Pro 27:1-6 | KD | STEP | In the group of this chapter every two proverbs form a pair. The first pair is directed against unseemly boasting: 1 Boast not thyself of to-morrow, For thou knowest not what a day bringeth forth. The ב of בּיום is like, e.g. , that in , the ב of the ground of boasting. One boasts of to-morrow when he boasts of that which he will then do and experience. This boasting is foolish and presumptuous ( ), for the future is God's; not a moment of the future is in our own power, we know not what a day, this present day or to-morrow (Jam 4:13), will bring forth, i.e. , (cf. Zep 2:2) will disclose, and cannot therefore order anything beforehand regarding it. Instead of לא־תדע (with Kametz and Mugrash ), אל־תדע (thus e.g. , the Cod. Jaman ) is to be written; the Masora knows nothing of that pausal form. And instead of מה־יּלד יום, we write מה יּלד יום with Zinnorith . יּלד before יום has the tone thrown back on the penult ., and consequently a shortened ult.; the Masora reckons this word among the twenty-five words with only one Tsere .

‏ Proverbs 27:1-6

In the group Pro 27:1-6 of this chapter every two proverbs form a pair. The first pair is directed against unseemly boasting: 1 Boast not thyself of to-morrow, For thou knowest not what a day bringeth forth.

The ב of בּיום is like, e.g., that in Pro 25:14, the ב of the ground of boasting. One boasts of to-morrow when he boasts of that which he will then do and experience. This boasting is foolish and presumptuous (Luk 12:20), for the future is God's; not a moment of the future is in our own power, we know not what a day, this present day or to-morrow (Jam 4:13), will bring forth, i.e., (cf. Zep 2:2) will disclose, and cannot therefore order anything beforehand regarding it. Instead of לא־תדע (with Kametz and Mugrash), אל־תדע (thus e.g., the Cod. Jaman) is to be written; the Masora knows nothing of that pausal form. And instead of מה־יּלד יום, we write מה יּלד יום with Zinnorith. יּלד before יום has the tone thrown back on the penult., and consequently a shortened ult.; the Masora reckons this word among the twenty-five words with only one Tsere. Pro 27:2 2 Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth; A stranger, and not thine own lips.

The negative לא is with פיך, as in (Arab.) ghyra fyk, bound into one compact idea: that which is not thine own mouth (Fleischer), “not thine own lips,” on the other hand, is not to be interpreted as corresponding to it, like אל־מות, Pro 12:28; since after the prohibitive אל, יהללוּך [praise thee] easily supplies itself. זר is properly the stranger, as having come from a distance, and נכרי he who comes from an unknown country, and is himself unknown (vid., under Pro 26:24); the idea of both words, however, passes from advena and alienigena to alius. There is certainly in rare cases a praising of oneself, which is authorized because it is demanded (2Co 11:18), which, because it is offered strongly against one’s will, will be measured by truth (Pro 10:13); but in general it is improper to applaud oneself, because it is a vain looking at oneself in a glass; it is indecent, because it places others in the shade; imprudent, because it is of no use to us, but only injures, for propria laus sordet, and as Stobäus says, οὐδὲν οὕτως ἄκουσμα φορτικὸν ὡς καθ ̓ αὑτοῦ ἔταινος. Compare the German proverb, “Eigenlob stinkt, Freundes Lob hinkt, fremdes Lob klingt” [= self-praise stinks, a friend’s praise is lame, a stranger’s praise sounds]. Pro 27:3

The second pair of proverbs designates two kinds of violent passion as unbearable: 3 The heaviness of a stone, the weight of sand - A fool’s wrath is heavier than both.

We do not translate: Gravis est petra et onerosa arena, so that the substantives stand for strengthening the idea, instead of the corresponding adjective (Fleischer, as the lxx, Jerome, Syr., Targum); the two pairs of words stand, as 4a, in genit. relation (cf. on the contrary, Pro 31:30), and it is as if the poet said: represent to thyself the heaviness of a stone and the weight of sand, and thou shalt find that the wrath of a fool compared thereto is still heavier, viz., for him who has to bear it; thus heavier, not for the fool himself (Hitzig, Zöckler, Dächsel), but for others against whom his anger goes forth. A Jewish proverb (vid., Tendlau, No. 901) says, that one knows a man by his wine-glass (כוס), his purse (כיס), and his anger (כעס), viz., how he deports himself in the tumult; and another says that one reads what is in a man ביום כעסו, when he is in an ill-humour. Thus also כעס is to be here understood: the fool in a state of angry, wrathful excitement is so far not master of himself that the worst is to be feared; he sulks and shows hatred, and rages without being appeased; no one can calculate what he may attempt, his behaviour is unendurable. Sand, חול, ^{▼▼Sand is called by the name חוּל (חיל), to change, whirl, particularly to form sand-wreaths, whence (Arab.) al-Habil, the region of moving sand; vid., Wetzstein’s Nord-arabien, p. 56.} as it appears, as to the number of its grains innumerable, so as to its mass (in weight) immeasurable, Job 6:3; Sir. 22:13. נטל the Venet. translates, with strict regard to the etymology, by ἅρμα. Pro 27:4 4 The madness of anger, and the overflowing of wrath - And before jealousy who keeps his place!

