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The International
Critical Commentary
On the Holy Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments
EDITORS' PREFACE
THERE are now before the public many Commentaries,
written by British and American divines, of a popular
or homiletical character. The Cambridge Bible for
Schools, the Handbooks for Bible Classes and Private Students,
The Speaker' s Commentary, The Popular Comtnentary (Schaff),
The Expositor's Bible, and other similar series, have their
special place and importance. But they do not enter into the
field of Critical Biblical scholarship occupied by such series of
Commentaries as the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum
A. T. ; De Wette's Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum
N. T. ; Meyer's Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar ; Keil and
Delitzsch's Biblischer Commentar i'lber das A. T. ; Lange's
Theologisch-homilctisches Bibclwerk ; Nowack's Handkommentar
zum A. T. ; Holtzmann's Handkommentar zum N. T. Several
of these have been translated, edited, and in some cases enlarged
and adapted, for the English-speaking public ; others are in
process of translation. But no corresponding series by British
or American divines has hitherto been produced. The way has
been prepared by special Commentaries by Cheyne, EUicott,
Kalisch, Lightfoot, Perowne, Westcott, and others ; and the
time has come, in the judgment of the projectors of this enter-
prise, when it is practicable to combine British and American
scholars in the production of a critical, comprehensive
Commentary that will be abreast of modern biblical scholarship,
and in a measure lead its van.
The International Critical Commentary
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, and Messrs.
T. & T. Clark of Edinburgh, propose to publish such a series
of Commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, under the
editorship of Prof. C. A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., in America, and
of Prof. S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt., for the Old Testament, and
the Rev. Alfred Plummer, D.D., for the New Testament, in
Great Britain.
The Commentaries will be international and inter-confessional,
and will be free from polemical and ecclesiastical bias. They
willbe based upon a thorough critical study of the original texts
of the Bible, and upon critical methods of interpretation. They
are designed chiefly for students and clergymen, and will be
written in a compact style. Each book will be preceded by an
Introduction, stating the results of criticism upon it, and discuss-
ing impartially the questions still remaining open. The details
of criticism will appear in their proper place in the body of the
Commentary. Each section of the Text will be introduced
with a paraphrase, or summary of contents. Technical details
of textual and philological criticism will, as a rule, be kept
distinct from matter of a more general character ; and in the
Old Testament the exegetical notes will be arranged, as far as
possible, so as to be serviceable to students not acquainted with
Hebrew. The History of Interpretation of the Books will be
dealt with, when necessary, in the Introductions, with critical
notices of the most important literature of the subject. Historical
and ArchfEological questions, as well as questions of Biblical
Theology, are included in the plan of the Commentaries, but
not Practical or Homiletical Exegesis. The Volumes will con-
stitute a uniform series.
The International Critical Commentary
ARRANGEMENT OF VOLUMES AND AUTHORS
THE OLD TESTAMENT
GENESIS. The Rev. John Skinner, D.D., Professor of Old Testament
Language and Literature, College of Presbyterian Church of England,
Cambridge, England.
EXODUS. The Rev. A. R. S. Kennedy, D.D., Professor of Hebrew,
University of Edinburgh.
LEVITICUS. J. F. Stenning, M.A., Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford.
NUMBERS. The Rev. G. BUCHANAN GRAY, D.D., Professor of Hebrew,
Mansfield College, Oxford. [A'i?-^ Ready.
DEUTERONOMY. The Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Pro-
fessor of Hebrew, Oxford. [AW' Ready.
JOSHUA. The Rev. George Adam Smith. D.D., LL.D., Professor of
Hebrew, United Free Church College, Glasgow.
JUDGES. The Rev. George Moore, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Theol-
ogy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. \_N^ow Ready.
SAMUEL. The Rev. H. P. Smith, D.D., Professor of Old Testament
Literature and History of Religion, Meadville, Pa. [A^i??*^ Ready.
KINGS. The Rev. Francis Brown, D.D., D.Litt., LL.D., Professor
of Hebrew and Cognate Languages, Union Theological Seminary, New
York City.
CHRONICLES. The Rev. Edward L. Curtis, D.D., Professor of
Hebrew, Vale University, New Haven, Conn.
EZRA AND NEHEMIAH. The Rev. L.W. Batten, Ph.D., D.D., Rector
of St. Mark's Church, New York City, sometime Professor of Hebrew,
P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia.
PSALMS. The Rev. Chas. A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., Graduate Pro-
fessor of Theological Encyclopedia and Symbolics, Union Theological
Seminary, New York. \2 vols. Now Ready
PROVERBS. The Rev. C. TL Toy, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Hebrew,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. \Now Ready.
JOB. The Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of He-
brew, Oxford.
The International Critical Commentary
ISAIAH. Chaps. I-XXXIX. The Rev. G. Buchanan Gray, D.D.,
Professor of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford.
ISAIAH. Chaps. XL-LXVI. The Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., D.Litt.,
Regius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford.
JEREMIAH. The Rev. A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D., Dean of Ely, sometime
Regius Professor of Hebrew, Cambridge, England.
EZEKIEL. The Rev. G. A. Cooke, M.A., sometime Fellow Magdalen
College, and the Rev. Charles F. Burney, D.Litt., Fellow and Lecturer
in Hebrew, St. John's College, Oxford.
DANIEL. The Rev. John P. Peters, Ph.D., D.D., sometime Professor
of Hebrew, P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia, now Rector of St.
Michael's Church, New York City.
AMOS AND HOSEA. W. R. Harper, Ph.D., LL.D., sometime Presi-
dent of the University of Chicago, Illinois. [Nmv Ready.
MICAH TO HAGGAI. Prof. John P. Smith, University of Chicago;
Prof. Charles P. Fagnani, D.D., Union Theological Seminary, New
York; W. Hayes Ward, D.D., LL.D., Editor of The Independent, New
York; Prof. Julius A. Bewer. Union Theological Seminary, New York,
and Prof. H. G. Mitchell, D.D., Boston University.
ZECHARIAH TO JONAH. Prof. H. G. Mitchell, D.D., Prof. John
P. Smith and Prof. J. A. Bewer.
ESTHER. The Rev. L. B. Paton, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew, Hart-
ford Theological Seminary. [/« Press.
ECCLESIASTES. Prof. George A. Barton, Ph.D., Professor of Bibli-
cal Literature, Bryn Mawr College, Pa. \^Now Ready.
RUTH, SONG OF SONGS AND LAMENTATIONS. Rev. CHARLES A.
Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Sym-
bolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
ST. MATTHEW. The Rev. WiLLOUGHBY C. Allen, M.A., Fellow and
Lecturer in Theology and Hebrew, Exeter College, Oxford. \Now Ready.
ST. MARK. Rev. E. P. GouLD, D.D., sometime Professor of New Testa-
ment Literature, P. E. Divinity School, Philadelphia. \_N^ow Ready.
ST. LUKE. The Rev. Alfred Plummer, D.D., sometime Master of
University College, Durham. \^Now Ready.
The International Critical Commentary
ST. JOHN. The Very Rev. John Henry Bernard, D.D., Dean of St.
Patrick's and Lecturer in Divinity, University of Dublin.
HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS. The Rev. William Sanday, D.D.,
LL. D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Oxford, ana the Rev. WlL-
LouGHBY C. Allen, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer in Divinity and Hebrew,
Exeter College, Oxford.
ACTS. The Rev. C. H. Turner, D.D., Fellow of Magdalen College,
Oxford, and the Rev. H. N. Bate, M.A., Examining Chaplain to the
Bishop of London.
ROMANS. The Rev. William Sanday, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret
Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Rev.
A. C. Headlam, M.A., D.D., Principal of King's College, London.
\_A^ow Ready.
CORINTHIANS. The Right Rev. Arch. Robertson, D.D., LL.D., Lord
Bishop of Exeter, and Dawson Walker, D.D., Theological Tutor in the
University of Durham.
GALATIANS. The Rev. Ernest D. Burton, D.D., Professor of New
Testament Literature, University of Chicago.
EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS. The Rev. T. K. Abbott, B D.,
D.Litt., sometime Professor of Biblical Greek, Trinity College, Dublin, now
Librarian of the same. [A'Wi' Ready.
PHILIPPIANS AND PHILEMON. The Rev. Marvin R. Vincent,
D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature, Union Theological Seminary, New
York City. {Notv Ready.
THESSALONIANS. The Rev. James E. Frame, M.A., Professor of
Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York.
THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. The Rev. Walter LocK, D.D., Warden
of Keble College and Professor of Exegesis, Oxford.
HEBREWS. The Rev. A. Nairne, M.A., Professor of Hebrew in King's
College, London.
ST. JAMES. The Rev. James H. Ropes, D.D., Bussey Professor of New
Testament Criticism in Harvard University.
PETER AND JUDE. The Rev. Charles Bigg, D.D., Regius Professor
of Ecclesiastical History and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. \^No%v Ready.
THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. The Rev. E. A. Brooke, B.D., Fellow
and Divinity Lecturer in King's College, Cambridge.
REVELATION. The Rev. Robert II. Charles, M.A., D.D., Professor
of Biblical Greek in the University of Dublin.
PROVERBS
CRAWFORD H. TOY
iDCPARTmcN .,ii
LIbfMWiNTERJl/
! . .^^ "ational Critical Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL
k COMMENTARY
THE BOOK OF PROVERBS
BY
CRAWFORD H. TOY
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
^^)^'!\>^
%'''
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
i
INTRODUCTION.
§ I. Names.
1. The Masoretic title is Proverbs of Solomon (naStr ''bra,
Mishle Sheld?nd, by the later Jews usually abridged to Mishl'e^.
That this is old appears to be shown by the Grk. {j&^) title
irapoifxiaL (the subscription is simply n. in Cod. B, tt. SaAo/xwvros
in K, TT. 2oA.. in A and C). The name might naturally have been
suggested by i K. 4^^ (5'"), but would originally have been given
to the collection 10^-22'", whence it would have been extended to
the whole book as additions were made to it from time to time.
That this was the common Talmudic title is shown by Bertheau.*
On the meaning of mashal and its synonyms see notes on i^'"
within.
2. By early Christian writers the book was commonly called
Wisdo7n or All-virtuous lVistlom,f rj Trumperos o-o<^ta, names which
were also given to Beu-Sira (^Ecclesiastic us) and Wisdom of Sol-
omon. X Other designations were 17 (to^)] /St/JAo? (Dionys. of Alex.)
and 17 TratSaywyiK^ do^'ia. (Greg. Naz. Oral. 11). Whether this
o-oc^iu represents an ancient Heb. title n(22n is uncertain. Fritzsche
{^Die Weisheit Jesus- Sirach's, Einl. p. xx) holds that the name
uo^'io. given to Ben-Sira bears witness to a similar name for our
Proverbs; but this is not certain. It is possible that the title
Wisdom was common in Jewish circles, and thence passed to the
Christians; so Hegesippus (quoted by Euseb. ubi sup.) refers the
* Einleitung to his Comm'y on Spruche.
t Clem. Rom. Cor. i^', Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 4, 22.
\ Cf. Fritzsche, Welsh. Jes.-Sirach ; Nowack, Spruche Salomo's. The expres-
sions <7o<))ia and t) nav. uo4>. sometimes, however, designate Wisdom simply (as the
speaker), and are not titles of books. Cf. Frankenberg, Die Sprilche, Einl., ^ i.
V
vi INTRODUCTION
designation to " unwritten Jewish tradition," But in that case it
would be rather a descriptive term than the ofificial title, and in
the former sense we may naturally take the Talmudic name Book
of Wisdom* In the same way we may explain the somewhat
curious fact that the Midrash on Proverbs begins by citing Job 2^'^ :
" and wisdom, where can it be found ? " the author has merely in
mind the fact that Proverbs deals with wisdom, which term was
obviously used to define the contents of all the philosophical
books.t
§ 2, Divisions.
The divisions of the Book indicated in the text itself are as
follows :
I. A group of discourses on wisdom and wise conduct (1-9) ••
I. General title (i'), purpose of the Book (i^'*'), central or fun-
damental principle (i") ; 2. Warning against consorting with sin-
ners (i*"^'*) ; 3. Wisdom's appeal (i^*^) ; 4. Wisdom as guardian
against bad men and women (2) ; 5. Advantages attending obe-
dience to the sage's instruction, the fear of Yahweh, and devotion
to wisdom (3) ; 6. Exhortation to obey the sage (4) ; 7. Warn-
ing against unchaste women (5) ; 8. Three paragraphs, against
suretyship, indolence, slander, here misplaced (6'''^) ; 9. Warn-
ing against unchaste women (6^**^) ; 10. A similar warning (7) ;
II. Function of Wisdom as controller of life, and as attendant of
Yahweh in the creation of the world (8) ; 12. Wisdom and Folly
contrasted as hosts (9^"*^^'^), and an interjected, misplaced par-
agraph of apophthegms on wisdom (9^'^").
II. A collection of aphorisms in couplet form (10^-22*^),
III. Two collections of aphoristic quatrains (22^-24^^, and
2423-3").
IV. A collection of aphoristic couplets (25-29).
V. A collection of discourses of various characters (30. 31) :
the " words of Agur " (30^"^) ; the certainty of God's word (30^^) ;
* HDDn -(SD, the name given to Proverbs in Tosephot Baba Bathra, 14 b.
t See Hermann Deutsch, Die Spruche Salomos nach der auffassung im Talmud
und Midrasch, 1885. Deutsch also cites a synagogal prayer of the 12th century, in
which Proverbs is styled HDonn noD ; but this hardly proves anything for the earliest
times.
STRUCTURE OF THE MATERIAL vii
prayer for moderate circumstances (30"''') ; against slandering ser-
vants (30'") ; a collection of aphorisms citing certain things ar-
ranged in groups of fours (30""^) ; instruction to a king (31''^) ;
description of a model housewife (31"^'^').
The purpose of all these sections is the inculcation of certain
cardinal social virtues, such as industry, thrift, discretion, truth-
fulness, honesty, chastity, kindness, forgiveness, warning against
the corresponding vices, and praise of wisdom as the guiding prin-
ciple of life. If we compare Proverbs in this regard with Ben-
Sira, we find that the latter, while it deals in general with the
same moral qualities, goes more into detail in the treatment of
social relations, and has more to say of manners as distinguished
from morals.
§ 3. Structure of the Materul.
The divisions indicated above suggest, by their differences of
tone and content, that the Book has been formed by the combina-
tion of collections of various dates and origins. It is not probable
that one man was the author of the philosophical discourses of
chs. 1-9, the pithy aphorisms of 10^-22^", the quatrains of 2 2^'-24,
the couplets of 25-29, and the mixed material of 30. 31.
A similar conclusion is indicated by the repetitions which occur
in the Book. Thus, as between II. and III. we find variant coup-
lets: cf. 11'^ and 22^^^; 18' and 24-^; identical lines : 11" and
24^; 13^ and 24^; 14^ and 24^; 20^^ and 24-"^. As between II.
and IV.: identical couplets : cf. 18^ and 26^^; 19' and 28"; 19-*
and 26^^; 20^^ and 27^^; 21® and 25^''; 22^ and 27'"; variant coup-
lets: 12" and 28'^; 13^'' and 29^^; 15-^ and 25"; 16^^ and 25^;
16'^ and 26^; 22^ and 29^^; 22^^ and 26^^; identical lines : 10^
and 29^; 15^* and 29^^; 17^ and 27^^; 19^^ and 27^^ As between
III. and IV., an identical line : cf. 24^^ and 28^^ Cf. also 6'" "
with 24'^*'.
From these repetitions we infer that the collectors of II., III.,
IV., were mutually independent — no one of them was acquainted
with the work of the others. In I. and V. we find no matter
that can be called repetition ; the peculiar tone of each of
these divisions kept it apart from the others ; 6^"^^ and 9^"'^ are
misplaced.
vill INTRODUCTION
Subdivisions or smaller collections also appear to be indicated
by repetitions within each of the three middle sections. Within
II.: identical or equivalent couplets: lo' and 15^; 10" and 11*;
11'^ and 17'* and 20""'; 13" and 14"; 14'- and 16^^ (and cf. 21^*) ;
14^ and K)* ; 16^ and 21^; 19' and 19^; 20'" and 20^; 21^ and
21^*; identical or equivalent lines: 10^ and 10"; 10* and 10'"
(perhaps scribal error); 10'^ and 18''; 10-' and 19^; 11" and
2q1'j. ii" and 15^'; 11^^ and 16% 12'^ and i3'^; 14^^ and I'j^ ;
15^ and 18'-; i6^« and 18^ ; 19'' and 20^ Within III. : couplets
ox lines : 22'^ and 23" ; 22^* and 23^" (the couplets which in 23^" '*
form one quatrain are in 22'^-^* divided between two quatrains) ;
23''* and 24'*; 23^^ and 24" (a similar division of couplets) ; on
23^*^ see notes. Within IV. : 28^^ and 29-.
In some cases these latter repetitions may be scribal errors.
Ewald, Delitzsch, and others, endeavor to determine the limits of
the smaller subdivisions, which are held to be indicated sometimes
by similarity of material, sometimes by catch-words ; see the
notes. The paragraphal divisions are obvious in I. and V., and in
parts of III. and IV. ; in II. the absence of logical arrangement
makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to recognize any such
paragraphs, and the divisions which have been suggested are com-
monly arbitrary and useless, as is pointed out within.
The misplacement of certain passages, as 4'', 51-5 s-n. 12-19^ ^7-12^
and of a number of Hnes in II. is discussed in the notes.
§ 4. Rhythm and Parallelism.
I. Hebrew poetry, as is now generally agreed, has neither
metre in the Greek and Latin sense, nor systematic rhyme ; there
are occasional sequences of syllables, which may be called iambic,
trochaic, anapaestic, etc., and occasional assonances or rhymes ;
but these are of irregular occurrence, and obviously do not belong
to the essence of the form of the verse.*
* On the rhythmical form of Hebrew poetry see J. Ley, Grundziige des rhythmus
etc., 1875, and Leitfaden der Metrik, 1887; G. Bickell, Carmina Vet. Test, metrice,
1882, his additions in Zeitsckr. f. Kath. Thcol., 1885-18B6, and the introductory
remarks to his Kritiscke Bearbeltung d. Proverbien in the Wiener Zeitsckr. f. d.
Ktmde d. Morgenlandes, 1891 ; C. A. Rrisgs, Biblical Study^, 1891, Hebraica, 1887,
1888, General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, 1899, chs. xiv-xvii;
RHYTHM AND PARALLELISM ix
The rhythmical form of the poetic Hne or verse is marked not
by the number of words or syllables, but by the number of accents
or beats. The accent of each word or group of words is fixed by
the laws of Hebrew accentuation ; accepting the Masoretic system
as correct (and we have nothing else to guide us), we can with
reasonable probability determine the number of beats in any line.
The chief source of uncertainty lies in the presence of possibly un-
accented words, which are to be combined into rhythmical unity
with following words ; such are short prepositions, conjunctions,
negatives, and nouns defined by following nouns (s/a/i/s construc-
tus). These may or may not have an accent; in determining
this point we may sometimes be aided by the Masoretic punctu-
ation (the Maqqef or hyphen), which gives the pronunciation of
the seventh century of our era; but this is not always decisive,
and we must, in the last instance, be guided by the general nature
of the rhythm.
In order to avoid the possibly misleading suggestions of the
terms " dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter,"
etc., the lines are here called binary (" having two beats "), ter-
nary, or quaternary. For the guidance of the English reader
(the translation rarely giving the rhythmical form of the Hebrew)
the rhythmical definition of every couplet is marked in the com-
mentary ; thus, ternary means that both lines of the couplet are
ternary, ternary-binary that the first line is ternary and the second
line binary, etc.
In Proverbs the lines are arranged almost without exception in
couplets (distichal). A certain number of triplets occur (tris-
tichal), and these must be dealt with every one for itself. The
presence of triplets, even in a passage predominantly distichal,
must be admitted to be possible. In some cases the third line
appears to be a corruption of some other hne, or the remains of a
separate couplet, or an erroneous scribal insertion ; where there
is no reasonable ground of suspicion, beyond the irregularity, the
triplet form must be accepted.
2. Strophes (quatrains and other forms) occur in all parts of
the Book except II. It is not to be assumed that a discourse
Grimme, in ZDMG., 1896. On Babylonian rhythm see Delitzsch, 5a^. Weltsckopf-
ungsepos ; H. Zimmern, in ZA TW., 1898.
X INTRODUCTION
must be strophic in form ; in every case the question must be de-
cided by the logical connection of the material.*
The principle of arrangement by couplets and strophes may
properly be used for the criticism of the text, always, of course,
with due caution; it may easily be pressed too far.
3. The form of the parallelism varies in the different Sections.
In I. it may be said to be, in accordance with the tone of the dis-
courses, wholly synonymous ; the apparent exceptions are 2,^""^^' ^^"^,
9*, all occurring in misplaced or doubtful paragraphs. II. divides
itself into two parts : in chs. 10-15 the form is antithetic, in 16-22'^
the couplets are mostly comparisons and single sentences, with a
few antitheses. III. is made up of synonymous lines, except 24^".
IV. shows a division into two parts : in chs. 25-27 we find com-
parisons and single sentences, except in 25^, if''-^^, which con-
tains antitheses, while in chs. 28. 29 the two forms are nearly equal
in number (33 antithetic couplets, 22 comparisons and single
sentences). In V. the parallelism is, with a few exceptions (see
2q12. 24-28 21^), synonymous.
So far, then, as the rhythmical form may be regarded as an
indication of origin we must put in one group chs. 10-15 ^^^ P^^^
of chs. 28. 29, and in another group chs. 16-22'^, 25-27 and part of
chs. 28. 29. I. and V. stand by themselves, and III. stands mid-
way between II., IV., and I.
If we compare the rhythmical forms of Proverbs and the Psalter,
we find that most of the Psalms, being connected discourses, re-
semble I.; the aphoristic i/' 37 shows the same variations as II.,
III., IV. Lamentations is rhythmically unique, but belongs in the
same general category as I., as does also Canticles.
§ 5 . Thought.
Proverbs may be described as a manual of conduct, or, as
Bruch calls it, an " anthology of gnomes." Its observations relate
to a number of forms of life, to affairs domestic, agricultural,
urban (the temptations of city life), commercial, political, and
military.
* On strophic structure in the Old Testament see, besides the works mentioned
above, D. H. Miiller, Die Propheten. 1895, and Stropkenbati und Responsion, 1898.
THOUGHT XI
Many of the sayings are simply maxims of commonsense pru-
dence, enjoining industry and caution (6^'^'^" lo^-^^ ii'"* 12''
14^ J 526 20'' 23^^ 25® 28^ 30^°, etc.), sometimes with what
seems to be a humorous or sarcastic turn (6^ 19^* 23^^^ 30^"^)-
The most are ethical, inculcating lessons of truth and general good-
ness. A religious tone is found in different degrees in different
sections : in I., if we omit the cosmogonic hymn in ch. 8, the ref-
erences to God occur almost exclusively in chs. 1-3, and there
partly in passages (such as 2^ 3^"^) which appear to be editorial
insertions ; the divine name is mentioned most frequently in II.
(21 times in chs. 10-15, ^3 times in chs. 16. 17, 21 times in 18-
22*^) ; in III. there are 6 occurrences, and 8 in IV. (2 in chs. 25-
27, and 6 in chs. 28. 29) ; in V. a reference to God is found only
in 30^^ (3 times). It appears then that II. is relatively more
religious, the rest of the Book more definitely ethical.
None of the aphorisms, however, — not even such as " go to
the ant, thou sluggard," or '* answer a fool according to his folly,"
or the tetrads in ch. 30, — are popular proverbs or folk-sayings.
They are all reflective and academic in tone, and must be re-
garded as the productions of schools of moralists in a period of
high moral culture. The ideas of the Book may be considered
under their ethical, religious, and philosophical aspects.*
A. Ethical.
I. The high ethical standard of the Book is universally recog-
nized. Its maxims all look to the establishment of a safe, peaceful,
happy social life, in the family and the community ; the supposed
exceptions, cases of alleged selfish prudence (as, for example, the
caution against going security), are only apparent, since proper
regard for self is an element of justice.
Honesty and truthfulness in public and private life, especially in
business-transactions and courts of justice, are throughout insisted
on, and respect for human property and life is enjoined ; the mor-
alist has particularly in mind the urban crimes of perjury, theft,
* Cf. A. F. Dahne, Geschichtl. Darstellung d.jud.-alex. Relig.-philosophie , 1834;
T. K. Cheyne, Job and Solomon, 1887 ; C. G. Montefiore, Relig. Value of the Book
of Prov., in JQR., 1890 ; R. Pfeiffer, Relig.-sittliche Weltanschauung d. B, d. Spruche,
1897; Clieyne, Jewish Relig. Life after the Exile, 1898.
Xli INTRODUCTION
robbery, and murder. A fine conception of political equity is
given in the picture of the king (not a Messiah, but an ideal
sovereign in general), who is represented as the embodiment of
justice in his dealings with his people ; the references to royal
authority occur almost exclusively in chs. 16-29 (the other in-
stances are 8^^ 14^^-^ 30'^* 3i^"*)- The idea of justice is prominent
in all parts of Proverbs (as also throughout OT., and in Egyptian
and Greek ethical systems) ; and, as the fundamental virtue in
human intercourse, it is identified with general probity or right-
eousness, the same terms being used to express both conceptions
(see notes on i^ «/.), Warnings against unchastity constitute a spe-
cial feature of I. (they are found elsewhere in 22'* 23^ 30^) ; one
of the terms used for harlot, " strange woman " (2^" al.), designates
the vice in question as an offence against the well-being of the
family. Kindness to man (3^ al.) and beast (12^") is enjoined fre-
quently in II., and once in I. and V. each ; the fact that the term
(as elsewhere in OT.) is several times associated with " truth " (3^
14^^ 16® 20^*) may indicate that the element of justice entered into
the conception of kindness. Love is extolled (10^^) as minister-
ing to peace. There is a sharp polemic against slander and mali-
cious gossip (6^-^^ '^ 16^* a/.). Special regard is shown for the
interests of the poor (22^- alS). Irascibility is condemned (14^),
and pride (13'*') ; and modesty or lowliness is approved (n^).
Frank acknowledgment of wrong is enjoined (28'^). Revenge is
forbidden (24"), and kindness to enemies is insisted on. Indus-
try is praised, sloth is ridiculed, temperance in eating and drinking
is urged. The ideal of family-life is high (especially in I., III.,
and ch. 31) : monogamy is assumed ; parents are the responsible
guides of their children, and entitled to their obedience and
respect (love to parents is not mentioned, but is doubtless in-
volved), the mother having equal honor with the father. Woman
is spoken of only in the relations of wife, mother, and housewife :
she is a power in the house, capable of making home miserable
(iQ^^d!/.) or happy (18-- 31^) ; she has not only housekeeping-
capacity, but also broad wisdom (i* 31^"^) ; her position is as high
as any accorded her in ancient life (Egypt, Greece, Rome).
Proverbs speaks (i* al.^ of the training of children at home ; but
of the method and extent of the education of children in Hebrew
THOUGHT xiii
postexilian communities we know little (cf. note on 22®). The
frequency with which terms for " instruction " occur in the Book
makes it probable that a definite apparatus of training existed.
Among the virtues not mentioned in Proverbs are courage (see
note on 28^), fortitude (see 3'^), moderation in thought, self-
sacrifice, intellectual truthfulness. The silence of the sages (and
of OT. generally) respecting these traits is doubtless to be inter-
preted as indicating not that they did not exist among the Israel-
ites, but chiefly that the moralists attached more importance to
other qualities as effective forces in the struggle of life ; the last-
mentioned virtue, further, belongs to a mode of thought which was
foreign to the Jewish mind. The obligation to seek truth is rec-
ognized in I. (i^ f a/.), but the "truth " is that law of conduct
obedience to which secures prosperity and happiness. Of beauty
as an element of life nothing is said ; the failure to mention it is
due not to the religious character of the Book (for much of the
material oi Proverbs is non-religious), but to the fact that the Jew-
ish sages had not been trained to distinct recognition of the value
of the beautiful in the conduct of life. So also the silence of
Proverbs in regard to international ethics must be referred to the
times ; the Jews were not then a nation, and could not have
pohtical relations with the surrounding peoples, and moreover, a
science of international ethics did not then exist in the world.
2. Life is contemplated on its external and visible side, as a
mass of acts. The freedom of the will is assumed, but there is no
inquiry into its nature and its relation to the absolute will of God
or to conditions of temperament and education. There is no
reference to such inward experiences as swaying between opposed
lines of conduct, struggle with temptation, and the mistakes of
conscientious ignorance. Men are judged, without allowance, ac-
cording to their actual conformity to law, and are sharply divided
into good and bad ; in i'- " simpleton," " scoffer," and " fool " are
equivalent terms, and these classes are set over against the obe-
dient in I'^'^l In II.-V. characters are regarded as fixed; in I.
the exhortations assume the possibility of change, but it is said
(i"^) that when the hour of punishment comes it will be too late
to turn. There is no reference to sorrow for sin or in general to
processes of conversion from bad to good, or from good to bad
xiv INTRODUCTION
(so in Ez. i8). The advantages and disadvantages, for practical
morality, of this strictly external conception of life are obvious.
The absence of all inquiry into the psychological basis of the
moral life (which Proverbs has in common with the rest of OT.) is
due to the Jewish practical, unspeculative habit of thought. There
are no terms for "conscience" and "duty" in Hebrew, and no
Hebrew prophet or sage troubles himself to examine into the
origin of the sense of obligation. The OT. ethical thought is
wholly occupied with the question how to make the best of life.
3. The same practical point of view controls the determination of
the grounds of moral judgments, and the motives for the good life.
For the standard of rightdoing the appeal in Proverbs is to
commonsense or to the command of God. There is no reference
to the good of society as a whole, no recognition of society as an
ethical cosmos,* no attempt to define the relation between society
and the individual or to harmonize egoism and altruism in the
unity of the cosmos.
The motive urged for good living is individuahstic utilitarian or
eudaemonistic — not the glory of God, or the welfare of men in
general, but the well-being of the actor. Nor is there specific
reference to man's obligation to seek moral perfection for its own
sake. The only point directly insisted on is that happiness follows
obedience to the law of right. It is unnecessary to call attention
to the fundamental value of this principle in practical life, and to
its ethical limitations. On the other hand, it cannot be assumed
that the broader and more ideal points of view were unknown to
the Jewish moralists ; we can infer only that such points of view
did not seem to them to have practical importance.
The scheme of life in Proverbs cannot strictly be called either
optimistic or pessimistic. The existence of moral and physical
evil is recognized, without attempt to explain its origin or to
reconcile it with the moral perfection of God. But there is also
recognition of the possibihty of escaping or rising superior to all
evil ; universal happiness is contemplated as the ideal ultimate
lot of humanity.f
* That is, no recognition by the individual as guide of his own life. The
philosophical conception of the cosmos is found in ch. 8; see p. xvi.
■f On a supposed pessimistic sentiment in 14I3 see note on that verse.
THOUGHT XV
B. Religious.
1. Monotheism is taken for granted, God is regarded as su-
preme and absolute in power, wisdom, and goodness, and the only
trace of anthropomorphism in the theistic conception is the unsym-
pathetic (hostile and mocking) attitude of God toward the sinner
^j26 jj2o ^-^l^^ -pj^jg conception is in the main that of OT. gener-
ally, and is a part of the practical point of view of the moralists.
2. Of other supernatural beings (angels and demons) there is
no mention (see note on 30'^) . The existence of such beings no
doubt formed part of the popular belief of the time (Job i" 33^
\\i 91" I C. 21') ; but the sages, dealing with the everyday moral
life, saw no occasion to refer to these administrative agencies, and
confined themselves to the visible facts. Idolatry is not mentioned
— the audience addressed in Proverbs is Jewish.
3. Sin is the violation of law in the most general sense, and
salvation, which is deliverance from earthly evil, is secured by
obedience to law, human and divine. There is no reference or
allusion to a Messiah, or to any national deliverance (see notes on
the passages relating to kings).
4. The only national element in the Book is the mention of
sacrifice, which occurs five times ; of the occurrences only three
(15^ 21^^) have an ethical tone, the others (7" 17^) being merely
allusions to feasting in connection with sacrifices. There is no
mention of temple or priests. As to a supposed reference to
tithes in 3^ see note on that verse. Obviously the temple-cult is
recognized, but is not supposed to have a close connection with
moral life.
5. The sage speaks in his own name, without reference to divine
inspiration or to any book as authority. The " law " of which he
speaks is the law of his own conscience and reason ; he does not
name Moses or the prophets. In some cases (as in 6^-"^) he
appears to depart from the Pentateuchal legislation. He does
not mention a collection of sacred books ; but this silence is due
partly to the literary custom of the time, partly to the nature of
his material ; even the author of the Wisdom of Solomon, though
in chs. 10-19 he follows closely the narrative of the Hexateuch,
does not name that book. In Proverbs (30'^'^) there are two quo-
XVI INrRODUCTION
tations, one from if/ i8^\ the other from Dt. 4^ 13^, and neither of
these books is mentioned. The sages were doubtless acquainted
with the greater part of our Old Testament, but they use its mate-
rial freely as literature, and do not cite it as a Canon of Scripture. *
Proverbs does not mention a class of scribes or extol learning as
Ben-Sira does (38"*-39"), but it makes mention of sages, and
assumes the existence of systematic instruction, in which the study
of the Hterature no doubt played an important part.
6. The eschatology is of the simple and primitive sort that is
found in the greater part of OT. : Sheol, the abode of all the
dead, has no moral significance ; there is no judgment after death,
and the position of men in Sheol has no relation to their moral
character ; see notes on 2^** ^^ 5^ al. The divine judgment is mani-
fested in the last moment of Hfe (mnK, 5^ al.'). The idea of ethical
immortality was either unknown to the sages or was regarded by
them as unimportant for practical life.
7. The thought of the greater part of the Book is definitely
religious, standing in sympathetic and reverent contact with the
conception of a just and wise divine government of the world.
The sages are independent thinkers, but refer their wisdom
ultimately to God.
C. Philosophical. \
I. In agreement with other Wisdom books, and in contrast with
the rest of OT., Proverbs, in all its parts and especially in I., iden-
tifies virtue with knowledge. Its position is thus sharply distin-
guished from that of the Prophets, the Law, and the Psalmists, in
which Yahweh, as national God, is always ready to favor his people
if he alone be recognized and obeyed. The central idea of the
Book is " wisdom," which performs all the functions elsewhere in
OT. ascribed to Yahweh {r^^'' 2^*^" i^-^^ g'-^ 22^' al.). This wis-
dom is, in parts of the Book, also identified with religion (i^ al.)
— a point of view proper and necessary for a Jew. But the sage's
chief interest, particularly in I., is in the intellectual grasp of prac-
tical truth ; in certain places, as in 2^"*, an editor has thought it
* Cf. the manner in which Jeremiah is referred to in Dan. 92, and the way in
which the translator of Ben-Sira puts his grandfather in the same category with the
prophets and other IsraeUtish writers.
t Cf. H. Bois, Origines d. l.philosophie judeo-alexandrine, 1890.
THOUGHT XVII
desirable to introduce a specifically religious statement into the
sage's picture of the all-sufficiency of wisdom. The religious
coloring in I. and elsewhere is, however, not to be referred to a
desire on the part of the philosophers to placate the orthodox
party (Oort), but must be regarded as a natural expression of the
view of the authors of the Book.
The conception of the world as a physical and moral cosmos or
orderly arrangement is found, at least in germinal form, in such
OT. passages as Gen. i, i/' 104. But the conception is far dis-
tincter in Pr. 8, in which wisdom is said to control all human
society and to have been present at the creation of the world.*
Wisdom in Proverbs is a human quality, generally (in II.-V.)
regulating the ordinary affairs of men, but sometimes (in I.)
appearing in the larger character of sovereign of life. It is then
only a step to the still broader conception of her in (8^"^') as a
divine attribute, as in fact the chief attribute of God. How this
scheme of different conceptions is to be unified is not explained
by the sages, and we cannot be sure that they had worked out a
self-consistent philosophical system. But the idea of " wisdom "
appears to be parallel to the OT. idea of "spirit" — a life com-
mon to God and man, breathed into man by God — treated ordi-
narily in its human relations and activities merely, but, in the
highest flights of the philosophical imagination (as in ch. 8), re-
garded as universal and all-controlling. The conception is not
" pantheistic " in the modern sense of that term, but is an ethical
and philosophical expansion and purification of the old tribal and
national idea of the unity of the deity with his people. Cf. WS. 7.
The question whether the representation of Wisdom in ch. 8 is a
personification or a hypostatization is discussed in the notes.
2. An expression of philosophical skepticism appears to occur
in 30^-^ (Agur) on which see notes ; the doubt expressed relates
to man's capacity to understand God. The parallels are all in the
Wisdom books (Job 3, 9''- 19" al., Eccl. 3"). Elsewhere in OT.
(as in 1// 139) the greatness of God is treated as a ground of awe
and reverence ; here it is regarded as a reason for refraining from
attempts to define him.
* See footnote on p. xir.
xviil INTRODUCTION
D. Comparison with Other Books.
1. In its ethical code Proverbs agrees in the main with the
more advanced Jewish canonical and uncanonical books (the Pirke
Aboth is especially important) and with the New Testament ; in
the later period of Jewish history there had come to be a gener-
ally recognized moral code.* In some cases (as in 6^'^) Proverbs
modifies the old law for the better, and its prohibition of revenge
(24^^-^ 25^') not only stands in striking contrast with such senti-
ments as that q{\\i 109, but appears to be unique in OT. (it is not
exactly paralleled in Lev. 19^^ i/* 120^).
2. Its religious point of view is in general (in respect to God,
sin, salvation, Messianic expectation, the future life) the same as
that of the other Wisdom books except Wisdom of Solomon ; but
it is less national than Ben-Sira (see, for example, BS. 24), and
differs from our book oi Job in that it makes no mention of sub-
ordinate supernatural beings (cf. Job i^ 3^ 5^ 26^^^^ 33^); WS.
is much later than Proverbs, and represents a different order of
ideas.
3. In its picture of social life it most resembles Ben-Sira f ;
the two books deal, in fact, with the same sort of society, chiefly
city life, with its commerce, its feasts, its gossip, its temptations to
licentiousness, its relaxation of family-ties, its worship of money,
and its close relations with royalty ; cf., among other passages,
Pr. 3=» and BS. f^ (slander), Pr. 5. 7 and BS. 9^"^ 23»«-2« (the har-
lot), Pr. 6'-^ i;^^ and BS. 29' ^ '« '» (suretyship), Pr. 13^^ and
BS. 30^^^ (chastisement of children), Pr, 11^ 22^® and BS. 5*
(riches), Pr. 14^1 22i« and BS. 4^-*' (the poor), Pr. 14^ 28'* and
BS. lo^ (kings), Pr. if" 30"" and BS. 3'"^^ (conduct toward
parents), Pr. iS^* and BS. 6^-'« (friends), Pr. 20» 23^*^ and BS. 19*
2i27-3o (Yvine), Pr. 20" and BS. 2f (buying and selling), Pr. 23*"^
and BS. 32^"" (conduct at feasts). Ben-Sira goes more into detail
than Proverbs in the description of social relations, but the social
* Ben-Sira sometimes falls below the general level ; on this point and on the
ethics of Prov. and BS. see C. G. Montefiore in Jewish Quart. Rev. II. (1889-
1890), pp. 430 ff.
t And we may add the Syriac Menander, given in Land's Anecdota Syriaca,
Vol. I. ; see Frankenberg's article in ZATW., 1895.
ORIGIN AND DATE xix
organization contemplated appears to be the same in the two
books.
4. More generally, as regards the moral and religious point of
view and aim of the books of the Wisdom group : Job is a pas-
sionate discussion of the question whether the divine government
of the world is just ; Proverbs and Ben-Sira ignore this question,
and confine themselves to cheery practical suggestions for the
conduct of everyday-life ; Ecclesiastes treats life as a logically and
ethically insoluble riddle, and advises a moderate and wise enjoy-
ment of its good things ; Wisdom of Solomon dwells on eternal
wisdom, the architect and inspirer of the world, as the guide of
life, and on the hope of happy immortality as the consolation amid
earthly trials. Proverbs and Ben-Sira thus form a separate sub-
group, devoting themselves to practical morals in contrast with
the speculative element in the other books.
§ 6. Origin and Date.
I. Various authors are named in the titles : to Solomon are
ascribed chs. io'-22^''', 25-29, and apparently chs. 1-9 (though the
title in i^ may be intended to refer to the whole book), to "the
sages" 22^"-24^^ and 24^^^^ to Agur 30^"^ (and possibly but not
probably other parts of ch. 30), to the Mother of King Lemuel
31^"^; 3 1 '"-3' and probably 30^"^ are anonymous.
No OT. titles are in themselves authoritative in the sense that
they can be accepted without reference to the material involved.
The name " Moses " stands for legislators of all periods ; no
psalm or other production ascribed by the tradition to David can
be assigned him without examination of its contents ; large parts
of the books of Amos, Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and
Zechariah were certainly not written by the prophets whose names
they bear, and Jonah and Daniel had nothing to do with the com-
position of the books called after them. The name " Solomon "
in titles is of equally doubtful import. The fact that he is said to
be the author of Proverbs, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and i/^ 72. 127 *
shows that the Jewish tradition came to regard him as the ideal of
* To which somewhat later were added Wisdom of Solomon and Psalms of SoU
omon.
XX INTRODUCTION
wisdom and a writer of idealizing non-liturgical poetry,* and
ascribed to him indiscriminately everything of this sort. If the
titles in Canticles and Ecclesiastes cannot be accepted as authori-
tative, neither can those in Proverbs be so regarded. And if little
or no weight is to be attached to i^ (as is now generally held),
the same thing must hold of lo' and 25^ As to the latter title it
is sometimes said that so definite a statement (namely, that prov-
erbs of Solomon were edited by scholars of Hezekiah's time)
must have an historical basis. But still more definite statements
are prefixed to certain obviously late psalms ascribed to David
(see, for example, \\i 51-60), and the history of the Prophetic and
historical writings makes it improbable that the collection and
editing of literary material began so early as the reign of Heze-
kiah.
Agur and Lemuel's Mother are shadowy figures of whom Httle
of a helpful nature can be said ; see notes on 30' 31'. With " the
sages " the case is somewhat different ; the term specifies not an
individual, but a class, and, since it is apparently derived from the
nature of the material, so far carries with it its own justification ;
but from it in itself we get no more chronological aid than we
should get in the criticism of the Psalter from the statement that
the book was composed by " psalmists." Whether the ascription
to " sages " is probable must be determined by an examination of
the contents of the sections in question.
In the body of the book of Proverbs there is no mention of any
historical person or event from which a date can be drawn. Ithiel
and Ucal (30') appear to be corrupt forms, the attempt of Geiger
to find a King Alcimus in 30^' is unsuccessful, and the absence of
historical allusions elsewhere in the Book is intelligible from the
nature of the material.
For the determination of origin and date we must, therefore,
have recourse to internal data.
2, The following facts appear to point to the postexilian period
as the time of origination of the Book.f
The tacit assumption of monotheism can hardly belong to an
* + 72 appears to have been referred to him because it gives the picture of a
splendid monarch, and >/; 127 because of his fame as builder of the Temple,
t Cf. Stade and Holtzmann, GVL, II., pp. 292 ff.
ORIGIN AND DATE Xxi
earlier time. Ezekiel (Ez. 6. 8. 23 al.) declares that idolatry was
rampant in Israel down to the destruction of Jerusalem by the
Chaldeans, and its existence more than a century later is probably
vouched for by Zech. 13''.* It may be said that the sages, as mor-
alists, might ignore purely religious errors, even though they were
as common as in the preexilian period ; but astral worship is re-
ferred to in Job 31^®^, and it is hardly likely that in a book of so
wide a range as that of Proverbs there should be no hint of a
usage that would have been the destruction of the " fear of
Yahweh."
The absence of characteristic national traits points in the same
direction. The terms " Israel, Israel's covenant with Yahweh,
temple, priest, prophet" (see note on 29'*), all common in the
Prophetic writings, do not occur in Proverbs. These expressions
are found in postexilian writings, and their absence in Proverbs is,
therefore, not merely a matter of date ; but it is difficult to under-
stand how an Israelitish ethical and religious writer of the preex-
ilian time, whatever the literary form of his work, could refrain
from mentioning them. The same remark holds of other religious
ideas referred to above (§ 5, B). The fact that the term "law,"
which (whether priestly or Prophetic) in preexilian writings always
means the command of Yahweh, here denotes the instruction of
sages is significant. As for the national name " Yahweh," frequent
in Proverbs, it occurs in Ben-Sira, and we must assume that it
was in common use among the Jews down to the second century
B.ct In a word, if for the name Yahweh we substitute " God,"
there is not a paragraph or a sentence in Proverbs which would
not be as suitable for any other people as for Israel. This non-
national form of thought belongs to a sort of culture which did
not exist among the Jews till they were scattered throughout the
world and came under Persian and Greek influence.
The social life depicted in Proverbs does not bear the marks of
* Zech. 1-8 and Malachi bring no accusation of polytheism against their contem-
poraries; perhaps idolatry, held under in the period of reconstruction, showed
itself at the later time represented by Zech. 13'-. It could not, however, have been
very prominent or dangerous after the exile.
t When the Jews began to give up the utterance of the name Yahweh, ajid to
substitute for it Adonay and other terms, is uncertain.
XXU INTRODUCTION
Old Israel. While polygamy is recognized as legal or is assumea
in an exilian code (Lev. iS^**), here monogamy is taken for
granted. Agricultural pursuits are mentioned (3'-' al.), but the
chief attention is given to city life with its special occupations and
temptations (see § 5). There are numerous and emphatic warn-
ings against malicious gossip, going security, greed of money, noc-
turnal robbery, murder, and unchastity — vices and faults which,
though possible in any tolerably organized community, were spe-
cially prominent in the postexilian cities ; on the last-named vice,
to which so much space is given in chs. 1-9, see notes on 2"^ 5^ al.
The system of education assumed as existing is of a much more
advanced sort than that indicated in Dt. 6. The frequent men-
tion of kings as a class in the world, and as persons whom the
private citizen might meet socially (see 23^ ^, and other references
in § 5), belongs to an order of things foreign to the older life (cf.
Dt. 1 7^^-" Isa. ii'*^ al.) ; the best commentary on it is found in
the pictures of royal Hfe given in Josephus and similar histories.
The philosophical conceptions referred to above (§5, C) are
out of place in any preexilian century or during the exile. They
manifestly belong to the time when the Jews came into close intel-
lectual contact with the non-Semitic world. It has been supposed
that they were derived from Persia, but this is hardly probable if
we may judge from the extant Persian sacred books : wisdom
plays no such prominent part in the Avesta as it plays in Proverbs ;
in the Gathas, it is true, various qualities are personified, but
among these it is wisdom to which least importance is attached,
and the Avesta is in general more ecclesiastical than philosophical.
In the West * it is only in Greece that we find that identification
of knowledge and virtue which is characteristic of the Jewish
Wisdom literature — a trait which in Proverbs is especially prom-
inent in chs. 1-9, but appears also throughout the Book. The
Jews seem not to have become acquainted with Greek philosophy
before the conquest of Alexander.
3. The same date (postexilian) is indicated by the use of the
terms " wisdom " and " wise " in OT. More than half of the oc-
* The Indian systems may be left out of consideration ; there is no good histor-
ical ground for supposing a Hindoo influence on Western Asia as early as the
third century B.C.
ORIGIN AND DATE XXlll
currences of these terms are found in the Wisdom books, and in
the other books (except in half a dozen passages in late reflective
psalms) no philosophical sense attaches to them. In the histor-
ical and Prophetical writings they refer to mechanical or artistic
skill (Ex. 35^" Isa. 40^" i Chr. 2 2*'^), cleverness in ordinary affairs
(2 Sam. 13^ 14-), political sagacity (Gen. 41^^ Dt. i^^ Isa. f 19"
Jer. 8^ Ez. 27* 28^ Esth. i^'^), magical or prophetic knowledge
(Ex. 7'^ Dan. 5"), or general intelligence (Hos. 14'''^*" Isa. 11^).
In Proverbs and the other Wisdom books they relate to a definite
class of sages whose function is the pursuit of universal moral and
religious wisdom — men who, unlike the prophets, lay no claim to
supernatural inspiration, but make their appeal simply to human
reason. In at least one passage of the later preexilian time (Jer.
^23(22) -J \}^^xt is the suggestion that the ethical prophets looked
with suspicion on the contemporary " wise men," whose wisdom
appears to be contrasted with the true ethical knowledge of Yah-
weh ; but in Proverbs the sages present themselves as legitimate
and competent teachers of this knowledge. There occurred, ob-
viously, a noteworthy change in the character and position of the
wise men, and the change could have taken place only after the
exile.
Confirmation of this view may be obtained from the considera-
tion of the unity of the group of Wisdom books {Job, Proverbs,
Ben-Sira, Ecclesiastcs, Wisdom of Solomon). All these books,
though there are differences among them, are substantially iden-
tical each with the others in their philosophical points of view and
in their ethical codes. They have the same conception of wisdom,
and, if we omit Job, they portray the same general condition of
society. The similarity between Proverbs and Ben-Sira is espe-
cially striking.* It is not impossible that the similarity is due in
part to borrowing (though it may be equally well accounted for
by supposing that the two books drew material from the same
sources, and BS. has not the tone of an imitator) ; but in that
case the fact that Ben-Sira imitated Proverbs rather than the
* The most notable difference between the two books is the nationalistic con-
ception of wisdom in one passage of the latter (ch. 24) ; but tliis does not impair
the general similarity between them. BS. 24-3 (which in its present form appears
to identify wisdom with the Tora) is possibly a gloss.
XXIV INTRODUCTION
Prophetical books suggests that his afifinities, intellectual, moral,
and religious, were with the sages, and that he belonged to their
period. When we consider the uniqueness of the Wisdom group
and the substantial mutual identity of the books composing it, it
is diflficult to avoid the conclusion that they all sprang from one
intellectual and religious tendency, and that they belong to the
same cultural period. Three of them {BS., EccL, IVS.) are cer-
tainly of the second and first centuries B.C., and the other two
cannot be very far removed in time.
4. It may be possible to obtain a more definite date for Pro7i-
erbs by comparing the Wisdom books one with another. A two-
fold division of these books may be made, according to the point
of comparison. In regard to speculative thought they fall into
two sub-groups : Job, Eccl., \VS., discuss the question of the justice
of the divine government of the world ; Prov. and BS. ignore this
question. In regard to literary form and general religious tone
there are the sub-groups : Job, Prov., BS., which agree in rhyth-
mical form, in the conception of the righteous and the wicked, and
in the view of the future Hfe ; and Eccl., IVS., which depart from
the old literary form, and attack and defend the new doctrine of
immortality.
Though arguments from diction have to be used with great
caution, the following statement of the occurrences of 24 ethical
terms in Job, Pro?'., and Ecc/. may be of value, it being borne in
mind that in extent the three books are to one another about as
35 : 32 : 13.* Of the terms involving the idea of wisdom the
stem D2n is most frequent in Eccl., somewhat less so in Prov.,
much less m Job ; the adj. p2 is found 9 times in Prov., once
in Eccl., not at all in Job ; of substantives naia ( = wisdom) is
peculiar to Prov. (chs. 1-9) ; ,133 is frequent in Prov. (mostly
in I.), much less frequent in Job, wanting in Eccl.; nut is com-
mon in Prov., much less common in Eccl., still less in Job ; n03n
is not infrequent in Prov., rare in Job, not found in Eccl. ; n^U
and n'lrn (more general terms) are equally common in Job and
* It would be desirable to include Ben-Sira in the comparison ; but this will not
be possible till we have more of its Hebrew text. Cf. the list of Heb. words given
in Cowley and Neubauer's Ecclesiasticus (BS. 39'^-49'') I the list, however, needs
revision. Ben-Sira appears to contain more late words than Proverbs.
ORIGIN AND DATE XXV
Prov., and are lacking in Eccl. Of words expressing folly 'r'DD is
frequent in Prov. and Eccl., and wanting in Job ; biK is common
in Prov., very rare in Job, lacking in Eccl.; TiB is peculiar to
Prov. The verb KBn sin occurs 8 times in the poem oi Job,
once in Eccl., not at all in Prov., the participle is not infrequent
in Eccl., less frequent in Prov., lacking in Job, the substantive is
about equally common in Job and Prov., and is wanting in Eccl.
Of terms for instruction the noun nnan is found only in Prov.,
the verb of this stem is about equally common in Job and Prov.,
and is lacking in Eccl. ; the stem -iD" is rare in Job, frequent in
Prov., not found in Eccl. Of words signifying way in the sense
of conduct S^Uia occurs only in Prov., "I"n is common m Job and
Prov. and rare in Eccl., while mK and nan:, about equally com-
mon in Job and Prov., are lacking in Eccl. The terms non and
fn, kindness and favor, are not uncommon in Prov., but the first
is rare in Job and wanting in Eccl., while the second is rare in
Eccl. and wanting in Job. m^a command is found lo times in
Prov., twice in Eccl., once \nJob, but /^r<? ii times in /^^v?'., once
in Job, and not at all in Eccl. Words = ethically crooked do not
occur in Eccl. ; vpv is common and bnsj rare in Prov., and both
terms are very rare in Job (on the other hand my, found several
times in Job, does not occur in Prov. and Eccl.). It will be ob-
served that, so far as this list goes, Eccl. is nearer than Job to
Prov. in certain terms of the more stricdy scientific vocabulary
(DSn, rrazn, pD, ny-t, bcs, Kipn), in general avoiding terms that
have a religious, ecclesiastical, or hortatory coloring ; Job, on the
other hand, is nearer Prov. in the diction which the latter shares
with the Psalter. We may thence probably infer that the philo-
sophical conception of wisdom is less developed in Job than in
Proverbs, and that the former book is earlier than the latter. The
same conclusion seems to be suggested by a comparison of the
representation of wisdom in Job 28 (in which wisdom is said to
be undiscoverable by man, but is identified, as is also often done
in Prov., with obedience to God) with that in Pr. 8 (in which
wisdom is almost identified with God himself).*
* For the opposite view see Budde's Hiob, Einleitung. Some critics regard v.28
of Job 28 as an editorial addition ; the excision of this verse will not materially
XXVi INTRODUCTION
The general inference from these considerations is that most of
Proverbs stands in time between Job and Ben-Sira. The date
of the latter book is about B.C. 190. For Job the similarity be-
tween its historical milieu and that of Isa. 53 Mai. 3"" suggests a
time not earlier than c. B.C. 400, and the non-national and specu-
lative tone of the book points to a date fifty or a hundred years
still later.* We thus have c. B.C. 300 as the upper limit for Prov-
erbs; for the lower limit see the following paragraph. In this
statement of the relation between Job and Proverbs there is one
point that may seem to make a difficulty. It is held by some
critics that the sceptical tone of the former must belong to a later
period than the calm unspeculative attitude of the latter, which
accords with the position of Job's Friends. But this point, very
interesting in its suggestions, seems not to be decisive for the
chronological relation of the two books. It is obvious, on the one
hand, from Malachi that the sceptical movement began as early
as B.C. 400,1 and, on the other hand, from Ben-Sira it is no less
obvious that the unsceptical attitude was retained as late as
B.C. 200. What we have to conclude, therefore, is that the two
points of view continued to be held side by side for a consider-
able period, and it is perhaps an accident that we have only hints
of scepticism (as, for example, in Agur) between Job and Eccle-
siastes. And that there was a continuous development of scepti-
cal thought is made probable by a comparison of the tones oi Job
and Ecclesiastes — the one passionate and profoundly religious,
the other indifferent and feebly religious ; these different phases
appear to indicate widely different periods of culture. The differ-
ence between Job and Proverbs is one not merely of time, but of
point of view as well. We must assume that the Jewish sages
of the four centuries preceding the beginning of our era were of
two general classes, the one content to consider the questions
of practical everyday life, the other not satisfied with anything
less than a solution of the great ethical and religious question
affect the view above expressed. Job 28 is, however, now out of place and inter-
ruptive, and may well belong in the same period with Pr. 1-9.
* On the date of Job cf. the commentaries of Davidson and Budde, and the
articles in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, Cheyne's Cyclopaedia Biblica, and
HerzogS. t And cf. Jer. 12I 20^
ORIGIN AND DATE XXvii
of the world — tbe question of the justice of the divine govern-
ment of men The first Une is continued in Proverbs, certain
psahns, and Ben-Sira, the second in Job, certain psahns, Eccles.,
and Wisd. of Solomon. In these parallel lines the chronological
relations of the various writings may be measurably determined by
such considerations as are presented above.
5. It remains to ask whether the internal indications enable us to
fix the chronological order of the various parts of the Book. There
is an obvious division into three parts, I., II.-IV., and V., and of
these the central part appears to form the kernel of the Book.
a. Taking first this central part, we may begin by separating
III. (2 2''^-24), which clearly differs from its context. It consists
of quatrains, with synonymous parallelism, which form short horta-
tory discourses. It assumes a system of instruction by sages, and is
marked by ethical inwardness and depth. It indicates, therefore,
an advanced stage of reflection and teaching. In its rhythmical
and strophic form it resembles Ben-Sira. Its two parts, 22^^-
24" and 24^^^*, though separate collections, are so nearly akin in
form and thought that they must be considered to be products
of the same period and the same circle of sages.
b. The remainder of the central part is composed of two sorts
of aphorisms, i. In chs. 10-15 ^^'^ halfofchs. 28. 29 we find an-
titheses, restrained and lapidary in style, expressing general moral
sentiments, with frequent mention of the divine name and of the
terms " righteous " and " wicked." 2. In chs. 16-22^® 25-27 and
half of chs. 28. 29 there is a predominant employment of compari-
sons and other single sentences, the style is more flowing than in
the first group (10-15, etc.), the material is more varied, and
there is much less frequent use of the terms above-mentioned.
The question of chronological priority between these two sorts
of aphorism is not easy to decide. The compressed and vigorous
antithesis may seem to different persons to be earlier or later than
the more flowing form. It is probable that the two do not stand
far apart in time, but the more human and pointed tone of the
second group accords more closely with the style of Ben-Sira*
* It is this fresh picturesqueness that has given us a number of househo'd words
from chs. 25-29 (Davidson), but this characteristic does not in itself indicate great
antiquity.
xxvm INTRODUCTION
This analysis indicates that there once existed various small
bodies of aphorisms (in oral or written form), and that these were
variously combined into small books. They were all the products
of cultivated ethical reflection, though part of their material was
doubtless old. Thus the sub-section chs. 10-15 appears to have
been a separate book of antitheses, and a similar work was used
by the compiler of chs. 28. 29, and, more sparingly, by other
editors. We have another aphoristic book in 16-22'^, and still
another in chs. 25-27 and parts of chs. 28. 29. From portions of
these works an editor compiled our section io'-2 2^*^, and from
other portions the section chs. 25-29 was independently put
together. All this material was regarded by the tradition as
Solomonic, and, when the sections were combined, the editor,
aware of a difference, referred the formation of the second to the
scholars of Hezekiah's time (see note on 25^). This statement
of the editor proves not the chronological priority of io'-2 2'^,
but only that this latter collection was made before the other.
Smaller collections, such as the Book of Fools (in 26^"'^) are
referred to in the notes, and are further indicated in the lists of
repetitions given in § 3. Throughout the central part (chs. 10-
29) the marks of editorial hands are visible.
c. The first main division of the Book (chs. 1-9, except 6^"^
9^'^^) appears to be later than the central part. Such later date is
suggested by its precise pedagogic form, its philosophic concep-
tions (ch. 8), and the prominence it gives to certain sins (robbery
and unchastity). The question might be raised whether the sec-
tion is a unit — whether it does not divide itself naturally into two
parts, one (ch. 8 and parts of chs. 3. 4) philosophical and specula-
tive, the other hortatory and practical. There is, no doubt, such a
difference in the contents, but it is hardly of a sort to indicate
duality of authorship : the general conception of wisdom is the
same throughout, and the practical hortatory tone is not confined
to the distinctively pedagogic paragraphs. The relation between
the section and the Book of Job has already been referred to.
The two have the same rhythmic form (synonymous parallelism,
and frequency of quatrain arrangement) ; but a similar agreement
exists between Proverbs, many psalms, and Wisdom of Solomon,
and is of no use for the determination of relative priority in time
ORIGIN AND DATE XXIX
between these books. The fact that the pessimism of Job is not
found in Proverbs is referred to above (in paragraph 4 of § 6).
It is held by some critics that in Job 15^ there is a direct allusion
to Prov. 8^-"^', that Eliphaz asks Job whether he is the personified
Wisdom there described.* But this view rests on an improbable
interpretation of the couplet. In the first line Eliphaz asks
whether Job was the first man created, assuming, apparently, that
the first man stood very near the counsels of God and was en-
dowed with special wisdom (cf. v.*) The parallelism (synonymous
throughout the chapter) suggests that the second line is identical
in meaning with the first, and that the expression " before the
hills" is a rhetorical synonym of "in hoar antiquity." Or, if the
two lines be not mutually equivalent, the second must be regarded
as a heightening of the first, with more cutting sarcasm : " were
you created first of men? or, forsooth, before the world?" There
is no obvious allusion to a primeval Wisdom, or to any cosmogonic
history (and v.* relates not to the past, but to the speaker's pres-
ent). Finally, even if the second line be supposed to refer to the
same fact that is mentioned in Prov. 8"*, it does not appear why
Job, rather than Proverbs, should be considered the borrower ;
the conception in the latter book is certainly the more highly
developed. And, in general, the conception of wisdom seems to
be more developed in Prov. 1-9 than in Job ; in the latter book
(omitting ch. 28, which, on exegetical grounds, is probably to be
regarded as an interpolation) wisdom is the reflection of sages,
handed down orally, on one great question — a question which
has its roots in the Prophetic writings ; in Prov. 1-9 wisdom is
the guide of life, with organized instruction, and in one passage
(ch. 8) there is a philosophical personification which approaches
nearer to WS. 7 than to Job 2 8.t Cf. notes on 30^
The paragraphs 6^"^ 6^" 9^"^^ belong partly in the same category
with III., partly with V.
* So Ewald, Davidson, Budde, al. The couplet in Job reads
Wert thou the first man born?
Wert brought forth before the hills?
fCf. Seyring, Die Abhangigkeit d. Spr. Sal. Cap. I. -IX., etc., 1880; Strack, in
Stud. u. Krit., 1896; Wildeboer, Lift. d. AT.
XXX INTRODUCTION
d. Chs. 30. 31, a collection of unconnected fragments, have the
appearance of an appendix. The cool agnosticism of Agar re-
minds us of Koheleth rather than of Job. The artificial tetradic
form is probably late ; see note on 30" ff. The terms wise and
wisdom either relate to common-sense sagacity (30-'* 31^'"'), or when
they denote philosophical depth, are treated with contempt (30^).
On the strange titles in 30^ 31' see notes on these verses.
The history of the formation of the Book appears to be some-
what as follows : Out of certain current collections of aphorisms
were first put together our subsections chs. 10-15, 16-22"^, 25-27,
and 28. 29, and from these by different editors the sections 10-22'®
and 25-29 were made, the editor of the latter being aware of the
existence of the former.* The two may have received substan-
tially their present form between B.C. 350 and B.C. 300, the second
a httle later than the first. During the next half-century the sec-
tion III. (2 2^'-24) was produced, and a book of aphorisms was
formed by combining II. and IV. and inserting III. between them ;
it is not apparent how this position came to be assigned III., but,
as 25^ ("these also are proverbs of Solomon") seems to presup-
pose 10^ ("proverbs of Solomon"), and III. is referred not to
Solomon but to the " sages," it is Hkely that it was added after 11.
and IV. had been combined ; it is possible, however, that it was
first attached to II., the collection IV., with its title unchanged,
being then added. The opening section (omitting 6'"^^ 9"'^') i"nay
have been composed about the middle of the third century B.C.,
and was combined by its author (or by some contemporary editor)
with II.-IV. ; the introduction (i^O is couched in the technical
terms of the schools, and is probably the work of the author of
the section ; he seems also to have prefixed the general title (i*).
The additions to the section (6*"" 9^"''), which resemble III., V.,
and II., may be due to the final redactor, or to a very late scribe.
Finally the work was completed by the addition of the fragments
contained in chs. 30, 31, the completion faUing in the second
century B.C. Succeeding copyists introduced into the text a num-
ber of errors, not only in words and phrases but also in arrange-
ment of lines and couplets.
* It is possible, however, that the title in 25I was inserted by the final redactor.
TEXT AND VERSIONS XXxi
6. The linguistic phenomena of the Book are in accord with
these dates : while the style, especially in the earlier parts, does
not differ substantially from that of the " classic " period (which
may be taken to include centuries 8-5 B.C.), there are passages,
chiefly in the later parts, which show a nearer approach to the
later usage. It is to be borne in mind, of course, that the vocabu-
lary and syntax are probably to some extent affected by the nature
of the material : in such a work there would naturally be a large
number of philosophical terms, and the more popular aphorisms
would use words which, though not new, might not be found else-
where.* Such expressions may characterize the individual style
of the Book, but do not determine its date. It is to be noted also
that a certain number of peculiarities are to be set down as scribal
errors. These deductions being made, there still remains a small
number of expressions which appear to belong to the later usage.
Some of these (as 13 in 31-) are Aramaisms, others are late-
Hebrew ; reference is made to these in the critical notes. Ben-
Sira, so far as we can judge from the part of its Hebrew text
which we have (chs. 39''''-49"), contains a greater number of late
expressions than Proverbs — a fact which we might expect from
its later date and its fuller and freer treatment of matters of every-
day life. It is doubtful whether any Arabisms occur in Proverbs ;
the words which have been so explained may all be otherwise
satisfactorily accounted for. There are no Persian or Greek words.
§ 7. Text and Versions.
I. The text is not in good condition ; errors are more frequent
in II.-V. than in I., the simple style of the latter having saved it
to some extent from scribal misunderstandings and misrepresenta-
tions. The mistakes are to be set down pardy to the ignorance
of copyists, partly to the freedom which they allowed themselves
in dealing with this book as with other OT. books ; we find much
the same state of things in Samuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Psalms.
It does not appear that changes were made in Proverbs in the
interests of theological opinion or from a sense of propriety or de-
* This is the case with most of the words mentioned as rare in Driver's Introd.
to Lit. of O T.
XXXU INTRODUCTION
cency {causa honoris, c. reverentiae, etc.).* Such changes were
made in other OT. books ; the immunity of Proverbs is due in
part to its untheological character, in part to the fact that it was
looked on as less sacred and authoritative than the Pentateuch
and the Prophetic writings.
2. The extant Ancient Versions of Proverbs are the Septuagint
(from which were made the Coptic and the Hexaplar Syriac), the
Peshitta Syriac, the Targum, fragments of the later Greek transla-
tions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, etc.), and the Latin of
Jerome.
Of these the oldest and, for the criticism of the text, the most
valuable is the Septuagint. It represents in general an older text
than that of the received Hebrew tradition ; f but its value as a
presentation of the old Jewish aphoristic thought and as a critical
instrument is impaired by the corruptions it has suffered and by
certain peculiarities in the mode of translation. In a number of
cases it offers good suggestions for the restoration of the original
Hebrew. In not a few instances the translator does not under-
stand the Hebrew. \ He sometimes departs from the literal
rendering in order to give the translation a smoother and more
idiomatic Greek form, § sometimes also in order to obtain a better
antithesis or a more appropriate thought. Possibly he is some-
times influenced by the desire to reproduce the later Pharisaic
orthodoxy, II but this is not clear; there is no trace of distinctively
Christian ideas. The Greek book is somewhat longer than the
Hebrew : some Hebrew couplets and lines it omits, but it includes
much that the Hebrew text has not. The omissions usually indi-
cate a Hebrew scribal plus. The additions are sometimes in the
* Geiger, Urschrift, pp. 378, 400, 403, finds an example of such change in 7I8,
and Hitzig in 3081, on which see critical noles.
t The translation may have been made as early as 100 B.C.
X Such ignorance is found abundantly elsewhere in the Septuagint, but is here
especially obvious — a fact which may be due in part (as Frankenberg suggests) to
the absence of a good exegetical tradition ; Proverbs was not so much read and
commented on as some other books. It is not certain that one man translated the
whole of Proverbs.
\ Cf. Jager, Observations in Prov. Sal. vers, alex., 1788. This, however, hardly
warrants us in supposing (Frankenberg) that the translation was made for a non-
Jewish public.
II This hypothesis is carried to excess by Heidenheim.
TEXT AND VERSIONS XXxiii
form of doublets, but oftener contain entirely new matter, which
the Greek translator has either himself composed, or, as is more
probable, has inserted from current collections of proverbs. They
appear sometimes to be based on a Hebrew original, sometimes to
have been written originally in Greek. There is rarely ground for
supposing of any one of them that it formed part of the original
Book of Proverbs ; but they show that our Hebrew Book is only
a selection out of a great mass of material then current, and they
thus corroborate the view of date given above. An unsettled con-
dition of the early Hebrew MSS. of Proverbs is possibly indicated
by the Septuagint order of sub-sections in HI., IV., V., which (if
we designate the chapters as in the Hebrew) are arranged thus :
22^"-24--; 30"''; 24^^^; 3o'^"''^; 31''^; 25-29; 21^°"^^* From
the point of view of similarity of material this arrangement is
manifestly inferior to that of our Hebrew text — it breaks up HI.
and ch. 31 by the interposition of alien matter, and places IV. far
from its natural connection. But it does not follow that the mal-
arrangement is due to the caprice of a Greek translator.! The
subsections composing III.-V. must once have circulated as sepa-
rate treatises, and may have been combined in different ways by
Jewish scribes or editors. What we know of the procedure of
Greek translators elsewhere in OT. (for example, in Jeremiah)
does not favor the supposition that they acted capriciously in this
regard.
The Coptic Version is useful for the control of the Greek. It
sometimes offers material not found in our Greek MSS. ; all such
cases must be judged by the critical rules applied to the Greek
Version. X
The present Peshitta Syriac text oi Proverbs has a perplexing
mixture of readings, agreeing sometimes with |^ against (§, some-
times with (§ against ^ ; the more important readings are given
in the Critical Notes. As it follows 5^ in general in material and
* Cf. the Greek arrangement of Jeremiah, and numbering of the Psalms, and
the modern attempts at rearranging Ecclesiastes.
t So Strack and Frankenberg. The latter observes that the Greek arrangement
divides the latter part of the Book into two Solomonic collections, with only two
titles (loi 25I). This may have been the principle of arrangement, but the trans-
lator may have found it in his Hebrew manuscript.
X Cf. Bickell, who makes much use of the Coptic.
XXXIV INTRODUCTION
arrangement, it is probable that it is based on the Hebrew ; at
the same time we know too Uttle of the history of Syriac transla-
tions to be able to say whether or how far the present text has
been corrected from the Hebrew. On the other hand, the nature
of the agreements between S and (5 favors the view that the former
has in certain passages followed the latter ; whether, in that case,
this rendering from the Greek was the work of the original Syriac
translator or of a later reviser is a difficult question, though the
former supposition seems the more probable. If we add to all
this that the Syriac translation is often free, it is obvious that it
must be used with caution in the criticism of the Hebrew or the
Greek.*
The Targum, as is now generally held, is based on the Syriac,
though in a number of cases it follows the Hebrew.
Jerome for the most part follows the Masoretic text closely, and
gives little material for getting back of it. Where he follows the
rendering of (3 or inserts from it couplets which are not in |^, he
probably retains the older Latin text, which was made from the
Greek. He represents the Jewish exegesis of his time, but is
rarely helpful in those cases in which the Hebrew is peculiarly
difficult or obscure.
§ 8. Canonicity.
According to Rabbinical authorities t the reception of the Book
into the Canon was for a time opposed on the ground of its con-
tradictory statements (26'*^) and its too highly colored descrip-
tions (7''^). The latter class of objections seems to have arisen
early, if any chronological conclusion can be drawn from the state-
ment of the tradition that they were set aside by the " men of the
Great Synagogue." The solution of the question appears to have
been found in the allegorical interpretation of the passage in ch. 7.
The Talmud says nothing of any difficulty in connection with
Agur. The doubts concerning Proverbs soon passed away, and
its value was universally recognized. It is quoted or used in NT.
frequently (over twenty times) and in the Talmud (especially in
* On details of & and 51 see J. A. Dathe, 1764, in Rosenmiiller's Opuscula, 1814,
Th, Noldeke, in Archiv f. wiss. erforschung d. A T., ii., and Pinkuss' articles in
ZATW., 1894.
t Shab. 30 b, Aboth Nathan, Cap. i.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
XXXV
Pirke AbotJi), is cited abundantly by the early Christian writers,
has always been highly esteemed for its practical wisdom, and a
number of its aphorisms have becorne_household words.
§ 9. Bibliography.
On Text and Versions.
Procopius, 'Ep/xevefa,
G. J. L. VoGEL, 1768 (in Schultens).
J. G. Jager, Observv. in Prov. Sal.
vers, alexandrinam, 1788.
J. F. ScHLEUSNER, Opuscula, i8i2,and
Lexicon"^, 1829.
P. DE Lagarde, Anmerkungen z.
griech. uebersetzung d. Proverbien,
1863.
M. Heidenheim, Zur textkritik d.
Proverbien (in his Vierteljahr-
schrift), 1865, 1866.
Dyserinck, Kritische Scholien (in
Theol. Tijdschrifi), 1883.
H. Oort, Spreuken I.-IX. (in Th.
Tijdschr.), 1885.
A. J. Baumgartner, &tude critique sur
Vetat d. texte d. livre d. Proverbes,
1890.
G. BiCKELL, Krit. bearbeitung d.
Proverbien (in Wiener Zeilschr. f.
d. Kunde d. Morgenlandes), 1891.
H. PiNKUSS, Die syrische ueberset-
zung d. Proverbien (in ZATIV.),
1894.
H. Gratz, Exeget. studien (in his
Alonatsschrift), 1884, and Etnenda-
tiones, 1892-1894.
E. Nestle, art. BibelUbersetzungen, in
Herzog's Real-Encykl? (and pub-
lished separately).
Remarks on text in commentaries
of Hitzig, Ewald, Delitzsch, Zockler,
Nowack, Wildeboer, Frankenberg.
Translations and Commentaries.
Midrash Mishle, ed. S. Buber, 1893.
Saauia's version, ed. J. Derenbourg,
1894 (cf. B. Heller, in PEJ., 1898).
Rashi, Lat. transl. by Breithaupt, 17 14.
Aben Ezra,* ed.C. M. Horowitz, 1884.
The commentaries of Rashi, Aben
Ezra, and Levi ben Gersom are given
also in A. Giggeius' In Prov. Sal.
Comment, trium Rabbi nor iim, 1620,
and are cited in L. Cahen's La Bible,
1847. I" this last work Leopold
Dukes, in his Introduction to Prov-
erbs, gives a list of 38 Jewish com-
mentators on the book, beginning
with Saadia (d. 942) and ending
with J. Lowenstein (1837).
H. Deutsch, Die SprUche Sal's nach
d. auffassung im Talmud u. Mid-
rasch dargestellt u. kritisch unter-
sucht, 1885.
J. Mercerus, Comm. in Sal. Prov.,
etc., 1573, 1651.
M. Geier, Prov. regum sapientissimi
Sal., etc., 1653, 1699, 1725.
C. B. MiCHAELis (in J. H. Michaelis,
Uberiores annotationes in Hagiogr,,
etc.), 1720.
A. Schultens, Prov. Sal., etc., 1748,
and abridged ed. by G. J. L. Vogel,
1769.
B. Hodgson, The Prov. of Sol. transl.,
etc., 1788.
* It is not certain that this work is by Aben Ezra ; it may be by Moses Qamhi
(Kimchi).
XXXVl
INTRODUCTION
H. EwALD, in his Poet. Bucher {^Dich-
ter\ d. Alt. Bundes, 1837, '867.
G. R. NOYES, New Translation of the
Prov., etc., 1846.
M. Stuart, Comm. on the Book of
Prov., etc., 1852.
F. HiTZiG, Die Sprilche Sal.'s iiber-
setzt, etc., 1858.
O. ZoCKLER, Comm. zu d. Spr, Sal.
(in Lange's Bibelwerk), 1866 (Eng.
transl., 1870).
H. F. MiJHLAU, De prov. quae di-
cuntur Aguri et Letyiuelis origine
atque indole, 1869.
Franz Delitzsch, Das Sal. Spruch-
buck, 1873 (Eng. transl. 1875).
E. Reuss, in his annotated transl. ol
the Bible, French ed. (Z,a Bible),
1878, Germ. ed. {Das Alt. Test.),
1894.
W. NovvACK (in Kurzgef. exeget.
Handbiich z. AT.), 1883 (revision
of E. Bertheau, 1847).
H. L. SiRACK (in Strack u. Zockler's
Kurzgef Comm. z. AT), 1888.
R. F. Horton (in Expositor's Bible),
1891.
G. WiLDEBOER (in Marti's Kurzcr
Hand-Comm. z. AT.), 1897.
W. Frankenberg (in Nowack's Hand-
komm. z. AT.), 1898.
General Works.
L. Dukes, Introduction to Proverbs in
Cahen, La Bible, 1847.
J. F. Bruch, Weisheitslehre d. He-
brder. 1 85 1.
H. Bois, La poesie gnomique chez I.
Tlebreux et chez I. Grecs — Solomon
et Theognis, 1886.
T. K. Cheyne, in Job and Solomon,
1887.
C. G. Montefiore, Notes upon the
date and religious value of the Book
of Prov. (in Jew. Quart. Rev.),
I 889- I 890.
R. Smend, Alitestamentliche religions-
geschichte, 1893.
R. Pfeiffer, Die relig.-sittliche IVelt-
atischauung d. Buches d. Spriiche,
1897.
Proverbs of Other Aticient Peoples.
Chinese: F. H. Jenings, Proverbial
Philosophy of Confucius, 1895; W.
Scarborough, Chinese Proverbs, iSy^.
Egyptian : T. L. Griffith, art. Egyptian
Literature, in Library of the World's
Best Literature.
Assyrian : M. Jager, Assyr. Rdthsel u.
Sprich'cvorter, in Beitrdge z. Assyri-
ologie, 1892.
Indian : Bohtlingk, Ind. Spriiche ;
MniT, Sanskrit Texts; M. Williams,
Indian Wisdom ; P. More, Indian
Epigrams, 1898 ; C. R. Lanman,
Indie Epigrams, 1899 ; see also the
Hitopade^a, the Panchatantra, and
the Jaiakas.
Greek : For the aphorisms which go
under the name of Menander see the
collections of Meineke and Koch.
Syrian : The so-called Syriac Menan-
der is given in Land, Anecdota Syr.,
I.; cf. ZATW., 1895.
As a Semitic parallel we may add
Arabic: Freytag, Meidani; Fleischer,
Ali's Spriiche.
See also L. Dukes, Blumenlese,
and his Introduction to Proverbs in
Cahen, La Bible.
A COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF
PROVERBS.
A COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF
PROVERBS.
I. CHAPTERS I.-IX.
A series of discourses on the excellence of wisdom, with illus-
trations of its principles taken from everyday life. These are
preceded by a general introduction, before which stands a general
title. On the date and origin see the Introduction.
I. contains the title (v.^), an introduction (v.^-^), and two
discourses (v.*-*^- 20-23).
1. Title. — The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of
Israel. The title king of Israel belongs to Solomon. On the
ascription to Solomon, and on the term proverbs (Heb. mishle) as
name of the book, see the Introduction. The title was probably pre-
fixed by the collector of I., or by the editor of I.-IV,, or, possibly,
by the last compiler. The Heb. word mashal {proverb) probably
signifies similarity, parallelism (nearly = comparison), and seems
to have been used at an early time of all poetry, hardly with
reference to the form (parallelism of clauses, clause-rhythm, being
the distinctive formal characteristic of old-Semitic poetry), but,
probably, with reference to the thought (short distiches made by
the juxtaposition of related ideas, originally comparisons with
familiar objects) ; * the men called mashalists (Nu. 21^) appear,
like the Greek rhapsodists and the Arabian rawis, to have been
reciters (doubtless also sometimes composers) of narrative and
descriptive poems. There is no one English equivalent for ma-
* There is no OT. word ior poetry, though there are terms for various species of
poetical composition, j-o;?^, etc. On the late Hebrew terms for liturgical poetry and
poets, /iyw/, paitan (ttoitit));) , see Delitzsch, Zur Gesch. d. jiidisch. Poesie, pp. 49 ff.
3
4 PROVERBS
shal — it seems to cover the whole ground of Hebrew poetry. It
may signify a simple folksaying or aphorism (i Sam. lo^^ 24"*'*'
Ez. 1 2^ 18^), an allegory (Ez. i f), an enigmatical saying (Ez. 21^),
a byword (Jer. 24^ Dt. 28^^), a taunting speech (Isa. 14^ Hab. 2^),
a lament (Mic. 2^), a visional or apocalyptic discourse (Nu. 23^
24^^), a didactic discourse (i/'49. 78), an argument or plea (Job
29^).* In the Book of Proverbs it is either an aphorism (10-22)
or a discourse (1-9, 23^^ 27^^).
2-7. Preface or introduction, stating the object of the book,
namely, that men may be induced to accept the teaching of
wisdom. — The structure is distichal, with synonymous parallelism
(except v.'^). The thought is similar to that of 22^'''^^, and the
preface, hke the title, was probably prefixed by a late, perhaps the
latest, editor; the paragraph is syntactically a continuation of v.^
2. That men may acquire wisdom and training,
May understand rational discourse,
3. May receive training in wise conduct —
In justice and probity and rectitude,
4. That discretion may be given to the inexperienced.
To the youth knowledge and insight.
5. Let the wise man hear and add to his learning,
And the man of intelligence gain education,
6. That he may understand proverb and parable.
The words of sages and their aphorisms.
7. The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge —
Wisdom and discipline fools despise.
As the Hebrew text stands the introduction appears to consist
of two parts, the statement of object (^"*), and the definition of
knowledge (^) ; and the former divides itself into a general refer-
ence to men (^■^), with special regard to the immature {*), and a
particular reference to the wise (*■ ^) — that is, the work is said to
be addressed to all classes of intelligence. The definition (^)
stands by itself, being of the nature of a general reflection, an
appendix to the statement of object. V.* appears to be a pa-
renthesis or an editorial insertion — the syntactical construction
* Cf. Delitzsch, o/. cit., pp. 196 flf.
1.2 5
here changes (to be resumed in v.®), and there is a certain incon-
gruity in bidding a sage learn to understand the words of sages.
If these two couplets be omitted, we have a symmetrical para-
graph of two quatrains : ^-^j " that men may acquire wisdom," and
* ®, "that the immature may be educated into understanding the
discourses of the sages."
2-4. The general object of the book. — The syntactical con-
nection with v.^ is close : the proverbs of Solomon . . . [whose
object is] t/iaf wen may acquire, etc. — 2. Synonymous, ternary.
Lit.: to acquire (or, knoiv), etc., the subject of the Infinitive
being " men " or " the pupil." The parallel expressions are prac-
tically equivalent in meaning. Wisdom is the general expression
for knowledge of all good things ; it is practical sagacity (Ju. 5^
2 Sam. 13^ 14- 20^^), the skill of the artisan (Ex. 31^), wide
acquaintance with facts (i K. 4^^* [5*""])> learning (Jer. 8^), skill
in expounding secret things (Ez. 28^), statesmanship (Jer. 18'*),
and finally, knowledge of right living in the highest sense. This
last is its sense here — moral and religious intelligence. It ex-
cludes not only the morally bad, but also (in contrast with Greek
wisdom) the philosophically speculative, though, in parts of Prov-
erbs, Ecclesiastes, and Wisdom of Solomon, it is tinged with Greek
philosophical thought. In it the religious element is practically
identical with the moral : no stress is laid in Proverbs on the
ritualistic side of life (sacrifices, vows), the devotional (prayer,
praise, reading sacred books), or the dogmatic (monotheism, sin,
salvation) ; the writers of chs. 1-9 and of the whole Book are
concerned with practical affairs ; the law of God is for them
simply the moral law. — The second term, training, discipline,
(or, instruction) , signifies properly the fact of teaching, educa-
tion (sometimes chastisement), but must here be taken to mean
the result of right teaching, that is, wisdom ; the teacher may be
God, or a man who imparts the law of God. Rational discourse
is lit. words of understanding ; this last term = " discernment,
comprehension," is in like manner identical with wisdom. —
Man's relation to wisdom is expressed by the word acquire (lit.
know or learn). So far as stress is thus laid on intellectual
recognition of right as the basis of a good life the thought of our
6 PROVERBS
section (and of the whole Book) is allied to the Socratic-Stoic
conception of morality. The OT, term, however, like the Greek,
expresses more than bare intellectual recognition — it involves
intellectual assimilation and practical acceptance of truth as the
rule of hfe; see Am. 31" Hos. 6^ 13^ Isa. i^ Jer. 142*' Job 202"
x(/ 5i^<^\ Still, knowledge is here set forth as the foundation of
conduct, that is, it is assumed that men will do right when its
nature and consequences are clearly understood by them. The
conception of a change of heart is not found in Proverbs. In the
second clause the verb understajui = discern, distinguish, appre-
hend, is a synonym of know. — 3. Ternary ; line 2 is the defini-
tion of the last word of line i. The element of assimilation is
expressed in the term receive = " apprehend, accept, and apply as
a rule of life." — The term training (or, instruction) is usually
defined by its source (v.*, father, 3" Yahweh), but here by its
object or aim, as in Isa. 53^ the chastisetnent of \_— ivhich should
procure'] our peace. The aim is here expressed by four terms (so
RV.), wise conduct, justice, probity, rectitude, the three last of
which are better taken as setting forth the content of the first.
From the signification of these words they cannot be understood
as objects of the verb receive (Nowack, Frankenberg), or as ex-
pressing the content of the term instruction (Delitzsch). Kamp-
hausen * renders : that men may accept instruction that makes
wise {klug), righteousness and \_sense of] the right and rectitude,
taking instruction as = " the fact of teaching," and leaving it
uncertain whether the terms in the second clause are the object
of receive or are in apposition with instruction. Delitzsch and
Frankenberg, not so well : to attain intelligent instruction. — Wise
conduct is action which springs from insight and sagacity, in ordi-
nary affairs (i Sam. 18^ Gen. 48" 3® Prov. 10' 14'" al.), and espe-
cially in the moral and religious life (Jer. 3^' xp 1x9^^) . Such action,
in its best sense, is controlled by moral principle, and is accordingly
here defined by several synonymous terms. Justice ( RV. righteous-
ness) is a forensic term, expressing the quality of the character
and action of that one of the two parties to a lawsuit who has the
right on his side, and thus comes to signify right conduct in gen-
* In Kautzsch's Heilige Schrift.
I- 2-5 7
eral. Probity is the procedure of a judge, especially legal deci-
sion (Ju. 4^ 2 Sam. 15^) or custom (i Sam. a"' lo"'), law (Dt. 4''),
God's acts of moral government in the world (Isa. 26' 1/^105^),
then general conduct in accordance with legal decision (assumed
to be morally right) whether made by man or by God. Rectitude
is levelness, straightness, straightforwardness of conduct, as op-
posed to the crooked ways of those who abandon the guidance of
moral truth. These three words are variant expressions of recti-
tude, and thus define the content of the general term wise conduct.
V.^ declares that knowledge of right principle is the basis of true
Hfe ; v.^ assumes that this knowledge necessarily leads to action
controlled by moral principle. — 4. Synonymous, ternary. From
the point of view of the teacher ; lit. : to give discretion, etc. The
inexperienced (RV. simple^ are the uninstructed, the immature ;
the word is here used in a negative, indifferent sense, to indicate
need of instruction (used in v." with bad connotation) . The Heb.
term appears to signify those whose minds are open to influence,
who can be easily led. The parallel youth likewise emphasizes the
idea of immaturity (so that there is no need to substitute a term
= stupid) ; the word may mean babe (Ex. 2*^), child (2 K. 4^),
young man (Ju. i f), or, without respect to age, servant {2 Sam. 9").
The Book of Proverbs addresses itself to men only, not to women ;
the silence respecting the latter is doubtless due to their domestic
isolation and comparative security from grosser temptations ; more
attention is paid them in Ben-Sira {f*'^ 9^ 22*^ 23^^^ 25^^^ 26
36^'"^^ 42^"). — Discretio7i is cleverness in general (Gen. 3^), either
for good (so throughout Pr.) or for evil (Ex. 21"). The synonym
insight, or discretion, is the power of forming plans or perceiving
the best line of procedure for gaining an end, then the plan itself,
good or bad ; in Pr. sometimes employed in a bad sense (12^ 14''^
24*), oftener, as here, in a good sense.
5. Synonymous, quaternary-ternary (possibly ternary). The
telic sense that the wise man may hear (RV. Orelli) is not a
correct rendering of the Heb. ; the hortative sense let . . . hear
(De., Frank.) though not in accordance with the construction of
the rest of the paragraph, is that which best suits the expression
of object which characterizes the introduction. The declarative
8 PROVERBS
rendering is adopted by the Vrss., Schult., Kamph. ; the sentence
then breaks the connection, and must be taken to be parentheti-
cal. It seems, indeed, not to belong here, but in some such
connection as that in which the similar aphorism 9^ now stands.
It is perhaps an old gloss (found in all the Vrss.) the design of
which is to point out that the teaching of wisdom is appropriate
not only for the immature (v.*), but also for the wise. Learning
is that which is received, the content or material of instruction.
The parallel expression in the second clause appears to be a nauti-
cal term (so the Grk. and Lat. Vrss.) derived from the word for
rope, and meaning steering, guidance ; used in Job 37^^ of God's
guidance of the clouds; in Pr. 11" 12^ 20'* 2/^ = counsel, and
here power of guidance, of sound direction of life, = educatioti.
— 6. Synonymous, ternary. The scholarly aim. The verse con-
nects itself immediately with v.^"* ; these refer to the subject-
matter of teaching, v.*' to its form. The allusion here seems to be
to organized schools, and to the habit of Oriental teachers of
couching their instruction in figures, parables, and allegories (see
especially ch. 30). The reference is not to esoteric teaching
intended to conceal the highest wisdom from the mass of men —
there is no evidence that such esoterism existed anywhere in the
ancient world * — though the teacher would naturally speak more
freely to the inner circle of his pupils (cf. Mt. 13**). — The three
terms here employed to describe the form of the sage's instruction
have no exact representatives in English. On proverb see note
on v.^ The meaning of the stem of the second term (n^ba)
appears to be turn, bend ; Gen. 42^ an interpreter is one who
translates discourse from one language into another, and so the
Babylonian ambassadors or interpreters of 2 C. 32^^ ; Isa. 43^ the
mediators or interpreters are the representative men, prophets, and
priests (the Grk. not so well, rulers), who made God's words intel-
Hgible to the people, and the mediating angel oi ]oh 33^ interprets
man's case to God. Our word thus appears to mean a turned or
figurative saying, one that looks toward another sense, a parable ;
in the only other place in which it occurs, Hab. 2^, it has the
* This statement can, I believe, be substantiated. The Greek Mysteries, and
U'.'h 'passages as Dan. 12^, do not form exceptions.
II
I. 5-6 9
connotation of tmmt, sarcasm ; cf. the similar use of prove7-b.
