As vinegar is hurtful to a wound, so an injury to the body makes the heart sorrowful; as the moth in clothes, and the worm in wood, so the sorrow of a man injures his heart.” The wisdom of this pair of proverbs is not worth much, and after all inquiry little or nothing comes of it. The Targ. at least preserves the figure 20b: as he who pours vinegar (Syr. chalo) on nitre; the Peshito, however, and here and there also the Targum, has jathro (arrow-string) instead of methro (nitre). Hitzig adopts this, and changes the tristich into the distich: He that meeteth archers with arrow on the string, Is like him who singeth songs with a sad heart. The Hebrew of this proverb of Hitzig’s (מרים קרה על־יתר) is unhebraic, the meaning dark as an oracle, and its moral contents nil. Pro 25:21-22 21 If thine enemy hunger, feed him with bread; And if he thirst, give him water to drink. 22 For thereby thou heapest burning coals on his head, And Jahve will recompense it to thee. The translation of this proverb by the lxx is without fault; Paul cites therefrom Rom 12:20. The participial construction of 22a, the lxx, rightly estimating it, thus renders: for, doing this, thou shalt heap coals on his head. The expression, “thou shalt heap” (σωρεύσεις), is also appropriate; for חתה certainly means first only to fetch or bring fire (vid., Pro 6:27); but here, by virtue of the constructio praegnans with על, to fetch, and hence to heap up - to pile upon. Burning pain, as commonly observed, is the figure of burning shame, on account of undeserved kindness shown by an enemy (Fleischer). But how burning coals heaped on the head can denote burning shame, is not to be perceived, for the latter is a burning on the cheeks; wherefore Hitzig and Rosenmüller explain: thou wilt thus bring on him the greatest pain, and appease thy vengeance, while at the same time Jahve will reward thy generosity. Now we say, indeed, that he who rewards evil with good takes the noblest revenge; but if this doing of good proceed from a revengeful aim, and is intended sensibly to humble an adversary, then it loses all its moral worth, and is changed into selfish, malicious wickedness. Must the proverb then be understood in this ignoble sense? The Scriptures elsewhere say that guilt and punishment are laid on the head of any one when he is made to experience and to bear them. Chrysostom and others therefore explain after Psa 140:10 and similar passages, but thereby the proverb is morally falsified, and Pro 25:22 accords with Pro 25:21, which counsels not to the avenging of oneself, but to the requital of evil with good. The burning of coals laid on the head must be a painful but wholesome consequence; it is a figure of self-accusing repentance (Augustine, Zöckler), for the producing of which the showing of good to an enemy is a noble motive. That God rewards such magnanimity may not be the special motive; but this view might contribute to it, for otherwise such promises of God as Isa 58:8-12 were without moral right. The proverb also requires one to show himself gentle and liberal toward a needy enemy, and present a twofold reason for this: first, that thereby his injustice is brought home to his conscience; and, secondly, that thus God is well-pleased in such practical love toward an enemy, and will reward it; - by such conduct, apart from the performance of a law grounded in our moral nature, one advances the happiness of his neighbour and his own.
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