Here also the two pairs of words 4a stand in connection; אכזריּוּת (for which the Cod. Jaman has incorrectly אכזריות) is the connecting form; vid., regarding אכזרי, Pro 5:9. Let one imagine the blind, relentless rage of extreme excitement and irritation, a boiling over of anger like a water-flood, which bears everything down along with it - these paroxysms of wrath do not usually continue long, and it is possible to appease them; but jealousy is a passion that not only rages, but reckons calmly; it incessantly ferments through the mind, and when it breaks forth, he perishes irretrievably who is its object. Fleischer generalizes this idea: “enmity proceeding from hatred, envy, or jealousy, it is difficult or altogether impossible to withstand, since it puts into operation all means, both secretly and openly, to injure the enemy.” But after Pro 6:34., cf. Sol 8:8, there is particularly meant the passion of scorned, mortified, deceived love, viz., in the relation of husband and wife. Pro 27:5

The third pair of proverbs passes over from this special love between husband and wife to that subsisting between friends: 5 Better is open accusation Than secret love.

An integral distich; meeאהבה has Munach, and instead of the second Metheg Tarcha, after Thorath Emeth, p. 11. Zöckler, with Hitzig, incorrectly: better than love which, from false indulgence, keeps concealed from his neighbour his faults, when he ought to tell him of them. That would require the phrase אהבה מסתּרת, not מסתּרת. Dächsel, in order to accommodate the text to this meaning, remarks: concealed censure is concealed love; but it is much rather the neglected duty of love - love without mutual discipline is weak, faint-hearted, and, if it is not too blind to remark in a friend what is worthy of blame, is altogether too forbearing, and essentially without conscience; but it is not “hidden and concealed love.” The meaning of the proverb is different: it is better to be courageously and sternly corrected - on account of some fault committed - by any one, whether he be a foe or a friend, than to be the object of a love which may exist indeed in the heart, but which fails to make itself manifest in outward act. There are men who continually assure us of the reality and depth of their friendship; but when it is necessary for them to prove their love to be self-denying and generous, they are like a torrent which is dry when one expects to drink water from it (Job 6:15). Such “secret” love, or, since the word is not נסתּרת, but מסתּרת, love confined to the heart alone, is like a fire which, when it burns secretly, neither lightens nor warms; and before such a friend, any one who frankly and freely tells the truth has by far the preference, for although he may pain us, yet he does us good; while the former deceives us, for he leaves us in the lurch when it is necessary to love us, not merely in word and with the tongue, but in deed and in truth (1Jo 3:18). Rightly Fleischer: Praestat correptio aperta amicitiae tectae, i.e., nulla re probatae. Pro 27:6 6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, And overloaded [plentiful] the kisses of an enemy.

The contrast to נאמנים, true, i.e., honourable and good (with the transference of the character of the person to his act), would be fraudulenta (Jerome), or נהפכות, i.e., false (Ralbag); Ewald seeks this idea from עתר, to stumble, make a false step; ^{▼▼Thus also Schultens in the Animadversiones, which later he fancied was derived from עתר, nidor, from the meaning nidorosa, and thence virulenta.}

Hitzig, from עתר = (Arab.) dadhr, whence dâdhir, perfidus, to gain from; but (1) the comparison does not lie near, since usually the Arab. t corresponds to the Heb. שׁ, and the Arab. d to the Heb. ז; (2) the Heb. עתר has already three meanings, and it is not advisable to load it with yet another meaning assumed for this passage, and elsewhere not found. The three meanings are the following: (a) to smoke, Aram. עטר, whence עתר, vapour, Eze 8:11, according to which the Venet., with Kimchi’s and Parchon’s Lex., translates: the kisses of an enemy συνωμίχλωνται, i.e., are fog; (b) to sacrifice, to worship, Arab. atar; according to which Aquila: ἱκετικά (as, with Grabe, it is probably to be read for ἑκούσια of the lxx); and agreeably to the Niph., but too artificially, Arama: obtained by entreaties = constrained; (c) to heap up, whence Hiph. העתיר, Eze 35:13, cf. Jer 33:6, according to which Rashi, Meîri, Gesenius, Fleischer, Bertheau, and most explain, cogn. with עשׁר, whose Aram. form is עתר, for עשׁר is properly a heap of goods or treasures. ^{▼▼Vid., regarding this word, Schlottmann in Deutsch.-Morgenl. Zeitschrift, xxiv. 665, 668.}

This third meaning gives to the kisses of an enemy a natural adjective: they are too abundant, so much the more plentiful to veil over the hatred, like the kisses by means of which Judas betrayed his Lord, not merely denoted by φιλεῖν, but by καταφιλεῖν, Mat 26:49. This, then, is the contrast, that the strokes inflicted by one who truly loves us, although they tear into our flesh (פּצע, from פּצע, to split, to tear open), yet are faithful (cf. Psa 141:5); on the contrary, the enemy covers over with kisses him to whom he wishes all evil. Thus also נעתרות forms an indirect contrast to נאמנים.