Here it signifies a didactic utterance (rhytlimical in form), in
which the figurative need not be the predominant feature. — The
third expression (rn'Pi) comes in like manner from a stem meaning
turn aside, and signifies some sort of deflected discourse. Its
earliest use seems to be that of riddle, as in Ju. 14, i K. 10*
(= 2 C. 9^) ; in Ez. 17- it = parable, and in Nu. 12'^ the parabolic
or visional form of the ordinary divine communication with priest
or prophet, in contrast with the direct speech which Yahweh
employed with Moses ; in Dan. 8^ Antiochus Epiphanes is de-
scribed as understanding hidoth, which must mean tortuous (mor-
ally tricky) words or procedures ; a shading of scorn and ridicule
appears in Hab. 2®, while in \\i 49'**^^ 78-, as in Pr., the sense is
simply didactic. Here it obviously = a//wm;«j-. — The three
terms are here synonyms. Their etymology indicates that the
earliest teaching was figurative in form (riddle, proverb, parable,
allegory) ; but, as prophecy naturally advanced from ecstatic
utterance to straightforward discourse, so the Israelitish sages
gradually abandoned the figurative form in the interests of clear-
ness, though it continued to be employed by popular teachers.
V.*' assumes that it is a part of good education to understand
the aphorisms of the sages, and these, as Pr. and Ben-Sira show,
were simple and direct expositions and enforcements of duty. —
That a definite class of teachers with some sort of school-organi-
zation existed as early as the third century B.C. appears probable
from the way in which the sages are spoken of in Pr. (especially
22'''-'), and Eccl. 12^^, and from the account given in Pirke
Aboth of the heads of schools and their sayings from the middle
of the second century on. The aphorisms, and particularly the
discourses, in Pr. and Ben-Sira are for the most part not popular
in form, but bear the impress of cultivated thought. Later the
title sages was given to the teachers of the law.*
If v.^ be omitted, v.-"^ ^ form a symmetrical strophe or paragraph :
To know wisdom and instruction, to discern words of understanding,
To receive instruction in wise conduct, in justice and probity and rectitude,
To give discretion to the inexperienced, to the youth knowledge and insight.
To understand proverb and parable, the words of sages and their aphorisms,
* See Schiirer, Jewish People, Eng. tr., II. i. 324.
lO AikMT ^ PROVERBS
7. The motto. — Antithetic, quaternary. This general definition
of wisdom may be regarded as the motto of the whole book, and is
probably to be ascribed to the final editor ; see i// 1 1 1"\ The begin-
ning of knowledge, its choicest feature, its foremost and essential
element, is said to be the fear of Yahiveh. The term fear goes
back historically to the dread which was felt in the presence of the
powerful and stern tribal or national deity ; Semitic deities were in
the historical period generally conceived of as lords or kings, exer-
cising constant control over their peoples, and inflicting punishment
on them for disobedience. This is the prevailing attitude of the
pious man toward God throughout the OT. ; only the sentiment
gradually advances from the form of mere dread of the divine
anger to that of reverence for the divine law. It never entirely
loses, however, the coloring implied in the word fear. The OT.
ethical conception of life is not love of a moral ideal as the
supreme good, but regard for it as an ordination of the supreme
authority ; the world is looked on not as a household in which
God and man are co-workers, but as a realm in which God is king
and man is subject. This conception, the result of the moral
strenuousness of the Jewish people and of their Oriental govern-
mental scheme of life, helped to develop moral strictness. It is a
fundamental principle of moral life, though not the only principle.
The idea of the Hebrew sage is that he who lives with reverent
acknowledgment of God as lawgiver will have within his soul a
permanent and efficient moral guide ; other conditions of ethical
experience, such as native character, knowledge, temptation, sur-
roundings, are left unmentioned, not deliberately excluded, but
omitted because they are not prominent in the writer's thought ;
his purpose is to emphasize the one principle of reverence as
paramount, and he identifies the man's own moral ideal with the
divine moral law. — The use of the name Yahiveh instead of the
more general Elohim is not significant as to date or as to ethical
feeling. Yahweh, though in name nothing but the national deity
of the Jews, is here regarded as the supreme and only God. The
personal name was gradually replaced by the Lord (as in the
ancient Versions, except the Targum), or the Holy One (as in
the Talmud), or God (as in Ezra, Neh., Eccles., and some
Psalms), but, as appears from some late Psalms, continued to
1-7 II
be freely used, in certain circles, down to the second century b.c.
It is possible, however, that both in Egypt and in Palestine it was,
in this later time, though written, not pronounced, but replaced in
reading by Adonay {the Lord). — The second clause states, not
formally but in substance, the antithesis to the first, the sense
being : " absence of the fear of Yahweh (in fools) is negation (con-
tempt) of wisdom." The fool is primarily a person lacking in good
sense in general, uninstructed (Isa. 35*), unskilled (Pr. 11-"), or
offensively ignorant (10* 20" 29^), then, as here, one who is lacking
in the highest wisdom, and therefore devoid of piety toward God
(so the Grk. here). Such an one despises wisdom, is ignorant of
and does not value its high function, nor accept it as guide. —
Instead of the couplet of the Heb. the Grk, has a quatrain :
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God,
And a good understanding have all they that practise it;
Piety toward God is the beginning of knowledge.
But wisdom and instruction the impious will set at naught.
The second line of this quatrain now stands in \^ in"*, and the
third line appears to be a doublet of the first (except that the
terms wisdom and knowledge exchange places), but may be an
original parallelism. Whether the longer form of the Greek is an
expansion of Heb. or Grk. scribes, or belongs to the original
reading, it is difficult to say. As this verse is an isolated apho-
rism, its length does not affect the rhythmical structure of the
succeeding discourse. Cf. BS. i'^'^.
I. 1. The primitive sense of the stem ''i'D is doubtful. In all Semitic
languages it means to be like or equal, in Canaanitish (Heb., Phoen.) also
to rule, and in Arab, to stand erect, be etninent, superior. The original
force is perhaps to be alongside of, above (cf. ^y = on, superposition, and at,
juxtaposition), whence the notions of similarity and superiority. See Schul-
tens, Prov., Fleischer (in De.), Ges. Thes., BDB. — ?§ '-Nii'^ "l^c; 6 6's
efiacTlXeva-ei' iv 'la-pa-qX, possibly a variant reading (cf. Eccl. i^), but hardly
an indication (Jiiger) that the Grk. translator considered the paragraph v.i-«
to be non-Solomonic. — 2. The primary sense of the stem odh seems (from
the Arab.) to be frm, fixed, whence the verb control, restrain, and the
noun fixedness of opinion, knowledge. — 3. ^yvT\ is taken as = intelligence,
tvisdom, by Oort, TheoL Tijdsclu, xix. 380 (ft doctrinae), as in Dan. l";
the Inf. occurs elsewhere in Pr. twice, in 21II = make wise, teach, in aii^
= wise conduct; the latter sense is preferable here. onriD is collective
12 PROVERBS
plu., a i?iass of equitable actions = equity ; syn. -nu^r, Mai. 2* Tsa. il* i/' 456(').
A different sense occurs in Dan. ii^. — (g divides the v. into three stiches :
di^aa-dal re crTpo<pas XSydiv, voijcral re biKaioffvvqv dXrjdrj, Kai Kpifia KarevOvveiv.
On arp. Xoy. see Schleusner, Lex. What Heb. it represents is doubtful; Lag.
ni3DiD turnings (of. Ez. ^v--^), which, however, is not used of speech; Hei-
denheim (in Vierteljahrsschr. f. theol. Forsch., ii. 401) -\Di2 •'np^, the teachings of
discipline, which hardly explains © ; voy\<Tai = ^yVT\'^, dXrjdTJ is scribal insertion
(Lag., on the contrary, rejects 8(.k. as usual rendering), /car. = some form of
"\s'% perh. n;:'':: taken as Inf., less probably Hif. li'in. IL = |^. & to receive
instruction and fear, where .sp'?m seems to be scribal error. 2C = |^, except
that it prefixes i to pii". — Graetz inserts tt\-^\-^ before noic (as in 6'^'^), and
writes Vo'i'n'^ and anr^iD idd^'"-, making a tristich (so (5). — 4. cn', written
V.-2 32 nv-ig; the n is vowel-letter, and should be omitted. St. h-q = open,
wide (Gen. 9'^"), then to he persuaded, enticed, seduced ; v-f) open-tninded, per-
suadable, simple-minded, inexperienced ; Ar. fata = broad-minded, generous,
and young man, fatwd = legal decision (opening, expounding of a legal ques-
tion), mufti — judge. — |^ np*?; (5 'iva. Sy, free rendering. |§ "i":"'; (S TraiSi
5^ vii^, in which f^ijj is perh. dittogram (Jag.), but may be orig. (Lag.) ; accord-
ing to Heid, it is miswriting of vio%, the two words tt. and v. being designed to
form a parallel to plu. 'r. For lyj Graetz unnecessarily writes -\"2 stupid.
Rashi ijjj = i;?ijD cast out from or destitute of learning. — 5. A telic force for
jJDt:"' is hardly supported by such a construction as that of ^'Dti'1 Isa. 13^ in
which the two clauses are closely coml:>ined. — "I'l'^n- is denominative noun
of action; © KvfSipvrjffiv, 3L gubernactila, A29 gubernationes ; on S'^ see
notes of Lag. and P'ield; Fleischer (in De.) compares Ar. tadblr, Syr. duboro.
— V.^ is regarded as interpolation by Ziegler, and as parenthetical by Wilde-
boer. — 6. ?§ ''X'^r; © crKOTeivov \6yov; AG epfievelav, and so 3L Rashi, AV.,
against the parallelism, the interpretation, marg. an eloquent speech ; W^ .figure.
— 7. On the etymology of "^mn as = thick, dull, stupid, see Fleisch., De., SS.,
BDB.; Malbim, Heid. (in De.) sceptic, from '''?in perhaps. — Bickell {PViener
ZKJlf. v. 86) adopts the reading of (§ on the ground that beginning of wisdorn
as well as beginning of knotvledge is here absolutely necessary; he holds that the
Psalmist took the passage from Pr. and that the translator of the ^ followed the
translation of Pr., the clause falling out of ||J by homoeoteleuton. It is, how-
ever, equally possible that Pr. followed the ■^. Further, it is not clear what Heb.
would be represented by (5 eva^^eia eh debv, which Bickell renders liy rwn"^ nNn^;
but evff. nowhere else represents t, and the expression looks like original Greek
rather than like a translation. It is found in CI. Al., .Strom., 161. The Heb.
author may have written njji in first clause because he had nnsn in second.
8-19. Discourse against organized robbery : exhortation to
listen to instruction (v.''- ") ; the temptation to robbery and
murder (v."*"'^) ; warning against it, fate of the robber (v.'^^**).
— The arrangement is in couplets, with varying number of beats.
I. 8-9 13
Bickell further arranges it in quatrains : v.» »' '"• "• '^' " "• "• ^^' '» ".
The text is not quite clear ; some good emendations are suggested
by the Greek.
8. Hear, my son, thy father's instruction,
And forsake not the admonition of thy mother;
9. For a chaplet of beauty they will be to thy head,
And chains about thy neck.
10. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not,* —
11. If they say: "Come with us,
Let us lay wait for the > perfect,*
Let us lurk for the innocent [],
12. Let us, like Sheol, swallow them alive,
Sound as they who go down to the Pit;
13. All precious wealth we shall find,
We shall fill our houses with spoil;
14. Cast thou thy lot among' us,
One purse we all will have," —
15. [] Walk not in company with them.
Keep thy feet from their paths; f
17. For in vain the net is spread
In the sight of any bird, —
18. And they for their own blood lay wait.
They lurk for their own lives.
19. Such is the t fate > of all who by violence seek gain :
It destroys the lives of its possessors.
8, 9. Exhortation. V.^ is synonymous, ternary ; v.^ synony-
mous, ternary-binary. On instfuction see note on v.-. Aiinwni-
tio7i (Heb. tora, sometimes = laiu) is here synonym of instruction.
Forsake, more exactly reject, repel. Chains = necklace. The
address my son = my pupil, is characteristic of chs. 1-9, and
also, though less markedly, of 22*^-24-^; it occurs once (27")
in the section chs. 25-29, and once (19""^) in the central division
* Perhaps better :
10. My son, if sinners entice thee,
11. If they say : Let us lay wait for the ■ perfect,'
12. Let us, like Sheol, swallow them alive,
Sound as they who go down to the Pit ;
"? 16. For their feet run to evil.
And haste to shed blood.
H
PROVERBS
of the Book, 10^-2 2'^ It indicates an organized system of instruc-
tion, probably in schools ; see note on v.'' above. The instruction
here mentioned, however, is that not of sages but of parents. It
is assumed that the teaching of father and mother will be wise,
and this moral training of home would naturally form the basis of
the fuller instruction of the schools. The reference is to the
moral law in general, not specifically to the Tora (Law of Moses),
though this would naturally be the foundation of Jewish home
teaching. The Talmud (Ber. 35 a, Pes. 50^, Sanh. 102 a) explains
father here as = "God," and mother as = " Israel " (Ez. 19^) ;
according to Rashi the instruction of the father is what God gave
to Moses in writing and orally, while the law of the mother means
the words of the Scribes or Rabbis whereby they made a hedge to
the Law.* Ornaments of head and neck were anciently worn by
men as well as by women. t
10-19. Alliance with bands of robbers and murderers can be
attended only with disaster. The organized robbery here referred
to suggests city Hfe of the later time, the periods when, under
Persian and Greek rule, Jerusalem and Alexandria sheltered a
miscellaneous population, and a distinct criminal class became
more prominent. The references in the preexilian prophets are
to a less organized sort of crime ; they speak rather of legalized
oppression of the poor by the rich ; see Am. 8^ "^ Hos. 4^ 6** '•' 7^
Isa. \^' f- lo' Mic. 2^ 33 6»2 f-^ Zeph. 3^ Jer. s^^ f^' Ez. iS^'^'^
22^^; the passages in Hos. are the only ones that seem to relate
to bands of robbers, and they represent a state of anarchy under
the last kings of Samaria. The description here might be under-
stood (so Frank.) as referring not to literal robbery and murder,
but to spoliation under legal forms ; but the language of the para-
graph (v."- ^^) and the manner of I. (portrayal of open vice,
chs. 5. 6. 7) favor the former view. Frank, compares BS. 31^*^.
10. The rhythm is irregular : the first clause is ternary, the
second has only one beat ; the latter might be attached to v.", or
* On the education of Jewish children see J. Wiesen, Gesch. u. Meth. d. Schul-
wesen im talmud. Alferthume ; for the Greek customs, Becker, Charicles, Eng. tr.,
pp. 217 ff. ; for the Roman, Gallus, pp. 182 ff.
t See Ju. 826; Masp6ro, Anc. Egypt and Assyria ; Becker, Char., 198, n. 6, Gal.,
429 ff.
I. 8-12 15
omitted as gloss, and ^°- "* will then form the couplet. — Sinners
is the general term for wrongdoers, persons of bad moral charac-
ter, etymologically " those who miss the mark " ; they are men who
fail in the performance of duty, and thus miss the aim of life.
The noun occurs most frequently in Ps. and Pr. (13^^ 23''), the
verb is common in all parts of OT. Instead of the conditional
construction the Grk. has the hortative : /et not impious men lead
thee astray, but the conditional protasis is a natural if not neces-
sary preliminary to the hortative apodosis of v.'*. — 11. A triplet
in the Heb., ternary-binary-binary ; the verse division is doubtful
(see note on v.'°) . The Heb. text instead of perfect has blood,
and at the end of the verse adds without cause ; the first emenda-
tion (requiring the change of one Heb. letter) is called for by the
parallelism, and the addition without cause is superfluous, since
the victims are described as innocent. If the reading blood be
retained, it must be understood elliptically, as = to shed blood ; it
cannot be taken (Fleisch. in De.) to mean a youth, a young blood.
The adv. without cause must qualify the verb lurk ; the translation
innocent in vain (that is, their innocence does not save them),
while grammatically possible, does not accord with the connec-
tion. — Bloodshed is assumed to be a natural accompaniment of
robbery, and it is accomplished by lying in wait in the dark places
of the city. Ancient cities were badly lighted at night, and not
usually well policed. Cf. ^ lo^ — 12. Synonymous, ternary. The
word rendered sound is generally used of moral completeness
= perfect (Gen. 6^ Pr. 2^^), and is here so taken by some (as
Kamph.) ; but the parallelism favors the physical sense in full
bodily health and strength, equivalent to the parallel alive (as in
Ez. 15'', cf. the ritual use, Ex. 12^ al.). The sense of the passage
is : we will swallow them (Grk. him) alive and sound so that
they shall be as completely destroyed from the earth as those that
go down by course of nature into the pit of Sheol (that is, those
who die). Sheol (and so its equivalent the Fit) is the Under-
world, the abode of the dead, good and bad, a cheerless place
whose denizens have no occupation (Eccl. 9'**) and no relations
with Yahweh * (Isa. 38"^) ; descent to it is a misfortune, since it
* It is probable that in the oldest form of the Heb. religion (as in the Baby-
lonian) Sheol was under the control of a separate deity, independent of Yahweh ;
1 6 PROVERBS
deprives man of activity and happiness, but not a punishment ex-
cept when it is premature (i/' ss'^*-"")- — The second clause reads
in the Grk, : and let us take away the reviembrance of him from
the earth (cf. i/' 34^^''^' 109*^), which represents a different Heb.
text from ours, the general sense being unchanged ; in the Heb.
the parallelism to the first clause is presented in the adj. sound, in
the Grk. in the verb take away. The course of thought favors the
Heb. ; the Grk. is probably an imitation of the psalm-passage. —
13. Synonymous, ternary. The object of the assault is treasure ;
the house is to be broken into (Mt. 6*^). The robbers have their
own houses, are residents of the city. The Vrss. give slightly
different readings ; i& : let us seize his costly possessions ; S> : all
his wealth and glory; ST: all wealth and glory (or property).
^ gives a good sense = " all sorts of wealth." — 14. Synony-
mous, ternary. The word lot is primarily the thing (a die or
something of the sort) used to procure the answer of the deity
(as by Urim and Thummim) to a question (Lev. 16*), then the
thing assigned to the questioner by the divine decision (Jud, i^),
then in general one's part in life (Jer. 13^ ij/ 16^ Dan. 12'^) ; east
thy lot among us = share our fortunes, identify thyself with us.
The disposition of the booty indicates a regular organization in
the robber-band. There is to be one purse, a common fund of
spoil to be equitably distributed among the members of the gang.
This is held out as an inducement to the neophyte, who would
thus get more than he could hope to gain by his own separate
efforts. Murder is lightly passed over by the robbers as a natural
and easy feature of their occupation ; the young man is supposed
to be accessible to the temptation of easily acquired wealth. The
picture of manners here given is historically valuable. For another
interpretation see note above (on v.^'^^''). — 15-19. The reason
for avoiding such companions : their path, though it may be tem-
porarily successful, leads finally to destruction. — 15. Synonymous,
ternary. The received Hebrew text begins the verse with 7ny son,
as in v.^", and a justification for this expression may be found
btttitrOT. there is HCT trace of any drvine 'government in the Underworld (which is
an isolated and anomalous place) till late postexilic times when the one God
became universal (Job 14I8 268) and the idea of resurrection arose (Dan. 12-, cf.
the doubtful Isa. 2619).
I. 12-17 17
in the length of the prehminary description, v.^""", which might
make the resumptive my son natural (Baumg.) ; but, on the other
hand, as it is not found in (©, is unnecessary at the beginning
of tKe apodosis, and is rhythmically undesirable, it is better to
omit it. — 16. Synonymous, ternary. On both internal and exter-
nal grounds this verse is probably to be regarded as a scribal
insertion. It breaks the connection between v.*'' and v.'", the
latter of which gives the ground (namely, the peril of the robbers'
course) for the exhortation of the former ; apd the section v.'^'^
is devoted to a description not of the character of the robbers
(which is given in v.^*^") but of their fate. Verse ^^, further, is
identical with Isa. 59'% and is not found in the best Grk. MSS.
It appears to be the gloss of a scribe who thought a reference to
the bloodthirstiness of the robber-band here appropriate, or wrote,
as a remark, on the margin this parallel expression, which was
then inserted in the text by a subsequent scribe. — In the second
clause we may take /<?<?/ as subject of make haste, or we may insert
the subject they (the robbers). — 17. Single sentence, ternary.
This statement is introductory to that of v.'*^, and its meaning is
fixed by the relation between the two : v.'* declares that the
robber murderer's course is destructive to him, and v.'^ must
therefore set forth the destruction and the blindness not of the
victim but of the murderer himself; the comparison refers not to
the futility of laying snares in the sight of birds (who thus see the
trap and avoid it), but to the blindness and folly of birds who,
though the snare is laid in their sight, nevertheless fall into it. In
like manner the criminal, blinded by desire for gain, fails to see
the snare which God (working through society and law) spreads
for him, and falls irredeemably into it. The connection is not :
go not with them, the net which they spread for thee is clearly
visible, thou wilt surely not be blinder than a bird (Ziegl., De.),
but : go not with them, for, like silly birds, they fall into the net,
and thou wilt be entrapped with them (Ew., Nowack, Strack., al.,
and cf. Schultens). Frank, renders : for tmthout success is the
net spread, etc., that is, the efforts of the snarers [the sinners] are
without result for themselves — they catch no birds ; a possible
sense and good in itself, but the couplet appears to state a fact
always true of bird-snaring. Moreover, the sage probably intends
I 8 PROVERBS
not to deny that sinners get booty, but to affirm that, though they
get it, it does not profit them in the end. — A different text is
offered by (3, which reads: for not in vain are nets spread for
birds (inserting not, and neglecting in the sight of), that is, not in
vain are there pitfalls for criminals in the shape of human laws and
dispensations of God — they (v.^*) are laying up punishment for
themselves. This gives a natural connection of thought, but looks
hke an interpretation of a text not understood. — The Heb. ex-
pression possessor of wings, = bird, is found only here and Eccl.
lo^. — 18. Synonymous, ternary-binary. Their criminal proced-
ure, begun for their profit, turns out to be a plot against them-
selves ; they overreach themselves and become the executors of
their own doom. It is not said how this result is brought about,
but the allusion doubtless is to human law and divine judgments.
This is the old-IsraeUtish view that wrongdoing will be punished
in this life — perhaps also the belief that criminals cannot in the
long run escape the vigilance of the law. — (^ for they who have
to do with blood lay tip evils for themselves, and the overthrow of
lawless tnen is grievous, in which the first clause is incorrect ren-
dering of the whole Heb. verse, and the second clause is a parallel,
probably a scribal addition ; the contrast given in oivn blood is
ignored, in accordance with the Grk. reading of v.'". — 19. Single
sentence, ternary. Lit. : such a;r the ways, the manner and out-
come of life (or, the sense latter end, fate, may be got by a shght
change in the Heb. word) . Grk., second cl. : for by impiety they
destroy their lives, an appropriate idea, but here probably not origi-
nal. See 15^ 28^" Job 8'^ Hos. 4". The term gain has here the
connotation of violence, injustice, as in Ez. 22"; the simple sense
profit is found in Gen. 37-^ Mai. 3" Job 22^ — The argument of the
section v.^^"^^ is an appeal not directly to the sense of right, but to
rational self-regard : robbery and murder bring destruction on the
perpetrator, and must therefore be avoided. The connection,
however, indicates that this law of prudence is regarded as the
law of God,
9. dmS, only here and 4', lit. twisted, any adornment for the head, pjy
apparently a denom. from py; neck, a word which occurs in Jew. Aram, and
Arab., but not in Heb. Graetz, with little probability, emends to nS^Sj perfect.
Sh omits. — J^ 1D1"; ©B -waibdav, (5"<AC v6fji.ovs (and so S) ; the latter is prob.
I. 17-19 19
scribal variation (cf. 6^"), hardly (Lag.) rendering of ^D1DJ for idij:; Heid.
holds that it comes from a Pharisaic hand. — |^ 3^ ; (g^ S^^y, (5*^ ^^77, perh.
free rendering (Heid.: allusion to phylacteries), perh. representing a variant
reading, though the original in that case is not apparent. — 10, 11. (§ divides
\}0- 11 as follows : A/y son, let not impious men seduce thee. Nor consent thou
if they urge thee, saying, Come %vith us, go shares in blood. And let us hide
the just man unjustly in the earth. Bickell, omitting ^<'* for rhythmical
reasons, writes : Consent not if they say, come with us. Let us lay wait for
blood, let us lurk for the innocent. The Heb. rhythm is not satisfactory, but
it is hardly improved by these variations. Bickell's omission of i"" is
unwarranted, and the resulting form is not good, either rhythmically or
rhetorically. O is rhythmically better, but its rendering of J^ is partly
incorrect, partly free. J^ may be retained if we suppose i"'' to be purposely
short, and take ^^ as couplet : If they say, come with us. Let us lay wait for
the perfect, let us lurk for the innocent, or, if we throw out I"''- i*<=, and part
of ^'*, and take the rest as couplet. It is hardly possible to recover the
original form. — 10. 3§ 3N; (5 /xt) = "?«. — |^ nj'.t (from hjn), in which the
N and a have changed places (full form njs.-), or the n is the writing of an
Aram, scribe for n, the initial !< of the stem being omitted because it was
unpronounced. The regular form naxn is found in a number of MSS. (see
De' Rossi), and either it should here be written, or we should, with Bi., write
3Nh; in several MSS. the verb is understood as .xo (ni^"', N3n), which is
improbable. — 11. After noN'' ©S have 1^, perh. repetition from following
HD*?. (5 irapaKaXicrwcn may = 'n\ — 1§ nj-i.sj; (§ Koivdjv-qaov, from 2~\y or ~\2n
(Lag.). — 1§ :3"''^; Dyserinck, Theol. Tijd. 17, 578, reads Ti"^^, which suits the
next clause; Oort, ib., 19, 381, holds that the reading of v.^^ (which ver. is
clearly parallel to v.^^) sustains ai here. — |^ njssj seems to be intrans. (as
apparently in ^ 10* 56") ; elsewhere the Qal is trans., and so it is here taken
by Frank, who renders: we will set (a trap). — 1§ ^?i^', (S &vdpa dlKaiov,
either not having the ■?, or (Lag.) taking it, according to the Aram, const., as
sign of Ace. — J^ Din, found in the Vrss. (& vX.tj3 maliciously), but superflu-
ous, and probably a gloss (Bi.). The whole clause may be omitted without
detriment to the sense, and with advantage to the rhythm. — 12. J§ D>''^3J;
Graetz Pi., as in 19"^ 21"^''. — As 2d clause (5 has Kal dpoi/xei' avTov ttjv /xfrifiriv
^K 7^s, representing the Heb. of \p 34!^ 109^^, perh. editorial variation; Lag.
suggests that, the Heb. text of <3 being effaced, it took the appropriate
passage from the Ps.; for ^ cd^'DPI may have stood annji; Heid. supposes
that (5 may have had nmND aniyni OOP', improb. late Heb.— 13. ^ \ r\;
(S Trju KT^tTLv airou; Bi. Dyn, not so good a reading as that of |§. —
14. J^ '^'s^ ; (SILSC have Impv., which is better, though not absolutely
necessary, since the assertory form of statement is possible; Bi. omits 'n as
marring the parallelism, but thy lot is with us is hard. — (S"* has a doublet, a
free and a literal rendering; the former is probably the original (Jag., Lag.,
Baumgartner), the latter a correcting gloss — 15. |^ 'n; <§"''•* vU, FI-P 23
(= V), 252, 254, 295, 297, vU ixov, lacking in (S^^^^C^ and should probably be
20 PROVERBS
omitted. — J^ li^nj sing.; plu. in (SILSST and several Heb. MSS., the diff. not
appearing in script, defect. — ?§ i-iiD, lacking in IL De'R 249. — 16. Wanting
in the uncials of (S (exc. nc. a A) and in Copt. (Sahidic and Memphitic) ;
Cod. 23 (of H-P) adds to it from Rom. 3!^- ^'', and the cursives which contain
it place it some before and some after v.^". It appears not to belong to the
original text. — After ai S) has x''Dr (= •'i"';, as in Isa. 59"). — 17. <@ prefixes
01); S has 1 instead of i^, and for jl^ n-i';j plu. act. Part. X'Z'-sn. — |^ ni'fD in
sense of spread is difficult, the word elsewhere meaning scatter, tvinnow ;
Schult. here ventilatum ; Rashi, in vain is ingrain') scattered {on) the net.
We should perhaps read n^'i n-jnDD (@ St/cri/a) or 'i ^t'^s Ojn, which is
phonetically not too hard. In Hos. 5' @ renders a by iKreiveiv, which is its
expression here. — "^ ■';j; plu. in (Sll'lr. and 4 Heb. MSS. — 18. f^ niN-;
(B Mc^^X<"'^fs; see v.i^. |§ cm; (gBal. ^,3^01; (H-P 23 at/xdrojc) — a'D", not
so well. <&, rendering ijDii by Orjcravpl^ovffii', adds KaKci as necessary comple-
ment. ,S appears to make v.^^ a continuation of v.^'' (Pink.) — 19. |^ nims;
(5 nnn.'!, probably to be adopted; see 5* Nu. 23^1^ ^^jST.ss 731'; '-\n is not
elsewhere used as = fate, the sense here required by the connection. —
?§ ,^V-); (5 T3 do-e/Sei^i = n-rjz (Jag.).
20-33. The appeal of Wisdom. — Wisdom, standing in a public
place, exhorts the ignorant and the scornful to listen to her words,
threatening them with destruction if they refuse. The section is
independent, having no immediate connection with the preceding
or the succeeding context. It resembles the first half of ch. 8,
but is minatory while that is persuasive in tone. As the text
stands, it is arranged in couplets (except v,^-^^-'-"'^ which are trip-
lets), which may be naturally combined into quatrains. After the
introduction (v.™-^') comes the address, which consists of a denun-
ciation (v.^--^^), the charge of disregard of her teaching (v.'''*"-^), a
description of the fate of the despisers (v.^^^), and a contrast
between the doom of fools and the happiness of the obedient
^y32. 33^^ Wisdom is personified, as in chs. 8. 9.
20. Wisdom cries aloud in the streets,
In the broad places utters her voice,
21. Calls out at the head of the > high places,'
In the gates of the gateways [] * she says:
22. How long, ye dullards, will ye love ignorance [] f,
And fools hate knowledge?
* The Heb. adds : in the city.
t The Heb. adds ; and scoffers delight in scoffing.
I. 20-2I 21
23- [] * I will utter my mind to you,
Will tell you my decision :
24. Because I have called, and ye refused,
I have stretched out my hand, and none regarded,
25. Ye have ignored all my counsel.
My admonition ye have rejected, —
26. I, in my turn, will laugh in [the day of] your calamity,
I will mock when your disaster comes,
27. When your disaster comes like a storm.
And your calamity like a whirlwind. [] f
28. Then will they call on me, but I will not answer.
They will seek me, but will not find me,
29. For that they hated knowledge,
And chose not the fear of Yahweh.
30. They would none of my counsel.
All my admonition they despised;
31. Therefore they shall eat of the fruit of their own conduct.
And be sated with their own counsels.
32. For the indifference of the insensate will slay them.
The careless ease of fools will destroy them,
2^. But whoso hearkens to me will dwell secure,
Will be free from fear of harm.
The interpretation of the paragraph depends in part on the
view taken of the relation between v.^' ^ and the following verses.
If the former are held to contain an exhortation to repentance
(v.^''*), they can hardly be closely connected with the latter, since
these presume that the call of Wisdom has been rejected, and the
discourse should state, after v.^^, the repellant answer of the per-
sons addressed ; as the text stands, v.-^^ constitute a separate
discourse which states the result of disobedience. Unity of
thought may be gained by omitting v.-^*, and taking the whole
piece as minatory, the connection being : you have turned a deaf
ear to me long enough (v.^^), I have lost patience and will tell you
my decision (v.^) : because you have refused, etc. (v."^^^).
20, 21. Introduction: the publicity of Wisdom's appeal. —
Synonymous, ternary. After gaiervays the Heb. has in the city her
* V.23a in the Heb. : turn ye to my admonition.
\ Heb. v.^i"" : when distress and anguish befall you.
22 PROVERBS
words she says ; the expressions in the city and her words, which
mar the rhythm in the original, appear to be glosses, the former
intended as an explanation oi gateiuays (stating definitely that the
reference is to city gates), the latter noting that the following
verses give the words then uttered by Wisdom. The Grk. has a
somewhat different reading : IVisdo/n sings in the streets (lit. exits),
in the broad places boldly speaks, proclaims 07i the summits of the
walls, sits at the gates of princes, at the gates of the city boldly says ;
this seems to be partly misreading, partly expansion, of our Heb.
text. — Broad places are the wide open spaces in front of city
gates ; instead of high places the Heb. has a word which is com-
monly rendered noisy places, understood to mean crowded thor-
oughfares (including bazaars and market-places) ; but this sense
is doubtful, and a better term is given in 8^ {.high places), or by
Sept. {walls) ; walls may be included in the high places ; these,
together with streets and gate7oays, were gathering-places for the
people. The gateway was a long structure entered at the extremi-
ties through gates. The verb cries aloud expresses an excited
emotional utterance, usually of joy (Lev. (f^ Isa. 12^ Job 38'^),
sometimes of sorrow (Lam. 21^^), or general excitement (1/' 78''''),
here of intensity of feeling. — Wisdom does not content herself
with being wise at home, but seeks men out in their everyday
life — she is a preacher. The custom of speaking in places of
concourse was an old one, familiar to the prophets ; see Jer. 7^,
and cf. Mic. i* Isa. 20- Jer. 5' ; so also Socrates (Xen., Mem. I. i,
10). The later Jewish custom resembles both that of the proph-
ets and that of the Greek philosopher, the former in its hortatory
tone, the latter in its reflective, ethical subject-matter. The choice
of the term wisdom to denote the religious teacher points to a
phase of life which came after the great prophetic period (in the
prophets wisdom is not religious), and probably indicates the
influence of the Greek atmosphere in which the Jews lived from
the close of the fourth century B.C. on* (see Introduction, § 6).
* Cf. the similar use of wisdom in Ben-Sira, Ecc!., Wisd. of Sol. The title
Koheleth, given in Eccl. to Wisdom (speaking in the person of Solomon), if, as
is possible, it means a caller (or member^ of a public assembly, supposes acquaint-
ance with Grk. forms of life; see the commentaries of Tyler, Plumptre, Reuss,
Siegfried, Wildeboer, and Cheyne's Job and Solomtn.
I. 20-23 23
The exhortation in Prov. is not : put away all other gods and
serve Yahweh alone, or : bring offerings to the temple according
to the Law, but : listen to reason and conscience, which are the
voice of God in the soul.
22-33. The discourse of wisdom in the received Heb. text
falls naturally into two parts, an invitation, v.^" ^, and a denuncia-
tion, v.^^ The connection between the divisions is not clear
(see note above on v.^*^^). The denunciation is introduced
abruptly, as if the invitation had been refused, though nothing
is said of a refusal. On this point the Versions offer nothing
different from the Heb., and there is not good ground for exten-
sive alterations of the text (see below). A closer connection
between the parts might be secured by giving v.^*"^ the condi-
tional form, the apodosis following in v.-*^, but against this is the
form of the verbs in v."''" -^. Failing this we shall have to consider
the divisions as separate discourses, or suppose that an explana-
tory transitional statement has fallen out after v.^^, or, what seems
most satisfactory, omit v.^"' ; v.^- ^ will then contain not an invita-
tion, but a denunciation. Cf the connectedness and smoothness
of the similar discourse 8'"".
22, 23. The Heb. has two triplets : v." is quaternary-quaternary-
ternary, v.^^ binary-ternary-ternary ; on the text see below. The
three classes of persons are practically the same, though the
words have different shades of meaning. Dullards (or simple-
tons, RV. simple) are the inexperienced (v."*), here those who
positively love ignorance, and deliberately refuse to listen to
instruction in right living. — The terms scoffing (or scorn) and
scoffer (or scorner) belong almost exclusively to the later relig-
ious vocabulary of Pss., Pr. ; they occur elsewhere only Hos. 7^
Isa. 28"-^ 29^" Job 16^, in which passages they express contempt
in general ; in Pr. scoffer — bad ma7i, one who turns his back on
what is good (so \\i i'), the special element of contempt not
being significant; the simple sense occurs in 20^. In i/' 119^^ the
reference is to apostate Jews or foreign enemies ; in Pr. there
is no reference to the nation Israel. — Fool (Heb. kesil) is also
a term of the reflective moral literature, occurring, in the intel-
lectual or ethical sense, only in Pss., Pr., Eccl. (the verb is
24 PROVERBS
found once, Jer. lo") ; it seems to mean a stolid, dull person,
in Pr. one who is insensible to moral truth and acts without
regard to it. By these three terms the sages express the con-
trast to that wisdom which consists in acceptance of and
obedience to the divine law of conduct written in man's heart.
— As only two of these classes {duilards and fools) are mentioned
in v.^^ (which is a r^sum^ of the preceding statement), there is
ground for supposing v.^^ to be a scribal addition ; Wisdom is
here dealing with the unwise. — In v.^^ of the Heb. these persons
are urged to listen to instruction, to turn (that is, give heed) to
(not at) the admonition of Wisdom ; she promises to impart her
knowledge to them. Admonition (or, reproof) (used chiefly in
Pss., Pr.) is exhortation tinged with imputation of blameworthiness.
For the reason given above this line should probably be omitted ;
the remaining couplet (v.-^) will then be Wisdom's declaration th;it
she now utters her final word. The word rendered utter (RV.
pour out) is a poetical synonym of speak ; so 15""^ i/' 19^*^' 78" 94''
191''' 145' ; and mind {spirit) = thought, here = purpose or deter-
mination. The Heb. word commonly rendered spirit means first
wind and so breath, and then the inward life or being; in Pr.
it generally has this last sense, as 11^^ i6--^^ 25^* 29" (so Isa. 40"
the mind, judgment of Yahweh). Here the meaning is given by
the parallelism : / ivill tell (or make known) my words — I will
utter my thought* The ivords (here = decision) and the mind
are stated in the following address (v.^*"^^). My spirit may also
= myself. — The Heb. introduces the second line of v.^ with
behold. — # construes the two verses differently : So long as the
guileless hold fast to righteousness they shall not be ashamed, but
the foolish, being lovers of insolence, have become impious, have
hated knowledge, a7id have become liable to reproof; behold I
will pour forth to you the utterance of my breath, and teach you
my word. The declarative form (instead of the interrogation
of the Heb.) is improbable, and the contrast in v.-^ is against
the connection. — Bickell reads : Hoia long will ye love ignorance,
and scorners delight them in scorning, and fools hate knozvledge
and incur my reproof? He thus gains a rhythmically symmetrical
* So Salomon ben Melek, cited by Heid.
I. 22-27 25
quatrain, and (by obliterating the invitation of v.^^) gets rid of
the break between v."^- ^^ and the rest of the discourse. But the
substitution of incur for turn is arbitrary, v.^^'''' (which he omits)
is a natural introduction to the denunciatory discourse, and the
omission of the subject {dullards) in v.^^'' is, from the parallelism,
improbable. S makes v.^* conditional : if ye turn . . . I will,
etc. ; but this construction only introduces confusion, since v.^''^-
assume that they have not turned.
24-33. The denunciation, consisting of a direct address (v.^*-^),
a description, in 3 pers., of the fate of the recusant (v.^^^^), and
a statement of the contrasted positions of the ignorant and the
wise (v.''^''^).
24-27. Wisdom will mock at the calamity of those who reject
her invitation. — The lines may be read as ternary, but the law or
rule governing the beats is not clear. — v.^*-^' ^ are couplets, v.^" is a
triplet in the Heb. ; the Grk. converts v?'' into a quatrain (or two
couplets) by adding at the end 7vhen destruction comes upon you.
Bickell, by omissions, substitutions, and transpositions, makes out
of v.^® "' a quatrain : / also will laugh in {the day of) your calamity,
when distress and anguish come upon you, I will mock when your
fear comes as a storm and your desolation comes as a whirlwind.
V.^ in the Heb. is expansion of the predicates of v.^^, a recognized
poetical form. It is not necessary to insist on absolutely symmet-
rical couplets at all hazards ; but, as the rest of the paragraph is
arranged in couplets and quatrains, and as the two predicate-terms
of v.-", calamity and disaster, are given in v.^" '', and v.^'= appears
to be an afterthought (a scribal insertion), it is better to omit this
last. — The verbs in v.^''^ refer to Wisdom's invitations in the past,
that is, all the good influences of life ; warning has not been lack-
ing, and on the despised warning follows this minatory discourse.
The first verb in v.^^ is primarily go freely about and let go free,
then neglect, avoid, ignore; the sense of "allowing full play or
license " is found in Ex. 5^ 32"^ Pr. 29'^, that of " neglecting, avoid-
ing," in 4'^ S'^ 13'** i5''-. — Laugh at (instead of laugh in, etc.),
v.^*', is possible (Gen. 39"), but does not agree so well with the
designation of time in the following clause. Mock is stronger than
laugh, expressing bitterness or exulting derision. The / in my
26 PROVERBS
turn (RV. I also) brings out the contrast of persons : "You have
had your turn, and I shall have mine." Disaster is \\\.. fear (par-
allel to ca/ainity) = ground or cause of fear. Instead of storm we
may render by desolation (RV. niarg.), but the former sense is
favored by the parallelism. Distress and anguish are synonyms
(cf. Isa. 8" 30''), both signifying distressful limitation, straitness,
opposed to largeness, freedom of movement {\p 31*^'-'' 118^). Befall
is lit. eome upon. \ .""" is probably not original ; see note above.
— The address is minatory. The offence (v.^^ -^) is disregard of
the exhortation of Wisdom — she has implored, they have turned a
deaf ear. Their posture of mind is that of deliberate disregard —
they have had sufficient warning. Whether their neglect came
from lack of previous training, or from superficiality and frivolity
of nature, or from conscious choice of evil in preference to good,
is not said. The picture is presented objectively : these persons,
for whatever reason, are outside the domain of Wisdom. This
objective view is characteristic of the old-Israelitish thought, which
does not seek nice psychological distinctions ; the prophets judge
individuals and nations by their relation to the law of Yahweh or
to the nation Israel, without examination of mental experiences ;
compare also the distinction, in the Fourth Gospel, between the
domains of light and darkness. Solidity of ethical judgment is
thereby gained, though at the cost of sympathetic discrimination.
— The result (v.-" '') is that when the punishment comes the dis-
obedient will be without the support of Wisdom. The calamity
(as everywhere in Pr.) occurs in this life — -it is not said to be
inflicted by Wisdom, but comes in the natural course of things ; it
is inevitable, a necessary result of the divine government of the
world, which includes both natural law and special divine interven-
tion. On the one hand, the sage intimates, those who neglect
Wisdom will naturally find themselves defenceless in the evil day
which Wisdom alone can avert ; on the other hand, God as gov-
ernor will punish the evildoer. Wisdom is here first ordinary
human sagacity, which saves man from misfortune, and then that
higher sagacity which is the comprehension and assimilation of
the good as divine, of that highest truth and right which God has
embodied in his law. There is an approach here to the concep-
tion of communion with truth, or with the divine source of truth,
I. 24-31 27
as the strongest support of the ethical life. The personified
Wisdom, who speaks as the final arbiter of men's destinies, is the
insight that rules the world, and is identical with God's moral law.
— The discordant note in the announcement of retribution is
Wisdom's mockery of the wretched sufferer. This is not in accord
with her character as pure, divine intelligence, friendly to man (as
she appears, for example, in S''')* ; the unhappy fate of the evil-
doer, it would seem, should call forth sorrow and not exultation.
Such, however, is the tone of the old Hebrew thought; the
prophets exult in like manner over the downfall of the enemies of
Israel. The Hebrew, whether prophet, psalmist, or sage, was a
thoroughgoing partisan, identifying himself with his circle, and
identifying his interests with the eternal order. Further, his gov-
ernmental conception of the world was purely external : the bad,
from whatever point of view they were adjudged bad, were
regarded as enemies of the realm, and their destruction was
hailed with joy. Such seems to be the point of view of the writer
of this passage. He does not feel that, though sin is to be de-
nounced and its consequences set forth, the sinner has a claim on
the sympathy of his fellowmen ; he does not take into account
temptations and struggles of soul. He contents himself with
dividing men into two classes — those who heed and those who
reject wisdom.
28-33. Resumptive description of the fate of the unwise
(who are spoken of in third person), consisting^ of a detailed
explanation of their punishment (v.-"^-^'), and a statement of the
general rule of compensation in life (v.^-^).
28-31. Resumptive description of punishment. — Well formed
couplets, synonymous, ternary, except that v.''"' is binary, the penult
being a very long word. The correspondence with the preceding
paragraph is close, with inversion of the order of thought : v.-**
answers to v.-*'- '", and v.-'^ ^ to v.-*- ^' ; the conclusion is repeated
in v.^^ The rendering seek early (AV.) or seek diligejitly (RV.)
rests on the derivation of the verb from a noun meaning morjiing,
as if it signified to rise betimes in order to do one's work dili-
* According to the Masoretic Hebrew text ; see note on that verse below.
28 PROVERBS
gently;* but this derivation is improbable in the face of 7" 11^,
Job 7-1 — the verb means simply seek, here parallel to call. The
terms hated, chose not, would none, despised {y!^"^) are synonyms,
expressing indifference or hostility to the instructions of Wisdom.
In v.^ ''^ the counsel (or counsels) and admonition (or admoni-
tions) of Wisdom are contrasted with the man's own way (^ man-
ner or scheme of life, conduct) and counsels (or devices). In v.^
Bickell would read the knowledge of God as the appropriate
parallel to the fear of Yahweh (so in 2^), which is also, perhaps,
rhythmically an improvement of the text ; yet, as the former ex-
pression occurs only once in Pr. (and elsewhere in OT. only twice,
Hos. 4^ 6^ knoivledge of the Most High once, Nu. 24^'^), it is per-
haps better to retain the general term knowledge, which in \J is
identified with the fear of Yahweh. — The thought is the same
with that of the preceding paragraph, only with an added touch of
irremediableness in v.-*. The offenders who have deliberately
rejected the counsels and appeals of Wisdom will find, when the
day of punitive distress comes, that they need her aid, but they
will ask it in vain ; she will be deaf to their cries, as they were deaf
to her appeals. This is only a more vivid statement of the prin-
ciple affirmed in v.^\ that every one must eat of the fruit of his
own doings — a universally recognized law of life. If it be asked,
what room is here left for repentance? the answer of the sage is
that the offenders have had ample opportunity to amend their
ways, and have refused to change (v.*). As to the term of
repentance and the limit of Wisdom's patience, it is assumed that
at a given moment God intervenes to punish, when sin has grown
too great to bear, when the iniquity is full (Gen. 15^'' iS'-'^-'), but
this moment is known to God alone. The point of view is exter-
nal : at a certain moment retribution inevitably comes (whether
in the course of natural or civil law, or by supernatural inter-
vention), and then, in the nature of things, it is too late for the
sinner to retrace his steps ; there is no reference here to a state
of punitive blindness and moral deadness in which the man
desires to repent and cannot, or is conscious that he is morally
* It need hardly be added that the word early in this rendering of AV. has
nothing to do with the time of life.
I- 28-33 29
lost ; * the cry of the sinner in v.^** is for deliverance from physi-
cal evil.
32, 33. The general rule. — Both couplets are synonymous,
ternary. — 32. Indifference (nmc'ia) = averseness, apostasy, recu-
sance, refusal, is the " turning away " from instruction and conse-
quently from right living. Careless ease (mbtt') is primarily quiet,
freedom fro tn care and anxiety (as in 17'), here, in bad sense,
repose gained by ignoring or neglecting the serious responsibilities
of life (nearly = negligence) . The two terms are, in their primary
senses, mutually complementary : rejection of knowledge produces
false security and deceptive peace, and the latter presupposes the
former ; they are here substantially synonymous : refusal is indif-
ference, negligence. Insensate (— dullards) Sind. fools as in v.^-. —
33. Secure may mean, objectively, free from danger (as in 3^^
Jer. 23''), or subjectively, free from sense of danger (as in 3^
Ju. 8"). The contrast with the slay of v.^^ favors the former
meaning, but the second line {fear = apprehension) makes the
latter probable. The setise of security is thus put over against the
careless ease of fools (v.^-). — Wisdom sums up by stating the gen-
eral principle that ethical folly is self-destructive (so 5-' ^) ; as to
the means by which this destruction is effected see note on pre-
ceding verse. — In contrast with the false peace of the ignorant is
put the true peace which comes from wisdom — a security which
is assured by obedience to the laws of man and God. The refer-
ence is to freedom from outward misfortune ; the whole tone of
the Book makes it improbable that the writer has in mind the
inward peace which is independent of external experiences ; else-
where harm (RV. evil) is visible "misfortune" or "mischief"
^^29.30 (314. IS j^2i j^4 J ^3 228 al.). Inward peace, resting on con-
sciousness of right and trust in God, was no doubt recognized and
valued, but it is assumed in Pr. to be coincident with freedom
from outward calamity, and is not treated as an independent fact.
20. The form n^CDn, found elsewhere only 9^ 24" (and by emend. 14I)
^ 49^<*', is prob. not abstr. sing, for neon (Ols., Ew., De.), but plu. of exten-
* This is the doctrine of J. A. Alexander's hymn, beginning: " There is a time,
we know not when" {New York Church Praise-Rook, 1881), or: "There is a line,
by us unseen " {Congregational Hymn-Book, 1858), but it is not found here or else-
where in the Bible.
30 PROVERBS
sion and intensity (Bott., Now., Siegf., Strack in Comm., Barth) ; its predicates
are sing. exc. in 2^.* — njnn, 3 sing. fern. Qal anergic (or possibly Q. plu. of
]i'\); it is unnecessary to point nj-in (as in Job 39'^); Heid.'s emendation
nji n'xina, adopted by Oort, is simple, and secures parallelism in the nouns,
but loses it in the verbs. @ vfiveirai (Lag. = njin) is perh. Mid., prob. error
for vfivei; a Pass, is inappropriate and improbable. — 21. J§ nvpn; (5 reix^wv
= niDin; so 2C xmo /■//<? /ower (or casi/e or palace). The Partcp. 'n never
occurs alone, but always as predicate (7II 91^ 20^ Isa. 22'^ Jer. 4'^ Ez. 7^®),
and it is doubtful whether it can here be taken as subst.; the reading d^o^d
(8-^) is graphically not too hard, or, after (@, we may read pcn. — J^ O'lys:';
(5 Si'mo-Twi' = an;* (here inappropriate) to which irapedpevei is added, appar-
ently to fill out the clause. Jiig. thinks iirl . . . irapeSpevet add. from 8^ —
Bickell omits on;'!:' and nnxn (both of which, however, are called for by the
connection), and for iv^ writes dt;. We should rather omit Tya and nncN
as glosses. The Vrss. (exc. (S) follow ^ with unimportant variations, and
the glosses must have been early. — 22. \-iD ly ((5 Sa-ov hv xp^^'o") is always
interrog. in OT. — On D;n£3 see note on v.* above; the final letter of the stem
is omitted because not pronounced — nnNn Qal = nnxr ; (5 exwvTat, perh.
free rendering, perh. (Lag.) scribal error for ipQivrai. — Instead of Perf. nrn
we expect Impf. — (S do-e^ets yevbp.€voi, perh. (Lag.) = a'S''D3 on^nS (read
onvnj) instead of |^ -31 a.T^. — 23. p? nvJT; (5 Ka.1 vwevdwoi iyhovro pos-
sibly — mn'' (Lag., Held., cf. Aboth, i, 11) or (Bi.)= ic^nm. But as 3in is
prob. a loan-word from the Aram., found only Dan. i'" (Ez. 18' the noun is
corruption, probably of 3ia'), its occurrence here is doubtful. If the line (v.^")
be retained, the Impf. (which cannot have Impv. force) must be changed to
Impv. \iw (the n perh. repeated from preceding ny) ; so also Dyserinck. —
y3j gush, 18*; elsewhere only Hif. = speak, exc. in Eccl. 10^, where the text
is doubtful. — 1^ •'nn; © ip.ri% ttco^j pfjffiv, paraphrastic, perh. (Lag.) to avoid
the expression ttvotjv irpoL€<T6ai = die ; the verb has the sense of utter. — The
change of pers. in the verbs in v.—- -^ is a common rhetorical usage in OT, —
24. 3^ jt'% omitted by Bi., apparently for the sake of the rhythm, is desirable,
if not necessary, as introduction to v.^*'. — |^ ijsoni; @ Kal oiix vwr^KovcraTe,
free rendering of ^, or from some form of i'c:;' or ny; (hardly from aiu'pn, as
in 2'^) ; S3r p.ijcvn nS, from ircNn n*?. (SS'SC render a^ii'pp by a verb 2 plu.,
assimilation of the translator. — 25. \nnDim, noun as obj. of n^N only here,
elsewhere (as v.^*^) with pref. ^, and so perh. to be written here (Oort). The
two nouns in this v. are plu. in <5S, the second in 3L, variations coming from
script, defect. — 26. (5 prefixes ToiYapoOf as natural connective. — pj tn;
(5 dTTwXef^i, as Job 21^ 30!^; Heid., = lax. — '% nns; (g SXedpos, perh. = T'fl
(Gr.), which, however, is nowhere else so rendered (2^^^'^ Job 30^* 3i^®)' —
27. K. n^su', Q. r\ii^v, both from nN-r; ® freely Hcpvoj, and so &, Rashi, and
apparently ^T. — ^ ino and T'S; (5 ObpvjSos and KaTa<TTpo(pri, rhetorical varia-
* On jvhh'^n, Eccl. ji" 212 at., cf. Barth, NB., § 259 c, Comms. of Tyler and Palm,
and Strack in Stud. u. Krit., 1896, IV.
11. 31
tions from the renderings in v.^^. — ^ attaches v."^^ to v.^, and ® adds a fourth
line (Jiig , I>ag.) in v.-'; these changes show that the old translators found
difficulties in the rhythm. — Bi. takes v.^"- ^ in the following order : ^'•'''- ^^■
26b. 27a^ tranferring riNitio to v.^^, throwing out D3ino NJ33 in v.^^ as scribal
repetition, and writing as^i:' instead of a3^^N. The rhythm thus gained is
hardly better than that of |^, except in that it gets rid of the triplet. It would
be simpler, if the triplet is judged insupportable, to regard v.2''<= as a gloss, the
addition of a familiar expression (see note on this line above) ; cf. the similar
expression in the triplet of \p ii6^, in contrast with the couplets of ^ iS^''. —
28. (5 wrongly puts v.^^i as direct address. — The verb inc* occurs, outside of
Job, Pss., Pr., only in Hos. 5!^ Isa. 26^; IL here tnane cottsurgent {and similarly
elsewhere in Pr., exc. 7"'). Denominatives of the caus. stem (rarely of the
simple stem) are frequent in Arab, and Heb. (so DS^r'n) to express the doing
of a thing at a certain time of the day, but they do not then contain a substan-
tively adtlitional idea like seek ; the primitive sense of the stem is doulitful. On
the old ending j of the verb in ijinns" see Bottcher, Lehrb., II. § 930, 1047 ^•■<
and Toy, in Trans. Avier. Phil. Assoc.,No\. XI. 1880. — After "Z"' ^ adds
KaKoi as subject, unnecessary general interpretative gloss, not (Lag.) addition
of a Christian scribe to avoid contradiction of Mt. "f-^. — 29. J^ nyi; ^^ ao-
(plav, for which we should expect atffdrja-LV, yet <t. is not necessarily Christian
(Lag.) or Alexandrian (Ileid.); (B^ waidlav, % disciplinam (= IDID v.^). —
1^ PvS-i-; ^^ Xdyov, perh. interpretation of an Alex, scribe. — 30. (S has the
two nouns in plu. {sci-ipt. defect^. — 31. |tj nxyfc; (5 freely affejielas; "o is
used in OT. in bad sense, exc. Pr. 22^'. — 32. n^itiT, always in bad sense in
OT. — (S dvO' wvyap T)SiKOvv vtjwIov^, taking '0 as trans. = htfn aside, oppress,
hardly = retribution (Jag. because of retribution for \jheir treatment of~\
children they shall be slain), or from nowD (Schleusn.) assailing, or (Lag.)
Pii'2D injustice. — ][§ Pi^U"; (S ^^6Tao-/x6s = n^Nr or nVir (so S") S>K Via
error, free rendering of f^. — |^ r^y^ insc; (5 ^^, d<f>6^ici dirb Travrds KaKov,
where ir. is insertion for sake of definiteness. Cf Clem. Alex., 162, 181. — In
^ Pl^v and jiNii' there seems to be a verbal play. — n'D2 is adverbial. — n^i
iriD may mean disaster of harm, but 'fl, = disaster, is not elsewhere defined by
a noun of source.
II. A discourse setting forth the blessings conferred by Wis-
dom, the sage (and not Wisdom herself) being the speaker. It
consists of one well-sustained sentence (Ew.), each paragraph
being linked to the preceding by a connective word ; the rhyth-
mical arrangement appears to be in quatrains. After the protasis,
stating, as the necessary condition, earnest application to the
teaching of wisdom (v.'"^), comes the long apodosis (v.^~), giving
a double result : first, the knowledge of God and its attendant
blessing (v.^^, apparently an insertion or a parenthesis) ; second
32 PROVERBS
(v.*"^), the comprehension of probity (v.^-^), and the possession
of wisdom as guide (v.^""), which will deliver from evil men
(v.^^'^) and evil women (v.^*^^-'), and so lead to the reward of the
upright (v.'^), in contrast with the fate of the wicked (v/').
1-4. The condition of enjoying the protection of Wisdom.
1. My son, if thou receive my words
And lay up my commandments with thee,
2. So that thou incline thine ear to wisdom,
Apply thy mind to discernment,
3. If thou cry to understanding,
And invoke discernment,
4. If thou seek her as silver,
Search for her as for hid treasures —
1-4. Mind, lit. heart, is (as always in OT.) the whole inward
nature, here particularly intellectual capacity, attention (so that thy
heart substantially = thyself) . Discernment and understanding:^
are synonyms, equivalent to intellectual perception and wisdom,
here with ethical-religious coloring. It is unto (not for) discern-
ment and understanding that the pupil is to cry — he calls to her
to come to him and instruct and help him. — The Grk. and Lat.
Vrss. divide the sentence differently from the Hebrew. Grk. :
If thou receive the utterance of my commandment and hide it with
thee, thine ear shall hearken to wisdom, and thou shall apply, etc. ;
Lat, : If thou receii>e . . . and hide . . . , that thine ear may hearken,
etc. {the7i) incline thy heart, etc. But it seems clear that the con-
dition includes the whole paragraph, v.'~*. — The sage emphasizes
the necessity of earnestness in the pursuit of wisdom — the expres-
sions increase in intensity from receive, lay up {hide), incline,
apply, to cry, lift up the voice, and then seek, search. Study of
wisdom is represented as an organized discipline requiring defi-
niteness of purpose and concentration of powers. The prophets
demand conformity to the law of Yahweh, and exhort that he
himself be sought ; here attention is directed to a principle and
body of moral and religious knowledge.
1. Synonymous, ternary. The sage speaks on his own authority
(w_y words), appealing neither to a divine revelation to himself,
II- 1-4 33
nor to the teaching of a human master (a trait characteristic of
the Wisdom Hterature). He is conscious of having words to utter
which it behooves all men to hear. He does not stand apart from
the law of God, but he is an independent expounder of the divine
moral law, having received it into his mind, and comprehending
its nature and effects intellectually and morally. The prophet
speaks in the name of Yahweh, and gives a specific divine
message ; the sage speaks in his own name, representing philo-
sophical reflection, the authority in which is the divinely given
human reason and conscience. The term command jnents, the
same that is used in the prophetical and legal books for the moral
and ritual ordinances of Yahweh, here denotes the sage's own in-
structions, which in v.- are identified with tvisdom. — 2. Synony-
mous, ternary. Epexegetical equivalent of v.\ put in Heb. as
purpose i^in order- that thou mayst incline), or, as we more nat-
urally conceive it, as result {so that). — Mind {\\t. heart) is the
whole inward perceptive nature. The Heb. word is not properly
represented by Eng. heart, which conveys to the modern reader
the impression of a particularly emotional element. Physiologi-
cally, the OT. locates emotion in the bowels, and intellect in the
heart; the brain (not mentioned in OF.) was not regarded by
the ancients as having intellectual significance.* — 3. Synonymous,
ternary. The Heb. begins with a particle (usually =for) which
may probably be rendered ji'^a (so RV.) ; it is merely resumptive,
and may be omitted in an Eng. translation. The Syr. reads and
if; the Targ., by the change of a vowel, has and call undeistand-
itig another. Invoke, lit. lift up the voice to = call to, synonym of
cry to. — 4. Synonymous, ternary-binary. Hid treasures, etymo-
logically something hidden, then treasure, from the custom, in the
absence of secure places in houses, of hiding valuables in the
earth or in holes in rocks : see Jer. 41'^ Job 3'"' Gen. 43-^ (some-
thing concealed and unknown), Isa. 45' (where the word = simply
treasure, the adj. hidden being added) ; cf Mt. 13"; the notion
of something hidden away for safety seems generally to inhere in
the expression ; here there is also the suggestion that effort is
necessary to find and secure it.
* Of the Semitic languages it is only .Arabic that has a word {diniag) for brain:
the origin of this word is uncertain ; the adj. dam'ig means stupid.
34 PROVERBS
II. 1. -iD« (poetic word) always in plu. in Pr., -i3t being used for sing.,
Ills rt/_ — 2. As to the force of 'r and Inf. here cf. Ew., § 280 </; (@ vwaKoiKxe-
TOLi a-o<pias t6 ols ffov; IL tti audiat sapientiam auris tua, perh. free transla-
tion, perh. taking -ijrs as subject, as in Isa. 32^ (Qal Tmpf.), in which case,
though Inf. is possible, we should expect Qal Impf , since jrN never occurs as
subj. with Hif. (apparently not in ^ lO^') ; SE render by the Impf. in con-
tinuation of the construction of v.^, perh. = i--vpr\\ a good reading, yet it is
doubtful whether (gS'E had a text different from that of |^. — The Impf. nan
continues the telic or ecbatic sense of the preceding construction; a 1 before
it is appropriate but not necessary. ©SSC render it by a Fut., 5L by an Impv.
(5 begins the apod, with v."^. — v.^b is given by @ in double form, first = ||?,
and then an improbable variation (regarded as genuine by Jag., Lag.) in which
lia'? is read instead of i^'^, but the introduction of son is pointless, doubtless
scribal error. — 3. id cannot here = for ((51L), nor can dn 13=: hut (Hitz.),
with supposition of a preceding neg. clause. % omits ^3 and inserts 1 before
OS; S has simply xip.-n, perh. free rendering of |^. There is no good
ground in ancient authorities for omitting '•2, and it must be taken ( = yea)
as emphatic introduction of the new conditional clause. — J^ as ; ^ as, and
so De'R. 874 (379) in Bibl. Erfurt. I.; see Berakoth 57 a, where this clause is
cited for the interpretation of a dream respecting one's mother, and cf. Cappel.,
Crit. Sac. 5. 2. 2. The reading of ST comes from an old midrash (Norzi), and
the omission of 13 is a consequence of free citation. — |^ nr3; (5 aoi^iav
(instead of (pp6vr)ais), which Heid. takes to be Alexandrian Jewish, and Lag.
Christian. — Some MSS. of (@ (IJaiJ mg- inf. A sup ras C*) and edd. (Comp. Aid.
and S^ obel.) add at end of v.* ttjc 5^ aicrdTjenv ^7]Tri<Tris fieydXri rrj 4'^vri,
which JJiger considers to be the true (5 text oi^, = SiJ '?|i3 C'|-'3n njianSi; in
favor of this is its divergence from |^. Against its being the true text of Pr.
is perh. the parallelism and the occurrence of Z'p2 in the next verse. — Gr.
suggests, with little probability, that 3'' may be dittogram of 2^.
5-8. The consequence of the condition expressed in v.i-4. If
wisdom be embraced, then the man will understand the fear of
Yahweh (v.^), for Yahweh is the source of wisdom (v.*^), and the
protector of the upright (v/^). Apparently an editorial insertion.
The proper apodosis to v.^"* is v.^*^- : if thou seek wisdom, then
(v.'") wisdom will come to thee. V.^* introduce a new thought, and
were probably added by an editor who thought that the central
idea of these discourses, the /ear of Yahweh, ought not to be
lacking here. See further in notes below.
5. Then shalt thou understand the fear of Yahweh,
And find the knowledge of God;
6. For Yahweh gives wisdom.
Out of his mouth come knowledge and discernment;
11. 5-6 35
7- He lays up deliverance for the upright,
Is a shield to those who walk in integrity;
8. He guards the paths of probity,
And protects the way of the pious.
5. The fear of Yahweh. Synonymous, ternary. The divine
name God i^Elohim) occurs elsewhere in Pr. four times, 2^^ 3* 25^
30^ ; the expression knowledge of God in OT. only here and Hos.
4^ d^ (Nu. 24^® knowledge of the Most High). In the preexilian
Hterature Elohiin is used as proper name only in the Elohistic
narrative (Am, 4" Hos. i2^<'*^ seem to be citations from this nar-
rative), not in any prophetic writing except in the passages above
mentioned (not in Hos. 4' 6" Mic. 3^). After the exile it grad-
ually became a proper name (the local, national sense of Yahweh
disappearing), and in Pr. = Yahweh. The change of name here
is rhetorical variation. The fear of Yahweh (the fear or rever-
ence directed toward him) is equivalent to the knowledge of God
(the knowledge which has to do with him). The first expression
represents the God of Israel as the source of all ethical authority
and law, and reverent obedience to him as the principle of life ;
the second declares that true learning is concerned with the ethical
character of God and the duties which he imposes ; knotoledge is
not only intellectual apprehension, but also communion of soul.
Wisdom is thus conceived of as both an attitude of soul and a
body of knowledge, all in the sphere of religion. This old-
Hebrew point of view stands in the Book of Proverbs in organic
union with the human ethical conception of life in this way : the
moral content of life is based not on ritual and ecclesiastical law,
but on reason and conscience, and these are the gift of God (see
next verse). We have here, on the one hand, the recognition of
the mind of man as a source of truth, and, on the other hand, the
assertion that the moral potency of the mind is the creation of
God. This larger conception came to the Jews through natural
growth under the stimulus of foreign (mainly Greek) thought.
Instead oi shalt (which implies determination on the part of the
speaker, or else is hypothetical) we may write wilt (which ex-
presses futurity simply). Cf. note on \' . — 6. Synonymous, ter-
nary. Yahweh the source of wisdom. This is stated as the
ground of the affirmation of v.^, and brings this paragraph into
36 PROVERBS
logical relation with v.^"^. He who seeks wisdom will understand
the fear or knowledge of God, because all knowledge comes from
him. The reference is probably to the whole moral thought and
conduct of man — human instincts, the results of experience, the
common-law of morality, as well as the ethical prescriptions con-
tained in the Israelitish canonical and oral codes. The stress,
however, is laid on man's moral nature, which is represented as a
divine gift. — The expression out of his mouth (Grk. from his
presence) means from him ; he utters his command and man
receives wisdom ; the reference seems not to be to his giving a
law (the Tora), which would not agree with the general connec-
tion. The mouth of Yahweh, a frequent expression in the proph-
ets, is found only here in Pr. (Str.) ; here alone God is teacher,
elsewhere Wisdom. The expression occurs in Job 22-^, and in a
few late i//s, 105^^ 119"^ 138^ — 7, 8. Synonymous, ternary.
Yahweh protects the upright. The word rendered deliverance
occurs, except Isa. 28^ and (the textually doubtful) Mic. 6^, only
in Job and Pr. It appears to signify the act or power of estab-
lishment or arrangement, and so fertility in expedients, wisdom,
and, as result, achievement, help, deliverance. The last sense is
the one here naturally suggested by the parallel shield. This latter
word is to be taken (in the present Heb. text) as in apposition
with the subject (Yahweh) of the preceding clause. — The syn-
onymous expressions the upright and those who walk in integrity
indicate right conduct in general ; the upright are those who con-
form their lives to the straight line of moral and religious pro-
priety ; integrity is perfectness of life. The reference is to general
substantial rectitude, not to absolute freedom from sin or error, or
to the inner life of the soul ; cf. Gen. 20'' i K. p'* i/f loi^ Pr. 19^ —
8 presents the same thought in the form of purpose or result
(epexegetical equivalent), so as to guard, = he guards the way,
that is, the life and interests, of those who obey him. The ex-
pression guard the paths of probity is peculiar and difficult; the
verb means either keep, obsei've, or guard, have an eye on ; in the
former sense it is followed as object by the law observed, as in 3'
5^ 28' Dt. 33^ i/' 119^ a/.; in the latter sense by the person or
concrete thing to be defended, as in 2" 4" Isa. 26" al. (once, 22^^,
by knowledge), or by the thing to be watched, as in Job 7^. As
11. 6-8 37
Yahweh is subject, it is the latter sense that appears to be
intended here ; yet everywhere else the path of probity (or its
equivalent) is something that is walked in, as in v.*, not guarded,
though the way of a man is said to be scrutinized (Job 13^) or
controlled (i/' 139'') by God. As the text stands, paths of probity
must be regarded as a poetical variation of paths of the upright
(cf. v.^), equivalent to the parallel way of the piotis (Heb. his
pious o?ies, RV. saints). On probity see note on i^ — The pious
man (TDn) is he who is characterized by kindness, love ("icn).
The stem seems to signify any strong feeling toward a person,
whether unfriendly, envy (as in Arabic), or friendly, kindness (as
in Heb.), or both (as in Aramaic, and cf. 14^'' 25'" Lev. 20'").
The substantive is used of kindness shown to man by man (Gen.
24'-) or by God (Ex. 34", often in Pss.), whether of man's acts
toward God (Hos. 6^ « ^ 89^ 2 Chr. 32=^^ 352s Neh. 13") is doubt-
ful. The adj. is used twice of God (Jer. 3'^ \\i 18^^'^®' = 2 Sam.
22^''), many times of man. It may be active, = loving, or passive,
— beloved. It is the former sense in which it is used of God, and
this seems to be its meaning throughout OT., though the other
is possible, and, in most cases, appropriate ; the deity might be
thought of as the bestower and the worshipper as the recipient of
favors, or the latter might be regarded as bound to his god by a
sentiment of love and devotion, which, at first physical and mer-
cenary, would grow more and more ethically and spiritually pure ;
the active sense is favored by the parallelism in \^ 18-^'-"', -ivith the
kind (merciful, good) thou wilt shoiv thyself kind. The adj.
occurs first in the second half of the seventh century (Mic. 'f Dt.
33** Jer. 3'^), and elsewhere only in late poetry (i Sam. 2^ 2 Chr.
6^' Pr. 2* and Pss.). When it began to be employed in the sense
of devoted to God, pious (the rendering saint is inappropriate)
can hardly be determined. In the second century, in the struggle
between Antiochus Epiphanes and the Jews, it appears as a tech-
nical term to designate those who strictly maintained the rehgion
of Israel against the inroads of Hellenism (i Mac. 2^^ 'Ao-iSatot,
Hasidean or Asidean).* In some Pss. (79'^ 86^ 116'^ a;/.) it means
pious Israel in contrast with surrounding heathen oppressors or
* Cf. Wellhausen, Die Pharisaer K, 4- Saducaer ; Schtirer, fiist^ of the Jew.
People, II. ii. 26.
38 PROVERBS
apostate Jews. In Pr. it is found only here, in an editorial inser-
tion (perhaps of the second century b.c.) ; it is here a general
term for pious.
5. (gB N A o-i/yi^o-ets 06/3oi', for which Clem. Al., 121, has vo-^(T€is 6€0<T4^€iav.
In v.^*' (5^ — l^i CI. Alex. k. aiffd-qffiv deiav eu/sTjcrets (and so Orig.), free ren-
dering, probably original (Lag.).^ — 6. ||J rsc; (@^ dird wpofftbirov aiirov =
VJ3):, apparently scribal error. — 7. K jaxi, Q (and some MSS.), better, joi"'
(IL custodiet), since the couplets appear to be independent statements;
(S K. er]<ra.vpl^€i, = ||J Kethib (not = -i3x), as in i^^. — ||J n>mD; (5 (MSS.)
aujTrjpiav, 3L salutem, CI. Al. jioT^deiav, ST in MS. (cited by Levy, Chald.
Wbck.) ■'■'n^, in Bibl. Rab., 1568, "npo help, m Buxt., Lag. iinar glory. —
1^ Jic, rendered by vb. or partcp. in the Vrss. : (5 viTepa<jiri.el, IL el proteget,
SC V'DDl; |§ is curt poetic construction, instead of the ordinary Nin 'c; we
expect a verb = protect (but the stem does not occur in OT. in this sense) or
a noun = protection as object of ids'' (but no such noun suggests itself); 0
cannot be object of "' — |^ oh i^SnS; (5 Ty\v Tropeiav avrCov — Dpdi'?.!'? (Vog.,
Schleusn.), as in ^ 67 (68)^5. — 8. |^ "ixj''', equivalent proposition represented
as purpose or result; S has 1 and Perf., and we may here read Impf. ; Gr.
•>v:^, but this does not accord with •'. — 1§ idd-'d is given in all the Vrss., except
that (§ (except Cod. 23) has plu. — K. iDn sing.; Q and many Heb. MSS.
and all Vrss. have plu., as the context requires; ST omits the suffix. — Oort, to
secure perfect parallelism, reads : nna'^ non i-ni and (^that they may) pre-
serve the way of piety toward him (or, the way of his kindness); but this is
not in keeping with the general idea in v.^^, in which Yahweh is subject, and
^~<D\\ "111 is hard; it would be easier to change OD'i'C to ai'*:'i or opis (cf v^").
9-22. The proper conclusion to the condition stated in v.i-"* :
first, the comprehension of righteousness (v.^ '"), then the guid-
ance and protection of Wisdom (v.'""'^), with the reward of
goodness and the punishment of wickedness (v.^' -). — V.^" should
probably be transposed so as to stand next after v.". In its present
position it interrupts the connection between v.^'' and v.^\ while
by its thought it attaches itself naturally to v.".
9, 20. Comprehension of rectitude.
9. Then shalt thou understand righteousness and probity,
< Shalt keep > every path of good,
20. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men,
Mayest follow the paths of the righteous.
9. The verse is not a poetical couplet in the Heb., which reads
in second line : ajid rectitude — every path of good, giving the first
II. 9. 2o 39
three nouns in the order in which they occur in i^ There the
rliythmical form is proper ; here it is defective, and (though it is
possible that the three nouns may have been originally taken from
1^) it seems better (by an easy emendation) to write the verb
which the parallelism calls for : cf. the expressions keep ( = follow)
the paths in v.^, and keep my ways in 8^^. On the nouns in first
line see notes on i^. — Path (2^*-'^ 4"-^^ 5^-^^ \p 23'^) is lit. wagon-
road, then any way ; the following ^(?(?^ defines the path as lying
in the domain or leading in the direction of what is (morally)
good. — The then attaches this section to v.^"* : " if thou earnestly
seek wisdom, thou shalt be morally enlightened, shalt acquire intel-
lectual acumen in ethical questions, and [if the emendation sug-
gested above be correct] the power of right action " ; freedom of
choice is implied, and it is assumed that he who fully knows the
good way will follow it.* On the substitution of zvilt for shalt
see note on v.^ above. — 20. Synonymous, ternary. The purpose
that thou mayest walk involves result. The verse thus expands
the second line of v.^. — At the end of first line the Heb. has
simply the word good (plural) ; the parallelism favors the render-
ing good men {not good things). Good is the general term for
fitness of all sorts, here used of moral fitness and rectitude. —
Follow is fit. keep. — The righteous or just man is he who does
justice, rightness (see note on i^). The epithet is applied in OT.
to man and to God, but its significance, depending on the con-
tent of the current idea of justice, varies with the different periods
of Heb. history. Yahweh is just to a man or to Israel when he
acts in accordance with natural or legal right. In the earlier
phase of thought Israel's national right was held to be victory over
its enemies, and justice came to be equivalent to victory, as in
Ju. 5'^ I S. 12^ Jer. 51^". The purely ethical conception grew
with the general ethical growth of the people ; and in the pro-
phetical and later books (see, for ex., Ez. 18) tends to become
predominant, though the primitive idea fingers in places. In Pr.
righteous — morally and religiously good in general ; the word
(\^Q good diViA perfect) expresses not absolute sinlessness, but gen-
eral rectitude. In late exilian and postexilian writings it is often
* So Plato and the Stoics.
40 PROVERBS
a synonym for the faithful part of Israel (Isa. 53" 26^ if/ 3i^*(^^' 94-'
a/.). — The Grk. reads the verse as a conditional sentence, and
connects it immediately with v.'^ : /or if they had gone in good
paths they would have found the paths of righteousness easy ; the
Heb. is preferable. — Bickell omits the verse as marring the
strophic structure of the paragraph ; but this difficulty disappears
in the arrangement here adopted.
10-19. The moral protection afforded by Wisdom. — Wisdom,
entering the soul (v.'") and keeping watch over it (v."), saves
the man from the influence of bad men (v.^^'^) and bad women
10. For wisdom shall enter thy mind,
And knowledge shall be pleasant to thee,
11. Discretion shall watch over thee,
Discernment shall guard thee,
12. To save thee from the manner of life of bad men.
From men whose speech is wicked,
13. Who leave the paths of uprightness,
To walk in ways of darkness,
14. Who rejoice in doing wrong,
[And] in iniquities take delight,
15. Whose paths are crooked,
And iniquitous their ways —
16. To save thee from the lewd woman.
From the harlot with her cajoling words,
17. Who forsakes the friend of her youth.
And forgets the covenant of God.
18. For her house leads down(?) to Death,
And her paths unto the Shades;
19. None that go to her return,
Or attain the paths of life.
10, 11. Wisdom as guardian. — 10. Synonymous, ternary.
The entrance of Wisdom into the soul; cf. Job 14"^. Knowledge
= wisdom ; see note on i^. — On 7nind (lit. heart) see note on
v.^ above. — Enter and be pleasant to are synonyms, = *' become
acceptable to thee, a part of thy intellectual and moral being." —
Thee is lit. thy soul; the term soul means the principle of life,
and so life or being, and my soul, thy soul, are common expres
II. lO-II
41
sioiis in OT. for me (or, myself), thee (or, thyself). The Heb.
word does not emphasize spirituality of thought, but, being a gen-
eral term for the principle of life, it may, like its synonym mind,
express any intellectual power. — 11. Synonymous, ternary-binary.
On discretion (or, insight) and discerntnent (or, intelligence) see
notes on i* and 2-. — The guardianship (the result of Wisdom's
entrance into the soul) is subjective — the man's security is in his
own reason and conscience, in the law of life which these give ;
the whole is, however, viewed as finally the ordination of God,
though not in the form of an external law. — These two verses
give the ground of the preceding statement (v.^-^) ; understand-
ing will be gained by the entrance of Wisdom into the mind, not
in a forced manner, but so that she shall be acceptable, pleasant
to the soul. The man is represented as assimilating wisdom,
coming into harmony with it, following it not through external
pressure, but by inward impulse ; to do right becomes delightful
to him. This is largely because he sees the advantages of recti-
tude (v.'') ; but there is probably still to be recognized here the
germ of the idea of transformation of nature (a development out
of such conceptions as those of Jer. 31^ Ez. 36-'). — The Grk.
takes v.'" as condition, and v." as its result : 10. for if wisdom
enter . . . and knowledge seem beautiful ... 11. good counsel
shall guard thee, etc. (the same construction may be got from the
Heb. by rendering 7vhen Wisdom shall enter). This construction
is not decidedly against the context, and gives a good sense ; it
seems, however, to be less natural than the causal construction
{for), not because the nouns in v." are identical in meaning with
those in v.'" (such repetition would not be against the manner of
Pr.), but because, as v.^-^ state the result of the condition of v.'"^,
we more naturally expect in v.'" not a new condition, but a ground
or reason of the preceding statement. The general sense is the
same in the two constructions. There is no need to take v.^"- " as
pirentheses ; v.'- is logically connected with v." (see below). —
Pjickell, in order to gain an additional couplet (an omission being
indicated, as he thinks, by a discrepancy of gender in the Heb.)
cx])ands v.'" as follows : for wisdom shall enter into thy mind and
J'lunvlcdge unto thy soul \_shall come, instruction shall he good to
/■'!' mind, and learning to thy soul'\ shall be pleasant. This inser-
42 PROVERBS
tion is without support from the Anc. Vrss., and seems not to be
necessary or probable ; the text, as it stands, gives a satisfactory
sense and a good rhythm, and the quatrain, which is here desid-
erated, is gained by the transference of v.^°. On the grammatical
point see critical note.
12-15. First, Wisdom saves from bad men. — 12. Synonymous,
ternary. Instead of the Infin. to save, expressing purpose or result,
we may, by a slight change, read she will save (Bickell) ; the change
does not affect the general sense. — Manner of life is lit. way, and
whose speech is wicked is lit. who speak wickedness (or wro7ig or
wicked things) . The Heb. has, in second clause, sing. 7fian (appar-
ently used in collective sense) ; the plu. form accords better in
Eng. with the following verses. Instead of way of bad {men) we
may render way of the bad {mafi), and so in second clause the
man who speaks ; or way of evil; or, possibly, evil (or, wicked)
way. The concrete form {man or men) in first clause is favored by
the parallelism, and the plu. is more natural here in English. The
adj. bad or evil (n) is used in OT. of any sort of badness, of
body (Gen. 41''), of appearance or deportment (Ex. 21**), of expe-
rience or fortune (Jer. 4"), of moral or religious conduct {passim) ;
it describes whatever does not conform to a norm — it is the oppo-
site of the equally general term good (SID) ; it is here the morally
bad. Cf. note on the subst. evil, i^. — A wrong thing (mscnn)
is that which is turned aside from the path of right; its meaning
is not precisely expressed by perverse (which answers to it etymo-
logically) , or by RV. froward (which = refractory, perverse, ob-
stinate) ; it may sometimes be properly rendered hy false, but in
Pr. it is a general term, signifying that which is opposed to the
right (= wicked, bad) ; it occurs in Dt. ■^'2p {they are a genera-
tion given to falsities, persons in ivhom no confidence can be placed),
and elsewhere only in Pr. — Bad men are here described by their
conduct or manner of life {way) and their speech ; the two things
are treated as equivalent each to the other, speech being regarded
as the indication of thought and life. The sage lays stress on the
power of evil association : to avoid bad men is to be saved from
evil suggestion from without, from the reinforcement that sym-
pathy gives to the evil within the heart. He warns against a
II. II-I4 43
malign moral influence, which is not the only one in life, but is
the most obvious, and one of the most powerful. Rashi says that
the men here referred to are Epicureans (that is, heretics in gen-
eral), who seduce Israel to idolatry and pervert the law to evil.*
— 13. Antithetic, ternary. Description of the conduct of bad
men. Uprightness is a general term for rectitude ; it appears first
in the Deuteronomistic vocabulary (Dt. 9^ i K. g"* i C. 29^'), and
then only in the Wisdom books; it always has a religious coloring,
except in Job 6"', and, perhaps, Eccl. 1 2^". That these men leave
{ox forsake) rectitude does not imply that they had once followed
right paths, but only that they have chosen other paths. Their
walk is the way of darkness in contrast with the light which illu-
mines the way of wisdom, the darkness (as the parallelism sug-
gests) here characterizing the sphere (as in Jno. 3^''^'-') rather than
the result (as in 4'^) ; evil (in contrast with uprightness) seeks
the concealment of darkness. Such, from the parallelism, seems
to be the sense in this passage, though everywhere else in OT.
where light and darkness are used figuratively it is the guidance
and safety of the former and the danger of the latter that are indi-
cated (Isa. 2^ 42" 0 2f Pr. 4^« 6^ 13^ 16^^ Isa. 58^*^ x\, iS^^*^^) Eccl.
2" Pr. 20™), and so it may be here with the term darkness. The
employment of the two terms to express spheres of life charac-
terizes the Mazdean sacred books. — 14. Synonymous, ternary.
A stronger touch. The connective and is inserted in accordance
with the general norm of the couplets. Iniquities (lit. iniquities
of evil) is the same word in the Heb. that is rendered wrong
things in v.'-; there the reference was to words, here it is to
deeds — in both cases it is the opposite of right that is meant ; it
is here (if the text be correct), for the sake of emphasis and
vigor, qualified by the term evil (or, wickedness). — The rejoice
and delight are a heightening of \}cit. forsake of the preceding verse ;
bad men, it is said, not only deliberately choose wicked ways, but
also take pleasure in them. The sage, in stating this familiar fact,
is probably to be understood not as implying that men delight in
evil as evil, but only as meaning that wrongdoing, interwoven into
life, becomes a source of enjoyment, the enjoyment coming from
* On the terms Epicureans and Minim (Talinudic designations of heretics) see
Buxtorf, Lex., and Cheyne's Cyclop. Biblica, Art. "Canon."
44
PROVERBS
the momentary good result, not from the consciousness of commit-
ting an unlawful or unrighteous deed. Other things being equal,
men, as a rule, prefer right to wrong. The murderer in i""^^ is
represented as committing murder not for its own sake, but to get
gain of goods ; his wrong is not in desiring wealth, but in using
improper means to secure it. Wicked men are those whose con-
sciences are not tender and strong enough to prevent their enjoy-
ing good things evilly gained. There is a formal resemblance
between this v. and Job 3^-, perh. imitation by our author.* —
15. Synonymous, ternary-binary. Variation of the preceding verses
— description of bad life as departure from the right path. The
Heb. reads (with insertion of a pronoun) whose paths are crooked
and {they) iniquitous in their ways (so substantially AV.). Slight
changes in the text give the renderings who are crooked in their
paths and iniquitous in their ways (so substantially Oort, RV.),
or who make crooked their paths (Dyserinck, Kamphausen) atid
in their ivays turn into bypaths (Kamp.), or ivhose paths are
crooked and their ways iniquitous (so substantially most of the
Ancient Vrss.). Of these the last is simplest, requiring only the
omission of one letter of the Heb. ; the meaning is the same in
all. — Two new adjs. are here introduced, synonymous with each
other and with the iniquities of v." ; they occur in OT. in the
ethical sense only. Crooked (iTpP) is that which departs from
the right way (allied to false) ; outside of Pr. the adj. occurs in
Dt. 2,2' ^ i8-«<2') (= 2 S. 22-'^) loi*, the vb. in Mic. 3» Isa. 59* Job
9^'. Iniquitous also (n^D, found, outside of Pr., only in Isa. 30'-)
is that which turns aside into wrong ways, morally perverted,
wrong, false.
16-19. The second class of evil persons from whom Wisdom
delivers men : licentious women. The prominence given in Pr.,
especially in chs. 1-9, to the vice of licentiousness shows that it
was a notorious social evil at the time when the book was written.
In the preexilian and exilian books comparatively httle is said of
it. That there were harlots and adulteresses in Israel from an
early time is shown by such passages as Judg. 11^ (Jephthah's
mother) i K. 3^*^ (the two women who appeared before Solomon)
* Cf. Strack, Stud. 11. Krit., 1896, IV.
II. I4-I6 45
Hos. 3' (Hosea's wife), by the prophetic denunciations of the
crime (Hos. 4^ Jer. 7^ Mai. 3^), by the laws against it (Ex. 20"
Dt. 22 Lev. 20'"), and by the employment of the terms harlotry
and adultery (in Pent. Judg. Chr. Ps. Hos. Mic. Jer. Ez.) as des-
ignations of religious unfaithfulness. Prostitution was a feature of
the Canaanitish religious cults, and made its way into Israel. If
we exclude the references to this last usage, the mention of the
vice in question in the prophetical books is not frequent ; less
stress is laid on it than on the oppression of the poor by the rich.
In a polygamous society and in a country without great cities it
was not likely to grow to great proportions. The case was differ-
ent when the Jews were dispersed through the world, and lived in
cities like Jerusalem and Alexandria, centres of wealth and luxury,
inhabited by mixed populations. This form of debauchery then
became commoner and better organized. Hetairae flocked to
the cities. Naukratis in the Egyptian Delta was famous under
the Ptolemies for its brilliant venal women. The temptations of
Alexandria are illustrated by the story told by Josephus {A?it 12,
4, 6) of Joseph the son of Tobias. The picture of society given
in Ben-Sira (9^^ i<f 2:^^'^^'' 25"^-'' iG^'- 42^-"), based on life in
Jerusalem and Alexandria in the third and second centuries B.C.,
agrees in substance with the descriptions of the Book of Proverbs.
The tone is modern. Instead of the old clan-life of Israel, with
its definite family-ties and local bounds, we have the personal free-
dom of the Greek period in Syria and Egypt. This tone, most
observable in chs. 1-9, is not wholly wanting in the rest of the
book. The woman is represented as the temptress, the man as
the silly victim.
16. Synonymous, ternary. To save may be read (as in v.'^)
she will save. The terms lewd woman and harlot are both lit.
strange woman (or, strajiger). With her cajoling words, lit. :
who makes smooth her words (RV. flatters, etc.). The reference
is to dissolute women, but the precise sense in which the term
strange is here used is differently understood. The Heb. has two
synonyms, both of which occur in OT. in three significations : one
who is outside the circle of one's family or one's clan ; an alien
to one's nation, = " foreigner" ; one not one's self, = " another."
46 PROVERBS
For the first term (it) see i K. 3^* Dt. 25^ Nu. i^' ; Ex. 30^ Lev.
22^^; Pr. 6^ 11'* 14^" 2f (this third sense is found only in Pr.),
For the second term 0133) see Gen. 31'^ Job 19^^ \\i 69^*^^ Eccl. 6^ ;
Dt. 15^ I K. 11^; Pr. 27^. Women of this class were doubtless
often non-Israehtes, and such might be the sense here (so Siegfr.,
Stade, and, so far as the second term is concerned, De.) ; but
the general character of the descriptions here and in chs. 5, 7,
9^^^^, and the contrast expressed in 5^^^, make it almost certain
that the writer has in mind dissolute women without regard to
nationality, and that the strange 7voman is one who is not bound
to the man by legal ties, who is outside the circle of his proper
relations, that is, a harlot or an adulteress. Rashi : Epicureanism.*
— The smooth, cajoling words are given in 7'*-^; 7* is identical
with our verse, except in the first word — the similarity between
the themes of the two discourses makes the repetition natural. —
The Grk. connects v.^*^ ^^ not with v.", but with v.*^, taking them as
the description of the influence of bad men, and following a Heb.
text very different from ours : 16. To remove thee far from the right
way and estrange thee from righteous opifiion. My son, let not
evil counsel take possession of thee, 17. which forsakes the teaching
of youth and forgets the divine covenant. This is a bit of rabbin-
ical or Alexandrian allegorizing, while in 7^ the Heb. is literally
translated. — 17. Synonymous, ternary. The strange woman's
social and reUgious infidehty. The reference is to a married
woman, and the friend of her youth is not God (to which sense
the parallelism is supposed by some to point), but her husband.
For the use of the term friend (=ll'?«) see 16^* 17^ Mic. 7^ Jer. 3^
i/^ 55^^'"' ; the sense guide, instructor, is not found in OT. The
expression of our verse is perhaps taken from Jer. 3-"^, where the
adulterous spouse Israel, charged with her infidehties by Yahweh,
is exhorted to cry to him : my father, thou art the friend of my
youth, that is, "the husband of my youth (cf. Hos. 2^-'^<'' ^^^ Ez.
16^^) whom I have forsaken for others" ; but while the infidehty
* Cf. Buxtorf, Lex., s. v. imx, for the use of Aramaeati woman as = foreign
woman and harlot. On the OT. sense of strange woman see Kuenen, EinL, iii.
^^97; Wildeboer, Litt. des AT., \ 23, Anm. 7; Bertholet, Die Stellung der Isr. und
Juden zu den Fremden, p. 195. — Cf. the Maxims of the Egyptian Any, of the New
Kingdom (Eng. transl. in art. Egypt. Literature in Library of the World's Best
Literature),
II. i6-i9 47
in Jer. is national and ritual, in Pr. it is individual and physical.
