‏ Proverbs 13:1-3

Pro 13:1

The proverb Pro 12:28 is so sublime, so weighty, that it manifestly forms a period and conclusion. This is confirmed from the following proverb, which begins like Pro 10:1 (cf. 5), and anew stamps the collection as intended for youth: 1 A wise son is his father’s correction;    But a scorner listens not to rebuke.

The lxx, which the Syr. follows, translate Ψἱὸς πανουργὸς ὑπήκοος πατρί, whence it is not to be concluded with Lagarde that they read נוסר in the sense of a Ni. tolerativum; they correctly understood the text according to the Jewish rule of interpretation, “that which is wanting is to be supplied from the context.” The Targ. had already supplied שׁמע from 1b, and is herein followed by Hitzig, as also by Glassius in the Philologia sacra. But such an ellipse is in the Hebr. style without an example, and would be comprehensible only in passionate, hasty discourse, but in a language in which the representation filius sapiens disciplinam patris audit numbers among the anomalies is not in general possible, and has not even its parallel in Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 56: deesse nobis terra, in qua vivamus - in qua moriemur, non potest, because here the primary idea, which the one expression confirms, the other denies, and besides no particle, such as the ו of this passage before us, stands between them. Böttcher therefore maintains the falling out of the verb, and writes יבּין before בּן; but one says not בין מוסר, but שׁמע מוסר, Pro 1:8; Pro 4:1; Pro 19:27. Should not the clause, as it thus stands, give a sense complete in itself? But מוּסר can hardly, with Schultens and Ewald, be taken as part. Hoph. of יסר: one brought up by his father, for the usage of the language knows מוסר only as part. Hoph. of סוּר. Thus, as Jerome and the Venet. translate: a wise son is the correction of his father, i.e., the product of the same, as also Fleischer explains, “Attribution of the cause, the ground, as elsewhere of the effect.” But we call that which one has trained (vegetable or animal) his Zucht (= παιδεία in the sense of παίδευμα). To the wise son (Pro 10:1) who is indebted to the מוסר אב (Pro 4:1), stands opposed the לץ (vid., Pro 1:22), the mocker at religion and virtue, who has no ear for גּערה, strong and stern words which awaken in him a wholesome fear (cf. Pro 17:10, Jud 1:23 : ἐν φόβῳ).
Pro 13:2 2 From the fruit of the mouth of a man he himself enjoys good;    But the delight of the godless is violence. 2a = Pro 12:14, where ישׂבּע for יאכל. A man with a fruit-bringing mouth, himself enjoys also the blessing of his fruit-producing speech; his food (cf. βρῶμα, Joh 4:34) is the good action in words, which in themselves are deeds, and are followed by deeds; this good action affords enjoyment not merely to others, but also to himself. Ewald and Bertheau attract יאכל to 2b; so also does Fleischer: “the violence which the בּגדים wish to do to others turns back upon themselves; they must eat it also, i.e., bear its evil consequences.” The thought would then be like Pro 10:6 : os improborum obteget violentia, and “to eat violence” is parallel to “to drink (Pro 26:6) violence (injury).” But wherefore then the naming of the soul, of which elsewhere it is said that it hungers or satiates itself, but never simply (but cf. Luk 12:19) that it eats? On the contrary, נפשׁ means also appetitus, Pro 23:2, and particularly wicked desire, Psa 27:12; here, as Psa 35:25, the object of this desire (Psychol. p. 202). Regarding בגדים, vid., above, p. 85. There are such as do injury in a cunning deceitful manner to their neighbour to their own advantage. While the former (the righteous) distributes to his neighbour from the inner impulse without having such a result in view, yet according to God’s direction he derives enjoyment himself therefrom: the desire of the latter goes to חמס, ἀδικία, and thus to the enjoyment of good unrighteously and violently seized. Pro 13:3 3 He that guardeth his mouth keepeth his soul;    He that openeth his lips, to him it is destruction. 3a is extended in Pro 21:23 to a distich. Mouth and soul stand in closest interchangeable relation, for speech is the most immediate and continuous expression of the soul; thus whoever guards his mouth keeps his soul (the Venet., with excellent rendering of the synonym, ὁ τηρῶν τὸ στόμα ἑαυτοῦ φυλάσσει τὴν ψυχὴν ἑαυτοῦ), for he watches that no sinful vain thoughts rise up in his soul and come forth in words, and because he thus keeps his soul, i.e., himself, safe from the destructive consequences of the sins of the tongue. On the contrary, he who opens wide his lips, i.e., cannot hold his mouth (lxx ὁ δὲ προπετὴς χείλεσιν), but expresses unexamined and unconsidered whatever comes into his mind and gives delight, he is destruction to himself (supply הוּא), or to him it is destruction (supply זאת); both interpretations are possible, the parallelism brings nearer the former, and the parallel Pro 18:7 brings nearer the latter. פּשׂק means to spread (Schultens diducere cum ruptura vel ad rupturam usque), here the lips, Pih. Eze 16:25, the legs, Arab. fashkh, farshkh; vid., regarding the R. פש, to extend, to spread out, Fleischer in the supplements to the A. L. Z. 1843, col. 116. Regarding the Mishle word מחתּה, vid., under Pro 10:14.
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