At the same time, the marriage-obligation is here regarded as a
divine law (Ex. 20"), and so as an agreement with God to obey
him and thus obtain his blessing. The Heb. has of her God ; the
more general form of God (as, apparently, in the Grk.) is better.
— The conception of the marriage-relation involved in the verse
(and throughout the Book) is a high one. The old polygamy or
bigamy (the rule up to the exile) is ignored ; monogamy is
assumed as the established custom. The husband is the trusted
friend ; the marriage-tie has a divine sanction (cf. Mai. 2'*) . The
expression covenant of God may refer simply to the general idea
of sacredness involved, or it may possibly allude to a religious
marriage-ceremony. Of the Israelitish marriage-ceremonies of
the pre-Christian time we know little. The old custom was that
the woman was brought into the man's dwelling, by that act be-
coming his wife (Gen. 24*'' 29-^ i Sam. 25^" Dt. 21'^), purchase-
money {tnohar) being paid the father (Gen. 34^- i Sam. 18^);
sometimes the man, in the presence of witnesses, affirmed his pur-
pose to take the woman as wife (Ru. 4"*"'^) ; a feast was some-
times held (Ju. 14^" Tob. S^''), and the bride was led to the hus-
band's home in procession {\\j 45i-»- ^^(is. w) (,f_ y^^ 25I-1'').* A trace
of a religious ceremony appears in Tob. 7^^- ^^<"- ^'\ where Raguel
takes his daughter by the hand and gives her to Tobias as wife,
saying : according to the law of Moses take her to thy father (there
was also a written contract, Tob. y"*^*^') ; it is not improbable that
in this later time it was customary for the father or guardian of
the bride to address a word of pious counsel to the newly married
couple. No part in the ceremony appears to have been taken by
priest or other official person. The modern Jewish marriage,
though it differs considerably from the customs of Bible and Tal-
mud, is still essentially a family-ceremony.f — 18, 19. Synony-
* On the view that Canticles is a wedding-poem, consisting of the songs sung
by bride, bridegroom, and companions in the marriage-festival, see Wetzstein,
in De.'s Comm'y on Canticles; K. Budde, in the New World, March, 1894, and in
his Comm'y on Cant., in Marti's Hand-Commentar ; C. Siegfried, Hohcslied, in
Nowack's Handkommentar.
t See the Talm. treatises, Ketub. and Kiddush., J. F. Schroder, Satzungen u.
Gebrduche d. fal/n.-rab. Judenthums, and I. Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle
Ages, 1896.
48 PROVERBS
mous, ternary. The fate of those who yield to the seductions of
the adulteress : physical death is their portion. The meaning is
plain, but the exact rendering of v.'^ is doubtful. The Heb., as it
stands, must be rendered she sinks do7v?i to death, her house ; but
death, the house appointed for all living (Job 30-''), would hardly
be called the house of one person ; the rendering she . . . together
with her house, that is, with her visitors (Bottch. De. Now.), is not
permissible. The reading of the Grk. (whose text differed from
our Heb.), she has set her house by death (adopted by Bickell),
does not give a satisfactory thought — her house, which is on the
earth, is not naturally represented as being by Death, which is
here the underground-world ; and the Heb. preposition, = unto,
must also then be changed to one meaning near, by. The paral-
lelism suggests that house is the subject, and a change of the Heb.
accents (not the consonants) gives the possible sense, bows down,
or sinks down, — leads down, for the verb. The picture pre-
sented is of a path which leads from upper earth to Sheol, like
those by which Odysseus and Aeneas descend to Hades (less
probably of a pit through which one sinks into Sheol) ; on this
downward path she and her guests enter, and from the land of
the dead they never return. A slight change in the Heb. gives a
verb meaning goes down, = leads down (17'", used in Job 21'^
of descent to Sheol), a sense which is perhaps favored by the
similar expression in 5^. — House (if the text be correct) is the
abode, the place from which goes the path to the Underworld,
with connotation of "household," the woman and those who go
to her house. Death = the realm of death, Sheol (cf. \\i 9*^"*' Pr.
5^ -f). It is not a place of punishment, but the abode of all the
dead. The punishment referred to in the verse is premature and
unhappy death, which is represented everywhere in OT. as a mis-
fortune, a visitation of God as retribution for wrongdoing (29'
1^^17(18)^ . \QXig life is the reward of the good (3^*^), but the days of
the wicked shall be cut short (lo'^). This is the old- Hebrew con-
ception, which Hmits moral-spiritual life to the present world.
Here God, it was held, dispenses rewards and punishments ; when
one has entered Sheol, God no longer takes account of him (only
in Job 14" 26* ® is there a suggestion that the power of the God
of heaven may extend to the Underworld). Death is the physical
II. 1 8-19 49
event which transfers men from the sphere of activity to that of
inactivity, where there is no relation between man and God (Isa.
2gi8.i9^_ This conception seems to be a survival of the early
belief which assigned the Underworld to a separate deity (so in
Babylonia), independent of the deity who ruled the world, and
supreme in his own domain; the subterranean deity vanished
from the Israelitish system, but the gap between Sheol and the
God of Israel remained. Proverbs retains the old view ; its idea
of the future life is without ethical elements. — The Shades (Re-
phaim) are the dead, the inhabitants of Sheol.* Earthly condi-
tions, such as distinctions of rank, are represented sometimes as
continuing in Sheol (Ez. 32^2-^ Isa. 14^), sometimes as not con-
tinuing (Job a'''-''-' x\i 88'""). The ;r///a/w are without mundane
power or significance (Isa. 14^"), and the pious among them
cannot praise God (Isa. 38^^ i/^ 88'*'<'")- Yet they were popularly
thought of as being gods, or as possessing supernatural powers
(i Sam. 28'^ Isa. 8^^, a survival of the primitive belief on this
point). In Pr. the facts emphasized are that their existence is
without happiness, and that they never return to live the life of
this earth. t — The paths of ///d" = the ordinary earthly life, not
moral-spiritual life or salvation. The statement that for the vic-
tims of the adulteress there is no return to this life is not meant
to indicate that for others (the followers of Wisdom) there is
return, but only to emphasize the fact that the fate of adulterers
(premature death) is irreversible. Pr. has nothing elsewhere on
the impossibility of return from Sheol, but it may be assumed that
its authors shared the opinion expressed in the other Wisdom
Books (Job 14"- Eccl. 9^ Ben-Sira 17^).
9. p? a^'ipp (i' anrr) is rendered as noun (SST in stat. constr. and so
Gr.) by all Vrss. except perh. (5, whose KaropOuxrei^ may be noun = 'd (so
Lag. Baumg.), or verb = t^ou shall establish ; the noun-form occurs elsewhere
only once, i/- 96^ (Heb. 972), and then sing. = pjr: ; between noun and verb
it is hard to decide. The text of |^ presents a serious rhythmical difficulty
* Whether the term has any etymological connection with the gentilic name
Rephaim (Dt. 2" al.) is uncertain. Cf. Schwally, in 7.A T., 1898, i. pp. 132 ff.
t In the obscure passage Isa. 2619 jt is doubtful whether the reference is to a
national resuscitation (as in Ez. 37) or to some sort of appearance of the rephaim
on the earth.
e
5© PROVERBS
(in i'"', in which the same three nouns occur, the rhythm is good). The diffi-
culty may be removed by writing -icrr, from which air:: might come without
difficulty, especially if the scribe had i^ in mind. Gr. ■Z'>D oorc. — 10. 3§ >D;
IS tav yap = ax ••d. — J^ la'?; (g^ t^i, didvotav, (5 ''A (rijv didvoiav. — J^ aj'r;
(S KaXi) elvai 86^r). — The masc. vb. syy with fem. subj. nyi is poetic license,
as in 81° 14'' 29-^ (where Bi., who here by a long insertion introduces a masc.
subj., retains the masc. verb) ; 'i is construed with fem. predicates in Isa. 471"
\f/ 139^ Dan. 12*, that is, in OT. three times with masc. and three times with
fem. predicates. In the former case it appears to be conceived of in a general
way as a thing (perh. as the act of knowing) without regard to gender; see
other cases of such freedom in Ew., § 174^. — 11. |^ ■istc; <© (foil, by <S)
/SouXt/ Ka\r}, to indicate that 'a is here used in good sense. Similarly for
^ nijjn <g (and so S) has evvoia bcla. — On the suff. in nrisjn see Ew.,
§ 250 a, 01s., § 97«; the nr_ is for nrj_, in which n is vowel-letter, and j the
verb-ending (survival of the Energic form). — 12. |^ -jSishS; @ tva. piffTjral
(re, apparently = ?^; S Nsonni, C 'n 1-1, 5L u^ eruaris, perh. Impf. instead of
7 and Inf., perh. free rendering of |^; Bi. writes I'^x^ on the ground that this
paragraph is not a consequence but an explanation; on this point see notes
on vA j?i better taken as subst. defining tit; the Vrss. render it by adj.
Gr. ynn? — .■^idb.-ip; (gBNACaf. ^y^s^v ttio-tSv (and so <S" marg.) ; H-P 23
(=Cod. Venet. San Marco, V) diaa-Tpafi/x^ua (and so S>^) = ||J. — 13. <S
begins the v. with w, apparently reading xn, a particle which does not occur
elsewhere in Pr., and would not be appropriate here. On the vocalization of
the art. (n) see Miklol, 53 3, and on the accentuation see Bar-Delitzsch, note
on this verse. — In 2 cl. instead of '? and Inf. (no'^S) S^STiL have i and vb. or
partcp. and walk, free rendering which gives the sense of |^ correctly, substi-
tution of the coordinate for the subordinate construction. Bi. here retains J^.
— 14. H-P 23, 68 al. prefix w. — |^ jn pit:7'^; @ ^Trt Ka/cots. — 1§ n^onr,
written defect, in some MSS., taken as sing, in (@S>3r ^r. — The second j?i,
supported by all Vrss., is somewhat hard. Gr. regards it as dittogram, but the
rhythm calls for a word here; Dys. emends to •;•), but the iniquities of another
is hardly possible. Failing a satisfactory emendation, |^ may be retained. —
15. The text of 5§ may be rendered 'who are crooked as to their paths and per-
verse in their ways, or a 3 may be prefixed to aninnivX, or the 3 omitted (so
Oort) before nnSjyn; but the order D-iCi^y 'in (or '^^•^) is not quite satisfac-
tory (cf. 10^ 19I 28^- 18) ; Dys. (followed by Kamp.) writes O'a'pyn (as in lo^),
a phonetically easy emendation, the D being supposed to have fallen out
through preceding a, but the order is slightly against this construction also.
The simplest reading is that of the Vrss. (except AG), which apparently did
not have 3 before 'vn, whose paths are crooked and their ways iniqidtous ; the
order in that case hardly makes a difficulty. — Field suggests that IL et in fames
gressus eorum may have been influenced by A (cat dpv\ov(yiv; cf. Job 17*'
where <§ 0pv\r)/jLa (or dpuWrj/xa) = %] ^TD by-word. — 16. (5 has a text wholly
different from that of J^ : rov ixaKpdv ere iroiija-ai drrb 68ov fvdeias kuI dW6-
TfiMv rrts diKalas yvwp^-qs — a consequence attached to v.^^ instead of a new
11. 9-19 51
paragraph. This is not a scribal heterogram of the particular words of |ij,
but an independent allegorizing reading of the schools. The next section also
is taken as a description of moral folly, and is introduced by the words vU /mri
ae KaraXd^r) kuki] ^ovXi^ (cf. BS 7I). The connection favors the personal
picture of |^; the reading of (g illustrates the mariner in which the expounders
and scribes, in Jerusalem and Alexandria, sometimes dealt with such ethical
texts as this. — & writes Impf at the beginning (and so Bi.), inserts NODDn as
subj., omits ^^T (for the sake of brevity), and for "^ npiSnn has Noonr, possi-
bly = r\s-''^nr[ (Baumg.), though this is generally rendered by qSnN (Pink.).
Bi. omits nncN on rhythmical grounds, but this seems hardly necessary. —
17. 1^ ni''^'; <5 Sidaa-KaXiav {(Q^ fjiddrjcriv), probably in accordance with its
allegorical conception of the passage (cf. Aram. jdSin), and so ^^^^- S ;
<S> NJ01D rearer, educator, A riyefidva, 0 i]yoijfj.evoi>, % ducein. Though no
Vrs. renders by friend, this sense is assured in Heb., and is the most appro-
priate here. The st. = come or bring together, whence Semitic thousand, Heb.
leader (head of clan or tribe), Heb. Ar. friend, Arab, compose (a book),
Aram, teach ; the origin of the senses ox (N. Sem.) and ship (Ass., Aram.) is
not clear. — |^ .thSn r^^:i; G dt-ad-qK-qv Odav = :i'^t\'^h -j (and so ST Bi), a
better reading than that of J^. — 18. % T\rv^ (mil'el) ; (gBal. iBero = 7\r\v;
(S"^ wpLo-ev; S> she forgets (nyc3 = nnsr, repeated from preceding v.) the
thresholds ( = 'jPflc) of her house and the -way ( — mN) of her paths ; ST,
freely, whose house is in the depth of death ; IL inclinata est . . . domiis cius.
P? r\nv, fem., can hardly stand with masc. n^a (if 'i were meant as collective,
it would probably have a plur. verb); nnr (st. third n), though it occurs in
Qal only once, and then not certainly (Isa. 51-^), may be taken as = inclines,
sinks (Ibn Janah), or we may write nnr (cf. i/' 107^^); perh., however, we
should read nnj. — ||J dwej-i '^n; (5 ^era tQsv yyjyevCiv (H-P 103 yr]ii>uv) =
1 PN; 7r)7. is rendering of --1 in 9I8, elsewhere of din (Jer. 3220) or din ■>:2
{\p 492(3)) . in WS 7I 7777ej'oOs irpwroirXdffTov is Adam. Can yrjtvcjv earthy
be the true reading here and 9I8? cf. yiiivo%, 2 Job 4^^ = -13^2. (5 has the
doublet Trapd ry 'i^t) = Sixir hn (cf. 9I8). The meaning of the stem in "i is not
certain, possibly = weak, pozverless (cf Isa. 14I''); but this can hardly be the
signification of the gentilic 'i. — 19. On the ending in \\i\i'> see critical note on
i^^- — For v.'"'** <§ has two readings: one, which appears to be the earlier (so
Lag.) takes ur' as pass., KaTaXafx^dvovTai, and for mniN has i^Tr^ iviavrQif
= nijr, or ■'mi (cf. i K. 8^^ where ev. = or), scribal errors, the latter, perh.,
from 32 ; the other is identical with |^ except that for 0"n it puts evOeiai ((@v
d7a^ds), which maybe a moralizing interpretation after the manner of v.i^- ", or
perh. (Lag.) a marginal note, or (Baumg.) a familiar term, which has ejected
the original word. Neither of these readings offers any advantages over that of
!§• — For |§ ir^'i Si has jnDinc, remember, which in the connection yields
no sense, and is emended by Lag. to ps-nD attain. ST omits suff. in nsxj,
and, by way of interpretation, adds oSra after jma'i.
52 PROVERBS
21, 22. Conclusion, stating the consequences of good and bad
doing.
21. For the upright shall dwell in the land,
And the perfect shall remain therein;
22. But the wicked shall be cut off from the land,
And the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
21. Synonymous, ternary. The reward of the good stated as
motive for right conduct. On upright see note on v.", on perfect,
note on i^^ The reward of good men is permanent abode in the
land ; the remaiii = survive (or /^e /e/t), implies that certain per-
sons are ejected or destroyed from the land (see next verse), in
which in all catastrophes the righteous are maintained. The
expression thve// in the land (not earth) refers to the land of
Israel. The ancient IsraeUtish conception (found also in other
peoples) was that gods and men were attached to the soil. The
god protected his own land and no other, and the citizen as such
enjoyed the benefits of this protection. To leave the land was to
lose one's connection with its deity (i S. 26^^ 2 K. 5^^) and to
give up the rewards which his favor promised. Hence in part the
anxiety of the Israelitish law to secure to each tribe family and
individual man a possession in the land (Ju. 2^ Ez. 47'^*^- Nu. 36"
Ru. 4^ and the genealogies in Chron. and Neh.), infringement on
which was regarded as a great crime (Mic. 2- Dt. 19^'' 27'' Pr. 22-''
23^"). Israel, and not any other nation, was Yahweh's own pos
session and property (Ex. 19^ Dt. 14"'' 26^* \^ 135s cf. Tit. 2"
I Pet. 2^). Thus the expression dwelt in the land (i/'37'' " '^ cf.
Mt. 5^) came to be equivalent to enjoy the divine favor and all the
hlessings of life, and such is its sense here. Though in later times
a large part of the Jews dwelt out of Palestine, the old expression
held its own as the symbol of happiness, and with it the hope
remained of living and dying in the land with which the divine
promises were beheved to be connected.* — 22. Synonymous, ter-
nary. The contrasted fate of evildoers. Wicked is employed in
Pr. as a general term (along with foolish) for those who discard
and disobey the divine law of wisdom. The primitive sense is
* Much of this feeling still remains in countries in which the Jews are excluded
from the rights of citizenship ; it has almost completely disappeared in countries in
which they have full civil recognition.
II. 21-22 53
doubtful, but in OT. it commonly means morally bad. It is also
a forensic term (the opposite oi just), signifying one whose case
in law is had, wrong, or adjudged to be bad (cf. Ex. 2''^) ; the
Causative of the verb = adjudge one wrong or guilty in court (17'*
Ex. 22^**' Isa. 50^ Job 15®). In the prophetical and historical
books the noun generally means those who violate the moral law ;
in the Pss. it is often used, by a natural transition, as a name for
the persecutors of Israel (i^iy^ 58^**^"' 75^''-" 119"^ al). In Pr.
there is no national limitation ; the wicked are they of all nations
who disobey the law of right. — The term tratisgressors or faithless
is here employed as equivalent to ivicked. The original sense of
the word seems to involve the idea of underhand dealing, faith-
lessness to an agreement, treachery (Ju. 9^ Jer. 3^), but it is
extended to include faithlessness to duty and right in general
= transgressors. In the Pss. it sometimes means Jewish apos-
tates (i// 25^). — The verbs in the verse express violent extirpation
by any means, by the hand of man or God. The first (ms) is
the term used in the legal books to express the execution of intol-
erable offenders i^that person shall be cut off from his people,
Lev. 7^ al.) ; the second (nco) is once used (Dt. 28^'') for the
expulsion of the nation from its land. The writer of the verse
probably has these half-technical uses in mind, but employs the
terms in the broadest sense ; unrighteous persons, he says, shall
have no place in the land of promise, no claim, that is, to happi-
ness in this life. Here, as elsewhere, the mode of execution of
the punishment is not stated, but the divine judgment is to be
understood as coming in the way of natural law (courts of law,
failure of plans, sickness, natural death), or through special divine
interposition (violent death).
20. "^ ^'3ia T\i; (5 rpl^ovs dyaOds, according to Lag. false reading of
the abbrev. -ys. — 21. The Grk. MSS. exhibit two renderings, with a number
of verbal variations. The one which appears to be nearer to |§, writing
Xpi/o-ToJ and &KaKoi, is found (as doublet) in Compl. Aid. and (with obel.)
S", in (@A(g *(gs' c. a^ H-P 23, 103, 109, 147, 248, 252, 253, 254, at., a group
which suggests a combination of the recension of Lucian and some other
recension; the other, writing evdeh and Scrtot, is the text of <@^, and appears
to show the hand of an Alexandrian revisor (see note on v.i^). — 22. For "^
D';:'-it (g has 68oi daf^uiv ((©-^ 65ot 5^ dtr.), as in rf/ l^a (Jag.), free or careless
transcription of a Grk. scribe, perh. corruption of 6tl (Heid.). — J^ inr", Qal
54 PROVERBS
Impf., must be taken as indef., but the parallelism suggests a Pass., as all
Vrss. have it (though this may be free rendering) ; we may point as Hof. (so
Bi.), a form which, however, is not found elsewhere; Gr. im", Hof. of mj;
Oort, Frank., Nif. of nD', — Bi. omits Y~\m (as perh. gloss to njDo), which in
fact does not appear in the similar passages ^ 2'j^-22.28.3S.^ yet such determi-
nations of m3 by nouns of place occur elsewhere (Jer. 35^^ Ez. 25'' Lev. 17^''),
and both rhythm and syntax appear to demand a word here, njDD being
otherwise left without antecedent.
This chapter states the economical or prudential conception of
the good life which is the prevailing view of the book of Proverbs
(see note on i^) ; the motive urged for good living is the earthly
well-being which attends it. This sort of eudaemonism, in which
the individual actor alone is considered, and the reward of virtue
is represented not as inward but as outward (long hfe, peace,
honor, riches, see ch. 3), may seem to us ethically defective in
several points. It does not present the good as an independent
ideal, to be pursued solely for its own sake ; it does not hold up
the highest well-being of the world as the goal and standard of
moral conduct ; it says nothing of a sympathetic community and
cooperation of men as the instrument for the development of the
moral life ; it makes no direct mention of the function of con-
science as moral guide ; and it makes the unmodified declaration
that virtue is always attended by outward prosperity. In this last
point Pr. represents the old-Hebrew view, which made no analysis
of the inner life, conceived of goodness as obedience to outward
law, held that the deity controlled every man's life by occasional
and immediate intervention, and so necessarily regarded pros-
perity as the accompaniment of obedience to divine law. This
view is combated in the book of Job ; but it appears that Job's
argument made Uttle impression (perhaps by reason of the absence
of an ethical conception of the future life), and that many or
most of the sages saw nothing more practically helpful than the
old position. As soon as the idea of future compensation was
established (WS. 3), the doctrine of present reward was modified ;
in Pr. this idea is not accepted. See the Introduction, § 5, A,
and § 6, 4. — The defects of ethical theory mentioned above are
in part explained by the aim of the book. The sages no doubt
recognized the function of conscience, and believed in the value
III. 55
of right in itself. But they probably held that what men need is
not ethical theory, but practical considerations which shall help
them to live virtuously. In this they were right — the mass of
men are controlled by their relations to one another in society,
and by the hope of reward and the fear of punishment. It is true
also that men's experience has led them to believe that goodness
is profitable for this life as well as for the life to come. Further,
an ideal element is introduced by the identification of wisdom
with the will of Ciod, which is held to be the absolute right, and
by the personification of wisdom (ch. 8) as God's first creation
and intimate friend. The sages, it may be inferred, mean to say
that he who connects his ethical law with God is provided with a
restraining influence so far as he fears God, and with an elevating
influence so far as he loves him. In certain passages (as, for
example, 2'") they appear to reach the ultimate moral conception,
namely, the ethical union of man with God conceived of as the
moral ideal. These considerations must modify our judgment of
what seems to be a baldly prudential scheme of ethical life.
III. Three independent discourses or paragraphs, introduced
each by the address 'my son,' all more or less fragmentary.
The first (v.^^^) consists of exhortations to follow the teacher's
instruction (v.'-) and observe kindness and truth (v.''^), to trust
in Yahweh and fear him (v.^), and to honor him with one's
wealth (v.^ ^''). The second (v.""^) sets forth the value of divine
chastening (v."'-), the preeiousness of Wisdom (v.'''-'^), and her
function in creation (v.'^^^). The third (v.^^'^) describes the
safety which comes from discretion (v.^^-*) and from the protec-
tion of Yahweh (v.-* -*), enjoins neighborly kindness (v.-'"^'), and
sets forth the retribution of the upright and the wicked (v.^^-^).
The third approaches, in parts (v.-'"^), the form of discourse of
chs. 25-27. The poetical structure of the chapter is distichal, with
four- line strophes, though in some places the form is obscure.
First Discourse. V. i-io.
1. My son, forget not my instruction,
But keep my commandments in mind;
2. For length of days and years of life
And peace will they bestow on thee.
56 PROVERBS
3. Let not kindness and faithfulness leave thee —
Bind them on thy neck [] * —
4. So wilt thou find favor and good < repute >
With God and man.
5. Trust to Yahweh with all thy heart,
And lean not on thine own understanding;
6. In all thy ways acknowledge him,
And he will smooth thy paths.
7. Be not wise in thine own eyes —
Fear Yahweh, and turn away from sin — ^
8. Then will there be health to thy « body »
And refreshment to thy bones.
9. Honor Yahweh with thy wealth.
With the best of all thy revenue —
10. Then will thy barns be filled with < corn »
And thy vats will overflow with must.
The teacher exhorts the pupil to remember his instruction,
urging the advantage it will bring him. — 1. Synonymous, ternary.
Exhortation. Lit.: let thy heart (= mind) keep (= guard, pre-
serve) my commandments. 6'^« = " pupil," as in i^. The con-
tent of the instruction (law, tora) is to be inferred from the
precepts oT the Book of Pr. ; it is almost exclusively moral and
religious, never national, but always individual, very rarely cere-
monial, never dogmatic. It thus stands in contrast with the tora
of the prophet, which is national-religious (sole worship of Yahweh
and obedience to his will), and with that of the priest (Penta-
teuch), which is ritual. The sage presents himself as authority
and source of moral wisdom ; priest and prophet speak only in
the name of Yahweh, declaring his word. The prophet, it is said,
who shall speak a word not given him by God shall die (Dt. 18^'),
even though he has been deceived by Yahweh (Ez. 14'') ; the sage
finds his word in his own mind — in the prophet this is a crime
(Ez. 13^^). This diversity is the result of the difference of the
points of view of different periods of Israelitish history. The
sages represent a period of reflection, in which human life is
studied for its own sake, and its natural laws investigated. —
* The Received Text adds : Write them on the tablet of thy mind (lit. heart).
III. 1-3 57
2. Single sentence, which may be taken as binary, or as quaternary-
ternary. The reward. Long hfe is considered in OT. to be one
of the chief blessings of man's lot (Ex. 20^^), including, as it does,
the idea of happiness (so that the first line might be rendered : a
long and happy life). Sheol offered nothing — the longer one
lived on earth the greater one's opportunities for work and enjoy-
ment (Isa. 38^^ 65^).* Peace is originally tvholeness, completeness
of condition. It is used of bodily health (Gen. 29^), of political
concord (Jud. 4'"), of friendly relation between men (i/^ 41^'^"'),
of national tranquillity and safety (Jer. 6'^ 33"), and, as here, of a
general condition of freedom from danger and disturbance. f The
reference is primarily to outward quiet, though inward serenity is
of course involved. This delightful ideal, a long and peaceful life,
is the favorite one in Proverbs. It is represented both as the nat-
ural product of devotion to wisdom (intelligent uprightness of life),
and as the gift of God — two ideas easily harmonized by the con-
ception of wisdom as having its root in reverence for God. —
Bestow on thee, lit. add to thee.
3, 4. An injunction parallel to that of v.^- ^, and apparently
intended as explanation or definition of it. — 3. Synonymous, ter-
nary (or, ternary-binary). The verse is perhaps epexegetical of
V.', a description of the law of wisdom as the maintenance of kind-
ness and faithfulness. This combination of qualities (or its equiv-
alent) occurs often in OT. (Gen. 24^'' Ex. ^a^ Dt. 7'' x\i 25'" 85'"*">
Pr. 1 4" 16" 20"'^ al.) as the expression of perfectly good relations
between man and man, or between man and God. Kindness
is friendly good feeling and the conduct appropriate thereto (see
note on 2*), love of man for man (Esth. 2'') or of man for God
(Hos. 6''). It is not properly mer-cy, compassion, clemency, for-
giveness (for which ideas Heb. has other expressions, Dt. i3'''<'''^'
Ex. 34^ Dan. 9"**'). Yahweh is good and kind to Israel because
he loves the nation — that is the normal condition of things ; and
* Cf. Cic. De Senectute.
t The OT. shelem (RV. peace-offering) is an offering which completes one's
duty to God or makes one whole with him by the fulfilment of a vow or by a free
gift of gratitude for favors received. Arabic Islam ("submission, resignation ") is
the putting one's self in a position of soundness with God by faith, obedience, and
5ubn?ission.
58 PROVERBS
even when his kindness is brought into connection with the re-
moval of transgression, as in ij/ 103, it still remains simple kindness.
— Faithfulness {firmness) is steadfastness, fidelity to one's word
and to the obligations which spring from one's relations with
men. It is thus sometimes equivalent to truthfulness {\\i 15^) or
to truth (i K. 10'' Dt. is'""'^')? but has usually, as here, a wider
signification. — The two qualities together, complementing each
other (love being thus saved from feebleness, and fidelity from
harshness), may be said to form a perfect moral character. They
are to be attached to the neck not as an amulet to ward off evil
(though such ornaments may originally have been amulets),* but,
as the general connection indicates, as a necklace (i''') or a seal-
chain (Gen. 38'*, possibly as bearing a seal-ring), that one may
carry them with him always, and have them in remembrance. —
The Heb. adds the parallel line : write them on the tablet of thy
mind, a form of expression which occurs only here and in f Jer.
17', but the same idea is found in Dt. 30" Jer. 31*1 The allusion
is to the tablets of the decalogue, and to the command (Dt. 6''''')
to write the divine precepts on hands and forehead, doorposts
and gates (the later phylacteries, etc.)t ; cf. the Arab, expression
to write a thing with a needle on the itmer corner of the eye. The
moral law is not only to be accepted as an external code, but also
to be received into the mind and form part of the man's nature
(cf. Jer. 31'^). — This third clause is lacking in some Gk. Mss.,
and is probably not original — the verse is complete without it,
and it mars the symmetrical distichal form of the paragraph ; it
may have been inserted by a Heb. scribe from f, where it is in
place. — The general idea of kindness tended to pass into that of
pity for the poor and almsgiving ; so the Lat. Vulg. here has mise-
ricordia, and the Grk. a word (eAci^/xoo-uVat) which was later em-
ployed iox alms (BS. 3" Mt. 6^ Lu. 11*^ Diog. Laert. 5, 17), and
has given us our word eleemosynary, though here it seems to mean
pity, mercy. — 4. Single sentence, ternary. The recompense.
* The preexilian Israelites wore amulets called saharon (Isa. 3^8^ cf. Jud. S^i- 26)
and lahash {\%a^. s^*') I apparently also earrings served as amulets (Gen. 35'', cf.
Hos. 213(15)). How long this practice continued is uncertain. The thummim
(tummim, sometimes improperly identified with Arab, tamuna) was not an amulet.
+ Such legends also appear to have been originally of the nature of amulets.
"I- 3-5 59
The Heb. reads: And thou wilt find [lit. and fitid~\ favor and
good understanding in the sight of God and man, in which the
term understanding \% unsatisfactory, smct good understanding (or,
intelligence) is not of the nature of recompense, parallel to favor,
but is rather the cause of the latter (so \-^^ good understanding gives
favor) . Most of the Vrss. have found difficulty with the expres-
sion. The Grk. attaches the first part (through the word fa7'or)
to v.^, and then renders : and devise excellent things in the sight of
the Lord and of men (so quoted freely in Rom. 12''' 2 Cor. 8'') ;
but this does not agree with the connection, from which we expect
the statement of the result of acting as v.^ enjoins. The Peshitta
Syriac has . . . favor and good and understandirig, and the Tar-
gum . . . favor and understanding and good. A slight change in
the Heb. gives name instead of understanding ; the expression
fai'or and good name (cf. 22^) expresses the recompense required
by the connection. — On favor see note on i^ To find favor is
to be acceptable, approved, well thought of (Gen. 6* Ru. 2^") ; a
kind and faithful character, says the sage, will be acceptable both
to God and to men (so Lu. 2''-) ; i7i the sight of = "on the part
of," " with " ; the same isolation of moral qualities as the condi-
tion of the divine favor is found in Isa. i^^^^ 66- xp 24 al., but is
more complete and persistent in Pr. than in any other Biblical
book. The good reward of right doing (if we accept this reading)
is this favor and the benefits (friendship, protection, aid) which
naturally flow from it.
5-10. The blessing attendant on trusting and honoring God.
Exhortation to trust (v.^), acknowledge (v.''), and fear him (v.'),
the result of which will be health (v.^^). Exhortation to honor
him in the use of wealth (v.^), the result of which will be
abundance of wealth (v.^"). — The preceding ■ paragraph (v.^"^)
deals with the ethical side of life, this with the religious side.
5-8. Benefit of dependence on God. — 5. Synonymous, ternary,
or ternary-binary. The Grk. has God instead of Yahweh ; the in-
terchange of divine names seems not to be significant in Proverbs,
but the Grk. preference for God may indicate the later Jewish
feeling. To trust to God is, from the connection, to regard him
as the source of wisdom and power, the guide in the moral life
6o PROVERBS
and in all other things, to obey his law, and have confidence in
him; see note on i". We may render trust in, understanding this
expression in the sense indicated. With all the heart = with the
whole conviction and force of the mind, absolutely. — Opposed to
this posture of mind is the leaning on one's oivn understanding
(insight, wisdom) as on a prop or staff (2 S. i" Mic. 3'' Job 24-'').
The assumption is that man's intellect, apart from God, will not
guide him aright. This assumption is founded not on any theory
of man's native depravity (such a theory does not exist in OT.),
but on observation of life. Man is often blinded by passion and
at the mercy of temptation (i^"""), but he may avoid sin by his
own will (i^") if he will give heed to God's law, which is a fixed
rule of conduct unaffected by the mutations and perversions of
human passion. Man, further, is faUible, and does not always
know what is best to do — he must have confidence in a higher
wisdom if he wishes to feel secure and be free from anxiety. This
sense of security and peace is involved in the term trust (cf.
Ju. 8"). The sage probably does not mean to exclude human
thought and effort. In times of great national distress prophets
and psalmists sometimes represent the military strength of nations
as nothing when compared with the absolute power of the God of
Israel (Hos. i" Isa. 2^' 10. 31 \^ 20'*'^* iiS'*-^) ; but here, as gener-
ally in OT., the idea seems to be that human wisdom and strength
must be guided and sustained by God. — 6. Single sentence, ter-
nary. Repetition of the injunction, with statement of the result
of obedience. Acknowledge = know, have intimate acquaintance
with, that is, know and obey the divine law, recognize its suprem-
acy and take it as guide. To smooth is to make level ; the meta-
phor is derived from the preparation of a highway, as in Isa. 40''.
The usual way of human life, the sage intimates, is full of inequali-
ties and difficulties, but he who has in mind the law of God will
find these hindrances removed and his path made easy. The
reference is not to nice moral problems which shall be solved by
the divine law, but, as the context indicates, to external difficulties
and dangers, such as poverty, sickness, enmities, evil allurements.
The paths are all a man's ways, social, commercial, political,
religious ; he has only to do right and trust in God, and affairs
will be made easy for him — he will enjoy prosperity in the sense
III. 5-8 6l
Qj- yin. 16. 24. 25 . jj. jg ^Y\e old doctrine of the prosperity of the right-
eous.— At the end of the verse some Grk. MSS. add a^uf th\ foot
shall not stumble, a scribal insertion from v.-'^. — 7. Synonymous,
ternary, or, ternary-quaternary. Repetition of the warning against
self-confidence. Progressive parallelism. The holding one's self
wise is represented as the contrast to or negation of fearing God,
an antithesis similar to that of v.' — it is assumed that to trust to
one's own wisdom is to follow another law than that of God,
ordinary human standards of judgment being different from the
divine standard ; a somewhat different view of conceit of wisdom
is given in Eccl. f^. The fear of Yahweh, which is assumed to
be the true wisdom (as in i^), is defined as turning away from
sin (lit. evil). The evil in this case cannot = misfortune, escape
from which would then be the result of fearing God (as in v.**),
for the verb means a voluntary avoidance, and expresses moral
character (as in Job i^ Pr. i6'''). The fear of Yahweh, it is
implied, gives the proper ethical norm of life, and wisdom, as
generally in chs. 1-9, is understood to involve a religious element.
Clem, of Alex. (^Strom., 155) has fear God who alone is mighty, a
free expansion, perhaps suggested by Mt. 10-^ (Lag.). — 8. Synony-
mous, ternary-binary. The reward. The first line may be read :
// (the fearing Yahweh and departing from sin) tvill he, etc., but it
is better to take health as subject of the verb ; and then may be
inserted (after the Grk.) as giving a better syntactical connection
with the preceding verses. Instead of body the Heb. has navel, an
improbable reading, since elsewhere (Ez. 16'*, and a similar term
Cant. 7-) the term is not used for the whole body and being. A
slight change in the Heb. gives the word for body (so the Grk.
reads) or the word {ox flesh. The latter term occurs in 11'^ for
the whole man; the combination body and bone { = flesh a?id
bone) is found, in this sense, in Gen. 29" 2 Sam. 5^ Job 2^ (and cf.
Job 21-^ so^''^). Each of these terms is used as = self (designation
of the spiritual from the physical), as in Neh. (f ip 16^ 35^" 63^*-',
and we may here render : thou wilt have health and refreshment.
Of these two words the first is properly an abstract noun of action,
//ra////^'- (deliverance from disease), and the second, refreshment, is
that tvhich 7-efreshes (lit. drink, as in Hos. 2" \\i 102'°). The sense
of the verse is that obedience to the law of God secures for a man
62 PROVERBS
a thoroughly healthy and happy condition of being. The happi-
ness is primarily freedom from bodily and other outward ills, but
necessarily involves inward peace.
9, 10. Religious use of wealth. — 9. Synonymous, ternary-
binary (or, ternary). The word here rendered revenue (RV.
hicrcase) commonly refers to agricultural produce, and this sense
is indicated by v.^'*; elsewhere in Pr. (as, for example, in i6*) the
word appears to have a wider meaning. The reference in the
injunction seems to be rather to a general righteous employment
of riches than to the payment of the legal tithes. There is else-
where in this part of the book (chs. 1-9) no reference to the
ceremonial law as obHgatory (in 7" sacrifice is mentioned as a
popular observance), and the immediate context favors the more
general interpretation. The term here rendered the best (riTKi)
is so used in Am. 6^ i/^ 78^^ 105^*^ (of persons) i Sam. 2^ Am. 6*^ (of
things). See the injunction to give freely in v.^, and compare the
similar injunction in Ben-Sira 29^ ". God would thus be honored
by obedience to the commands respecting the care of the poor
and other general moral precepts. — The sense will, however, be
substantially the same if we translate with (or, out of) the first-
fruits of all thy revenue, the reference then being to the triennial
tithe for the poor (Dt. 142*29) and the annual tithe for the temple-
ministers (Dt. i8'2 *^ Nu. 18^2.^''). These were doubtless regarded
as obligatory by all pious Israelites, though in Prov. they are else-
where silently passed over as part of the acknowledged routine of
religious life, observance of which did not necessarily argue a gen-
uine spirit of obedience to the moral law. — With is lit. out of, a
form of expression which is meant to indicate that it is a portion of
one's wealth that is to be thus used. The verse reads in the Grk. :
Honor the Lord out of thy righteous labors, and give him the first
of thy fruits of righteousness, which appears to be a scholastic para-
phrase or interpretation of the Hebrew. — 10. Synonymous-ter-
nary. Statement of the reward of such use of wealth. Our Heb.
text reads : thy bar?is will be filled with plenty ; but this last term
is elsewhere always adverbial (Gen. 41^^ Eccl. s^^dD)^ and never a
thing with which something may be filled ; an easy emendation
(suggested by the Grk.) gives corn, parallel to must. Corn is
III. S-io 63
a general term for cereals. Must (triTn, which the Vrss. here all
render by wine) is the wine-crop, the grape-juice expressed and
gathered into vats ; it is frequently mentioned, along with corn
and oil, as one of the main crops of the land of Canaan (Dt. 7'^
Neh. 5"). Apparently it was not commonly drunk till it was fer-
mented ; it is spoken of as exhilarating (Ju. 9^^) and intoxicat-
ing (Hos. 4"). The reward of honoring Yahweh is here physical,
in keeping with the old-Hebrew idea. The agricultural life con-
templated suits the Palestinian Jews throughout the whole of the
OT. period ; abundance of the standard crops, corn and wine,
was a synonym of prosperity down to the final dispersion of the
people (a.c. 70). So wealth, in v.^, = "agricultural revenue."
III. 1. <5 I'o/if/uwi' (H-P, 68 aL vSfiuv) takes nnin as plu., possibly (Heid.)
a Pharisaic reading to include the oral tradition, more probably induced by
the plu. in ''; CI. Alex. decr/jLwv, perh. from memory (so the Draconian laws
were called). — (5 f)rif/.aTd for |§ nisc is rhetorical, untechnical rendering, not
reference to the decalogue. — nsj is properly preserve, keep safe (and so sub-
stantially = remember), though " keeping in mind " may be practically equiva-
lent to "observing, obeying" {yp 2510 78^). — 3. Jager gets rid of the triplet
form by attaching ^ to v.^ (changing Vx to n"^), but this clause belongs by its
content to v.^. It is better to omit "=, which is lacking in (^^ "'■ (found in
(gA ai. 92 Compl, Aid., CI. Al., Proc, S>^ sub ast. USE) ; see note on f. The
different positions given the clause in Grk. MSS. suggest that it is a gloss
(Lag.). — @ iXerjfxoavvai (for -'Dn) here = kindness, mercy, as in Gen. 47^^,
not alms. — 4. For |^ Impv. NSC Bi. writes nxdp, which, however, is unneces-
sary, the Impv. being not uncommon in prot. and apod, of a conditional
sentence (6^ 8^^ ff al.). — J§ ^-ir is taken by (@ as Impv., irpovov, against the
connection; % disciplinam, a meaning which the word will hardly bear; as
^yv (perhaps occasioned by 131^ ^ iii^'^) here affords no satisfactory sense,
we may emend to 3r, which suits the connection, though it is without support
from MSS. or Vrss. — S3E take 31B as subst , inserting 1 before it, E following
the order of |^, S transposing ':• and -i\ This latter fact may seem (Baumg.)
to indicate that S' here follows C, only introducing an error; but elsewhere 2C
seems to be dependent on ^, though it sometimes shows a correction after |^.
— 5. |§ '^N (twice) ; read '^;' (so ® in second occurrence) ; throughout OT.
we should probably emend ^s after n'03 to ^••. — |^ nin^; (g Qe(^. — 6. |^ vv-i;
(@ amifv, scil. ffocplav, against the connection; © takes '' as telic. — 7- ?^ ^i"'''
(5 rbv debv. — 8. In ^n.n mson it is doubtful whether the subject of ^i.'^ is '-\ or
the statement in wJ^; in the latter case we should expect xvi after -<, in the
former case a connecting particle, as in fact (@ introduces the verse with rbre,
and Si with telic -> ; a connective seei... preferable : so will there be or that
there may be. niNon is an Aramaic form. — |^ -\t' navel ; (5 auifjiarl, and so
64 PROVERBS
S"; ^ ^03; % = ^; ^ -ir'jiD (Lag.) or lu-jis (Buxt.) = |^ (the word, in
Syr. -i::',-ijiD or irji?, seems to be a compd. of i:*', but the force of the first
element is doubtful). Read n;'3, with (§, Cler., Bi. ; or, with Vog., Schl., Ew.,
Hi., Oort, Kamp., tnC". — On (5 eTri/i^Xeia as rendering of 'ip.;' see Schleusner's
note; Procop. iiriniveia stability ; 'A -KOTiaix-b^, of which Deissmann {Bibel-
studien, p. 152) finds an example as early as B.C. 240. — 9. (§ renders jVi by
SiKaiwv irbvuiv, a homiletical expression intended to warn against the unjust
acquisition of wealth; for a similar use of w. see BS. 141^ 28"', and for the
idea Pr. lO^''; labor = wealth Eccl. 2^2 al. (@ similarly defines pnij.-i by
SiKCLLOffivri^, and further omits So, which term, here unnecessary though not
out of place, may have been lacking in the Heb. MS. of (5. — 10. |^ >3l";
© irXrja/xovrjs a-irov (so rightly Procop.; the text has (riT(i) by scribal error, or,
if TrX. did not originally stand in the Grk. the Dat. (rlT(}j might have been used
after the vb. irinirX-qTaC) ; but a marg. note in S^^ (which = |ij) states that
the a. is found neither in the Heb. nor in the Grk., from which it may be
inferred that the Grk. MSS. here varied. The text of (5 presents a conflation
of two readings, ttX. = ;!3!:' and a. = i3r, of which the latter is more likely to
be original, and the former a correction after Heb. The reading 12.;' suits
the context and is adopted by Oort, and regarded as original by Frankenberg;
it is perh. against it that in the combination corn and ivine in OT. it is always
jn and never ~\iz' that is used, though this is not decisive, and "ija* seems to
be required by the parallelism; for its use see Gen. 42'"'- Am. 8^ Neh, lo^^.
11, 12. A separate paragraph (a quatrain) on the benefit of
divine chastening, possibly here placed as a modification of the
preceding paragraph, to explain cases in which worldly prosperity
does not follow rectitude. It would then be of the nature of an
editorial insertion.
11. Reject not, my son, the instruction of Yahweh,
And spurn not his reproof,
12. For whom < he > loves he reproves.
And he afflicts i him ' in whom he delights.
11. Synonymous, ternary- (or, quaternary-) binary. Instead of
reject we may render despise (the general sense is the same in the
two renderings), and instead of spurn (lit. loathe^ the nearly
equivalent be wearied out with, weary of (so RV.), as in Gen. 2'f' ;
The Grk. has/ai/itnot (so quoted in Heb. 12^), = " give not up thy
self-cominand and endurance," which may be an interpretation of
our text, or may represent another Heb. term. — 12. Synonymous,
ternary (in the emended text). In the first line the Heb. has
Va/iwe/i {Yahweh loves instead of he laves), which is a scribal
HI. II-I2 65
insertion (explicitum) for clearness. — The second line reads,
according to the Masoretic pointing, and \_ = yea, reproves him]
as a father \reproves'\ the son in whom he delights, or de/ights in
him as a father in his son. These renderings, though possible,
are hard, and the suggested representation of God as father would
perhaps make a difficulty, since it would be unique in Proverbs.
The translation afflicts given above (which the Heb. consonants
permit) is supported by the parallelism, by the Grk., and by
Job 5'^ The paralleHsm naturally suggests (though it does not
absolutely require) an explicit reference to disciplinary suffering.
The Grk. has for whom the Lord loves he reproves, and scourges
every son 7vhom he receives (so quoted in Heb. 12"), in which
scourges = afflicts. Job 5^"- '^ reads :
Happy is the man whom God reproves,
Therefore despise [or, reject] not the instruction of Shaddai,
For he wounds and binds up,
He smites and his hand heals.
The similarity between the passages in Job and Prov. makes it
probable that one is an imitation of the other, or that the expres-
sions used were current in the schools.* — The word son in second
line should be changed to him, so as to secure a better parallelism.
— Whichever translation be adopted, the sense is the same: the
suffering of a good man is to be regarded as a divine chastening
dictated by love. The thought is found in Job 4. 5 (EHphaz) and
33 (Elihu), but only here in Proverbs. The sages of Prov. else-
where adopt the old view (defended by the three friends in Job)
that suffering is always the punishment of sin ; the author of our
passage (following the school of EHphaz and EUhu) considers the
exception to the rule, and finds the explanation of the suffering of
the righteous in the disciplinary love of God, which is also the
NT. view (it is suggested in OT. in such passages as Am. 4""").
Though hinted by the earliest of the Israelitish ethical writers
(Amos), it appears to have made no lasting impression till after
* Recent writers are divided in opinion on the question of priority between Job 5
and Pr. 1-9. As Pr. agrees, in the point of view under discussion, with Ben-Sira, it
should probably be regarded as the later, unless Job be put very late (in the seco,nd
or first century B.C.). In both Pr. and Job it is individual rather than national
suffering that is contemplated.
F
^ PROVERBS
the acceptance (in the second or first century B.C.) of the doctrine
of ethical immortality.*
11. For various unimportant var. lect. of © in v.^'- ^^ see H-P. |^ >J3
should probably be omitted as (early) scribal insertion. — 12. rx without
Makkef, as in -^ 47^ 60'^, probably a scribal accident. ni.T in v.^"^ is sus-
tained by all Mss. and Vrss., but may be omitted (as explicitufii) with advan-
tage to the rhythm. For ][^ ^n-ji read Hif. 3ND", after (§ /xacrrtYo?, and as in
Job 5^*; Pi. 3>s3 (Dys., cf. Cappell.) is possible, but does not occur in OT. —
1^ p HN; (S (exc. H-P 106) ■Ko.vra viov, adopted by Bi. ; the tt. is natural,
and may be rhetorical explanation; the universality indicated by J§ in " is
involved in the Heb. of ''. The p, found in all texts, probably suggested the
pointing 3N-, and must be early; yet it is not appropriate here (it probably
has no connection with the common address ij3 of v.^i) ; we expect ir.y or
n;'N *??, and this reading may be adopted as the most probable. — 1§ nsT;
© TrapaS^X^^"') free rendering of J^, as in Mai. i^^^; S^T '•"'i seems to be repe-
tition from preceding cl., or, instead of ni-\> they perh. read nsT' or mi-,
13-20. Excellence of wisdom. — A group of 8 couplets, v.^^^
forming a separate sub-paragraph,
13. Happy the man who finds wisdom.
And the man who gains understanding;
14. For the profit she brings is better than [] silver,t
And the revenue she bestows than gold.
15. She is more precious than corals —
No treasures [] J can compare with her.
16. Long life is in her right hand.
In her left hand riches and honor.
17. Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace;
18. She is a tree of life to those who grasp her —
Happy are they who hold her fast.
19. Yahweh by wisdom founded the earth,
By understanding established the heavens.
20. By his knowledge the waters well forth,
And the clouds drop down dew.
13. Synonymous, ternary, or, quaternary-ternary. The Grk.
and Syr. Vrss. have two terms for man (human being . . . mortal)^
* On the doctrine of the Talmud, see Weber, Theol. § 69.
t Heb. : better than the profit of silver.
X Heb. : 710 treasures of thine.
III. 12-14 (yy
and it is not improbable that the Heb. originally had such a vari-
ation, perhaps = homo . . . vir, or two equivalent words = homo.
Whether wisdom is acquired by one's own effort or received as a
gift from God, is not said ; the two points of view were probably
not distinguished by the writer. The beatitudes of Prov. all (with
the exception of 16^) relate to the individual moral life, standing
thus in contrast with those of the legal and historical books (and
\\i 32^2 146^ Eccl. 10'') which refer to national life, and to those of
the Psalter, which, with a few exceptions, have a personal-religious
tone.* — 14. Synonymous, ternary-binary (in the emended text).
Literally : for her acquisition is better than the acquisition of silver,
and her revenue than gold. The expression rendered her acquisi-
tion may mean the acquiring her, or what she acquires (Jier gain,
profit), or what she produces {— the gain that one gets from
her) , or her trade, or trading in her ( = RV. the merchandise of it,
the word merchandise being used in the now obsolete sense of
commerce). The meaning seems to be fixed by the second clause,
in which her revenue must signify either 7vhat comes to her {her
income), or what she yields to her possessor {the income from
her) ; the second of these senses is supported by the connec-
tion, in which the topic is the advantage that man derives from
wisdom, and by the similar passage 8'^ my fruit is better than
gold and my revenue than silver, that is, as v.^' suggests, what she
has to offer to her followers. From the parallelism we may con-
clude that her acquisition or gain signifies the profit she brings.
The translation for to acquire her is better than to acqtiire silver
and to gain her {is better) than gold, though intelligible and not
out of keeping with the context, is hardly allowed by the Hebrew.
Grk. : for it is better to traffic for her than for treasures of gold
and silver; cf. Mt. 13**"*^ Latin Vulgate : for the acquisition of
her is better than traffic in silver and her fruit is of best and
purest gold. Peshitta Syriac and Targum : for traffic in her is
better than traffic in silver and her fruit than pure gold. These
various translations give the same general idea. The parallelism
here and 8^^ suggests the omission of the second /r^/ (or acquisi-
* The Psalmist, however, often speaks as a member of the nation ; his individual
experience is the common one.
68 PROVERBS
^ion) in first line. — In ij/ 19'° <'^^ similar praise is given to the
Tora ; the points of view of the sage and the psalmist are different.
— 15. Synonymous, ternary. The Heb. has a// thy treasures can-
not (= none of thy treasures can) cotnpare 7vith her; the Possess.
Pron., which is inappropriate, is better omitted with all the ancient
Versions. The meaning of the Heb. noun in first cl. (D""De) is
uncertain. It was unknown to the ancient Vrss. : Grk., Syr.,
Targ., here have precious stones, Lat. Vulg. has all wealth ; else-
where I,at. has a number of other renderings ; in Job 28'* Targ.
has pearls. The rendering corals is based on Lam. 4', where the
word is used to indicate ruddiness of complexion. There and
here RV. has rubies in the text, and corals in the margin (see
Job 28^'*) ; the ruby would be appropriate in Lam. 4'' by its color,
but the word here employed never occurs in fists of gems (such
as Ex. 28^""^" 2)9^^^^ Ez. 28''^), but only in poetical books (Lam.,
Job, Prov.). The coral was highly valued by the ancients (Plin.,
H.N., 32, 11), and, as it was found on the coast of India and in
the Red Sea, might weU have been known to the Jews. The ren-
dering pearls (Bochart, Ewald, Reuss, Noyes, Strack, al.) would
suit if the complexion in Lam. 4^ could be understood as pearly ;
corals is favored by Gesen., Fleischer, De., Kamphausen, and
others. Treasures is lit. what is desired, desirable, precious.
Wisdom is a source of gain (v.''*) and is thus precious. — Between
the clauses of the Heb. text the Grk. inserts nothing evil shall
resist her, she is well known to (or easily recognizable by) all who
approach her ; the first of these added clauses may be a corrupt
form of the Heb. second cl. (perhaps for nothing desirable can be
set over against her), and the second may come in like manner
from Heb. first clause. The addition is an interruption of the
connection, and its meaning is obscure. — 16. Equivalent clauses,
ternary. At the beginning of second cl. and may be inserted, with
the Grk., and after the prevailing norm of the couplets. The pre-
ceding description of the excellence of wisdom is figurative —
nothing is said of the precise nature of the benefits she confers.
Here we have an explicit statement of the material rewards that
attend her ; see n. on v.^ Long life is lit. length of days. The
7-iches and honor, here mentioned in addition to long life, are to be
taken literally. The sage's point of view seems to be twofold.
III. 14-18 69
On the one hand, his conception of wisdom includes prudence
and sagacity, qualities that usually secure both wealth and the
esteem of men; cf. such passages as 10'' 11-® 12" 14^ 19^ 21^^
22® 24^ 2^^ 2jio-3i — jjjjg j^g^ j-m-jg through the whole book.
These qualities do not exclude the higher side of the conception
of wisdom which appears elsewhere in the book. On the other
hand, there is the idea that God, by some direct intervention or
according to the general laws of his government of the world,
bestows prosperity on those who obey the precepts of wisdom. —
After this verse the Grk. adds : out of her mouth proceeds righteous-
ness, and lazo and mercy she dears on her tongue ; cf. Isa. 45-^ out
of my mouth proceeds righteousness (Yahweh is the speaker) and
Pr. 31^^ and the law of kindness [= kindly instruction'] is on her
tongue (said of the good housewife). This couplet, which is not
in keeping with the context, is the addition of an annotator who
felt that the passage should contain not a Pharisaic glorification
of the Tora (Held.), but a recognition of the ethical elements of
wisdom. Our present Grk. text of 31^'' (on which see note) is
different from the clause here cited, and the latter must have been
translated from the Heb. or from a Grk. text which followed the
Hebrew ; the Grk. should probably here read : the law of kind-
ness, etc. The ethical element introduced by the Grk. Hes out-
side the idea of the Heb. sage, whose purpose is simply to describe
wisdom as the sutnmu?n bonuni. — 17. Synonymous, binary, or
ternary. Tho. pleasantness and peace are to be interpreted accord-
ing to v.^*' : a life controlled by intellectual and moral wisdom will
be free from disturbances and cares. Cf. Job 5'^ where peace is
the reward of the man whom God instructs. It is outward peace
that is primarily meant, but this would doubtless be accompanied,
in the view of the writer, by serenity of mind ; the Heb. con-
ception of life, as is apparent throughout the Book of Proverbs,
was distinctly objective, but it necessarily included, as all human
thought does, the posture of soul. Peace ! is the common saluta-
tion among men in OT. (as now among the Arabs), a general
expression, covering all the outward conditions of life ; the dis-
tinctively inward application of the term does not appear in OT.
Cf. Jno. 14'^ i6^l — 18. Synonymous, probably ternary-binary.
Tree of life is a figurative expression (probably a commonplace of
70 PROVERBS
the poetical vocabulary), equivalent (as appears from ii^ 13^*
15'*) to source of long life and peace ; the statement of this verse
is thus identical in meaning with that of v.'® ^\ The poetical
image of lifegiving fruit (found also Ez. 47^^, and cf. the fountain
of life, Pr. 10" al.) is probably connected with the conception of a
primitive sacred tree of life, and it is not unlikely that the allusion
here is to the tree of Gen. 2.3; if this be so, it is the only such
allusion, besides that of Ez. 47'*, in OT. (the description of the
garden of God in Ez. 28 has no mention of this particular tree).
In Genesis the life is physical ; the man, it is said, would have
lived forever if he had eaten of the fruit of the tree, even after he
had violated the command by eating of the other tree (Gen. 3^^).*
Here also the life is physical, as appears from v.'® ; there is no
reference or allusion to existence beyond the grave. But the sage
departs from the account in Gen. in that he attributes long life to
a quahty of mind.
19, 20. A separate paragraph. From a description of the
blessings which wisdom confers on man, the sage goes on to
exalt it as a guiding principle of God in the creation and
maintenance of the physical world; the same conception is
found in 8^*^^ (and cf. Job 28^0-28), BS. i^^ WSol. 7. This view is
characteristic of the Wisdom books, while in the Prophets (Am. 4'^
5'^ 9'' Isa. 40 — there are no such references in preexilian writings)
and the Psalms (89. 104. 139) God's works are cited as illustra-
tions of his greatness and his care for his people. The cosmical
conception, which dwells on the order of the world for its own
sake, belongs to the post-prophetic period and indicates an influ-
ence of Greek thought.! This paragraph obviously connects itself
with the preceding and not with the following (which is an exhor-
tation to obey the laws of wisdom) ; whether it originally formed
part of a larger section is uncertain. — 19. Synonymous, quater-
nary-ternary. Wisdom as primeval attribute of the Creator.
* On the tree of life in Gen., see Dillmann, Genesis; Budde, Bibl. UrgeschichU •
Cheyne, Job and Sol., p. 123, and Bampton Led., p. 441 f . ; Schwally, Leben nach d.
Tode, p. 118.
t There is perhaps a trace of Persian thought also ; cf. Cheyne, Jeiv. Relig. Life
after the Exile, pp. 151, 208. Whether the sages were affected by Egyptian cos-
mogonic ideas is uacertajfl.
III. 18-20
71
It is the skill shown in the creation that is had in mind (as
in Job 28 Pr. 8) ; contrast the national point of view of the
prophets and the psalmists, the social interest of Gen. 2, and
the statistical form of Gen. i. Wisdom here seems to be simply
an attribute, with no approach to hypostatization. — The expres-
sions founded and established belong to the old- Hebrew cosmo-
gonical ideas. The earth was conceived of as a plane mass,
resting on an ocean (1// 24^ 136"), as having foundations (Isa. 51'^
\^ 104* Pr. 8^^) and as supported by pillars (Job 9^ \\i 75^^*') ; Sheol
was apparently supposed to lie beneath the subjacent ocean (cf.
Am. 9^^). Above the earth the heaven or sky was thought of as
a material expanse (Gen. i^), fixed in its place by God and sup-
ported by pillars (Job 26" \^ 18''*'), by which we are probably to
understand the mountains. The plu. heavens represents the sky
as made up of contiguous parts ; the expression heavens of heav-
ens, elsewhere used of the celestial abode of the deity (Dt. 10^*
I K. 8^ (// 148*) conceives of it as including different planes. The
three divisions of the world are given in Ex. 20'' : the heaven
above, the earth beneath, the water under the earth.* — The
monotheistic view of creation is here assumed as generally held
(while Isa. 40 contains a polemic against polytheism). — 20. Par-
allels, ternary. Wisdom in the divine direction of the material
world. The verbs are better taken as Present ; v.^^ deals with the
creation of the world, here we pass to its present guidance ; if the
verbs be rendered as Past, the reference will be to the original
arrangement. Lit. the deeps are cleft, that is, the subterranean
structure is broken up so that the water may flow. The waters
include all bodies of water that issue from the ground, namely,
springs and rivers, and also the sea ; these come from the sub-
terraneous ocean. Along with them is mentioned the water that
is held to come from the other great aqueous supply : the dew
is supposed to fall from the clouds, and the term is probably
meant to include rain (cf. Job 28-^-^36^*'); the reference is to
an ocean above the sky. Cf. (Gen. 7") the double process by
which the flood is produced : the fountains of the great deep
* For later Jewish cosmogonic ideas see Secrets of Enoch, ed. R. H. Charles;
Weber, Theol., \ 44. On Babylonian ideas cf. Jastrow, Relig. of Bab. and Assyria,
pp. 442 f., 489.
72 PROVERBS
burst forth (that is, water rises from the subterranean ocean), and
the windows of heaven are opened (that is, openings are made in
the sky through which the water of the celestial ocean may fall).
Apart from any scientific conception of method the verse declares
that the divine wisdom appears in the distribution of water in the
world. It is possible that in the original form of the section other
illustrations of God's wisdom followed. Cf. 8^'"^'.
13. |§ DIN . . . DIN; (5 (followed by S) dvdpuiros (dvTjp) . . . Ovrirbs;
we should perh. read l^'1J^• or r\s (so Kamp.) instead of second n; 3L omits
it. — pj P''S'; <5 ddev, CI. Alex. Migne I. 357 e'vpe (but 552 olde), assimilation
to vb. of *; Saadia p£3\ — 14. mno; @ avTr}v i/j.Tropeve<Tdai {C\. A\. i/jiwopev-
drjvai, Ped. 91); (5'' ^ x/"'"'^'"^ '^- o-pyvplov drjffavpoijs, prob. free rendering of
|§, cf. 31!^ where 'D is rendered by ipyd^effdai; S follows |^, only inserting
ppiD (= 3b), before last word. — 15. The tone in n-^p> is drawn back for the
sake of the rhythm. — K d^jc, scribal error for Q. d^j^jd; a similar error in
Lam. 4^ was perh. the source of IL fiore antiqtio. — For ^ y-izn read with all
anc. Vrss. a''XDn (so Oort, Bi.), the restrictive suff. being out of keeping with
the context. — |^ iiU"; (§ 6.i,i.ov, and, in the doublet, dvTi.Ta,ifiTa.i (n"^-* A 6.vti-
Taa-ffeTai). (5 doublet wovrjpbv (I'Dn), perh. for TrodrjTdv (Jag., Grabe, cited
by Schl.). (3, second doub. evyvwcrros iffriv ira,<nv rots iyyl^ovcnv avrfi
(Proc. by scribal error dpyi^ovaiv, (5^ €(pawTOfiivois) perh. = ['?D'r] nvt n>Mij
n>3np or n^jsS t^'nS h'j; in any case not original. — For |^ na Oort would
rather read rh; the Prep, after nis:' {= like, equal) is V or 'jn except here
and 8^1 Esth. 7*; the a may introduce the noun of estimation. — 16. After
□^01 i^vX (5 adds Kai err] ^o}T)S, apparently from v.^; the addition mars the
rhythm. (§ also introduces the v. by yap (adopted by Bi.), but the causal
form does not agree with the context. — On the couplet inserted by @ see
what is said above, and cf. notes of Lag. and Held. In ^ we should perh.
read vd/mov 5^ iX^ov. — 17. |l? D\^Z' : (gBai. ^^ eip-qvri, (gVaj. ^g,-' ^fp,^ (gx omits
prep.; f§ is to be retained. — 18. In ", as often elsewhere (rhetorical expan-
sion), (5 prefixes iraai to the Part. (:3''p''inD). — Instead of na the suff. might
be attached to the Partcp. — In ^ |^ has sing. pred. ^cnc with plu. subj.
nioah. IL (and so Bi.) makes subj. sing., and S9E pred. plu., but these ren-
derings do not necessarily indicate the precise form of the Heb. text of the
Vrss., since they might in any case make their translations conform to gram-
matical rules; in the construction of ^, which occurs elsewhere (Gen. 2"]'^^
Ex. 31I* al., see Ew. § 319 «), the sing. pred. is distributive or individualiz-
ing, or it is a simplified (unitary) form similar to initial sing. vb. followed by
plu. subject. The vb. -wa — make or call happy seems to be Denom. —
Clause ^ stands in (5^ /cat rots iwepei.dofiivoi'i in' avTT)v ws iwl Kipiov; @Bab
adds d(7(paXri and (g^'i^aA ^g-ipaX'^s, and so S" Proc. Hil.; ao-0. = na-ND
(taken as Pi. Part. = ^/^?(/i? or as Fn. = guided, and perh. read niii'Nc), is
understood as referring to wisdom; ws e. k. apparently = nv, repetition out
III. 20-2I 73
of noDP (Lag., Oort). The Heb. text of © = |^, only with Prep, h before
'P. — 19. 'Ey (= ^) is prefixed to <jo(piq. by several Fathers, and to tppov-qcret
l3y(g.sc.a. A ijiany curss. and several Fathers (see H-P), probably a scribal
variation. &^ attach 3 sing. masc. suff. to the second noun, S to the first
also. — 20. Suff. in i.-iyn omitted by (5^.4.^ inserted by (5 > <=•'' H-P 69 «/. Comp.
Aid. — The precise sense of the expression r;pni nbhn is not quite clear; we
expect : " the rock (or, the earth) was cleft, and the waters issued," as in xj/ 78I*.
The construction in Pr. is supported, however, by Gen. 7^^ ^ 74^^; the latter
passage can hardly be rendered : i/iou didst cleave a zvay for fountain and
brook. Apparently the subterranean ^t\7\ is regarded as a mass, lying motion-
less, and requiring to be cleft in order that its waters may move. Instead of
id;71^ 4 MSS. have ;o"iy' with same meaning (cf. Dt. 32^), perhaps scrilial
error, or euphonic variation; on transposition of radicals in stems see Bottch.,
Lehrb., I. § 265-267.
21-26. A separate section (parallel to but distinct from the
preceding), exhorting to the practice of "Wisdom on the ground
that it will give security to life. Hitzig's reasons for regarding
the section as an interpolation (namely, that the repetition of the
promise of reward is unnecessary, that the vocabulary contains
late expressions, and that the omission of these verses secures a
division of the chapter into paragraphs of ten verses each) are
now generally rejected. The whole section, chs. 1-9, is not early,
but late ; it is made up of sub-sections, in which there is neces-
sarily repetition \ and the hypothesis of decimal division is arbi-
trary.
lib. My son, keep [with thee] wisdom and discretion,
2.1 a. Let them not depart from thy sight;
22. They will be life to thy being.
Adornment to thy neck.
23. Then wilt thou go thy way securely;
Thy foot will not stumble;
24. When thou < sittest down > * thou wilt not be afraid,
Thou wilt lie down, and thy sleep will be sweet.
^ 25. Thou wilt not fear the calamity that befalls the ' foolish,' f
Nor the storm that strikes the wicked;
26. P'or Yahweh will be thy protector.
And will keep thy feet from snares.
21. Synonymous, ternary, or, in the emended text, quaternary-
binary. The present Heb. text reads : my son, let them not
* Heb. : Uest down. f Heb. : Fear not sudden calamity.
74 PROVERBS
depart (or, sivewe) from thine eyes, keep tuisdovi (or, sagacity)
and discretion. But the subject of the first cl. is lacking. The
antecedent of them cannot be supphed from v.''-'- ^^ (where wisdom,
understanding, and knowledge are attributes of God, and in any
case such reference to them would be too abrupt), or from the
second cl. (which would be against Heb. usage). A similar ob-
jection applies to the rendering (obtained by a slight change in
the Heb.) let it [wisdom] not swerve : the reference to tvisdom
is abrupt, and the sing, does not agree with v.^^. The Vrss. are
unsatisfactory. Grk. (the text of which may be corrupt) : 7ny
soji, do not escape {Yxi.fioio away) ; Lat. : let not these flow aivay
from thine eyes ; Syr. Targ. : let it not be despicable in thine eyes.
The beginning of the paragraph, which contained the antecedent
of them, may have fallen out ; it may perhaps be supplied from
the closely parallel passage 4^^^. We may either insert a verse
similar to 4^, or supply a single word and read let not my words
(or, let not wisdom) swerve, etc. The term swerve, turn aside,
seems strange in this connection, and the Vrss. assumed different
stems. We expect one of the usual words for depart, as in 2 7-^
or 17^', or else, with inversion, tiirti not azimy from my instruction.
A proper form may be got by transposing the clauses : my son,
preserve sagacity and discretion, let them not depart from thine
eyes (Umbreit), which is without Versional support, but seems to
be the simplest solution of the difficulty of the first clause. On
the terms sagacity (= wisdom) and discretion see notes on 2' and
I*, and on keep see notes on 2^" 3^ — 22. Synonymous, ternary-
binary. The reward (the description of which goes through v.^).
Instead oi will, here and throughout the paragraph (simple state-
ment of result), we may render shall (authoritative statement). —
Grk. in order that, but the verse is better understood as express-
ing result. The life is physical, as in 3*- ^*'. Being is here better
than soul (as rendering of t^s:), since the latter term conveys to
us a spiritual sense not contained in the Hebrew ; we might trans-
late they will (or, shall) be life to thee, that is, they will (or, shall)
confer on thee long life, a supreme blessing. Adornment is lit.
beauty, grace of form (see note on i^), and so an ornament as a
thing of beauty, and as a lasting possession ; see notes on i" 3^
True sagacity, it is declared, will bring its possessor not only long
III. 21-25 75
life but also loveliness and graciousness, the reference being to
the attractiveness of a character moulded by a high, Godfearing
intelligence, beautiful in itself and attractive to men. — The Grk.
here inserts v.^^, with a slight variation (^flesh instead of body). —
23. Synonymous, ternary. Security in walk. The second cl. (which
reads lit. and shalt Jiot strike thy foot) occurs in </' 91'" ^^'i^h the
addition against a stone ; there the guidance is referred to angels,
here to wisdom ; the whole psalm is parallel to our section, and
shows the difference between the points of view of psalmist and
sage. — A slight change in the Heb. gives the reading thy foot
will (or, shall) not stumble (so Grk. RV.) ; the sense is the same
in both renderings. The expression was probably a common one
to express safety ; it is unnecessary to suppose that Pr. took it
from x^/, or \p from Pr. — 24. Parallels, ternary. Security at home.
The Heb. text reads : when thou liest down thou wilt (or, shalt)
not be afraid, yea, thou wilt (or, shalt) lie down and thy sleep
will (or, shall) be sweet. The repetition of the verb is somewhat
strange, though it is defensible on rhetorical grounds. The Heb.
vb. has the two senses lie down and sleep, and Schultens thinks
that the first of these is to be understood in first cl., and the
second in second cl. ; but this is not permissible. Grk., in first
cl. : when thou sittest down ; Targ. : ^vhen thou liest down and
steepest; Syr.: and thou shalt sleep ; Lat. : if thou sleep thou shalt
not be afraid, thou shalt rest, etc. In y\i 3^^*" 4^'^' the expression is
lie down and sleep ; in Dt. 6' we have the pairs sit dotvn, walk,
and lie down, rise. We might retain the Heb. text, and under-
stand it to refer to sleep undisturbed by attacks of robbers and
murderers ; but a more natural form is obtained by changing the
first //> to i-//. — 25. Synonymous, ternary. Security from calam-
ity. Lit. terror (or, calamity) of the foolish and storm (or, deso-
lation) of the ivicked. The Heb., instead of terror of the foolish^
has sudden terror, which gives a good but less appropriate sense ;
the parallelism favors a reference to a class of persons, and this
reading is supported by x^-"^' . The translation foolish requires no
change in the consonants of the Hebrew. At the end of second
line the Heb. has when it comes, an addition to complete the
rhythm, but unnecessary to the sense. — The declarative render-
ing thou wilt (or, shalt) not be afraid is required by the connec-
'j6 PROVERBS
tion ; the imperative be not afraid is here out of place. The
wicked will be visited with storms of calamity, but when these
come the man who is guided by the divine wisdom need not fear
— they shall not reach him. Cf the similar statements in Job 5^^
1/^91^**. — 26. Progressive, ternary. The ground of hope. Pro-
tector is lit. confidence = ground of confidence ; cf. Job 8'* 31-^
The specifically religious theistic point of view (as in Job s^"'-"
1/^91) is here introduced — wisdom is identified with trust in God,
according to the fundamental principle stated in i^
21. If 1^ iiS^ be referred to st. 11'^, this use of the word (= depart) must
probably be regarded as peculiar to the Hokma diction. (5 (Trapopuiys = '?ip)
and IL {effluant) appear to have taken it from "^u flow, SiK C'f^ foil, by
Prep. 3) from si^, despicable. In 4^1 (g has iKXlirufflv, SST t'^rJ (from S'?!),
3L recedant (from nV or '??:). Lag. supposes that vapappv^s (as he writes the
word, but apparently without MS. authority) comes from preceding ippvrjo-av
by erroneous repetition of ppv-qs, and he thinks it impossible to restore the
verb. (S (which omits pj l'r>'2) must be rendered do not slip away (that is,
from my instruction, or, from wisdom), a strange reading, and SSTIL are
equally unsatisfactory. There seems to be nothing better than to retain ^ ;
on the construction of the verse see note above. Bi. reads T^r, 3 sing, fem.,
understanding wisdom as subject; Oort iSti (cf. the stem '?tn). The reading
of S>% is found in Kenn. 95, 150, and is adopted by Houb., and the form
ir^S-' (as in 4^1) occurs in some printed edd. (see De' Rossi). — In '' (5^ attach
I pers. suff. to the nouns, and S> treats isj as Inf. Heid.'s remark that SC
reverse the order of the nouns is not correct (cf. Pink.). — 22. (g 'iva ^ ,j
7] \j/vxri crou (or <xr) i/vxv H-P 23, 252) is free rendering of ^. — 23. (5 ireirot-
dd}s and iv elp-^vv, doublet; irda-as, rhetorical insertion. — pj t^u.-^; the Qal is
regularly trans., and is so rendered 1/' gi^'^ by &1L; here intrans. by <53L and
apparently by SE; Saadia •'Z'2 -\'?:'\ aisn nSi, in which the verb may be taken
either as trans, or as intrans., and thy foot will not strike (or, thou wilt not
strike thy foot) against anything (rendered intrans. by Derenbourg and Lam-
bert). There is no reason for abandoning the ordinary sense of the word. —
24. ?^ has aDtt' in both clauses, Impf. and Perf, rhetorical variation; a better
reading is given in « by (5 (foil, by Si"), x-iBr^ — 2E'n (referred by Hitz., Heid.
to influence of Dt. G), adopted by Bi. on the ground that |^ is intolerably
tautological. The Vrss. all vary the expressions: (5 /cd^rj and Ka^eySr;?;
2r imm iyi}r\ in " and 'a-n in b; 5, -in in ^ 'cn in i'; IL dormieris and qui-
esces ; and so Saad. lie down and sleep. These renderings may be rhetorical
variations of ||J. In K the 'rni is explanatory addition to im (<§). — 25. |t?
Sn may be changed to x*^, after the norm of v.^*, or perhaps may be taken
as declarative, which force it possibly sometimes has in poetry (Job 32-I) and
elevated prose (Jer. 14"), though in these passages it may be scribal error
III. 25-27 77
— For nns Gr. proposes i^s, referring to i2b. 27 -where (5 has 6\e6pos arnl
dSpv^os; yet these may be understood as free translations of ino taken
as = cause of fear; ® here has irT6r]a-iv iireXdovcrav, in which tt. = inc, and
iir. is repetition from *> or represents dkpo read as some form of ni3. The
terror and storm of |^ are understood by @, against the connection and
against the suggestion of i^^- 27^ as an attack made on the righteous by the
wicked. — 1^ asnp; point Dxnp (Oort).— |^ N^n >3; of. Na2 i26.27._26. On
the Beth essentiae in -1*^03:3 (so Ex. 18* Isa. i,d^^ ^ 146^) see Ges.^'', § 1 19 i, Ew.,
§ 229;^, and cf. 2C "Ti>'d:3; on the similar Arab, construction see Gasp. ed.
Wright, II. § 56 rt and Rem. a, ed. Miiller, § 423, 2a; 3L tn latere ttio and %
IDj; take 'o as = loin, flank ; (5 eTrt -Ko-aCiv odCip cov — "[nSoDJ. — ||J ipS aw.
Xey. ; Oort suggests that it may be pointed as Qal Inf. or written Nif. Inf.
no'?."]; (gBai. ffaXevdris (= toiD or n-iJ?)' which Semler would change to dypevdrjs
(so H-P 23, 252'"'"'g-, and S)^ Tixnn), and Lag. to <rv\\7]<pdrjs.
27-30. A detached group of sayings, enjoining kindness to
one's fellowmen. They are prosaic in style, roughly formed
couplets, with scarcely perceptible rhythm. In their homely char-
acter they resemble rather some of the aphorisms of chs. 10-29
than the discourses of chs. 1-9, and seem out of place here.
Their presence appears to indicate that these two divisions of the
Book were finally edited about the same time, Cf. 6^'^- ^"' ^^"^^
g'-'' Eccl. f-'.
27. Withhold not good from thy < neighbor >
When it is in thy power to do it;
28. Say not to thy neighbor : " Go and come again.
And tomorrow I will give," when thou hast it by thee.
29. Devise no injury to thy neighbor,
Seeing he dwells in confidence by thee.
30. Strive not with a man without cause,
If he have done thee no harm.
27, 28. Two nearly identical exhortations to beneficence. In
v.^ the Heb. has from its possessors, which cannot mean from the
poor (Grk.), as if they were lawful owners of alms, or from them
to whom it is due (RV.) ; nor can we render, with Lat. Vulg. :
Restrain not him who can from doing good ; if thou art able, thy-
self do good. The connection (v.-^-'-*) suggests some such word as
neighbor, which may be got by a not very difficult change of the
Hebrew. The word is wanting in Peshitta and Targum, which
have the general precept refrain not from doing good, but the con-
78 PROVERBS
nection favors the reference to the " neighbor." The term
means associate, clansman, neighbor, friend, but seems here to
be employed in the wider sense in which it is used in Dt. 15^
Lu. lo^^-^-^'' (taken from the Grk. of Lev. 19^*). Similar injunc-
tions are found in i !-"•-« 14^1 ^^ 171^ 2i2« 27^" BS. 291- 2- ^o. in all
these the tone is one of broad human sympathy. — 28 enjoins
prompt and hearty help, as in our proverb : " who gives quickly
gives twice"; there is no ground for restricting the injunction to
]jaying a hired man his wages (see Rashi). The first cl. may be
understood as quoting two equivalent speeches of the man who
puts his neighbor off: Go and come again and Tomorrow I will
give. Grk. omits to thy neighbor, perhaps by scribal error ; the
expression is possibly an insertion of the Heb. scribe for the sake
of clearness, certainly not (as Lag. thinks) to restrict an injunc-
tion which was thought to be too general. Cf. the omission of
the similar expression of v.^^ by the Aramaic Vrss., which likewise
seems to be scribal abridgment or inadvertence. At the end of
the verse Grk. adds for thou knowest not what the next day
will bring forth, a not very appropriate gloss, taken from 27^ —
29. Single sentence, ternary. Against malicious conduct. Seeing
he dwells itt confidetice by thee, that is, dwells unsuspecting, or, as
the Grk. has it, seeing he dwells by thee and trusts in thee. Trustful
feeling, here stated as the ground of obligation of kindness, is the
basis of social life ; to a generous mind the plea is a strong one.
— 30. Single sentence, ternary. Against groundless quarrelling.
The verb in first cl. means contend, in general, and in this sense is
found in proper names, as Jerubbaal, = " Baal [that is, Yahweh]
contends [for me]." It is a common term for litigation, but is
here used for any (unfriendly) disputation. The verse is tautolo-
gous, the second cl. merely repeating the without cause of the
first clause. One or the other of these might be omitted without
detriment, and in fact Syr. omits second cl., probably for simpli-
fication ; but the repetition may be retained as rhetorical fulness.
The Grk. has, in second cl., lest he do thee harm, a suggestion simi-
lar to that of 6^"^ 14^^ 20' 22^'' -^, but here not in keeping with the
context, which contains merely injunctions without statement of
consequences. The meaning of the verse is that while contention
is sometimes right and necessary, it must always be for good cause.
III. 27-30 79
27. In expressions of position or quality '^^3 always signifies one who
employs or controls the thing in question: husbands owner of a wife; ally.
Gen. 14I3 — Qne who enters into and employs a treaty; dreamer. Gen. 37I9 =
one who has and employs dreams; archer, Gen. 49-* = one who uses arrows;
a man of affairs, Ex. 24", conducts his affairs; creditor, Dt. 15- = one who
makes and controls a loan; the hair of a hairy man, 2 K. i^ belongs by
nature to him; a legal adversary, Isa. 50*, is one who conducts the prosecu-
tion; one who is sworn, Neh. 6i^, makes an oath; a bird, Pr. i^^, uses its
wings; a waster effects waste; an angry man, 22^* 29^2^ fggjg ^^^ shows anger;
2. glutton, 232, has appetite; a rogue, 24^, makes mischief; a babbler, Eccl. 10",
uses his tongue. There is thus no authority in Heb. usage for the statement
(made by Schult., De., and others) that a 13 ^-^-^ may here mean not him who
does good but him to whom good is done; and further, the sense actually
given by them is something still different, namely, him who stands in need
of good or deserves it. Nor does Aram, permit such a rendering. The word
must be either, with S^T, omitted, or else changed; a corruption of "y;-\ into
v^-;i offers no great graphic difficulty. From <S kvbiT\ Gr. suggests r^x:-, and
Oort sees nothing better than fr^.s; but (S is probably free rendering of J^.
— K ••-11 is possible, but marginal reading 1- is the common form and is found
in many MSS. of Kenn. and De'R.; Rashi gives two explanations, one = IL,
one = (S. — 28. |^ ';-\ is sing., the Yod being third rad.; the omission of
this letter, as in margin, is unnecessary, though it is omitted in many Span.
MSS. As the next word is •^, the omission of 7>;i'? in <@ may be due to
homoeoteleuton, or possibly to homoeoarkton, especially if it were written in
the abridged form '-i"^. — %, probably by scribal inadvertence, transfers -in.s a^i
from end to beginning of the verse. On the addition in (g see note on this
verse above. — 29. |^ z-yp.- ; (5 reKT^vTi; BS 712(13) dporpla; the figurative
sense devise comes more naturally from carve, but possibly also from plough.
— 30. ^ n'^ :f<; (5 \i.i], perh. taking ||J as = p, or perh. reading nS Tii'N or
«■> -i-N. — It was hardly on moral grounds that ^ was omitted in <S.
31-35. Comparison between the fortunes of the wicked and
the righteous — a separate group of aphorisms, similar to the
rehgious aphorisms of chs. 10-22, having a general connection
with the preceding paragraph. It is a warning against the seduc-
tion of the apparent prosperity of wickedness.
31. Envy not the man of violence,
And take no pleasure in his ways;
32. For a bad man is an abomination to Yahweh,
But between him and the upright there is friendship.
33. The curse of Yahweh is on the house of the wicked.
But the habitation of the righteous he blesses.
8o PROVERBS
34. Scoffers he scoffs at,
But to the pious he shows favor.
35. Wise men obtain honor,
But ignominy is the » portion > of fools.
31. Synonymous, ternary. The warning. The second hne
may be rendered : take pleasure in none of his ways (Ut. take not
pleasure in all his ways). The paralleHsm calls for take pleasure
(i^Gen. 6^) rather than choose (which, however, gives a good
sense). The viole?ice is highhanded, unlawful procedure of any
sort ; man of violence = wicked man ; the " violence " was gener-
ally practised for purposes of pecuniary or political gain ; cf. 10*^
16^''. It is assumed that there is something in the fortunes of
such a person which one might be tempted to envy, and so to be
pleased with (or, choose) ; for the explanation see \\f zf^'- It is
the problem of the Book of Job, which is here solved in the old
way; see next verse. — Grk. reads procure not the rep7-oaches of
bad men, and covet not their ways, in which first clause comes
from scribal error, but second clause is favored by the parallelism
and by 24''^ \\i 37^ On the other hand our text is supported by
24^ and gives a good sense. Lat. do not imitate his ways, which
represents the Hebrew. — 32-34. The reason for the warning is
here found in the way in which God deals with the righteous and
the wicked. The rewards and punishments are earthly and ex-
ternal ; there is no recognition of ethical immortality, and life is
regarded on the side of its outward experiences. — 32. Anti-
thetic, ternary-binary. This form is common in chs. 10-22, but not
in chs. 1-9. The term abo^nination is used in the earlier historical,
the prophetical, and the legal literature of what is contrary to a
religious cult or usage, Israelitish or foreign, as in Gen. 43^^
K. 14^^, Dt. 14^, Ez. 5^, etc.; in later books it is extended to
include moral offences, as here ; it means something which is
incompatible with the nature of Yahweh. The bad (or iniquitous)
man (for the term see note on 2'^) is as abhorrent to Yahweh as
an idol or other abomination, but with the upright he sits as with
familiar friends (lit. with the upright is his friendship) . The word
rendered friendship means private, intimate converse and friendly
relation, then the assembly or persons who thus converse together,
ni. 31-34 81
and finally the secret counsel they take and the design or plan
they form. The connection must decide in any given case which
of these significations is most appropriate. With this passage cf.
Job 29^^ ip 25" (and t/^ 55^^^^^')* in which the sense is clearly
friendship. The ground for avoiding the ways of the wicked
(v.^^) is that Yahweh is hostile to him and friendly to the right-
eous ; what this friendliness secures is stated in the next verse. —
33. Antithetic, quaternary- ternary, or ternary (as in chs. 10-22).
We may render on the house or in the house. The value of Yahweh's
friendship is here said to be the (external) prosperity it brings ; no
reference is made to the moral benefit of communion of soul be-
tween God and man — this latter is rather regarded as the ground
of the blessing. A airse in the mouth of God is a sentence or pro-
nouncement of evil ; in the mouth of man it is an imprecation, an
invocation of divine punishment. Similarly God blesses by pro-
nouncing good, man by invoking good from God.* — Lat. poverty
from the Lord is an interpretation of curse of Yahweh suggested
by second clause. — 34. Antithetic, ternary (or, ternary-binary).
The surely of RV. is incorrect ; see critical note below. Nor is
the hypothetical rendering satisfactory : // (or, though) he scorns,
etc., yet he shows, etc., the preceding and succeeding verses being
declarative. Still less can v:^ be protasis and v.^ apodosis. A
variation of the preceding statement. On scoffers see note on i".
For the conception of reciprocity in first cl. cf. ^ 1 825(26)- iie(27) . jj^g
representation of God as acting toward men as they act toward
him rests on an ancient anthropomorphism, which in Pr. is prob-
ably purified by the conviction that God, as just, must be hostile to
evildoers ; but the thought never rises to the point of conceiving
of him as merciful to fools and sinners. — The word here trans-
lated pious (a^DU) is that which is variously rendered in RV.
by poor, afflicted, humble, lowly, meek. Its primary sense seems
to be one who is bowed, bent, or one who bows hifuself (under or
before a hostile force) ; it thus comes to signify one who suffers
from financial poverty (Am. 8* al.), one who is oppressed by the
strong, particularly the nation Israel in the time of national afflic-
* The Heb. term for bless never means curse, blaspheme, or renounce ; in Job i'^- 'i
2*- ^ the Heb. word is to be changed so as to read curse.
G
82 PROVERBS
tion (ij/ 74^"-' a/.), or, one who afflicts himself by fasting or is
humble before God, and so in general the Godfearing, pious (so
used of Moses, Nu. 12^, and so i/^ 37", quoted in Mt. 5^). This
last is the sense suggested by the parallelism here, though lowly,
humble, is also appropriate. — Grk. : the Lord resists the proud,
but shows favor to the hu?nble, quoted, with slight variations, in
Jas. 4*^, I Pet. 5*. — Bickell omits the verse as an interpolation
which breaks the connection between v.^ and v.^^ ; it is, however,
closely parallel to v.^, and, if any verse is to be omitted as irrele-
vant, it should rather be v.^^ (see note on this verse below). —
For the sentiment cf. i6'^ — 35. Antithetic, ternary. The first
cl. — honor is the portion of wise men. The thought is that of 11^
12* 13^ 14" 22^ al.: men of integrity and insight will receive
recognition at the hands of their fellowmen — the approbation
of society is presented as a motive for rightdoing — a powerful
inducement. The term wise doubtless includes moral and re-
ligious as well as intellectual elements, and so fools in the second
clause. The verb means primarily to have or obtain possession (as
in Jos. 14'), and secondarily to inherit, a sense which is here not
appropriate. Honor is the respect or high recognition accorded
by God to man, or by man to God or man (i K. 3^^ Gen. 45^^
I Sam. 6^) ; opposed to it is the shame of the second cl., slight
estimation, contempt. — The translation of the second cl. is doubt-
ful, one word being apparently corrupt. This word, as it stands,
may mean lift up (from the ground, 2 K. 2"), exalt {\\i 89^'), take
away, remove out of the way (Hos. ii'* Isa. 57"), o^er a.s gift or
sacrifice (that is, lift up before the deity, Ex. 35-^ Lev. 4-). None
of these senses are here suitable : fools do not exalt or remove or
offer ignominy, nor does ignominy do these things to fools. No
satisfactory translation of the clause has been made. Grk. : the
godless exalt dishonor; Lat. (followed by RV.) : ignominy is the
exaltation {ox, promotion') of fools (X\\.. shame exalts fools), and
so Schult. : the brand of infamy gives notoriety to fools ; Syr.
Targ. : fools suffer (lit. receive) shame, which is not a translation
of the Heb., the word in Heb. meaning not " to take away for one's
own benefit or use," but "to take out of the way, do away with,"
and, in the ritual, " to take a portion not for one's self but for
God." A slight change of text, with an insertion, gives the ren-
in- 34-35 83
dering fools change \Jheir glory\ into shame (cf. Hos. 4^ Jer. 2"
\l/ 106^), but the insertion is improbable, and the resulting sense
not clear or appropriate. Another slight change gives fools in-
crease shame (cf. Isa. 40^ Eccl. 6" 10'^), a good and natural
sense ; and a similar rendering is appropriate in 14^. But an
equally easy and more probable emendation gives the verb possess,
get possession of {= obtain). In any case the meaning of the
second cl. is ignominy is the portion of fools, that is, of those who
are not wise enough to see that it is their duty as well as their
interest to obey the divine law. The ignominy and the honor, it
is to be supposed, are assigned by God. The couplet appears not
to belong with the preceding quatrains, from which it differs in
tone ; it is probably the addition of an editor.
31. @ ;U77 KTrjcrri [n:|ip] KaKwv avSpCiv dveidij, in which ov. may = J^ Dcn
(Baumg.) as in 26^ Job 19', /c. being epexegetical; Lag. suggests that k. a. 0.
is simply poetical expression of k. a., like fJ-^ya adivos 'Hertojj'os =: 'Hertojv. —
fTjXwcrrjs may = ]^ injr; according to Oort, it = nn.nr, which seems unneces-
sary.*— 32. (@ seems to make Trapdvo/xos (n'^j) subj. of '' iv Si SiKalois oi
(Ti'veSptdfei, but doubtless ov is scribal error, repetition of following crv (Lag.),
and Kvpios is subj. — Heid., noting that (5 has irap. instead of aKo\i.6i^wv (14^)
and uKadapTos instead of the usual ^d^Xvy/ia, sees in this v. a Pharisaic attack
on the Sadducees, the paranomists, and regards crvvedpici^ei as an allusion to
the Sanhedrin. This is possible, but not necessary, and the supposed allusion
in (Tvved. vanishes with the disappearance of ov. — 33. |^ nin^; (@ Oeov. All
following nouns are plural in (5, perh. stylistic variation of the translator,
perh. representing variations from our Heb. text; so SST Saad. have plu. in *,
3L in •', and in (@!L the vb. in ^ is Pass. plu. — 34. D^'i^h 2S cannot here mean
wAen he deals with scorners (Lag., De., Kamp.) as separate protasis (with
tSi Nin as apodosis), nor can dn = surely (RV.), since, in asseverations, this
word has negative force. Gr., Oort, change ^n to □\nSs (after Jas. 4^ I Pet. 5*),
and Oort omits pref. S; but nini is the divine name used above in the para-
graph, and the nh further must then be omitted. Dys.'s emendation to aj7,
with omission of pref. ^ (which may easily be doublet) is simpler, bringing
the sentence into the norm of i/' iS^^. Or, we may, with (@ Kvpio^ vTrep-r\4)6.voi.%
avTiraffcreTai, omit DN (so .SBTIL), though this is graphically not so easy.
(3 Kvpios may represent nin*, or may be explicitum. — K. D'ljj?; Q cuj.', for
which S has ND''Dn. For r^^^ 5>2r have lino: casts dotun, free rendering. —
35. pj a^-\r:; (@ v^pwaav; S'ST Ii'^'^pj; 3L stultorum exaltatio, apparently taking
p'^p as subj.; Dys. emends to on^DC, Gr. better to ooic, but we should prol^a-
bly read t'^-\T\ or !f ■;'.
* Heid., by oversight, quotes Procop.'s comments as additions to the Grk. text.
84 PROVERBS
rv. Three exhortations (v.^^ v.^«-i^ v.-"""'), the theme of all
three being the excellence and beneficent power of wisdom.
— They are like those of chs. 2. 3 in that the advice is of a gen-
eral nature, while in chs. 5. 6. 7 it is directed against a particular
sin.
1-9. The sage cites the instruction given him by his father.
The text is, in parts, in such condition that we cannot be sure of
the exact sense. The Vatican Grk. makes the teacher's instruc-
tion (and not wisdom) the subject of praise.
1. Hear, O children, the instruction of a father —
Give heed that ye may comprehend wisdom.
2. For good counsel I give you —
Forsake ye not my teaching.
3. When I was of lender age, []
Beloved by my ' father,'
4«. He used to teach me and say to me:
4 b. " Let thy mind retain my words.
4c. Keep my commandments and live;
5 a. Get wisdom, get understanding.
6. Forsake her not, and she will preserve thee,
Love her, and she will keep thee.*
8. Prize her, and she wilt exalt thee,
She will honor thee if thou embrace her;
9. She will encircle thy head with a chaplet of beauty,
Bestow on thee a crown of glory."
1. Extensive or exegetical (the second cl. repeating first cl.
and giving the reason for it), ternary. Exhortation to hearken.
The sage (by the plu. children or sons^ addresses himself to a
circle of hearers, a school, though the difference of number is not
significant; when the sing, is used, the address is to a class of
persons, young men in general. Father is not here used in the
stricter (family) sense of the word, but with the wider connota-
tion oi teacher ; see note on i**, and cf. v.^ below. On instruction
and wisdom (the term usually rendered iinderstanditig) see notes
on I". The word rendered give heed, = hearken, attend, is a syn-
onym of hear used only in poetry and solemn prose. Compre-
* On the omission of v.^b. 7^ see note on these verses below.
IV. 1-3 85
hend = know (i^). The source of authority of the teaching is
the experience of the teacher. — 2. Continued thought, ternary-
(or, quaternary-) binary. The ground of the sage's claim to be
heard. The sage speaks with conviction and authority ; he believes
that his teaching is sound and important, and the Caching or law
that he gives is his own, that is, is grounded in his own soul,
though derived from divine teaching ; the prophet, on the con-
trary, never speaks in his own name. Counsel or mstriiction
{KV . doctrine) , with which /a;7<y is synonymous, is here given to
others ; in i^ (on which see note) it is received from others.
Grk. gift = something received. Lat. / give you a good gift
(omitting for, which, though not necessary, is appropriate, nearly
= namely). — 3. The sage refers to his own childhood. The
Heb. reads : For I was a son to my father [or, my father's son'\,
tender \_— of tender age, weak~\ and an only child in the presence of
[= 2vith'\ my mother. Grk. : / also was a son, obedient to a father,
and beloved in the presence of a mother. The first cl. is strange —
it seems unnecessary and unnatural to describe a boy as the son
of his father, and it is not probable that any writer would use such
an expression ; we expect a word descriptive of the son's rela-
tions with the father (as the relations with the mother are de-
scribed in the second cl.). The obedient of the Grk. seems to be
free rendering of our Heb. (instead of tender), though it may rep-
resent a different Heb. word ; something like this would be pos-
sible, but is not particularly appropriate ; it would require a
change in the order of the words. The only child also is improb-
able ; an adj. like the beloved of the Grk. would be appropriate ;
but this sense (RV. only beloved) does not properly belong to the
Heb. word here used ; the expression as an only child would be
in place. After caUing on his pupils to give heed to his instruc-
tion, the writer (in order to give the weight of tradition to his
words) might naturally say for I myself was a son, under the
authority of a father, and beloved by a mother. But, as only the
father is referred to (in the Heb. text) in the following couplet, it
seems probable that the mention of the mother here does not
belong to the original form, and that my jnother took the place of
my father in the second line after the expression to my father had
been introduced, by scribal error, into the first line. If, with this
86 PROVERBS
correction, we substitute beloved for only son, we have a simple
and clear sentence. — The verse suggests an interesting picture of
the family-training of the time (probably the third century B.C.).
The father is the authoritative guide of the children.* The in-
struction is oral — there is no reference to books ; books were
rare, and were probably used only by advanced students, though
children of the better families may have been taught to read at
home. There is no sign of the existence of children's schools at
this time.f — 4-7. It is not easy to determine the precise con-
nection of thought in this passage. V.^*^ and v.^ are plain : the
difficulty lies in v.'''= ''^. The following considerations may help to
fix the wording. V.^, since it interrupts the connection between
v.'' and v.^, is syntactically confused, and is not found in the Grk.,
may be omitted (see note on this verse below). V.'^'' also inter-
rupts the connection between v.''"^ and v.^ (this last verse supposing
a preceding reference to wisdom), and should be omitted. We
shall thus have to form a couplet out of v.*' and v.''". The resultant
paragraph is not free from difficulties ; but it follows the indica-
tions of the Heb. text, and affords a clear sense. — 4. The two
first clauses make a couplet, continuous, ternary. The father's
address, beginning with the second clause, appears to extend
through v.^ The father alone is here cited, in the Heb., as
teacher (see note on preceding verse). Grk. (reversing the order
of the verbs) : they said and taught me, thus including the mother ;
in v.'^, however, it makes the father alone the speaker, and so, prob-
ably, it should be throughout, in accordance with the manner of
the rest of the section, chs. 1-9. — On mind (lit. heart) see note
on 2^. Retain = gxdi?,^, hold firmly in hand, hold fast. — The
third line of the verse is identical with the first line of 7^, and is,
for this reason, here thrown out by some critics as a scribal inser-
tion ; but such repetition is possible (for ex., i*'' = d^"""). Grk. has
only the first half, omitting the words atid live ; but for this omis-
sion there is no good reason. In the present state of the text there
seems to be nothing better than to attach the line to the first line
* The mother also was doubtless the instructor of the child (see i^), whether or
not she is mentioned in this verse.
t On the education of children see Nowack, Heb. Arch., I. p. 172; Schiirer,
Gesch. (= Hist, of the Jew. People, II., 2, \ 27), and the literature therein named.
IV. 3-6 8;
of the next verse, though it is an objection to this construction
that the resultant couplet does not present a satisfactory parallel-
ism— we expect a whole couplet devoted to wisdom, preparatory
to vA No arrangement of the lines, however, is entirely free
from objections. — And live = that thou mayest {by thevi) live,
that is, " that they may secure the happiness of a long earthly
life ; " for the idea see 3I — 5. The present Heb. text reads : get
ivisdom, get understanding, forget tiot, and turn not away from
the words of my mouth. If the wording be genuine, the iteration
expresses the earnestness of the sage, who identifies his instruc-
tions with wisdom. But the present form is hardly original. The
second Hne {and turn, etc.) belongs naturally with v}" ; and the
expression forget not should properly follow not get wisdom, etc.,
but keep my commandments. The former phrase is omitted in the
Grk., which reads : keep commatidments, forget not, and neglect
not the discourse of my mouth ; this is in itself clear, but it makes
the teacher's discourse the antecedent of v.'' {forsake it not),
whereas the tone of v.^- *• ^ almost forces us to regard wisdom as
their subject. It is, therefore, better to omit the second clause
{and turn, etc.) as a gloss on v.'"*", and also \}<\q forget not, and
retain the rest as an introduction to v.*^. — Other proposed con-
structions are : fofget not to acquire wisdom, and swerve not from
the words of her mouth (Graetz), which has the advantage of offer-
ing only one subject (as in v.^), but is open to the objection that
Wisdom's " mouth " is nowhere else mentioned ; Oort also would
omit get understanding (as gloss on get 7oisdom), and add to
forget not some suCh expression as my law (as in 3'), but thinks
that the whole verse is probably a scribal insertion ; get wisdom,
get tinderstanding, forget not \jhe instruction of my lips'\, and
swerve not, etc. (Bickell). While the general sense is plain, the
original form can hardly be recovered. It seems probable that in
v.^ the writer passes from reference to his own " instruction " to
the praise of"' wisdom." If the Grk. reading of v.'''= '^ be adopted
(see above), we must probably suppose a break at the end of v."',
the following paragraph (v.''*"-^) having lost a couplet in which
Z£//V^i9w was introduced. — 6. Synonymous, binary. In the Heb.
the subject of the discourse is wisdom or understanding which
preserves its followers, as in 2" ; in the Vat. Grk. the subject is
88 PROVERBS
the utterance or instruction of the sage, the function of which is
the same as in 3' ' ; the essential thought is the same in both.
The verb love, used in the ethical sense, with man as subject, here
has the abstract ivisdom as object (in i-^ its opposite, ignorance) ;
in the Prophetical books (Am. 5'^ Mic. f al.) the object is gen-
erally right conduct, in the legal books (Dt. 6* Lev. 19"^ ai.)
Yahweh and man, in x^/ (26'^ 119^^ al.) Zion and the Tora. — The
sing, her appears to point to one antecedent in v.^, whereas Heb.
there has two terms. — 7. The text is corrupt, and the verse
should probably be omitted. The Heb. reads : Ihe deginning of
wisdom — gel 7visdom, and in all ihy substance get understanding,
or buy wisdom, and, with all that thou hast gotten, buy, etc., that
is, buy wisdom at the price of all thy property, cf. 23-'' J\lt. l3*'^^
or, along with all, etc. (AV. with all thy getting is incorrect).
The rendering luisdoni is the principal thing (RV. Zockler, in
Lange) is here out of the question; the word (n't^Ki), in the
sense of best, chief, principal, never occurs undefined (only twice
in OT, undefined, Isa. 46''^ and the doubtful Gen. i\ both times
m the sense oi beginning) , and here we obviously have the familiar
expression the beginning of wisdom. This expression cannot be
brought into intelligible connection with the rest of the verse.
The statement the beginning of wisdom is "get wisdom,'' if syn-
tactically possible (which is doubtful), involves an intolerable tau-
tology, and the same objection holds to the rendering (obtained
by changing Impv. to Inf.) . . . to get wisdom. Bickell, to avoid
the tautology, reads the begimiing (or, chief) of thy wealth is,
etc., which is out of keeping with the tone of the paragraph, is
without Versional support, and is an unnatural form of expression.
— The resemblance between v.' and v.''* is obvious ; the former is
expansion of the latter, or both are corruptions of the same orig-
inal. In any case v.^ interrupts the connection between v.^ and
V.*, and is probably a gloss. Possibly the expressions get wisdotn
and get understanding, written in the margin as a summary of v.''"',
got into v.^, and then in expanded form were inserted as v.' ; this,
if it happened, must have happened after the Vat. Grk. Vrs. was
made — the omission of such passages by the Grk. translator is
not probable. See note on v.^ — 8. Synonymous, binary. The
meaning of the first vb. is not quite certain. It may signify cast
IV. 6-9 89
up an embankment against a thing, or (Grk.) around a thing,
so as to protect it; or, 7nake a rampart of a thing (Jager),
surround one's self with a thing as a protection ; or cast up as a
highway (cf 15'^ Isa. 57"), and so make plane and firm ; or, per-
haps, simply raise up, exalt, esteem highly, prize (cf. the similar
foriji in Ex. 9''). This last agrees with the parallel embrace, and
is adopted by most expositors. Syr. Targ. have freely love her ;
Lat. Rashi : lay hold of her ; Saad. : give thyself up to her. A pro-
posed emendation is : despise her not (Frankenberg), which gives
a good sense but not a perfect parallelism. — 9. Synonymous, ter-
nary. Lit. give to thy head a chaplet. Beauty (or, grace) and
glory are physically descriptive terms — the sense is beautiful
chaplet and glorious (or, splendid) crown; cf. i^ BS. 6^^"^^ 25^
The expression may be suggested by a custom of wearing chaplets
and crowns at feasts, or on other joyful occasions, as weddings ;
cf. Ez. 16'^ 23''- Isa. 28' Job 19" BS. 32-; how far such a custom
existed among the earlier Hebrews the OT. does not inform us,
but it may easily have been borrowed at a later time.*
1. S takes P>T as subst., and connects it by 1 with n)>3. — 2. ^ np'^;
(5 SQpov, iL dontim. — 1^ 'p-ii~ ; H-P 68. 161. 248 Comp. Aid. tov e^utv \6yov,
which hardly represents a different Heb. text from ours — not necessarily
Christian correction (Lag.), more probably rhetorical variation. — 3. (S inrriKooi
may be rendering of J^ Ti taken as = so/i, submissive; Lag. holds it to be
rendering of "in poor (Lev. 2^'^"'^); Held, of i^ oppressed (^26^^ 1/' 10'^ <?/.),
neither of which terms is here appropriate, or likely to be rendered by virjjKoos.
The connection in |^ requires a descriptive term between p and on'^; t\
might be transposed so as to stand before '"' or before p""i, but the signifi-
cation would still make difficulty unless it could be understood as = petted
(9C i"'JDu), parallel to beloved in *>. Read ■'3N ^ith lyi li ''-''n p 'd. — The
KayC} of (S is probably inserted to bring out the proper emphasis. — |^ ivt;
read t'-'; (g here has ayawditievo^; -yT\^ is rendered by a.ya.wt)Tb% Gen. 22- '-■ '^
((@S does not contain these passages) Am. S^" Jer. 6^^ Zech. 12^*^, by ixovoyev-fji
Ju. 1 1^^ ((5'^ adds a'yaTrr)Tf)) \p 22'^! 25^^ 35I'', and by fiovoTpS-rrovs \j/ 68"; -^'t is
always rendered by some form of ayaw.; we cannot, therefore, determine |^
from (@; but in any case t'H^ must here mean only child, and this in the
connection is inappropriate. On the MS. reading 'n'^ instead of "lo^ see
De' Rossi's note. — 4. In '^ the vbs. might be read as sing., as in |^, or plu.,
as in (5. — 'EpeiSirti) may represent |ij i""' taken as Nif. (see Concord, of
* Cf. Nowack, Heb. Arch., \. p. 185 f., and for the Grk. and Rom. customs, Becker,
Char., Exc. L, Gall., Exc. L, and the refs. in the Diets, of Antiqs.
\
90 PROVERBS
Grk.), or perh. ICD^ (De.). — 6 rjfihepoi \670s, = ijna-, hardly original, proba-
bly rhetorical interpretation of Grk. translator. — 1§ n^n , lacking in @^ (S"
ast., retained by Proc); the clause was perhaps introduced from 7^, where it
is natural (S adds y^^ at end of v.); according to Lag. n\-\\ comes from the
half-obliterated nnjn of a gloss (see note on next verse). — After ■''? IE, inserts
nin% so as to express divine authority for the teaching, or it = ^\ erroneous
repetition of the two ■> in inni iS (Pink.). — 6. "^ riy2 mp nnsn njp, lacking
in <3^ (<S^ ast.) ; Or. reads 'n nup as obj. of nDrn Sn, and omits '2 'p as gloss,
but 'p as obj. of 'n does not occur elsewhere and is not a natural construction.
The whole expression (together with nini) interrupts the connection between
■1.11XD (v.*) and 'O Sn, and if v.^** be retained must be regarded as a gloss;
it may be retained if v.*** be thrown out; see note on v.''. — 7. Lacking in (g^
(S^ ast.) ; it interrupts the connection between v.^ and v.^, is syntactically
and lexicographically difficult, and must be regarded as scribal insertion.
Lag.'s explanation of v.'' and v.^" is as follows : v.^, in distichal form, stood
in the margin of some Heb. MS., and was incorporated into the text in two
places by two different scribes; one inserted it after v.^, writing ncjn for an
illegible word which followed ni;:'Ni (the word should be a synonym of pjp,
and Bi. writes S'n) ; the other found '-\ and "iJ''j|i S331 illegible, and omitted
them, made nini out of the first n, and attached the resulting sentence to v.*.
This ingenious and complicated reconstruction still leaves an unsatisfactory
couplet /ke best of wealth is get wisdom and, etc. As 'n t cannot be brought
into syntactical relation with the rest of the sentence, it may be better to
regard it as a fragment of a distich similar to i", and to take the rest of the
verse as a fragment of another distich similar to 23^^, though it is hard to say
how the text assumed its present shape. — 8. |^ ^D^^D; (@ (and so S'^) inpi-
XcpiKucrov; SST 3''3n; IL arripe. The vb. may be denom. from Pii^^ or
n-D:; but, as from these nouns it may be inferred that the st. =: lift up (so
here Aben Ez. Qamhi), it may here be rendered, in general accord with the
rest of the v., prize. For other renderings see Schultens' note. Frank, pro-
poses to emend to h^'-dp Vn, from Aram. n^D, = Heb. no, on which see note
on this V. above. — In ^ (5, not so well, takes 123 as Impv. with 3 sing. fem.
suff., attaches 2 sing. suff. to 'n-, and connects by 'iva. (^ •>;). SiS reverse
the positions of the vbs. — 9. im*^ occurs only twice in OT., here and i^; the
stem in Heb. and Aram. = be attached to, accompany, in Arab, and Eth. t^vist,
wind (so perh. also in Heb. inM"?), which is the meaning in hm-'. Or. (as in
i^) reads n'^^'^r. — 1§ IJ'S"; (§ vwepadTrLa-r), but stem pa { — give, give up
Gen. 1421 Hos. 11^) is not connected with pa shield, which appears to come
from p enclose, protect. Gr. proposes -\y;r\ bind (see 6^1) which is hardly
better than %.
10-19. A separate discourse, consisting of exhortation to obey
the sage's instruction (v.'^-^^), and to avoid the way of the
wicked in view of their character (v.^^'^), with a description
iV. lo-ri
91
of the paths of the righteous and the wicked (v." '^). • The
onier of verses in the second half is unsatisfactory, and is variously
changed by commentators. Hitzig omits v.^^" as interpolation,
inverts the order of v.'*- ^^, and before the latter inserts for;
Delitzsch, Nowack, Strack, Graetz simply invert the order of
v.i» ^-^ ; Bickell places v.^'' '^ after v.'« ^l The inversion of the
order of v.'^ ^^ seems to be all that is needed to secure a natural
sequence.
10. Hear, my son, and receive my words.
And the years of thy life will be many.
11. In the way of wisdom I instruct thee,
Lead thee in the paths of uprightness.
12. When thou walkest, thy steps will be unimpeded,
And if thou run, thou wilt not stumble.
13. Hold fast I my > instruction — let it not go —
Keep it, for it is thy life.
14. Enter not the path of the wicked,
Walk not in the way of bad men;
15. Avoid it, traverse it not.
Shun it, and pass on.
16. For they sleep not unless they have done harm.
Nor slumber unless they have made some one stumble;
17. They eat the bread of wickedness,
And drink the wine of violence.
19. The way of the wicked is like darkness —
They know not at what they stumble.
18. But the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn
Which shines ever brighter till the full day comes.
10. Protasis and apodosis, ternary, or quaternary. Lagarde (by
a slight change of text) reads : hear, my son, the insf ruction of my
words, etc., but elsewhere insiruc/ion is ascribed not to words, but
to a person, and the verb receive is favored by 2^. The form of
address is similar to that of v.* ; on sing, son, instead of plu. sons,
see note on that verse. The reward — long life — as in 3^ '*'. It
is again the sage that is the source of instruction. — 11. Synony-
mous, ternary. The sage (as in v.''') characterizes his instruction.
Not (RV.) have taught (or, instructed) and have led ; the refer-
ence is to the present instruction. IVisdom is here parallel to
92 PROVERBS
uprightness, practical moral goodness. There is no mention of a
divine law ; this, no doubt, is taken for granted, but the teacher's
present interest is the practical guidance of life. — 12. Synony-
mous, ternary-binary, or ternary. The inducement. For the ex-
pression of first cl. cf. Job 18" ; lit. thy step zvitl not be straitened.
The Hfe of a good man is likened to a journey on a well-made
road — there will be no narrow and difficult ways, nor any stones
or other occasions of stumbling, even when one runs ; cf. 3"- -''. —
13. Synonymous, ternary. Repetition of exhortation. The my in-
struction (after the Grk. — the Heb. has simply instruction) is in
accordance with v.^" ", in which the teacher offers his own words
for the guidance of the pupil. The // is fem. in the Heb., though
the word for instruction is masc. ; the writer in thought identifies
the latter with wisdom ; cf. 2'-^ ^i-s. 21.22^ j^-j^^ jg ^^ |^g understood
as in v.^° ; it includes not only length of days, but also all else
that is desirable ; while the reference is not primarily or chiefly to
the inner life, this is probably involved in the writer's scheme —
moral enlightenment, he means to say, is the essence of life (cf.
Eccl. 12^'^), and is to be resolutely grasped and held. Grk. : keep
it for thy life, the same idea as in the Hebrew.
14-17. Warning against association with bad men on the
ground of their moral character. — 14, 15. Synonymous ; v.^^ is
ternary, v.^^ is binary (curt, sharp injunction). Warning. Emphatic
iteration. In v.'^*" the sense is not even if thou enter, continue not
to walk therein. On walk see critical note. — 16, 17. Synony-
mous ; v.'*^ is quaternary, v.^" ternary. Characterization of the
manner of life of the wicked. Hyperbolical expression of their
life as one of violence (legal and illegal unkindness, oppression,
robbery, murder). The type of character portrayed is an ex-
treme one, reckless violence ; no account is taken of those whom
moral evil has only slightly touched. The writer may have in
mind the foreign and native oppressors of the Jews in the fourth
and third centuries B.C., as in i// 14. 53. 64. 74, etc. ; more proba-
bly he is thinking of a class of men that was numerous in the
great cities of that period, unscrupulous government agents, reve-
nue farmers, grasping and desperate men of all sorts, some of
whom are described by Josephus. The conditions of the society
IV. 12-19 93
of the time were favorable to violence and oppression, and it is on
these conditions that the writer bases his description, which must
thus be taken as a local picture of life. His division of men is
simple : they are wholly good, or wholly bad, or ignorant and
stupid ; he does not recognize the nicer and more complicated
experiences of the soul. There is a certain justification for this
general point of view : evil, it may be said, whatever its degree,
is always evil, and therefore to be avoided ; dallying with trans-
gression of assured moral rules is dangerous. This is the sharply
defined, objective old-Hebrew view, which stands in contrast with
the modern disposition to distinguish and divide, to recognize
good and evil in all things. — The defining terms wickedness and
violence (v.^') may express substance or origin ; the meaning may
be that these are the food and drink of the wicked (cf. Job 15'*^
34"), or that the latter procure the necessaries and goods of life
by these means (cf. 9"), and both these senses are permitted by
the general connection and by the parallelism of v.'*^ ; the first
interpretation is favored by Procopius, Schultens, Umbreit al., the
second by C. B. Michaelis, De., Zockler, Strack, Nowack. The
general sense is not affected by this difference of interpretation ;
the first sense appears to suit the context better. — The last word of
v.^*"' cause {some one) to stumble presents a difficulty : the object is
not expressed in the Heb. (the form in the text is intrans., the
trans, form is given in the margin), and the Syr. has //// they do
their desire ; the Heb. may be corrupt, but no satisfactory emenda-
tion is obvious. — Hitzig omits v.'''- " on the ground that they have
no logical connection with v.'^, but the relation between the verses
seems clear.
18, 19. Contrasted fortunes of wicked and righteous, pre-
sented as a motive for living righteously. As v.'^ connects itself
by the sense with v.'', and the initial and {but) of v.^** more natu-
rally indicates a contrast with v.^^, it is better to transpose the two
verses. — 19. Progressive, ternary. The characterization of the
life of bad men as uncertain and perilous follows fitly on the pre-
ceding description of their moral character. The figure is that of
a man stumbling on in darkness — so the wicked is exposed to
perils of fortune. These pertain not to his inward moral and
94 PROVERBS
religious experiences, but to his outward fate ; the reference, as
the context shows, is not to the darkening of the intellect and the
hardening of the conscience by sin, but to outward uncertainty
and misfortunes, such as sudden death and the loss of worldly
goods (cf. i^^-^^ 2^^ etc.). — Instead of as darkness some Heb.
MSS. have in darkness, and the ancient Vrss. dark; our text is
favored by the as of v.^^ The noun, used only in poetry and
solemn prose, means deep darkness and gloom ; so in Ex. lo^^
Dt. 28^ Joel 2^ etc., and cf. the similar term in Job 3^ 10^- 1/' 91^
— 18. Comparison, quaternary. From the connection the refer-
ence is not to the glory of the righteous life, but to its security.
The good man walks in safety — his path is clear, and not beset
with dangers ; the explanation is given in 3^"^. It is happiness
and security from outward evils in this life that is meant. Such a
conception of the perfect well-being of the righteous may have
paved the way for the later doctrine of immortality, though this
doctrine is not hinted at in Proverbs. — The rendering dawn is
not certain. Grk., taking the word as verb : the ways of the
righteous shine like light — grammatically good, but not favored
by the form of v.^^, in which the standard of comparison is a noun
{darkness). The rendering of the Lat. Vulg. (and so Syr. Targ.
RV.), shining light (obtained by a change of vowels), is not
probable, as this expression (light defined by its brightness) does
not occur elsewhere. The term brightness is used in a general
way (Ez. i^ Isa. 62^), and with reference to the light of fire
(Isa. 4^), of the moon (Isa. 60^''), the stars (Joel 2'°), the sun
(Am. 5^ Isa. 60^ Hab. 3* 2 Sam. 23"*) ; here, as in Isa. 6o^ it
seems to be the light that precedes the full day. — The last expres-
sion in the v., lit. //'// the day is established (or, certain), probably
means the coming of full day in contrast with early light or dawn
(see critical note). Many expositors, however (Rashi, Schult.,
Fleisch., De., Reuss, al.) understand it to signify noon, when the
day reaches its height, or (De.) when the sun appears to stand
still in the zenith, or (Fleisch.), in a figure taken from scales,
when the tongue of day is vertical. The perfect day of the Lat.
(adopted by RV.) lends itself to either interpretation, and is per-
haps preferable for that reason. Ewald, who takes the reference
to be to the forenoon sun, thinks that the figure is derived from
IV. 19, i8 95
Ju. 5'''^ (the rising sun dispersing darkness). — However the doubt-
ful terms be rendered, the general sense is plain : the God-fearing
man walks in a light (divine guidance) which, so far from growing
less, continually increases, and shields him from all harm.
10. Instead of ||J n|-]i the noun np'^ is read by Lag., who objects to the
obj. after two Imps.; ]!r:z', he thinks, cannot well be taken as isolated exhorta-
tion, and elsewhere in this series of paragraphs (4}- ^ 5') the initial vb. of hear-
ing or heeding is followed by its own noun (some word signifying utterance or
teaching). On the other hand, see note above on this word; ® = |§. In i* (g
has two renderings, one = |§, while in the other nimN or 1311 stands instead
of nui', or (Heid.) less probably, ni'?>3S' ('b^2\y?), which does not occur else-
where in Pr. The second rendering, as freer, is prob. original (Jag., Lag.),
only 65oi, which is unnatural, seems to be scribal error, through incorrect hear-
ing of the copyist (itacism), or through 65ovs in next v., or through corruption
of the Heb. — © 'jc, error for ^"'C. — 11. The vbs. are Pres. Perfs. — |^ inT;
(5 odovs (and so SC), which agrees with plu. in •>, and may be rhetorical
assimilation, or original Heb. reading. — 12. ||? lyx, poetic and elevated term
for step, walk; plu., by natural usage of language, in (S<S3L and RV. —
& ivnj shaken, free rendering of |^ •\-i\ — 13. Read ■'idic, with (5 iii.rt%
waidelas, as the connection requires. In •> (5 has free rendering of |§. —
14. pj -irvsn (st. as in ■^'i^\ and Arab, id); the Pi. occurs elsewhere only in
caus. sense = /gac/, or caU happy, and, as the connection (parallel Nan) here
suggests the meaning go forward, Tvalk, it is better to point as Qal, as in 9^;
Lag. writes -\\v-^ (for ii:\yp), which perh. gives an easier rhythm. The Vrss.
translate by regard as fortunate {desirable), be pleased with, envy, (5 ^riXdxTTis,
AO ixaKaplffrjs, SST ]\2'P, IL tibi placeat (and in » 3L, by assimilation, has
delecteris). — 15. |lj mino is sustained by parallel ntar; ® (foil, by 5) iv
<f5 a^ rb-Ki^p (TTpaToireSi'CxTuyaLv, perh. = inyi?D (Jag.) or iDpS (Lag.), or onjfin
(Oort) their pasture-ground or camp, though the word occurs in OT. only of
flocks; Heid. suggests the improbable ^Si3 district (only Neh. 3^ »'■ (5 vepl-
Xwpos) ; Schult., after the Arab., disturba seriem ejus, " give up association
with them; " E^^^- a'ns (Buxt. a'-iN ^r. cnN), heed not, pass over, without
suff ., and following suffs. in plu. — rv^f is perhaps Aramaism. — 16. ^ K
t'WT, Q better I'^^io^ (so ^), though without obj. expressed (see Ew., § 303 c) ;
<B Koi/xuivTaL (writing 1 instead of as) = ^2yy> (Schleusn., Lag.) or 133B'
(Oort), less prob. ^:•'■< (Heid.); Sa rinrax tnay do their will, not = iS>ra'
cook, viature (Umbr.) or I'^^U'C- get control (^/(Heid.), but free rendering or
interpretation of |^ = do harm, work their wicked will on (ST work fall or
destruction'). Oort proposes to read ip^'n^-' destroy, of which, he suggests, the
t-iifi of V." may be mutilation. Bi. regards J§ as scribal erroneous copy of
last word of v.^^ (which v. he puts immediately before v.'^), and reads irS'
murmur, speak blasphemously, which ©, he holds, took wrongly in its other
sense of lodge. These readings offer no advantage over JJ?. — 17. ?tj ='D::n;
96 PROVERBS
(5 -rrapavdfj.uj = |§ — f^ ini:"; <S fieOuffKovrai = ns'i"^ or nor, which Oort
thinks may be the true reading of |^, the ipb'' being then corruption of in'n:'"
(see n. on v.i''). S^T /"//«> bread {■^•o.n'?) is the b. of wickedness (ST 0/ /^i?
wiV/^f a') , which is not favored by •>. — 19. J^ ■i"'!??*?; 15 MSS. and Bibl. Brix.
have 2 instead of 2, and so (SSSTit have adjs. = dark, a reading which agrees
well with *', giving explicitly the reason why the wicked stumble — their way is
in darkness ; on the other hand ||J is favored by the a of v.^^ — the way is dan-
gerous, like darkness. — Instead of i*^:*:^ no3 Bi. (on what ground he does not
state) reads I'^ti'DDJ [^'''O' ^'^ "'"' perceive or take note of] its stumbling-blocks,
which does not appear to be rhythmically or otherwise better than |^. — 18. (@
takes njj, I'^in and i\s' as preds. of nns (which it reads as plu., 65oi) ; this is
hardly possible so far as regards the two last, which naturally refer to the noun
lis; the first may be understood as Partcp. agreeing with -\iN (so .SSTIL and
RV.) or, less probably, with mx (in which case it must be fem. — so perh.
(S), or as vb. (Oort) referring to ms (so perh. (5), or as subst. defining "(in.
In this last case it must mean dawn, early light, and this rendering is favored
by the fact that it offers a contrast to the full day of ^. The pointing as
Partcp. agreeing with iin, while grammatically good, is rhetorically not proba-
ble; light is said to shine (Isa. 9^(1) Job 18^ aa''^^), and the moon is said
(Isa. 13"^) to cause its light to shine, but light is not elsewhere described as a
shining thing; if the epithet were employed, the expression would naturally
be defined by the name of the luminary or source of light, nil does not else-
where in OT. certainly occur in the sense of daiun (possibly in Isa. 62^, cf.
2 Sam. 23*); but cf. Sb Nnn: BS 50^, where (5 has d<TT7]p ewdiv6s and ?t stella
matutina. — |^ joi, an impossible pointing, since the word is not a subst.;
point pDi, Perf. Nif. The OT. meaning of the word is simply fixed, firm,
which may here refer either to full day or to noon; on the expressions t6
ffTadephv rris rjnipa'S, r} a-radepa p-ecr-qfi^pla, Arab. tnhjSx rCNp, = noon, see
Schult., Ges. (T/ies.) Fleisch., De., and cf. Lucan, Phars., ix. 528, 529.
20-27. A paragraph similar to the three preceding, containing
injunctions to give heed to the teacher's instructions (v.-'^-^)
and to practise rectitude (v.-^"').
20. My son, attend to my words.
To my instructions lend thine ear.
21. Let them not depart from thee.
Keep them in mind.
22. For they are life to those who find them,
Health to their whole being.
23. With all vigilance guard thou thyself,
For thus wilt thou gain life.
24. Banish from thee wickedness of mouth,
Sinfulness of lips put far from thee.
IV. 20-23 97
' 25. Let thine eyes look straight forward,
Thy gaze be directed straight before thee.
26. Let the path of thy feet be smooth,
Let all thy roads be firm.
27. Turn not to right nor to left.
Keep thy feet away from evil.
20, 21. The exhortation. — 20. Synonymous, ternary. Instruc-
tions and lend are lit. sayings (or, guards) and turn (or, incline).
See notes on 3^' 4^-^". — 21. Synonymous, binary-ternary. Lit.:
Let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in thy mind (lit.
heart, the inward being), = keep them in mind. On depart see
note on 3-^ Syr. and Targ. have the improbable reading let them
not be despicable in thine eyes. — 22, 23. Ground of tlie exhorta-
tion.— 22. Synonymous, ternary (or, binary). The grammatical
number is uncertain. We may read : for they are life to those
who find them and health (or, healihg) to all their being {Wt. fiesh),
ox ... to him who finds . . . all his. Life, as in 2'' 3- ^^ 4'^ =
long life or preservation of life, which comprehends all outward
earthly blessing. The synonym health (or, healing), involves de-
liverance from the evils of life ; cf. 3^. Flesh stands for body, and
so = being; cf. bones and (in the corrected text) body'vcs. 3^. The
terms flesh, heart, soul often = self. The Gk. here has all flesh,
= all men, as in Gen. 6'-, etc. — 23. Single sentence, ternary.
Vigilance as source of life and happiness. The Heb. in first line
reads : more than all guarding ( = " with more vigilant guarding
than in any other case ") watch thou over thy heart, = " watch thy
heart (or, thyself) more than anything else " ; the same general
sense is given by the rendering : above all that thou guardest, etc.
(De., RV. marg.), but this signification ("the thing guarded")
the word has not elsewhere in OT. In this interpretation the
object of the comparison (between the heart or self and other
things) is not clear, and is not found elsewhere in Proverbs. A
better sense is given by the Greek reading : with all watching
guard etc., that is, in every way, with all possible vigilance and
diligence (so AV., RV.), — The second line is lit.: for from it
are the outgoings of life, that is, the beginning or origin (usually
the " border " or " boundary," Ez. 48'"", once, apparently, " escape,"
\\i 68^'*-^'). The // may grammatically refer to heart, but Prov.
a
98 PROVERBS
everywhere else (as in ^^ 7. «• 2'- 22 ^4. lo. is ^23 oji"^ represents life as
the result of acceptance of wisdom and obedience to instruction ;
we should probably, therefore, take the // to refer to the " guard-
ing" of first Hne : "therefrom (= from thy diligent obedience)
proceeds life." * The word heart is to be understood as = self,
and not as indicating a contrast between inward and outward life ;
such a contrast is not found in Prov. — the outward life is treated
as the expression of the inward self. — Life = prosperity. The
sense of the couplet is : with utmost care guard thyself from sin
— thus wilt thou be happy. The use of /learl as = intellectual
being does not rest on a belief that the heart is the centre of the
physical life. The blood was held, by common observation, to be
the life (Dt. 12^), but the function of the heart in the circulation
of the blood was unknown to the Hebrews, and, whatever impor-
tance they may have attached to this physical organ as prominent
in the cavity of the body, no less importance was attached to
other organs, as the bowels and the kidneys (and perhaps the
liver, but not the brain) . The ground of their assignment of par-
ticular mental functions to various physical organs is not known to
us. — 24, 25. Against wicked speech. — 24. Synonymous, quater-
nary. Wickedness and sinfulness (RV. froward and perverse^
mean departure (turning aside) from truth and right, contrariness
to good ; cf. notes on 2^^ 3'^. The man's utterance is understood
to express and be identical with his thought and purpose ; so that
the precept is equivalent to "think no evil." There is perhaps
also the impUcation that evil thought, when embodied in words,
acquires greater consistency, and goes on its bad mission beyond
the thinker's control. — 25. Synonymous, ternary. Uprightness
of conduct symbohzed by straightforwardness of look, in contrast
with the devious and crooked ways of wickedness (v.^''). The
serious man fixes his gaze on the goal and suffers nothing to turn
it aside. The rendering in first line : look io the right (= right-
eousness') (Frank.) is unnecessary, and is not in keeping with the
figurative form of second line and v.^" ^. — 26, 27. The path of
rectitude. — 26. Synonymous, ternary-binary (or, perhaps, ter-
nary). That is, "make thee a plane, solid road in life." The
* This seems to be the interoretation of Saadia and Rashi.
IV. 23-27 99
figure is taken from the preparation of a highway for a king or an
army (Isa. 40'' ■•) — hills are cut down and valleys filled, crooked
roads are made straight and rough places smooth, so that there
shall be no need to turn aside from the highroad. Even so a man
must arrange his path in life, walking in the straight and smooth
way of rectitude. — The word 77iake level occurs in 5^^^ Isa. 26^,
1// 78^"; the sense weigh, ponder (denom. from scales, \p 58"'^^*) is
not here appropriate. The second verb is equivalent to the first,
meaning //// /;/ good condition of stability and security, not mark
off, lay out, though these terms, like ordered and RV. established,
involve the same general idea ; like the first it has the general
sense of preparedness (Ex. 19" \\r 7"). Grk. : make straight
paths for thy feet (so freely Heb. 12^^) and make thy 7vays
straight, which agrees in sense with the Heb., though it is not
verbally accurate ; evil is crookedness (v.^*) and good is straight-
ness. — The plane and solid way in life is to be secured (v.*"-^)
by accepting the instruction of the sage, that is, of Wisdom. —
27. Synonymous, ternary. The straight way. Duty consists in
walking unswervingly in the path so prepared (v.^^) — to swerve,
the second cl. explains, is to fall into evil, physical and moral. —
Grk. appends the quatrain : For the ways of the right hand God
knoweth, but distorted are those of the left. And he himself will
make straight thy paths, and guide thy goings in peace. The con-
ception here differs from that of v.-'^-' in two points (Hitz.) :
right and left, instead of representing both of them divergencies
from the straight path of rectitude, express the one the good way
and the other the bad, and the ways are made straight not by the
man but by God. The insertion (which is the expansion, by
the addition of the second and fourth lines, of a modified form
of 5-^) was made by some one who felt that the fact of divine
supervision ought to be strongly brought out. Lagarde thinks
that it does not go back to a Semitic original, but is the w-ork of
a Greek-speaking Christian of the primitive period ; he refers to
the numerous dissertations on the two ways in life.* On the
other hand, De. shows that it can be naturally expressed in He-
brew. It is hardly possible to determine whether it is due to a
* Plato, Laws, iv, 717, referred to in Plut., his, 26.
ICK) PROVERBS
Jew or to a Christian, but in any case it bears witness to the free-
dom, in deahng with the text, which copyists or editors allowed
themselves. — Hitzig regards the Heb. v.^ as a superfluous scribal
amplification ; however, it adds something to the thought of v.^,
is not out of keeping with the tone and manner of the section,
and is found in all Ancient Versions.
21. ^ iT>Si Hi., only here; we should perh. read Qal (as in 321), so Bi.
(@ OTTws 1X7] iK\lirwa-lv ae, perh. reading ^^r, from Vr); cf. note on 3^1. For
|l? ^^J^;p (gABx have ai Tnjyai ffov (=l^JVc) and (g-'3. 252. 254. -igz ^i w. rijs
^wrjs <Tou (0-^5 omits (tov) ; Lag. regards the latter (which Procop. also has)
as the original; but as the reading of (g'^Bs* jj^s no meaning, the words
T. f. <T. may have been added by a Grk. scribe to make sense. Nor is there
probability in Lag.'s view that the dia. iravTbs (= ry Voa) of (S-^^-*^ (inserted
after "133'^) belongs to the Heb. original; cf. (5 6^1. Heid. suspects in (@ pro-
vision against a possible Pharisaic interpretation of the cl. as a reference to
the frontlets of Dt. 6^ ! — .SSC ir;3 (Lag. ;,.) pr:, from V'?!, as in 3^1, on
which see note. — 22. As the suffs. in 3ri\Xij and nra are inconcinnate, one
of them must be changed; the sing. 1 cannot be retained as individualizing;
SST write the first as sing; (g here has plu., but in ^ <@b s» -^ q^\i guff
(giving an improbable reading), avrov is added in n'^*- A 23, 254 S^ and
avTwv in 109, 157, 252, 297; these all go back to p?, and show that its form is
early. — The Trdcn of (gi*'i ««■ before tois evplaKovcriv may be a part of the Grk.
original, but does not call for the insertion of '?j in ^. The aiiri^u in * seems
to have prjcris (v.-"') in view. — 23. ||? inro '^rc; the prep, is p in 2C and A9
(ciTro iravTos (pvXdy/iaTos), a in S and apparently in <5 (irdffri (pv'KaKTJ), and
3L {omni cusiodia) ; the latter is adopted by Oort, Bi., Frank., RV., and
seems preferable; 'o means properly the act of watching, hardly the thing
watched — the two interpretations give the same general sense. — The toijtuv
of (5 in *> appears to refer to the \6yoLS of v.-*^ (so Procop. understands it) ;
the pronouns in the section are strangely varied in (S. — 24. The Vrss. except
2[, render by various adjs. the substs. which in |^ are defined by no and
□ \-i3r (so RV. ) Si Np''cy deep, representing J^ .nir,^ •, is apparently miswrit-
ing of NP^-)y (E Nnipv) ; cf. Si 22*5. — On pit^ see Ew., § 165 d, Stade, § 304 c,
Preuschen, in ZAT., 1895, and De.'s note; the regular form of stat. const.
(from n*?) would be "^ — this seems to be poetic variation, unless it be from
an otherwise unknown st. n;^, like nnr, n^'ar from n^;'. The forms in pi
appear to be Aramaisms. — 25. Both terms of direction njj':' and ^u: are
improperly understood by © in an ethical sense, 6pda and dUaia (and so S"
Procop.), and the first by SEIL (not by AOS) ; cf. \p 173. — 26. ?§» is para-
phrased by SVL keep thy feet (lit. make t. f pass by) from evil ways (as in
\P). IL dirige for D'^iJ. — |^ --^ is omitted by (5 (in reversal of its custom,
which is to insert a Pr in such statements), except H-P 296 (correction after
J^). US'" is taken as active by (5AS0. — For variations of patrist. writers see
IV. 27-V. 2 1 01
II-P. — 27. J^ >ic ; (5 dn-i 65o0 KaKtjs, as in a^^. — On the added quatrain
in (5 see note above.
V. A discourse against sexual licentiousness in men. — After
the usual introductory exhortation to give heed to instruction
(v.'-^), the deadly influence of the harlot is described (v.^"®), the
pupil is cautioned to avoid her lest loss of wealth and destruction
come on him (v.^'"), and is urged to conjugal fidelity (v.^*"^), the
motive presented being the fate of the wicked (v.^^-^).* Cf.
BS. 23''-2« 42*-".
The Deadly Power of the Harlot. V.^-^.
1. My son, give heed to [] wisdom, f
To [] understanding f lend thine ear,
2. That discretion may watch <over thee,>
That knowledge [] may preserve »thee,>
[To save thee from the harlot,
The woman of enticing words.]
3. For the lips of the harlot drop honey,
Her words are smoother than oil;
4. But at the last she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
5. Her feet go down to Death,
Her steps lead down to Sheol;
6. « No I well-built highway of life she walks,
Uncertain her paths and not « firm.'
1,2. The general exhortation. — 1. Synonymous, ternary. The
Heb. (in this followed by all Anc. Vrss.) has the poss. prons. my
wisdom and my understanding ; but the sage, while he speaks of
his own words, cotntnandments, law, instruction, never elsewhere
claims ivisdom (= understanding, knotvledge, insight, or discretion)
as his own, but represents it as the goal to which his instruction
leads ; see 2^''' '-^^ 3'- ^' /^- ^ '" ^ ; for the meanings of the terms see
note on i^"^. — 2. The text is in disorder, and can be only con-
jecturally restored ; and the connection between v.^ and v.'' is not
expressed. The Heb. (followed substantially by all Vrss. except
* On V.21 see note on that verse below.
t Heb. : my wisdom and my understanding.
I02 PROVERBS
Grk.) reads to preserve [= that thou mayest preserve"] discretion
[= sagacity, insight], and that thy tips may keep knowledge. But
the reference to the lips of the pupil, proper in 4^^, is out of place
here ; lips utter, but do not keep ; we should rather expect thy
mind {heart), as in 3^ 4*, or simply keep thou, as in 4^'' 7^, if the
point is the inward acceptance of wisdom or instruction. The
mention of the lips of a strange woman, in v.^, might suggest, as
contrast, my lips ; so Grk. : and the knowledge of my lips is en-
joined [or, according to another reading, / enjoin'] on thee. This
is so far better than the Heb. as it refers to the utterance of lips,
but it is syntactically not in accord with the preceding (in which
the pupil is the subject), and the expression is strange — the hps
of the teacher are nowhere else described as the possessors of
knowledge, though they are said (15') to scatter knowledge, that
is, by words. These considerations are unfavorable to the emen-
dations that the knowledge of my lips may be preserved for you
(Oort), and that my lips may enjoin knowledge on thee (Bickell).
It is hardly possible to construe the expression thy lips (or, my
lips), which appears to have been introduced by an early scribe
from the next verse. Dyserinck, omitting this expression, and
seeking a connection between v.^ and v.^, reads : that thou mayest
keep discretion and knowledge, that they may preserve {thee) from
the strange woman (cf. 7^). Some such form as this is required
by the connection. The resemblance between this passage and
2I1. le ^1-5 jg obvious, and we should probably here introduce a
couplet like 2^® 7^, and read : that discretion may watch over thee
and knowledge pteserve thee, to save thee from the strange woman,
etc. (as in the translation given above).
3-6. Description of the harlot; cf 2^'^i« 7-21. 26. 27 ^j^^ ^^_
scription follows abruptly on the exhortation, while elsewhere
there is an easy transition from the appeal {hear, attend) to the
subject-matter of the instruction. Before v.'' the Grk. inserts give
no heed to a worthless woman (Lat. . . . to a woman's deceit) ; but
this destroys the distichal form of the verse ; it is a scribal effort
to secure connection between v.^ and v.'^, but it is not in the
manner of similar passages, and probably does not represent a
Heb. text. On other proposed transitional expressions see note
V. 2-3 I03
above ; some reference to the strange woman must have preceded
v.'', but it was early lost. — The warning is addressed only to men ;
nothing is said of the danger to women from the seductions of
men. This silence may be due in part to the belief that women
were more hedged in and guarded by social arrangements, and
less exposed to temptation than men ; but it is chiefly the result
of the fact that in the OT. (as in most ancient and modern works
on practical ethics) it is only men that are had in mind, the moral
independence of women not being distinctly recognized. The
only addresses to women as such in OT. are the denunciation of
the luxurious ladies of Jerusalem in Isa. 3^*^-4' (connected with
the nation's defection from Yahweh), and the similar sarcastic
prediction of Am. 4''^, directed against the great ladies of Samaria.
Ez. (13'""^) denounces the prophetesses in their official capacity.
Ben-Sira (25^-'' 26^" 42^") directs the husband how to deal with
his erring wife, and the father how to manage his daughter, but
addresses no word of advice to women. In our chapter the man
who is warned is thought of as married (v.''), and, if we may con-
clude from 7'^, the woman against whom he is warned is married.
The married state is regarded as the normal one ; in ancient life,
men, as a rule, were married at an early age. — 3. Synonymous, ter-
nary. On strange woman, = harlot, see note on 2*". The specious,
soft-speaking hps are compared to a honeycomb, and are said to
i/rop honey (the word means the honey of the comb), an expression
which in Cant. 4'' denotes not sweet speech but bodily sweetness.
Bickell judges, from the parallelism, that the verb (/rop does not
belong here, but has been introduced from Cant. 4", and that we
should read t/ie lips . . . are honey ; the emendation hardly im-
proves the rhythm of the Heb., and is otherwise improbable —
the sweetness of honey is a standard of comparison in the Bible
(Ju. 14^** Ez. 3^^ Rev. 10^"^ \\i 19"^ 119'*''), but neither mouth nor
lip is called honey; we might, perhaps, say are sweet as honey, or,
are as honey, though, while words are called honey (16^^), the
mouth or the lip is rather the source from which the honey drops
or flows. — The term rendered words (RV. mouth') is properly
palate (roof of the mouth), to which the tongue cleaves from
thirst (Lam. 4"*) or from emotion (Job 29'"), the result being
sometimes dumbness (Ez. 3^") ; it is the organ of physical taste
I04 PROVERBS
(Job 12"), and thence comes to express intellectual discernment
(Job 6''") ; and it is used, as here, for the vocal cavity as the seat
of speech (8^ Hos. 8^) ; its smoothness denotes flattery (29^) or
hypocrisy (i/' 5^°) ; so Eng. stnooth and oiiy. — The woman is de-
scribed as mistress of cajoling, enticing words ; see the specimen
of her persuasions given in y'^''". Rashi and other Jewish exposi-
tors explain the figure of the woman as Epicureanism (philosophi-
cal scepticism, irrehgiousness), or as heresy in general (including
idolatry) ; and it was similarly allegorized by some early Christian
writers. — 4. Synonymous, ternary. Lit. the end (RV. latter end)
0/ her is bitter, etc., that is, the final outcome or result of relations
with her; the term end (Heb. aharith) always involves the idea
of final judgment. In contrast with the sweetness and smooth-
ness of the woman's speech and demeanor is put the bitterness
and sharpness of the doom she brings on men (v.^) . Wonnwood
is a symbol in OT. of suffering, as the result of man's injustice
(Am. 5' 6^^), or as divine punishment (Dt. 29^*'*'^ Jer. 9'^<"> 23'^
Lam. 3'^' '^) or, as here, as the natural outcome of man's sin. The
plant meant is some species of Artemisia *; the word is probably
here used in a generic sense ; Grk. biie, the other Vrss. absinthium.
— 5. Synonymous, ternary. See 2^^ Death is here a place, = the
realm of death, = Shcol. — Lead do7vn to is lit. take hold on (as
in 1/^ 17'^) = cleave to, follow (or, keep) the path to. On Sheol
see note on i^^. The woman's manner of life is represented as
fatal to earthly well-being — to enter into relations with her is to
go the way that shortens one's days ; the purely moral side of the
procedure is not referred to. This is part of the general repre-
sentation of the Book that wickedness brings death, that is, pre-
mature and unhappy death ; so 2^®-^ 4'^ Whether in the present
case death comes from the weakening of bodily strength or by
direct intervention of God is not said. The connection does not
suggest a reference to legal punishment, — Grk. : for the feet of
folly (perh. a philosophical abstraction) lead her associates with
death to Hades, and her steps are not firmly fixed, paraphrase, with
instead of to, incorrect division of the verse, and consequent inser-
* See Celsius, Hierobotanicum ; Tristram, Survey; J. H. Balfour, Plants of the
Bible.
V. 3-6 105
tion of the negative. Lat., second cl. : her steps penetrate unto
the Underivorld or the dead (ad inferos). — 6. Text and trans-
lation are uncertain. The Heb. reads : the path of life lest she [or,
thou'\ make level, her ways are unstable \_totter, reel, wander aim-
lessly^, she knows not [or, thou knowest not'\ ; that is, her ways
are unstable in order that she may not [or, that thou- mayest 7iot~\
prepare the paths of life ; but in sentences in which the protasis
is introduced by lest, the apodosis ahvays states that which is
done in order that something else may not happen (the two
things must, of course, be different), while here the two clauses
are identical in meaning — to say that her paths are unstable in
order that they may not be stable, or, in order that thou, if tliou
walk in them, mayest not be stable (cf. 4^''), gives no sense, and
could not have been written by the Heb. author. The Anc. Vrss.
take first cl. as an independent affirmation parallel to second cl.,
and have not instead of lest, and this no doubt gives the proper
general form (but RV. so that . . not is impossible). The con-
nection indicates that it is the woman (and not the man) that is
spoken of throughout the verse ; the verb in first cl. means make
plane, and not enter on, walk in (Anc. Vrss.), or, ponder (Schult.
RV. marg.). The last phrase of the verse, she knows not, is
strange, whether it be taken to mean that she knows not that her
ways are unstable, or that she knows not whither her ways wander
— the point indicated by the connection is not her ignorance (in
9''' ignorance is appropriately introduced, and cf \^ SS*^), but the
evil character of her paths. Our verse is clearly intended to
express the contrast to 4^** : there make level the path of thy feet,
here she does not make level the way of life ; there let all thy 7vavs
be made firm, here her paths are unstable aiid, after vvliich we
expect an expression = not firm. There might seem, further, to
be tautology in the terms way of life and make level, since a way
that leads to life must of necessity, according to OT. usage, lie
level ; but life here appears to stand as contrast to the death of
the preceding verse, and the verb may be retained in the sense of
prepare, or may be changed to one meaning tread or enter, as in
the Versions. We may, with probability, read : she prepares not
a highway of life, her paths wander and are not firm. — Notwilli-
standing the uncertainties of the text, the general sense of the
I06 PROVERBS
verse is clear : the path of the harlot is unstable and does not
lead to life — the verse states negatively what v.^ states positively,
that is, she and her associates are doomed to a premature and
wretched death.
1. Drop the i pers. suffs. ; see note above. — (5 writes l" as in 4^", X670(j
(so Sb, only sing.), exc. H-P 23, 252, which have (ppovrjcreL. Si^ has doublet,
first = (@B<»'- (with obel.), second = |^(§'^- ^^-, the latter being correction after
1^. Between (5^ and |§ it is not easy to decide; |^ is perh. favored by the
parallelism. — 2. To ■\3i'"' Bi. appends suff. ■;, which is proper (as subj.),
though not necessary in poetical style. SST, taking 'c as subj., render x-S by
Pass. Impf. and insert 3 before 'c. — |^ mat::; (5 Ij'i'otai' dyad'^v. — In ^
<@B.<i*(vid) &iff0ria-is 8^ i/jLuv xe'^^wi/ ivTiWerai (rot=iiX^ ^S ^PSV "w (Jag.,
adopted by Bi.) ; the other MSS. of @ &i<T9rj(nv . . . ivT4\\o/j.al aoi =
nixN . . .; on the objection to this reading and that of |^ see note above.
The passage should perhaps stand as follows (cf. 2^^- '^) :
T>x:> nyni r\aw -\-\vafn
np>'7nn r\>-mn nnsjD mi nvni2 ih-^^nh
Or, the first half only of second line may be inserted, and we shall then have
a couplet quaternary-ternary. — 3. (§ (and so substantially IL) prefixes firi
7rp6(Texe (pavXri yvvaiKl, = nSii^ nrsS 2^'i'i^D Sn, against which the objection
based on the rhythm seems decisive, though some such connecting phrase (see
note on v.''^ above) is necessary. — J^ mr; (3 ir6pvr]s, = nj-, or free rendering
of 1^. — 1^ p^n; 3L iiitidius (= more shining or sleeker'), free trans, of |^, or
perh. from some form of S'?.!. — 1§ P"^'"; ® ""P^s Kaiphv apparently (Lag.)
for irp6 eXa^ou; 29 v-^kp i\aiov; for aov read Thv (Jag.). — Bi. improperly
omits njoan, which is required by the usage of language. — The primitive
sense of in (for ijn) palate is uncertain, perh. a narrow aperture or passage
(Ges. Thes., Dillm. Lex. Ling. Aeth., cf. |">:n, pj>'); the vb. is denom., = in
Arab, to rub a chiliVs palate (with chewed dates, etc.) when it is named, proba-
bly by way of dedication to the clan-deity (W. R. Smith, Kinship, p. 154), and
hence perh. initiate, dedicate, educate ; in Heb. train a child (22®), dedicate a
private residence (Dt. 20*) or a temple (i K. 8"^) ; cf. note on 22^; the proper
name ii:n (if it be Heb.) may, like Arab, y^n, mean a man of experience or
wisdom. Cf. Lane, L^ex.; BDB. — On % see Lag., Pink. — 4. Instead of J^ as
(:) (@ has than (a = ic) ; cf. Heb. 4^'^. % has \a in both clauses, ® in '• only;
there was confusion between 3 and D in the Heb. MSS. (easy in either the old
or the square script). — At end of » (5 rhetorically adds eypi^crets, and S makes
suff. to nnnx plu., referring to its words in v.^ (|^ -^n). — 5. On the para-
phrasing text of (S see notes of Jag., Lag. ; it paraphrases suff. in ^1SJ^, takes
nmi as Hif., has pn before nir, and Nif. of "icr, before which it inserts neg.;
S^ Gr. irD; IL penetrant; ^'^ .■-irD(= (@) ; Bi. writes 'P'' 'S sing.; there is
no reason for changing J^, unless, as in 2I*, preps, be inserted before niD and
V. 6 107
hwi', though these may stand as objectives without preposition. — 6. J§ jo is
unintelligible; the connection requires a neg. (perh. ^a), as all Anc. Vrss. take
it. Succeeding interpretations have been various. Talmud, Moed Katon, 9 a :
do not ponder the path of life (that is, to discover the precepts, obedience to
which is most rewarded by God) ; Rashi : do yiot ponder the way of the life of
the woman, for all her paths lead to death; Schultens (connecting it with 5'^) :
(she plunges into Sheol) lest perchance she should ponder, etc., and possibly
repent (a result which she wishes to avoid) ; C. B. Mich. : (her ways wander)
lest thou ponder, etc. ; Ew. al. : lest she ponder ; Nowack, Strack : that she
may not enter on ; Kamp. : that she tnay miss; De, (adopting an untenable
translation of |d) : she is far from entering; Noyes : she gives no heed to;
Frank, omits the line as incapable of satisfactory translation, but thinks that
(5 gives the sense properly. The objections to jd are first its position (not at
beginning of clause), and secondly, the identity of content of the two clauses;
on the supposed similarity in this last respect of 15^3 (j;'dS cited by Now.),
see note on that verse. — |ij mx; 5 Nvnx, miswriting of NmiN (Vogel). —
J§ D'^on ; (5 freely iiripx^^ai (and so 5®) ; 3L ambulant, referring to pedes
v.^, or to gressus v.^; Gr. i^D"^ subvert. |^ may be retained. — |^ yin n*^ is
omitted by Bi. as marring the parallelism; it is rhythmically and in sense
inappropriate. The Vrss. represent ^J; (5 (foil, by SilL) koX ovk evyvwaToi.
(referring to rpoxtai)' — ^^'^ knows them 7tot ; ST, reproducing ^ exactly (only
pref. 1) N^n^ n'?!; SchxxXi. haud cttrat, Oind so most later expositors (as RV.)
she knows (or, observes) it not; C. B. Mich.: so that thou knoivest not (where
thou art). Some expression here seems required by the rhythm, and we may
doubtfully emend to ijb' (4"'').
7-14. After this general description of the perils of association
with the harlot, the discourse repeats the warning against her
(v' **), basing it on the suffering she brings, namely, loss of
wealth (v.'^"), and closing with a picture of the victim's use-
less regret (v.""'^).
7. Now, therefore < my son,' hearken to me,
And depart not from the words of my mouth.
8. Keep thy path far from her,
Go not near the door of her house;
9. Lest thou give up thy < wealth ' to others,
The (toil of) thy years to < aliens,'
10. Lest strangers enjoy thy substance.
And thy labors (go to) an alien's house;
11. And thou groan at last.
When thy body and flesh are consumed,
12. And say: "Alas! I have hated instruction,
And guidance I have despised;
I08 PROVERBS
13. I have not listened to the voice of my teachers,
Nor hearkened to my instructors;
14. I had wellnigh come to complete grief
In the congregation and the assembly."
7, 8. Synonymous, ternary. Exhortation : " seeing she is as I
have said, avoid her." The Heb. has plu. sons, but the sing, is
called for by the rest of the address, and is found in the Grk. and
the Latin. The woman (probably married, but whether married
or unmarried) has her own house.
9, 10. Synonymous ; v.^ is ternary-binary ; v.^^ is ternary. More
particular statement of the loss she inflicts. Our Heb. text reads :
9. Lest thou give up thine honor to others a?id thy years to the c?uel
[or to a cruel 07ie\ 10. lest strangers be filled with thy stretigth,
atui thy labors {go) into an alien's house. The strength of v.'" =
wealth, as in Job (P (RV. substance) . In v.^ (which seems in-
tended to express the same thought as v.^°) the parallelism sug-
gests the reading wealth (or perhaps life, as in the Grk.) instead
of honor, and the meaning will then be that all the outcome, the
earnings, of the man's life pass into the hands of others. If the
reading hojior be retained, this word must be interpreted simi-
larly, as equivalent to yeajs, that is, the labor of years, zvealth,
called honor because it gives a man an honorable position among
men. The two clauses of v.'' must be taken as synonymous ; we
cannot understand honor as expressing the freshness and grace of
youth, and years the dignity of age. The term cruel, if it be the
right reading, is parallel and equivalent to others, strangers, aliens,
and is to be understood as describing the pitiless character of
these persons (creditors, sharpers, the woman and her friends,
including, perhaps, the husband) who get possession of the vic-
tim's money. It is, however, a surprising term in this connection
(the general reference being simply to the fact that the man loses
his property), and seems to be scribal error for the word meaning
alien (as the Targ. has it). The quatrain appears to give a com-
plete double set of synonyms, four words signifying " wealth," and
four signifying " other persons." — In any case the penalty pre-
dicted for the debauchee is loss of worldly wealth, as, on the other
hand, riches is the reward of the wise (3"^ 8^^^). The reference (cf.
V. 7-13 I09
v.^) cannot be to the punishment of death for adulterers ordained
in the IsraeHtish law (Ez. i6** Lev. 20"'), since there is here no
hint of such a fatal ending or of legal procedure (cf. note on v."),
but the intimation is that the punishment, loss of wealth, comes
from ordinary social causes. Still less is it meant that the offender
may be emasculated and become the slave of the injured husband
(Ew.) ; no such provision exists in the OT. law. It is simply
that the licentious man, careless and prodigal, is preyed on by
others (chiefly the woman and her husband and lovers), and thus
sacrifices his years to aliens. This is the sting of his doom, that
his toil goes to build up not his own house but another's, and his
life thus becomes a failure. The point of view is external — there
is no reference to corruption of soul ; that is no doubt assumed,
but the moraHst uses what he thinks the most effective deterrent
argument, the social destructiveness of the vice in question.
11-14. The man's lamentation over his broken life. — 11. Pro-
gressive, binary-ternary. At last (lit. in thy aftertime or at thy
end) = when the results of thy action show themselves ; the refer-
ence may be to the period immediately succeeding the loss of
wealth or to the end of life. Bot/y and flesh {— the being, per-
sonality) are consumed, worn out, the allusion being not to the
physical results of sexual indulgence (the point is not excess, but
illegaHty and immorality), but to the loss of social position and
power, in general to the failure of the man's life. The picture is
identical in substance with that of v.^-^", loss of wealth involving or
expressing loss of all that makes life enjoyable. — Grk. : and thou
repent at last when the flesh of thy body is consui7ied, a reading which
represents slight modifications of our Heb. text : groan, mourn,
repent are practically equivalent, groan being the strongest ; the
rhetorical repetition body and flesh is more eff'ective than the pre-
c\%itx flesh of body. — 12, 13. Synonymous, ternary. \a\.. my heart
(= myself) has despised (v.^^), and lent (lit. inclined) mine ear to
mine instructors (v.'^). The Heb. prefixes hoiv to the whole quat-
rain, the sense being : how have I hated . . . despised . . . how
have I not liste7ied . . . and not inclined /, an awkward form of
expression in EngHsh (RV. has an ungrammatical sentence in
v.'^'', and drops the how in v.'^) . Heb. employs this ho7ci as in-
no PROVERBS
troduction to laments (2 Sam. i^ Zeph. 2^* Ez. 26*^ Isa. 14" i^
Lam. i^ 2^ Jer. 48'^) with the sense how latnentable the case f, here
how foolish I was !, a meaning which is expressed by alas ! In-
stead of the Perf. have hated, etc., we may render by the Pret.
I hated, etc. On mstruction and guidafice see notes on 1^'^^. —
The sage here reaches the gist of his discourse — obedience to
instruction would have saved the man from this unhappy fate.
The teachers are wise men, fathers of famihes and heads of
schools. Here, as elsewhere in the book, it seems to be assumed
that more or less organized schemes of moral instruction for young
men existed — incipient universities such as appear in the second
century B.C. — 14. Progressive, ternary. Lit. : had wellnigh fallen
into all evil. If the evil be moral, the congregation (or, asseinbly)
is the crowd of bad companions who lead the man astray, or the
community which witnesses his downfall ; but this interpretation
does not agree with the connection — he declares (v.^^- '^) not that
he came near descending, but that he did descend into the depths
of moral evil, and he reflects that he has barely escaped some-
thing else, namely, crushing suffering. This sense of the term
m/ occurs in 13'^ i/' 10" 2-f ; here it appears to mean official pun-
ishment. Congregation and assembly (synonymous terms) signify
first any mass of persons gathered together, and then particularly
a community (sometimes the whole body of Israelites) in organ-
ized political or judicial form, here the official gathering of the
man's community to take cognizance of offences against law. In
the early time every Israelitish community appears to have exer-
cised judicial and executive powers (Dt. 17^ 21 Lev. 24'^) In
the Roman times also the Jewish communities all over the empire
seem to have had the right of jurisdiction over their members, and
this was probably the case in the Grk. period in Palestine and
Egypt.* The adulterer might, perhaps, have been sentenced to
death (but see notes on 6^'*^^) ; he sees that he came near losing
his hfe or suffering some other overwhelming punishment ; cf. Ben-
Sira 23^^ It is obvious that the point here is different from that
of v."- ^°, and that in v.^ also the reference is general, not particu-
larly to legal punishment. The stress here laid on the verdict of
the community is to be noted.
* Cf. Schiirer, Jewish People, 2, 2, § 31.
V. 13-14 III
7. f^ 2'jd; (3 vii; read -n, as in v.'- ^, and make the vbs. sing. —
8. |i? ^'''^■"■< © f^""' tn^^ijs; Bi. annecessarily njsc. — ||J n-j) and ^•'3 written
by (S (in several different forms) plu., by Heb. or Grk. scribal inadvertence.
— 9. %l Tv-i; SC "^'n; (5 i'wTjj', which may perh. represent in taken (like ^b-',
see Dillm.'s note on Gen. 49^, Geiger, Urschrift, p. 319) as = soul (Lag.), but
more probably is rendering of •'T, which is favored by the parallel rjj', (5 ^iov\
Oort pn, which Gr. regards as the Heb. text of <S (cf. Pink.), and it should
probably here be read instead of J^ m. — |^ nrDN, emend to 1-13); (@ dvfXt-
rmoaiv (and so SIL) ; ST here and iii'' pxinj (= Heb. 'td)), regarded by Vog.
as scrilml error for I'Niros, by Baumg. for Niir^j (so 17^^); the connection
favors ST. — 10. |^ id (lacking in (@ ^ i"^) is omitted by Lag. as bad Heb.,
since the force of the part, in v.^ may extend through v.^'^; but such repetition
is rhetorically permissible. — The Vrss. properly supply a vb. in l^; ?!J is poeti-
cally concise. With use of n^ as = 'wealth cf. similar use of ^^r\. — 11. |^ nnnj;
(5 (followed by %), not so well, fMeTa/ieXfjO-^crri, = ncrr. — f^ innnsa; Clem.,
Strom. 122, iirX yijpui (and so S), regarded by Lag. as the genuine text of (5,
e7r' e<Txo.T(j}v being revision. — The (rdpKes ixibixarbs (jov of© (adopted by Bi.)
is rhetorically not so good as |ij. Geiger, Urschrift, p. 418, supposes that the
original text had h^d instead of ^73. — 12. The diff. between Tj^ rnjir. and
(@ f\^7xoi's is one of pointing (in 6^3 1^ has plu. and (5 sing.), and there is
little choice between them. ©"' ^-- -''•»" Constitt. 9^ Arab, but not Aeth. (Lag.),
add biKalwv, an addition natural but not found elsewhere. — 13. In n'^i omit 1,
with ©. Instead of ^s^2 a number of MSS. have Vip^, which is perh. better. —
Lag. points out that the reading of (S^"'- ■n-aide'uovThs fxe Kal 8i5dcrKoi>T6s /xe is
the original Grk. (though not the translation of the original Heb.), and that
of (§-''«'■, conformed to the Heb., a correction. — 14. P} ovc?; (5 irap oXlyov;
A w! 6\lyov; Schol. ^i' PpaxvTdT<fi; '% pene ; 5'3C '''•So ^JJ wholly; CJr. emends
to Dsr] despised. — <S3C f.t'O takes J7i as plural.
15-20. Exhortation (couched in erotic terms) to avoid har-
lotry and observe conjugal fidelity. The sacredness and social
value of the family are implied. It is assumed that men are mar-
ried, and the exhortation indicates that conjugal infidelity was a
crying evil of the time. The paragraph consists of two parts, the
first (v.'^'^) figurative, the second (v.'*"^) the literal interpreta-
tion of the first. The terms cistern, wafers, etc., are used figura-
tively, but the allegorical interpretation of the wife, as = wisdom,
etc., is excluded by the connection.
15. Drink water from thine own cistern,
Running water from thine own well.
16. Should thy springs lie scattered abroad?
Thy streams of water in the streets?
112 PROVERBS
17. Let them be for thyself alone,
And not for others with thee.
18. Let thy fountain be < thine own,' *
Get thou joy from the wife of thy youth;
19. [] Let her breasts intoxicate thee always,t
Be thou ever ravished with her love.
20. Why shouldest thou [] + be ravished with a stranger,
Embrace the bosom of another woman ?
15. Synonymous, binary-ternary. The cistern is a receptacle
(often hewn out of the rock, Jer. 2'^) into which water falls or
flows from without and in which it remains motionless ; in the
ivell (Nu. 21''"*) the water rises from beneath and has tnovement,
life (so here running water is not spoken of in connection with
the cistern) ; the two terms are rhetorical variations of expression
for a supply of drinking-water. The figure appears to be a general
one : let thy own wife be thy source of enjoyment, as refreshing
as water to a thirsty man. The enjoyment meant is sensual, but
there does not seem to be a comparison of the female form to a
cistern or well, or a designation of the wife as the source of chil-
dren (cf. Ex. 21'", Koran 2-^) ; there is no reference to children
in the paragraph. The basis of the figure is given in Isa. 36'"
where drinking from one's (literal) cistern is the symbol of enjoy-
ment of one's home. The general idea of origin is expressed in
Isa. 51^ : Abraham is the rock whence was hewn the stone for the
building of the nation, Sarah the rock-pit (the same word that is
here used for cistern) whence the nation was dug ; in this there
seems to be no pictorial allusion to the mother's womb — father
and mother are spoken of in the same way. In Eccl. 1 2* also
cistern stands in a general way for Hfe. § A close approach to the
wording of our verse is found in Cant. 4'*, in which the heroine is
called a gan/e/i -fountain, a well of living water, of streams from
Lebanon (and cf. v.^^), that is, a source of refreshing and enjoy-
* Heb. : blessed.
t On the omission of first line of v.i^ see note on this verse below.
X Heb. inserts 7ny son.
\ In Eccl. 12I the emendation cistern ("\13) or well (iX3), —wife, instead of
creator (nto), is not favored by the connection, and is, on rhetorical grounds,
extremely difficult if not impossible; probably iii"b. i2ia is orthodox scribal
insertion.
V. 15-17 113
ment (the similarity of expressions in Pr. and Cant., here and
elsewhere, suggests that one of these books drew from the other).
— Grk., by a slight change of text, has drink luatcjs out of thine
own vessels (dyyeiwt/), and in NT. (i Th. 4* i Pet. 3") vessel
(o-KeDo?) = wife ; the latter term represents the body as the locus
or instrument of the soul or of service, and often = person, but
the Grk. term here means drinking-vessels. — Our Heb. text in-
troduces the wife not as child-bearer, but as source of pleasure.
For the general figure cf. BS. 26'". — 16. Synonymous, ternary-
binary. It is a question whether the infidelity here referred to is
that of the husband or that of the wife. The connection clearly
favors the former interpretation ; the reference in v.'^ and in v.^*"^
is obviously to the man, and it is not likely that the discourse
would be interrupted by the introduction of a topic which is men-
tioned nowhere else in the chapter ; and v.-", further, appears to
give the literal meaning of v.*®- '^ as v.'* gives that of v.'^. The
sense is : seek not thy pleasure in the streets (from harlots, see
7'-), from all sorts of sources {scattered abroad). Springs and
streams symbolize sources of enjoyment, and particularly such as
are commonly outside of one's house-land ; while cistern and toell,
v}^ (also sources of enjoyment) are properly attached to the
house. — The interrogative form (which may be rendered by a
negative), though not given in the Heb., is permissible, and is
demanded by the connection. The declarative or the jussive form
{thy streams will be [or, let thy streams be] spread abroad), adopted
by a number of expositors (from Aquila and Saadia on), is held
to mean " thou shalt have numerous descendants" (Schult.), or
" let thy generative power act freely within the marriage- relation "
(De.) ; but these interpretations are not favored by the context.
The terms springs, etc., cannot naturally be taken to mean " gen-
erative power" (Ew., De., al.) ; the connection shows that they
signify "sources of pleasure" (here sensual pleasure). — Those
who make the woman the subject interpret : " let not thy wife
stray abroad" (as a result of thy infidelity). — Grk. : let not thy
waters overfloiv, etc. (the negative is involved in the interrogative
form). — Others : "do not squander thy virile strength," which is
correct in general sense (see above), but incorrect in form. —
17. Synonymous, ternary, or binary. Repetition of the exhorta-
114 PROVERBS
tion of V.'*, = " let thy pleasures belong to thyself alone (that is,
be derived from thine own wife), and not be shared with others
(as they must be, if thou consort with harlots)." — On the less
probable interpretation : " let thy wife be for thee alone, and not
for others with thee" (= let not thy wife become a harlot) see
note on preceding verse. — 18-20. This group repeats and inter-
prets the exhortation of the preceding in literal terms — the erotic
expressions (cf. Canticles) are partly explained by the fact that
women did not in ancient times form part of the audiences ad-
dressed by men, or of the public for which books were written.*
— 18. Synonymous, ternary. Fountain, parallel to water, springs,
rivers of v.'^- ^'', is explained in second cl. as = tvife, as source of
physical pleasure. The Heb. reads : let thy fountain be blessed.
The " fountain " may be regarded as blessed when it is enjoyed
in accordance with the laws of God and man, that is, in the mar-
riage-relation, in contrast with the pleasures of illicit love ; as
appears from the connection, there is no reference to the blessed-
ness of children born in wedlock — the wife is viewed not as child-
bearer but as pleasure-giver. The term blessed is, however, not
what we should expect ; the section contrasts the wife as one's
own with the harlot as stratiger, and there is probability in the
Grk. reading let thy fountai?i be thine oivn or for thee alone
(which represents a slight modification of our Heb. text) (cf.
v."). The fountain of Lev. 12" 20^^ refers to the blood of child-
birth and menses and has nothing to do with our passage. The
Joy of second cl., as appears from the following context, is sen-
sual.— Among ancient peoples marriage was considered a duty,
and early marriage appears to have been the general custom ;
such a custom is assumed in the expression 7vife of thy youth, and
the writer probably had in mind its value as a guard against
debauchery. It has been suggested f that the astonishing vitality
of the Jews is due in part to their maintenance of early marriage
(a custom which they have always kept up except when, as now to
some extent, they have fallen into the habits of other peoples). —
19. Synonymous, ternary (the first line of the Heb. being omitted).
* Cf. the Idyls of Theoc, Bion, Moschus.
t For ex., by Leroy-Beaulieu, Israel chez les nations, Ch. VII.
V. I7-20 115
Expansion of second line of v.^l As first line of v.'^ the Heb
nas : Lovely hind, charming wild goat — an expression which, if
it be retained, must be regarded as a parenthetical exclamation,
whether it be attached to this verse or to the preceding; but it
interrupts the discourse and destroys the distichal form, and is
doubtless the insertion of a scribe, a gloss on wife. Bickell, insert-
ing one word, writes the verse as a quatrain : Lovely hind, charm-
ing wild goat, Let her breasts intoxicate thee. Let her always make
thee quiver. Be ever ravished with her love ; but the inserted word
is doubtful and improbable. — The hind vi, some variety of deer
(Dt. 12^^), probably red or fallow. The 7vild goat (i Sam. 24^*'''
Job 39' i// 104^*'), an inhabitant of the rocks, is gray in color, and
of great agility and grace ; it is said to be still found at Engedi,
where David's men may have hunted it; the renderings roe (RV.)
and gazelle (Strack, Kamph., al) are hardly allowable.* This is
the only place in OT. where a woman is compared to an animal as
type of beauty (Cant. 4'-^^ are not properly exceptions), though
such comparisons for men are not rare. — A change in the vowels
of the Heb. gives in first line love instead of breasts, but the latter
reading is favored by the bosom of v.^. — The Targum interprets
the wife as = the law : wisdom learn thou always, and to love of
it ever strejwously apply thyself — 20. Synonymous, ternary. This
verse is naturally taken in connection with the preceding exhor-
tation. The question is asked : why seek another woman ? the
answer expected is : there is no reason for so doing, seeing thy
wife is sufficient ; the appeal is based on the foregoing section.
If the verse be connected with what follows, it should be ren-
dered : why wilt thou be ravished with (or, fascinated by), etc.?,
that is, seeing thou wilt certainly be punished for such conduct
(v.2\ but see note on that verse below). — The address wv son in
the Heb. is rhythmically hard, is not found in the Grk., and is bet-
ter omitted. — With this section cf BS. 9^-". The sage of Prov.
combating a particular vice, here treats the wife not as intellectual
companion of the husband or as mother of the family, but as sat-
isfaction of bodily desire — he sets lawful over against unlawful
passion ; but, of course, it is not thence to be inferred that the
* See Tristram, Fauna, < tc, in Survey of West. Pal.
1 1 6 PROVERBS
teachers of the time did not take the higher view of the marriage-
relation ; cf. 3i>'^^ BS. 26^-^- 13" 3623(28).
21-23. General concluding reflection, similar to what is found
at the end of chs. i. 2. 3, without special bearing on the body
of the chapter, perhaps the addition of the final editor.
21. For the ways of a man are before the eyes of Yahweh,
And he weighs all his paths.
22. His iniquities shall catch him [],*
And in the net of his sins he shall be taken.
23. lie shall die for lack of instruction,
And I perish > f through the greatness of his folly.
21. Synonymous, ternary. The universal supervision of God is
cited as a general reason for carefulness in conduct ; the principle
applies to all men, not especially to adulterers. In second cl. the
parallelism favors the rendering weighs — God has his eye on,
estimates and judges human actions (Grk. observes, Targ., Syr., all
his ways are uncovered before him). We may also translate makes
plane (see note on 4^®), understanding this expression to mean
arranges, makes possible, that is, God so ordains life that the bad
man may run his course and meet his punishment, man is free
(De., Now., Str.) ; but here, as in i^i 32^ it seems to be the
judgment of God rather than the freedom of man that the writer
has in view. The way in which the divine government shows
itself is explained in the following verses. — Such must be the
course of thought if the present text be correct. But the connec-
tion between v.^^ and the following verses is not clear. V.^^
regards all men, good and bad, v.^^ ^3 regard bad men only. The
insertion of the words the wicked, in v.^^^ appears to show that the
reference in the ///;;/ was thought to need explanation ; and it is
natural to suppose that, when the verse was written, the reference
was clear, that is, that the antecedent of him had been expressed.
The same thing is true of the his in first line of vP — it has now
no expressed antecedent. It follows either that v.^' originally
referred to the wicked (a supposition with which the general verb
weigh does not agree), or that some passage (perhaps a couplet)
* Heb. inserts the wicked. f Heb. : go astray.
V, 21-23 117
referring to the "wicked" has fallen out, or that v.^' is the inser-
tion of an editor. The last construction would still require a
modification of v.^^ (see note on this verse below). — 22. Synon-
ymous, binary-ternary (in the emended form of the couplet).
In first cl. the Heb. has shall catch him, the wicked, in which both
objects cannot be original, and it is more probable that the
explicit term the ivicketi is an old scribal explanation (found in
Targ., Syr., Lat., but not in Grk.). The rendering (obtained by
changing the text) his own iniquities shall catch the wicked is pos-
sible but syntactically hard. Possibly we should read : the wicked
shall be caught in his iniquities, or, less probably (with Grk.) :
iniquities shall catch a man. — The figure is that of an animal
caught in a net, the man is caught in his own wrongdoings (the
plu. siris is given in most of the Anc. Vrss.). This is the dispen-
sation of God, and it is implied that it is also the natural course
of things. Net is literally strings or threads. — 23. Synonymous,
ternary. The thought is that of i'^'-^^ — sin is the result of lack of
instruction, of the guidance of divine wisdom as given particularly
in the teaching of the sages ; see the preceding sections passim.
Further, death is the outcome of sin, see i^^, etc. The parallel-
ism, with comparison also of such couplets as i^^ seems to require
the sense perish in second cl. (so one reading of the Grk.). The
Heb. has go astray, an expression so weak alongside of the die of
first cl. that those who retain it have to interpret it as = stagger or
fall into the grave or into utter ruin (Noyes, Reuss, De., a/.), a
sense which the Heb. verb nowhere else has, or wander from the
path of life (Wild.), for which pregnant sense there is no author-
ity. — V.^^"^^, as regards the idea, constitute a separate paragraph,
which, however, does not give the expected quatrain-form ; some
critics, therefore, attach v.-' to v.^" (with which it is not logically
connected). The chapter, as it stands, has an uneven number of
couplets, and, consequently, at least one defective quatrain. This
defect may be removed by changes of text, as by the omission of
a couplet {e.g. w? or v.' or v.^'), or by the expansion of one couplet
into two (see note on v.^'-*). Failing a satisfactory emendation of
this sort, we have to accept a formal irregularity in this chapter,
with the possibility that the writer allowed himself a certain
license in the construction of quatrains and paragraphs.
Il8 PROVERBS
15. ^2E as ^, and so E in "; in "^ @, followed by IL, substantially = 3^. —
jl^ 1^3; @ d77eic<>;', which may be free rendering of |^, giving the sense
drink from thy drinking-vessel, or may represent D r, hardly = •'^3 (Held.),
which would be graphically hard; Lag. refers (@ to Syr. ii:, graphically easy,
and in Geopon. 23'* a/. = dyyelov (and cf. Payne-Smith, 'I'hes., Syr.^; the
usual sense of the Aram, word is hive (of bees), but Jewish Aram. ,~nij occurs
with the more general meaning box, pot (see the references in Buxt., Levy,
Jastrow). — 16. Of (@ MSS. B alone inserts /xr; before the vb. in *; the sense
thus obtained is correct, but the insertion of the neg. in |^ is unnecessary (see
note on v.'^ above). Whether /xr; belongs to the Grk. original is doubtful;
Lag. thinks that ixy\ vir€p€Kxei-<T6u represents a single Heb. word (a view not
supported by the ovk ipeiderai of v.*). — The insertion of vdara in * was made
necessary by the reading of a in iv'^j'^a as prep. ; in *> ^>'<2 was understood
as vb. — 18. 1^ I'l'^^; (@ I5la (whence Chrys. v. 98a/. /J-ivip), probably — •]-\2h
(Vog.), as in v.^^, after which |^ should probably be emended; Heid. improb-
ably iio, out of T^o; Bi. emends |^ to Tiib, after v.^^; Oort thinks it probable
that the Grk. transl. read ^ib {/et thy fountain be thy cistern) and gave a free
rendering; Oort's own reading fib beneficent hardly suits the idea of the para-
graph, in which the soleness of the wife is the theme. — J^ ^y^'.i fo"^ which
12 Heb. codd. and one cod. of ST (De' Rossi) have 'N3, (5 /uerd and so SIL
Arab., the commoner construction, and possibly the right reading here and
elsewhere (Eccl. 2!" 2 C. 20^"); Midr. Mishle has 0, Shohar Tob 3. —
19. "^n^ is the reading of the Occident, recension, and the Q of the Orient.,
which as K. has iii-c (Ginsb.). For njrn 3 codd. of De' Rossi have njrn
increase, prob. scribal error. The Vrss. find difficulty' in construction and
sense. <5 fills out " v;ith o/jLiXelro) aoi., in ^ has iSia (fij':'?) for nm, and vyei-
;t0u} (ni'?) and (rvv4(TTu (i>"\''?) for ini (Lag.) (but these terms may be
merely allegorizing paraphrases), in <= renders i^cn by TroXXocrris ecrij. &
writes nnnnw in ^, either allegorizing or reading n<:)"^"i for ni-i-i. 2C allegorizes
throughout; only AS (and doubtless 9) IL Arab, follow |^ literally. Bi., tak-
ing ffvv4<TTw croi as = i*? yir, inserts ^'^'y^^^} before py '^33, thus gaining an
additional line, parallel to the "^ of |^, an attractive emendation if the sense
required {intoxicate) could be shown to belong to Hif. of '^;7"i; see note on
this verse above. The text of |^ is to be retained in ^c^ but it is doubtful
whether » formed part of the original Heb.; see n. on this v. above. The
emendation h'^ti for nn-^ (Hitz., al.) is not necessary; cf Geiger, Urschrift,
397 ff. — 20. 1^ njirn, in 3 codd. -rn ; <g 7roXi>s, = Aram, njrn ; cf. BS. 9*.
2E n-\VT\ lead astray, % Npan go astray. — pn is omitted in B-D by typo-
graphical error. — 21. Nin should be inserted before dVod. — 22. Omit nx
'ivyry as scribal explicitum, with <5; the termination of the vb. '^^ is t_, not
U-. — @ &v8pa, whence Bi. u'sn, which is not probable; Avdpa seems to be
merely explicit expression of the Heb. suffix. Possibly we should read : 'rvi
yt'-\r\ -[i7^ (cf. 6^^ 11^ Eccl. 7^6). — 23. Nin, supported by the Vrss., gives un-
necessary emphasis, and has perh. got into this place by scribal transposition
from v.*^'. — (5 fJ-era diraidtiiroji', perh. error for 5id axaiSfvaiav, as 2 has it.—
VI. 119
J^ njtt", weak and inappropriate, perh. scribal repetition from v.^" — we expect
a vb. like nntr or i3N or better j?ii, which occurs along with nir: in Job 3^1 4^";
the change of yu' into tm-^^ is graphically not very difficult. (5 i^epi<f>r] perh
= ■\-'i'^ or B'"iJi\ For its /3i6T7;ros (which stands in the place of 'o'i'in) Schl.
suggests ri\idi6TrtT0i. ® adds the line /cat diruiXero 81.' d(ppo(nji'7]v, which
Jager, Baumg., take as rendering of *, Schl., Lag., more probably as rend, of •*
(Schl. writes did ttoXXtjv avTov d<pp.), and the vb. dir. sustains the change
of text above proposed.
VI. The second half of the chapter (v.^"^) is a discourse
against adultery, similar to that of ch. 5. — The first half consists
of four short sections wholly different in style from the rest of this
Division (chs. 1-9) ; while the other discourses are general
praises of wisdom, or warnings against robbery and debauchery,
conceived in a broad and solemn way, these are homely warn-
ings against petty vices, with one arithmetical enumeration of
sins. V.'"^ : against going security for others ; v.^" : against
sloth ; v.'^"'* : against mischief-making ; v."'"'^ : against seven sins.
In tone these closely resemble 2 2''-24'''* and 30''"^^ with which
they obviously belong. Since they interrupt the course of thought
in chs. 1-9, it is not likely that they were here inserted by the
author of this Division ; they were probably misplaced by an editor
or scribe, and at an early period, since they occur here in all the
Ancient Versions. The metrical unit is the couplet, most of the lines
being ternary ; a division into quatrains is not always recognizable.
1-5. In eager, semi-humorous fashion men are cautioned
against pledging themselves pecuniarily for others — a thrifty, self-
regarding, prudent injunction, sound from the point of view of
social-economic justice and kindness, though the author would
probably not deny that there are times when such prudential
maxims must be thrown to the winds. Cf. 11'^ 17'^ 20'" 22^" 27",
BS. 29'^'^; in favor of suretyship is BS. 29'*"". Commercial lend-
ing is to be distinguished from lending to the poor and unfortu-
nate (Ex. 22^*'^^* ij/ 37^), though borrowing is regarded in 22^ as a
misfortune.
1. If, my son, thou hast become surety for thy fellow,
Hast pledged thyself for another,
2. Hast snared thyself by thine own < lips,> *
Trapped thyself by the words of thy mouth,
* Heb. : ^Ae words of thy mouth.
I20 PROVERBS
3. Then do this, my son [] * —
For thou art come into thy fellow's power—
Go in hot haste,
And beset thy fellow,
4. Give not sleep to thine eyes
Nor slumber to thine eyelids,
5. Free thyself as a gazelle from the « snare,> f
And as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
1, 2. Synonymous, v.' ternary, v.^ (as emended) binary. The
earnest, eager tone suggests that the writer has experienced or
observed the predicament which he describes — it is a business-
man advising his friend. The address my son, with which the
Heb. begins, here not inappropriate, is by some critics omitted on
rhythmical grounds. Pledged thyself, lit. struck thy hand, refer-
ence to a legal procedure for concluding a bargain (cf. 2 K. 10'^).
In v.^* lips (instead of the words of thy mouth of the Heb.) is taken
from the Grk., and is in accordance with the usage of the context,
in which synonyms and not repetitions are employed. Fellow
and another (RV. strafiger) here mean any person with whom
one has dealings — the terms are not contrasted, but synonymous ;
for the first see Gen. 1 1^ Ex. 2'^ 20'^ Pr. 6''^, etc., for the second
I K. 3'^ Job 15'^ Pr. 5'", etc. The figure of the couplet is taken
from hunting — the unwary surety is an animal caught in a trap.
— 3-5. The rest of the section urges the surety to get out of his
difficulty as quickly as possible. — 3. Probably a quatrain (as in the
Grk.), though the text is not quite certain; the first couplet may
be taken as ternary, the second couplet as binary. This refers to
what follows. The expression and free thyself, added in the Heb.
at the end of the first line, is anticipatory, unnecessary, and inter-
ruptive ; it was probably inserted by a scribe from v.*. The
second line is parenthetical, and states the reason for prompt action ;
power is lit. hand ; the commoner expression is to fall into one^s
hand (2 S. 24" Lam. i'^, cf. Nah. 3'^). The verb in third fine is
doubtful in form and signification. It is taken by some to mean
tread, stamp, crush thyself down, demean, humble thyself {KV .) ; by
others, as denominative from a word meaning 7nire, in the equiv-
alent sense ^^/ down into the jnire (see Ez. 34^*, and cf. Pr. 25^^).
* Heb. adds (probably from v.*) : and free thyself. f Heb. : hand.
VI. 1-5 121
The connection favors the meaning violently bestir thyself (RV.
marg. bestir thyself); act impetuously or tnove quickly (so the
Vulg.). Grk. : Do, jny son, zvhat I bid thee, and sane thyself —
for thou art come into the hands of bad men on thy friend's ac-
count— be not slack, but sharply assail thy friend also for whom
thou hast pledged thyself — the same general meaning as that of
the Heb. : no time is to be lost and no soft words to be used —
go and insist on being released from your pledge. Importune
(RV.) is hardly strong enough ; beset, besiege, or assail better
express the impetuosity involved in the Heb. term. Then (RV.
now) is illative, not temporal ; so in Ex. 33'** Job 9^^ 1 7^^ al. —
4, 5. Synonymous, v.* ternary-binary, v.'' ternary. Continuation
of exhortation. In v."*" the Heb. has simply frotn the hand (so
Vulg.), and RV. (as AV.) supplies, by conjecture, of the hunter ;
this is a natural construction, and it is possible that the defining
word may have fallen out of the Heb. ; but it is simpler to read
snare or trap, with Grk., Targ., Syr. ; see this expression in BS.
27^, — The animal named in v.'^ is a deer (Dt. 12'*), swift, an
inhabitant of the plain (2 S. 2'**) and of the mountain (i C. 12**,
perh. 2 S. i^'''), a symbol of masculine beauty (Cant. 2^ 8*''), and
so is generally understood to be the gazelle ( Tabitha, Acts 9^", is
the fem. form of the equivalent Aramaic word).*
Of the details of the old Heb. law of suretyship or endorsement
we have no information. Besides the procedure of Judah in
pledging himself for Benjamin (Gen. 43'), and a couple of allu-
sions to the practice (Job 17'' <// 119'--), we find in OT., outside
of Pr., only one description of a business-transaction involving
personal security (Neh. 5''"), and this is rather of the nature of a
mortgage given by a man on his children regarded as his property.
The allusions to personal endorsement all occur in postexilian
writings ; it is probable that the custom (for which there was no
ground in the commercially simple preexilian life) sprang up when
the Jews were scattered through the Persian and Greek empires
and entered on their real commercial career. On the law of
pledges of things see Ex. 22^'""-^ Dt. 24'""'''. — The surety was
sometimes financially ruined by having to meet the obligations of
* See Tristram, Wood, Nowack.
122 PROVERBS
the debtor (BS. 29'* ^^), and was thus at the mercy of the latter,
who might throw him into the hands of the creditor ; the had
men of the Grk. in v.^ appear to be creditors. Probably all of a
man's property might be pledged for debt ; whether there was a
homestead-exemption law is uncertain, nor does it appear whether
the debtor could be sold as a slave.
6-11. Against sloth. The example of the ant is adduced,
and the sluggard warned that poverty will overtake him. The
tone is perhaps satirical ; the passage is a specimen of the popular
teaching of the sages. — The parallel passage, 2^^^^^, does not
adduce the ant, but describes the neglected condition of the slug-
gard's field, and has the same conclusion as our section : 24''^-^^ =
lit. 6"^ ". The two paragraphs are variations on the same theme ;
both have taken the ending from the same source (some familiar
expression, or some earlier collection of aphorisms, now lost), or
one has borrowed from the other. In either case our passage has
a clearer unity than that of ch. 24, in which our v." must be intro-
duced before v.^ in order to connect the conclusion with what
precedes. Bickell so transfers v.^, and omits v.^°" as identical
with 24^- ^ ; but both sections must be retained entire as parallel
passages, with the possibility that one has borrowed from the
other. Obviously our section does not belong in its present
place, though when and how it was misplaced we cannot say ;
the change was made early, since the Versions here accord with
the Hebrew. Cf. BS. 22^ 2.
6. Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
Consider her ways and be wise.
7. She, having no chief,
Overseer, or ruler,
8. Provides her food in summer.
Gathers her provision in harvest-time.
9. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?
When wilt thou rise from thy slumber?
10. A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest —
11. So shall thy poverty come as a highwayman,
And thy want as an armed man.
VI. 5-8 123
6. Progressive, ternary. Cf. 30"'. On the ant in proverbial
literature see Malan on this verse.* On the habits of the animal
see Encyl. Brit., Darwin in Journ. of Linnaean Soc. VI. 21, Lub-
bock, Ants, Bees, and Wasps. What particular species is here
meant is uncertain; cf. Tristram, Nat. Hist, of the Bible. — The
term sluggard appears to belong to the parenetic vocabulary of
OT. ; it occurs only in Proverbs. But the observation of the
habits of the ant and its use as an example of industry may be
old; cf. I K. 4^(5'^). — 7. Synonymous, ternary-binary. The
three terms employed are here used as synonymous, though they
have their different shades of meaning. The first is employed in
OT. of both civil and military leaders (Ju. 11" Isa. 3'') ; the second
denotes a sort of roU-ofificer, who keeps a list of names and super-
intends the men at their work, in peace or in war (Ex. 5" Dt. 20^
2 Chr, 19") ; the third is a general term for ruler, royal or other
(i K. 4"' [5'] Isa. 16' Jer. 51"^). — Ants are said by recent writers
to have an elaborate social organization, sometimes with king and
queen, sometimes with a slave-class acquired (as by the termites
or white ants) by capture and forced to do the work of the com-
munity. This organization seems to have been unknown to the
ancients (Aristotle, De Anim., I. i. 11, calls them anarchal, with-
out government), though Aelian (in his History of Animals, third
cent, of our era) speaks of their leaders and nobles. — This verse
is omitted by Bickell as a prosaic gloss, which weakens the com-
parison and introduces the irrelevant consideration of govern-
mental direction — irrelevant because men are industrious not by
pressure of rulers, but from regard to their private interests. The
second and third points are not well taken : social organization
certainly helps human industry, and our writer says that ants, with-
out this advantage, set men a good example. The argument from
lack of poetic form has more weight, — the verse is not a complete
couplet, — but we can hardly throw it out on that account. Grk.
makes it a triplet, and possibly some word or phrase has fallen out
of the Heb. text. — 8. Synonymous, ternary. The vbs. provide
(lit. establish, prepare) and gather here amount to the same thing,
and the x\onr\s food and provision are synonyms. The word ren-
* De. mentions also Goldberg, Chofes Mafmoiiim, and Landsberger, Fabulae
aliquot Aramaeae.
124 PROVERBS
dered summer is sometimes used for the warm season in general, as
opposed to winter (Gen. 8^^ i/^ 74^0 , extending apparently through
harvest-time (Jer. 8"'-), sometimes for the latter part of the fruit-
season (Isa. 28* Jer. 40^"). Harvest also is temporally indefinite,
varying with the crop, from March (barley, 2 S. 21^) to September
(grapes, Isa. 18*). The two clauses are identical in meaning;
the sense is not that the ant does one thing in summer and an-
other in harvest-time. Nor is it intended to express progress in
the action (by the different Heb. verb-forms) : begins to provide in
sumtner, completes the gathering in autumn. The structure of the
other verses of the section points to an identical paralleHsm here.
— As to the industrial habit spoken of in the verse, the latest
authorities hold that some species of ant are graminivorous and
store up food ;.for the modern opinion see the works cited above,
and for ancient statements see Malan. — Grk. adds : Or, go to the
bee and learn hotv diligent she is and how seriously she does her
tiwrk — her products kings and private persons use for health —
she is desired and respected by all — though feeble in body, by honor-
ing ivisdom she obtains distinction. The addition comes from a
Grk. scribe (it is probably a gloss which has got into the text)
who thought that the other industrious insect ought not to go
unraentioned. Elsewhere in OT. (Isa. 7'* Dt. i** i/' 118^^) the bee
is introduced as hostile to man ; the word does not occur in the
Heb. text of Proverbs. — 9. Synonymous, ternary. It is agri-
cultural life that the description is dealing with (cf. 24^"), in which
early rising is a necessity,* Cf. the Eng. early to bed and early to
rise, etc., and many such popular sayings; Persius v. 132-134 re-
sembles our passage in form. — 10. Synonymous (or, continuous),
binary (or, binary-ternary). The sluggard's reply, or continua-
tion of the remonstrance of the sage. The repetition of a little is
perh. intended to give a humorous coloring, but may be meant
simply as a serious description. Cf. the babbling words put into
the drunkards' mouths in Isa. 28*". The second clause is ht.
a little folding of the hands to lie, that is, to lie comfortably, to
compose one's self to sleep. The same phrase in Eccl. 4^ signi-
* Early rising was, however, the general rule in ancient life; see Plato, Laws,
vii. pp. 807, 808 ; Arist., Econ. i. 6 ; Juv., vii. 222 ff.
VI. 8-12 125
fies stupid inactivity. — 11. Synonymous, ternary. Highwayman
is roadster, wayfarer, the implication being that his purpose is
bad ; the term, Hke Eng. highway ma fi, belongs to a time when
travelling was not safe, when men who frequented the public roads
were likely to be robbers (cf. RV.). Armed man, lit. ffian with a
shield, perhaps a wandering soldier out of service (Oort), more
probably simply a dangerous assailant. Poverty, properly (as
result of sloth) a negative thing, lack of goods, is personified as a
powerful and ruthless enemy who destroys or carries off one's sub-
stance. — Instead of shieldman Grk. has swift runner (apparently
representing a different Heb. text from ours), which offers a formal
but not a real parallel to the wayfarer oi first clause. Grk. (fol-
lowed by Vulg.) further adds : but if thou be diligent, thy harvest
will come as a fountain, and want will depart as a bad runner —
the contrast to the preceding statement, and probably from a Grk.
hand.
12-15. The mischief maker — rebuke of mischievous talk
and hints. — The tone is curt and sharp, the rhythm irregular ;
the vocabulary perhaps points to a late period.
12. A wicked man, a bad man
Deals in false speech,
13. Winks with his eyes, scrapes with his feet.
Signs with his fingers,
14. Devises mischief in his mind,
Is always sowing discord.
15. Therefore of a sudden shall calamity strike him,
Suddenly shall he be crushed, and that without remedy.
In this translation the second line of v.^'' appears as merely one
item in the indictment, but the paragraph may also be translated :
a wicked man . . . dealing zvith . . . winking . . . scraping . . .
signing . . . devising . . . is always sowing discord, the last ex-
pression giving the result of the preceding acts ; this construction
does not modify the general sense.
12. Parallels, ternary. The two adjectives are synonymous,
expressing general depravity; the first (Heb. man of belial)
occurs in 16^ 19^, the second (Heb. man of badness or iniquity)
in 6'* 10^ 17^, etc. The term belial usually means deep depravity
126 PROVERBS
(not merely worthlessness) ; in two passages, y\i i8^<*^ 41**^', appar-
ently utter ruin (cf. Cheyne, Psalms). Instead of son of Belial
(Ju. \<f^, etc.) the rendering should be wicked man. Speech is
lit. mouth — the fault denounced is evil talk. Grk. and Syr.,
however, omitting mouth have tvalks in ways that are not good,
and this may be the right reading ; the false of the Heb. would
then be defined in v.*^"; cf. 4-^ Mouth maybe understood as
expressing the man's whole thought. The first line is by some
expositors (Saadia, Zock., al.) taken as a separate sentence : a
worthless [properly wicked'] man is the deceiver, which is possi-
ble, but does not agree so well with the structure of the paragraph.
— 13. Three binary clauses. Gestures indicating the spirit of
malice and mischief. Movement of the eyes occurs in 10*" BS. 27^^
as sign of mischief, in \l> 35^^ as sign of exultation ; cf. the Arab.
saying (attributed to Ali) O God, pardon us the culpable jvinking
of the eye (De.), and see other parallels in Malan. The second
verb is rendered in the Grk. by gives signs, in Targ. and Syr. by
stamps, in Aq., Sym., Vulg. (in accordance with a Talmudic use of
the word) by rubs {scrapes, shuffles) : in any case the movement
is a mark of enmity, perhaps a sign to a confederate ; the render-
ing j/^rt;,^j- (RV.) is here inappropriate, though the verb elsewhere
has that meaning. Signing (lit. teaching) with the fingers is a
universal gesture, of various import, here mischievous, contemptu-
ous, etc. ; for the sense show see Gen. 46^* Ex. 15^. For other
inimical movements of the body see Job i6^-^'*. The verse is a
lively description of the silent, underhand procedures of mischief-
makers, the hints, suggestions, provocations, and signals that are
effective in hatching quarrels or giving insults. — 14. Synonymous,
ternary. A direct statement of what is implied in the preced-
ing verses. The man occupies himself with devising mischievous
schemes, in private and public relations ; in second cl. Grk. has
makes disturbances in the city, a fuller statement of what the Heb.
suggests. In the Heb. text the verse reads : Evil is in his mind
[lit. heart], he devises mischief continually, he spreads strifes, a
triplet which may be reduced to a couplet by the omission of one
word {mischief) ; the change does not affect the sense. Evil, =
mischief, is in the most general sense departure from good ; see
note on 2" m/and wrong. — 15. Synonymous, quaternary. The
VI. I2-I6 12/
penalty. The writer's sense of the seriousness of the vice described
is indicated by the abrupt, vehement, ahiiost fierce, declaration of
punishment. On calamity, see note on i-". The two Heb. terms
for sudden are synonyms ; the first occurs in 24^ (it is better
omitted in 3"^), the second in 29^ (the second cl. of which is
identical with second cl. of our verse — note the difference be-
tween the offences in the two verses) . Crushed is lit. bf-oken, —
destroyed ; see Jer. 17^^ Ez. 32^^ Lam. i'^ Dan. ?P. The blow is
irremediable, that is, it is death. The agency of destruction is
not stated ; the writer's view doubtless was that it might come
from God directly, by sickness, etc., or indirectly, through the
enemies, private and public, that a mischief-maker naturally raises
up against himself. Sudden death was regarded as a great mis-
fortune, and as a sign of divine anger, since it sent the man irre-
trievably to Sheol (see 2'^), where he could never gain a position
of favor with God.
16-19. A list of seven things hateful to God. — The section
is similar to those in 30""^' in its arithmetical enumeration, and to
^12-15 jj^ j^g subject-matter and rhetorical form (absence of com-
parisons) ; by the nature of its contents it appropriately follows
v.'-''*. The things enumerated belong all together ; they portray
the character of the man who schemes to despoil and ruin his
fellows.
16. There are six things that Yahweh hates,
Yea, seven are an abomination to him :
17. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
18. A mind that devises wicked schemes,
Feet that make haste to do harm,*
19. A false witness who utters lies.
And he who sows discord among brethren.
16. Progressive (substantially synonymous), ternary. The se-
quence six, seven does not imply that the seventh thing is an after-
thought, or inferior in importance to the others ; it is a rhetorical
form, equivalent to our six or seven, arithmetically indefinite, im-
plying that the enumeration does not exhaust the list of things
* Heb. : make haste to run to harm.
128 PROVERBS
coming under a particular category ; cf. notes on 30^- ". Between
the expressions Yahweh hates and abomination to him there is no
difference of meaning ; on abomination see note on 3^-. The
sense of the verse is : 6^1?^/ hates ajid abominates a number of
things, namely. — 17. Parallels, ternary. Haughty eyes; so 30^^
Haughtiness is naturally expressed by the eyes (cf. Lat. stiper-
cilium); see \\i 131. In i/' 18-''-'^^ the expression characterizes
Israel's proud and oppressive enemies, whom Yahweh will bring
down. More generally in Isa. 2""'^ 10^ Job 21^^ 38^^ all lofty
things are conceived of as standing in antagonism to God and
therefore destined to be overthrown (cf. the Greek representation
of the deity as jealous of powerful men, Prometheus and Poly-
crates of Samos, and the Hindu stories of Indra's fear of certain
Munis). This national point of view remains to the end of OT.
(Daniel), in Apocryphal books (Ben-Sira, Mace, etc.), and in the
Talmud, but does not appear in Pr. ; in our verse it is individual
moral feeling that is spoken of — haughtiness, put alongside of
falsehood and murder, is to be understood as implying disregard
of human rights and divine laws — it is excessive conceit of and
regard for one's own person. — Instead of itinocent blood we
might render by the blood of the innocejit (or, righteous) as in
Dt. 19'" Jer. 19^; the meaning is the same. — 18. Parallels, ter-
nary. The expression wicked schemes might be understood in a
wide sense as including all plans and plots that are opposed to the
right, but here refers particularly to harmful plots. The Heb., in
second line, reads : make haste to run, which means not swiftness
in running (RV. after the Vulg.) but haste in beginning to run,
eagerness to seize on every opportunity to engage in wickedness ;
the picture of eagerness contained in the word haste is heightened
by the term run (instead of walk) ; cf. \p 147*^ The Grk. omits
run, reading /^^/ haste fiing to do ill ; cf. i^*', where only one verb is
employed in each clause ; as the run is unnecessary, the Grk. text
is probably to be preferred. — 19. Parallels, ternary. The second
cl. is identical in meaning with v.'^'', brethren being taken as =
friends or associates, members of the same circle — the suggestion
is that there is no occasion or temptation to sow dissensions except
among persons whose mutual relations are amicable. — The mean-
ing of first cl. is plain, but its form is doubtful. In 14^ where the
VI. I6-I9 129
Heb. text recurs, it is properly rendered a false witness utters lies
(and so the Grk. here), but this is out of keeping with the syntacti-
cal form in the other verses — we expect a subject defined by fol-
lowing words. Similar objections hold to other translations of our
Heb. text : he who utters lies is a false witness (cf. for the con-
struction Eccl. i'^, but here the resulting identical proposition is
out of the question, and the declarative sentence is out of keeping
with the context) ; he who utters lies as a false witness * is hard
and improbable, and so the appositional rendering he who titters
lies, a false witness, and he who Jitters lies, false testimony. The
cl. is not in proper shape, and it seems better, with Syr. and Targ.,
to invert the Heb. order and translate by a false zuitness who
utters lies, f which accords in form with the rest of the section.
For the thought cf. 12^^ 14^-^^ and 19'^ 25^^ ; for laws against false
testifying see Ex. 20'^ (= Dt. 5-"') Dt. 19"* Lev. d^ (5--). The
expression witness of falsity (as the Heb. reads) is parallel to
tongue of falsity in v.'^
1. 1^ ^J3, attested by all Vrss., omitted by Bi., as marring the rhythm;
without it we have only two ictus in the line. — The force of the 2S', which
extends to end of v.^, is confined by (@ to v.'". — "^ plu. \;' ; read sing., with
(SSillL, as the sense requires. — 2. Taken by (@ as ground (7dp) for the
statement of v.i'' (TrapaSuxrets), and written in 3 pers. — a divergent text which
does not agree with the context so well as |t^. — The repetition of ^icn in |§ is
strange, and so also the similar repetition, x^^^'Ji X^^^^"'"'* in (5; as the x^^^V
prob. had a Heb. basis, it is better to write ^Poy in second line of |§; pt^/xaai
inst. of x^^^v is given in H-P 147 (161 suprascript.), 252, 297, and Compl.
(and \6y({) in Arm.), which may be a correction after f^, or a rhetorical varia-
tion. On Idlov = eavToO see Deissmann, Bibelstud., pp. I20ff. — 3. J^ Sxim,
see note on v'. — In " (§ d i'nb cot ivT^Wo/j-ai seems to be free rendering
of Jt] NiDN nxi, hardly = lixx; ets x^^P"-^ KaKdv in •*, = DV> l^^, is prob. doub-
let (possibly the orig. Grk. reading), the |ij text being represented by 5id abv
<t>i\ov; Iffdi (in '^) is perh. scribal error for Wi, which reading is found in codd.
]'>"'' A (see Lag.'s n.). — ]i] '';'"]-n; (g /xtj iK\v6/Mevos, % festina; S^T render
the two vbs. of Jlj freely by S^^n jti arouse thei-efore, apparently giving no
separate word for JiJ n; and in * nion is not rendered at all. i;'n and "I'jJi,
difference of orthography. To make the reference in "iv't clear (S adds
0 iveyvrjffu). — 4. Gr. suggests 3 pers., instead of 2 pers., for the suffix. —
5. 1^ n^c, here impossible (used in rabbin. Ileb. as = offhand, immediately);
the expression occurs isolated elsewhere only i K. 20*^ where it is error for
* Ew., De., Now., Zock., Sir., Kamph. f RV. Noyes, Reuss.
K
I30 PROVERBS
■'TT (see (5); here we must either supply a word, as ""■'V (RV., Bott.) or no
(Gr., Str.), or better, with (SSST, Oort, Bi., write m for -i^; Kamp. transfers
the 1 of 11DX31 to T', . . . as a gazelle from his hand, as a bird, etc., which is
simple, but does not account for (5 ^p6x'^v or secure parallelism with B'lp'';
this last is omitted in (5<S2C, but is favored by the rhythm. P'or the second i^
several Heb. codd. have ns. — 6-11. The style of (@ in this section is freer
than in most other passages; the text is often rather a paraphrase than a
translation — a result perh. of the secular and homely nature of the subject-
matter. — 6. 1^ n'^c], (5 fJivp/jLTj^, 2C jcrciE* or pc'iU', S jcc-ir (Arab, CDCD) ;
the origin of the Heb. word is unknown. — The ^rjXuffov and iKeivov a-ocpuTe-
poi of (@ are rhetorical expansion. — |^ i^; S2C paraphrase by NCinn imitate.
% omits 1^ '?i';", and transfers ODni to next verse. — 7. |^ fi'p; (@ yewpylov, not
= Aram, j'^p (Lag.), but free rendering of ■csp (which SST read instead of
pxp). — 1§ TJi:-; 2 ypa/xp-ar^a. — 8. The variation of vb.-forms is rhetorical.
— On the terms in the addition in (5 see Lag.'s note. — 9. fE? ^ip.""; (gABsoj
iyepS-fia-rit as in Ju. 2^^-^^, perh. = i^pp, cf. Pr. 6'^'-^. — 10. Oort suggests that
2yi^^ is dittogram from ^Drn ^ of preceding verse, but the word is in sense
and rhythm appropriate; it was perh. lacking in Heb. text of (@, hardly (Oort,
Baumg.) read a^yc'^ (^(TT-qdrt); cf. Pinkuss' note. — (5 makes the v. an ad-
dress to the sluggard, and in ^ has an additional cl., oKlyov 5k Kd$r]<Tai, = !0;'D
jd:-, probably expansion of Grk. scribe (the Heb. rhythm is against it) or here
introduced by error from ^ (cf. remark above on 2yy^). — 11. H '\'7^v, writ-
ten iSnna in 24^*. — c'nt (i"'"*), a favorite word in Pr., though ^y; (u ),
poN, Si, also occur a number of times. — The v. is variously rendered in the
Vrss. H iSnn is explained in (@ as KaKb^ odoiirSpos, and is taken by 521,
against the parallelism, as vb., iD^-ivm ^vill assault thee ; |^ pD tt"N, ffir 6.ya.Qhs
^pop£{i% (and in the added couplet /ca/cos dpo/j-evs), SST n"<''::'3 n"13J a quick
(alert') man, = jdj tf^N (Lag., Oort) or better inn •>:"n (Baumg.), neither of
which readings seems preferable to that of |^ (with which 3L agrees). The
additional couplet in © is doublet of |^; on its Heb. text see Hitz., Lag.,
Baumg. In 24"** (5 (like ^W) renders 'o by irpoiropevon^vij, and in *' SSC have
NT'JJ tahellarius, courier (= dpofxevs). ^ appears to have in mind the vio-
lence of the armed robber, OSiE the swiftness of the traveller or courier. —
12. j^ 01N is not elsewhere followed by defining subst., and De., Str., therefore
take ^v'^3 as adj. (cf. constr. in 11"), but, as this is hardly allowable, we must
either write ^'sv, as in 162'^, or accept this phrase as proof that oin may be fol-
lowed by defining subst. — |^ '^i'l'^'^; for the two defining terms (of ^) (3 has
S.(f>piov and irapdvonos (103, 253 : irapav. and dcppwv), and '2 may here be rep-
resented by the latter (which is its more usual representative); S a^^D folly;
2C No'^a oppression; % apostata (so elsewhere Aq.). S^J'Sj occurs 27 times
in Mas. text of OT., and further apparently, according to (5, in i Sam. 29^'',
perhaps also (Cheyne) in ^ 52** (always as subst.), and = ivickedness every-
where except Nah. i" 2^ ^ 18* (= 2 Sam. 22^) 41*, where it = ruin, destruc-
tion (= death). The origin of the word is doubtful. It has commonly been
regarded as a compound, the first element being the neg. •'S3, the second ele-
VI. S-I4 131
ment being '"•", or some form of nSy or '7j,'\ An early Jewish explanation is
reflected in the apostate of Aq. IL, = ^''i ''^3 without yoke, disobedience (so
Saiihed. iwb). From n'^y : one does not ascend, — moral lowness (Kimchi) ;
or, one does not rise (or, emerge'), = ruin (so Lag., Proph. Chald. XLVII,
on i/'4l^: [sickness] from tvhich one does not rise, suggesting 13t instead
of 151) ; and, more generally, [the depth] from which one does not come up
(Cheyne, Expositor, June, 1895, Baethgen, Halevy), = Sheol (JDMichaelis).
From ^i"' : no profit, = ivorthlessness (like V'-;-^ ■'^3 ignorance, and □;• 1V3
namelessness, and of. '^j;^ n*?, Jer. 2^^, = worthless [foreign] god), in moral
sense, like jiN (Gesen. and most modern expositors). The word is possibly
not a compound. It has been proposed to connect it with Babylonian Bihl,
a goddess of the Underworld* (Cheyne, ^jr/oj. Times, ]\i.Vi&, 1897); "^ '""'""J
(^ 18*) would then = streams of Sheol, and 'z 'tt'jx = servants of Bilil, —
" bad men." This last rendering cannot be accepted, since the Underworld
and its deities had no ethical significance for the ancient Semites; but it is
conceivable that in \p iS** (if the i/* be postexilic) an original '?'''^3 Bilil
(= Sheol) was changed by an editor into the familiar "^a^^z purposely or by
error. Yet the meaning ruin ( = death) accords satisfactorily with the parallel
terms in the f, and the character of the deity Bilil is at present too uncertain
to rest an argument on. Cf. Mich., Supplementa, s.v. ^>^; Baudissin in Herzog,
/?£^., and in Expos. Z'm.?.?, November, 1897; Cheyne in Expos. Times, Decern-
ber, 1897, May, 1898; Moore, fudges, on Ju. 19'^-. The derivation from the
noun ^y appears to be the most probable; the two elements came to be writ-
ten as one word, like niD'?x. Cf. the various combinations with negatives in
Heb. (-\3i N*?, •'DJ7 tO), and the use of the Ass. balre, as noun = nonentity, as
prep. = without. — Bef. .iirp;' ins. 3 (so Bi.). — ^ id ';; (5 65oi)j ovk dyadds,
perh. after l6"^^ (Jag-)> "'^ '^ omitted in S, and Oort for 'd writes "i-, which he
transfers to next v. to represent ©6 5' aurbs . The stem '•, subst. or adj.,
occurs in |^ with way in 2^^ 28^, with heart 11-" 172", with lip 19', with mou/h
here and 4^*; T\"i would here agree well with the following context, but no
serious objection in this regard can be made to no; (§ and |^ represent par-
allel texts. — 13. K. jv and '^n, sing., and so (§; Q plu., perh. better;
IL strangely oculis, pede, and digito. — |^ ^'^C, <S <rr)fjLalvei, S2C 02~, % terit,
A Tpl^cov, 2 irposTpl^d)!); the most appropriate sense is rub, stamp, scrape, not
found elsewhere in OT., but well attested in Talm. ; whether there is any con-
nection between this and the sense speak is uncertain. — |^ niirr, (5 5i5cta-Ket,
,S2E tci; teach — shoiu, give indications (on relation between senses teach and
throw in m^ see SS., BDB.). — 14. ||J is supported by the Vrss., exc. that (5 adds
* As Underworld deity she appears only in a mutilated passage in the Descent
of Ishtar, where she seems to be the sister of Ishtar (cf. Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 225).
The form Bilili occurs in a list of gods in pairs, who are invoked thus : " in the
name of Alala and Rililu may it be conjurcfl away I " Otherwise only the fern,
form Bililitum is found (G. A. Reisner) ; cf. M. Jastrow, Relig. of Babylonia and
Assyria, pp. 417, 389.
132 PROVERBS
at end of '' TrciXet (H-P io6 iroWds), perh. expansion of Grk. scribe, less prob-
ably = nj-iC3 (after |^ opi:) or -\V (from foil. '^y). — As •> ends with Partcp.,
there is some ground for so ending » and omitting y>, which here produces
rhythmical limping (so Bi.) and is not necessary for the sense; cf. the bal-
anced phrases in the similar v.^^ — Saadia (ed. Derenbourg) takes noonn in
sense of change of mind. — K. a-'jic, Q D''J^ic; sing, is always written jnc,
plu. 3 times D^j-ic (twice 6'^ lo^''^, without Q), elsewhere K. o-jnr, Q a''jnD
(a late, probably academic, attempt to bring out the Yod of the stem) ; on
Mas. text see notes in B-D on 6'* 2^^^, and on the form Ew., § 5412' i6o</,
Ols., § 203 b. — For rbv^ Gr. reads Ji-n^-, whispej-s. — 15. (5 takes vno and
13 ^' as substantives; in OT. 'd occurs as subst. only with prep, and in sense
of rt moment. — 16. njn cannot be Dem. adj. {these six or those six), but is
(cf. 3o'8-24. 29) either pred., six things are those, with following rel. cl. (so
apparently SSTIL), or as subj., six — they are what Y. hates ; in ch. 30 the pron.
is better taken as appositional subject. — For u'r (5 read t't' (Jag.), x^ipn,
and i3S>i (Lag. = iTi'i) or -\zv^, (rvvrpl^erai, for >3.;' (or J'3"'i). Read sing.
pjyip, as in marg. — 18. |^ I'l'^'^, lacking in <3, is omitted by Lag. as scribal
error (n"^ wrongly written for ';""i'^), and by Bi. as tautological; it is not
necessary, and is probably error (though the combination of '"i-in;; and 1*1 is
found in f 147^^, and fi^ may easily have fallen out of the Heb. text of (@). —
19. rrio", as to its form, might be taken as subst. and pointed as in stat. const. ;
but common nouns made by pref. Yod are rare, the resulting sense (a breather
of lies, a false witness, so IL), though possible, would not accord very well with
the context (in the other cases mentioned the appositional construction does
not occur), and the Vrss. (exc. Saad. who apparently understands it as Inf.)
take "' as vb. The cl. seems to be taken from or assimilated to 14^ (where it
is in good form), and should here be inverted, as m^'^K.; cf. 12^". i" is taken
as abstr. by Saad. Gr. The omission of -^pz* ip would leave an unsatisfactory
sentence. — "' is well rendered in (gABa?. by i^KaUi (H-P 103 eVx^e')- — n^?'C,
Gr. btiSd, as in v.^*. — D'':id, see note on v.^*; it is lacking in ^.
20-35. Warning against the adulteress. — We here return
to the material proper to this Division (chs. 1-9). This subsec-
tion connects itself immediately with ch. 5, having the same gen-
eral theme. — First comes commendation of parental instruction
(v.^- ^^), then apparently of wisdom (v.^^-^), especially as safeguard
against the adulteress who brings misfortune to her victim (v.^^^),
he getting only wounds and dishonor (v.""*^) through the outraged
husband's anger (v.^*-^). The section is similar to 2^^^' 5. 7. 8'^'^.
These may all have been composed by one man (since there is
great resemblance between them), or they may have been col-
lected from various sources by an editor.
VI. 20-2I 133
20,21. Commendation of parental instruction. — See note
on I* ^
20. Keep, my son, the precept of thy father,
And reject not the instruction of thy mother.
21. Bind them continually to thy heart,
Hang them around thy neck.
20. Parallels, quaternary-ternary. Parental instruction is iden-
tified with the teaching of the sages ; it is assumed that in the
well-ordered household father and mother will be wise ; the same
assumption is made in all commands to honor and obey parents.
Instruction represents the Heb. word {Jora) usually rendered law.
The Grk. has plu. in both clauses, laws, ordinances ; the Vulg. pre-
cepts, law. Cast away (the proper sense of the Heb.) = substantially
forsake (RV.), but is more forcible, = reject. — 21. Synonymous,
ternary-binary. In 3^ the teacher's law is to be written on the
tablets of the heart ; here, with a change of figure, it is to be
firmly attached to the heart, which is the seat of thought and
moral and religious life. The figure of second cl. is found in i^
3''^^, etc. — The term continually is used of perpetually recurring
or repeated acts (as the daily offering in the temple), and so =
constantly, always, all the time ; see Isa. 57''^ Jer. 52^ i// i6^ The
plu. them may refer to precept and lazv (v.^) taken as different
things, or these terms may have been plu. in the original Heb.
text (as they are in the Greek).
In the remainder of the chapter the wording and arrangement
present difficulties. The sing, pronoun in v.^ points to wisdom
(or one of its synonyms) as antecedent, as, in fact, in chs. 1-9
only "wisdom" watches over and leads (2"-^'"^^ ^ y*^) ; but, as
the text stands, the it (or, she) of v.^^ has no such antecedent.
We might (with Bickell) insert, at the beginning of v.'-, some
such line as wisdom will keep thee ; but this would still leave the
connection between v.^'' and v.^'' unsatisfactory, for elsewhere (2^®
7'^) it is not precept or instruction but wisdoin or discretion that
saves from the harlot and other destructive persons. Further,
while the normal arrangement in chs. 1-9 is in quatrains, we here
have two natural sextets, v.^*"^ and v.^"^ ; Bickell gets rid of the
latter of these by omitting v.^, and of the former by attaching
v.^* to v.^ (the objection to this procedure is stated above),
1 34 PROVERBS
making v.^^ a quatrain. — A better emendation would be to omit
the doubtful couplets v.^^ ^, and make v.^^ a couplet by the omis-
sion of third line ; and v.^^, which obviously connects itself with
the first couplet, should be transposed before v.^^
22-25. Wisdom as guide, and as guard against the harlot.
23. For precept is a lamp, and instruction is light,
And the guidance of admonition is the way of life.
22. When thou walkest she [Wisdom] will lead thee,
When thou liest down she will watch over thee.*
24. To preserve thee from the < alien > f woman,
From the wiles of the stranger's tongue;
25. Desire not her beauty in thy heart,
Let her not captivate thee with her eyes.
23. Synonymous, quaternary. The discourse here turns from
parental instruction to the idea of instruction and law in general
(retaining the two terms of v.^) ; the two categories were prob-
ably considered to be identical. Precept and instruction (syn-
onyms) represent the teaching of the sage (cf. 4-), held to be
based on the divine law. Guidance (RV. reproofs), plu. in our
Heb. text, is sing, in Grk. Syr. Targ. Lat., and a number of
Heb. MSS., and throughout Pr., except here and 29^ ; for the
meaning see note on i^ ; and on admonition see note on i^ Way
of life is the course of a long and prosperous earthly life, and the
conduct that secures it; see 2'" 3^ 5" and ^ 16", and for similar
expressions see Job 28^^ i/^ 27" 36^^^"^ Pr. 10" 13'* 15* al. The
Syr. and Targ. have guidance and instruction ; Grk., for the pre-
cept of lata is a lamp, and a light is [or, is a lamp and a light,'] a
way of life and guidance and instruction ; the Heb. (taking
guidance as subj. in second cl.) gives a more natural construction.
— 22. Parallels, ternary. Similar imagery in 3^'* 4'^; in 1/^91
the guidance, here referred to law and instruction or wisdom, is
ascribed to God. The she (RV. it) can hardly be understood to
refer to the instruction of v.^^ (see remark above) ; the writer
* Heb. adds : wheti thou wakest, she will talk -with thee ; see note on this verse
below.
t Heb. bad (or, evil).
VI. 21-25 135
passes silently to wisdom as subject, or else something (a line or a
couplet) has been lost from the text. — Some commentators, main-
taining the order v.^"- ^, gain an antecedent for she by inserting a
line as first hne : wisdom will (or, shall) guide thee (or, keep
thee), or, seek wisdom, forsake it not, or, as second line: when
thou runtiest, she will keep thee ; these additions make a quatrain
of the verse. The present unsymmetrical form may also be got
rid of by omitting the third line, when thou wakest she will talk
ivith thee, which, while it gives an intelligible thought in itself,
seems unnecessary, since walking and lying down include all of
one's time (cf, 3^^*). The addition may have been made by a
scribe who, taking liest down (which is really contrast to walkest )
as = sleepest, thought it proper to complete the picture by intro-
ducing awaking. The verb talk is here strange ; we expect a syn-
onym of lead. — If we keep the triplet, the meaning is : wisdom
will guide thee in thy active life of the day, guard thee while thou
liest helpless in sleep, and at thy awaking be with thee to utter
words of advice. — 24. Synonymous, ternary. The special theme
of the section : the adulteress is the peril against which the aid of
wisdom is particularly invoked. In first cl. the Heb. has evil
woman, an appropriate description, but the parallelism suggests
the reading the wife of another (requiring the change of one
vowel), as in the Grk. (^married woman), and v.^-*; or the sense
alien (as in 2*^) may be got by a slight change of consonants.
Stranger, as in 5^ 7*, = " wife of another man " ; see note on 2'".
The harlot, the unmarried licentious woman (or the professional
prostitute), is mentioned in 6^ 7'" 23^ 29^, but is to be distin-
guished from the unchaste married woman (called adulteress, 30^,
and stranger), against whom, as the more dangerous person, a great
part of chs. 1-9 is directed. She is the more guilty of the two
because she violates the marriage-vow (2"') ; the danger from her
is described below. See note on 2'^^^ The social evil here por-
trayed is more particularly appropriate to the postexilian period ;
the preexilian shrine-prostitute (Gen. 38^'-^^ Hos. 4" Dt. 23'''''^^)
belongs to a very different sort of Israelitish society. — 25. Syn-
onymous, ternary-binary. The Heb. connects the two clauses by
and, and at end of the verse has eyelids instead of eyes, perhaps
with allusion to the seductive play of eyes (winks, etc., Vulg.,
136 PROVERBS
nods), but the term is generally simply equivalent to eyes, Jer.
gisdD Jq^j J516 ^ J j4 Pj._ 42.5 g4^ ^f_ 30^1 — Vulg. /d-/ w^/- thy heart
desire, etc. ; the Grk. interprets first cl., and writes second cl. in
twofold form : let not desire of beauty overcome thee, neither be
thou caught by thine eyes nor captivated by her eyelids.
26. Our Heb. text next gives a couplet of which the second cl.
(lit. the married woman hunts for the precious life) presents no
difficulty; for the expression of the predicate cf. Ez. 13^^^-°.
There is difference of opinion among expositors as to whether the
harlot of first cl. is synonymous or contrasted with the married
woman of second cl. ; the latter view (which is that of the Anc.
Vrss., Ew. al.) is favored by the fact that the two terms are dis-
tinctly contrasted in 7^", and elsewhere in chs. 1-9 it is always the
stranger (that is, married zvo man) against whom men are warned.
If this view be adopted, the verse does not condone association
with harlots (Now.), but simply lays stress on the greater harm-
fulness of the other class of unchaste women (cf. the contrast
between the thief and the adulterer, v.^"^^). — Text and transla-
tion of first cl. are doubtful. The Heb. reads either for on behalf
of a harlot to \_= as far as'] a loaf of bread, or, for in exchange
for a harlot, etc. The first form is adopted by the great mass of
expositors, who then take on behalf of as = on account of or by
means of, and supply the expression one [or, a man] is brought
down [or, comes doivn].* The objections to this interpretation
are that the prep, does not mean on account of or by means of,
and that the assumed omission of the verb is hard and improb-
able ; the prep, may be changed (Gr., Oort), but the difficulty of
the verb is not thereby removed. The second form appears to
have been adopted by the Anc. Vrss. (Grk. Syr. Targ.. Vulg.
and also Saad.), which translate substantially : for the price of a
harlot is a loaf of bread, = in exchange for a harlot \o7ie gives] a
loaf of bread, in which the insertion makes a difficulty as in the
other form, and the sense given to the prep., though found else-
where (Job 2''), is here unnatural and improbable; this rendering
of the line may, however, be obtained by a change of text. The
* So Rashi, Aben Ezra, Schult., Hitz., De., Now., Reuss, Zock., Noyes, Str.,
Kamp., RV,
VI. 25-26 137
first translation declares that the harlot brings a man to poverty,
while the married woman seeks his death ; the second, that one
pays a small price for the one, a great price for the other. Either
of these senses of first cl. is intelligible ; the first agrees better
with the context, in which the theme is the harm wrought by
unchaste women. Poverty, it is true, is usually indicated by
morsel (of bread) instead of loaf (17^ 28"' Oort), but in i S. 2^
the two terms appear to be used as synonymous. A slight change
in the Heb. gives the same verb in the two lines : for a harlot
hunts fust (or, only^ a piece of bread. This gets rid of some of
the syntactical and other difficulties, and the resulting form has
the directness and homeliness of a practical aphorism : the ordi-
nary harlot is after subsistence, will deprive a man of his money,
but not ruin him ; the unchaste married woman brings on him
destructive social (and possibly legal) punishment. That concu-
binage did not bring great social discredit among the Jews of the
third century B.C. may be inferred from the story in Jos. Ant. 12,
4, 6 ; and adultery is here denounced as by far the more dan-
gerous evil. The retribution attending it is loss of physical life,
either at the hands of the outraged husband, or by the operation
of law — there seems to be no allusion to loss of property, or to
destruction of bodily powers by dissipation ; see notes on v.''-"''^
(and cf Geiger, Urschrift, p. 241). — The couplet, however, in
whatever way it be taken, remains obscure. It is not clear
whether the two clauses describe two classes of women or only
one class ; and it is difficult to give a satisfactory translation of
the first clause. The verse has the appearance of an editorial or
scribal addition (gloss). We may conjecturally translate :
For the harlot seeks a morsel of bread,
But the adulteress hunts the precious life;
or:
For the price of a harlot is a morsel of bread,
But the adulteress hunts the precious life.
The rest of the chapter deals with the perils which beset the
adulterer: first an illustration (v.^"-"), then a comparison with
another crime (v.^"-'^'), finally the ground of the peril (v."-*"').
While in ch. 2 the sage describes death as the punishment of this
138 PROVERBS
sin, and in ch. 5 loss of wealth and of social position, he here
dwells on the revenge taken by the husband of the woman. The
moral wrong of adultery is of course assumed ; the practical
moralist lays stress on the penalty as the best way of deterring
men from the commission of the crime in question.
27-29. Illustrations of the peril of adultery.
27. Can one take fire in his lap
And his clothes not be burned?
28, Or, can one walk on hot coals
And his feet not be scorched?
So with him who has commerce with another man's wife —
Whoso touches her will not go unpunished.
27. Question, ternary. The same term is used in Heb. of the
breast or bosom of the body (5"") and of the middle portion of
the outer garment in which things were kept and carried and on
which they were laid (so now in Syria and Egypt); here the ref-
erence is not to the bosom (De., who improperly cites Isa. 40"),
but to the lap of the garment ; so in 16'^'^ the lot is cast into the
lap. — 28. Question, ternary. Y ox coals ^^t 25-^ 26-^; they were
of wood (cf. i// 120''); in Isa. 6^ a different word is used {hot
stone). — 29. Single sentence, ternary. Go unpunished or be
held guiltless or free. Though the statement is general in form,
the special reference, as appears probable from v.^*^, is to legal
punishment, or to the husband's vengeance \ here, as in the pre-
ceding paragraph, there does not seem to be any allusion to the
enervating effects of adultery on body and mind, or to an imme-
diate divine interposition. It is implied that the law is so strict,
or the husband so determined, that no plea offered by the offender,
such as provocation, seduction (v.^''), or the notorious character
of the woman, will be accepted. The character of tribunal and
punishment is not stated.* — The couplet gives a natural exposi-
tion of the illustrations of v.^^' ^, but it may be omitted without
detriment to the sense, the consequence being stated in v.^-.
30-35. Another illustration of the folly of adultery, derived
from a comparison between the adulterer and the man who steals
* See note on ^^.
VI. 26-31 139
to satisfy hunger. The latter may get off by a private money-
payment (v.^" ^^), the former, by reason of the husband's jealousy,
cannot make such compensation, is forever disgraced (v.^-"^), and
apparently falls into the hands of the law.
30. Men do [it is true] despise a thief if he steal
To satisfy his appetite when he is hungry;
31. And, being caught, he must restore sevenfold,
Must give all the effects of his house.
32. But he who commits adultery is devoid of sense,
He destroys himself who so acts.
33. Blows and disgrace he will get,
And his ignominy will not be wiped away.
34. For jealousy is fury in a man,
And he will not have pity in the day of vengeance;
35. He will not accept any ransom.
Nor be content though thou give many gifts.
30, 31. The first couplet is a single sentence, ternary ; the sec-
ond is synonymous, ternary. The Heb. reads : men do not despise
the thief if he steal, etc. This has been understood to mean that
one who is driven by hunger to steal is pitied but not despised —
his offence is not condoned, but he does not of necessity lose
social position, and (v.''') he recovers legal standing by making
compensation.* No doubt moralists are disposed to make allow-
ance for such cases of theft ; but there is no trace of this leniency
in OT. (in Jer. 2^ the thief is disgraced), and moreover, the sage
here (v.^') forgets or ignores the thief's poverty, and represents
him as a man of property. To avoid this discrepancy some com-
mentators (Now., Str.) regard the two couplets as describing two
different cases, that of the hungry thief, who is not despised, and
that of the ordinary thief, who has to make restitution, the two
categories corresponding respectively to v.'^^ (disgrace) and v.^''-^
(no money-compensation). We should thus have the contrast:
" a thief may escape disgrace, or may get off by payment of
money ; an adulterer does not escape disgrace, or get off by such
payment." This contrast is not expressed in the text — there is
no change of subject in v.**^^ ; and there is, further, the doubt
* Cf. Loewenstein, Die Proverbien Salomos (1838), on this verse.
140 PROVERBS
whether this lenient view of the hungry thief is probable. — The
first couplet may be read as a question (Hitz., Frank., al.) : do not
men despise, etc. ?, = men despise, etc. The contrast will then be :
" a thief suffers disgrace, but escapes with loss of money ; an
adulterer gets disgrace and blows, and no money-payment atones
for his offence." This seems to be the better interpretation of
the contrasted fortunes of thief and adulterer. The discrepancy
between v.™ and v.^' remains ; it must be regarded as an over-
sight of the author, or the Heb. text must be so changed as to
indicate the two classes of thieves referred to above. — The ren-
dering: 7nen do not overlook a thief though he steal, etc. (Ew.,
Zock., Noyes) is not warranted (the verb does not mean overlook),
and loses the main contrast of the paragraph. — The similar phra-
seology in Cant. 8', if one should offer to give all the substance of
his house for love, he would be utterly despised (that is, his offer
would be rejected with contempt), might suggest the translation :
men do not contemptuously 7-epulse ( = refect the offer of) a thief if,
stealing to satisfy appetite and being caught, he offer to restore, etc. ;
but this is hardly a natural rendering of the Hebrew. — In the
earliest law-book the rule is that the thief, when caught, shall pay,
according to circumstances, double, fourfold, or fivefold (Ex. 22^*-^
[21''^' 22^"]), and there are similar rules for fraud (Ex. 22^'*^
Lev. 6'"^ [5^^*]) ') ori payment of the mulct the thief recovered
legal standing. The sevenfold in our passage points, perhaps, to
a change in the law, but it is more probable that the reference is
not to a legal penalty, but to a private arrangement with the
injured person, and that the seven is a round number, = very
large; the "sevenfold restitution" is then explained as possibly
amounting to all the effects (or, substance) of his house. — The
phrase whe^i he is hungry is omitted by Bickell as a gloss ; it is
not logically necessary, but is a not unnatural poetical expansion.
— The Heb. terms rendered steal and thief involve secrecy and
not violence or malignancy (2 Sam. 19^^*^ Hos. 7* Joel 2^ Job 4^*) ;
for violent procedure other words* are employed. — V.^'^ is ren-
dered in Grk. Syr. Targ. // is not wonderful if, etc. ; Vulg. it is
no great offence, etc. ; these translations may be free renderings of
VI. 3^-3i 141
our Heb. text. — 32-35. The folly of the adulterer in provoking
the wrath of the injured husband. — 32. Synonymous, ternary.
He is a fool {^deiwid of sense, lit. of mind or heart) because he
destroys himself ; how this is done is indicated in the following
verses. The rendering destroys his own soul (RV. al.) conveys a
wrong impression by suggesting moral and spiritual depravation
and destruction — an idea correct in itself, but not here expressed.
The writer doubtless held adultery to be a crime against society
and against the adulterer's own moral being ; but, instead of speak-
ing of the necessity of preserving the purity of the family and the
individual (considerations which generally have little force against
passion), he employs what he regards as the most effective argu-
ment— the appeal to self-interest : an adulterer, he says, is (even
compared with a thief) a fool. — The second cl.-may be rendered
(but not so well) he who would destroy himself so acts (Targ.,
RV.), or, with slight change of text, he works destructiofi for hi?n-
5-(?^ (Grk. Vulg.). — 33. Synonymous, ternary. The retribution
follows. According to the old law the punishment of adultery
was death for both parties (Dt. 22""-^ Lev. 20^^*; cf. Ez. 2'^^'^'' —
the character of the penalty in the old ordeal of Nu. 5""-"^ is doubt-
ful). Later the rigor of the law appears to have been relaxed;
in Ben-Sira 23'*"-*' nothing is said of death, and Jno. 8^ seems to
recognize the possibility of other than capital punishment (as in
fact the woman goes free). In our verse (as in v."'') it may be
that it is not legal punishment that is meant. The outraged hus-
band might prefer not to parade his wrong in the courts — he
might deal with the offender himself by the simple method of
bodily chastisement {blows'), though this was possibly a pubhc
form of punishment (cf. BS. 23-'). In any case, as the thing
became known, the criminal would suffer indelible ignominy. — As
the paragraph is dealing particularly with the male offender, there
is no reference to the penalty which might be inflicted on the
woman. In later times divorce, either public or private (cf.
Mt. I ''•*), lay within the power of the husband, and it is probable
that this mode of redress existed when our chapter was written,
and is here assumed as possible. But the moral interests of the
unchaste woman are not considered in chs. 1-9 ; she is treated
simply as an evil to be avoided, and was in law largely a chattel of
142 PROVERBS
the husband. In the regard of showing no sympathy with the
unchaste woman Prov. is not pecuhar — it has been the general
rule in most communities up to the present day. The feeling
underlying it apparently is that such a woman is merely a tempter,
and must be utterly depraved. Somewhat higher ethically is the
sympathy expressed by Ptahhetep, Instructions, § 37 (see Art.
Egypt. Literature, in Library of the World's Best Literature').—
34. Synonymous, binary (or, binary-ternary). The sense of first
el. is : jealousy enrages a man (or husband) ; Grk. : the futy (or,
spirit) of her husband is full of jealousy ; Vulg. : jealousy and a
man's fury (or a man' s jealousy and fury) will not spare, etc. On
the power of jealousy see 14^ 27* Cant. 8". The day of vengeance
may be either private or legal. The sage uses the common fact
of the husband's rage as a warning. On the ordeal of Nu. 5 see
note on preceding verse. On the power of the Jewish congrega-
tion see note on 5". — 35. Synonymous, ternary. It is assumed
that the adulterer (like the thief, v.^') will attempt to escape pun-
ishment, public or private, by the payment of money as compen-
sation or bribe — either the law allowed such compensation at the
time, or it is supposed that the husband will not go to law. Ran-
som (lit. covering of a fault) is the general term for anything
offered or prescribed in lieu of punishment, whether as legal sat-
isfaction (Ex. 2X^ Nu. 35^^ Job 2>f^ Pr. 13^ 2i'«) or as bribe
(Am. 5^^). The second cl. explains that the compensation here
meant is in money or its equivalent. The general case is here
stated; there might be exceptions, but ordinarily the husband
would be relentless, and the adulterer is a fool to run such a risk
— the thief may escape, but not the adulterer.
20, 21. Between the Heb. sing, nouns and the Grk. plu. in v .2" there is
little to choose. — "^ ^'^j © fi^x^- — 22. On the inversion of v.^^-s see note
above on v.'-2-2^. |^ IPN nmn; (5 (followed in part by S) eirL-iOv am^v k.
ixera aoO iffTw, = inx nnjn (Jag.), or the second part is doublet, = "inx T^^rir.
IL gradiantur and custodiant, to conform the number to that of vP-. Bi.
inserts at beginning Tixn nh dj nnsni; see note above on v.22. In third Ime
<9 is free rendering of |^. — For |§ ima-n Gr. suggests in;K>iP. — 23. |^ plu.
ninain; read sing, with (5 eXeYxos, but 1 (<5 koX) should not be inserted before
iDic; Cl. Al. 1541^ (cited by Lag.) has A^x"- ® makes two clauses instead
of three: dirt Xi^x*'"' ("toXtj vd/jxyv, Kal ^Qi 656s fojijs Kal fXeyxo^ Kal iratSeia;
1^ is preferable an grounds of sense and symmetry. Gr. T13N n«D and min
VI. 33-vii. 143
yst*. — 24. |§ ;■% (S viravdpov, = •;■^ (Vog.), adopted by Gr., Bi.; to this
Baumg. objects that the word, used as = another, always has the suffix, as in
'iP; read m;. — 25. In " @ gives free rendering, and in •* has douljlet, the
original having 6(pdaKnoh, the revision ^\e(pa.puiv to agree with '^ (Lag.). —
IL takes -i^J*? as subj. — 26. |^ iy3, probably taken as prep, in exchange for,
and rendered freely in all Vrss. : (§ rt/u?;, IL pretititn, ^T n-di (for j-'Ci price,
Oort) with n.iSd added as explanation, ^ n^cn, for N^bi price (but cf. Nold.,
in Pink.); Oort, doubtfully, T_a ; read ixn or mx ,4««/j. — ||J i;*, omitted by
Bi. (who also omits Pt:'s), read ^^< by Ew., Gr., and one or the other of these
emendations should be adopted. — Frank.: anS ->33 T\p n:T pb'n iiy ^3, an
appropriate emendation, after (@IL (though it would be better to omit the
second Ti;), but graphically not so easy as the one above proposed. —
29. Omitted by Bi. without explanation, apparently to gain a simple quatrain
(v.2'-28), he having above (v.^"^) expanded a verse (triplet) into a quatrain;
\P is a natural, though not necessary, conclusion to v?- 2*; it might be
omitted without loss, and its naturalness might account for its insertion as a
gloss. — The form of |§ is substantially supported by the Vrss. — 30. The
Vrss. suggest no emendation of |§, of which they give free translations; see
note on this verse above. — 31. D^njjau' is in form dual of the fem. (as in the
second numeral), lit. hvo sevens, but used in the sense sevens, = sevenfold ;
for a different view see M. Heilprin, Histor. Poetry of the Anc. Hebrews, Vol. I.
note A. "^ JT; 0, interpreting correctly. Sous pvaerai eavrdv. — 32. '^ reads
lit. he who destroys himself (ST who wishes to destroy, etc.) he does it, or better
he destroys himself who does it (taking Nin as in apposition with n^ntrc).
(@ (followed by 3L) appears to render freely, so that its Ileb. text can hardly
be conclusively made out. It improperly takes the verse as a single sentence,
writes 5t' evdeiav (— nona?), makes 'D (or rnyit) obj. of the verb in which it
omits suff. (Treptirotetroi), and apparently omits Nin (omitted by Bi.). |^
gives a good sense as it stands, but becomes easier if we omit Nin and take
njB')?i as rel. clause. — 33. |^ nxd% (5 inrocpipei, which Lag. emends to dwocp^-
pei, prob. = ||J, not NC"' (cf. the different rendering of Nii'> in v.^''). — At end
© adds ets t6v aidva, probably rhetorical expansion, but Lag. holds that o'^ii'S
stood in |1] and has fallen out by similarity to following nn3."i n'^; the addition
is possil)le, l)ut is not favored by the rhythm; Baumg. compares the nn"i '^n of
>/' 109'*.- — 34. |tj laj ncn nNjp "'3; the subj. (as the connection shows) is 'p
(as in ("ant. 8'' 'p '^iNtt'3 nrp), and we should perhaps expect that 'J would lie
attached to it and not to 'n, though the present form is intelligible. (5, badly,
Hecrrds yap ^riXov dvp-bs dvSpbi aiiTTJi, taking n as subj. ST = ^l?; & follows
(S, only inverting the order of the words, and omittmg avrrji : the fury of a
man, because it is full of jealousy, will not spare, etc. — 35. <S and IL render
l^ freely, and independently each of the other.
VII. Warning against the adulteress. — A more elaborate
treatment of the subject of 2'*^''-* 5, C^"", and similar in arrange-
144 PROVERBS
ment to these subsections. The number of these closely similar
addresses suggests that the section chs. 1-9 is a compilation. —
The writer counsels obedience to his word (v.^''), that is, to wisdom
(v.^), that it may preserve the pupil from the adulteress (v.^),
whose fatal wiles are described (v.''"-^), and concludes with an
appeal to avoid her (v.^^^).
1-5. Wisdom the preserver against the adulteress.
1. My son, keep my words,
And lay up my commandments with thee.
2. Keep my commandments and live,
And my law as the apple of thine eye.
3. Bind them on thy fingers,
Write them on the tablet of thy mind.
4. Say unto Wisdom : " Thou art my sister,"
And call Understanding kinswoman,
5. That she may keep thee from another's wife,
From the adulteress with her enticing speech.
1, 2. Both couplets are synonymous, ternary. One form of the
standing introductory summons ; see 3^ 4^ etc., Ben-Sira 3^
Words, commandments, law are synonyms; the Impv. atid live =
and thou shalt live, or so that thou mayest live (that is, live long
and happily). Apple of the eye,— pupil of the eye, symbol of
most delicate and precious things, here and in Dt. 32'" y^ Yf ; in
Pr. 7^ 20™ = centre, core ; in Lam. 2^^ daughter of the eye is
equivalent to eye. — Between our v. and v." Grk. has my son, fear
the Lord and thou shalt be strong, and beside hi7n fear no other, in
general accordance with 3^^ 14^^ (cf. Eccl. 5^*^^, but out of keep-
ing with the context here, in which the point is obedience to the
teacher himself; it is the addition of a scribe or an editor who
thought that a distinctly religious exhortation should be here intro-
duced. Cf. Racine, Ath. I., i : fe crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n\n
point d'ajttre crainte. — 3. Synonymous, binary (or, perhaps, ter-
nary). Nearly identical with 3^ 6^^ As the hands are always in
sight, the finger is a fit reminder-place ; so in Dt. 6^ 11^* Ex. 13^",
which our verse may have in mind. It is uncertain how long
before the beginning of our era the custom existed of winding
prayerbands {totafoth, tefillin, phylacteries) around the finger and
VII. 1-5 145
arm ; the earliest reference to them is in NT. (Mt. 23') and
Josephus {Ant. 4, 8, 13). From i^ 3^ 6-' it would seem more
probable that the allusion here is to a ring, probably the seal-ring
(Gen. 38^* Jar. 22-* Cant. 8*^) which appears to have been com-
monly worn by men ; the same verb bitid is used in 3^ of a neck-
lace. In second cl. the allusion is probably not to the command
(Dt. 6^) to write the law on doorposts and gates, but to the tab-
lets of the law, or to inscribed tablets in general. In any case it
is inward recognition of law that is enjoined, and the law is that
not of Moses, but of the sage himself.* — 4. Synonymous, ter-
nary. Expression of closest intimacy. Kinswoman involves the
idea of intimate friendship ; in Ru. 2^ 3- (the only other places
in which the term occurs) the point is the obligation of kinship.
Grk. : say thai Wisdom is thy sister and gain the friendship of
Understanding (lit. gain Understanding as friend), in which the
parallelism {say . . . gaiji) is not so good as in the Heb. —
5. Synonymous, ternary. The woman is described in both clauses
in the Heb. as stranger, that is, another man's wife, and therefore,
in this connection, an adulteress. The final clause is lit. who
makes smooth her words, = " uses enticing words." The verse is
substantially identical with 2^^ 6"* (on which see notes), and is on
that account omitted by Bickell ; but, though not necessary, it
gives a natural and desirable connection between the exhortation
(v.^"^) and the description (v.*^-^). It is possible that these two
paragraphs were composed independently of each other — in that
case v.^ is the insertion of the compiler, and should therefore be
retained.
6-23. Detailed description of the seductive arts of the adul-
teress, and of their fatal result. — A thoughtless young man,
wandering through the streets at night (v.^^), is accosted by an
impudent woman, a frequenter of the streets (v.^*"^^), who invites
him to go to her house, saying that she has prepared a feast with
all pleasant accompaniments, and that her husband has gone away
on a long journey (v.'''"'-'") ; he yields, and goes unconsciously to
destruction (v.-''"'). The description differs from that of 2"''"^''
* Inscribed objects attached to the person were, perhaps, originally amulets or
talismans ; cf. notes on i^ 38.
146 PROVERBS
(which merely states that death is the result of a licentious course)
and from that of 6"*^ (which dwells on the folly of this sin; in
the detailed picture it gives of the woman's wiles. Literary skill
is shown in the vivid contrast between her attractive home, the
scene of luxurious carousal, and the wretched death that follows.
The description shows acquaintance with the later city life. Cf.
Ben-Sira 9^^ 19^ 26^1^ ^^n
6-9. The young man.
6. For at the window of my house
Through my lattice I looked forth,
7. And saw among the youths,*
A young man void of sense,
8. Passing along the street near her corner,
Walking in the way that led to her house,
9. In the evening twilight,
[Or] in the darkness of the dead of night.
6. Continuous, ternary. The /or, introducing the illustrative
case, follows naturally on v.^ less well on v.'*. The case put is
represented as typical — the suggestion is : one may any evening
look out and see, etc. — In first line we should perhaps read :
through (or, out of) my windotv I looked. — The windows of
Oriental houses (like those of Europe some centuries ago) are not
enclosed with glass, but have trellis-work of wood or metal, through
which a person standing within may see the street without being
seen from without ; f the window was a favorite place of observa-
tion (so in Thousand and One Nights frequently) . — Grk. repre-
sents the woman as the observer : from her house she looks out of
a window into the streets. The picture of her as on the watch
for her prey is natural and effective in itself, but hardly agrees
with v.'*^^^ in which she is already in the street ; if she is indoors
in v.^', we should expect to have in v.^" : she came forth and jnet
him ; the woman appears to be introduced as a new personage in
v.'". — 7. Single sentence with peculiar rhythm, the first line con-
sisting of two parallel clauses, with their completion in second
* Heb. : and saw among the simple, observed among the youths.
t Ju. 528 2 S. 616 2 K. 930 Cant. 2^ ; Aristoph., Thesmoph., 797 ; Livy, 24, 21 ;
Vitruv., V. 6, 9.
VII. 6-9 147
line, or (if the second line be begun with perceived^ the second
line giving a parallel to first line, and adding the completing
phrase. The expression of the Heb., saw among the simple, which
introduces a tautology {simple = void 0/ sense) should be omitted ;
the couplet will then be a single sentence, binary. — Simple =
void of understanding ; see note on i*. — 8. Synonymous, ternary.
A comer, as in Grk., is hardly better than Heb. her corner ; the
latter expression denotes not the particular place at which she
stands (in v.'^ she does not confine herself to one spot), but the
corner near which her house is. — The young man is not repre-
sented (as RV. suggests) as going to her house, but only as fol-
lowing the road that led thither ; he is strolling aimlessly within
her domain, and so meets her ; Ben-Sira ()' warns young men
against such nocturnal strolling. — The her house implies that she
has already been mentioned ; the reference, according to the Heb.
text, is to v.^, but in the Grk, text more naturally to v.® (see note
above). — 9. Parallels, ternary. The two clauses, as they stand
in the Heb., giving different parts of the night, must be connected
by or or and ; Grk. : /;/ the evening-gloom, when there is quiet of
flight and of darkness (different text, or free rendering), which
has the advantage of giving unity of time to the two clauses. Twi-
light, the dim light near sunrise or sunset, is defined by evening.
The second cl. is lit. in the pupil (= centre, middle) of the night
and darkness. The intention of the Heb. text seems to be to
indicate the whole period of darkness during which people were
accustomed to walk in the streets : from twilight to midnight one
may see young men traversing the streets. The second line may
perhaps mean : /;/ the darkness of complete night (so RV.), that is,
any time after twilight. — In the early evening or in bright star-
light or moonlight figures without might be visible from a window,
and torches and lanterns were sometimes carried, though hardly
by the persons here described ; for the rest the description is im-
aginative, though no doubt based on personal observation. Roman
youths at such times sometimes wore masks (Juv. 6, 330).
VII. 1. On the added v. in (S see note above on v.^ The fact that it
appears in no other Vrss. exc. S" throws no light on its date; such additions
were natural for a long period. Ew., without giving reasons, regards the v.
Cwhich he renders into Heb.) as genuine. — 2. Segol with Athnah in n-n
148 PROVERBS
bears witness to the phonetic force of this vowel. — \vvi<, = Arab, insdn.,
apparently a human (or manlike') thing ; the ending on (an) is elsewhere in
O.T. not dimin. but general-relational; Aram, un is diminutive, py 'N is par-
allel in i/* 17* to ]■<•; nn (perhaps = the centre or principal part of the eye);
the Aram. Vrss. here render '.'( by Nnaa ga/e ; cf. Ges., Thes., BDB. — J^ imin;
(5 Toi>s di i/xovi \6yovs, as if it read ■<-\2-', or ncN, as in 4^"^; between such
variants there is no ground of choice. — 3. For ||J r^ass S>, by scribal in-
advertence, has mx, as in 3^. — 4. J^ x^P' ; (3 irepnroirja-ai, =: rupp (Jag.);
whether (g had nr^n (Jag.) or took "^ in |§ nj^j"? as sign of accus. (Lag.) can
hardly be determined. — For •;<. Oort suggests fem. n^ic, but this is not neces-
sary.— 5. (S -irov-qpas, apparently miswriting of Trdpvrjs (Lag.); cf. © in 2'^.
— 6, 7. On the ist pers. in the vbs. in (5 see note on these vv. above. Oort
suggests \"'a3."i for ■<n^2, to secure fuller parallelism, and Gr. the insertion of
njni before i;j; B has 3d pers. plu. — 8. J§ njp; the masc. form of the noun
is found only here and Zech. 14!'^. — pirj is omitted in (5, -^"i^ in Si (by free
translation or inadvertence). For i;'Xi (3 has XaXoOvra, error of Grk. scribe;
for proposed emendations see notes of Lag., Baumg., and on 2C cf. Fink. —
9. The Heb. text appears to offer an inverted parallelism (cf. Schult.) : ']^'i
(degree of light), 2^-; (part of the day), nSiS )v:'>s (part of the night), nSo«
(degree of darkness) ; we should probably, in accord with the preceding ex-
pressions, read ."T?dx3. (g, however, makes two phrases of the v. : iv (rKdrei
effwepLvip, = 3"\y 'J3, and i]vlKa &v ijffvxia vvKTepivr\ koL yvo<pwdT]s, = |^, except
that for jvi^N it seems to have had some form of ]y sleep (Schl.), or possibly
of !D|ia' repose. With such twofold division J^ would read : in the twilight of
evening, in the depth of black night.
10-12. The woman.
10. And lo, < the » woman comes to meet him,
In harlot's dress, and wily (?) of heart.
11. She is boisterous and a < gadabout ' —
Her feet rest not in her house —
12. Now she is in the street, now in the squares,
And she lurks at every corner.
10. Continuous, ternary. As the woman is referred to above
(v.*), the def. art. (as in the Grk.) is preferable to the reading of
the Heb. (a wotnan). She comes to meet him by design, not
simply 7neets (or, met) him (RV.). Instead of d7-ess (or, orna-
ment) Grk. has_/<?r»z, appearance, a sense (= mien) which perhaps
better suits the context, in which the woman's character is de-
scribed. Whether harlots at this time wore a distinguishing dress
is uncertain (in Gen. 38''* it is the veil that is characteristic) ; the
reference is perhaps to the style of attire. In this expression the
VII. 10-I2 149
woman here described (the married woman) is technically distin-
guished from the harlot proper (who was unmarried). — The
translation wily (RV.) is conjectural \ other proposed renderings
are false (Schult.), maliciotis (Ew., Now., Kamp., etc.), secret,
hypocritical (Berth., Str., Stade), excited (Frank.), subtle (AV.,
De.) ; in Isa. 48*^ the Heb. word appears to mean hidden, secret,
and here, if the reading be correct, some such sense as zvily suits
the connection. Grk. : causes the hearts of young men to fly away
(or, as emended by Lag., causes young men to lose their heads) ;
Vulg. : prepared to catch souls. These renderings may represent
our Heb., or may rest on a different text ; they do not suggest
any satisfactory emendation. — 11, Synonymous, ternary. Here
also the adjectives are doubtful. The first (which occurs again in
9'^) usually expresses excited movement and noise (1 K. i''^ Isa.
22^), and may here refer to the woman's free, boisterous manner
of talking, or to her unrestrained actions, or to both of these ;
proposed renderings are garrulous (Vulg.), loud, clamorous,
excited, vehement, passionate, boisterous, of which the last appears
best to reproduce the Heb. term. The second word, as it stands
in our Heb. text, means rebellious, selfwilled, wilful, which may
be understood as expressing her attitude toward her husband, her
refusal to obey him and stay at home ; a slight change of letters,
however, gives the sense going about, gadding about (Vulg. stroll-
ing, cf. Cant. 3^-^, where the maiden and the watchmen go about
the city), and this is in keeping with the following clauses. The
older Greek laws forbad free women to leave their houses after
sunset,* but it appears from this passage and from Cant. 3^ and
Ben-Sira (26*'") that at a later time women had no little liberty
of movement, and part of the duty of a careful husband or father
was to keep his wife or daughter indoors (Ben-Sira 25^'*, cf. i Tim.
5''^ Tit. 2''). — 12. Synonymous, binary- (or, quaternary-) ternary.
Licentious women showed themselves freely in the streets and in
the squares or open places at gates and elsewhere (see note on
1*'-^'), choosing corners particularly as convenient places for
seeing and being seen. The paragraph is a vivid description of
the city manners of the later time (probably third cent. B.C.).
V."^- are of the nature of a parenthesis.
* Becker, Char. 468 f.
1 50 PROVERBS
10. The Art. before nrx (found in (§) has dropped out by reason of pre-
ceding n. Before PNipS there is usually a vb. of going, but this is sometimes
omitted, as in i S. 10^° al. — The signification dress for n'tt* seems to be assured
by ^ 73''; after (5 elSoj Hitz., Oort suggest a form of nvj' (S^i 26* 271^). If
the text-word be retained, prep. 3 should perh. be inserted before it. — J^ .t\>"j
3*^; @ (foil, by S2C) TTOie? viiav i^iirTaffOaL Kapdia^ (the v^cjv is explanatory
insertion), as if from -m: (cf. 27*); Lag. emends to i^iffracrdai (Eur. Bacch.
850) lose one's senses, and thinks that (5 had pn^XD producing a whirl, after
Syr. pix (Castel. 755), but such a sense is proved neither in Heb. nor in
Aram.; 3L ad capiendas animas, apparently from t'X (Berth., cf. Ez. 13^°).
There is no satisfactory derivation for the text-word; that from isj (hidden,
wily, cf. Isa. 48'') seems least objectionable. There is perh. scribal error; we
expect some word like cppj (28^^) or '?nflj (8^) or a"i>' (but this stem is em-
ployed elsewhere in Pr. only in good sense), and see the expressions in
Eccl. 726. Schult., yfc/M cordis, from "MX, in sense of Arab. iix. — 11. |^ n-n-D
headstrong ; (@ AawTos projligate seems to represent J^ (Lag. improbably, from
mo); read nj^iD (cf. Cant. 3^-^), 3L vaga, ^T nht'IS. — 12. (5, less well than
J^, divides the v. at I'lna, after which it inserts, to complete the parallelism,
the vb. pifjLperai roams.
13-20. Her invitation: she assures him that she has made
special preparations to receive him.
13. So she seizes him and kisses him,
With impudent look says to him :
14. "A vow-offering was due from me —
To-day I have paid my vows —
15. So I came out to meet thee.
To seek thee — and I have found thee.
16. I have spread my couch with coverlets,
With striped cloths of Egyptian yarn.
17. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
With aloes and with cinnamon.
18. Come, let us, till morning, take our fill of love.
Let us take our pleasure in love.
19. For my husband is not at home.
He is gone on a long journey;
20. He took a bag of money with him.
He will come home at full-moon feast,"
13. Continuous, binary-ternary. This free procedure may have
taken place in a retired spot, else it would probably not have
escaped the attention of the police ; though women at this period
had, as we have seen (note on v."), some liberty of movement, it
VII. 13-14 151
would appear from Cant. 5^ that the night-watchmen sometimes
arrested strolUng women, though under what circumstances does
not appear. Watchers on city-walls no doubt existed from of old
(Isa. 2i"-'^ 62^ ip 127^), but the relatively modern night-patrol is
mentioned only in Cant. 3^5'. — The expression wi//i impude7it
(or, wanton) look (lit. puts on a bold face, so 21™-') does not inti-
mate that the woman assumes an attitude not natural to her, but
simply describes her meretricious boldness. — 14. Protasis and
apodosis, ternary. Of course the observer at the window does
not hear the long and probably whispered speech that follows
^y 14-20^ . ^.j^g writer describes a common scene. — The woman
(who thus appears to be an Israelite) begins by telling the young
man that her payment of a vow-offering enabled her to provide
special entertainment at this time ; the feast is not mentioned, but,
as the invariable accompaniment of the sacrifice, is taken for
granted; we might, therefore, render: / have a sacrificial feast
at my house. The Heb. term here rendered offeritig {shelein, RV.
peace-offering) is a general one comprehending several varieties.
It signifies primarily wholeness, soundness, and so security, friendly,
peaceful relations with the deity, or the payment of one's obliga-
tions to the deity so as to secure his friendship.* As a technical sac-
rificial term it denotes the ordinary offerings made freely to gain
favor, or presented in gratitude for favors bestowed or in fulfil-
ment of a vow (see the different sorts in Lev. 7""^^). It consisted
always of flesh, to which (at least in the later ritual) was added
flour, oil, and wine (Nu. 15"- ^'') ; and of the animal presented
only the blood and the fat of the intestines was offered on the
altar, the rest was eaten by the worshippers. The shelem thus
differs from the holocaust (Heb. ola, RV. burnt-offering) which
was wholly consumed on the altar. It is in fact the old sacrificial
meal of the family or clan, which was of a festive character (Am.
5^'"^^). In the present instance its occasion is a vow which has
just been fulfilled {to-day) ; the law required that the flesh should
be eaten on the day of offering (Lev. 7'"). The woman, not inat-
tentive to her religious duties (and there is no reason to suppose
* The same stem is found in Arab. Islam, = the establishing of sound relations
with God by submission, resignation ; and Moslem = one who is resigned to God's
will, a professor of Islam.
152 PROVERBS
that she herein acted otherwise than in good faith), having dis-
charged her vow and prepared the feast, goes out to seek a com-
panion, and pretends to the youth (it seems probable that it is a
pretence) that she has come expressly to find him. If the sacri-
fice was offered on an altar, the scene of the incident is doubtless
Jerusalem ; but it is possible that the Egyptian Jews, before the
building of the Onias-temple (b.c. 149), maintained customs of
vows at home, dedication being substituted for actual sacrifice.
From the plu. vows it may perhaps be inferred that vows were suf-
fered to accumulate, so that a number were paid at one time ; and
from Eccl. 5'*^ we gather that there was sometimes undue delay in
paying, so that it became necessary for the priests or other officers
to send messengers to demand payment.* — 15. Continuous, ter-
nary. The so (or, therefore) refers to the festive character of the
occasion : " as I have prepared an excellent table, and do not wish
to enjoy it alone, therefore I have come," etc. To seek thee, lit. to
seek thy face. The reading proposed by Bickell, that I might find
thee, is feeble and improbable. — The two next verses describe the
luxurious appointments of the woman's house, whence (and from
v.^'-'-") it may be inferred that her husband was a man of sub-
stance, and she of good social position. — 16. Synonymous, ter-
nary. Couch is properly bedstead (Dt. 3^^ ^ 132^), elsewhere
(Job 7^^) used also for the whole of the sleeping-furniture, but
here apparently for the structure on which bed-clothing is spread.
The uncertainty of the term here rendered coverlets appears from
the diversity of the translations given it : Grk., Vulg. cords ; Syr.
Targ. beds or mattresses (or perh., cushions, pillows) ; Aq., Theod.
spreads; and these renderings (except the first) are variously
adopted by modern commentators. The word occurs elsewhere
only in 31^^, where it seems to mean some sort of cloth-work
(Grk. is here doubtful, Aq., Th., Vulg. spreads, Sym. carpets shaggy
on both sides). AV. coverings probably gives the sense of the
term (RV., not so well, carpets, marg. cushions), but the addition
of tapestry (= embroidered) is without support. AV. decked
= covered, spread. — The terms in second cl. must also describe
some sort of bed-clothing : the first is in Grk. carpets shaggy on
* On the later regulations respecting delay see commentary on Dt, 2321-23 in
HosA ha. Shanah, 5 b.
VII. i4-i8 153
both sides ; Syr. Targ., spreads or carpets ; Vulg. embroidered car-
pets ; recent commentators generally striped {ox, party-colored^
spreads or cloths. The second term represents some kind of ma-
terial, stuff, or, as the word signifies in Aram., yarn; it is left
untranslated by the Anc. Vrss. (or they may have had a different
word), except that Theod. has marked ivith Egyptian paintings.
— Across the ancient Greek bedstead (which was usually of wood,
sometimes of bronze) were stretched girths (cords) which sup-
ported a mattress, and on this were spread coverlets, which were
sometimes colored. There was a headboard, and sometimes a
footboard ; at the former were placed cushions or pillows. This
is the general arrangement here referred to, though the precise
significations of the various terms are doubtful. — The mention of
Egyptian material may indicate that the section was not written in
Egypt ; commercial intercourse between Egypt and Palestine had
existed since the time of Solomon, and became more frequent
after the settlement of the Jews in Alexandria. — 17. Continuous,
ternary-binary. After the bedstead was spread with costly cov-
erings, the bed, thus prepared, was perfumed (lit. sprinkled).
The aromatic substances here named are frequently mentioned in
OT. (e.g. Cant. 4^^). Myrrh is a gum-resin whi' h exudes from
the Balsamodendron Afyrrha, a shrub growing in Arabia and
Abyssinia ; it is reddish brown in color, has an agreeable odor
and an aromatic-bitter taste ; a liquid form of it appears to be
mentioned in Ex. t,o-^ Cant. ^' ; for its use in the preparation of
the temple-oil see Ex. 30^-"^. Aloes is the fragrant resin-gum of
Alocxylon and Aquilaria ovata of Malacca and A. agallochum
of Bengal. Cinnamon is the aromatic bark of a Ceylonese tree ;
it was an ingredient of the sacred oil of the Jews (Ex. 30^^"^).
The description indicates a high degree of luxury. Among the
Israelites ivory couches (or divans) were used by the rich as early
as the eighth cent. B.C. (Am. 6^), but the perfumes here men-
tioned appear only in postexilian writings (Ex. 30, Esth., \\i 45,
Cant., Pr.) ; they seem to have become known to the Jews
through late intercourse with foreign peoples. — 18. Synonymous,
quaternary-binary. The vbs. express fulness of enjoyment. The
first {take our fill) means to be filled, saturated with water (Isa
55'"), with blood (Isa. 34' Jer. /tO'"), with love (here and 5''') ;
1 54 PROVERBS
the second means to enjoy one's self, Grk. io roll in, Targ. give
one's self up to, Vulg., Syr. embrace. — 19. Synonymous, ternary.
In first cl. the Heb. reads the tnan, an expression which is per-
haps used by the woman in a shghting way instead of the friendly
my husband, as if she would say : the man who owns the house,
whom I happen to be bound to but do not care for. But such a
refined sneer does not seem very probable, and, as Grk. has 7ny
husband, we should rather so read, or with RV. write the goodman.
The master of the house appears to be a rich merchant, called on
to make long journeys, as was the custom with merchants (Tob. 5''
(f Mt. 13^^). — 20. Continuous, ternary. Time is reckoned by
feasts, and these by the phases of the moon (so now frequently in
rural communities, even where the solar year exists). FuUmoon-
feast (if/ Si'^'''*) is the middle of the month — the scene occurs
in the first half of the month, and the intimation is that some
days must elapse before the husband can return. There was no
fixed day for paying vows. The festival referred to may be Pass-
over or Tabernacles.
13. On the t rafatum of ni;'n (a local peculiarity of Masoretic pronuncia-
tion) see De.'s note in B-D. — h'jd is unnecessarily omitted by Bi., apparently
on rhythmical grounds. — 14. ||J □•'O'?:'; plu. everywhere except Am. 5''''^
(where it is perh. scribal error). n2f often = i^r (Ex. 24*, cf. Ez. 44^' with
45'^), here = slain offering. — 15. The Vrss. have free renderings of |^. On
Si2r see Pink. — 16. |^ "<di, -\z-\r:, of uncertain meaning, the vb. only here, the
noun here and t,\'^^; (@^ Knplq. ((§ c. a. a plu.) r^raKu, in which the noun
— girths, suggests the sense bind for the vb. (as in •"'JT chain, Gen. 41*2 Ez.
16", and in Arab.), but in 31^2 (g has ■}(\a.lva,% mantles, which favors the render-
ing coverlets here ; ,S2C have stem ••w, A0 irepiffTpdivvvfii, spread'va. vb. and noun ;
IL intexui funibus, the noun being after <§, but the vb. weave, appropriate in
31^2, is here out of place. The weight of authority appears to favor the sense
spread. — -oan, cf, Arab. 3Jn. Oort, taking it as rendered by (5 earpivKa,
emends to Titon, but the Grk. word rather represents jl^ jrjN, read as \it3n or
nox. — jvjx, found here only, is possibly a foreign word (but 6d6vr) linen may
be a loan-word from Sem.) ; in Jew. -Aram, it = thread, a possible sense here,
but 2C has another term, Nmp carpet, perh. = stuff woven of thread. On the
form see 01s., p. 335 ; it seems unnecessary to regard it as Aram. — 17. |^ ^'^CJ
sprinkle, Qal only here; Bi., Hif. 'nbin (cf. ^ 68"^), Oort v-"023j (cf. Cant. 5*) ;
Gr. Mil, from ns:. — -\L- is Semitic, d^Shn (cf. Hind, aghil, Sanscr. aguru)
East Indian, and ["^^pj though its origin is uncertain, is probably foreign.* — •
* Cf. H. Lewy, Semit. Fremdwdrter im Griech. ; C. P. G. Scott, Malayan Words
in Eng., in JAOS., Vol. 17.
VII. I8-2I 155
18. The plu. ■2'T' and ^nns are used always of sensual love. Geiger, Urschrift^
p. 398, reads an (see 5'^), but the Mas. form is better. |^ no'^i'Pj; (S tvKV-
Xiffdunev, after which Oort unnecessarily emends to New-Heb. ri'?j;'pj /,?/ us
wallow. — Bi., to complete his scheme of quatrains, adds the couplet ^j,,)
D3JJ oiJ>'n ipiHCi j,n nanx ony — the woman, he holds, according to v.-', em-
ployed argument (np*^) and it must be introduced here; but her persuasions
are sufliciently given in v.^'*"^. — 20. Np> only here and i/- Si"* (^Dj). Here
2r has N"iV feast (Rashi: the time fixed for the feast), S = <5, © 5i' rtfjiepQiv
TToWQv (perh. free transl. — Lag. suggests that di rjix. = SixofJi'qvr]),'^ plenae
lunae (and so Bar Ali, cited in Ges. 'J lies.), Saad. day of sacrifice, Aben Ezra
new moon ; in 1/' 81* ST has >Djr;:-i Nn-i , S ^D;, 1L^ in medio mense, (5 imijix^
favorable (apparently a guess). And since in <% ndj stands for the 15th day
of the month in I K. la^'^ and for the 23d in 2 C. 7I', the word appears to
mean the week of the feast from the middle of the month on, and so either
the feast (either Passover or Tabernacles, here perhaps the latter, ST ^ 81*
appears to interpret it as the former), or its first day. On the form see Ols.
p. 256, 282. The word seems to be Aramaic, but its etymology is uncertain —
prob. not from stem = cover (Ges., De., " the disk of the moon is covered with
light"), perh. related to Arab. ^V2 latter part, and = second half of the
month, and so the festival of that time; C x>rr: may be denom. (^the t?ionth
of) the NDr, but prob. — covered (so A'osh ha. Shanah 'jb. 8 a). Aben Ezra's
interpretation is against this derivation, but his rendering is opposed to that
of earlier authorities. The word, however, may mean simply feast. BDB.
compares As. kuseu (see De., Ass. Handwb. s. v. ktiseil, aqu), full tnoon (as
tiara of a deity).
21-23. The youth yields to her persuasions, and thus goes to
his death.
21. With much fair speech she persuades him.
By the blandishment of her lips seduces him.
22. So enticed he follows her.
Like an ox that goes to slaughter,
Like a < calf that is led to the stall,'
23^. Like a bird that hastes to a net,
c. Knowing not that it concerns its life,
a. Till an arrow cleaves its liver.
21 . Synonymous, ternary. Fair speech is lit. teaching, instruc-
tion (see note on i^) — designation of the woman's enticing de-
scription as a didactic discourse or argument. Persuades, lit.
causes to yield ; blandishment of her lips, lit. smoothness of her lips ;
see 2'" 5'' 6'^ 7'. Seduces, lit. carries off (or, away). The two
verbs are employed in OT. to express the leading away of Israel
after other gods than Yahweh, the first, for ex., in i K. 11^. the
1 56 PROVERBS
second in Dt. 13^'^'. The two clauses do not involve a climax,
but are identical in meaning. — 22,23. The text is corrupt in
individual words, and there is probably a displacement of clauses.
The three lines of v.-^ should probably stand in the order b c a ;
in V." Bickell further follows the order a c b. The two verses form
three couplets, and should probably be divided into three verses,
in the order 22'''*-, 22c. 23b.^ ibc. a.^ 'Y\iQ difference of length of lines in
the Eng. translation does not exist in the Heb. — 22. Compari-
sons, ternary. The Heb. reads : he follows her suddenlv, as an
ox that goes to slaughter, and as fetters to the chastisement of a fwl
in which siiddenly is inappropriate, and third cl. yields no sense ;
Luther's as to the fetters where fools are chastised is not allowed
by the Heb., and lacks the fatal character which the connection
requires ; the latter objection applies to the inversion of AV.
(adopted by De., Now., Str. ) as a fool to the correction of the
stocks (or, the chastisement of fetters) ; the rendering one in fet-
ters (Noyes, RV. marg.) is impossible, and there is no sufficient
evidence that the Heb. word (DDi?) mediii's, fetters — in the only
other place in which it occurs in OT., Isa. 3^*, it is used in the
sense of anklets (and in Isa. 3^^ the verb shake the anklets occurs),
from which can be inferred only that the sense fetters is possible
(Schult. : as it were, with head bound to feet). The parallelism
suggests the mention of an animal, and so Grk. Syr. Targ. as a
dog to bonds ; Vulg. as a frolicsome lamb, not knowing that a fool
is led to bonds. The rendering as a calf that is led to the stall is
obtained by a few changes in the Heb. consonants ; the stalled
calf was kept for slaughter (Am. 6'* i Sam. 28-'*, cf. Pr. 15'")- —
Instead of suddenly read, with Grk., enticed or deceived or per-
suaded, according to the stem in i'" 16*' 20'^ 24^ 25^^ Jer. 20"
Job 31", cf. Hos. 7" Job 5". — The verse is a picture of the brute-
like stupidity with which the man goes to his unforeseen fate.
The death (which is physical) is apparently represented as
coming not by violation Qf the laws of temperance, but by gen-
eral dispensation of God in social and legal penalties ; cf. i^ 2",
etc. There is no reference to the mode of death ; the descrip-
tion resembles that in ch. 2 (v.'*^^^) more than those in chs. 5 and
6. — 23. Comparison and consequence, ternary. As the text
stands, v.-^" is connected with the preceding context (" he follows
vii. 21-25 157
her as an ox, etc., till an arrow cleaves his liver"), and a new
comparison, to a bird, is added. We gain simplicity by transfer-
ring the third line to the end of the verse (so Hitz., l)e., Bi.,
Frank.), and dividing v,^^-^ into three verses so as to read accord-
ing to the translation given above. The Heb. order is given in
the Anc. Vrss., only Grk. Syr. Targ. have in first line as a stng
shot in the liver with an arrow (in which stag represents the last
word of v.^- of the Heb.). The third couplet, in the order given
above, appears to refer to the bird, which is shot as it approaches
the net or after it is entrapped ; a similar reference to the igno-
rance of birds is made in i^". — Liver, as seat of life, is found
only here and Lam. 2", elsewhere only in ritual procedures. It is
common in Bab.- Assyrian. Possibly in some passages, as \p i6^
in which 7ny glory = myself, we should read my liver (parallel to
my heart or fny soul).
24-27. Concluding exhortation against the woman, based on
her fatal influence; so 2"*-^'' 5** 9^**, cf. 6^"'^.
24. Now, therefore, < my son,' * hearken to me,
And attend to the words of my mouth.
25. Turn not aside to her ways,
Go not astray in her paths.
26. For many are the dead she has cast down,
And numerous they she has slain.
27. In her house are ways to Sheol,
Going down to the chambers of Death.
24. Synonymous, ternary-binary. The Heb. has plu. sons,
without possess, pron., in this verse, and sing, in v.^* ; the change
of number is possible, but is here not probable ; the Grk. has
the sing., and this, in any case, is better in an English trans-
lation. — Here, as elsewhere, the sage is his own authority. —
25. Synonymous, ternary-binary. Lit. let not thy mind [^heart~\
turn aside, in which thy mind (like thy soul elsewhere) = thxself.
Turn aside (found elsewhere only in 4'^ Nu. ^ '-■ I'J- -''J- 2'-'^ noun in
Hos. 5^) is declining from the right way, =^^ astray. — Many
Heb. MSS. connect the two Hnes by and. Grk. omits second line,
* The Heb. has ye children (or, sons).
158 PROVERBS
probably by scribal error ; it is necessary for the symmetry of the
verse. — 26. Synonymous, ternary-binary. The first cl. may also
be rendered : for many she has cast down dead ; the translation
given above is favored by the parallelism. The form of RV. : she
has cast down many wounded is not permitted by the Heb., and the
slain of second cl. requires dead instead of woimded. — In second
cl. AV. has yea, tnany strong jnen have been slain by her, RV.,
better, yea, all her slain are a tnighty host. The reference is not
to the strength of the victims (with the implication : if she has
slain strong men, how can the ordinary man expect to escape?),
but, as appears from first cl., to their number. The Heb. word
has the meaning numerous in Am. 5'^ Zech. 8" i//4o^<'" al. Second
cl. reads in the Heb. : and numerous are all her slain, in which
the all is not agreeable to Eng. idiom, and probably does not
belong to the original Heb. text. — 27. Synonymous, ternary-
binary. Heb. lit. her house is ways to Sheol (so Schult., Ew.,
Frank.), rendered by AV., RV. her house is the way, etc., by
Reuss is in the way, by Hitz., De., Str. is a multiplicity of ways,
by Now., Kamp. is full of ways. The sense appears to be that
many paths, leading to the Underworld, issue from her house (cf.
12^ 14'-) — there are many chances of death from association
with her. The penalty referred to is premature physical death,
as in i^^ 2" 5^, not moral depravation, and not punishment after
death ; see note on i^". Chambers of Death = simply Sheol, not
the private rooms of the Underworld, its most distant and painful
parts. The distinctions in Sheol are not moral, but ritual or
social : the uncircumcised and those who descend without proper
burial- rites are assigned to remote, socially inferior, corners (Ez.
22I8-32* \^2i. 14^^), kings and great warriors sit on thrones or occupy
other prominent positions (Isa. 14^). In the Babylonian Under-
world there seems to be some sort of sevenfold division (see
Descent of Ishtar), the significance of which is- not known. No
such division appears in OT. (not in Dt. 32^^ \p 86^^) — there is
mention of gates (Isa. 38^" i/' 9"" 107^* Job 38^^), as in Baby-
lonian,! but not of courts, streets or houses. The word chamber
* Emended text in Haupf s Sacred Books of the Old Testament.
t The bars of Job 17I6 is doubtful — see note in Budde's Hiob.
VII. 25-VIII. 159
does, indeed, generally stand in contrast with the space outside
the house (court or street), and in earthly life implies privacy
(Ju. 3^^ 2 K. 6'-) ; but in poetical usage it appears to stand (sing,
or plu.) for the whole of a given place or space (Job 9^ 37^). If,
however, the term be here understood to imply divisions in Sheol,
these (as OT. usage shows) are not connected with moral differ-
ences in the inhabitants.
22. J^ DNrD, not headlong (Schult.) but suddenly ; (5 K€ir<pu}6els cajoled
(like a simpleton, K4ir<pos), as from stem nr^o; some form of this stem is re-
quired by the connection, perh. nno:; cf. Job 31^ nrn '^y o*^ nnoj dn; graphi-
cally 'J might easily pass into 'o, especially if d in latter was marked by a line
('Nno). — Djj.', here yields no sense; <S ki^wc, = 2^d; % agnus, = r2D; read
^y;. — 1DIC correction; <§ 5eo-/uoi/j, = ^D r, better than pf, but not wholly ap-
propriate, since it does not naturally correspond to the parallel naa; it may
therefore be better to read pa-\D slall (see note on this v. above), though
the reading of (5 is intelligible. — '?''1N must be taken as vb., some such form
as "^ov (Or.). It is read '?''N by (5 and transferred to next v. ; ws e\o<^oj To|ei5-
/xan TTeir\r)yihs. — 23. On the inversion of clauses see note on this v. above.
The order of J^ is retained by the Vrss. — 24. |^ D'J3 ; (5, better, vli, —
25. On at''; see Stade, § 489 3, and cf. Ew. § 224^. — CI. 2, lacking in @^, is
given in (5>««a- A^ j^.p, 23, 68, 106 al., Compl., Aid., and, according to S^,
belongs to 0; the omission in B is inadvertence. — 26. ?^ a'''?Sn; (5 freely
rpibcraffa. It may be also by freedom of translation that <S does not render
'^■j; but this word, though syntactically possible, and not unaccordant with the
rhythm, is not necessary, and is in any case naturally omitted in an Eng.
translation. — 27. In cl. I J^, reproduced by @2EIL, is possible though hard;
Z's insertion of nmit<, = ^31"', before nn''3 is no doubt explanatory addition.
Insertion of 3 is easy, but perh. unnecessary. — J§ nm^; © Kardyovaai, free
rendering, or = nn'T'D (Lag.),
VIII. Exalted function of Wisdom. — A separate discourse (cf.
r"^), consisting of two closely related sections (v.*"^' and v,^^"^')
with introduction and conclusion. After the description of Wis-
dom as public exhorter (v.'"''') comes her address, in the first sec-
tion of which (v.'^") is set forth her high character and honorable
function among men (she utters truth, v.'^'-', and confers knowledge,
riches, and honor, v.'""^*), and in the second (v.^^"^') her position as
cherished companion of Yahweh in the beginning ; the conclusion
states the happiness of those who obey her and the evil fate of
those who reject her {v.^^'^). With this hymn to Wisdom cf. the
hymns to Yaliweh, i// 104. 107, and the praise of Wisdom in Job 28,
l60 PROVERBS
Ben-Sira i^""^ 24, Wisd. Sol. 7^-8-'; it most resembles the last two
passages in its personification, being in this point more advanced
than the description in Job.
1-3. Wisdom stands in places of concourse, and cries to men.
1. Does not Wisdom call?
And Understanding utter her voice?
2. At the head of thoroughfares, on the road,
In the streets she takes her stand.
3. Beside the gateways, at the portal of the city,
At the entrance of the gates she cries aloud.
The phrases are nearly the same as in i^ ^', only Wisdom is here
dramatically described as taking her stand. — 1. Synonymous, ter-
nary (or, binary- ternary). JVisdotti and tinders tajiding are iden-
tical in meaning ; see note on I". — 2. Synonymous, ternary. The
Heb. reads : at the head (or, on the top) of high places o?i (or,
dy) the road (or, way) ; the high p/aees might be supposed to be
the walls and battlements of the city, or benches on the streets, or
the platforms of the shops, which in Eastern cities are shghtly ele-
vated above the street, and would permit a speaker to make him-
self visible to the throng of bypassers ; but we know of no such
custom, and comparison with i-^ makes it probable that the term
here = thorough/ares ; cf. 9^- '^. As thoroughfares are called noisy
places and broad places (i^"-^), so they may be called high places
or highways, as in 16' (where, however, another word is used) ;
cf. Ju. 5^. Parallel to this is the expression in the streets (not, as
RV., where the paths meet). Grk. omits on the road, rendering
v.^ : on the lofty summits she is, amid the ways she stands ; the
omitted phrase may be a gloss on the preceding expression, but
something seems necessary here, and, in the absence of anything
better, this phrase may be retained. — 3. Synonymous, binary.
While v.^ thus mentions one sort of public place (the street), v.^
gives the other sort, the city-gates, which were common meeting-
places for citizens, like the Greek agora and the Roman forum ;
see, for ex., Ju. 9^, 2 Sam. 15^, Dt. 22'^ Jer. 17^, ^ 69'^*'^'. The
three expressions here used are merely varied ways of describing
the space at the gates where men met to talk. For the second
the Heb. has the jnouth (RV. entry) of the city ; we should per-
VIII. 1-5 l6l
haps read in front of the city. The gates (lit. doors) are the open-
ings in the gateways, the latter being elaborate structures, covered
ways with a door at each extremity ; for the full phrase door of
the gateway see i"', Jos. 8^, i K. 22'", Jer. i'^, Ez. 8^. The couplet,
thus, does not mention three different spots (on this side, on that
side, and within the gateway), but gives only one place. Wherever
men throng thither Wisdom goes. Instead of the immediate word
of Yahweh, which the prophet announces, the sage proclaims man's
own conviction of rational life, which, however, he identifies with
the will of God. — Bickell omits v.-"- ^^ as glosses, and thus makes
one couplet out of v." '^, and this was perhaps the original form :
Does not Wisdom call?
And Understanding utter her voice?
In the streets she takes her stand,
At the gateways cries aloud.
4-21. The teaching and the re^/ards of Wisdom. — After an
introductory appeal to men (v.* "), the section falls naturally into
two main parts, first (v.*^"), Wisdom's ethical excellence (her in-
struction, v.**"^, her superiority over silver, etc., v.'" "), and second
^yiii. 14-21^ omitting v.'^ as scribal insertion) her intellectual emi-
nence (she enables kings to rule well, v.^- '^"', and dispenses riches
and honor to those who love her, v.'^'-'). Cf. Job 28'^'^, Ben-
Sira i'' '^ Wisd. Sol. 7'* " 8^
4, 5. The appeal.
4. To you, O men, I call.
And my appeal is to the sons of men.
5. Learn, O ye simple, to know understanding,
And, ye fools, to untlerstand wisdom.
4. Synonymous, ternary. The terms men and sons of men
appear to mean all classes of men, and to indicate the writer's
view of the universality of the mission of Wisdom, who seeks her
disciples among Jews and Greeks, learned and unlearned. Ap-
peal is lit. voice. — 5. Synonymous, ternary. Lit.: comprehend,
ye simple, discretion, and, ye fool's, comprehend tvisdom. Wisdom
is the sage's ideal scheme of life, to be sought by those who have
it not ; they must set themselves to comprehend its nature. On
simple and /f^/ see notes on i* ". The Heb. word here translated
M
1 62 PROVERBS
by under standhig is that which in i* is rendered by sagacity {orma) ;
it means true knowledge of the principles of life. The significa-
tion of the corresponding term in cl. 2 (lit. heart) is given in
Hos. 7" : Ephraim is like a silly dove, without setise. The coup-
let may be rendered : Ye ifiexperienced, acquire intelligence — ye
thoughtless, emb7-ace wisdom. — The Latin here has ^wx^'^Xy ye fools,
give heed (= set your mind on), which does not maintain the par-
allelism of terms. The rendering of RV., be ye of an understand-
ing heart, does not give the sense of the Hebrew, in which the
exhortation is not understand in your mind, but apprehend and
appropriate the idea of wisdom. The writer accordingly goes on
to tell what wisdom is.
6-9. Wisdom declares her moral excellence.
6. Hear ye, for I speak < verity,'*
And the utterance of my lips is right.
7. Yea, my mouth discourses truth.
And i false lips are my abomination.* f
8. All the words of my mouth are just.
In them is nothing false and wrong.
9. They are all true to those who understand,
And right to those who find knowledge.
These verses form a group of aphorisms, all saying substantially
the same thing, with variations of phraseology. — 6. Synonymous,
ternary. Instead of verity (lit. verities) the Heb. has princes, or
perhaps princely {noble) things {RN . excellent things) , a term here
out of place ; a slight change of letters gives the word used in v.^%
straightforward, honest, true things, corresponding to the right or
right things in the second clauses of v.^ and v.^. Utterance is lit-
erally opening. — 7. Synonymous, ternary. The initial particle,
sometimes =/c^r, is here better taken as asseverative ; v. Ms par-
allel to, not explanatory of, v.^ In cl. 2 our Heb. has a^id wicked-
ness is an abomination to ?ny lips, in which the lips are poetically
described as rejecting wickedness with horror ; but a more natural
reading is suggested by 12", false lips are an abomination to
Yalnveh (cf. 16'^), and Grk. here has false lips are an abomina-
* Heb. : excellent things (?).
t Heb.: wickedness is abomination to my lips.
VIII. 5-IO 163
Hon to me; the change of sense requires no great change in the
Hebrew. — 8. Synonymous, binary-ternary (or, ternary). Just,
lit. in justice (RV. in righteousness) = in accordatice with right
(see notes on i^ 2' ^), in contrast with \\\.t. false and wrong of the
second clause, synonymous terms whose original, physical sense is
tiuisted or crooked ; the first occurs in Pr. only here (cf. Job 5^^) ;
on the second see note on 2'^. — 9. Synonymous, ternary. The
sense right, true for the adj. in first cl. is assured by 2 Sam. 15'
Am. 3^" Isa. 30*° Prov. 24^, and the second adj. is identical in
meaning with that of v.^''. What the verse says is not that Wis-
dom's words are clear, intelligible, simple to the instructed,* but
that they commend themselves as true ; RV. plain is ambiguous,
being = either level (as in RV. Isa. 40*) or clear, but neither of
these senses is correct. — The verse is an appeal to the moral
consciousness of men, affirming that he who understands the true
relations of life, whojitids (attains) moral knowledge, w'\\\ recognize
the truth of Wisdom's words. This affirmation stands almost alone
in OT. In Ez. 18^' there is the assumption that the people know
in their hearts that Yahweh's moral procedure is right ; here we
have a direct recognition of the insight of the conscience. How
a man comes to understand the truth the sage does not say. His
picture is objective and stative : the world is divided by him into
the two classes of the wise and the fools, and it depends on the
man's will to which of these he shall belong. In the NT. the
nearest approach to this conception of moral classes is found in
the Fourth Gospel.
10, 11. The sage declares the preciousness of wisdom.
10. Take ye instruction and not silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold.
11. For Wisdom is better than corals,
With her no treasures can compare.
The same thought is found in 3'^'^ on which see notes ; 8" is
substantially identical with 3'''. There (and so 8'^) the revenue or
outcome of wisdom is extolled, here wisdom itself. — 10. Synony-
mous, ternary. The Hebrew has my instruction, but the simple
* Kamphausen, and, in part, Delitzsch.
I 64 PROVERBS
noun (as in the Grk.) answers better to the knowledge of second cl.,
and to the wisdom of v.". The speaker is not Wisdom, but the
sage : the most desirable thing in Hfe, he says, is the insight which
enables one to order one's life by the standard of truth — the
point of view is that not of the prophets and psalmists, but of the
younger school of Jewish thinkers. Cf. 4^^ Choice gold '\% doubt-
less the same as the fine gold of 3'^, gold valuable by the gold-
smith's standard. The word rendered choice is found, in O T., only
in Proverbs.* — 11. Synonymous, ternary. On ^(^raA see note on
3'^. Treasures is literally desirable things (as, for ex., in Hag. 2'),
a general term including all things held to be valuable. Instead
of can compare with we may render are equal to.
13. This verse is not here in place, but it is not clear where it
is to be put. It not only interrupts the connection between v.'^
and V." (in which the intellectual excellence of wisdom is the
theme), but its tone is not that of the rest of the chapter. It
differs from the paragraph v.^^ (which it resembles in a general
way) by the use of the expression the fear of Yahweh ; in this
paragraph it is with moral insight, and not with religious fear, that
the writer is dealing, and elsewhere in Proverbs ihtfear of Yahweh
is defined only in general terms (as = wisdom, i'' 9'" 15^, or as
source of blessing, 10^ 14-*'^ i9^'^)> not by a specific moral con-
tent (in 16^ men depart from evil by the fear of Yahweh). Else-
where in this chapter Yahweh is spoken of only in his relation to
Wisdom, either as her friend (v.^^"^'), or as granting favors to her
friends (v.^). The first clause of the verse is a general declara-
tion which (apart from the difficulty stated above) might stand
anywhere in the section 10^-22'"; it is omitted by Bickell as a
gloss summing up the content of the verse. But even with this
omission it is impossible to find a natural place for the verse in
this chapter. In the section v.^" the theme is the truthfulness
of the instruction of Wisdom, and the mention oi pride is out of
place, and its thought has no special relation to that of v.'^, after
which it is put by Bickell. We must therefore conclude that the
verse, though found in all the Anc. Vrss., is a scribal insertion.
* On ancient Semitic methods of preparing gold, cf. Rawlinson, Phosnicia, Ch. 10.
VIII. lo-ii, 13 1C5
Many such aphorisms were doubtless in circulation among the
learned, and were occasionally inserted out of place. Heb. :
The fear of Yahweh is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogancy,
The way of evil and the mouth of falsehood
Do I hate.
Or, omitting the first line :
Pride and arrogance and sinful life
And the mouth of falsehood I hate.
The inconcinnity of the two parts of the verse, as it stands in the
Heb. text, is obvious : the first part is the sage's statement of the
relation of religion to evil ; the second part is, in the connection,
Wisdom's statement of her attitude toward evil. The rhythmic
arrangement is bad, and is not bettered by Grk. : the fear of the
Lord hates unrighteousness and insolence and pride and the ways
of tvicked men, and I hate the corrupt ways of bad me7i. On the
omission of first line see above. The sentiment of the verse is a
familiar one in Proverbs; see 2^' 6'^"'^ 11^ 16®. Pride and arro-
gancy are identical in meaning ; the first occurs only here in OT.,
the second is found in iG'**, and in OT, often elsewhere. On
falsehood (lit. what is turned away, that is, from truth) see notes
on 2^ » 6'*.
VIII. 1. 1^ (which IL follows exactly, and 2C with one variation) is sup
ported by the context. (gB.-(A (j-i> . . . K-qpv^eis and tea . . . inraKoiKxr] (for
n""!-" l.ir); Procop., with H-P 23, 109, 147, 157, 295 Aid., 5i6 av . . . Krjpv^ov,
and ST has ^'n^^ ''?vo^, = ]2^, — 5i6. Since this is a separate discourse, a con-
necting pS is improbable. The natural subject in ^ is Wisdom's utterance,
and the tniN >cr"i of (5 is doubtless scribal error. — 2. "["n ^SjJ is omitted by
(5, but the rhythm requires some word here, and nothing better offers itself.
Bi. omits these and the two preceding words, and v.•^^ reading (v.^-^) r\>2
.]^p anno n30 njx: ronj; the maintenance of the full form of J^ is favored by
j2o. 2i_ 'fhg difficult D^c'ia is better taken as the equivalent of its parallel
nu'inj of second cl. "^ 'C i:'X"\3, (5 iwl tQv viprjXCov dKpoiv, IL i>i summis excel-
sis que verticibus. "^ ro is scribal error for iin3 (v.^*^), or possibly Aramaism.
— 3. Jlj pnn •'£3'^; (5 SucacTTcSi', perhaps for a.<niu3v (Jag-). 'B is used of the
mouth of a well (Gen. 29^) or of the Underworld (i/- Gg'^t^^) 141') or of
the earth (Gen. 4'^), but never elsewhere of the entrance to a city. % juxta
portas civitalis, free rendering, possibly reading "'Jd'^. P ^2^ is parallel to Ti'3
in I'^i (on which see note), and may be a gloss; Oort suggests hn^p as pos-
/
I 66 PROVERBS
sible emendation. The two passages, 120.21 gi-s^ have probably affected each
other, and it is difficult to restore the true text. no:3 may be taken as
locative, without preposition. — 4. J^ a^Z'^a (elsewhere only Isa. 53^1/' 141*)
here = din ija, = AvOpwiroi; the distinction which seems sometimes to be
made (1/' 492(8) 62^'^"), cf. Isa. 2^), between oin '2 and tya '2, is not contem-
plated here. — 5. Jlj 3*? ira-^, (5 evdea-de Kapblav, = 2^ lyzri, to which the ob-
jection is not so much that the remote object is not expressed (for the aS P'K'
of I Sam. 42^ offers support for such a construction) as that it destroys the
parallelism of the verse — aS corresponds to na"i>. — 6. (B ei<TaKoij<raTi nov. —
1^ an^jj, as adj. aw, \ey., possibly (cf. ^]J, ijj) visible, clear (see Schult.'s
note), but probably (from nuj) princely, a sense here inappropriate; read
O^^JJ, as in v.'-*" (so Gratz) ; © creuva; SbWL as |^. — pj ;^rsr:, elsewhere key,
here opening (abstract noun of action) ; (5 acoicrw, apparently Pi. Part., not
so well; Oort n.ipc, from the door, referring to Mic. 7^, where, however, the
phrase is different. — 7. |§ y^n 'Poi^ na^Ji-"; (5 i^deXvy/x^va ivavTlov ifiov
XeiXTj ^evdyj; read 't ■'na'i' '''? 'ri (or Tayn), in accordance with 1222. — Before
n,-:N Bi. inserts i-ip-, a doubtful betterment of the rhythm. — 9. ^ has Part., in
first cl. sing., in second cl. plu. ; (§, better, plu. in both. — 10. "iDia; omit suff .,
with (3, in agreement with .~>n in second cl. — ||J ■'.s' (and not a*?) on account
of the injunction involved; see Ges.2"% § 152, id, Anm. i. — In •> several ilif-
ferent Grk. readings are found: (3^ = '^; (gBb(vid.) has, as doublet, dvre-
peiffdai (Clem. Al., Procop. avrepeLdeffOe, read dv6aip€?(Tde) 5^ alcrOricrei XP^'^^"^
KaOapov, (§^, as doublet, avTavaipetadai (read avOaipeiirde) at<T9-q<Ti.v xpvalov
Kal dpyvplov; the readings which differ from p^ are probably nearer the Grk.
original (Lag.). The verb was inserted, by the translator, to secure sym-
metry, or (Lag.) he read n-\n3j as pred. of r<;"\; ^ is to be maintained.
12, 14-16. The function of "Wisdom in the guidance of the
rulers of the world through her control of intelligence. — With
this prominence given to politiral leaders may be compared the
references to kings in other parts of the Book (14^* 16''*"'^ 19'"^^
22^ 24-^ 25^-^ 29'*" 30^' 31'' a/.). After the remark of the sage in
yW. n vvisdom now resumes her discourse.
12. I, Wisdom, < possess ' * intelligence,
I have knowledge and insight.
14. With me is counsel and skill,
With me understanding and might.
15. By me kings do reign.
And rulers administer justice.
16. By me princes govern,
And sovereigns < rule > f the earth.
* Heb. : dwell in, t Heb. : all the rulers (pi, judges) of.
VIII. 12, I4-I6 107
12. Synonymous, ternary. Possess is emendation of the Heb.
inhabit, which is here unnatural. The statement of the Heb. is
not that Wisdom dwells, in friendly alliance, with intelligence, but
that she dwells in intelligence, an unexampled form of expression.*
V.'^ " obviously set forth the resources of Wisdom ; the predicates
all state what she has at command. The connection calls for a
word expressing ownership, and the Peshita and the Targum have
create, which is apparently the rendering of the Heb. verb (see v.*^)
which means both create and possess; the latter term fits the con-
nection. Another emendation is am acquainted with (cf. \p 139^).
In second cl. the verb, lit. find, = co?ne upon, come into possession
0/ (so in V.*'). On intelligence (or, sagacity) see notes on i^ 8^
In second cl. the and, lacking in the Heb., is properly supplied
by RV. ; the combination occurs in i*''. The three predicate
nouns are synonyms. — 14. Synonymous, binary-ternary, or bi-
nary. In second cl. and is lacking in the Heb. before the second
noun ; this being supplied, the translation is : /, understanding is
mine and might. The rendering of RV. / am understanding is
out of keeping with the context and with the usage of the whole
Book. Counsel is advice, and the knowledge which enables one
to advise profitably. Skill is the ability so to arrange things as to
lead to the desired result ; see note on 2^ Might is power of
thought, and, by consequence, of action ; see Isa. 1 1^ and Job 12^^,
passages which stand in some relation to this. — The predicates in
v.'^ " are synonyms of wisdom ; but the latter conception is here
personified, and endowed with all the qualities that are connected
with it. — 15, 16. Synonymous, ternary. The rendering above
given of 16'' (which is after the Grk.) has the advantage of gaining
symmetry of clauses. The Heb. reads and sovereigns (or, nobles,
or, magnates'), all the judges of the earth. A similar sequence
occurs in \\i 148'^ : kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and
all judges of the earth; in the psalm it is natural, v.^'^ being com-
posed entirely of groups of nouns, with the verb in v.^. In our
passage the arrangement is different : v.'^'- '^''- '"" consist each of
subject and predicate ; the predicate is simply verb in v."* ^"^ in
v.''^'' it is verb and noun, and this form we expect in v.^®*". The
* Cf. tlie appropriate expression of i Tim. 61' : [God] dwelling in light un-
approachable.
1 68 PROVERBS '
Heb. text seems here to have been assimilated to that of the
psahn. — Administer = decree. — Instead of earth some Vrss. and
Heb. MSS. have justice, which is probably repetition, by scribal
error, from end of preceding verse. — The rulers of the world are
here conceived of ideally as governing by wisdom. The writerls
tone is friendly ; it is that of a man who looks on governments
broadly, as institutions of life to be controlled by the laws of
human knowledge and discretion. He thus stands in contrast
with those psalmists who regard the kings of the earth as hostile
to Israel (as \\i 149^), and with such passages as Eccl. 10-", in
which the king is spoken of as a dread personage to be cautiously
dealt with. Throughout Proverbs the source of royal success is
wisdom ; in the Psalms it is Yahweh who guides the earthly rulers
of Israel (i/' 144^"), and is indeed himself Israel's king (10"^ 29'^' a/.).
17-21. The first half of the chapter concludes with a descrip-
tion of the earthly rewards of Wisdom. Whatever men seek,
riches and honor, is supplied in abundance by Wisdom — men
will consult their interests in seeking her. The sage appeals to
dominant human motives, and teaches men how to make life
a success in the worldly sense. Cf. 3^"- ^^'^. V.''' belongs rather
to this paragraph than to the preceding.
17. I love those who love me,
And they who seek me find me.
18. Riches and honor are with me,
Lordly wealth and prosperity,
19. My fruit is better than finest gold,
And my produce than choice silver.
20. In the way of equity I walk,
In the paths of justice,
21. To endow my friends with wealth,
And fill their treasuries.
17. Synonymous, ternary-binary. On the rendering seek, in-
stead ol seek diligently (or, early), see note on i'^ — The reciproc-
ity expressed in first cl. is not real (like that of i/' ig^s-^^'^e.^'), but
only formal, the sense being that, by a natural law of mind, only
those who earnestly desire Wisdom can come into intimate rela-
tions with her. The first clause states the attitude of mind, the
VIII. i6-i8 169
second the consequent effort — the two are mutually complement-
ary. It is assumed that men may naturally desire wisdom, and
that search for it is always successful. The sage recognizes to the
full the moral responsibility and potency of man ; the highest gift
of life is within every man's grasp. His thought is an expanded
and refined form of the old-Hebrew idea (Ez. 18^). Similar
stress is laid in the Fourth Gospel on the power of the human
desire and will (Jno. 5'*"ji'<? do not wish to come to me) and on the
attitude of mind here expressed by the word love (Jno. 3'^ mefi
loved the darkness rather than the light). Cf. note on v.^. —
18. Synonymous, ternary. The connection shows that the refer-
ence is to earthly honor and wealth (as in v.^^ 3'" al.). Honor is
good repute in the eyes of men. Lordly = splendid, or, in general.
great, Grk. abundant, Lat. Vulg. stipe rb, RV. durable, margin
ancient (that is, inherited from apices tors) ; the word appears to
mean advanced, eminent, and some such superlative adjective is
suggested by the connection, but the sense inherited (Stade) is
not appropriate. — The term here translated by prosperity (np"i2C)
is usually rendered hy justice or righteousness. It signifies prima-
rily that which is right, true, as quality of a fact or of the soul
(the English yV/i-Z/V^ has the same double sense). In its most
general meaning, in accordance taith propriety or 7vith the facts in
the case, it occurs in i Sam. 26^, where Yahweh is said to give
every man his dtie, and in Joel 2^, where Yahweh gives rain in Just
measure. It thus comes to mean \k\e. just measure of fortune which
is meted out to a man, for example, by God, and then, by a natu-
ral transition, the good decision in his favor, the good fortune
awarded him — sometimes a legal decision by a judge (and the
judge may be God). It expresses Yahweh's interpositions on
behalf of Israel (Ju. 5"), that is, his (just) decisions in their
favor, and the good fortune which his protection insures : every
tongue that enters into a legal contest with thee thou shall get the
better of \_— procure a sentence of condemnation on] — this is the
lot of the servants of Yahweh, and their fortune awarded b\ me,
says Yahivch (Isa. 54^')- This signification comes out clearly in
i// 112, which is a description of the happiness of the man who
fears Yahweh ; his happiness is based on earthly prosperity, and
it is said of him, among other things (v.^) : wealth and riches are
170
PROVERBS
in his house, and his good fortune lasts for eter (that is, is con-
tinued in his descendants). So the word must be taken in 21^"', if
it be retained in the text (it is lacking in the Grk.), and this sense
is required by the connection of our verse ; the sage ascribes to
Wisdom the bestowal of well-being which the psalmist ascribes
to Yahweh. — 19. Synonymous, ternary. Fruit and produce
{^ — product, crop, revenue) are synonymous agricultural expres-
sions of blessing and prosperity. As in the preceding verse,
the blessing is external. The comparison affirms not that Wis-
dom's reward is different in character from gold (namely, moral
and spiritual), but that it is more splendid and desirable than the
most precious metals. — In first cl. the Heb. has two terms, gen-
erally rendered by gold and fine gold ; their precise meanings are
uncertain, but their combination may be represented hy finest
gold. Cf. note on v'". — 20, 21. Both couplets are synonymous;
v.^ is ternary, v.^' ternary-binary. Wisdom sums up her promises
of reward in the declaration that she deals equitably and justly
with her friends. Equity and justice are synonyms. The former
term represents the Heb. word rendered by prosperity in v.'* ;
here it is a quality of action (= right decision), there it is the
result of this action. The statement of v.^ is simply I deal justly.
Friends, lit. those ivho love me, as in v."; wealth = possession,
property (RV. substance). The initial particle in v.^* expresses
purpose {in order that I may), and this is here equivalent to
result {so that I do). Wisdom's justice is guarantee that she will
properly reward those who devote themselves to her ; the two
verses may be thus paraphrased : Since I am just, my friends will
be properly rewarded. The rendering righteousness (instead of
equity) in v.'-'" is misleading ; it conveys to us the idea of obedi-
ence to religious law, or moral and religious purity ; but these
qualities, though they belong to Wisdom, are not here in question ;
the writer, as the connection shows, has in mind simply the justice
which assures to every man his due. — At the end of v.^^ Grk.
adds, as introduction or transition to the following section, the
words : If I declare to you the things of daily occurrence, I will re-
member to recount the things of old — that is, I now pass from our
present life to the history of the primeval time — an explanatory
note by a scribe, not a part of the original text.
VIII. 18-21 1 71
12. J^ \'iJ3r, an improbable expression; ® KaTe<TKr^vw(ra; S^T '"'"\3 create
(cf. rink) ; read \'^jrDn utiderstand, or Ti":!"', which is graphically not hard,
if the V of \nj3r may be miswriting of preceding n (in ncjn). Before noTC
insert 1 . J^ sxcx; (@ ^TreKaXea-d/x?;;', for ^TreKTijffd/Lt?;;' (Jag.). — 13. |§ JJT nNiU";
on S'®^ cf. Pink.; on an apparently personal interpretation of j?n (= bad man)
in Talm. see H. Deutsch, Spr. Sal., p. 68. — 14. In '' we must either take in
as preposed subject, and insert i before mn \ or, what is simpler, following
(5, change 'js to "''. — -16. Jlj "tn ''3d-j' S3; (@ rvpawoi Kparovcn yyj^; read
s r3yy\ — For i'->n S'^TIL and many Heb. MSS. and printed Edd. give p-^x
(see De' Rossi), which seems to be scribal repetition from end of preceding
verse; after ao.;* we expect 2 before piy, as in 1/' 96^^ 98^. — On SC see Pink.'s
note. — 17. Read Qeri ^3-i>< (so (g) ; Bi. 3-ix rf 371s ^^x / /ovc him 7vho loves
Yah, an improbable reading. — ^18. J^ p;;'"; (5 ttoXXwj', perhaps for iraXaiOiv
(Grabe, cited by Lag.); SC s^'^tci and riches; S = ?^; 'A /uer' iip-qvr)^; S
(and 6) 7raXai6s; ft superbae. — 20. At the end (5 adds dva(TTpi(poiJ.a.i, to
correspond with the vb. of first cl., but against the rhythm. —21. |^ r;;
iS'vTTap^iv; 'K x.-iNMD x-'rr many years ; S x-\2D //o/d'/ % ut ditem. On the
form cf. Ew., § 146 a', Stade, § 370^, and on the meaning BDB. On the coup-
let added in (@ (the style of which differs from that of the context) see notes
of Jager, Lag., Baumgartner.
22-31. Wisdom's primeval life with Yahweh. — A section
distinct from, but allied to, the preceding. The statement of
Wisdom's rewards is followed by a description of her creation and
her intimate relations with Yahweh ; the picture is similar to that
in 3^^-'°, but is more detailed, with distincter personification, ap-
proaching but not reaching hypostatization. Wisdom was brought
into being before Yahweh began the work of creation (v.^-"""), was
present when he established heavens, sea, and earth (v.-'"-'^), rejoic-
ing in all his work (v.^** "'). This is the culmination of the portrai-
ture, in Proverbs, of Wisdom's function in the world : she is the
source of sound knowledge in life (v."^^'), she conducts the gov-
ernment of society (v.'-"'^), and confers the noblest rewards (v.''"-'),
she antedates human experience, having been present at the con
struction of the world (v."''''). The description is completely
non-national and universal, and thus stands in contrast with the
similar passage in Ben-Sira (ch. 24), in which Wisdom dwells in
Israel and is identified with the Jewish Law. From the more
vivid and human picture of Wisd. Sol., ch. 7 it differs in its
architectural simplicity and solidity, while Philo's Wisdom is more
philosophical in form and comes to the very verge of hypostasis.
172: PROVERBS
In Job 28 the representation of Wisdom is ethical, not cosmo-
gonic : eluding man's search she is declared by God to be iden-
tical with righteousness. Proverbs offers the earliest surviving
form of that Hellenized conception which finally took complete
shape in Philo. The sage of Proverbs is thoroughly Israelitish,
but his idea of the unity and order of the world has been formed
in an atmosphere pervaded by Greek thought. His Wisdom is
the creature of Yahweh, God of Israel and of the whole earth, but
is at the same time the highest intelligence, conceived of as
present with God in the creation of the world, and directing all
human life — a conception which thus combines philosophic uni-
versality and Jewish theistic belief.
With the picture of creation here given cf. that of Gen. i, that
of Job 38''"", and the Babylonian cosmogonic epic* Our poem
divides itself naturally into four parts : Wisdom's primeval origin
(v.^- ^) ; her birth before the world (v.^*"-'^) ; her presence at the
creation of the world (v.^"^) ; her joyous existence in the pres-
ence of God (v.**^'). The third division seems to refer in a gen-
eral way to the second : v.^*- ^'^ have the same material as w!^, and
v.^** has the same as v.-^ -^ ; v.-' has no antecedent, unless there
be in v.^^-^ an implication of the creation of the heaven (cf. Gen.
i^). The paragraph consists of ten couplets, and might be
written as five quatrains (so Bickell), but the logical division
would thus be abandoned.
22. Yahweh formed me as the beginning of his creation,
The first of his works, in days of yore;
23. In the primeval time was I fashioned,
In the beginning, at the origin of the earth.
24. When there were no depths was I brought into being,
No fountains full of water;
25. Before the mountains were sunk,
Before the hills was I brought into being,
26. When he had not yet made the earth, [] f
Nor the first of the clods of the world.
* See Delitzsch's edition of the poem, and the discussion of it in M. Jastrow's
Relig. of Babylonia and Assyria, ch. 21.
t Heb. adds : and the fields.
VIII. 22-23 173
27. When he estalilished the heavens I was there,
When he marked off the vault on the face of the deep,
28. When he made firm the clouds above,
< Fixed fast > the, fountains of the deep,
29. When he set l)ounds to the sea, [] *
When he laid the foundations of the earth.
30. And I was at his side, as his 1 ward,>
Full of delight day by day,
Sporting in his presence continually,
• 31, Sporting in his world. [] f
22, 23. Wisdom's primeval origin.
22. Synonymous, quaternary- ternary. Instead of Yahweh Targ.
has God. — The rendering forn/ed ( = created ) is, supported by
the parallel expressions in v.-'' -^ -' {made or ordained 2lXv^ brought
into being) ; the translation possessed (RV.) is possible, but does
not accord with the context, in which the point is the time of
Wisdom's creation. — The Hebrew, all the Greek Versions, and
the best MS. of the Vulgate (Cod. Amiatinus) have as the begin-
ning, Clementine Vulgate, Syriac, Targum in the beginning (so
RV.) ; the two readings are substantially identical in meaning,
"but that of the Hebrew is favored by the form of second cl. {first),
and by the similar phrase in Job 40'", where Behemoth is described
-as the chief (lit. beginning) of the creation of God. % — Creation is
lit. way, = procedure, performance (Job 26" 40^'') ; Grk. has pin.
ways, which is perhaps favored by plu. tvorks of second cl. — First
(RV. margin) is the more natural rendering of the Hebrew ;
•before (RV. and some Anc. Vrss.) is hardly allowable. — Cf. the
beginning of the creation of God (Rev. 3'^), and the firstborn of
ail creation (Col. i'^). — In days of yore (RV. of old) = "in
remotest antiquity " ; see note on the parallel expression in next
verse. — 23. Synonymous, binary. While v.^- describes Wisdom
as the first of Yahweh's works, v.-'' gives the time of her creation
in general terms. The Hebrew prepositions introduce the point
of time not before which (RV., some Anc. Vrss.) but^/jvhich the
creation took place. Primeval time (usually everlasting in RV.)
* Heb. adds : that its waters should not transgress his command.
t Heb. adds : and my delight was with mankind.
X See Budde'S note, in Nowack's Handkommentar.
174 PROVERBS
is time hidden by distance, remote, dim, in the past or in the
future ; in Mic. 5'*'' it is used to express the remote origin of the
Davidic house : a ruler in Israel whose origin is long ago in the
distant past. The famiUar expression from everlasting to everlast-
ing gives the two termini of a long period, = from a remote past
to a remote future ; so in </' 90-, where the termini, appUed to
God, are indefinitely remote, though the Hebrew word has not
the modern sense of the temporally infinite. — The rendering
fashioned is favored by the formed of v.'"'^ (see also the verbs
expressing birth in v.-^ ^*). It seems, however, to be forcing the
terms when it is held (Frank.) that v.^^^ refer to Wisdom's con-
ception in the womb, and v.^^ to her birth ; both paragraphs
relate to her birth, the difference between them being that the
first is general, the second specific. The rendering (see \^ 2")
ordained, established (RV. set up), = placed in position, is per-
mitted by the connection, but is less apposite. — The origifi (ht.
first times) of the earth = the beginning of Yahweh's work. —
Wisdom, though coeval with the beginning of the divine activity,
is created at a definite point of time, and thus differs from the
Logos of Philo and the Fourth Gospel. The date and occasion
of the beginning are not defined (though Wisdom precedes the
physical world), and nothing is said of the existence of Wisdom
or of the nature of the life of God before the creative work
begins.
24-26. Wisdom anterior to the physical world.
The physical world is described by its parts : in v.^* the waters,
in v.'" the mountains, in v.^** the soil. — 24. Synonymous, binary.
Depths are the great masses of water, seas and rivers, including
probably the subterranean ocean whence fountaitis spring ; see
note on 3^. Brought into being, lit. brought forth; the same
figure is used of the earth in i/' 90^, and of the sea in Job 38^ ;
here it seems to be a pure figure of speech (parallel to fortned,
vP), with no reference to physical begetting; Wisdom is the
creature, not the child, of Yahweh. In the Hebrew of second cl.
ihQ fountains are described by a term usually understood to mean
heavy, heavy-laden, and so abounding (RV.) or rich {in water) ;
the word occurs nowhere else in this sense, and is not found in the
VIII. 23-26 175
Grk. ; a slight change of the Heb. gives the meaning /////, but
the word should perhaps be omitted. — 25. Synonymous, ternary.
The word sunk refers to the ancient view that the mountains were
solid structures resting on foundations sunk deep in the earth
down to the floor of the subterranean ocean ; so \\i 18^'*' the foun-
dations of the mountains shook (in an earthquake), and Jon. 2^''>
I went do7V7i to the bases (or, extremities^ of the mountains (the
level of the bottom of the sea).* — 26. Synonymous, ternary.
The Hebrew reads : the earth and the outside places. The expres-
sion outside places is difficult. To understand it as referring to
the heavenly spaces (for which it would be a strange and improb-
able term) seems forbidden by the parallelism, second cl. speaking
of the earth alone. The word must mean fields, as in Job 5^^ To
obtain a contrast some expositors take earth as = cultivated land,
and fields as = uncultivated land, but this does violence to the
language. It is difficult to regard the two terms as synonymous,
as in Job 5'° ; in Job they occur in different clauses in proper par-
allelism, while here they stand together connected by and (which
can hardly be taken as = namely), and, even if the synonymity
were allowed, we should have to suppose a whole to be put in ap-
position with some of its parts. This is obviously different from
the common expression the earth and all that it contains {the
earth and the fulness thereof). We get no light on the verse
from the Anc. Vrss. Grk. : the Lord made countries and uninhab-
ited tracts and inhabited summits of the regioti under the heave?is,
which follows the Heb. in a general way, but yields no sense.
Syr. Targ. Lat. have rivers instead of outside places; Aq. and
Sym. have exits. Either these renderings are guesses, or they rep-
resent forms of text different from ours. It seems impossible to
fix the Heb. original, but, in any case, both clauses refer to the
creation of the earth, and the expression outside places may be
omitted without detriment to the thought. For Heb. first (or,
mass) of the clods (or, dust) Lat. has poles; the chronological
rendering first (instead of mass) is favored by first line {not
yet).
* Cl. the Babylonian view, given in Jastrow's Relig. of Bab. and Ass., p. 443,
8f.
til^ PROVERBS
27-31 . Wisdom present at the construction of the universe.
27-29 describe the creation of the physical world (omitting
heavenly bodies and animate things), probably selected on ac-
count of its obvious grandeur ; the wonderfulness of man is rarely
spoken of in OT. (i/' 8. 139). Gf. Job 38*-". — 27. Synonymous,
ternary. The heavens = sky, thought of as a soUd expanse
(Gen. i^) to be fixed in its place. To the eye it appears as the
interior of the dome, a circle, sphere, vault, on which God is said
to walk (Job 22'^) ; this vault descends on all sides to the terres-
trial expanse, forming a circle (the horizon), and is said to rest on
the deep, that is, the ocean which not only underlies but also flows
round the world (Gen. i^ \\i 104""^). This conception (to which
that of the Babylonians and Greeks is similar) * rests on the
simplest geographical observation. If the rendering circle be
adopted (RV.), instead oi vault, the reference will be to the hori-
zon.— 28. Synonymous, ternary. Clouds (AV.) as in 3^, not
skies (RV.), the heavens (= skies) being mentioned in the pre-
ceding verse ; the Heb. w»ord is used for the sky apparently con-
ceived of as an expanse of clouds (Dt. 33-^ i/^ 18"*^"^). In the
second line the fountains of the deep might, from the parallelism,
be interpreted as the celestial sources of water, stored above the
firmament, whence descends the rain when the windows of heaven
are opened (Gen. 7") ; the sea is mentioned in the next verse.
But the deep is elsewhere always the sea, and must probably be
so understood here — in this verse its formation, in v.^' its limita-
tion. In accordance with the phraseology of the rest of the para-
graph we must read fixed fast (instead of becatne fast or strong,
or burst violently forth), a reading supported by the Greek, and
obtained by a slight change in the Hebrew. — 29. A triplet (as
the text stands) ; the first and second lines form a couplet, synony-
mous, ternary, and the third line also is ternary. The bounds of
the sea are fixed, as in Gen. i^^" Job 38'^" «/' I04^^ Lit. when he
set to the sea its bound ; the rendering when he ordained his decree
for the sea does not accord so well with the following clause.
Nor, in second cl., is the translation should not pass beyond its-shore
allowable, since the Heb. word ("B) is never used in the sense of
* Jastrow, op. cit.; II. 18, 607 ; Herod. 4, 36.
VI 11. 27-30 \iy
$hore . '-:-T\i& earth is described as founded, like a building, in
fnany passages in OT. (Jer. 31''^ Isa. si'"* Job 38^ \\i 24- 82* 104^),
and the word is to be interpreted literally. — The Vatican Grks
omits the first and second clauses of this verse (probably by scribal
oversight) ; Bickell, to avoid the triplet form, omits the third. The
syljimetrical arrangement of the other verses suggests that a line
may have here fallen out of the Hebrew text, or been added to it.
There is no trace of a missing line. The third line corresponds
tQi v.^^, and seems to be necessary ; but second line, an explana-
tion of first line, is not necessary, and may be a gloss suggested
by Job 38".
30, 31 describe Wisdom's manner of life at the side of Yahweh
during the work of creation. Text and translation are difficult.
Cf. WS. 7"-8^ — 30. Apparently ternary ; v.^"'' appears to belong
with v.^^", the two lines forming a couplet (ternary). The verb
was refers the paragraph to the period mentioned above, the time
of creation. The expression at his side implies intimate associa-
tion, but not necessarily architectonic activity ; in itself it conveys
only the idea that God's work was characterized by wisdom. —
The word rendered ward in the translation above occurs only here
in OT., and its meaning is doubtful. By a change of form it may
be understood as having the same sense as the similar term in
Cant. 7'*-', artist, here arxhitect, master-workitian ;* the objection
to this rendering is that in the preceding description Yahweh him-
self is architect, and in the following context Wisdom is repre-
sented as sporting, not as working.f A different change of the
Heb. word gives the form found in Lam. 4*, = one brought up,
cherished, whence alumnus {alumna'), nursling, foster-child, \ or
guarded, under protection, ward (Frank.). Frankenberg under-
stands the procedure of the paragraph thus : Wisdom is conceived
^y 22.23^^ is born (v.-^-*^), is present at the creation (v.-^'^), is, as
young child, at Yahweh's side, under his care, living a Joyous life.
The sense nursling accords with the succeeding context, and with
* So Grk., Laf., Ew., RV., and most modern expositors. The expression in
Jer. 52IS is too obscure to be cited in this connection.
t It is, perhaps, to the sense artist of the word here that WS. 721 alludes in its
TCj(vi.ll.'i,
X Aq., Rashi, AV., Schult., al.
N
178 PROVERBS
the representation of the whole paragraph, and corresponds, as
passive, to the active nurse or tutor, male (Nu. ii'^ 2 K. 10'
Isa. 49^^^ Esth. 2^) or female (2 S. V Ru- 4"*)- The renderings
faithful (Targ.) and contimially (Hoffman, Schriftbeweis, I., 97)
are not allowable ; the Heb. might be changed so as to give the
sense continually, parallel to day by day, and to the adverb in the
third line, but the change would be arbitrary and graphically hard.
— WS. 9^, Wisdom, who knows thy works, was with thee, was pres-
ent when thou madest the world, appears to be a philosophically
colored reproduction of this line. — In second line the Heb. reads
lit. : / was delight, which may mean " I experienced an emotion of
delight " or " I was a source of delight " (to God), = his delight; *
the latter is the sense of delight in most of the passages in which
the word occurs (Isa. 5" Jer. 31^,1/' 119-^"'), but the former is
favored by the connection, in which is portrayed Wisdom's joy in
the contemplation of the divine creation (Wild., al.) ; cf. Job 38^
For the construction (/ was delight — I was full of delight) cf.
i/' 120^: / am peace, = "I am for peace (or peaceable)," and
Gen. 12^: be thou blessing, = "be thou full of (or, a type of)
blessing." — The picture of enjoyment is continued in the next
line by the term sporting or laughifig (RV., rejoicing), which in
like manner portrays Wisdom's delight in God's work. The word
can hardly have the sen^Q joyously active, which would be appropri-
ate if Wisdom were represented as master-workman.^ — 31. Ter-
nary. The first line seems to be identical in meaning with v.**".
His world is lit. the world of his earth, in which expression the
first term may represent as an organized whole that which the
second term represents merely as a mass. The expression is,
however, more probably a rhetorical aggregation ; the two terms
are really synonymous (as in v.^", \^ 90^ a/.), the first being poetic,
the second the ordinary prose word ; the first does not mean
specifically the inhabited world, rj oikou/acVi; (as RV. interprets it)
— both terms are occasionally used in that sense {ij/ 96'*), It
* So Grk., RV., Oort, Frank., at.
+ The verb is used to describe the play of the people in a festival (Ex. 326),
dancing etc. in a religious procession (2 S. 621), and a military combat of cham-
pions (2 S. ai'Ufi) ; in the last case the "sport" was of the grimmest, but it was
apparently regarded as a spectacle in which the two armies found relaxation and
pleasure.
VIII. 30-36 179
does not seem to be the intention of the poet to represent Wisdom
as passing from the divine presence into the world of men ; the
point in the whole of the preceding description is her intimate
association with Yahweh in the creation of the world — not as
architect or adviser, but as companion — it is the poetical expres-
sion of the fact that wisdom is visible in the construction of the
world. This being the theme, it seems improbable that at the
end so important a point as Wisdom's dealing with men (which is
treated at length in the first half of the chapter) would be intro-
duced with a brief sentence, and with the term sporting. For this
reason the second line, and my delight was ivith mankind (lit. with
the sons of men), appears to be an addition by an editor or scribe
who desired to see a reference to Wisdom's work among men. But,
in the preceding description of creation man is not mentioned,
the author choosing to confine his view to the physical world (cf.
Job 38. 39, where only things non-human are mentioned). — Grk.
regards Yahweh as the subject of the couplet : when he rejoiced
at having finished the inhabited world, and rejoiced among the
sons of men (following Gei).. y") but the change of subject is
improbable.
32-36. Wisdom's concluding exhortation to men. The He-
brew reads :
32. And now, my sons, hearken to me —
Happy are they who walk in my ways.
33. Hear instruction that ye may be wise.
Reject it not.
34. Happy is the man who hearkens to me,
Watching continually at my gates,
Waiting at the posts of my doors.
35. For he who finds me finds life,
And obtains favor from Yahweh,
36. And he who misses me wrongs himself —
All who hate me love death.
In the Hebrew text the order is unsatisfactory ; v.^ is closely
connected with vP^, and v."'^" with v.''^'* — this is nearly the order of
Vat. Grk., which, however, omits v.'". Following this suggestion,
with some modifications, we might read :
And now, my sons, hearken to me,
Hear my instruction, reject it not.
1 80 PROVERBS
Happy is he who walks in my ways,
Happy the man who hearkens to me.
Watching, etc.
If v.*' be retained, as in the Hebrew, its symmetry would be im-
proved by reading the second Hne : Reject not my admonition.
The hnes in the Heb. text are ternary, except v.^**, which has
only one beat ; in the emendation suggested above this exception
disappears. The emendation also gets rid of the triplet (v.^^),
and gives a series of synonymous couplets. Bickell, by inser-
tions, makes three quatrains. — The happiness of the devotee of
Wisdom (the central thought of chs. 1-9) is here stated in general
terms. Such an one waits at her doors (v.^"*) like a suppliant for
royal favor. The content of the happiness is expressed (v.^) by
the equivalent terms life and the favor of Yahzveh, the opposite of
which is wronging one' s self a.nd death (v.*'). The life and death
are, as elsewhere (i^^ 2^^-^^ 3^*', etc.), physical, but with the conno-
tation of general earthly well-being or failure, bodily and moral.
The opposite oi finds is misses (v.^*^, RV., marg.), that is, fails to
find — - metaphorical expression taken from missing a mark ; sin
also in Heb. is conceived of as a failure to hit the mark, but the
sense sins against (RV.), which the Heb. word might conceivably
have, does not accord with that of the parallel clause. There is,
however, in misses an element of conscious action iy = purposely
fails to find), which is definitely expressed in the parallel hate
(v.^) = deliberately disapprove and reject (cf v.^). It is the free
human will that is appealed to (as in i^^ and throughout the
Book) — of their own motion men accept or reject the highest
things. Those who reject instruction do violence to, wrong them-
selves {his soul = himself ) , and, hating the source of life, love
death (see 2^ 4" 5^ 7^) ; the rendering his life, instead of him-
self (v.^""), is less accurate. By change of text despises may be
read (as in 15^^), instead of 7urongs, but the change is not neces-
sary. With the independent action of man accords the attitude
of God — to those who choose aright he shows goodwill, friend-
liness, favor (v.^) — ■ his opposite attitude toward the unwise is
stated in f-^ (cf. ip jg^^ -''>(2« 2"'). The relation of God to human
conduct is here described as that of a judge — he is not said to
inspire or guide, but to bestow favor or disfavor according to
desert (so generally in OT.).
VIII. 32-36 l8l
This description of wisdom has played a prominent part in theo-
logical history, especially in the history of Christian dogmatics,
it is imitated in BS. i'-'" 24 ; in the latter chapter Wisdom is iden-
tified with the Law, and so generally in the later Jewish expository
works.* In Wisd. Sol. 7 it is Wisdom's relation to the human
soul that is expounded. The NT., chiefly occupied with other
points of view, barely alludes (Mt, 11'" i Cor. i-* Col. i^^i**) to an
identification of Wisdom with the Messiah. Philo's treatment of
the conception hardly goes beyond the OT. point of view.t The
Jewish schools appear to have laid no stress on the demiurgic
function of wisdom as such. J It is in the Christian Church that
the idea first assumed importance. The whole passage, Pr. 8^"^*
(especially v.^-) was early employed in the controversies respecting
the nature of the Second Person of the Trinity, particularly in con-
nection with the idea of eternal generation ; the argument turned
in part on the question whether the verb in v.^- was to be trans-
lated by created or by possessed. The passage was used by the
Sabellians,§ and is referred to as proof of the uncreated person of
the Son by Irenaeus, || Tertullian,^ and especially by Athanasius
(against the Arian position),** and later by Augustine,tt and
Basil of CaesareaJI; it has often since been cited as proof-
text. §§ It seems obvious that it gives a personification, intended
to affirm the wisdom manifest in the creation of the world — an
approach (under Greek influence) to hypostasis, but not more
than an approach.
22. ?§ .-iin- S; N.-i^N — J^ 'jip; ©B'^Aof.piur. (and so SE)e/crt(re;'; H-P 23
(Venet.), 252, 'A29 ^KT-rjcraro, and IL possedit. — (5 renders oip by tU, and
omits iNC; the rendering appears to be an error of the translator, and not
* Midrash Mishle on Pr. 822, Ber. Rab., c. I, al.
+ See Drumniond, Philo-Judaeus, Bk. 3, ch. 6, p. 212; Siegfried, Philo von
Alexand.; Briggs, Messiah of Apostles, p. 495-514; Toy, Judaism and Christian-
ity, p. 99-102.
X See Weber, Theologie (on Memra, Metatron, etc.).
\ Dorner, Person of Christ, Eng. transl. I., 2, p. 183 f.
II Cont. Haer., Bk. 4, ch. 20.
f Cont. Prax., ch. 7. ff- Oe Trin., Bk. I., ch. 12.
♦* De Decret., 13, 14, and Or at. II., chs. 16-22. ++ Letters, 8, 8.
\\ In Crit. Sac. (on 822) by Calv. Inst., 2, 14, 8, Turretine, Inst., 3, 29, and (appar-
ently) by Dick, Thcol., ch. 30, but not by Hodge and other recent writers.
I 82 PROVERBS
designed to avoid the expression of primeval origin, which it brings out fullj
in the context. S® ^T ]'-; "^ anteqiiam. — The construction of this verse,
and particularly of j-f, is difficult, cip is not a preposition in Heb. (RV.
before'), nor does it elsewhere occur as noun — foremost, first (what was the
Heb. original of BS. i* irporipa iravruv we do not know). Either (if the text
be retained) it must be read as an Aram, form, ^■'p (which is not a probable
writing for the original text), or it must be conjecturally assumed to mean
first. If the context (v.-^) be held to call for the temporal interpretation
of the two predicates, we must read rr'^sna (so Jerome, Ep. 140, ad Cyp.).
The difficulty with 2^p might be avoided by reading: tnd ^j'^;'s a^pc, of old ht
created me, of yore ; there would then be no word in •* answering to the i;"n
of *, but this would not be an insuperable objection. — 23. J^ 'Hddj ; @ i6efj.e\i(o-
ffev, as if from iD", and so & 'jjfrN, and 2C (pass.) "^jprinNs; 'A KaTeffTddrjv;
IL ordinata sum. The signification put, set, establish for the stem iDj is
assured by ^ 2^, and by Ass. nasak ( = put, set, De., Hwbuch) ; possibly this
signification and the pour out of Heb. are connected; Ass. has nisakku
(^ = priest), and both Ass. and Heb. have ID] prince, perhaps = one set (in
official position), possibly, hke nisakku, = a pourer (of libations). But the
derivation of our word from i.D is more satisfactory (Ew., Hitz., Frank.);
\~oDJ was read by S (and, according to one account, by 9), -irpoKexeipicrfjiai,
probably for irpoKexp^cp-ai, and (De.) by Graec. Ven., k^x^I^^'^- — 24. ^ \';S^n;
@, less well, TroL7J(Tai. — |^ m^-, lacking in <3, and perhaps to be omitted as
yielding no satisfactory sense; we may, however, read ■'nVsj or 'nSd (cf.
Eccl. 11^). Bottcher's noblest of waters is not appropriate. Oort DVp3j cleft,
with omission of D^c, does not commend itself. The dag. forte in the t seems
to be due to the rapid pronunciation of stat. const. — 26. |§ nS i;;; (5 Ktjpios,
free rendering, or possibly = j-v. — |^ risi-; <3 doiK-qrovs; the word is in-
compatible with I'ls (perhaps inserted from Job 5^"), and is better omitted.
<S3riL rivers, on which see Noldeke's remark in Pink. — 1§ pi-ioy ti'N^; Graetz
noblest of dust, = gold (Job 28^). For '; Dys. writes ^''o;" heights, an unneces-
sary change; (5 oiKoijfieva, the origin of which is doubtful; Baumg., probably
rightly, rejects Aram, nncy inhabited; Held, suggests Piai;*, the name of one
of the seven heavens, according to Pirke F.liezer, c. 18 (see ^ 68*); cf. Levy,
Chald. Wort. — 27. J§ Jin (see Isa. 40^2 Job 22^*); (5 Bphvov, perhaps after
Job 22^*. — (@ avifjiuiv, = mnn, or freely takes ainr to be the upper ocean, the
cnurce of rain and wind-clouds, and so perhaps, in next verse, t^j xjtt o\jpav6v.
- 28. J^ Piy; write in:; (Oort, Bi.), from the connecti^^n. and @ a,<T(f>a\€h
iridei. — (5 T7]i bir oipavbv (see preceding note), perhaps — ^3n (ciT. v."'^^);
Ju.it. and Iren. are cited in H-P as having a^iacrov, and L;:g. holds this to be
the genuine reading of ®. — 29. (@^ omits «■''■, apparer ly by scribal error;
Bi. omits "^ as induced by the erroneous Grk. text of v.''^'^''; probably J§ has lost
a line. For J^ pin (5^ had p'n, a good reading, but no change of f^ is neces-
sary.— 30. 3§ t'CN; taken from stem pN firm by <S apix6'^ovaa; % NjpPD
arranger (or perhaps pass., =firm, trusty) ; 29 icrTT^piynivt}; 3L cuncta com-
ponens ; understood as connected with [CN nurse \)^ ' K. ndrjuov/x^uij (= j^CN,
IX. 1 83
cf. Lam. 4^ Graetz) ; rendered as adj. by W- H'^ir^^'r^ii faithful, trusty. Nouns
of the form '^ap are either abstract nouns of action (Inf. abs.), or of the
nature of Pres. Parts., usually of stative vbs. (l^p), sometimes of active or
voluntative vbs. (l-'^, perhaps p.A lord); on the norm see Ew., § 152 3; on
the masc. form, Ges.''^'>, § 1 22, 2, c. Anm. 1 . 1- ur the name of agent we expect
the form 'rap, as in Cant. 7-, and .\ss. uniiiidnu. Read r;N. Cf. BDB., s.v.
|iDN and jD.v. — 1^ z-;\.' :.• 1 i^ ; (5 {701 y)ii.y\v y irpoff^xo-i-pev, reading vyry"'y,
which, from the connection, is improbable. The expression, which looks tau-
tologous, is omitted by Bi. as dittography from the context; if it be taken as
scribal repetition, the DV or also should probably be omitted. The line may,
however, be retained; see note on this v. above. — 31. (3 understands ni.T as
subject, and at end of » adds ffwreX^a-as, perhaps reading n^^^P for S^n (Lag.),
perhaps free translation, since (Baumg.) oiKovjxivqv suggests Sari. — 32. The
order in i^^ is v. 3-«- 34a. 32b. 34b. etc. ^y33 js omitted), a natural arrangement,
favored by the 1 in ni'.si, which seems to point to a preceding parallel clause.
Bi., after the Saidic Vrs., fills out v.^^"- ^ as follows : And now, my sons,
hearken to me ; Hear the instruction \of my words ! Live to length of days'\
and be wise, And reject not \_my admonition'] ! a possible but suspicious ex-
pansion; it introduces the reward (life) in anticipation of v.'**, and employs
the doubtful expression a'C ii.s''^ vn (in ip 23^ the verb is different). If not
the addition of the Coptic scribe, it is based on a doubtful Heb. text; cf. Bi.'s
note. — 33. The Heb. text is rhythmically unsatisfactory, and, if the verse be
retained, we should perhaps, with Bi. (see preceding note), add TinDi.^ at end.
— 35. K •'Nxc (Q Nxo) seems to be scribal repetition of preceding word;
(@, (ioboL /J.OV €^o8oi fwTjs, read ■'Nsb and '•N'sb, inappropriate and improbable.
— 36. @ has Part, and vb. plu. in * — probably a change of the Grk. scribe,
in the interests of rhetorical symmetry; Heb. poetry is fond of variations of
grammatical number in adjacent clauses.
IX. Wisdom and Folly as hosts. — This chapter, as it stands,
consists of three parts. In v.'"^ Wisdom is personified as a house-
holder who prepares a feast (v.^^), to which she inviies the unin-
structed (v.^-^), urging them to partake of her provision and Hve
(v;^ ") ; cf. i^^'^ 8'-^^ In contrast with this, stands, in the third
part, v.^'^, the invitation of Folly, who, noisy and seductive (v.'^),
sits in a prominent place and calls to the passers-by (v." '^),
tempting the uninstructed youth by promise of secret dehghts
(v.^* ^"), he not knowing that her house is Sheol (v.'*). Standing
between these two descriptions, and interrupting their connection,
is the paragraph v."''^, composed of separate aphorisms ; it belongs
by its contents in the succeeding division of the Book (10-22"''),
and is here doubtless inserted by scribal error. The remainder of
1 84 PROVERBS
the chapter stands in specially close connection with ch. 7 as a
warning against debauchery.
1-6. Wisdom's invitation to her feast — a semi-allegorical
description of her gifts.
1. Wisdom has built her house,
< Set up ' * her seven pillars,
2. Killed her beasts, mixed her wine,
And prepared her table.
3. She has sent forth her maidens « to cry > f
On the thoroughfares of the city :
4. " Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither " !
To him who is void of understanding she says :
5. " Come, eat my bread,
Drink the wine I have mixed !
6. Forsake > folly,' J and live.
And -walk in the way of understanding " !
1. Synonymous, ternary. The building of the house is men-
tioned as a necessary preparation for holding a continual feast ; it
is an indication that Wisdom has set up a permanent establish-
ment, in which she is ready at all times to entertain all who may
come to her. Instead of Heb. kewn (the technical term of the
stonemason) the parallelism favors the builder's term se^ up,
reared, erected (so Grk. Syr. Targ.) ; the point is not that the
pillars are hewn, but that they are put in place, so that the house
is finished and ready for guests. The pillars are an ordinary archi-
tectural feature of the time, here introduced as a natural append-
age to the house. The precise position of the pillars in the
Jewish house of this period (c. 3d century B.C.) is not known;
probably, as in Greek and Roman houses, they surrounded the
hall or court which was entered from the street-door and was
used for festive purposes ; they served as support for an upper
gallery. The number seven is not significant ; either it is merely
a round number, or it indicates the usual architectural arrange-
ment of the time. — The verse easily lends itself to allegorizing
* Heb. : hewn. f Heb. : she cries.
X Heb. : ye foolish, or, possibly, the foolish (or, simple).
IX. 1-2 1 85
and spiritualizing interpretation, and has been understood in this
way from an early period. The Midrash takes Wisdom to be the
Law, which created all the worlds ; Procopius : the enhypostatic
power of God the Father prepared the whole cosmos as its abode ;
Rashi : God by wisdom created the world. The seven pillars
have been explained as the seven firmaments or heavens, or the
seven regions or climates (Midrash) ; the seven days of creation,
or the seven books of the Law* (Rashi) ; the seven charismata
or gifts of the Holy Ghost (Procop., Bernard, De.) ; the seven
eras of the Church (Vitringa) ; the seven sacraments, or the om-
nipotent word of the Son of God (Geier) ; the prophets, apostles,
and martyrs (J. H. Mich.) ; the seven liberal arts (Heid.) ; the
seven first chapters of Proverbs (Hitz.).t These interpretations
carry their refutation on their face. The allegorical element in
the paragraph is simply the representation of Wisdom as hostess,
dispensing, in her own house, instruction, here symbolized by
food and drink. — 2. Parallels, quaternary- (or, binary-) ternary.
In first cl. the Heb. is literally slain her slaying = killed her beasts.
Meat and 7vine are mentioned as the chief materials of a feast (so
I Sam. i6^ Dan. lo"). Meat was eaten by the Jews probably not
daily, but on special occasions (festivals), which had a religious
character. J Fermented wine {Weh. yayin) was a common article
of food (i Sam. 16'" Job i''' \p 104'''). It was mixed with spices
to make it more pleasant to the taste (Isa. 5^ \p 102''^'"). The
Greeks commonly mixed their wine with water in a bowl (Jirater),
and the Grk. here introduces this term : she has mixed her ivine
in a krater ; to drink unmixed wine was considered by them un-
seemly (Plato, Laws, I. 9). Which sort of mixing is here intended
is uncertain. — The table, originally a leather mat or other mate-
rial laid on the ground (as among the Arabs to-day), came at an
early time among the Hebrews to be a raised tray or board at
* Gen. ii and Num. lo^S {when the ark set forward, etc.) were regarded, on
account of their importance, as separate books.
t For other interpretations see notes of Geier, Vitringa, De.
X For the preiixilian custom see Dt. i2-'0-2i i^'£i-2i^ and for the later usage Lev.
173. 4. 13; cf. note on Pr. 7I''. The daily provision of meat on the king's table
(1 K. 4^3 [58]) was probably connected with a daily sacrifice. In our verse Grk.
has slain her offerings. The use of meat is comparatively rare in Palestine at the
present day.
I 86 PROVERBS
which people sat on stools (so, perhaps, i Sam. 20^) or reclined
on divans (Am. 6^); cf. the tables of the Temple (Ez. 40^^ Ex.
25^''). — 3. Continuous, ternary. The mai(/ens are the necessary
machinery of invitation, not to be explained allegorically as signi-
fying preachers of righteousness; the householder (as in Mt. 22^^)
bids her guests through servants, who thus (as sometimes now)
take the place of letters. The term is a general one for young
women, sometimes free and unservile (Gen. 24" Ru. 2^ Esth, 2^),
sometimes, as here, attendants (so 27^ 3i^^)> apparently not
slaves. — According to our Heb. text (s/ie cries) she herself also,
not content with sending messages, gives her invitation on the
thoroughfares of the city (lit. /lig/i places), elevated places where
one could easily be seen and heard (see note on 8^) ; these have,
of course, no connection with the old shrines called highplates in
the prophetical and historical books. It is not clear whether it is
thus intended to represent her (as in i^-^ 8*"'') as going forth to
places of public resort, or (as might be suggested by the parallel
V." below) as having her house and her seat in an elevated part of
the city. But the syntax and sense of the Heb. are unsatisfac-
tory, and the change of one letter gives the reading she has sent
forth her maidens to cry ; this is not out of accord with v.*, in
which the proclamation may be understood to be made by Wis-
dom through the messengers. In the Grk. she cries not on the
heights, but 7vith a loud voice, but this reading is improbable. —
4. Synonymous, ternary. The invitation is addressed to the
simple and void of mider standing, those who have not moral
insight and power of self-direction, the negative, unformed minds,
not yet given up to sin, but in danger of becoming its dupes ; the
steadfastly good and the deliberately evil are not considered —
the former do not need guidance, the latter will not accept it.
Obviously, however, the author does not mean to exclude any
class of persons from the counsels of Wisdom ; he writes as a
practical moralist, and represents the simple as her natural hearers.
— The division of the verse is unusual ; the second clause, instead
of continuing the exhortation of the first, introduces a new for-
mula of address ; some expositors, following the Grk. of v.^^,
would write : whoso is devoid of understanding, I say to him, etc. ;
but this would not be a natural form of address — see note on v.^".
TX. 2-6 187
— 5. Parallels, ternary. The invitation in figurative form. Bread,
which here takes the place of the meat or flesh of beasts of v.-, is
also a necessary part of the feast. — 6. Synonymous, ternary.
The invitation in literal, explanatory form. The Heb. reads : for-
sake, ye simple (RV. incorrectly : leave off, ye simple ones), an in-
complete sentence, since the verb requires an object, as in 2^^ 3^
4-, etc. ; the object can hardly be the simple (AV. forsake the
foolish), for this would be a singular admonition to the simple,
and the parallelism calls for an abstract noun as object. Some
(as Kamp.) suppose the object to have fallen out of the text, and
leave a blank ; others (De., Now., Str.) supply simplicity as object :
forsake, ye simple, simplicity. A better expedient is, by a slight
change in the Heb. word, to read (as in the Grk.) simplicity or
folly ; Luther : verlasset das alberne wesen ; cf. i^^. The -word folly
(which might easily have fallen out on account of its resemblance
to the preceding) may be added ; but the resulting clause will be
less rhythmical. — Grk. : Forsake folly, that ye may reign forever ;
and seek discretion, atid direct tindersta?iding in (or, by) knowl-
edge— a misreading and expansion of the Hebrew. For the
reign cf. Wisd. Sol. 6^\
IX. 1. J§ n^non; see note on 1 2". — J^n^xn; (5 yTnJpetere)', = na^xn (Vogel),
from 3i-j; S" n.-i3i:D; ® "i-fpy; S) Pn\iN; this reading is favored by the par-
allehsm. — 2. After n^DO @ has ei's Kparrjpa, = D:3, probably not in original
J^ (fallen out by resemblance to preceding word, Lag.), but addition of Grk.
scribe for completeness. — On \nbzr s. Moore, on Ju. i''. — 3. @ SovXovs, perh.
rhetorical generalization of gender, or scribal error, possibly (Lag.) suggested
to a Christian scribe by Mt. 22*. — J^ mp •'C^d •'CJ Sy i<-\pr; (S (Tv-yKaXoucra ixera.
v\j/7i\ov KijpijyfjLaTOi, i"! being taken as a form of N-\p, and 'p 'n as adverbial expres-
sion. (5 does not take ''cns as = heights ; the word appears to mean raised
streets here and in 8'-^ Q^''. The addition iirl Kparfjpa of (5 appears to be erro-
neous insertion from preceding verse. IL, freely; ad arcein et ad tnoenia civita-
tis. J§ s-ipn makes a difficulty; we expect a reference to the maidens, as in
S2C1L, reading njNip.n or N-ip*^, and this form should probably be adopted, in
spite of the 3 p. sing. mcN of v.^ — J§ t^i only here and in Ex. 21^ '• where it
= body ; Aram, and Assyr., wing ; the stem appears to mean curved, arched ;
'9J S;? here = ^•;, if the text be correct; cf. idJ3 Kx. 21*, = in himself. — 4. For
1^ niDN Oort al. would read i p. -\CN or \n-icN, but the change is unnecessary. —
Gr. : 1*? n-\cNi Ts-^ri np^ 3'^ npm ^t^q t. — 5. <S plu. dpTwv, as in 20^3 Gen. 14I8
etc., free use of Grk. idiom, not (Lag.) allusion to Eucharist (Jno. 6). —
6. |§ 3'N.-£3; @ a<ppo<Tvvriv, and so all other Vrss. ; read \"id, as the sense
requires; this word may have been read '\-'d and so expanded into DTd and
1 88 PROVERBS
O^NPD. — Grk. expansion may have come from change of ^-qffere into ^rjr-^a-are,
and introduction of clause from Wisd. Sol. 6^^ (Lag.) ; Baumg. suggests that
the Grk. translator wrote ^iwa-qre, which was corrupted (perh. under influence
of WS. 6^^) into /SofftXei/o-T/Te, and that k. ^rjT, (ppov. was then added to com-
plete the parallelism. Cf Lag., Pink.
13-18. The invitation of Folly. — The section is parallel to
v.'"^, and should be transferred to this place. The central figure
plays a part corresponding to and contrasted with that of Wisdom
above. She is described as noisy (v.^^), sitting in a public place
(v."), calling to passers-by (v.^^), inviting the simple to come to
her (v.^''), promising them stolen pleasures (v.'"), which, the sage
adds, lead to death (v.^^). The two sections give the contrast
between rectitude and sexual debauchery. Cf. 5^^ 7'*"^^ From
the " abrupt " way in which this paragraph is introduced (without
such preparatory statement as is found in v.^ -), its only ground
being the contrast with Wisdom's invitation, Frankenberg con-
cludes that it is not the work of the author of chs. 1-9 ; the writer
Qf yisff.^ he observes, regarded the harlot oi chs. 5 and 7 as merely
a personification of Folly — a view which appears in the Grk.
and has survived till now. Certainly the picture in v.'^"^- is based
in part on chs. 5 and 7, but this fact hardly points to difference of
authorship ; nor is it introduced with undue abruptness (if it
assumes v.'"") ; and it is not necessary to suppose because Folly
is here the harlot of chs. 5 and 7 that the writer did not regard
this latter personage as a real woman; in chs. 2. 5. 6. 7 Folly is
identified with sexual immorality.
13. [] Polly is loud and < seductive,'
She knows no < shame > ( ?)
14. At the door of her house she sits,
On [] * the thoroughfares of the city,
15. To call to the passers-by.
To those who are going their ways :
16. " Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither " !
And to him who is void of understanding she says :
17. " Stolen waters are sweet,
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant " !
18. But he knows not that the Shades are there,
That her guests are in the depths of Sheol,
* Heb. : on a ^eat in (or, near).
IX. 13-14 189
13. Rhythm uncertain. Folly's character. The text is doubt-
ful. Heb. : The foolish woman (lit. woman of folly) is boisterous
(or, loud), simplicity, and knows not what (or, perhaps, anything) ;
Grk. : A foolish and impudent womati comes to lack a morsel, she
who knows notshafne ; Syr. : A woman lacking in discretion, seduc-
tive ; Targ. : A wotnan foolish and a gadabout, ignorant, and she
knows not good ; Lat. : A womcm foolish and noisy, and full of
wiles, and knowing nothing at all. — From a comparison with the
parallel v.^ it appears probable that the 7voman of the Hebrew is
a gloss by a scribe who wished to call the reader's attention to the
fact that folly was a personification ; this being omitted, Folly
stands opposed to Wisdom. The rendering Madam Folly (taking
woman of folly as = the ivoman folly — so De., Kamp.) is hardly
allowable; elsewhere (11^^ 12'' 21''^^ 25^*27'^ 31^°) the defining
noun after woman has adjectival force. The word rendered Folly
(fem.) occurs only here in OT. ; the corresponding masc. form is
frequent in Prov.; see i"-^- 3'" 8^ Instead of boisterous some
translators (Str., Kamp., Frank.) write passionate (sensuously
excitable), but this sense for the Heb. term is doubtful; see notes
on i^^ 7". The expression simplicity of the Heb. text is sus-
picious both from its form (abstract noun) and from its meaning
— it is unnecessary to say that folly is foolish ; the connection
favors a reading {seductive, or enticing) like those given by Syr.
and Lat., and this is obtained by an inconsiderable change of text.
The sense of the last clause it is difficult to determine. The Heb.
hardly permits the translation she knows nothing, and this, more-
over, does not comport with the address and power attributed to
Folly in the context ; Folly is primarily a moral, not an intel-
lectual term — it does not exclude ordinary intelligence as the
sweeping expression knows nothing appears to do. Grk. shame
(which suits the connection) may be doubtfully adopted ; the
Heb. word which it implies is used elsewhere (18^^ Jer. 51^' Isa.
50" (/^ 35-" al.) only in the sense of obloquy, never as = the sense of
shame, though that may be an accident — the verb has this mean-
ing (Ez. 16"' al.). The Grk. rendering may be a free interpretation
of our Heb. text, as the Targ, good seems to be. — 14. Synony-
mous, ternary. Folly sits in a prominent place, where she can be
seen; Grk. on a seat in public in the streets. Wisdom (v.^) cries
190 PROVERBS
aloud in such places — Folly sits and calls ; the contrast in the
methods of the two (the one sending out to seek men, the other
sitting at home as seductress) does not indicate difference of zeal
— the two descriptions seem to express the same earnestness — it
is perhaps meant to say that Folly, like the unchaste woman
whom she represents, the symbol of unlawful pleasures, prefers the
privacy of her house (cf. ch. 7), while Wisdom, the preacher of
righteousness, boldly gives her invitation in open day and in
public places ; but the text is not clear, and probably no differ-
ence is intended in the methods of the two, unless it be in the
sending out of the maidens. — In second line we should probably
read simply : on the thoroughfares, etc., as in v.^, instead of the
Heb. on a seat in, etc. ; see notes on 8- 9^ Folly, like Wisdom, has
a house, in which she sets a feast ; the description of the prepara-
tions (cf. v.^- 2) is omitted, probably as an unnecessary repetition.
— 15-17. Her invitation, parallel to that of Wisdom (v."^') ; v.'^
= v.* ; v." corresponds to v.*- ^ — 15. Synonymous, ternary-binary.
She addresses herself to the passers-by (so Wisdom, i^ ^i 31-3)^
remaining, however, at the door of her house. The expression
those who are going their ways (cl. 2.) = the passers-by (cl. i.),
not who are going straightforward {right) on their ways — the
intention (as appears from the connection) is to represent these
passers not as earnest persons bent on going forward without turn-
ing to right or left, but as ordinary wayfarers, to any and all of
whom Folly addresses herself; a similar verb {walk) is used in
v."; in 3" 11'' 1521 the connection is different. — 16. Synonymous,
ternary. See note on v.^ The expressions simple and void of
understandijig, here as there, mean lacking in knoivledge of the
world, unable to recognize good and bad (cf. v."). Instead of she
says Grk. has / say, a reading which would give unity of form to
the invitation in this verse, yet is not quite natural, since Folly
would not address her intended victims as void of sense ; cf. v.''. —
17. Synonymous, ternary. The inducement she offers is the
delight of secret enjoyments, things prohibited by law or con-
demned by society, more tempting because they are forbidden.
Folly here appears as identical with the strange woman of chs. 5
and 7. Her water and bread are parallel to the bread and wine
of Wisdom (v.^), only here the feasting is clandestine — the refer-
IX. i4-i8 191
ence is to illicit sexual relations. Stolen waters (= any illicit
thing) are sweet was probably a current proverbial saying \ and,
in the term water, instead of the more festive wine, there may be
an allusion to the figure of 5'^ ^*'', on which see notes. — 18. Synony-
mous, ternary. Comment of the sage : the fate of Folly's guests.
In 2'* 5" 'f it is said that the licentious woman's ways lead to
death; here, in sharper phrase, her house is identified with the
Underworld — it is already in effect in the depths, and its inmates,
though they have the semblance of life, are doomed and as good
as dead. The death is physical, as in the parallel passages cited
above ; the guests are no doubt regarded by the writer as morally
dead, but that is not the statement here. On Shades (Refaim)
see note on 2^*. The word rendered depths also = valleys, but,
from the connection and from general OT. usage, this cannot be
understood as a topographical description of Sheol, an assertion
that it contains hills and valleys. It merely describes Sheol as
lying deep beneath the earth, but there is possibly an allusion to
the valley of Rephaim, near Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5^^ Isa. 17*). — The
simple youth, who yields to Folly's invitation, is ignorant of his
danger ; on the class of persons meant see note on v.*. — Grk.
here adds four couplets :
But turn away, linger not in the place,
Nor set thine eye on her;
For thus wilt thou go through alien water,
And pass over an alien stream.
But abstain from alien water,
Drink not of an alien fountain,
That thou mayst live long,
That years of life may be added to thee.
This is the addition of a scribe who felt that the curt ending of
the text needed a hortatory complement ; it mars the poetic unity
and vigor of the paragraph. The figure of the three first couplets
is taken from 5'^"^ ; the last couplet (a familiar expression) is
nearly the same as v." of this chapter.
13. |§ ni'^'D3 and nvno are dir. X€7. (both probably Aram, forms) ; the
latter may come from a st. 'no (01s.), the rt-vowel being preserved by the
doubling of the Yod; De., following Qamhi {Miklol, 181 a), points nrno;
from \iD we should have pvne. Oort proposes Pi. nnoc, which may help to
account for © ivder^s fu/jLov (from ;?; and no) ; Jiiger points out that <3 in-
192 PROVERBS
volves a form of ns. The connection favors the reading nnoc, = enticing. —
In mS^D^ ntJ'N the '2 cannot be appositional definitive (De.). There is no
example in OT. of a determinative standing in apposition with a single noun
in Stat, const, (jvx n2 is not a case in point, for 'i here is local definition of
'2) ; on the construction called suspended determination (where one noun
defines two in stat. const., these being in app. with each other) see Ew. § 28gc;
Ges.26 § 1 30. 5 ; Moore, yw^j^'^) on Ju. 19--; Driver, /?£'/</., on Dt. 21 'i. Every-
where else in Prov. nrs is defined by the following noun, 'o here is parallel
to maDH in v.^, and ntt'N must be omitted as gloss, intended to indicate that the
n'^Do was to be understood as a personification (a woman). Graetz would
write it du'n and attach it to preceding verse — a possible construction (though
D^wS does not occur elsewhere with n-'j), but the rhythm is against the addi-
tion of a word in v.i^. — In no Jag., Hitz., Lag., Graetz, a/, see the remains
of nnS^ ((S aiaxi'i'v)) an attractive reading (cf. Jer. 3^) if '3 may be under-
stood as meaning the feeling of shame; this sense it has nowhere else in OT.
(though aSr, Ni. and Hof, is so employed) — elsewhere '\i ■= opprobrium.
nn is always to be taken as interrog., direct or indirect, even in Gen. 38^; we
might here read hdind (as in Gen. 39®), but the connection does not favor
the resulting sense. We may doubtfully read hd'^o — less well (Frank.) a^?n
(Jer. S^'^). — 14. 1^ mp >D-\r, of which (5 itictxivCis iv irXaTeiais may be free
rendering (see the wholly different wording of (5 in v.^) ; it would seem that
(5 takes ■'OiD as = streets or squares; see note on this v. above. 3C Nr^vi ndt
and & NDi (omitting the last word) also represent |^, except that 2C appar-
ently read some form of ip'' instead of r\-\p (Oort). |^ is suspicious; for
NDD we should probably read '-si, as in v.^. If our text be retained, it would
be better to insert 3 before 'p 'c, which expression may, however (Fleisch.)
be taken as adverbial. — 15. |^ anr^c (O KaTevdvvovras) may be taken in
the sense of IL pergentes, or we may substitute the stem "W^, as m 4I*. —
16. ||J rntv; (5 and <S have I p. (the 3 p. occurs in Clem. Al.) ; the 3 p., as
the harder, is to be retained. — 17. (5 inverts the order of clauses of |^, but
gives no suggestion for change of our text. — 18. <S 0 5^ ovk olbiv 6tl yr}y€veh
(o'lNDi) trap' avrrj (3u') 6\\vvTai (iCDC') Kal ^irl irirevpov q.5ov (Sin;* pC'v'i)
ffwavrq. (nip). On yt]~/eveh cf. note on 2^*; other renderings of 1 in (5 are
veKpol, yl-yavre^; see .Schleusner. ST, interpreting: ];:;n ri':"'3N >i3jji that she
cast down the giants there. — On the added couplets in (5S see note above.
7-12. A little group of aphorisms, belonging in the body
of the Sook ; see parallel proverbs in 13' 15'^ 19^* lo^^ " i6^^'^
10'" ii^'*, and also i^ i// iii^". They are probably the insertion of
a scribe who found this a convenient place for introducing into his
manuscript a collection which was in his possession, or, possibly,
they are here placed in order to separate the description of detest-
able Folly from that of divine Wisdom. Grk. (see below) ex-
pands V.'- with remarks which are apparently designed to pave
IX. 7-9 193
the way to the following section. The Hebrew scribe makes six
couplets, so that this may agree in length with the other sections.
A certain logical order has been observed : v.' and v.^ accord in
thought, and so v.'^ and v.^, and v.^*^ and v." ; v.^^ stands by itself,
and may be an afterthought.
7-9. Results of instruction given to different classes of persons.
7. He who corrects a scoffer gets insult,
And he who reproves a wicked man, reviling.
8. Reprove not a scoffer lest he hate thee;
Reprove a wise man, and he will love thee.
9. Give (instruction) to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser;
Teach a righteous man, and he will gain more instruction.
7. Synonymous, ternary. The scoffer. On scoffer see note on
i^-, and cf. 13^- ^^ 15'' 23^. The term is here substantially equivalent
to the wicked of second cl., but further describes the bad man, the
enemy of wisdom, as one who actively rejects, despises, and mocks
at true principles of life ; the 7vicked is, in general, one who ha-
bitually does wrong, and is to be condemned in a tribunal of jus-
tice. Such persons are thought of as past reformation, so that he
who tries to better them does them no good, but only brings on
himself insult and reviling. The first of these terms signifies
originally littleness, despicableness (so Partcp. in 12^), then dis-
grace (3^ 6^) and, actively, belittling, reproach, reviling, insult
(18^). The second, as it stands in the Heb., is literally j/^/, blem-
ish, physical (Cant. 4^ Dan. i^), or ceremonial (Nu. 19^, and so
everywhere in the Pentateuch, except Dt. 32", where the text is
corrupt) ; in Job 1 1^* (if the text be correct) it appears to mean
apprehension, fear, or, perhaps, consciousness of guilt (but these
interpretations are somewhat forced). Here the text is doubtful,
but the parallelism calls for a word = ifisult. — The point of view
of the verse is similar to that of those sociologists who recognize a
class of " incapables." — 8. Antithetic, ternary. The scoffer and
the wise man. The first clause repeats the thought of the preced-
ing verse, the second contrasts the conduct of the wise man under
reproof; cf. 15' '"•^^^^, with which verses our v.'^^ might properly be
put. — 9. Synonymous, ternary. The wise man. See 1^ lo"* 12'^ 14®
15^^, and especially 21". Wise and righteous are here put as iden-
tical, as throughout the Book, particularly in 10^-22^*''. The teach-
194 PROVERBS
ableness of the tvise is allied to humility — it is the opposite of
the posture of mind implied in the term scoffer.
lo. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Yahweh,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Synonymous, quaternary- (or, ternary-) ternary. The verse is
related in a general way to the preceding context ; the first cl. is
found substantially in i' (with inversion of subject and predicate)
and i/' 1 1 1^". In second cl., instead of knowledge of{ =fear of, obe-
dience to) the Holy One a number of versions and expositors * have
knowledge (or, counsel) of holy men (the Heb. word is plu.), =
either the knowledge which good men possess, or that which makes
men good ; but the parallelism obviously demands a reference to
God. The plu. word is used of men (Israelites) in \\i 34^^ Dan. 8'*,
of angels in Zech. 14" Job 5' 15^^ \\i 89^ (and Aramaic, Dan. 4^'^"'),
but of God only here and 30^ (the sing, is common). The plu.
(here probably used as expressing extent and majesty) may have
been suggested by the plu. form Elohim for God, or it may have
arisen in the same way (an original mass of divine beings in a
community afterwards conceived of as one being) ; cf. plu. for
Creator, Eccl. i2\ t ^nd Aram. Heavens, = God, Dan. 4^6(23)^ 'p^g
term belongs to the later, more refined, vocabulary, which sought
to designate the divine Being by his ethical qualities. — On the
thought see note on i^ ; knowledge of the divine will is theoretical
wisdom, but cannot be separated from reverence (= obedience),
which is practical wisdom. The divine law here had in mind is
ethical, not ritual, and obedience to it is held to secure prosperity.
1 1 . For by me will thy days be multiplied,
And the years of thy life increased.
Synonymous, ternary. Instead of by me, Syr. Targ. (and appar-
ently Grk., in this way) have by it, which effects some connection
with the preceding verse, the it being the fear or the knozvledge of
God. But this connection is not quite natural (we should perhaps
expect rather them than //, and the for is not appropriate), and it
* Grk., Vulg., Luther, AV., Procop., Rashi, J. H. Mich., al.
+ The clause Eccl. i2ia probably does not belong to the original form of the
verse, but it shows the linguistic usage of the later period. Bickell's emendation
thy wife, instead of thy Creator, is, on exegetical grounds, out of the question.
IX. 9-12 195
may be just as well to retain our Heb. text, and regard the verse
as the only surviving part of a paragraph, the me referring to
wisdom mentioned in a lost couplet. The general sense is not
affected by this difference of reading. There is no connection
with v^ For the thought see 3- ^"^ 10-^ 19^, in which long life is
the reward of fearing God.
12. If thou art wise, thou art wise for thyself,
And, if thou art a scoffer, thou alone must bear (the consequences).
Antithetic, ternary. Of this verse (which is quite isolated, hav-
ing no connection with the context, and no parallel in the whole
Book) we have two forms, in the Hebrew and the Greek. The
Hebrew, given above, affirms sharply the principle of individual
responsibility, generalizing the idea of Ez. iS"* {he who sins, he
\alone'\ shall die) ; the prophet declares that every Israelite shall
bear the consequences of his sin — the sage extends the princi-
ple to all moral Hfe, a principle certainly involved everywhere in
Proverbs, but nowhere else expressed under the form of moral
isolation. The writer has in mind, however, not a selfish isolation
(it is not the command thou shall be wise), but the impossibility
of vicariousness in the moral life. — Grk. (followed by Syr.) reads :
If thou be wise, for thyself thou shall be wise and for thy neighbors,
but if thou prove evil, thou alone shall bear the evil ; the first cl.
may also be rendered : // thou be wise for thyself, thou shall be
wise for thy neighbors also — the general sense remains the same,
the man is inseparably connected, on his good side, with his fel-
lows. This pleasant, but untrue, affirmation, that a man's good-
ness benefits his fellows, while his evil affects only himself, looks
like the effort of an editor to relieve the apparent selfishness of
the verse. It is hardly correct to say (Jiiger) that the thou alone
of the Heb. in second cl. indicates, by contrast, the presence of
and for thy neighbor in first cl. ; the alone is merely the definite
statement in one line of the aloneness which is involved in the par-
allel line. A change from the Grk. form to that of the Heb. is less
probable than a change in the opposite direction, and the latter
should therefore be retained as probably the original. After v.''*
Grk. adds :
Who stays himself on lies he feeds on wind,
And he will follow after winged birds.
196 PROVERBS
The ways of his own vineyard he forsakes,
And wanders from the paths of his own husbandry.
He passes through a waterless waste,
Through a land given over to drought,
And with his hands he gathers barrenness.
Before line 7 Bickell, to complete the couplet, inserts :
He sows on an untilled, waterless soil.
This paragraph appears to be an amplified form of a Hebrew
original, taken, perhaps, as Bickell suggests, from a current collec-
tion of aphorisms. The thought is vigorous, but the paragraph
certainly does not belong in this place, nor did it form a part of
the original Book of Proverbs, with whose literary style it does not
agree. The liar is compared to a neglectful husbandman who
comes to grief. With feeds on wind cf. Eccl. i", and with the
second line, 27^ 23^
7. "^ is reproduced by (gABXo!. i^. instead of nian reprover H-P 23. 68.
109. 147. al. S^ S>® had (the Grk. and S^ in a doublet line) nnsh reproofs,
which does not agree with the parallelism (cf. Pink.). (gAai. yuwutTjererat ka.\)Tbv
= IDID or h DID, and so probably the lidXuires airtf of H-P 23 al. (the Aram.
ovi' wound, scar, proposed by Lag., seems unnecessary). ^ is better read
iS aic, though 'D is suspicious; whether it can be taken as = insult or indig-
nity, as the parallelism requires, is doubtful, but no satisfactory emendation
of the text suggests itself; possibly we should read hdSd. — Gr. n''Dici v*^ "'?
f^p -h np> ICIC yr-i'^. — 8. The (5 MSS. add a positive doublet of* in varying
forms. — 9 The apparently incomplete expression jn is variously supplemented
by the Vrss.; (5 (followed by SIL) adds a(t>opix.-r)y opportunity; ST writes t\hn.
The rhythm does not suggest an omission in |^, which is intelligible also as it
stands; but the insertion of a word (= instruction^ in a translation is allowable.
— 10. "% z^t^\^ is rendered as plu. in all extant Vrss. (the readings of the Hex.
are not known) except Si^^, and Saadia; it seems then to have been under-
stood (except perh. in %) as = righteous men. — (5 adds at end : rh yap yvu>va.i.
vdfiov diavoias iarlv dyadrjs, the remark of a legalistic scribe, here out of place.
— For variant expressions in Clem. Al. (which, however, do not necessarily
mean different MS. readings) see H-P and Lag. — 11. ^ o is followed by E
only; &W ^3; (§ roi^ry t<? rpd-mf}, probably =: n3; see note on this verse
above. — ^ n-Di^ must be taken with indef. subject, but we should perh. read
Nifal. — 12. On the addition of (S in » Kal toTs irXr^dLov see note on this verse
above, and on o-eaur^j Deissmann, Bibelstud., p. i2of. On the added couplets
see notes of Lag. and Baumg., and for a translation of them into Heb. see
De. (the Germ, ed, — th? translation is omitted in the Eng. translation).
II. DETACHED APHORISMS (X. i-XXII. i6).
On the constitution and date of this division see the Introduc-
tion. The title Proverbs of Solomon belongs to the whole division.
The proverbs will be arranged in groups as far as their subject-
matter allows. Ben-Sira is to be compared throughout.
X. The main thought is that moral goodness and industry
bring prosperity, and wickedness and indolence adversity — the
portraiture is broad, not going into particulars. The parallelism
is generally antithetic.
1. Wise and foolish youth.
A wise son makes a glad father,
But a foolish son is a grief to his mother.
Antithetic, ternary. Cf. 19-^ 28^ Wise = discreet, living a
good life morally and industrially. We pass now from the philo-
sophical conception of chs. 1-9, in which wisdom is a lore, the
subject-matter and product of organized instruction, to the every-
day common-sense view of wisdom as general soundness and pro-
priety of conduct. The difference is not, however, to be pressed
very far — it is largely one of shading ; the aphoristic teaching of
chs. 10^-22'^, the outcome of observation under a general religious
point of view, is expanded in chs. 1-9 into discourses in which
life is regarded as an organized whole, with wisdom as central and
governing principle. — The antithesis is symmetrical and exact:
wise and glad are contrasted with foolish and grief. Glad and
grief relate primarily to external conditions, such as the satisfac-
tion or worry which come to parents from the good or bad con-
duct and reputation of their children ; but the emotion founded
simply on affection is not to be excluded. The interchange of
father and mother is poetical variation ; the meaning is not that
the father is more interested in the wise son, and the mother in
the fooHsh son (special maternal tenderness for a feeble or erring
197
198 PROVERBS
child), \)W\. father and mother stand each for parents. Similarly, the
silence respecting the daughter is not to be interpreted as showing
complete lack of interest in female children ; it comes in part from
the relatively greater seclusion of young unmarried women, and
their freedom from the grosser temptations of life — they might
naturally be passed over in a book which deals not with the
inward life, but with visible conduct in the outward world of
society, and, in fact, the unmarried woman is not mentioned in
Proverbs. The depraved woman is introduced as a warning not
to women, but to men ; the good woman of ch. 31 is the married
head of a household, and is praised mainly for the advantages of
wealth and social position which she brings to her husband and
family. The non-mention of daughters and of women in general
may, however, be attributed in part to the relatively small estima-
tion in which women were held in the ancient civilized world,
among Chinese, Hindoos, Israelites, Greeks, and Romans.* — On
care of daughters see BS. 'f^'^ 26^^^^ 42^". — Similar sayings con-
cerning good sons are cited by Malan from the Ramayana, Confu-
cius, Menander, etc.
2. Profits of wrongdoing and rightdoing.
Treasures wrongly acquired profit nothing,
But righteousness dehvers from death.
Antithetic, ternary. The Heb. has treasures of wickedness,
= wealth acquired unjustly (not stores or masses of evildoing) ;
this is contrasted ^^'vCn. justice, righteousness as a method of proce-
dure in business-transactions and other affairs of Hfe. Ill-gotten
wealth, says the writer, though it may procure temporary triumph,
profits nothing in the end, since violence and injustice are sure to
bring divine or human (legal or private) vengeance on the man's
head. Justice (= probity), on the other hand, by avoiding such
vengeance (and having the blessing of God), secures to its pos-
* On the position of women in antiquity see Revue Encycloped., vi. (1896), 825 f. ;
A. Bebel, Die Frau u. d. Sozialismus, 1891 (Eng. tranl, 1894) ; Th. Matthias, Zur
SteUung d. grieck. Frau in d. klaxsisck. Zeit, 1893 ; Marquardt and Mommsen,
Hdbch. d. romisch. Alterth'iimer , 1871-1888 ; Gardner and Jevons, Manual of Grk.
Antiq., 1895 ; Becker, Char, and Gallus. As to Egypt cf. Wilkinson, Anc, Egypt,,
chs. 3. 5. 8. etc.
X. 1-3 199
sessor a long and peaceful life — exemption from premature death,
which is regarded in OT. as a direct divine judgment. Wealth,
says the sage, will not avert God's judgment, but righteousness
secures his favor. For the nature of the death see notes on i^^
2^*-^, etc. ; cf. v.^^- "• 27- 30 of t^jg chapter. That there is no refer-
ence to rewards and punishments beyond the grave appears from
the whole thought of the Book. On the terms wickedness, right-
eousness see notes on 4^' 8^* i^. — As early as the second century
B.C. (and perhaps earlier) the term righteous 7iess came to be used
as equivalent to almsgiving, aims, as in Dan. 4^^-^', where the king
is urged to rid himself of the guilt of sin by righteoustiess defined
as showing kindness to the poor ; and parallels to our proverb
are found in Tob. 4^" 12^ BS. 3*' 29^^, with substitution of alms-
giving for righteoustiess ; in Tob. 12" the two terms are employed
as synonyms. This usage occurs also in NT. (Mt. 6^), Talmud
{Succa, 49^), Midrash (on Pr. 21''), Koran (9^"*).* It is to be
explained by the prominence which almsgiving always assumes in
society (the care of the poor being the most obvious of social
duties) — it naturally comes to be regarded as the special indica-
tion of a good heart, and as a means of wiping out guilt (cf. the
analogous use in OT. of afflict one's self (or fast). This idea, how-
ever, does not seem to be contained in our proverb ; the contrast
appears to be between probity and wickedness in general, though
it is possible that the intention is to put treasure acquired wick-
edly and used selfishly over against wealth expended for the
needy.
3. Desire fulfilled and unfulfilled.
Yahweh suffers not the righteous to hunger.
But he disappoints the desire of the wicked.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. Righteous and tvicked are used
in the most general sense. The Heb. has the soul of the righteous,
where J"(?/^/= the personality, with special reference to desire or
appetite, as in Dt. 14^'' \^ 107^- Pr. 13^^ Disappoint is lit. thrust
aivay, reject, put out of consideration. The word here used for
desire means evil desire (cf. note on 1 1®) ; for good desire another
It seems not to have existed among the Greeks and the Romans.
200 PROVERBS
term is employed (lo^* ii^^ a/.). The point of view (found
throughout OT., except in the speeches of Job and in Eccl.) is
that the temporal wants of the righteous are provided for by God.
This idea is expanded at greatest length in i/' 37 (see especially
v.^^'^), a poem which seems to belong to the same period as the
central part of Proverbs. Elsewhere in OT. the application is to
the nation, or rather to the righteous part of it (Isa. 7. 8 Ez. 36
Isa. 53, the Psalter passim). Founded on the conviction of the
divine justice, it survived all changes of fortune, and in Proverbs
is applied without reservation to the individual man. In VVisd.
Sol. and NT. this view is abandoned, and the reward of the right-
eous is sought in the future life.
4, 5. Industry and sloth.
4. A slack hand makes poor,
A diligent hand makes rich.
5. He who gathers in summer acts wisely,
He who sleeps in harvest acts shamefully.
4. Antithetic, ternary. Cf. \2^' 19''* 22^ 6*^" 27=^27 2319. Prob-
ably based on an old popular proverb ; parallels are found among
all peoples. The second line is lit. : the hand of the diligent
makes rich. As hand in OT. often = person, we may also render :
The slothful becomes poor, the diligent becomes rich. By the
change of a vowel poverty may be read instead of poor, with the
sense : The slothful gains poverty, the diligent gains wealth, but
the change is unnecessary. The Vrss. give different readings :
poverty brings a man low (Grk. Targ. Syr.) ; or, a slack hand
brings poverty (Lat.). In the first of these the verb is, from the
parallelism, obviously wrong ; the second is identical with a read-
ing given above. — The Lat. and the Hexaplar Syriac here add
the first couplet of the addition found in Grk. after 9^^, which see ;
it seems here to be the random insertion of a scribe. — 5. Anti-
thetic, ternary. Providence and improvidence. Lit. is a son
who acts wisely, and is a son who acts shamefully. The last ex-
pression may be rendered, as in RV., 7vho causes shame (cf. 28^),
but the parallelism favors the translation here given. We may
also reverse the order of subject and predicate, and render : He
X. 3-5 201
(or, a sort) who acts wisely gathers in summer, he (or, a son)
luho acts shamefully sleeps in haniest. The meaning is the same
in the two translations ; but the first (characterizing the act as
wise or unwise) is more natural than the second (characterizing
the man as acting so or so). The statement is meant to be uni-
versal; the word son contemplates the man as a member of a
family, but it is also assumed that he is an independent worker.
The agricultural life, to which the proverb relates, existed among
the Jews in Palestine from their first occupation of the land down
to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. On summer and
harvest see note on 6*. — Grk. has :
A son who is instructed will be wise,
And shall use the fool as servant.
A thoughtful son is saved from heat,
But a lawless son is blighted (or, carried away) by the wind in harvest.
The first couplet appears in some MSS. at 9'- ; the second has a
general resemblance to the Heb. of our verse, with great verbal
variation.
X. 1. The title is lacking in (5S, and was perhaps not inserted in |^ till
after (5 was made. — To 3n SiW^ attach suff., which may have fallen out
through foil. 1; but the simple form accords with the curtness of aphoristic
expression, and may be retained notwithstanding the icn. — 2. J^ >'::•-> (and
so IL) ; © avini-ovi (and so S:'^^, less appropriate, since ^-—\ n'iss forms a con-
trast to np-tx. — For 7[p-\-^ in the sense oi justice, aid, succor to Israel (by
Yahweh) see Ju. 5II Mic. 6^, and cf the similar sense in Sabean, in Hal.
188, 8 (p-ix). Gr. adds mar ova, as in 11^. — 3. |^ pii; (gABoi. StKa/ac;
between the two readings there is little to choose. — The primary sense of the
stem nin seems to be go, move, whence blotv (of the wind), and Aram, be (perh.
from breathe, perh. horn fall out, happen), and specifically ^t; down, fall (Arah.);
the noun = air (Arab.), desire, connected with l:)reathing (Arab., Heb.), mis-
fortiine, destruction, = that which /a/Is on one (Hel).). In Job 37^ nm appears
to mean fall, but Siegf emends to ni-i 7vater (see Konig, p. 598). Cf Fleischer,
in De.2, p. 94, Kudde on Job 6^ 37^, BDB. Fleischer (in De., Job 376) holds
that the primitive sense of the stem is gape, yawn. &^ ]r^ possession ; iL insi-
dias. (S i^'nv, = ~'n, does not give so good an antithesis as |ij. — JtJ auc"*,
for which a number of MSS. and printed edd. (see De' Rossi) have DiJa
treacherous, apparently a gloss which expelled the text- word. The variation
of number (sing. 'x, plu. '"i) is for rhythmical effect. — 4. (5 (foil, by S2u)
irevia. (s'Nn) dvSpa TaireivoT, perh. taking |^ as ■= poverty makes the hand slack
(cf. Schleusn.), or reading some form of njy or ~\-y. Between c\y> and vJv.-\
202 PROVERBS
there is not much choice; the parallelism (Tfj7"i) rather favors the former.
The Hif. 'n may be simple causative {makes rich) or causative-reflexive {he-
comes rich). On the couplet added in ilS" see Baumg.'s note. — 5. The text
of <@ seems to be based on that of |ij. Its first cl. uios irewaLdevnivoi <TO(pbs
effrai = '^dZ'D ^D1D p, the 'D -3 being perh. paraphrase of pp3 njN; of this the
third cl. diecdid-t] dirb Kavfxaro^ v. vot]iiu3v is a doublet, k. = vp (what Heb.
word 5. represents is doubtful) ; the second cl. t(J5 5^ Acppovi diaKdviji xpijcrerat
is scribal appendage as antithesis to the first; the fourth cl. dveiJ.6(p6opos (read
dvefio<p6pr)Tos) 5^ yiverai iv ajx-fiTt^ ut6s irapdvoixos = i^^D p ispa t]ii (cf. Isa.
19^). The whole is a paraphrase which may have taken the place of an
original Grk. text.
6, 7, The recompense of virtue and vice.
6. Blessings are on the head of the righteous
.*
7. The memory of the righteous will be blessed.
But the name of the wicked will rot.
6. Blessings may be the good wishes or encomiums of men (as
in v.^), or the good things bestowed by God (so Grk.); the latter
interpretation is perhaps favored by the use of the expression on
the head (of Joseph) in Gen. 49^** Dt. 33^'' ; cf. De.'s notes here and
on Gen. 49^". — The second cl. reads in the Heb. : but the mouth
of the wicked covers violence or violence covers the mouth of the
wicked (identical with second clause of v."). Neither of these
renderings gives any natural connection with the first clause. Vio-
lence is high-handed, oppressive conduct — it is said (</' 73^ and
perhaps Mai. 2^*^) to cover the wicked man as a garment, he is
enwrapped in it (13" delights in it) ; so perhaps here, it covers his
mouth, that is, controls his speech, and therefore, his life. But
this affords no contrast to the first cl., from which we should rather
expect some such line as evil pursues the wicked. Grk. (repre-
senting a slightly different Heb. text from ours) : untimely grief
shall cover, etc., which gives a contrast. Bickell emends : but the
fruit 0/ the tuicked is sorrow and wrath (cf. 13-). Graetz sug-
gests face instead of mouth. We should perhaps read :
The blessing of Yahweh is on the head of the righteous,
But sorrow shall cover the face of the wicked.
* Heb. : But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
X. 6-8 203
The text appears to have been assimilated to that of v."**, on which
see note ; or, possibly the original line has been lost, and v."'' sub-
stituted for it. — 7. Antithetic, ternary. The antithesis is exact
and complete. The common human desire to leave a good name
behind shall be fulfilled, says the writer, for the good, but not for
the bad : men will bless the one, or will regard him as an example of
blessedness or prosperity ; the other they will forget.* The rule,
in fact, holds in general, though it is not without numerous excep-
tions. The opposite point of view is expressed \njul. Cues., 3, 2 :
The evil that men do lives after them ;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Instead of will rot a slight change of text gives the reading : will
be cursed (Frank.), which offers an exact contrast to blessed, and
should perhaps be adopted ; this verb occurs in 1 1^ 24-^
8. Obedience to law characteristic of the wise.
A wise man heeds commands,
But a foolish talker will fall.
Antithetic, ternary. Lit. one who is 7mse of mind (Heb. heart),
and one who is foolish of lips ; the prating fool of RV. is inexact
— it is not a fool who talks, but a man who talks folly. — The
meaning of the first cl. is plain — the ivise man (he who is sound
in thought, practically judicious) abides by the prescriptions of
competent authority. This characterization of the wise man is
especially natural to the Jew of this period (4th or 3d century B.C.),
for whom all right was embodied in his Tora, but is also of universal
propriety, since all right conduct is conformity to law of some
sort ; here the law is external, divine or human. — The second cl.,
also, is plain in itself (foolish talking brings misfortune), but stands
in no obvious relation to the first cl., and seems not to be here in
place. We may, indeed, suppose an elaborate implicit antithesis :
language may be understood as the expression of thought and mind
(so that foolish talker = foolish man), dsid falling ^s the result of
not heeding commands, and the proverb, fully expressed, would
then read : the wise man abides by law, talks sensibly, and pros-
* So in Gen. 128 : in thee shall all nations bless themselves, that is, take thee as
the standard of success ; the explanation of the expression is given in Gen. 4820.
204 PROVERBS
pers ; the fool rejects law, talks foolishly, and fails. But this
roundabout mode of expression is contrary to the method of the
Book, in which the antithesis of the clauses is obviously meant to
be clearly set forth. The second cl. (which occurs again in v.^°)
was probably here inserted by error of scribe ; it belongs properly
in an aphorism in which the other clause declares the stability of
the righteous. The reference is to earthly failure.
9. Safety in integrity.
He who walks uprightly walks surely,
But he whose ways are crooked shall < suffer.)
Antithetic, ternary. In second cl. the Heb. has shall be knozun,
that is, apparently, known as ( = discovered to be) a wrong-doer,
and punished. That a bad man's wickedness will be found out is
probable ; but the parallelism calls for the mention of punishment,
and a natural expression is given in ii^^, where suffer loss or evil
(RV. smart for it) stands in contrast with sure ; this rendering
requires only a slight change in one Heb. letter. We may also
translate : but it goes ill with him whose ways, etc. The transla-
tions will be taught (that is, by his experience) (Ew.), and will be
seen through (De.) are improbable. Uprightly is lit. i?i upright-
ness, perfectness, or innocence ; on crooked see note on 2'^ Surely
= not confidently, but safely. The proverb seems not to contem-
plate divine intervention, but to refer to a common law of society :
the man of upright Hfe has nothing to fear from his neighbors
or from the law — a dishonest man will be punished — nearly
equivalent to honesty is the best policy.
10. Mischief-makers and friendly critics.
He who winks the eye makes trouble,
< But he who reproves makes peace.'
Antithetic, probably ternary. On winking the eye (or, with the
eye) as an expression for stirring up strife by malicious hints see
note on 6'-"'^ The second cl. reads in the Heb. : atid a foolish
talker shall fall, apparently repeated from v.^ (where, however, it
is not in place), here offering no antithesis — we expect the men-
tion of something which causes the opposite of trouble. Grk. has
X. 8-1 1 205
He who winks deceitfully with his eyes causes sorrozv to men, but
he who reproves openly tnakes peace. This furnishes the desired
contrast, but in expanded form ; the deceitfully and to men are
explanatory additions, and perhaps also the openly (Bickell),
though we might read (see 2f) open reproof jnakcs peace, or he
who reproves evil, etc. (cf. 24^). In any case the suggestion is
that frank reproof of wrongdoing will pave the way to repentance
and amity. For the word trouble see 15^^ Job 9'^ and cf. the simi-
lar term in 10-^ 15^ i/' 127- (sometimes = labor, 5^" 14^^).
11. Righteous and wicked speech.
The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
But violence envelops the mouth of the wicked.
Antithetic, ternary. The second cl. (identical with second cl.
of v.^ on which see note) is not to be rendered the mouth of
the wicked conceals violence ; * violence is represented as a gar-
ment which clothes the bad man's mouth, that is, it characterizes
and is produced by his utterance — the idea of concealment is
not in place, it is rather expression that is meant ; in Prov. mouth
is generally equivalent to utterance, and the idea that the wicked
man uses language to conceal his thought (that is, is hypocritical),
though here possible, does not accord with the first line. The
contrast is between the speech of the righteous and that of the
wicked — the former is a source of wisdom, peace, good earthly
hfe, the latter brings hurt, misfortune ; it is the effect on others
that is referred to. The expression fountain of life = life-giving
water, or, generally, source of life, is used of God in Jer. 2^^ 17'''
\\i 36^'^"' (De.), in accordance with the national theistic point of
view of the prophets and psalmists ; in Prov. it is used of wise,
upright speech (so here), of the law of the wise (13"), of the
fear of God (14"), of wisdom or understanding (16'^), the refer-
ence in all cases being to prosperous and happy earthly life as the
result of obedience to the highest wisdom, which is ultimately obe-
dience to the law of God ; see f 4'^ 8^, etc. The sage thus con-
ceives of human life as a system ordered by law, this law residing
in the mind of man, but being also the will of God, who thus
* De., Str., Kamp. al.
206 PROVERBS
manifests himself in human thought. The fountain of life is a
natural figure, especially in Palestine, where springs played so
important a part in agriculture and life generally ; there seems to
be no reason to suppose a reference to a primitive " spring of life "
corresponding to the "tree of life" of Gen. 2 (see note on 3^*).
— The expression living water (Jer. 2^^ a/.), = running water
(contrasted with standing water), is used in a different sense.
12. Hatred and love.
Hatred stirs up strifes.
But love hides all transgressions.
Antithetic, ternary. Cf. 17^. Hatred dwells on and exagger-
ates evil or unwise words and acts, and so causes misunderstand-
ings and quarrels. Love hides trangressions, not by condoning
wrong, but by making allowance and forgiving ; it leads a man to
cover up not his own faults (this is condemned in 28'^) but those
of others (so i Cor. 13"). This clause is quoted in i Pet. 4^ in
the form love hides a tnultitude of sins (that is, sins of others),
free citation, possibly from memory, but more probably (since it
occurs in Jas.) from some current Aramaic or Greek version
(which perhaps represented a Heb. text slightly different from
ours). A different application is given to the latter part of the
expression in Jas. 5^, in which it is said that he who turns a sinner
from his evil ways covers a ttiultitude of sins, conceals them, that
is, from the eyes of God, who no longer takes note of them —
a use of cover derived from OT., in which a verb * having this
meaning is employed in the sense ato7ie for (Ex. 29^, etc.), for-
give {xp 78^), appease (Pr. 16"). The idea in these passages is
the same as in this verse — sin is hidden, ignored.
6. 1^ nb-\3; @ (foil, by %) evXoyla Kvplov, in which the k. is perh. original
(Lag.), perh. interpretation. — It is doubtful whether there is any difference
of sense between tt'NiS and irxia; the former does occur in connection with
blessing (Gen. 49^6 Dt. 33^^), and the latter, after verbs of inflicting, in con-
nection with punishment (i K. 2^'^ Obad.i'^ Joel 4*''); but elsewhere the two
are used in the same sense (cf, Ez. 1612 with Pr. 4^). — For |§ ^0 Graetz, with
probability, suggests ijd. J^ ddh; (S irdvOos Aupov (Lag. adpbov, but cf. WS.
* Kapar, kipper, whence koper, ransom, kapporet, covering (of the ark) , RV.
mercy-secit.
X. II-I3 207
14^^), whence we may read Dvr. — 7. ^ ^pi-'; (5 a^^vvvrai, = IVS as in 13^
2020242'^; ^gChaveiJ,n; Krochmal (cited by Gr.) 2pv shall be cursed {cL ii^"),
a good reading if the noi^ be understood of men (Frank. 3pr). — 8. |^ ^kx;
®Ba(. (I(j-Tc7os babbling ((§-''*' S'* doraros unsteady^; the crKoXictfwj' of (5 is
gloss on this expression, or (Jag.) on the 8ia<rTpi^wi> (|ij w'pyn) of v^. |^ OoS^;
(5 vwo<TK€\i(Tdr]a-eTat. stumble, fall (as Arab, aa^) ; P'rank. n^-'-, which, how-
ever, does not occur elsewhere without a defining term. — 9. |^ >nv (foil, by
all Vrss.) gives no satisfactory sense; read "^; (so Graetz) or iS yT'; cf. ii^^
1320 ^p 106*^. On SST see Pink. — 10. I^** (= S'') is here out of place. (@ 6
5^ eX^YXwy/ierd Trapprjcrlai etprjvoiroiet, perh. = oSr^ n\if3tr3 npfc; Bi. nry nob
dSs'; MfT. Tap. is rendered by Lag. nrcGp (so in Lev. 261^), by Gr. dijo Sn.
— 11. For l^** 'D (5 has ^i* x^'P'> perh. scribal error for x^^^" (Grabe, Lag.)i
— 12. On 1^ ::J^D see note on 6" — '^y after hdd occurs ^ 44^'' lo6i'^ Job ai^o,
the primary sense of the vb. being perh. lay, heap. — (S toi)s /xt; 0tXo;'eiKoOi'Tas,
= ayu'fl nS, the neg. being inserted to obtain a contrast with *. S !<''^nn3
shame (for |ij n^nN) is scribal error, or emendation to avoid saying that love
covers sinners (Pink.).
13, 14. The character and use of speech.
13. In the speech of the discerning wisdom is found,
But for the fool's back there is a rod.
14. Wise men conceal what they know.
But the talk of a fool is impending destruction.
13. Ternary. The two clauses, taken separately, give each a
good sense, but there is no close connection between them. The
first has congeners in lo^'-^^ 14^ 15^, where there is well marked
antithesis. The second is found almost word for word in 26^ in
which the meaning is clear — the fool, like a beast, must be driven
or guided by force (cf. \^ 32"). Such must be its sense here,
and we should then expect in the first cl. the statement that the
wise man is otherwise directed ; possibly this is what is meant by
saying that wisdom is in his speech (lit. lips^ — he is guided by
reason. But this sense is not obvious, and in v.^^ the expression
has another meaning, namely, that the lips of the good man utter
wisdom, in contrast with which we should here expect to read
that the fool utters folly (cf. v.") . This sense may be got by a
couple of changes in the Heb. text : but folly is iti the mouth of
the fool (lit. of him who is devoid of understatiding, lacking in
sense). It is doubtful, however, whether we should not rather
retain the text, and regard the second cl. as here out of place.
208 PROVERBS
As the verse stands, the meaning must be taken to be : An intelli-
gent man's speech is wise, his thought is good, and he knows how
to direct his life — a fool has no guiding principle in himself, and
must be driven like a beast, or coerced like a chiM. From Grk.
we get no help : he who brings out wisdom from his lips smites
the fool with a rod. — 14. Antithetic, ternary. The antithesis is
obvious : wise men, knowing the power of words, are cautious in
speech, and by sometimes keeping back what they know, avert
misfortune, while fools, talking thoughtlessly, are constantly in
danger of bringing destruction on people's heads, as by talebear-
ing, revealing secrets, and the like. Reticence is often praised
in Prov. ; see v.'^ ii'^ 12^ al. If the rendering wise tnen lay tip
knowledge (De., RV.) be adopted, the antithesis will be destroyed,
and the two clauses cannot be regarded as belonging together.
Cf. BS. 9'« 20".
15, 16. Wealth — its social value, and its proper use.
15. The rich man's wealth is his strong city,
And the poverty of the poor is their destruction.
16. The wage of the righteous leads to life,
The revenue of the wicked to < destruction.'
15. Antithetic, ternary. Strong city = protection against all
dangers and ills. The second cl. is lit. : and the destruction of the
poor is their poverty. Cf. v.^ BS. 40^^. The Grk. omits the pos-
sessive pronouns. There is probably no ethical thought in the
proverb — the sense is that wealth smooths one's path in life,
bringing supply of bodily needs, guarding against the attacks of
the powerful, and giving social consideration (14^ 18^ 19* 22^ 31^),
— while the poor man is exposed to bodily and social privations
(19* Eccl. 9^*). — It seems to be simply a recognition of the value
of money, such as is found in all civilized lands. Possibly, how-
ever, the sage has also in mind the moral dangers of poverty, as
in 30^ — A somewhat different sense is given to the first cl. in
18", on which see note. The opposite side of the picture — the
danger of wealth — is brought out in 1 1* 13* 23* 28®- " BS. 30" 31^-*,
and it is declared in 19^^ 28® that poverty is preferable to vice. —
16. Antithetic, ternary. Lit. : the wage, etc. is (= leads) to life,
the revenue, etc. is to, etc. Wage (wages of labor) and revenue
X. 13-17 209
(what accrues to one) are synonyms — it is not meant to contrast
the wealth of the righteous as gained by honest toil with that of
the wicked as acquired without work (De., Str.) ; the former term
is used also of the wicked (ii'*) and the latter of wisdom (3^'').
The contrast is between the tendencies and results of riches in
different men. For the good man, who acquires and uses it prop-
erly, it leads to long life and earthly happiness (for this sense see
notes on 3^ "^) — he does nothing to endanger his position. For
the bad man it leads — we expect the antithesis to death (for which
see II*) — instead of this the Heb. has to sin. If the text be
correct, we must suppose that the sin involves punishment, ulti-
mately death — the bad man comes into conflict with the laws of
society, or incurs the anger and vengeance of God. But the word
sin is here difficult. The point of the verse is not that wealth is
an occasion of sin to the wicked man, but that, as the properly
acquired and used wealth of the righteous secures Ufe for him, so
the improperly acquired and used wealth of the wicked secures
death or calamity for him. The word sin, though supported by
all the Vrss., appears to be a miswriting.* An easy change of text
gives the appropriate term destruction (as in v.^*^). The mean-
ing of the proverb is plain — even wealth, ordinarily regarded as
a blessing, becomes a curse in the hands of a bad man. The
point of view is that of chs. 1-9 : rightdoing is attended by
earthly prosperity, wrongdoing by adversity.
17. Docility and indocility.
He is in the way of life who heeds instruction,
But he who neglects admonition goes (fatally) astray.
Antithetic, ternary. The first cl., lit. the ivay to life is he who,
etc., might be rendered : he is a wayfarer to life who, etc., or it is
the 7vay to life when one, etc. ; the sense remains the same : he
who follows right instruction will be led to a long and happy
earthly life (see preceding verse), since he will be taught to avoid
folly and so will escape danger. The second cl. states the reverse
* The sense punishment, which is given by some to the Heb. word in Isa. 5I8
I K. 13^ Nu. 32'-^ Dan. g"-*, is doubtful, and in any case can hardly be assigned to
it here.
P
2IO PROVERBS
side : rejection of instruction causes one to miss the way of life
and happiness, and to wander into the paths of misfortune and
death. The second verb is in form causative in the Heb., and
we may translate : he who heeds instruction is a way to life (for
others), but he who Jiegiects admonition leads (others) astray (cf.
Wildeboer) ; but this seems less natural than the sense given
above (cf. the similar thought in 15'"). The proverb inculcates
a teachable disposition — one mark of a fool is unwillingness to
take advice. The instruction must be understood to be of the
most general sort, including training in the higher divine ethical
law, as well as guidance in smaller matters of everyday life.
18. Talebearing. The form is doubtful. The Hebrew most
naturally reads :
He who hides haired is a liar (lit. lying lips),
And he who utters (or, spreads) slander is a fool.
The verse is thus a synthetic parallelism, and AV. makes it
(against the norm of the context) a single sentence : he that
hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a
fool. Luther : false mouths cover hatred. In the connection the
expression he who hides hatred must mean the man who conceals
hostile feehng under friendly words (26^), and is thus false in
speech. There might thence seem to result the antithesis of
secrecy and publicity : a secret hater is a liar, an open slanderer
is a fool. But this antithesis does not really exist in the verse —
the suggestion rather is that concealed hatred expresses itself in
slander (the two are related as cause and effect), which is itself
an underhand, secret procedure. But, from the usage of Prov.
^jq12 jj13 12I6.23 j^9 28^3^ ^]^g ygflj }^^^^ ^]j^ cover), when unde-
fined, would naturally mean to cover up, put out of the way, in
a good sense, so that we might expect the clause to read : he who
covers tip hatred is righteous, and so Grk. righteous lips conceal
hatred. — The text may be rendered : Lying lips conceal hatred,
= the liar conceals, etc. ; but this general proposition is not true,
and does not offer a distinct contrast to the second line. In 26^
the covering of hatred is defined as effected by deceit, and is thus
stamped as evil ; without such a defining term it is doubtful
whether the expression can be taken in a bad sense. We must
X. 17-19 211
adopt the construction of AV., or the reading of Grk., or else we
must suppose that the original text has been lost, and that it
referred to suppression of evil reports (as in v.^'-* 17''), or gave
some other antithesis to the second clause,
13. See note on this v. above. A possible reading for '' is iDn ^noa'3 nSiNi
3':'. In * Bi. omits .sson for the sake of the rhythm. (5^ omits » by error.
In •> pd^5(f> TVTTTfL &v5pa (XKcipdiov = iS iDn ^^2i^ L33J'. & = &; ^IL = ^. —
14. (S eyyi^fL ffwrpi^rj, = 3^1 nnns'^. — 15. |l? J?-, <S dcrejiQv, prob. for dffde-
vQv {(S'^ Grabe, Lag.). — 16. For Pj HN'jn we should read nnnn or nic. —
17. The expression :^•^'^ niN, only here; cf. ^ 16II Pr. 2^^ 5" 15^*; the prep,
does not appear in the Vrss. We may read "icc*^ 'n 'n (cf. 15-*), or Partcp.
n"]S, or 'IV 'n msa — J^ n^jnp can be taken only in the causative sense, as
everywhere else in OT. (the only other occurrence of the Hif. in Pr. is
12'^^, on which see note). Read Qal r\-;r\ (the c being omitted as erroneous
repetition of preceding ri), or, with Hitz., point nync as Hith. — On the mis-
translation of (3 see notes of Vog., Lag., Baumg. — 18. For (S^ SUaia
(for J^ "^i"'-') Grabe suggests &.5iKa, Lag. (with (§'"'"') S6\ia, which may be
conformation to J^, or 5. may be free rendering to gain a good sense. The
text of JiJ" appears to be corrupt, and no aid is got from the Vrss. See note
on this V. above.
19-21, The proper use of speech.
19. In a multitude of words transgression will not be lacking,
And he who controls his tongue acts wisely.
20. The tongue of the righteous is choice silver.
The mind of the wicked is little worth.
21. The lips of the righteous feed many,
But the foolish die through lack of understanding,
19. Antithetic, ternary. Totigue is lit. lips. The second line
may also be rendered : the wise tnan controls, etc. The caution
is against much talking — in general, says the sage, it is impossible
to talk much and be wise. The reference is to everyday life ;
transgressio7i is overstepping the bounds of sobriety and good
sense. The preceding proverb is directed against gossip as inju-
rious to others ; this is intended to guard the man's own charac-
ter. It may be popular in origin, but its present form was given
it by cultivated thinkers, Cf, BS. 20-, Malan cites a number of
close parallels to this proverb, as talkativeness is intemperance in
speech (Theophrast. Char. 8), and silence is a hedge about wisdom
{Pirke Aboth, 3, 13), and cf. Pirk. Ab., i, 17, which is probably
2 I 2 PROVERBS
based on this verse. — 20. Antithetic, quaternary- (or, ternary-)
ternary. The antithesis rests on the identification of thought or
mind (Ht. heart) and speech {tongue) ; it is assumed (and in
general it is true) that they correspond to each other, A good
man's speech, issuing from his good mind, makes for everything
good in life, and may be likened to choice silver, silver refined, of
highest value, and everywhere current. The mind of the wicked
(their inward being, attitude toward life, thought and opinion),
which naturally expresses itself in words, is of small account —
a contemptuous expression, doubtless = of no account, of no
value for speaker or hearer. The point of view is moral (as in
chs. 1-9) ; righteous and wicked are identified with wise and un-
7vise. — 21. Antithetic, quaternary- (or, ternary-) ternary. Speech
and thought are identified, as in the preceding verse, and righteous
{— wise) is set over digmwai foolish (no doubt here = wicked);
understanding is lit. mind {heart), as above. The antithesis is
between the nutritive power of wise thought and speech, and the
incapacity of moral folly to gain life — earthly life, taken in the
widest sense, with physical and moral content. The good man
ministers to all the wants not only of himself, but also of others
{many here = all with whom he comes in contact), the bad man
cannot keep even himself alive ; the death referred to is the
premature physical death which is the penalty of failure to grasp
and follow wisdom ; see note on v.^ The thought is substan-
tially that of 3^^'", with substitution of the righteous man for wis-
dom. — A sharper antithesis would be gained by the reading many
die through one ivho lacks understanding, but the change oi fools
to mafiy is difficult ; the rendermg fools die through otie, etc, gives
no appropriate thought. — In the first line the translation the lips,
etc., gain many (as friends) is hardly allowed by the Hebrew.
Cf. BS. 6^^918.
22. Happiness of work blessed by God.
The blessing of Yahweh, it makes rich,
And he adds no sorrow with it.
Continuous or extensive (the second cl. completing the first by
an additional detail), ternary. The first cl. affirms that physical
wealth is the gift of God, as in chs. 1-9 this gift is ascribed to
X. 20-23 213
Wisdom. The repetition of the subject by the insertion of it
indicates that it is the divine blessing and not anything else that
gives riches, that is, the divine blessing on the labor of men's
hands. In the second cl. the term sorrow (sometimes = painful
effort, toil) is used, as in \^^'^ {sorroiv of heart ox tnind), Gen. 3'",
for pain, suffering ; the wealth bestowed by Yahweh is distin-
guished, as being free from sorrow, from ill-gotten gain, which
brings evil with it (13" 15" 16'" 21'' 28*'). There is an implied an-
tithesis between the wealth of good men and that of bad men. —
Elsewhere in OT., when a preposition follows the verb add, it is to
(see Jer. 45''), which would here be out of place. — This under-
standing of the term rendered sorrow is that of the Anc. Vrss.
Some expositors,* taking it in the sense of labor, render : and toil
adds not to it (namely, to the blessing), that is, human labor
counts for nothing in the acquisition of wealth — it is all God's
doing. But such a sharp separation between man's work and
God's work is hardly an OT. conception (passages hke Ex. 14"
\l/ 118* do not bear on this question) — man is everywhere repre-
sented as working under God's direction; so x^j 127- (which is
cited by Ew., De., Str., as supporting their translation) affirms not
that labor in itself is useless, but only labor unattended by the
divine blessing. In 14*'' it is said that there is profit in all labor.
23. How wrongdoing appears to fools and to sages.
It is as sport to a fool to do wrong,
But it is < abomination ' to a man of sense.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. The essential idea in the term
sport is not ease of performance (De. al. : child's play), but recre-
ation, enjoyment — so Gen. 17" Ex. 32" Ju. 16^ Zech. 8'^ Job 40^
Pr. S*^^ 26^^31^ (the sense derision which the word sometimes
has, as in 2 C. 30^" Job 30^ ^ 2* Pr. i-^ does not come into con-
sideration here). It is the fool's moral superficiality that enables
him to enjoy sin — he has no deep sense of its sinfulness ; it is
involved that such conduct is easy for him — the assumption is
that wrongdoing may become part of a man's nature, his normal
and joyous activity. — The term here rendered wrong {KV. wicked-
• Saadia, Rashi, Luther, Ew., Hitz., De., Str., Kamp., Frank.
214 PROVERBS
ness) is a strong one, sometimes expressing general enormity of
conduct (21^^ 24^ Job 31" i/^ 26^"), frequently in the Prophetical
and legal hooks = lewtifness (Jer. 13^^ Ez. 16^ 23-^ Lev. 18*^,
here badness in the most general sense. — The Heb. of the second
line is Ut. : an^ luisdom to a ?nan 0/ sense (or, utiderstandifig),
which may conceivably mean that a man of sense is wise (an
identical proposition), or that wisdom is as sport (natural enjoy-
ment) to a man of sense (but wisdom is not parallel to wrong-
doing— we should expect the name of the act, rightdoing). The
natural subject of the second line is wrongdoing, and the predicate
should be antithetic to sport; from the similar thought in 16'^ we
may here read abomination. Other proposed readings are : a dis-
grace (which does not furnish a distinct contrast to sport), and as
{object of) anger (which gives the desired contrast, but the inser-
tion of object of is unwarranted, and the as inappropriate). — The
terms /^^/ and man of sense have an intellectual and moral content.
24, 25. Fate of righteous and wicked.
24. What the wicked fears will befall him,
But the desire of the righteous will be granted.
25. When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more,
But the righteous is established for ever.
24. Antithetic, ternary. \a1. the fear of the wicked. The con-
trast is between /<?rt:r and desire. Instead of saying that the desire
of the wicked will not be granted, the author gives a more strik-
ing antithesis by declaring that the calamity apprehended by the
wicked will overtake him. It is the ancient opinion of retribution
in this world : every man desires happiness, and fears and appre-
hends misfortune — the good man shall have his desire (so ch. 3
and passim), the fear of the bad man shall be fulfilled. This
opinion is combated in Job 3^ : Job, a good man, had feared evil,
and it had come upon him. Our sage maintains the old view
(which long continued to be the prevaihng one), doubtless con-
sidering it to be necessary for the restraint of evil and the encour-
agement of good. The happiness had in view is general prosperity,
without special reference to the satisfaction of a good conscience
or the enjoyment of communion with God, and with no reference
to the retribution of the future Hfe. — In the second line the Heb.
X. 23-25 215
has : the desire, etc., he tvill grant. The he is regarded by some
critics as indefinite (the resulting sense being will be granted) , by
others as referring to Yahweh. Neither of these interpretations is
favored by the usage of OT., and the verb must be written as
Passive. — 25. Antithetic, ternary. Lit. at the passing over of the
tempest (that is, of misfortune) the wicked is not. The Syr. has :
as the tempest suddenly passes, so the wicked perishes and is not
found. In i^ the fear ( = source of fear) of the wicked is
likened to a whirlwind or tempest, but (even if the Heb. allow it)
the comparison is not appropriate for the idea of impermanence,
and the Syr. is obliged to insert the word suddenly to get the
picture of swift destruction. The same construction (without the
suddenly) is given by Targ. Lat. and AV. — The second cl. reads :
the righteous is an everlasting foundation, not that he is a support
for others, but (as the contrast requires) that he himself is firmly
established. The verse sets forth the permanence and imperma-
nence of the two classes of men : the wicked is swept away by
the tempest of divine punishment (i'"'), the righteous is secured
against overthrow by divine protection (cf. 12^ i4^0- The thought
is adopted in Mt. f^"".
19. For 3IJ Sirr* S has xxonn (= Sx:'') and for i'?'0, *<'^i*< (= yt^'o), which
gives a less marked antithesis than that of f^. — C. B. Mich, (quoted by De.)
compares the 7ro\i;Xo7/a ttoXXo crc^dXyuaTo of Stobaeus. — 20. (5^ Treirupw/u^ws
(1^ "ii^^:), perh. for veireipafx^vos (L^gO — 21. |^ v;-\^; Frank., not well, gain
as /fiends. — The subst. ion occurs in OT. only here and 28^^, the adj.
ten times in Pr.; 3S is omitted by ®, probably by scribal error. (5 badly
(iriaTaTai vi/'TjXd, = "bi i^t (|§ a2-\ i;"^')- — 22. After Hif. of 10^ the thing
^0 which something is added is introduced generally by V;*, sometimes by S or
Sn; here alone the vb. is followed by ay — the prep, introduces the thing
along 7vilh which the 3Xy is not added. — (5 follows J^, but inserts explanatory
jihrases: ^Tri K£(pa\r]v diKalou after eiXoyia k., and iv KapSlq. after Xi^ttt;. —
23. HDon in |§ is to be taken as the antithesis to not nu'jj. For 'n Graetz sug-
gests naS3 disgrace, as contrast to pnz', taken as = spori, a partial antithesis,
but hardly convincing. Read '"13:.^. Frank.: .inns. (&^ iv yiXuri &<(>pu)v
Trpd(ra-£L KaKd, — 'r n-i-; ^D3 pni'3, in accordance with which *• might be ren-
dered : and {with enjoytnenf) a man of understanding {practices) wisdom
(omitting '^), which has no advantage over |^. In *• <S takes nj^ri as pred.;
S>^ follow (S in a (2r Nm35? for net), and % in ^. E = ?^. — 24. ?^ \n\
hardly with subj. nini understood — there is no reason why "< should not have
been written, if it had been meant (cf. ^ 21^), and there is no trace of it in
the Vrss., except in Saad. ; nor is there in OT. a clear example of the impers.
2l6 PROVERBS
or indef. construction of )n>, not in 13^'^ (on which see note l^elow) or in
Job 37M (on which see Budde's note). It is better, with SSTiL, to take it as
Pass., and point as Hof. (cf. Job aS^^), or (Vog.) as Nif. — (S» iv d-rrwXela
d(re/3i;s wepKpdpeTat. (and so S), where dir. perh. = njc, as in Jer. 49'^, and
nep. = N3^ (cf. Schleusn., Lag.). After » (3^ adds SovXeijai 8^ Arppojv (ppovifxiij
(perh. from II^^), and after ^ Kapdla d^ do-e/SoOj eicXe/i/'et (perh. corruption of ^,
and cf. 15"). The additions do not belong to the Heb. original. — 25. In
-^^'n the 3 is taken as compar. by ^STIL Saad.; if this were the sense we
should expect p in •*, and so B'Hl render; 3L has guasi before fundavientum.
(S'' hlKa.i.0% di iKKXivas (xd^erai els tov aiCiva seems to be free rendering of |^,
and it is unnecessary (Semler, cited and approved by Lag.) to change iKK. to
aKKivrjs unstvervi)tg.
26. The sluggard.
As vinegar to the teeth and as smoke to the eyes.
So is the sluggard to those who send him.
A simple comparison, quaternary-ternary, based on some pop-
ular saying. The term rendered vinegar is used for any acid
drink made from the juice of the grape (Nu. 6^, forbidden, there-
fore, to Nazirites) — in some forms it was refreshing (Ru. 2^*), in
others unpleasant (i/' 69^^'"') ; see note on 25-". Hitz., Ew.
render, in second cl., not so well : to him who, taking the Heb.
word as plu. of majesty (hke the word for lord). Grk., in first cl.
as unripe {sour) grapes, perhaps scribal error for vinegar, and
in second cl. so is lawlessness to those who practise it, which
agrees well with the ethical tone of this chapter, not so well with
first cl. It is probably a misreading of our Heb. text. Whether
the proverb originally stood in this place is doubtful ; it resembles
in form the aphorisms of chs. 25. 26.
27-29. Contrasted fortunes of righteous and wicked.
27. The fear of Yahweh prolongs life.
But the Hfe of the wicked will be shortened.
28. The hope of the righteous will have a glad issue,
But the expectation of the wicked will perish.
29. Yahweh is a stronghold to the < man of integrity,'
But destruction to the workers of iniquity.
27. Antithetic, ternary. So 3^^ and many other passages —
long life, a supreme blessing when there is no hope beyond the
grave, is the reward of piety. The sage probably thinks both of
natural causes (sobriety, etc.) as producing this result, and of im-
X. 26-30 2 17
mediate divine action. For life the Heb. has days in first cl.,
years in second cl. On fear of Yahweh see note on \' . — 28. An-
tithetic, ternary. Lit. in first cl. the hope of the righteous is glad-
ness. The thought is substantially that of v,^'' ^ — the aim of all
men, good and bad, is happiness — the cause is human law and
divine control — the good will, the bad will not, gain what they
wish. Cf. Job 8^^ i/' 112'", and so everywhere in OT., except in
the speeches of Job and in Ecclesiastes. The aphorism looks to
the close of life. — 29. Antithetic, ternary. According to the
Masoretic punctuation the first line reads : a stronghold to perfec-
tion is the way of Yahweh ; the parallelism requires that we read
(with Grk.) perfect (or, righteous, or, pious) instead oi perfection.
But, as elsewhere in OT., it is always Yahweh himself, and not his
"way," that is called a stronghold, the line must be translated:
Yahweh is a stronghold to him ivho is perfect in his zvay, that is,
to a man of integrity. The conception is the old- Hebrew one,
that the retributions of God in this life are determined by men's
moral character. — When (as in RV.) the "way of Yahweh" is
taken as subject of the sentence, the understanding is that the
divine government of the world produces the results named — an
idea appropriate in itself (see Ez. 18 \p ig-'^^-*-^-^)) ; but "strong-
hold " is a strange predicate of " way " (or " method of govern-
ment "), and OT. usage is against such a construction. — In the
translation here adopted Yahweh is the subject of the whole
couplet, the antithesis being found in the two members of the
predicate, stronghold, etc., and destructioti, etc. We may also
take the second cl. as a separate sentence, and render : but de-
struction tvill be to the workers of iniquity ; the antithesis will then
be simply between the protection given to the righteous and the
ruin visited on the wicked. The objection to this rendering is that
it does not recognize the syntactical parallelism between stronghold
to the perfect and destruction to the tuorkers of iniquity which is
suggested by the Heb. — both expressions appear to be predicates
of Yahweh. The second cl. recurs in 21''', on which see note,
30. Permanence of the righteous.
The righteous will never be moved,
But the wicked will not abide in the land.
2l8 PROVERBS
Antithetic, ternary. The general idea is the same as that of
v.^, but there is special reference to the privileges of citizenship.
The sentiment of love of country was reinforced among the Israel-
ites (and probably to some extent among other ancient Semitic
peoples) by a definite view of the relation between the deity, the
citizen, and the land. The favor of the deity was confined to his
own land and people, and the prosperity of the man was insepa-
rably connected with his share in the soil. In ancient times this
view was held in a crude, unethical way (i Sam. 26^^) ; in Israel
it was gradually purified by intellectual and moral growth, but
never wholly given up — it was always in the land of Canaan that
the final blessing was to come to the people. The prophets inter-
preted exile as a temporary cessation of privilege, a preparation
for a higher destiny (Jer. 27'^ Ez. 39'*"^ Isa. 53). Thus posses-
sion of the soil, dwelling in the land, came to be the synonym of
the highest blessing (i/^ 37^", cf. Mt. 5'), and is so used here.
The expression retained its validity in the Greek period in spite
of the dispersion of the people (cf. Dan. 12 BS. 36" Enoch 85-
90). The reference in the first cl. (as the parallelism shows) is
to physical permanence, not to the maintenance of moral integrity.
See notes on i*' 2^'-^^.
31, 32. Speech of righteous and wicked: The expressions are
not perfectly clear ; the text is perhaps in disorder. The Heb.
31. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
But the tongue of falsehood shall be cut off.
32. The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,
But the mouth of the wicked is falsehood.
31. Antithetic, ternary. The causative sense utter seems to be
required by the connection ; but elsewhere (i/^ 62^"'"' 92^^^'^') this
form of the verb means sprout, grow, increase (the causative form,
make grow, occurs in Zech. 9'^). As the text stands, the antithe-
sis is implicit. Instead of saying that the tongue of the wicked
utters folly or falsehood (as in v.^^), the verse, looking forward to
consequences, declares that it shall be cut off; the proverb in full
form would be : the righteous speaks wisdom, obeys God, and
lives — the wicked speaks folly, disobeys, and dies. It is a repeti-
tion of the familiar idea of precise compensation in this life ; cf.
X. 30-32 219
"A 36^^*^ 37* 59'^^"' 144' (the reference in the Psalms is generally
to national enemies) Pr. 4-* 10'^ ^^ 12'® ^^ 15^^ Eccl. 10*^ ''^j etc. —
32. Antithetic, quaternary-ternary (or, ternary-binary). A simple
statement of the difference between the utterances of the two
classes of men. Acceptable is that which gives content, pleasure,
to man (Esth. i*) or to Ciod (Pr. 8^ 11^ 12^, etc., Isa. 49**, and, in
the sacrificial ritual. Lev. 22-'°, etc.). In the latter case the divine
name is always expressed elsewhere in Prov., and the reference
here must be to man. Good men, the proverb says, employ the
sincere and kindly language that gives men pleasure. On the
other hand, the false language of bad men, the parallelism sug-
gests, stirs up strifes. The verb know, as predicate of lips, is
somewhat strange. It might be taken, as in 12''', in the sense
regards, pays attention to, but we should then expect the righteous
man as subject; here we shall better, with Grk. and Hitzig, read
utter* The proverb defines men's characters by the nature of
their speech. — In the four clauses of the two verses there is pos-
sibly a chiastic arrangement, the fourth cl. answering to the first cl.,
and the second cl. to the third cl., so that the simple form would be :
The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
But the mouth of the wicked falsehood.
The hps of the righteous utter what is acceptable,
But the tongue of falsehood will be cut off.
26. In ^ (5 TTapavo/jLla may = n'^iy (|^ ^V"^) > whether xP<^l^^''ots represents
vn^t' or some other word is uncertain. — 28. pj r^^ri' hope ; ® ivxpovii^et, lasts
long (because there is always hope), or, less probably, is deferred (because
only a hope), or perh. represents some other Heb. word, as nnxp. — 29. |§ "jti;
(5 06^09, as in v.^'; S'^ (with note ol Xoinol w<rai/Tws) 656s, which may be
conformation to |^, or may be original (5. — ^ on must be pointed dp; De.
suggests that the Masoretes here pointed the word as subst. because the adj.
is not found elsewhere with prefix, o' occurs nine times in ethical sense (in
poetical books only), twice of physical purity (Cant. 5^ 6'), once of social
habitude (C)en. 25^') ; it is an ethical term of the later literature (Job, Pss.
Pr.). — 31. ^ 2r is doubtful, since it elsewhere means sprout, gro^v, and
even Ilif. is hardly satisfactory; Hitz.'s emendation ji;'3'' is not improbable.
(@'* dTToo-Tcifei may = 3r'' or \y (Jag. in Lag.), or may be error for eiriaTaTai.
(so (§23.252 5,n)— pj,-,, (as in v.^^a). — 32. %] \r;-fy, we should probably read
IV3^ (cf. 152).
* Cf. Job 338, where there is a similar difficulty, and the second cl. should per-
haps read ; my itps speak what is sincere.
220 PROVERBS
XI. The contents are similar to those of ch. lo, but there are
several new groups, as v.^"- ", '^"^\ -^^®.
1. Honesty.
A false balance is an abomination to Yahweh,
But a just weight is well-pleasing to him.
Antithetic, ternary. Honesty in commercial dealing. So i6^'
2qW. 23^ and cf. 20"; for the earlier legal precept see Dt. 25^^ Ez.
45^" Lev. 19^. On abomination see note on ■^ ; originally ritual-
istic, it later acquired an ethical meaning. The moral rule is
here connected with the divine will.
2. Pride and humility.
When pride comes, then comes disgrace,
But with the humble is wisdom.
Antithetic, ternary. Pride is here an overweening sense of
one's deserts, and the humble man is one who does not overesti-
mate himself; the latter term is in the Heb. a different one from
that so rendered in \\i 9^-^^"' and elsewhere (which properly =//i?«j-) ;
it occurs in Mic. 6^ of humility before God, and might be so un-
derstood here * ; but the context suggests the more general sense,
referring to relations between man and man : as the haughty man
makes enemies, is opposed and overthrown, so the humble man is
complaisant, avoids antagonisms and disgrace, and is therefore
wise. Such appears to be the antithesis : wisdom involves the
honor or peace which we might expect to be put over against the
disgrace of the first cl. IVisdom here = good sense in worldly
relations, though it may also involve acquaintance with and obe-
dience to the law of God, as in chs. 1-9. The term pride occurs
I Sam. if^ Ez. 7''' Jer. 49'" (and the adj. in Pss.). With this
proverb cf. 13^" \c^^ 16^* ^^ 18'- 22^ and the Eng. "pride will have
a fall," and for other parallels see Malan. — Instead of the humble
the Lat. has humility, which gives a directer contrast to pride,
though it is probably not the original Heb. reading.
* In the prophets and Psalms all things which come into rivalry with Yahweh
are regarded as objects of his displeasure, to be cast down ; this theocratic sense
oi pride is probably not the one meant by the proverb.
XI. 1-4 2l2r
3-6. The saving power of goodness contrasted with the de-
structive power of evil. The point of view is that of outward
compensation in the present life according to moral character.
The occurrence of these slightly varying forms of the same idea
suggests the teaching of schools, in which sages would seek to
inculcate a fundamental thought by repetition.
3. The integrity of the upright will guide them,
And the wickedness of the wicked will ruin them.
4. Riches profit not in the day of wrath,
But righteousness rescues from death.
5. The righteousness of the perfect smooths his path,
But the wicked will fall by his wickedness.
6. The righteousness of the upright will save them,
But the wicked are caught in their own desire.
3. Antithetic, ternary. Integrity is moral perfectness, freedom
from misdoing — it is the quality of the upright, those who walk
in the straight line of duty (rectitude) ; so (Job i^) Job is called
perfect and upright. Opposed to this is the wickedness (devia-
tion from the right way, wrongness) of the wicked ; this last term
does not represent the Hebrew word usually so rendered ; it
sometimes means faithless, those who act secretly, treacherously,
not keeping word with man or God, but, from the connection,
commonly in Prov. = the morally bad in general. Guide — lead
in the right way, procure wellbeing ; ruin = devastate, reduce to
nothing. The proverb contemplates in the first instance the op-
eration of natural, social law (the agencies mentioned are human
qualities, integrity and wickedness'), but doubtless with inclusion of
the idea of divine reward and punishment (the upright, being per-
fect, are guided by God — the wicked, being bad, are destroyed
by God). — 4, Antithetic, ternary, or quaternary-ternary. The
day of wrath may be the time of any crushing catastrophe,
brought on by man or God ; here, from the parallelism, the refer-
ence seems to be to the crowning catastrophe, death, that is,
death premature, sudden, violent, or otherwise unhappy (in sec-
ond cl. Targ. has evil death) ; see note on 2'^ In the prophets
the day of wrath has a national signification — it is the day in
which Yahvveh visits the sin of Israel or of other nations with
famine, pestilence, exile, or overthrow ; in the Wisdom books it is
222 PROVERBS
the day (usually the final day) of retribution for the individual
sinner. The verse contrasts moral and non-moral defences
against misfortune; riches seems to stand for any social non-moral
power, with the implication, of course, that it is not allied with
rectitude ; cf. \\i 49. Here, as in the preceding verse, the sage
may have in mind both natural and divine law, or ordinary social
law regarded as the law of God. It is not said that wealth is in
itself bad, but it is hinted that some men rely on wealth instead
of righteousness to save them from calamity — a condition of
things that holds good of Hebrew society from Amos down to the
second century b.c. ; anywhere within this period such a proverb
may have originated. — Righteousness was sometimes interpreted
as = almsgiving (cf. note on 10^) ; see Tob. 12^, and cf. BS. 29'^,
— Saadia (loth cent, a.d.) renders in first cl. day of resurrection,
against the usage of Pr., which takes no account of the future life.
— 5. Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. The figure is taken from
wayfaring : one man walks safely in a smooth, level road, another,
wandering from the main road, stumbles over rough places, and
falls irretrievably. See note on v.^; on the verb smooth (make
level or straight) see 3". The agencies are here again qualities,
righteousness and wickedness, and the same union of human and
divine law as in the preceding verses is to be understood. —
6. Antithetic, ternary. An antithesis nearly identical with that
of v.^ : goodness is socially helpful, badness is hurtful. The iden-
tity would be complete if we could render in second cl. in (or, by)
their own wickedness. The Heb. word (see note on 10'') has two
assured senses, desire (always evil) and calamity or destruction
(17* 19^^ Job 6^ 30'^) ; the latter is here inappropriate (RV. im-
properly, mischief), the former approaches nearly the idea of
wickedness. — The figure imphed in caught (or, taken) is probably
that of a net (cf. 6^ i/' 35*), possibly that of the capture of a city
(16^^). The term wicked of the second cl. is the same as that so
translated in v.^''.
7. The text is uncertain. The Heb. of first cl. reads :
When a wicked man dies, his expectation perishes.
The second cl., in its present form, can only be rendered : and
the hope of strength (or, sorrow) perishes. The abstract strength
XI. 4-7 223
is taken as = concrete strong by Rashi (who holds the reference
to be to the hope of the children of strong men), and by De. ;
but the term (as De. points out) is never elsewhere used in an
ethical sense, and (though the inadequacy of strength, as of riches,
v/, might conceivably be referred to) we expect a definite ethical
term as equivalent or opposite to the wicked of first cl. ; nor does
the concrete sense occur elsewhere. The sense iniquity, wicked-
ness or tvicked, unjust* is without support from OT. usage, the
plu. (found here) being never elsewhere so employed. The ren-
dering sorrow (Ew.) or sorrowful (Berth.) is not appropriate; it
is improbable that the expectation of the wicked would be de-
scribed simply as sorrowful hope. Failing a satisfactory render-
ing of the present text, emendations have been proposed : Graetz,
sons (= Rashi) ; Bi. bad men; or (by dropping the plu. termina-
tion) we get iniquity. But, in the two last cases, we have the
proverb consisting of two identical propositions, which, in this
place, is a very improbable form.f The Grk. supplies a desired
antithesis by rendering :
When a righteous man dies his hope does not perish,
But the boast of the wicked perishes.
This form, which is not supported by any other ancient authority,
looks like an interpretation of the Greek scribe, under the influ-
ence of the later belief in immortality. The true text of the
second cl. must be left undetermined. The form of the first cl.
suggests that the hope of the righteous man, in the sage's view,
would not perish at his death. If such an interpretation were
certain (here and in 14''-), it might help us to fix the time at
which the doctrine of immortality entered the Jewish world. But
the doubt respecting the second cl. attaches itself to the first cl.
also, and we cannot regard its form as assured. The more natu-
ral thought for Pr. is given in 10^ 11'' ; cf. note on 14^-. — One of
the clauses of the verse is perhaps a doublet, each clause having
originally read : the hope of the wicked will perish, and the doublet
♦ Saad., Luth., Hitz., Zock., Noyes, Reuss, Str., Kamp.
tThe change of form of the verb, from Impf in first cl. to Perf. in second cl.,
is not to strengthen the thought (as \{ perishes, will perish . . . has perished), but
is rhetorical variation.
224 PROVERBS
having ejected the proper antithetic clause which described the
hope of the righteous.
8. Rescue of the righteous.
The righteous is delivered out of trouble,
And the wicked comes in his stead.
Implicit antithesis, ternary. In his stead means reversal of posi-
tions, not vicarious suffering (Isa. 53), an idea not found in Pr. ;
cf. 21^^ The aphorism contains the sage's solution of the problem
of evil. The righteous is sometimes afflicted — of this fact the
sage (unlike the author of Job) attempts no discussion ; but the
affliction, he maintains, is temporary (so Job 20^) — ultimately
the righteous is rescued (so 12'^), and the wicked, cast down
from his shortlived triumph, takes his proper place as sufferer. It
is the doctrine of recompense in this world. The case of the
good man's suffering and the bad man's prospering throughout
life is not considered here or elsewhere in the Book. Cf. \p 49. 73.
9. The righteous escapes the ruin which the wicked designs.
With his mouth the impious man would destroy his neighbor,
But by knowledge the righteous are rescued.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. The word here rendered hnpi-
ous seems to have been originally a ritual term, signifying the op-
posite oi pure, sacred (so =profa7ie), as in Isa. 10^ (and the verb
in Jer. 3' Isa. 24^ Nu. 35^ i/' 106^) ; then it passed to the sense
of morally impure, out of relation with God (so RV. godless).
Lat. : simulator; Aq. Sym. Theod. : hypocrite. The speech of
such an one is false, malignant, likely to bring his fellowmen into
trouble and death (as, for ex., by traducing them to men in
power). There is probably no reference to the corrupting power
of evil talk. As contrast to this we might expect in second cl.
the statement (somewhat as in 10^') that the righteous saves his
neighbor (and so perhaps we should read), instead of which it is
said that he escapes (that is, apparently, the destruction of first
cl.) by knowledge — either by general acquaintance with Hfe (a
result of devotion to wisdom, 14'^^® 22^), or by knowing the wiles
of the impious and avoiding them. The converse statement is
found in io^\ where the righteous saves with his lips, and the
XI. 7-9 225
wicked die through ignorance. In general in Pr. the effect of
evil and good is confined to their possessors. — Grk. : m the
mouth of the impious is a snare for citizens, but the knowledge of
the righteous is prosperous, a free rendering of the Heb. (with
some changes of text), affected by next verse. — If we suppose
second cl. to be isolated, standing in no logical connection with
first cl., its meaning may be that knotvledge (= wisdom) is the
saving thing in Hfe — • a conception which controls chs. 1-9.
XI. 1. pj nc^r; (@ Ukohov. On the use of 5. in the 2d century B.C. cf.
Deissmann, Bibelstudien, pp. 112 f. — 2. On 'y^^ see note on 3^5. — Stade
{IVdc/i.) suggests that V'jx is Aram.; he refers to 13^'', which has the general
form of our v., only with nxa for ]^p, and Di'i'j ivell-advised for Dj?3S humble,
but such mutations of subjects and predicates are common in Pr., and there is
no good ground for changing the text here; cf Lag. The occurrence of >'jx
in Mic. 6^ is against regarding it as Aram. (Baumg.). — ©'^ o-rA/xa 5^ rairnvdv
fjLeXerq, crocplav, in which <tt. is perh. repetition from lo^'^, and /xeX. insertion
for clearness. IL, for the sake of formal symmetry: ubi autem humilitas ibi
et sapientia. — 3. Kethib Din (adopted in ST) is scribal error for Qere d^U". —
1^ l^p; S XPCi /re'f/^ (a guess; cf. Pink.); % supplantatio ; 2E, verb pj'?aj,
shall be driven forth. The stem "^^D = move on ; Arab, pass by or forward ;
Jew. Aram. Uirn aside ; Heb. turn aside, upside down. — <^^ dirodavtjjv SIkuios
eXiirev fxerafxeXov, perh. = cnjn a-\T^ rL3 (Jag., Bi.) ; cf. v.""; see notes of Lag.,
Heid., Baumg.; (5^ = 5^ v.i"''. e = |^. — 4. |l? m; E vSip::' deceit, = I.in.—
(gino. 147 give ||j. the v. is lacking in all other (S MSS., perh. by scribal over-
sight, possibly (Heid.) omitted from dogmatic considerations, because it seemed
to favor the rabbinical doctrine of justification by alms (cf. Baba Bathra, 10 «)
or by the study of the Tora (see the Midraah), against the Christian doctrine
of justification by faith. — 5. |§ :: ; ; Bi. O". — |^ '^3'; Yalkut ^D'?^; Ber.
Rab. nn-i", both free renderings, or citations from memory; cf. v.^. — 6. The
singular construction of* (~;it without suff.) is not supported by Gen. 9^ (De.)
or i// 32*' (Now.) ; these passages do not leave the reader to infer the subject
of the verb from a preceding predicate; read a-in, with (@<S®1L. — 7. See
note on this v. above. For the impossible djn (elsewhere only Hos. 9*
Isa. 40'-* *J 1^ 78^', the last better r^v, cf. ^ los"**) we may read (with (5
d(re/3uji') o^iN (Bi.), or Jin (but this latter term cannot be taken as concrete);
but the form of the whole v. is doubtful. In " z^n, though sustained by (S, is
better omitted, for the sake of the rhythm. — 8. Impf. followed by 1 + Impf.,
both expressing general facts, the second a secjuel to the first; it is unnecessary
to point :• — |EJ nix; (S d-qpai, = n-i-i (Jiig.) taken as = persecution. — |^ ipnn;
<S dfr' aiiTov, for his sake, or in place of him. — 9. naa, with the mouth, as
nj;i2, by knowledge ; or we may write nn3. — ijn is to turn away (to good or
to bad), used in Arab, of persons in good sense, in Aram, and Heb. in bad
sense, of one who turns from religious faithfulness, profane, and so in Pr. of
Q
226 PROVERBS
the wicked m general. — (@^ aae^Qiv (s"^ afiapTwXQv); AS9 vwoKpiri^s; S ^'V
wicked; ST ^3J treacherous ; % simulator. — ^ iny-\ nn^'^; <5 7ra7is TroXtrais,
perh. = '-\ (or nns'D) nnr.
10, 11. Relation of moral goodness to civil prosperity.
10. When it goes well with the righteous the city rejoices,
And when the wicked perish there is shouting.
11. By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted,
But by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown.
Antithetic; apparently quaternary-ternary. See 14^ 28'- 29^
The first couplet states the fact, the second the reason. The
counsels of the righteous, controlled by probity, bring blessing and
prosperity to the state ; those of the wicked, dictated by selfish
ambition and rapacity, bring destruction. This view of the rela-
tion of virtue to civil prosperity is found in substance in the
prophets (Am. a^^ Hos. f Mic. 3^^^ jg^. 3" ^^ Jer. 22^"^ Ez. 22"-^').
But, for them the nation is the unit, and the worship of other gods
than Yahweh the chief sin ; here the moral side alone is men-
tioned, and the civil unit is the city. It was in the Greek period
that the city-state became familiar to the Jews, and it seems to be
this later civilization that is here meant. — The expression blessing
of the upright might mean God's blessing on the upright, but the
parallel mouth (utterance, counsel) of the wicked (which is malefi-
cent) points to the beneficent words (involving deeds) of good men.
12, 13. Against contemptuous talk and talebearing.
12. He who mocks his neighbor is lacking in sense,
But the man of discretion keeps silent.
13. A talebearer reveals secrets,
But a trustworthy man conceals a matter.
12. Antithetic, ternary. Reversing subject and predicate in
first cl., we may read : the fool mocks his neighbor (so Grk. Str.
Kamp.) ; the sense is the same. The Heb. has despises. Con-
tempt, lack of due regard for one's neighbor, may show itself in
various ways: in 14'''^ (where its opposite is care for the poor) it
manifests itself in indifference to men's bodily wellbeing; here, as
it stands in contrast with silence, it involves speech. A man who
speaks contemptuously of his fellow-citizens is said to be lacking
in sense (lit. heart) because he thus makes enemies and involves
XI. IO-I4 227
himself and others in difficulties ; it is obviously the part of dis-
cretion (or, understanding) to keep silent. The reference is not
immediately or mainly to the kindliness (to the neighbor) that
should seal one's tongue, or to reflection on the fallibility of human
judgments that should make one cautious (though these things
would naturally be involved), but to a prudent regard for conse-
quences in social relations. Nor is the line drawn between just
and blameworthy criticism ; the sage contents himself with de-
nouncing contemptuous talk as a foolish thing. — Grk. a man
lacking in sense shows contempt for his fellow-citizens. — 13. Anti-
thetic, ternary. A simple statement of two types of character.
The Heb. expression describes the talebearer as one who goes
about spreading malicious gossip — lit. a walker of slander ; see
Jer. (P g**^^ Ez. 22" Lev. 19^. It is unnecessary to render by he
who goes about as a talebearer (RV.) ; the going is included in
the bear. In contrast with such an one the trustworthy man
{trusty of mind) keeps silence respecting things which he has
learned in confidential intercourse or otherwise — secrets of family
or state ; the reference is to things the mention of which is dan-
gerous or undesirable. The first cl. occurs in 20'" ; on secret cf.
note on 3''^ ; the word is here to be taken in a general sense. The
clause is understood by Grk. of political relations (cf. next verse) :
a double-tongued man reveals the deliberations of the assembly (or,
council) — by the Lat. of private affairs : he who is of faithful mind
conceals his friend's act; it is applicable to all the relations of life.
14. Value of political wisdom.
Where there is no guidance a people falls,
But in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
Antithetic, ternary, A civil and political adage. Guidance is
lit. steering — there must be some one at the helm ; the guidance
is assumed to be good (so RV., interpreting, wise guidance) . The
multitude of counsellors points not to any special political organi-
zation, but simply to the need of manysided advice ; that will be
a well-governed city or state in which questions of policy are looked
at from all points ; Frank, refers to the " friends " of the Ptolemies
and Seleucids. On the term guidance see note on i* ; the word
belongs to the poetical vocabulary. Instead of counsellors the
228 PROVERBS
Anc. Vrss. have counsel or counsels. The proverb (which has no
religious element) is not a folksaying, but the reflection of a man
living in contact with public affairs. Hitzig cites, as representing
the opposite point of view : " too many cooks spoil the broth."
15. Against giving security.
He who is surety for another will suffer,
But he who hates suretyship is secure.
Antithetic, ternary. A prudential maxim, the wisdom of which,
as a general rule, is verified by universal experience, though there
are obvious occasions when it should be disregarded. The word
here rendered another (see note on 2'®) has three possible mean-
ings : a person of a different nation ; one of a different clan,
family, or household ; and a different individual. The strong
Jewish national and family feehng might seem to favor the first
sense, or the third, with exclusion of one's immediate family
(father, son, brother). But the tone of the proverb appears to be
universal, and in the later Jewish life the old relations of clan had
partly vanished — the Jews became commercial, and needed com-
mercial strictness ; exceptions might be left to the individual.
Suretyship is lit. (as the Heb. text stands) those who go security
(lit. strike hands) ; cf. 6^ 17'* 22^^ Suffer '\s go ill. RV. he that
hateth suretiship is sure gives a good verbal play.
16. Honor to good women.
A gracious woman obtains honor,
Violent men obtain wealth.
Antithetic, ternary. This is the only verse in Pr. in which men
are contrasted with women (such contrast is not made in 19^^).
If the text be correct, the proverb relates to the struggle for riches
and social position in communities in which women had some sort
of influence, and the contrast is between upright gentleness and
immoral force : an unscrupulous man may gain riches, but not
esteem — a woman of gracious bearing, beautiful in manner (and
presumably, in spirit) obtains honor. And as the industrious
woman of 31^ helps to procure social consideration for her hus-
band, so the honor here may be for husband and family, though
women in Pr. (except those of hcentious character) have no im-
XI. 14-17 229
mediate relations with society at large ; but as there is no mention
of family, it is probably better to understand the expression as
referring to the esteem which comes to the woman herself from
her family and her circle of friends. — The Grk. expresses a fuller
antithesis by means of two couplets :
A gracious woman obtains honor for her husband,
But a woman who hates righteousness is a throne of dishonor.
The slothful come to lack riches,
But the manly lean (securely) on riches.
Lines 1,4 represent the Heh. ; /or her husband is interpreta-
tion. Lines 2, 3 are probably an addition by a Greek scribe ;
throne is nowhere else used of a person (the expression perhaps
comes from \^ 94™) ; hates righteousness indicates that gracious is
taken as = righteous ; line 3 may be rendered : they who are
slothful as to riches come to want. — It is possible that the two
lines of the Heb. verse are remnants of two independent couplets,
the first relating to women, the second to men ; but the Grk.
hardly gives the true text.
17. Kindliness is good policy.
The kindly man does himself good,
The cruel man does himself harm.
Antithetic, ternary. Self is lit. sojil in first cl., flesh in second
cl. ; the two terms are synonymous — the Heb. language expresses
the idea self only by such words. It is on this term that the em-
phasis is laid ; it is himself that the kind man helps and the cruel
man hurts — the one makes friends, the other makes enemies ; the
commendation of kindness is based on its good results to him
who practises it — a practical suggestion which would not prevent
the sage's holding that it is in itself an obligatory thing. There
is probably (to judge from the rest of the Book) no reference to
the ennobling power of one quality and the depraving power of
the other. The translation (Mich.): he who does good to himself
is kind {to others) and he who is hurtful to himself is cruel {to
others), is grammatically possible, but here improbable, because of
the difficulty of supplying to others, and because in the context
^y 18-20. 24-26^ the subjects of the lines are such words as righteous,
wicked, kind, cruel.
230 PROVERBS
10, 11. n'->|i (v.**') occurs in preexilian prophets (Hos. Isa. Hab.) and several
limes in Pr., ri-\p (v.^^) only in poetical books (Job 29^ Pr. 8^ g^- ^* 11^^); the use
of the two words is not a ground for supposing difference of authorship in the
two V. (so Hitz., who omits v.^'^) , since both terms seem to have been common in
the writer's time. — (3^ here omits v.'"'' (which it gives in v/'"') and v.i'% making
one couplet of v.^''*-'^''; the omission, apparently scribal error, is supplied in
(gABbSc (taken, according to 5>'^, from 9). ® KaTdbpdoicre (I'^i'r) is changed
to KaTwpxv<^a-To by Lag., who refers the present <5 text to Theodotion. —
12. |§ n"^; <5 troXiras, as in v.^", a political interpretation natural m a city
like Alexandria. — 13. '?"'2T elsewhere = s/a/tder ; so Ez. 22^ i tjn, Jer. 6''^^
9*, and probably Lev. 19^^ Pr. 2oi9. The vb. I'^n has the sense oi goitig about,
Jos. 14^". For the construction here cf. Isa. ^'^'^^ rpix "I'^n one who walks in
righteousness ; cf. also the common construction in which 'n is defined by an
Inf. abs. The st. is '?jn go, whence the noun — a going, gadding, and, as the
principal occupation of gadabouts is malicious gossip, talking maliciously,
and so slander. I'^n is sometimes followed by an adj. which describes the
condition of the subject of the vb., as in Gen. 15^ (^^ go childless), 2 S. 15'*'^
Job 24''', and so "\ might perhaps be taken here (= slanderer, talebearer),
but for the phrases in Jer. and Ez. above cited; but it is to be observed that
the adj. after iSn describes the condition rather than the action of the subject.
Cf. SS., in which both constructions of i are given, adj. under i'?"', subst.
under '?pi. — On ib see note on 3^^; (5, freely, ^ovXas iv (rvvedplcf). — 14. |^ Sc
d;; (5 irliTTOviTiv (jjffirep ^iJXXa, = n"?;:, cf. v.^^ (Jag.)- — For |^ V/"" (sing.,
defining the category) the Anc. Vrss. read ns'? counsel, as in 12I'' 20'*, and
this is perh. preferable as corresponding more precisely to rSanr in first cl. — •
15. In 1^ ;-i; •;-\ the vb. must be taken as Nif of y•;■^ (not •;^-', Ges.^e § 6jt),
and the >!t as intensive nominal addition, performing the function of Inf. Abs.
(cf. Ew. § ^12 b); and we may point ';^ (Gratz). Siegfried, in ^F;^^/^., pro-
poses to omit >n", or to read >ni y^. Inf. Abs. + Impf Qal, which is the usual
construction; but, as Nif occurs in 13^'' and the in is intelligible, the change
is unnecessary. — For |^ 3nv ''D read anV. — J^ tr; Gr. i?'^, as in 6^; see note
on 20'^. — The verb ypp occurs in the sense of making a bargain only in Job
and Pr.; this limitation is perhaps an accident. J^ ": 'P , Act. Partcp., should
perhaps be written •;pn Inf. — the 3 may have arisen from following 2 ; SS.
suggests Pass. Partcp. (cf. apa'", Eccl. 4^) ; for Act. Partcp. as = abstract noun
Q^^n, Zech. 11'^, is not decisive. — <3 irovrjpbs KaKowoiel ('v^') Srav avfjifjil^Ti
diKaicf) (7?) /xiffet 8k ^x"" acrcpaXelai (,1:22:: J'iT)- ^^ second cl. B has hates
those ivho confidently hope ; ST hates those ivho put their trust in God. It was
chiefly the word D"|in (IL laqueos) that embarrassed the ancient translators.
For further discussion of the readings of the Anc. Vrss. see notes of Jag.,
Schleus. Lag. Held. Baumg. Pink. — 16. See note on this v. above. For
1^ in we might read '^^n, as in 12'' (recalling also the '^"n Pi's of ch. 31), but
the jn also gives a definite and natural character. — Whether or not the
expanded text of (S (adopted by Bi.) comes from a Hebrew MS. may be
doubtful; but the strangeness of the expression 9p6vos dTifulas and the vigorous
XI. i8-i9 231
curtness of Jlj favor the originality of the latter. SEIL agree with |^; & follows
@. — 17. J§ ISC"; (& ffQ/ia; S o(kovs, probably for oiKelovs (Schl.); % pro-
pinquos. — 1§ niDN; see note on 5^; ® writes a form of 13:, there properly,
here improperly.
18-21. Contrasted rewards of virtue and vice. Antithetic.
18. The wicked earns delusive pay, *
But he who sows righteousness real wages.
19. If one 1 follows after > righteousness, (it leads) to life,
If one pursues wickedness, (it leads) to death.
20. They who are of wicked mind are an abomination to Yahweh,
But they who are perfect in their walk are well-pleasing to him.
21. The wicked will assuredly not go unpunished,
But the righteous will be rescued.
18. Ternary. The form of expression is taken from industrial
life. Real wages is lit. reward of truth. The gain of a bad man
is not real, for it is not enduring (10^), and cannot save him from
misfortune (n*), but he who sows goodness shall reap prosperity
(10-^) — his revenue is real and permanent, not illusive. The
fact is here recognized that a bad man sometimes prospers, and
the explanation offered is that his prosperity is only seeming ; cf.
note on v.^. The Latin has a slightly different form :
The ungodly does unstable work,
But to him who sows righteousness there is a faithful reward;
but the idea of pay, wages for work done, is clearly found in both
clauses. Goodness, says the proverb, is commercially profitable
— the pay is prosperity, insured by the laws of man and the
favor of God. — 19. Ternary. The second cl. is lit. : he who
pursues wickedness, to his death (RV. doeth it to his own death').
The general idea of the verse is plain : righteousness insures a
long and happy life, wickedness a premature or otherwise unhappy
death ; see notes on i''^ ''^ 2^'-^^ 3^ The wording of the first cl. is
doubtful. The more natural rendering of the Heb. is so righteous-
ness {tends) to life (Saad.) ; this would connect the verse with
the preceding as illustration or result (Luther has for, Noyes as) ;
but such connection is contrary to the usage of this part of Pr.,
in which each verse is an independent affirmation, and besides,
the relation of thought between this verse and the preceding does
232 PROVERBS
not suggest or justify a connective so. The word may be taken as
adj., = true, righteous (Evv., see note on 15', Jer. 23'"), but right-
eous in righteousness is insufferable tautology ; if it be taken as
subst., = that which is true, righteous, genuineness (Rashi, Cocc.
Schult. De. Str.), the resulting expression, what is true in right-
eousness ( = not true righteousness, but the true part of righteous-
ness') is unnatural ; the renderings firm, steadfast (Zock. RV.)
are lexicographically unsupported, and this objection holds to
Vogel's emendation he who is firm in his walk. The Lat. has
clemency, Grk, and Syr. (by a change of text) son (Grk. a righteous
son is born unto life). The expression son of is used frequently
in OT. to denote doom or quality, but always evil quality: 31^
sons of destruction, \p 79" sons of death, \\i 89^^*^^^ son of wicked-
ness, and the common son of depravity {belial, i Sam. 25^', cf.
note on Pr. 6^^) ; the reading son of righteousness would give a
not wholly unsatisfactory sense if son could be supposed to be
properly used in a good sense. The Partcp. he who pursues sug-
gests for the first cl. a Partcp. he who folloivs after (^xX.. feeds on,
15") ; cf. 12^*, the form of which is similar to that of this verse.
— 20. Ternary. General statement of the moral demands of the
divine favor; cf, 12^^ 14^ 15". Mind (lit. heart) is the whole
spiritual being. They who are of wicked mind, lit. the wicked
(averted, perverted) of mind, are those who stray from the straight
path of goodness. The perfect man is morally well-rounded, com-
plete ; the term in OT. involves general right feeling, but not
absolute perfection of soul ; see note on 2^\ No heightening of
effect or increase of intensity is involved in the sequence mind
. . . walk ( = conduct) ; the two terms are equivalent, each involv-
ing the other. The terms abomination and well-pleasing are oppo-
sites, originally rituahstic, here ethical; see Dt. 7-® Lev. 2 2^\ and
notes on 3^^ 8^. — 21. Ternary. The idea is a fundamental one
in Pr., the reference being always to retribution in this life ; see
j26-33 221-22^ etc. Assurcdfy (so recent expositors and lexicographers
generally) is lit. hand to hand/, the meaning of which is properly
given in margin of RV. : 7>iy hand upon it ! = my ivord for it !
It appears to be a popular phrase of asseveration, derived from
the procedure in a bargain, in which the parties clasped hands ;
so in v.^* above, 6*, and Job 17^ who zvill clasp my hand (enter
XI. 19-22 233
into a bargain with me, be my security) ? The rendering though
hand {Join) m hand (RV.) = though men unite their forces,
against which the form of the Heb. sentence is decisive ; cf. 1 6\
The translation (Schult. Ges. after the Arab, usage) from genera-
tion to genei ation, = through alt time, is not supported by Heb.
usage. Saad. : as the turn of hand to hand, apparently = sud-
denly. Rashi explains the clause to mean : from the hand of God
to the hand of the wicked the retribution will come. Targ. and
Syr. : he 7vho lifts his hand against his fieighbor shall not be held
innocent of evil, a mistranslation. In second cl. the Heb. has
the seed of the righteous, the seed meaning simply race, as in
Isa. I* (where the prophet calls his contemporaries a seed of evil-
doers), 65^ (where seed is contrasted with offspring), and not
posterity (a sense which the word often has) ; a reference to pos-
terity (Berth, al., in the sense : not merely the righteous, but also
their descendants) would be inappropriate here, where the purpose
is simply to contrast the fates of the wicked and the righteous.
22. Beauty without discretion.
A golden ring in a swine's snout —
Such is a fair woman without discretion.
A simple comparison, ternary, but with omission of the particle
of comparison — the Heb. says : a golden rifig . . . is a fair
woman . . . The nose-ring was, and is, a common ornament of
women in Western Asia, and in many barbarous and half-civihzed
tribes ; see Gen. 24^- Ju. S-* Isa. 3^' Job 42", and Lane's Manners
and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Appendix A. The term
rendered discretion signifies first physical taste (Ex. i6'^' Job 6"),
then capacity of intellectual discrimination (i Sam. 25""'' Job 12'"),
and apparently also ethical and religious judgment {^ 119'"''''). It
occurs in one other place in Pr. (24^^), where it means ifitellectual
judgment, opinion, ans7ver based on sound judgment. Here the
moral element is probably included. There is as great incon-
gruity, it is said, in the union of beauty of person and deformity
of mind and character in a woman as in the presence of a rich
ornament on the coarsest and uncleanest of beasts (so the Grk.);*
* There is no allusion to a ring used to lead animals, for which process Heb
employs the word hook (2 K. 192** Ez. 19^).
234 PROVERBS
this is no doubt the meaning of the condensed expression of the
Heb. that such a woman is a ring, etc.
23. Character determines fortune.
The desire of the righteous issues only in good, ,
The expectation of the wicked in wrath.
Antithetic, ternary. Desire = expectation. Lit. , . . is only
good, and . . . is lurath (or, arrogance) . The proverb is suscep-
tible of two interpretations, according as we take the predicates
to express quaUties or results of the subjects. In the first case
(De.) the desire of righteous men is described as itself good,
morally pure, embracing praiseworthy objects, that of wicked men
as selfseeking, proud, arrogant (such is the sense of the word in
Isa. 1 6^, = Jer. 48^), In the second case it is declared that the
issue of hope will be in accordance with the character of the man
— prosperity (divine favor) for the one class, wrath (divine pun-
ishment) for the other; the last word of the verse commonly
means anger, of man (Gen. 49^), or of God (Isa. 13^^ Zeph. i^^) ;
such is its sense in 1 1*, where day of wrath is parallel with {doom
of) death. If the first interpretation be adopted, it will be under-
stood that the hope of the righteous is fulfilled, that of the wicked
denied (Grk. is destroyed). The second interpretation is favored
by such proverbs as lo^"*-^* 11^, and by the tone of the Book, which
in general describes the consequences of actions. It is, besides,
very nearly a tautology to say that the desire of a good man is
good, that of a bad man bad.
24-26. Liberality or generosity, and niggardliness or avarice.
24. One man spends, yet still increases,
Another withholds what is proper, but (it tends) only to want.
25. The liberal man will be prospered.
And he who waters will himself be watered.
26. He who withholds corn, the people curse him,
But blessing is on the head of him who sells it.
24. Complete antithesis, ternary : one spends and grows, another
hoards and declines. Lit. there is one who spejids. The terms and
the sense seem to be general — there is no special reference to
almsgiving (as in x^/ 112^), but it is said that a just expenditure
XI. 22-26 235
of one's wealth, in every way, is rational policy, tending to gain.
That the reference is to physical wealth (and not to thought and
act) may be inferred from similar expressions in Pr. (ii^-^ 14^
21^), and that a general habit or policy is spoken of appears from
the general character of the terms employed : experience teaches
that the man of Hberal methods prospers, and such an one, it is
probably meant to say, has the blessing of God. The sage does
not seem to have in mind a man's care of himself Proper is
that which is just, appropriate to the circumstances (the RV.
rendering 7nore than is proper is incorrect) ; want is lack, deficit.
See a similar thought in BS. 11". In second cl. the Lat. (and so
the Syr.) has, incorrectly : Others seize what is not theirs, and are
ahvays in want. — 25. Synonymous (a form of rare occurrence in
chs. 10-15), ternary. Liberal viaii is lit. person (lit. soul) of
blessing, one who dispenses kindness, beneficence. Prospered is
lit. made fat, metaphor derived from the condition of well-nour-
ished animals or vegetables (Ju. 9^* Isa, 30^ Jer. 31" Job 36^^, cf.
Pr. 13^ 28^) ; the metaphor in waters, watered is agricultural.
The reference appears to be specifically to kindly, generous con-
duct toward others ; the reward of such conduct is determined
by social laws and by the divine approval. — 26. Antithetic, ter-
nary. Allusion to the practice of hoarding grain in seasons of
scarcity in order to sell it at a high price. This is the only men-
tion in OT. of this procedure so frequent in commercially devel-
oped communities ; Am. 8^ speaks only of eager desire to make
money, and of fraudulent methods in trade. The practice here
denounced probably became familiar to the Jews under Greek
governments in great commercial and financial centres. Syr. and
Targ. : He who withholds corn in time of famine shall be aban-
doned to his enemies, in which the last expression is based on a
misreading of the Hebrew.
18. There is a paronomasia in ipu', i3r; the latter Stade would write laa*
or 'insB' (so S), since the usual noun-form is t^u'; the assonance, however,
may be intended; % may be free rendering of |^. The Participles express the
general rule; r\v; is to be understood in second cl. © airipfko. hk SiKalwv, as
in |§, V.2"', which see. — 19. See note on this v. above. Omit the suff. in
infa, as in all Anc. Vrss. — ^ j-; (S (followed by S) i;f6s, and Bi. p; K njdh
'\2y-\ JNS, apparently taking p as = -\;:'N3; 1L (Uinentia, perhaps taking Hi-nx
236 PROVERBS
in the sense of ahtis (Baumg.), and p from stem ]13, or possibly reading p.
The connection calls for a term parallel to the f^iTC of **; Kamp. n;'^, he who
associates with, after 15'* Hos. I2''^ ^ 37^; Gr. pa, graphically easy, but not
appropriate in sense, even though, with Vogel, we supply "? 1311; nry is
graphically possible in the old alphabet, but not easy; to pp the same objec-
tion lies as to ]]d; Kamp.'s emendation may be provisionally accepted. —
20. In "i ® has h^oi for J^ 1^, assimilation to ^, and in ^ rhetorically inserts
TrdcTes. — 21. With -\'h ti cf. the common expression f|D ypr, strike hands. —
J^ Dpis jj"*!; (5, not so well, 6 a-irelpuv 5iKaio(Tvvr]v, = n|"nx y-\). — For pj taSni
(5 has X-fiixxf/eTaL fxia-Obv wLarbv, after v.^*'' (Lag.). — 22. |^ 3nr (favored by the
rhythm) is lacking in (Q^, found in (§'<'^''; the epithet is often inserted in pj,
but sometimes omitted, as in Hos. 2'^ Isa. 3^1 Ez. 16^-. — 23. ||J ■'''^^y;
(5 dTroXeirai, = m3N, and so De' Rossi 941, a natural reading, but not dis-
tinctly antithetic to the ya of ^ — 24. f^ iu' ; Perles, Analekt., p. 88, 11:7
wealth, which is appropriate, but not better than |§. — (@, in b, etViv koX o\
(rvvdyovTes, apparently free rendering of |^. — 25. In |^ .st-' the N seems to
be substitution, by an Aramaic-speaking scribe, for p, which is found in many
MSS. of Kenn. and De' Rossi (in which, however, it may be correction). The
stem maybe nn, Hof. nn"', whence n", ny, n-\', or (Fleisch., De.), by metath-
esis, n-\y, ny>; or, from st. n-\> (Hos. 6^) we may get Hof r\y, nv; it is,
perhaps, better to emend to Hof. (Bi.) or Nif. (Gr. ) of n]-^; ST takes the form
from Hif. r^-yr^ teach, & from "nx curse, both improbable. <§ is corrupt; its
irdaa dirXi} is perhaps for Triav^TjcreTai wi// de fattened (so 'A2)0), and its
dvfjLuiSrjs for /xidvaos (S), or perhaps = tnn one who excites anger ; eutrxww''
may = nNnn yo, or may represent a form of 7\q>. — 26. |^ inpp''; @ vwoXIttoito,
= Aram. p3B* (so SST).
27. Kindness gains goodwill.
He who seeks good < wins > favor,
He who seeks evil, it will overtake him.
Antithetic, ternary. The word rendered favor may = good-
7vill, acceptance (12^ 14^), or what pleases, what is acceptable
(10^^, etc.); see note on 8^. The good and evil are better taken
in a wide sense, as embracing moral (as in Am. 5**) and general
conditions (as in -^'-'^ 13^^ 1/^91^° Eccl. 2^), and as describing the
man's conduct toward others. The second cl. declares that evil
doing rebounds on its author — such is the implication in the
expression overtake, lit. come Jtpon (or to) him. The first cl.
should give the antithesis to this : he who seeks good (for others),
it will come to him as well. The Heb. has seeks favor; the seeks
may be understood to mean is thus really seeking {^and finding)
favor, or, if this be thought to be putting too much into the word,
XI. 27-29 237
we may change the text. The simple sense of seeks yields no
satisfactory meaning for the clause. The favor can hardly be
taken as = God's favor, for, if such reference had been intended,
the divine name would have been expressed (De.), as in 12^ If
the favor be understood as referring to man, we have (in the Heb.
text) the statement that he who wishes good fortune for himself
must so act as to gain the goodwill of others, must do what is
pleasing to them — an idea found nowhere else in Pr., and here
offering no good contrast to first cl. Nor is the noun {favor, or,
what is acceptable) elsewhere iu OT. preceded by the verb seek,
and it is better to understand some such term as wi?t, gain, obtain,
procure (so AV., Reuss) . Yet this reading does not give a perfect
antithesis, and it may be better to supply the divine name, and
render : he who seeks what is (morally) good secures God's favor,
while he who seeks what is (morally) bad brings down on him-
self divitie retribution. Possibly the two lines belong to different
couplets.
28. Folly of trusting in wealth.
He who trusts in his riches will fall,
But the righteous will flourish like the green leaf.
Antithetic, ternary. The antithesis assumes that the man who
trusts in riches is ungodly, and that the righteous trust not in
riches, but in God. Riches is here the representative of worldly
power, and the admonition is directed not against legitimate con-
fidence in wealth (as a means, for example, of doing good), but
against the belief that it can save a bad man from the conse-
quences of his deeds (that is, from human or divine wrath) ; see
10^ 11'' i/' 62'"*"'. The metaphor is different in the two clauses —
it is taken in the first from a building, in the second from a tree.
Identity of metaphor may be gained by substituting fade for fall
(see \p i^ 3 7"), by the change of one Heb. letter, or (as in the Grk.)
by reading rise instead of flourish. The former of these changes
gives a natural sense, but it is hardly necessary ; difference of
metaphor in two clauses of a proverb is not unnatural.
29. Economic folly of stinginess.
He who brings distress on his household will have the wind as his possession,
And the foolish will be slave to the wise.
238 PROVERBS
Synonymous, ternary. For the verb brings distress on, or harms
(J^Y. trouble th) see 11' i5«-^ Gen. 34=* i Sam. i^"^ i K. 18'^;
household is lit. house ; the rendering inherit for the second verb
in first cl. (RV.) is possible (the man may be said to inherit pov-
erty from his own folly), but the idea is rather that of coming to
possess. The general sense of the verse is indicated in 12^^*
J ^1.19 J ^2. j.j^g j^^j^ ^j^Q^ |jy incapacity, negligence, or niggardli-
ness, fails to nourish and build up his household will find his re-
sources reduced to nothing ; for 7uind, as = nothingness, see Jer.
5" Eccl. i^*. The second cl. restates the case : a man guilty of
this economic and moral folly becomes literally or virtually a slave.
The wise man (lit. wise of mind) is thrifty and successful, and
neglect of one's own family is declared to be the sign of a fool.
Slavery existed among the Jews throughout the OT. time (Neh. 5^
Pr. 12^ \f 30^", etc.), and later* ; but whether the reference here
is to the holding of Hebrew slaves by a Hebrew master is uncer-
tain— foreign slaves might be possessed by a Jew, or Jewish
slaves by a foreigner. — Possibly the two clauses do not belong
together.
30. Life and death the outcome of conduct.
Our Heb. text reads :
The fruit of a righteous man is a tree of life.
But a wise man takes lives.
The takes is generally (as by RV.) interpreted to mean wins :
a wise man wins souls ( = persons) by his wisdom, which is under-
stood to be morally good. But elsewhere in OT. the last expres-
sion of the couplet always means takes away (= destroys) lives,
and must be so interpreted here ; the resultant affirmation is, how-
ever, impossible. A better form is suggested by Grk., which has :
from the fruit of righteousness grows a tree of life, but the lives of
the lawless are taken away untimely, in which the word untimely
probably represents an expression containing the Heb. term ren-
dered violence by RV. (10^ a/.), and we may read :
The revenue of righteousness is a tree of life,
But rapine destroys men's lives.
* See A. Griinfeld, Stellung der Sklaven bei den Juden, etc.
XI. 29-31 239
Antithetic, ternary. Fna'f = product, revenue (8^^); rapine in-
volves the idea of revenue (or wealth) acquired by violence (injus-
tice). The couplet may be paraphrased thus : the wealth which
is gained by rectitude is a source of long life and happiness, while
that which is gained by injustice brings death; cf. 3^*"'^ ii^** 13"
15'*' 21". The result is stated in general terms — the agencies are
divine and human. Tree of life is a familiar figure of speech,
used in Pr. of wisdom (3^*), of fulfilled desire (13^^), of healing
speech (15*), and here of the product of integrity. — Another
reading of the couplet is proposed by Gratz :
The mouth of the righteous is a tree of life,
But the wicked harms himself.
This gives an appropriate sense ; for the first line cf. 10", for sec-
ond Hne 8^. The changes required in the Heb. text by this
emendation are, however, somewhat violent. Ewald and others
arrange v.^-' *" in the order : v.^"- ^^- ^''- ^^, but nothing is thereby
gained.
31. Certainty of retribution for sin.
Behold, the righteous will be punished on earth —
How much more the wicked and the sinner !
Progressive parallelism (advance from the less to the greater,
or from the presence to the absence of a modifying condition),
ternary. Instead of behold we may render if (so the Grk.) — the
sense of the clause is not thereby changed. The verb punish is
lit. repay, give what is due (for one's actions), the sense of puni-
tive retribution obviously belonging to both clauses. The basis
of the thought is the justice of the divine government : even the
righteous will be punished for evildoing, then of course the wicked.
The expression : " all the more will the wicked be punished " may
appear to involve the idea that the divine justice, if relaxed at all,
will be relaxed in favor of the righteous, and that, if it be main-
tained in spite of their claims, it will more certainly be maintained
in the case of the wicked, who have no claims ; the meaning of
the couplet may perhaps, however, be understood to be : " he
who sins even a little will be punished, and he who sins much will
receive greater punishment." It appears to be directed against
240 PROVERBS
those who fancied that sin might somehow escape God's notice ;
cf. Eccl. 8", and, contra, Eccl. 3^^ (f. By some expositors the
verb is understood in first cl. as = rewarded, in second cl. as
= punished, but this gives the unsatisfactory sense that God will
more certainly punish the wicked than reward the righteous. Or,
the verse is thus paraphrased (Str.) : the righteous are in general
rewarded, though with real or apparent exceptions, but the wicked
are most certainly punished — an interpretation which reads into
the text what it does not contain. — The retribution is represented
as coming from God (though it may come through man).
Wicked and sitiner are synonymous ; the terms appear to be sep-
arate grammatical subjects (not forming an hendiadys). The
righteous are not perfect men, but men generally obedient to God,
though capable of falling into sin. On earth does not express a
contrast with a future life, but merely states that the world is the
scene of life and retribution ; we might render in the land, as in
221. 22_ 'pj^g reading of Grk. (quoted in i Pet. 4^^) if the righteous
is scarcely saved, where shall the Jtngodly and sinner appear ? may
be free translation of our Heb., the retribution inflicted on the
righteous being taken as the means necessary to secure their final
salvation, which is thus indicated as difficult ; but Grk. probably
had a different Heb. text from ours.
27. For 1^ Z'^^> Griitz doubtfully proposes pp^ finds, which occurs in 3I*
835 122 1 822; this is not graphically hard, and gives the desired sense. On
•\TW and rp3 see notes on i'^** 2''; cm is frequently used of inquiry at an
oracle (Gen. 2522 Ez. 14IO), but means also simply seek (Dt. 222). — 28. |^ "^s^;
Ewald V3\ — ]§ nSys; @ avTiXafi^avd/xevos, — rhyn, as Partcp. (Jag.) or '?;'o
(Ew.); Bi. reads n'?;D as Subst., h'oke ; Ew. n|j';jr, z.% = immer h'oher ; Gr.
d'^hns, as aloe trees. None of these readings offer decided advantages over
|§. — 29. 1^ 13>; @, periphrastically, 6 jut; ffvvwepi<t>ep6tieixo'5, he 7vho does not
act humanely. — In ^ Si has a doublet, in one form following |^, in the other
®, in both cases with variations — an indication of the variety of sources from
which our present % text has been constructed; here it is probable that the
|§ form is the later. — 30. (5 iK Kapwov 8iKaio(7vvqi cpiierai 8ivdpov fw^s, an inap-
propriate figure — the fruit should rather come from the tree; in p? the fruit
(= outcome) is the tree, a mixed but not impossible metaphor. ^ pix; point
pnx, after <@. For |^ no Gratz reads 10, as in 10", which is, perhaps, better. —
For 1^ npS (3 appears to have read n^h or npS:, which it renders freely by
d(f>aLpoOvTai dojpoi, are untimely taken away, and its &o3poL probably represents
DDn, for 1^ D3n (see lo^ 132); cf. Frank. — S follows @, with one variation.
XI. 3I-XII. I 241
— For |§ Don pz'd: Gr. proposes Dr.n ^-z'si, as in S'"; he should then read yci
for n,-!'^ (cf. 10"). This offers a natural contrast, but the change of 'S to 'n is
not easy. Read Dcn for |i? ddh (Frank.). — 31. In place of |ij r"'^'^ <5 has
/[i6Xts (a dTT. Xe7.), the origin of which is doubtful. @ may render ^ a^t:'>
paraphrastically by ix6\is crw^erai, or fidXis may represent a separate Heb.
word, as ayao (Gr.), or J'^^n^ (Bi.), or v^Ni (Jag.); o-wferai may then = D'^iri
taken in good sense, or it may = •;vr, or (Held.) taSo'' (it is nowhere else the
rendering of aSr'). & follows <5, having JDntS for M«i^'S- ^T appears to have
been influenced by <S; it retains J§ y^i<^, but (here alone) renders DSiy by
|Dncc, a term which elsewhere means control one's self (pOvs), or come into
possession of (^m), but here, from the connection, mxist = strengthen one's
self, grow strong (and in "^ it has : but the ivicked and the sinners vanish from
the earth). |^ and (5 give two different texts, with different ideas; we cannot
combine them, writing a'^'f; v'rNa (Bi.) or '^ a;?:3 (Gr.), for -1 then gives no
appropriate sense (we get a good sense, however, by writing a'?D''). Either
text is possible; that of ||J perhaps accords better with the general tone of
Proverbs. In ^ (@ has ttoO, = n^^x, for ||J ^3 is; ST assimilates the form of the
clause to that of ". IL follows |^. Saadia : would to God the righteous might
be at peace in this world, then how the wicked and the sinner ! Cf. notes of
Hitzig, Heidenheim, Lagarde.
XII. 1. It is wise to desire instruction. — Antithetic, ternary.
The couplet admits of several translations. It may be rendered :
He who loves knowledge loves instruction,
But the stupid man hates admonition.
Here the man is defined by his attitude toward wisdom, — he
loves it or he is insensible to it, — and he will accordingly seek or
reject instruction. Or, reversing subject and predicate, we may
He who loves instruction loves knowledge,
And he who hates admonition is stupid.
In this form the defining point is the man's attitude toward in-
struction, and the predicate states the result : in one case he gains
(and so shows that he loves) knowledge ; in the other case he vir-
tually declines knowledge, and so proves himself stolid and irra-
tional. The general sense is the same in these two translations,
and either may be adopted ; but a more natural form is perhaps
gained by varying the order of subject and predicate in the two
clauses, and reading :
He who loves knowledge loves instruction,
But he who hates admonition is stupid.
R
242 PROVERBS
The terms instruction and admonition are practically synonymous ;
the reference is to moral and religious teaching ; see notes on
i^-^. Stupid (Ut. like a brute animal, incapable of recognizing
what is reasonable) is here likewise an ethical term. The proverb
may allude to all sorts of teaching (by parents, friends, priests,
lawyers), but probably contemplates especially the schools or writ-
ings of sages, in which were given rules for the conduct of life.
2, 3. Contrast in fortunes of virtuous and vicious.
2. A good man will find favor with Yahweh,
A wicked man he will condemn.
3. No man stands by wickedness,
But the root of the righteous remains unmoved.
2. Antithetic, quaternary. Good is here used in the most gen-
eral ethical sense. On wicked (n)a7l2, wickedness, wicked devices')
see note on i\ The word means reflection, plan, and is capable
of being understood in a good or in a bad sense ; in Pr. 1-9 it
occurs in the good sense only, in chs. 10-24 (it is not found in
25-31) in the bad sense only, a difference of use which accords
with the view of difference of authorship for these two sections.
In the general sense of thought, purpose it occurs in Jer. 23'" 30^^
51" \\i 10^ Job 42-. Condemn is a forensic iexm, = pronounce
guilty : in first cl. we might have the corresponding verb pro-
nounce right, instead of which stands the equivalent expression
find favor ; see notes on i^ 2^-. The idea of the verse is divine
retribution in this life. — 3. Antithetic, ternary. The thought,
familiar in Pr., that permanence comes only through goodness.
The result is no doubt conceived as effected by God, who, how-
ever, may employ human instrumentalities. Stand (or, be estab-
lished) = stand firmly fixed in a position of earthly prosperity.
The figure is varied in the two clauses.
4. Wives, good and bad.
A good wife is a crown to her husband,
One who acts badly is as rottenness in his bones.
Antithetic, ternary. For other references to wives see 11^® 19'^
2i9.19 (= 25^) 30^' SI^O-^l BS. 7^^ 25^^26 261.7.16.22-27 ^(^'^'H ^qW Eccl.
XII. 1-4 243
f^ 9^ ; the treatment of family life belongs naturally to the gnomic
literature both by the character and by the date of the latter.
The wife of first cl. is described in the Heb. as a woman oi power,
capacity (b'n), a term which, when used of men, expresses the
vigor or prowess of the warrior (Ju. 3^', etc.), or intellectual
strength (Ex. 14-^), or physical wealth (Ru. 2^ Pr. 13^', etc.). Of
women it is used only four times in OT., once of Ruth (Ru. 3"),
and, in Prov., here and 31^"""'^; in ch. 31 it describes a woman of
good, vigorous character, especially of business capacity, and in
R.uth it might be rendered irreproachable — the stress may be
laid on general capacity or on moral worth ; here, probably, both
shades of meaning are included. The words virtuous and capable
are too narrow — the best English representative of the Heb.
term is good, understood as including probity and housewifely
capacity. Such a woman, it is said, is her husband's crown, his
glory and joy, bringing him happiness at home and honor abroad
by the excellence of her household arrangements, and the respect
which her character commands. The cro7vn signifies royal honor ;
see 4^ Lam. 5'^ Job 19'' Cant. 3". In contrast with her is the wife
who acts badly (cf. 10^) ; bad is here to be taken as the opposite
of the good above ; such a woman destroys her husband's happi-
ness and power as rottenness {caries) destroys the bo?ies. The
bones represent the substantial framework of the body (see 14^^°).
— Here and in ch. 31 the wife appears as manager of the eco-
nomic affairs of the household, like the lady of medieval Europe.
Though she is not spoken of as the intellectual companion of her
husband or as the educator of her children, it need not be
doubted that she acted in both these capacities. Her teaching is
expressly mentioned in 6^" (cf 31'*'), and in the later history (Jo-
sephus, the Talmud) we meet with not a few Jewish women who,
if not technically "educated," were capable of the best intellect-
ual sympathy with their fathers and husbands.
5, 6. Contrast between virtuous and vicious in designs and
words.
5. The plans of the righteous are just,
The designs of the wicked are deceit.
6. The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,
But the speech of the upright saves [].
244 PROVERBS
5. Antithetic, ternary. P/ans and designs are synonyms — they
are not contrasted as simple and not-simple (De.), and are not
ethically distinctive ; the first, here used of the righteous, is used
of the wicked in 15^**, and the second is employed in a good sense
in i^ 11"; they mean designs in general, and must be defined by
distinctive predicates. Just is lit. justice. The statement of the
verse — that good men deal fairly, bad men unfairly — is not an
identical proposition, but is equivalent to by their fruits ye shall
know them. — 6. Antithetic, ternary. The first cl. is lit. : the
words . . . are a lying in wait, etc., which may be interpreted, in
accordance with i" : relate to lying in wait* ; but it is better to
retain the lively figure of the text : the words ( = plans) of bad
men are assassins who treacherously lurk for their victims. Speech
is lit. mouth. — In second cl. the Heb. has saves them, in which
the them (which has no antecedent in first cl.) must refer to the
upright. Such a reference, however, is not favored by the paral-
lelism : the wicked, in first cl., attack others, and the upright, in
second cl., should save others ; good men, moreover, are, in Pr.,
saved not by their words, but by their righteousness (10^ 11^") or
by God (16^ '' 18^" al., cf. note on 14'*). To avoid the suspended
them Bickell changes the blood of first cl. (Heb. dani) to men or
tnankind (Heb. adam) ; but so general a statement ("the wicked
lie in wait for human beings, or for a man ") is not probable ; the
wicked rather attack the innocent (i"). It is simpler to omit the
them, whereby we gain for the couplet the sense : " the words
(= plans) of the wicked are hurtful, those of the upright helpful."
— The reference in first cl. is to slanderous talk, accusations to
great men, false testimony in courts of justice, and the like ; the
second cl. refers to the healing power of just and kindly speech.
7. Permanence and impermanence.
The wicked are overthrown and vanish,
But the house of the righteous stands.
* Wildeboer suggests that the author of 1II-19 had our verse in mind, and ex-
panded its thought. This is possible, and would agree with the supposition that
chs. 1-9 are later than chs. 10-22 ; but the idea may well have been a common-
place of the schools, and may have been expressed independently by different
writers.
XII. 5-9 245
Antithetic, ternary. The same thought is given in lo'^. Vanish is Ht.
are not, = cease to exist ; the sense of first cl. is : the wicked shall
be completely and finally destroyed, without hope of restoration, that
is, by judgment of God, with or without human instrumentahty.
The verse repeats the belief that virtue and vice are fully recom-
pensed in this life. — The first cl. may be rendered : overthro7v the
wicked and they vanish (so the Latin, verte). It is taken by some
(Saad. Ew. Reuss) to mean : " once overthrown, they vanish,"
that is, they have no power to recover themselves. Others (as
Zock.) interpret : " turn about and are not," that is, " vanish in
the twinkling of an eye." These renderings are possible, and may
be regarded as included in the Heb. words ; but a simpler and
more natural antithesis is gained by the translation here adopted.
8. Intelligence commands respect.
A man is commended according to his intelligence,
A wrongheaded man is despised.
Antithetic, ternary (or, binary-ternary). Intelligence is capacity
of sound thought and judgment , so in 3* (on which see note)
13^^ 16^^ 19" 23^ Job 17^ I Sam. 25^, and cf. the corresponding
adj. (Partcp.) in 10^^" 14^, etc. The opposite quaUty is distor-
tion, wrongness of intellect (lit. of heart), incapacity to think
soundly. The contrast intended is not of learning and ignorance,
or of philosophical depth and shallowness, but of ability and in-
abiUty to think justly in common matters of life. The proverb is
a tribute to intellectual clearness, without special reference to, but
doubtless with inclusion of, the moral and religious sides of life.
The EngUsh term perverse (RV.) has an element of wilfulness
which is not contained in the Hebrew ; the sense of the latter is
better expressed by our wrongheaded, taken as = " incapable of
just, discriminating thought, lacking in judgment," Lat. excors.
9. Comfort better than show. — The present Heb. text must be
rendered :
Better off is he who is socially low, yet has a servant,
Than he who plays the great man, and yet lacks bread.
Antithetic comparison, ternary (or, ternary-binary). Better off is
lit. better. That the term loiv (or, lowly, RV. lightly esteemed )
246 PROVERBS
refers to social position appears from the connection, and from
I Sam. 18^' Isa. 3* (RV. base). The proverb does not commend
the social middle class as such (De.), but simply says that a man
of small social importance, if he be in comfortable circumstances
(this is implied in his having a slave), is really better off than one
who tries to keep up a certain state, while he lacks the necessaries
of life. Flays the great man is lit. acts as if he were (or, pretends
to be) honorable (or, rich) ; cf. 13^. We expect the man of the
second cl. to be described (in contrast with the low of first cl.) as
being really of high rank, not as merely assuming it. But the
sage seems to have in mind a man of petty pride of rank, who
finds his pleasure in keeping up a vain show. The proverb may
be a popular saying : comfort before show ; the case of a well-
born man struggling honestly and openly with poverty is not here
considered. — Some Anc. Vrss, and some modern expositors
(Schultens, Hitz. Ew.) render the second half of the first cl. :
and is a servant to himself (works for himself, is sufficient unto
himself), a sense which may be obtained by a slight change in
the Hebrew. It gets rid of the statement (which to some seems
incongruous) that the socially unhonored man has a servant ; but
the possession of a servant, by no means improbable for a man in
moderate circumstances,* may well be put as an indication of
comfort, while, on the other hand, the expression acts as servant
to himself {is his own servant, works for himself) does not offer a
distinct antithesis to the lacks bread of the second clause. Frank-
enberg, rendering : it is better when one is despised for ivorking
his field than when one plays, etc., finds in the proverb proof that
manual labor, especially agriculture, was looked on as degrading.
But the opposite of this is true if we may judge from the respect
* At Athens the price of slaves varied considerably, but it was possible in Xen-
ophon's time {Mem. ii, 5, 2) to buy a slave for half a mina (in weight about ten
dollars, in purchasing power from five to ten times as much). The possession of
only one slave was regarded as a sign of great poverty ( Plut. Apophth. i, p. 696,
Phoc. 19). In early Israel (Ex. 2i32) the value of a slave was 30 shekels of silver,
= about 18 dollars. According to 2 Mac. S" Nicanor (in the second century B.C.)
promised to sell 90 Jews for a talent, that is, at the rate of about 14 dollars a head.
A poor man might thus easily buy a slave. It would happen, also, that a man
would inherit a slave, and, though reduced in circumstances, would then manage
to keep him.
XII. 9-IO 247
with which work is spoken of in Pr. (6^" lo* «/.) and in later
books, as Pirke Aboth i, lo; 4, i. Ben-Sira, as sage (BS. 38^"^),
looks down on the ploughman and the handicraftsman who have
no time for the contemplation of true wisdom, but he never
speaks of work as socially despicable. — Some critics (as Kamp.)
regard the expression as corrupt, and leave it untranslated. — A
similar proverb, perhaps a modification of this, is found in BS.
XII. 2. 1^ is supported in general by the Vrss. @ TrapaaiuirijO-nffeTai, is
prob. not from ttnn (Jag.), nor (Lag.) confluence of irapa 0Q (= ninic) and
7)TT-qd-q<T€Tai. {= i'i'T' Isa. 54^'), but free rendering of |§ j?!r-\\ — 3. &av6nov,
perh. scribal error for avo^las, perh. (Lag.) = yz'-y. — 4. |^ vnbxya; @ iv
^v\({), = 173 (Jag.), and following aTrdWva-iv, Jag. thinks, represents the rest
of the 1^ word, ^pc. S>-<3; ST = <5, with transpositions. |^ nv2V; % qui
confusione res dignas gerit. — For |§ may Midr. Tanch. gives niNijn, citation
from memory. — 6. See note on this v. above. The suff. in J^ d^xi is given
in all the Vrss., but is better omitted, if ][§» be retained, so as to avoid the
ambiguity of •», and gain the general form of statement which is found in ».
— For J§ D-i Bi. reads aiN, which is too general a term in the connection;
Gr. aopn (see his emendation in i"), but this is not favored by the mB'\
This objection lies against the reading ocr'^ mx'' □;*•;•■<, and J§ nai is besides
supported by the ^0 of ». — 7. |^ ibn is better taken' as Inf. Abs., = finite vb.
(Ew., § 3281^), as in SkE; IL verte ; 6 ol ikv ffrpacprj. Gr., referring to 14",
adds •■'?r\s, but this is unnecessary, and mars the rhythm. — 8. |§ Sou- is the
specific Hokma term for intellectual sobriety. — |^ myj occurs only here in
Prov. (and elsewhere only i Sam. 20^'') ; the common terms are SnoJ and B^pj;.
— (S ffTd/Ma ffwcTou iyKu/iidi^erat. virb dv8p6s, = Z'ti SSni Sdit '■dS; VSn^ "in
3 codd. of De' Rossi. — J^ raS; <5 /xuKr-npl^erai. SST = |§. For |^ VSn>
11 has noscetur, and for a*? myj vanus et excors. — 9. Hithp. of 133 only here
and Nah. 3!^; in Nah. = shoiv thyself {x&^Wy^ great, or perh. make a show of
greatness, here act the part of greatness. — E = 3§. 6 (followed by S) S bov-
\euwv eai/T(?, 1L sufficiens sibi, pointing i3j?, and perhaps (though not neces-
sarily) reading vz'o^h instead of iS. Bi. laj?, and Gr. ipx (for ploughing), but
1^ "(Ti? gives a satisfactory sense.
10. Kindness to animals.
The righteous regards the comfort (even) of his beast,
But the heart of the wicked is cruel.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. Righteous is sing, in the Heb.,
wicked plu. — rhetorical variation. The first cl. reads Ht. : . . .
knows the soul of his beast. Knows here = gives attention to,
248 PROVERBS
comes into sympathetic relations ivith (cf, Dt. 33" Job 9^' 35'').
Soul is the principle of life, common, according to O T. usage, to
man and beast ; it here signifies not the mere vitality (it is not
that the good man refrains from killing his beast), but the sum-
total of life as experience (cf. Ru. 4'^ Job 10^) ; the righteous
man provides all things necessary for the animal's healthy and
happy existence. The connection (cl. 2) indicates that the
clause is of the nature of a meiosis : the good man is careful even
of the lower animals, much more, then, of human beings. — The
second cl. is universal in form : the bad man is cruel to all
(beasts and men). The term rendered heart above usually
means compassion (RV. tender mercies^, and is here so under-
stood by many Anc. Vrss. and commentators * ; the oxymoron
cruel compassion is possible, but occurs nowhere else in OT., and
seems somewhat forced. In several passages (Am. i" i K. 3^^,
and perhaps Isa. 63^^) the Heb. word in question appears to
mean bowels, as seat of emotion, for which the Eng. equivalent is
heart, and this sense may be adopted here (with De. Reuss, Str.
Kamp. Frank.) as the more probable. — Kindness to domestic
animals is enjoined in the Tora (Ex. 20^° 23^^ Dt. 25^), and the
divine care of beasts is spoken of in Jonah (4") and in various
Psalms (36«(^> 104'^ ^7^ ^f. 148'") ; so also BS. f.
11. Steady industry.
He who tills his land will have plenty of bread,
But he who follows useless pursuits is lacking in sense.
Implicit antithesis, ternary. Cf. 28", BS. 20-*. In second cl.
the direct antithesis would be expressed by will lack bread (so
nearly in 28^^), but the Masoretic form of the proverb, perhaps
for the sake of variety, states not the result, but the quality of
mind ; such variations of apophthegms were doubtless common
with the sages. Possibly, however, the second line should read :
He who follows useless pursuits will lack bread.
The verse does not give special praise to agriculture, but takes it
as a common pursuit, and as an example of legitimate and profita-
* Aq. Targ. Saad. Schult. Ew. Zock. al.
XII. IO-I2 249
ble industry ; the sense is he who seriously pursues a settled occu-
pation will live comfortably. The antithesis favors the sense pur-
suits in second cl. rather \\\d^\ persons (the Heb. gives simply the
adj. vain, unprofitable^ ; the reference seems to be not to idleness
or slothfulness (Lat. otiuni), but to purposeless, unsteady occupa-
tions, perhaps also to immoral commercial and political practices.
Agriculture was followed by the Palestinian Jews down to the de-
struction of Jerusalem by the Romans ; see Joseph. Ant. 20, 9. 2 ;
IVar, 7, 8. 3. — Grk. (followed by Lat.) here adds the couplet:
He who indulges in banquets of wine
Will leave dishonor (as a legacy) to his strongholds,
or, as Bickell emends.
Will come to poverty and dishonor.
The idea is appropriate, but the couplet is more probably an
editorial addition, or an extract from some current collection of
proverbs, than part of the original Heb. text.
12. Text and translation are doubtful. The Heb. reads : The
^vicked desires the net of evil men, but the root of the righteous pro-
duces (lit. gives) . If we understand the net of first cl. to be that
which bad men spread for others, the result is an identical propo-
sition : the wicked desire the net of the wicked ; if the net be that
in which bad men are caught, the resulting expression, the wicked
desire (that is, in effect by their evil conduct seek and gain) the
net which entraps the wicked is hard and unnatural. Others *
render : the prey of evil men, taking the meaning to be that the
wicked seeks (but in vain) to enrich himself by unrighteous gain ;
but, even if we accept the translation /r^j, spoil (which is without
authority), the statement that the wicked desires the spoil of the
wicked is in form unnatural. The second cl. also offers a diffi-
culty : the verb there employed is used of a tree which produces
fruit, but never of the root of a tree (RV.), and it cannot be ren-
dered shoots forth, that is, sends forth slender stocks. Moreover,
in all these interpretations a real antithesis is lacking. — Grk. has :
the desires of the wicked are evil, but the roots of the righteous are
firm, which gives a clear sense, accords in second cl. with v.^, and
* Fleisch. De. Noyes, Zock. Sir.
250 PROVERBS
may be got from the present Heb. text without great changes, but
it gives no good contrast in the two clauses. Targ., in second cl.,
shall be established. Syr. : the wicked desires to do evil (a change
of one word in the Heb.). Lat. : the desire of the wicked is a de-
fence of the worst {^things or persons), but the root of the righteous
will grow. — Various emendations have been proposed. Hitz. :
the refuge of the wicked is clay, but the root of the righteous en-
dures (or, is enduring) ; this form of second cl. is adopted by
Ew. Zock. Kamp. al. Gratz adopts the Lat. defence. Bi. trans-
forms the couplet, reading : the pillars of the wicked totter, but the
root of the righteous is a fortress. Kamp. omits the second half
of first cl. (^the net of evil men) as untranslatable. Reuss : the
wicked hunts for misfortune, which he offers as a guess ; Frank. :
wickedness is the tiet of bad men (cf. v.^^), that is, they are caught
by their own conduct. Hitzig's reading of second cl. (obtained
by a slight change in the Heb.) seems probable (cf. v.^) ; in first
cl. we should expect (as in v.^) some figure of unsteadfastness
(such as Bi. tries to supply) ; Frankenberg's emendation is the
least open to objections, but it does not supply a satisfactory con-
trast to the second line. The two lines appear to belong to
different couplets.
13, 14. The effects of speech.
13. By the sin of his lips the wicked is ensnared,
But the righteous escapes from trouble.
14. From the fruit of his lips comes [] requital to a man,
And what his hands do will return to him.
13. Antithetic, ternary. Cf 10" 11^ 18^ 29^ Sin (or trans-
gression) of the lips is any wicked, especially malicious, form of
speech, which brings a man into danger by making enemies or
exposing him to legal penalties ; the reference is solely to the evil
consequences of a man's own talk. The Heb. of first cl. reads :
in the sin of the lips is a S7iare to the wicked. The form given by
Grk. (requiring the change of one letter of the Heb.) is better :
the sinner falls into stiares. In second cl. the reference is to the
guarded and kindly speech of the righteous. — Grk. adds :
He whose looks are gentle will be pitied,
But he who encounters (men) in the gates will afflict souls.
XII. 12-15 251
The reference in second cl. seems to be to litigiousness. De.
suggests the emendation : 7vill afflict himself. The origin of the
couplet is doubtful. — 14. Synonymous, ternary. Cf. 13^ 14" 18^.
In first cl. the Heb. has : from the fruit of a man's lips he is sated
(or recompensed) with good ; but this does not give the general
statement which we expect as parallel to second cl., and which is
given in 18™; the omission of the word good (which may easily
have been inserted by a scribe) secures the symmetry of the
couplet. We have then the declaration that every man must take
the consequences of his words and deeds (cf 14"). The Heb.
has in the two clauses two synonymous words for man {ish and
adani). The marginal Heb. reading of second line is : and what
a man's hands do he will requite him for, in which the he is re-
garded by some as indefinite subject {one will requite), by others
as referring to God ; but neither of these interpretations is sup-
ported by the usage of the Book. For the form of the text, return,
see Obad. 15. — In second cl. Grk. (probably incorrectly) gets a
completer parallelism by rendering : and the recompense of his lips
shall he given him; the variant hands is better than lips. Syr.,
with slight difference of order from Heb. : a good man shall be
satisfied, etc. — If the reading of the Heb. be retained, we have
a progressive parallelism: in first cl. wise, kindly, righteous speech
brings reward ; in second cl. all actions bring requital. — In these
two couplets the immediate reference appears to be to social law,
not to the fact that God takes cognizance of words and deeds.
15, 16. Two marks of a fool.
15. The way of a fool seems to him right,
But a wise man listens to advice.
16. A fool's anger is displayed on the spot,
But a sensible man ignores an affront.
15. Implicit antithesis, ternary. It is assumed that the fool
is stupidly self-confident and does not see the need of seeking
advice. The reference appears to be solely to intellectual judg-
ments, not to religious opinions, though these also will be included
in the broader scope of the proverb. There is obviously here no
condemnation of rational confidence in well-considered opinions.
2 52 PROVERBS
— 16. Antithetic, quaternary-ternary (or, perhaps, ternary) . Lit. :
a fool, on the very day (on which he receives an insult, a disgrace),
his anger makes itself known (or, displays his anger), but a sensi-
ble man covers up insult. The proverb condemns thoughtless,
passionate resentment, and enjoins calmness and deUberateness in
the face of insult. It does not condemn self-defence, or resent-
ment directed against wrongdoing, nor approve weakness, or cow-
ardice, or reticence under all circumstances ; it does not relate
to forgiveness of injuries, or to the non-resistance described in
Mt. 5^^"*' ; it simply enjoins calmness. The motive indicated is
not love or consideration for the author of the affront, but regard
for one's own interests, or for the general well-being. Quick
resentment is treated first of all as a foolish thing ; doubtless it
was also considered morally wrong. On the term affront see note
on 3^. Cf. the sentiment of 1 1".
10. 1^ '^r.n■^•, (5 (TTrXdYxi'a; so Ss {the wicked, their bowels are closed);
IL viscera. On '-\ as = hoivels see Ges. Thes., and cf. cm toomb and (in Arab.)
relationship ; whether the sense mercy, love is derived from a stem = soft (cf.
Arab. Bm), or is connected with the viscera considered as the seat of affection,
is uncertain. — 11. |^ a'? -iD,n; Gr. on'? 'n; Frank.: DnV -iDn\ — For the addi-
tional couplet in (@ see note on this v. above, and notes of Lag. De. Baumg.
Bi. — 12. 1^ ^5■^; (5 e7riei//xiat, = .-n::n; SM = ^; IL desiderium, — -^r.r\;
Hitz. -\-or\; Bi. nipi?. Frank, makes nnS (end of v.^i) out of |^ icn JiS (v."-i2),
regards the i of icn as miswriting of n (in following yi'i), and attaching the
3 (of 2'^) to -\, reads: D"n nxc J?-n3, an intelligible sentence. — 1§ D'yi iSD;
@ omits 'c, for which Si has -^i-}-d^, = Heb. n::';?n'?; % munimentum pessimo-
rum ; Gr. 0''a'i lifD; Bi. (omitting c) o-'p. The simplest reading of * is that
of ®, but it is not connected in its thought with **; the readings of Bi. and
Gr. are not natural; the true text can hardly be recovered. — In •* we may
read jn-'N for ||J jn% % i'lI^^ (@ f" ox^ip'^ii-o-'^^v (so Ew. Gr. Kamp.); Bi. nxD.
Lag. suggests that p'' may be corruption of the p' ((5 oivuv) of '^. For other
emendations see Nowack. — 13. ||J rpb; <@ e/xTriirTeL et's irayida^; read Z'p'3
or tt'|i2. — f^ NS'i, 1 + Impf., rhetorical sequence. — On the additional couplet
in (S see Lag. and Bickell; Bi.'s •\;'Z'2 Nipi (= © 6 5e crvvavTuv iv irvXais) is
suspicious {cry in the gate is not the natural antithesis to have a gentle look),
and the couplet, while it looks like a bad translation from Hebrew, is of
doubtful origin. — 14. On the omission of aio see note on this v. above. —
}^ li'N; (§ V'^X'J d>'5/)(5s, in which i/'. is probably interpretation of the Grk.
translator (deleted by Lag.); a st'Dj in the Heb. would mar the rhythm. —
1^ •>-!'; (gB^ not so well, xf^^wv (23. 157 X"/"*'". and so S"). — 16. |^ JJiv;
the Vrss. understand the form as Hifil. ^ — 1& 3r3; Gr. iDr3.
XII. I6-I9 253
17-19. CK)od and bad speech.
17. He who speaks out the truth affirms justice.
But a false witness (affirms) injustice.
18. Some men's chatter is like sword-thrusts,
But the tongue of the wise is healing.
19. The lip of truth endures for ever,
But the lying tongue is but for a moment.
17. Antithetic, ternary. The reference is to the depositions of
witnesses before a legal tribunal. The verb rendered speaks out
appears to have a technical legal sense ; it is used of giving legal
testimony in 6^^ 14^-^ 19^- ^ ; the first line, therefore, may be trans-
lated : a true witness affirms, etc. The rendering injustice (the
word is usually translated deceit, as in 11^) is supported by Job 15'*
•A 43^ 55^^"^') and is here required by the antithesis {{Justice be
written in the first line ; but the antithesis may also be truth . . .
falsehood. Testimony in a court of law, says the proverb, is
public affirmation of justice and order, or of their contraries ; a
false witness sins against the fundamental principle of social life.
The prominence given in the Book to the crime of perjury indi-
cates that it was not uncommon. On the itxm justice see notes on
jS 22". — 18. Antithetic, ternary. Lit.: there is one who chatters
like the thrusts of a sword, but, etc. The person of first cl. is
impliedly foolish. The verb of first cl. is used in Lev. 5* of the
unwary utterance in which a man unconsciously binds himself by
an oath (and so the corresponding noun in Nu. ^o^- ^*^- ^') ; in
\\i 106^ it describes a hasty, unadvised speech of which Moses
was once guilty (Nu. 20''*'^^) ; here it means the thoughtless talk
which, taking no heed of what is due to men, wounds them by
unkindness or imprudence. In contrast with this is the sympa-
thetic and wise speech which heals suffering and saves from dis-
aster. The proverb breathes a fine air of elevated benevolent
feeling, the reference being not especially to testimony in court,
but to general relations of life. — 19. Antithetic, ternary. For a
tnoment is lit. " for an eye-wink." The affirmation appears to be
general : truth, supported by facts, and having the approval of
men and God, is permanent ; falsehood, unsupported and unap-
proved, speedily passes away. Similar aphorisms are found among
other peoples ; Delitzsch cites (from Dukes) later Heb. proverbs.
254 PROVERBS
which, however, are probably based on this. — Grk. (departing
somewhat from our Heb. text) understands the reference to be to
courts of law : true lips establish testimony, but a hasty witness has
an unjust tongue, a reading which resembles v.^^, but is here less
probable than the form of the Hebrew.
20-23. Of falsehood and folly. — Antithetic, ternary.
20. Injustice is the purpose of those who devise evil.
But they whose plans promote well-being are < just.»
21. No mischief befalls the righteous,
But the wicked are full of misfortune.
22. Lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh,
But they who deal truly are his delight.
23. A man of sense keeps back his knowledge,
But fools proclaim their foolishness.
20. Lit. : injustice is in the hearts of those 7vho, etc., is their
purpose, belongs to their nature, and is the product of their acts.
On injustice (RV. deceit) see note on v.^^ ; lack of fairness and
truthfulness is injustice. On devise evil ^ee 3^ 6" ^* i Sam. 23^
The second cl. in the Heb. reads : but to the counsellors of well-
being there is joy. The counsellors of well-bei?ig are those whose
designs and plans are such as to promote the welfare of their
fellow-beings ; for this sense, plan or design, see Isa. 14^^ But
the term/.3ji^ of second cl. stands in no natural connection with the
injustice or deceit of first cl. This latter term expresses the purpose
of wicked men, and we should expect the corresponding term of
second cl. to express the purpose of good men, their sincerity and
equity. Such is the contrast given in v.^ of this chapter, and
obtainable here by a slight change of the Heb., with the reading :
to the designers of well-being there is justice. — If the joy of the
Heb. be retained, the couplet must be interpreted to mean:
wicked men design injustice, but the good men, purposing good
to others, will be rewarded with joy or happiness. This is a
possible but not natural and easy antithesis. In 21'^ it is said that
the practice of justice is joy to the just man, but the omission of
the subject (the practice of justice), as is here assumed, would be
hard. — On well-being (RV. peace), = "wholeness, completeness
of being," see note on 3I Counsellors of well-being = benevolent.
xii. 19-24 255
righteous men. The interpretation o{ Joy as that which the good
man procures for others is hardly allowed by the Heb. ; see 10^*
15^ 21^^, where the joy is subjective, and similar constructions in
jq16 j j26 gj.^,^ — 21. The doctrine of full compensation in this life.
Mischief dxA misfortune (RY.evi/) are synonymous, and here refer
not to moral depravation, but to outward suffering as the punish-
ment inflicted by God. On mischief as = misfortune see 22*
Job 5*^ 21^^; on misfortune see notes on 3^° 6" ^* \\^ 13" 14'^ 16*
31^^ — Grk. Targ. Syr. give a different idea :
No injustice is pleasing to the righteous,
But the ungodly are (or, will be) full of evil.
This conception (representing a somewhat different Heb. text
from ours) is appropriate, and may be the original form of the
couplet. — 22. The same general thought is found in lo'^'^^ 12^^
13^ 16'^ 20^, and the same predicates in 11^. On abomination
see note on 3^^. — 23. Wise reticence and foolish blabbing. Keeps
(or holds) back (lit, conceals) = " holds in reserve, is not forward
to display." The second cl. is lit. : the heart (= mind, nature)
of fools proclaims, etc. The verse is an aphorism of prudence,
sagacity, the quality to which Proverbs gives such prominence.
The fool rushes in, displays his folly, is despised and gets into
trouble ; the man of common sense is cautious, reserved. The allu-
sion is to circumstances which demand caution ; outspokenness
under certain conditions is approved in such passages as 15^ But
the Book reflects a society (large cities and arbitrary government)
in which silence is golden. — For keeps back Gratz proposes to
read utters, but this gives up the striking antithesis of the Maso-
retic Hebrew text, which is supported by 1 7^- ^ and other proverbs.
24. Industry brings success.
The hand of the diligent will bear rule,
But the slothful will be tributary.
Antithetic, ternary (or, binary-ternary). Praise of industry is
found in 10* 12^ 13^ 19'* 21^, and satire on sloth in 6*^" 24^**^^
While the idea is common to all times and peoples, this form of
the apophthegm is suggested by political relations — it is learned
rather than popular : a vigorous nation rules over its neighbors,
256 PROVERBS
a feeble nation pays tribute ; an industrious man attains wealth,
high position, influence, power (22^), a slothful man loses his
wealth and becomes dependent (ii^*)- Slothful is lit. slothfiil-
ness. For tributary {= under tribute) see Ju. i"*^** i K. 4" Lam. i^
Isa. 31^. — The couplet may be more tersely rendered :
The diligent bear rule,
The slothful are underlings,
25. Power of sympathy.
Anxiety in a man's mind bows it down,
But a kind word makes it glad.
Implicit or progressive antithesis, ternary : a kind word dispels
anxiety and makes glad. Instead of kind (lit. good) word Grk.
has good news, but the antithesis rather points to friendly, sympa-
thetic words.
17. 1^ no-, Hif. (without subject expressed), for which Lag. (p. vii) pro-
poses nn-, as in ^ 'i']^'^; De. (here and on 6^^) defends |^, but the construc-
tion is hard, and Lag.'s reading seems preferable; see notes on 6^^ 14^. De.
remarks that elsewhere in Pr. '■' stands with d^td (he should except 29^) ; but
this may be accidental. — (5 : iTriSeLKvv/x^fqv iricmv e7ra77AXet dUaios; iirid.
may perhaps (Jag.) represent a form of npn, taken as = ajffirtn (in a court of
justice), though elsewhere in Pr. (exc. 19^(2) iyKaXQv) '.i is rendered by iKKaUiv;
Lag.'s suggestion, r\T, is not probable, since this vb. is regularly represented
by iX^yxei-v (cf., however, e\. aitest and iirid. demo ttstr ate, prove, in a court
of law).' — 18. 1^ n33 (xaa), to speak thoughtlessly (understood by (SS^^T as
= simply speak) may be mimetic (hardly connected historically with ^a.r-
ToKoyiiv); GIL render freely promise (according to Lag. they read n'J3).
— (@^ /xdxatpa'; read, with H-P 103 at., naxo-i-P<}, or insert wy, with 68. —
19. 1^ "<"*^ I'rr; (5 KaropdoL fiaprvpiav, = i"*^ pi (Jag.), the V being taken
(in Aram, fashion) as introducing the object, or perhaps the ^ had fallen out;
in •> also the ly was read improperly as 1". — IL in "^ = |^, in t' = ©; S in *
free, in •» follows (5; ^T in * = |^, in ^ follows (5. (5's rendering of ^ is thus
strongly supported, but |§ is favored by the antithesis. The form n;jij"iN is
commonly explained as i pers. sing. Hif. Impf., but it is a noun, sometimes
(Jer. 49^^ 50**) used adverbially; it appears to be an Inf. of Aram, form (less
probably = "ns, from •,•;-■, with s- prosthetic). — 20. |^ 'C'-^b, in the sense of
mental construction, is a Hokma term (32^ 6i^- ^^ 14^-) ; but see also i Sam. 23^
Hos. lo^^ Job 4^. — Note assonance in nnic, nnru"; for the latter term Gr. pro-
poses njDN; it is better to read aow'c. — @ j3ov\6fji€voi; read ^ovXevd/xevoi, with
^H niarg. 23 (Lag.). — 21. |^ n IN- ; <§ (and su Si®;) dpda-ei, = nwi, a not improb-
able reading. — 22. J§ v-;; Gr. suggests p'S , as parallel to TiDr, but the varia-
XII. 24-26 257
tion of |§ is natural and effective. — 23. For J^ nob, N-ip'', nViN © has dpbvo%
(NDr), ffvvavTit(yeTa.i (from n-\p), dpats (•"'''n), all misreadings. — ^T'', paraphras
ing, Nnj'Ti 1JND. — S in * = @, in ^ apparently = |^, rendering n^ix by NPC'^a;
cf. Pirikuss' note. — 3L = |^. — 24. The adj. v^n, in sense of diligent, only in
Pr. (cf. the vb. in 2 Sam. 5''^*), elsewhere (Isa. 41^^) sharp ; (5 (KXeKTwv, free
rendering, or (Baumg.) connected with 'n pure gold ; cf. Job 37^^*'"^ where
iKk. represents ■'"(3, taken by (@ as one word, and connected with -\3 chosen,
brilliant, and Pr. 1 2^'' where Kadap6s = 'n. — 25. (3 renders freely : <popepbi
\6yos — njs-i; rapdcrffei, = nnvy, diKalov is added to t'S as interpretation;
dyyeXla = ^^2^\ (it is unnecessary to suppose, with Gr., that (@ read mij'a).
|§ is reproduced substantially by .SSTIL, and » by 0; but S3C give the 0o/3. and
Tap. of (S, which, here as elsewhere, appears to have influenced these Vrss.
26. A satisfactory translation of this couplet can hardly be
given. The second cl., ^/le way of the wicked tnisleads them (or,
leads them to destructioti) is intelligible, though in form somewhat
strange. A man's way (common metaphor for conduct, ?nanner
of life) is described in OT. as easy or hard, or as leading to hap-
piness or to misfortune, or it is said that men go astray or are led
astray (by God or man) in their way, but it is never elsewhere
said that the way itself causes men to wander ; see i'^' 2'-'^ 3"'^
4-® gso j^is J ^12 J ^19 ^^_ . ^g should perhaps read : the way of the
wicked is error, or the wicked goes astray in his way. — In con-
trast with this we expect in first cl. some such statement as the
path of the righteous is straight (cf. 15^^), or the righteous departs
from evil (cf. 16^'), but the text offers no such thought. The
Heb., as it stands, must be rendered : the righteous searches out
(= explores, studies) his friend, which here yields no satisfactory
sense. A change in the Heb. preposition gives . . . explores (the
way) for his friend (or, ?ieighbor), which is hardly apposite ; and
the same remark holds of Ewald's translation (adopted, appar-
ently, by RV.) . . . is a guide to . . ., in which, moreover, the
rendering ^«/</<? is unwarranted. — The Anc. Vrss. give no material
help. Grk. : a fust arbiter will be his oivn friend, perhaps cor-
rupt for the fust is his own friend, or the fust man knows his
friend ; Aq. : he who makes his neighbor rich (lit. to abound) is
just (or righteous); Targ. (followed by Saad. Rashi): the righteous
is better than his neighbor; Syr. : the righteous gives his friend
good counsel (= . . . is a guide to .' . .) ; Lat. : he who ignores
loss for his friend'' s sake is fust. — Most modern expositors (fol-
2S8 PROVERBS
lowing Doderlein) prefer to change the vowels of one word and
render : the righteous searches out his pasture, that is, superior to
sinful desire, seeks (and finds) moral and religious nourishment *
— a figure taken from pastoral life in which good pasturage stands
for well-being and happiness (Job 12^^). But the expression, used
appropriately of the wild ox (Job 39^), is never elsewhere em-
ployed of man (not in Ez. 34'^ '*), and is somewhat strange and
forced. The verb of the clause is suspicious ; it is used in the
earlier literature of the selection of a camping-ground (Dt. i^
Nu. 10^) or of a country, for example, by Yahweh (Ez. 20"), of
the investigation of Canaan by the spies (Nu. 13^, and frequently
in Nu. 13. 14), perhaps of a specifically military reconnoissance
(Ju. i^, but the text is doubtful), later of reflection (Nu. 15*^)
and intellectual investigation (Eccl. i'^) ; it does not seem to be
appropriate here. — The simplest emendation or interpretation is
that of Targ., followed by AV. : the righteous is more excellent
(marg. abundant^ than his neighbor, but this is neither apposite in
itself, nor related to second cl. We can only surmise, from com-
parison of 14-^ 16'^ 21'", that the general sense of the couplet is:
the righteous departs from evil, but the wicked strays from the
{right) way. The two lines may be, however, wholly unconnected
with each other.
27. The two clauses are unrelated to each other ; there appears
to be a displacement — each clause has lost its parallel. The first
may read : the slothful man (lit. slothfulness, = the man of sloth-
fulness) does not hunt (or, rouse, or, roast) his game — metaphor
taken from hunting-life ; the meaning of the verb is doubtful, but
the general sense appears to be that the slothful man is too lazy to
provide food for himself, and must consequently suffer ; Kamp.
regards it as too corrupt for translation. — The second cl. should
express the idea that the diligent man does make provision for
himself, but this meaning cannot be got from the present text.
The following are some of the translations which have been pro-
posed. Rashi (obtained, however, by an inversion) : the sub-
stance of an industrious man is valuable (and so AV) ; Qamhi,
Schult. (followed by De. Reuss, Now. RV. marg. Str. Kamp.) :
* So Hitz. Ew. De. Bi. Str. Kamp.
XII. 26-28 259
a valuable possession (wealth, substance) of a man is diligence
(or, to be diligent), but the last word is the adj. diligent, and can-
not be rendered diligence ; Berth. Ew. : a precious treasure of
{= to) a man is one ivho is diligent, that is, an industrious servant
— an allowable rendering of the Heb., but an inappropriate idea ;
the intention of the clause is to praise the diligent man for his
value not to others but to himself. — Grk. (and so Syr.) changes
the order of the words and reads : a precious possessiofi is a pure
man, which order is adopted by Umbreit, Bi. and others, substi-
tuting diligent for pure ; Targ. : the substance (wealth) of ?fian is
precious gold, and Latin : ... is the price of gold. — RV. (and so
Noyes) inserts a preposition : the precious substance of men is to the
diligent. If, in addition to this insertion, we transpose two words,
we have the simple reading : the diligent man possesses (or, gains)
wealth (lit. there is valuable property to the, etc.), a familiar idea
in Prov., but not obviously connected with first cl. Cf. lo"* 12^*
15^^ 19^* 20* al.
28. Antithetic, ternary. The first cl. reads ; in the path of
righteousness is life — the doctrine, abundantly dwelt on in Prov.,
that goodness insures a long and happy life ; see notes on 3^ 8^
14^. The second cl., in its present form, is untranslatable {the
way of its path — not death, in which not is the imperative neg.,
and can qualify only a verb). Saad. Schult. De., mistranslating
the negative : the way of its path is immortality (= not death) ;
RV. (repeating AV.), adopting this mistranslation, inserting a
preposition (without italicizing it), and writing way of path as one
word, renders : in the pathway thereof there is no death. The
definition of 7ejay by its synonym path is unexampled in Prov.,
and the resulting second cl. is a simple repetition of first cl. The
form of the negative here employed is used only in voluntative
sentences, and, if there were a verb, we might render : and let not
the way of its path be death, an obviously impossible form of state-
ment. The Anc. Vrss. and some Heb. MSS. and printed edd.
have to instead of the negative (the difference involves merely
the change of a vowel), and the clause should no doubt read:
but the way of tvickedness leads to death, or some equivalent ex-
pression (so most modern critics) — the idea that the bad man
260 PROVERBS
will be cut off prematurely, or die some unhappy death. Cf. 2^^-^*
^18.19 ^5 ^27 J ji9 j^i2 j ^9^ ^^^^^ f^j. ^^^ msertioH of the verb /ea^s,
see 14^.
26. I^b is reproduced by (S^ZIL, but can hardly be correct; -r^t cannot
be subject of Hif. of n;,n. — J^ ^,-l' gives no good sense whether pointed as
adj. or as Hif. of -\-. The text is hardly recoverable; the Vrss. seem to have
had % We might read: pix n •?->•? id^ (cf. i6i7), but there will then be no
distinct contrast of expression between » and •». See Lag, Baumg. Pinkuss,
and note on this v. above. — 27. The Vrss. in general support |^, though, in
some cases, with inversions (see note on this v. above). |^ fin; (g (and so S)
Kadapds; ^'^ gold. Gr. ^p1 j'lin. Read in •> 'n din':'; ipi jn occurs in li** 24*.
The insertion of din between the two words is possible, but here hard. —
|§ inn is taken by Rashi, Qamhi al. to mean roast, = burn, as in Aram.
(Dan. 327), and cf. Arab. ^^-\n; Schult. and others compare Arab. Tin move
(intrans.); '$,2.2iA. meet, encounter {t\•^■)i III.); see Ges. 7'-4«., BDB, De.; the
word is perhaps corrupt. See De' Rossi. — 28. In *> for ||J ''X the Vrss. have
Ss; and for this reading in MSS. and printed edd. see De' Rossi, B-D, Gins-
burg. |§ nj-j; (5 ixv-qaiKaKuv revengeful; S) pnj.N wicked; ® njhjn, scribal
error for 'js; 3L devium, possibly for ron:?: (Baumg.). Some word, standing
in contrast with npiy, must probably be substituted for nanj. Levy, Chald.
Wbch., suggests that ® read a?nj, but this is not probable; Jag. djid; Buxt.,
Anticrit, 717, thinks /ufTjo". an insertion of the Grk. translator; Lag. prefers,
with 161 marg., 6 5^ /jLvrjaiKaKuv; Bi. may (see ai^*),
XIII. 1. Our Heb. text reads :
A wise son his father's instruction,
But a scoffer listens not to rebuke.
Antithetic, ternary. In first cl., if our Heb. text be retained, a
verb, = /tears or regards, should, from the parallelism, probably
be inserted (so Targ. RV.) ; Kamp., instead of /lis fat/ier's, reads
loves (see i2\ where, however, the verb in second cl. is /lates) ;
Rashi inserts see/zs and loves ; Saad. accepts ; Schult. : one is (or,
becomes') a wise son {w/ieri) instructed by one's fat/ier; Lat. (fol-
lowed by De. Now. Str.) : a wise son is (= is the product of)
/lis fat/ier's instruction, which is a hard and improbable construc-
tion. The verb, by scribal corruption, has disappeared from the
Hebrew ; probably we should read : a tvise son /leeds (or, loves')
instruction. — On first cl. see notes on 2' 3' 4^; on instruction see
note on i-, and cf. 13'^ ^* ; on scoffer see note on i" ; rebu/ie occurs
13* lyio Eccl. f, etc. — In second cl. we might expect /?(?/irV/^ son,
XII. 28-XIII. 2 261
as in 15^, but scoffer (which occurs in 9" as antithesis to wise^ is a
more vigorous synonym oi fool. The Grk., assimilating the two
clauses, reads (its destroyed being corrected to rebuked) :
A wise son is obedient to his father,
But a disobedient son will be rebuked,
to which, however, the Hebrew form is to be preferred. — The
proverb lays stress on teachableness ; the scoffery out of badness
of heart, refuses instruction. Whether or not father be retained
in the text, the reference is especially to young men.
2. The outcome of conduct. — The Heb. is probably to be
translated :
From the fruit of his mouth a man enjoys (lit. eats) good,
But the desire of the wicked is violence.
So the couplet is rendered by many expositors * ; others f supply
in second cl. the verb of first cl. : the appetite (lit. soul) . . . feeds
on violence, but appetite in OT., though it desires or loathes, is
full or empty, is never said to eat. The violence may be that
done to others (which is the natural interpretation), or (as first
cl. suggests) that which rebounds on the bad man ; but in this
last case the expression (="the appetite of the wicked for
wrongdoing really brings violence on their own heads") is round-
about and hard. — The first cl. is substantially identical with 12"*,
in which, from the parallelism, we should probably omit the good
(and so Reuss here) ; but here the antithesis demands its reten-
tion.— The form of the Heb. couplet is unsatisfactory: the ex-
pressions " a man's words bring him good " and " the desire of
bad men is for violence " stand in no natural relation to each
other. Grk. : the good man eats of the fruits of righteousness, but
the souls of the wicked perish untimely; Syr.: . . .perish; Targ. :
. . . are snatched away ; Gratz (after 8^") renders second cl. : the
faithless do harm to themselves. We seem to have here a disloca-
tion — the two clauses do not belong together. The first cl.
should perhaps be assimilated to the corrected form of 12'^, and
the second cl. might then be retained, with the sense that bad
men desire to act violently (that is, to gain wealth by unjust
• Lat. Saad. Rashi, De. Zock. Str. Kamp. f Schult. Berth. Ew. RV.
262 PROVERBS
means). An antithesis is gained by adopting the Grk. reading,
or by rendering : a good man enjoys the {good) fruit of his mouth,
but (or, and) the wicked harm themselves. On wicked {or, faith-
less) see note on 2^', and on violence note on 3'^ ; cf. also notes
on 10" " 12" 26^.
3. Speech must be cautious.
He who guards his mouth preserves his life,
He who opens wide his lips — it is ruin to him.
Exact antithesis, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). Warning
against incautious speech, as in 10^" 17^^. The warning is always
in place, even in everyday affairs, but is especially appropriate
under a despotic government or in any ill-regulated society (such
as abounded under the Persian and Grk. governments), where an
imprudent word may cost a man his life. The reference is obvi-
ously to the physical life, not to the soul (as the Heb. term may
sometimes be rendered) as the seat of moral and religious expe-
rience. Cf. BS. 9^^ and the Syr. Menander, p. 70, 1. 12.
4. Sloth and industry.
The slothful desires and has not,
The diligent is richly supplied.
Antithetic, ternary. Contrast of results of industry and idleness.
Lit. the soul of the slothful and the soul of the diligent, in which
soul is the physical principle of life, = desire, appetite. Richly
supplied is lit. made fat (11^ 15^° 28^ Dt. i\^ y\i 23^ ; fatness,
originally the sign of animal and vegetable health and vigor, is
used as general symbol of prosperity. The shiftlessness of the
lazy man is similarly denounced or ridiculed in 6""" 12^' 19^^ 20*
al. The Grk. (omitting the neg.) : the idle desire, but the hands
of the active (or, strenuous or manly) are diligent (perhaps error
{01 prosperous) ; Lat. (repeating the verb in first cl.) : the slothful
will and will not, = is too lazy to decide or to act.
5. Men's relation to truth.
The righteous hate deception,
But the wicked act vilely and shamefully.
XIII. 2-7 263
Antithetic, ternary. The subjects are sing, in the Hebrew. De-
ception (lit. a false thing) includes all words and deeds opposed
to truthfulness (cf. Col. 3^ Eph. 4^*). As in first cl., so in second
cl. the verbs more naturally express an attitude of mind (cf., for
this rendering, 10^ 12^ 14^ 17^ 19^") ; deception —vile and shame-
ful action* Other translations (which, however, fail to bring out
a distinct antithesis) are : brings into evil odor (or, disgrace) and
shame (Schult. De. Str. RV. marg.) ; is loathsome and comes to
shame (RV.) ; is ashamed and juithout confidence (Grk.) ; is
ashamed and put to the blush (Targ.) ; acts badly and brings
shame (Saad.) ; confounds and shall be confounded (Lat.).
6. Preservative power of probity.
Righteousness preserves him whose conduct is perfect,
But wickedness destroys the sinner.
Antithetic, ternary. Lit. the perfect of walk ; the Heb. seems
intended to read : innocence of walk, and, in second cl., sin, but
the concrete terms are preferable in the Heb. text as well as in
the Eng. translation. In second cl. the Anc. Vrss. have (not so
well) siti destroys (or, carries off) the wicked. On the OT. con-
ception perfect see note on 2^, and, on the general statement of
the earthly consequences of good and evil conduct, notes on i^*-^
3'® 10^, etc. — There seems no reason to hold, with Lag., that
righteousness here = almsgiving ; the natural opposite of wicked-
ness is goodness in general. Lag. refers to v.^-* (on which see
notes), and inclines to take sin (= offence against the theocratic
order) as subject, but for this there seems to be no necessity.
On the OT. relation between righteousness and almsgiving see
note on lo". — Righteousness may save, and wickedness destroy,
through the operation of natural causes, or through the directly
manifested favor or disfavor of God, who remembers and reckons
acts for or against men (Gen. 15® Ez. 21^*^^^). This verse is lack-
ing in the Vatican MS. of the Grk., perhaps by scribal oversight.
7. Social pretence.
Some, having nothing, pretend to be rich,
Others, being wealthy, pretend to be poor.
• So Rashi, Ew. Kamp.
264 PROVERBS
Antithetic, binary (or, ternary-binary). Apparently a condemna-
tory reference to two contrasted weaknesses, namely, foolish love
of display, and equally foolish miserliness, conduct which is doubt-
less to be met with at all times. Or, there may be special allu-
sion to a state of things which was common in the disordered
period of the conflicts between the Greek princes of Syria and
Egypt, when there were often pressing reasons for making a show
of wealth or poverty. The moral is that men should be simply
honest and unpretentious. In second cl. there might possibly be
an allusion to desire to get rid of the obligation to give alms (see
note on preceding verse), but such allusion is not obvious.
8. Wealth as a protection against enemies. — The text of
second cl. appears to have suffered from scribal error. The Heb.
of the couplet reads :
A man's wealth is ransom for his life,
But the poor man does not heed rebuke,
in which the predicate of second cl. is identical with that of v.^**,
and stands in no relation to first clause. It is not the character-
istic of the poor to reject admonition, and the connection calls for
the statement that the poor man, not having money with which to
buy off his prosecutor or oppressor, must suffer the legal or illegal
consequences of his crime or misfortune ; see similar references
to the social disadvantages of poverty in 14™ 19*^ 30^*. Examples
of a state of things in which money alone saves life abound in Jew-
ish and other histories (and cf. the reference to murderous rapac-
ity in Ez. 22^'^). The predicate of second cl. may be erroneous
scribal repetition from v.^ and should perhaps read something
like has 710 friends, or is a prey to his enemies. Or, the second cl.
may be repetition of v.^**, with erroneous substitution of poor man
for scoffer; in that case it has nothing to do with first clause. —
Various attempts have been made to establish a connection be-
tween the two clauses. Saad. : [wealth, rightly used in good
works, saves life] but he is poor who heeds fwt the admonition of
God ; Rashi : the poor does not hear reproach (from the good
rich man, who, on the contrary, gives him alms), or he who is
poor (in the knowledge of the law) hears not the adtttonition (of
the law, and therefore does not escape evil) \ Midrash Haggada
XIII. 7-8 265
(cited by Rashi) refers the clause to the payment of the half-
shekel obligatory on all Israelites equally (Ex. 3o'''), so that the
poor man is not exposed to contempt for his poverty ; De. points
out that the reference cannot be to the old legal commutation of
the death-penalty to a fine, for this is restricted to one case (Ex.
21^"), and even then the offender does not escape threatening or
rebuke, and, if he cannot pay the fine, must suffer death (cf. Ex.
2 2^-') ; Schult. agrees in general with Saad., holding the meaning
to be: true riches is that (namely, wisdom and virtue) which
saves a man from death (if/ 49*""'), and he is poor who does not
heed admonition ; Evvald takes the second half of the clause as
subject (an improbable construction), and translates: yet he
became poor who never heard an accusation (reference to legal
proceedings) ; some * take rebuke as = threat (a sense which the
word nowhere else has), and understand the meaning to be that
the poor man, secure in the fact that he has nothing to be robbed
of {cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator), hears or heeds not
threats, is not concerned with the schemes of the powerful op-
pressor.— These renderings are all forced and improbable; the
first clause simply points out the value of wealth, apparently in
evil or corrupt times, as a means of security (by bribery, and, in
general, by procuring powerful protection), and the second cl.
either belongs to another couplet, or must be emended so as to
give a contrast to first clause. The emendation wicked for poor
does not furnish a contrast. — On ransom see note on (F'. In the
present case the rich man is exposed to the legal and other
assaults of the powerful, and saves his life by a payment of money.
See 10'', and, contra, ii^^
XIII. 1. In a ;'ct:' or Sap may have fallen out; cf. i^ 4I g^^ 192' al. Uimock
(cited by Dys.), 3n>t, for J§ dn; Kamp. anx (if this be adopted, ->D,. and j in
should be transposed) ; Bi. inserts prep, p before -iD::, but the resulting con-
struction is hard. (S'' i/ttiJ/coos may represent >'C'i' (so in 21^8, where, however,
Jag. proposes to read ^tpiJ/coos), or may be free rendering of |^; in •> a.vr\Koo%
= >-DB' nV, and vl6i apparently represents v^ (assimilation to form of ■») ; tV
diruiXelqiC^ n-iyi) is pcrh. corruption of ^v dTretXij (Jag., see v.^). — ^T inserts
Sa|-ia in », and S> ;cnrr. In '' & follows <5 freely. On C t<ri)!2, to be read
N3 (so S), see Levy, s.v. ar;!, and Pinkuss. — For idd 4 MSS. have ncc ,
* Mich. De. Now. Reuss, Noyes, Zock. Str. Kamp. RV.
Nn
266 PROVERBS
after lo^. — 2. In " ST renders as in la^**; for J^ r^x ^d <S has SiKaiocri^j'jjj,
perh. reading pis, perh. imitating ii*' (Baum.). (§'' dXovvrai. Aupoi may
represent |§ DDn (the evil fate which overtakes the wicked), or Dpn, from
DDD (Capp. Crit. Sac, iv. 4, 5, cf. Lag. Baum. Pink.). On &.(apoL of. Frank,
on 1 1^". The word does not of itself render D.;n, but only in conjunction with
some other term, as perish. — A connection between * and •> might be got by
inserting 33 after 'irs (so &), and supplying in "^ a verb parallel to S^N". See
note on this v. above. — Instead of "^JS' 7 MSS. and Bibl. Sonc. have i'^i:", and
so SSTIL Venet., as in 12I*. — 3. The stem pU's in Arab. = go forth, separate
one's self (then transgress, act u^irestrainedly) ; in Aram., cause to go forth or
away, cut off; in Heb. cause to go apart, open wide (Qal only here, Pi.
Ez. 16'^^). — 4. In |§ '?xj; v^^'flJ the ^ may be petrified sign of Nom., as in irrri.
Gen. i2* al., ij3, Nu. 243- ^^ ir^T, \p 114^, perh. to be read t;';: (the form is not
found elsewhere in Pr.), or Aram, anticipatory suff. (elsewhere in Pr. only
14^^, on which see note), or we may (with Bi.) omit it as scribal error, SC adds
the suff. to the second voi also. — With ]t'\ cf. Assyr. NC i, jb'I. — @, not so
well, omits px; IL takes it as negation of niNnn: vult et non vult piger.
(@,S1L render '?xy 'j as = Sx>'. — 5. P? rN3% from B'N2; better cp'', from vz. —
(@ oi)x f|e' ira/)p7;(j-/aj' is free rendering of |^ ion'; on S see Pinkuss. — 6. One
MS. has aj!n, and one oxan. Read CN-on instead of |^ rNan. The subst. dp
occurs a number of times in Pr. (2'' lo^ 19I 20'' 28^), the sing. adj. here, xd^
29!", the sing, ddp i'^ 2^1 ii5-20 28'"- **. — For the stem i^D cf. the Arab, sense
go beyond, and turn over (land for sowing) ; in Heb. Pi. turn over, destroy ;
subst. iSd departure from {going beyond) the right yis.y, falsity. — The couplet,
found in ©A. 68. I61. 248. ai. e^n ciem. Procop., is lacking in (g^, probably by
scribal inadvertence; its sentiment, though of the most general nature, is
appropriate, and the style of the Hebrew is natural. — 8. For f^ t'-\ Frank,
suggests j?£n; see note on this v. above. If this emendation be adopted, the
two lines of the v. must be held to belong to different couplets. |§ ^"lyj;
@ dTreiX^v. On this word, and on ST Nn>'3, & h~H2, see critical note on v.^
above.
9. Permanent prosperity of the righteous.
The light of the righteous < shines brightly,'
But the lamp of the wicked goes out.
Antithetic, ternary. Shines brightly is in the Heb. rejoices, an
expression not appropriate in the connection. Statement of the
earthly fortunes of good and bad men under the figure of houses,
one brightly illuminated (symbol of life, prosperity, joy), the
other in darkness (symbol of adversity and death) ; see the full
form of the figure in Job i8^ Light and lamp are synonymous
(so in Job 18®), not symbols respectively of divine providence and
human sagacity (De., who, inappropriately, refers to 6^). For
XIII. 9-IO 267
some general parallels in Talmudic and other writings see Hitz.
De. (the references in Malan are scarcely appropriate). —
Another emendation (Frank.) is : light rejoices the righteous,
which gives a less marked antithesis than the reading here
adopted. Grk. : there is light to the righteous ahvays, perhaps a
free rendering of our Heb., perhaps based on a different text.
The Grk. adds the couplet :
Crafty souls go astray in sins,
But the righteous pity and are merciful.
For the first cl. cf. 2^^ 6^^, and, for second cl., t/^ 37^^; the two
clauses have no special connection with each other. The couplet
is not improbably a combination of glosses.
10. Pride as source of discord. The Heb. reads :
Pride causes only strife,
But with those who take counsel is wisdom.
Antithetic, ternary-binary. Cf. 11^" 12'^ 15^ 24^ According to
this reading /nrt<? (haughty self-confidence) is set over against the
disposition to take counsel, which is the sign of rational self-dis-
trust ; and such pride, bringing one into conflict with others, is
thus foolish, while the opposite disposition is a mark of wisdom.
A distincter antithesis is gained if (with Hitz., after 1 1^, on which
see note) we read : tvith the humble is wisdom (for which the
change required in the Heb. is not great) ; on the other hand,
the reading of the text is intelligible, and is perhaps a designed
variation of that of 11'. The general sense remains the same —
those who take counsel (RV., not so accurately, the well-advised^
may be described as hmnble or modest. The proverb is directed
against litigiousness and general quarrelsomeness and offensive
assertion of one's supposed rights, perhaps, also, against the obsti-
nate pride of rival princes, which frequently led to wars. — Grk.
(with different text) : a bad man does evil by insolence, but they
who Judge thefuselves are wise, in which the antithesis is less clear
than in the Hebrew. The couplet should perhaps read :
Pride engenders strife.
But with the humble is wisdom,
humble being taken as = unassuming.
268 PROVERBS
11. Results of legitimate and illegitimate accumulation of
wealth.
Wealth gathered < in haste > grows small,
But he who gradually amasses increases.
Antithetic, ternary. The Heb. reads : wealth (got) from nothing-
ness (or, vanity), in which vanity is by some * taken as —fraud,
swindling ; but the word means only " a breath, something transi-
tory, practically non-existent" (Dt. 32^^ Job 7'*^ Eccl. i^), a sense
which is here inappropriate (since wealth built up from nothing
may be praiseworthy), and does not offer a good contrast with
the following gradually. Comparison with 20^^ 28-^ makes it
probable that the Grk. and the Lat. are right in reading in haste ^ ;
the expression probably looks to abnormal methods, not accord-
ing to the ordinary laws of industry or inheritance (as by son
from father), but fraudulent business procedures, extortion, and
the like. A man who becomes rich in this way, says the proverb,
is likely to lose his wealth ; the reference is probably to reckless
expenditure in luxuries, dissipation, speculations and illegal ven-
tures, not to divine retribution ; and, on the other hand, legiti-
mate industry will be accompanied by caution and thrift. This is
obviously the observation of a man who lived in a commercial
community. — The rendering titealth divindles a^vay sooner than a
breath (Umbreit, Noyes) is in itself inappropriate (since a breath,
here = nothing, cannot dwindle), and does not stand in contrast
with second cl. — The translation by labor (RV.), instead of
gradually, is improbable. — The Grk. inserts the explanatory
phrases iniquitously (in first cl.), righteously (in second cl.),
which latter Targ. renders and gives to the poor (see note on 10^).
— Grk, adds : The righteous is tnerciful and lends, on which see
note on v.^
12. Hope fulfilled and unfulfilled.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Antithetic, ternary. Hope and desire are synonyms — each = " the
thing desired or hoped for." Fulfilled is ht. having come. Instead
* Schult. De. Str. f So Vog. Hitz. Ew. Reuss, Bi. Kamp. al.
XIII. II-I3 269
of hope deferred we might render extended waiting — the sense
would be the same. Heart is not the emotional nature, but the
whole inward man; on tree of life see notes on 3'* ii*^ The
proverb has no ethical bearing ; it is true without reference to the
moral character of desire. The Grk., misunderstanding the scope
of the saying, writes ^d?^?^ desire.
13. Safety lies in obedience. The Heb. reads:
He who despises the word is treated as debtor to it,
But he who fears the commandment is rewarded.
Antithetic, ternary. Is treated as debtor is lit. has been forced to
give a pledge. According to the Jewish law the debtor deposited
with the creditor some article as pledge (Ex. 22^^^^^* Am. 2^ Job
22^ Pr. 20'" a/.) or mortgaged his house or land (Neh. 5^), and
the creditor, if the debt were not paid, might take possession of
the debtor's property (Mic. 2^), and even, if this did not suffice,
of his person, and his wife and children (2 K. 4^ Isa. 50^ Neh.
5*).* So, our text declares, he who offends against the word
(that is, the law) is regarded as a debtor to it, and, if he do not
meet his obligation, will be punished, while he who fears and
obeys will be rewarded (cf. 11^^). The sinner, it is said, exists
on sufferance for a time ; at the end of that time he must dis-
charge his obligation by obedience, or submit to his fate. This,
however, is hardly a natural representation, and a slight change of
the Heb. gives the simpler reading :
lie who despises the word will perish,
But he who fears the command will be safe.
The term word may mean " law in general " ; possibly it = word
of God, with specific reference to the divine law given to Israel.
The punishment and reward may come from man or from God.
Cf. notes on i" 3^ 16^. — Gratz unnecessarily emends to: he who
despises strife . . . dSi^L he who fears contention . . . — Grk. adds
the triplet :
A crafty son will have no good thing,
But the affairs of a wise servant will be prosperous,
And his path will be directed aright.
• See Nowack, Heb. Arch., pp. 353 ff.
270 PROVERBS
This is apparently a scribal addition, taken, perhaps, from some
current collection of proverbs (not from Ben-Sira) ; the second
and third lines perhaps form a doublet. The thought is in keep-
ing with that of our Book of Proverbs, in which, however, the
only parallel couplet is i f. — The Lat. adds the couplet given in
the Grk. after v.^
14. Wisdom is life-giving.
The teaching of the sage is a fountain of life,
Whereby one may avoid the snares of death.
Ternary, progressive (second cl. = predicate of first cl.), in form
a single sentence, contrary to the norm of this part of the Book ;
14^ is nearly identical. The two lines give two different figures.
The second cl. is lit. : to avoid, etc. On fountain of life see note
on 10". Teaching (Heb. tora') = "content of the instruction."
Snares of death are snares set by death (as fowler or hunter), or,
more probably, snares of which the result is death, as in first cl.
the result of the fountain is hfe. The sage (see 22'' 24'^ i^"^ 2^) is
the man of experience and wisdom, the teacher (pubhc or private)
whose instruction is designed to be a practical guide in everyday
affairs. The sages appear to have formed a recognized class at
this time, and to have performed the function of Heads of schools
or Professors of the philosophy of life. Their teaching related to
matters of common-sense prudence, and to the more nearly ideal
conception of right and wrong ; it included the observations of
practical sagacity, and the prescriptions of a strictly ethical-reli-
gious view of Ufe ; see notes on i^"*^ 10" 13" 14^^ al. In Proverbs
the guide of life is not the immediate divine word of the Prophets
or the divine rule of the Tora, but human reflection illuminated
by divine wisdom — a difference which indicates a new phase of
development of Israelitish moral and religious thought. — The
Grk. gains a contrast by reading second cl. : biit the foolish dies by
a snare, an improbable form (cf. 1 2^^) . An antithetic form might
be expected, but cannot be got by any natural emendation of the
Hebrew text. The idea of the proverb, as it stands, is that integ-
rity (probably religious integrity) brings long and happy life, as in
3^* aL
XIII. 13-15 271
9. f^ r.CU"; ^HL ni); IL laetificat, reading Pi. (so Frank.), but the order
of words does not favor this reading; (5 5id 7ravT6s, perh. paraphrase of |^, con-
trast to the extinguished oi *> (Jag.), hardly for n-iOB'^ is extended (\.z.g.), possibly
for r\'ih or inn; see Schleusn. who thinks that a word (perh. x^prdv) has fallen
out. One MS. of De R. has nsx\ Gratz would emend to mf (cf. 2 K. 3^2
Isa. 58^'' Job 9''), a more natural reading than that of ||J, and here, probably, to
be adopted; nnti' is nowhere else used of a light. — For Heb. translations of the
couplet added in <5 see Ew. and Bi.; cf. note on this v. above. — 10. J^ asyj;
Hi. (not improbably) aj.':s, after ll^; (5, freely, ka.vrQ)v iwiyvufwPes (see la^**).
— (S >"i for |§ pi. It is better to omit pi and the 0 of po as corrupted repeti-
tion of preceding ^vi. — 11. 1^ '^^no; <3 iTria'wov5a^oiJ.4i'r],% /estinata. ^M^
follow (5, with modifications. Read (with Ew. Reuss, Lag. Kamp.) '^nbc. — *?);
-i> = " according to the task of the day, gradually " (cf. Levy, NHIV., for the
late Heb. use) ; T'3 would mean " by the labor of one's hand." (g adds at
end: 5//catos oiKTelpei /cat Kixpg- — 12. (@ gives an elaborate paraphrase of *,
making of it a full couplet: Kpelaatiiv ivapxi/J-tvos [B — /x^vois] ^orjdQv [n"^"
106. 248. A at. ^orjOeiv^ Kapdlq. Tov iwayyeXXopiivov Kai els iXirlda dyovros,
= better speedy help than halting promise. Some MSS. of (5 (23. 106. I49 a/.)
and S^J here add the line above given at end of v.^S while others (106. 248)
omit 1^''. As the form of |^ is obviously original, these variations exhibit the
liberties and uncertainties of Grk. scribes (see Baum.). — 13. On the Heb.
represented by the addition in @ (found also in %') see Ew., Bi., and, on the
texts of @ and S, Baum. Pinkuss. — Gr. reads 3"; for 13-', and nsD strife for
nixc. Better Frank., who omits ^^, and reads ^^t'^ ((§ vyialvei) for J^ D'7!:'\ —
14. In •> (S has: 6 5^ dvovs vwo wayldos daveirai, = 'i'pDTi nci Sd31 (so Baum.;
Jag. id) ; but the collocation die + snare is hard. We should perh. expect
some such form as pis iD\ — & and one Heb. MS. have nnsn for 5§ D3n.
15. Value of intelligence. The first cl. reads:
Fine intelligence (or, good sense) wins favor.
The expression (30 biv) which stands as subject of the clause
signifies intellectual /(?«^/;-a//L^// ox fineness (i Sam. 25^), or wis-
dom in the most general sense (i// iii^*') (in Pr. 3^ the text must
be changed) ; the substantive is the distinctive term in Prov. for
sagacity, discretion, prudence (12^ 16*^ 19" 23^, and so Ezr. 8'^).
Here the reference is to that fine perception of propriety which
makes a man discreet and courteous in his dealing with his
fellows, whereby he wins their favor ; the term culture (suggested
by De.), understood to include both intellectual and social fine-
ness, may convey the idea of the Hebrew. — With this idea the
second cl., as it now stands, cannot be brought into clear relation.
Lit. it reads : The tvay (conduct, manner) 0/ the wicked (faithless)
2/2 PROVERBS
is permanent (enduring), in which wickedness is not a natural con-
trast to intelligence, and the conduct or manner of life of the
wicked is described not as bringing disfavor, but as permanent, a
term used everywhere else in a laudatory sense, as indicative of
strength, but never with ethical significance. It is employed to
describe a stream as perennial (Am. '^^^ Dt. 21* i// 74^^), or men
(Jer. 5^^ 49^^ 50*^ Job 12®), or their abode (Nu. 24^'), or the foun-
dations of the earth (Mic. 6^), as enduring, a bow (Gen. 49^*), as
standing fast, sure, the sea as having a permanent place or flow
(Ex. 14^), and pain as perpetual (Job 33'^). The renderings
hard (AV. Str.), rugged (RV.), unfruitful, desolate (Reuss, Zock.),
uncultivated (De.), are unwarranted by etymology or usage.
Schultens understands it as = te7iacious, inflexible, that is, in a
bad sense, but such a sense does not belong to it ; the clause can-
not mean : the manner or conduct of bad men is characterized by
an immovableness which pays no respect to the claims of others.
Grk. Syr. Targ. : are destroyed; Lat. : whirlpool. — The true read-
ing is uncertain. The translation of AV. : the way of transgress-
ors is hard has been by many readers understood to mean that
transgressors have a hard time of it, or, that the modes of proce-
dure of bad men are cruel — senses which are foreign to the
words. The next verse may perhaps suggest that the original text
contained some such expression as " the conduct of fools is hate-
ful" (or, "breeds enmity"), or, less probably, "is their destruc-
tion" (Grk.), or (Frank.) "is emptiness" (cf. BS. 4i>»). The
two lines appear to belong to different couplets. — After the first
cl. the Grk. adds the apparent variant :
And to know the law is the part of sound understanding,
the first half of which reads like a gloss on the expression 7inns
favor — one, that is, gains the favor of God by a knowledge of
the law. But the line is found in the Grk. at the end of 9'" also,
where it is more appropriate ; and it was, perhaps, here inserted
merely because of the common expression sound understanding
(^=ifine intelligence^.
16. Good sense and its lack shown in conduct.
The man of sense shows intelligence in all he does,
But the fool makes a display of folly.
XIII. 15-17 273
Antithetic, ternary. The Heb. has, in first cl. : Every man of
sense acts with knowledge (or, intelligence) ; the transposition
(with Syr. Lat.) of the every (= all) gives a better form to the
sentence. The adj. sensible {—of sense, ^^ . prudent) is a com-
mon term in Prov. for the expression of intellectual sobriety and
acuteness ; what is here said is that a man of this sort acts with
due regard to circumstances, while the fool spreads out or displays
his ignorance and folly like a pedlar who openly spreads his wares
before the gaze of all men. Cf. 12^ 15I The reference appears
to be solely to intellectual qualities.
17. Good and bad messengers.
An » incompetent > messenger < plunges one > into misfortune,
But a trustworthy envoy insures success.
Antithetic, ternary. In first cl. the Heb. has wicked dxA falls into ;
but it is the business capacity of the messenger, and not his moral
character, that is in question (so in 25^^^), and the predicate refers
(as in second cl.) not to the misfortunes of the messenger, but to
the unhappy consequences which his incapacity entails on his em-
ployers. The correction requires only the omission of one letter
and the change of two vowel-points. The term envoy occurs
again in 25^^; in Isa. 18- Jer. 49" (= Obad.'), and perhaps in
Isa. 5 7^* it means a political or governmental messenger, an am-
bassador, but the more general name envoy is preferable as suiting
all the passages in which the word occurs. The reference is prob-
ably to private as well as public negotiations, and to affairs of
every description for the settlement of which an intermediator is
required. The terms incompetent, trustworthy, misfortune, heals
are of general (not primarily ethical) import. — Insures success,
lit. is health, that is, is a source of health, the agency by which a
sound, prosperous condition is attained. See 4^ 6'^ 12"^ 14''" 15''
16^^ 29' Mai. 4^ (3^)-t The second cl. states not that the good
messenger heals or remedies the mistakes of the bad messenger of
first cl., but generally that such an one is helpful.
* In Jos. 9* the word should be changed so as to agree with v.12.
t On the term in Eccl. 10'' (= (juict or conciliatory demeanor) cf. Siegfried (in
Nowack) and Wildeboer (in Marti).
T
274 PROVERBS
18. Financial success the reward of docility and caution.
Poverty and shame will be the lot of him who rejects instruction,
But he who regards admonition will be honored.
Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). Prudent regard to
advice, says the sage, insures success in Hfe ; the maxim is a gen-
eral one, and leaves room for cases in which, for moral or other
reasons, one must go against the counsel of friends. The primary
reference is to commercial success. The shame {disgrace) is that
which usually attends poverty, and the honor is that which is given
to wealth. The principle involved (caution in decisions) has, of
course, a wider scope. Cf. 12^ 15^-^^. The instruction and admo-
nition may be understood (but less probably) to refer to general
moral and religious teaching. — The Grk., against the parallelism,
inverts the order, rendering : instruction removes (or, averts) pov-
erty and dishonor.
19. Two displaced lines, each of which has lost its proper par-
allel line :
Desire accomplished is sweet to the soul,
But it is an abomination to fools to depart from evil.
The first cl. is substantially identical with second cl. of 13^^, and
the second cl. with second cl. of 29% in each of which couplets
there is a distinct antithesis. A connection here between the two
lines has been sought * by paraphrasing : " desire fulfilled is pleas-
ant, and thus fools cherish their evil desire, and will not abandon
it," or (Wild.) : "the desires of good men are granted by God,
but fools cannot expect such a blessing " ; but these interpreta-
tions are forced, and contrary to the style of Proverbs, in which
the connection of thought is simple and obvious; cf. 18^, in
which the fool's pleasure is defined, and see notes on 13^^ 29^. —
Grk. (followed, with some variations, by Syr. Targ.) has :
The desires of the righteous gladden the soul,
But the deeds of the unrighteous are far from knowledge;
which in part represents a different Heb. text from ours, and
seems to be in part a religious interpretation of our first clause.
Similar religious interpretations of the first cl. are given by Rashi,
♦ Rashi, Schuh. De. Reuss, Str. al.
XIII. i8-2o 275
Delitzsch, and others, but it obviously contemplates a general non-
moral fact of human experience.
20. On choosing associates wisely.
Walk with the wise, and thou wilt become wise,
But he who associates with fools will smart for it.
Antithetic, ternary. In first cl. the Heb. margin (assimilating the
construction to that of second cl.) reads : he who walks ... be-
comes. Will smart (see 11^^) is lit. will be made (or, become^
bad ( = will come into evil case) ; there is an implied contrast
between this evil, the result of folly, and the good or advantage
which is derived from wisdom. In the Heb. of second cl. there
is an assonance : roe ts'ilim yero'a. The power of association to
mould character is referred to in i^" 2^^ ^u ^529 2324.25 ^^20 ^g^i^.
The wise may be in general men of good sense, or the reference
may be specifically to sages, men who sought and taught wisdom.
The verse may be an admonition to attend the schools ; cf. BS.
39I-3 ECCI. 12^^".
15. At end of * Bi. adds noni (presumably for the metre's sake). — |^ jn-'K
(on the stem see BDB), apparently an elative form, made (as in South Sem.)
by pref. n, sporadic in No. Semitic; (5 iv d-n-wXelq. (and so .S) ; ® (apparently
following both ||J and (@) 13.7 npi Ncr;'.-! Kmxi; IL vorago. Jag. supposes
that <@ read □;;!< (heir calamity (i^^ 24-2 Job 211^ al.), Gr. j-i^n; neither of
these would account for IL vorago. (@ may possibly be free rendering of |^.
P'rank. inn (see Job 6^^ 12^* BS. 41^"), which is not satisfactory in itself, and
secures no good contrast between the clauses. — 16. |^ nc-j." Dny '?3; better
(as apparently SilL) 7 "' ^3; S takes 7 -> as defining relative clause (Pink.);
cf. l6^ Gratz proposes ^3u; for % ^2. — XT. |^ In'^c; (S jSairtXeys. — ^ yr-i;
read jn (so Gratz). — ?§ '?b^ read Hif. ':'2^ (so Reuss, Now. Bi. Gr. Kamp.
Frank.) ; cf. 7^6 igi^. — T^ djcn, plu. of extent and emphasis. — NOin may be
pointed as subst. or as Pi. Partcp.; <S, freely, piaerat avrbv. — 18. Before
"^ >-»b insert ^. — 19. "^ ■i^nj nwp; <5 iiridvfjilai evcre^Qv (68. 106. at. Compl.
ia-e^Qv), in which eva-. is probably insertion to gain a religious tone, though
it may represent a optx (cf. note on 21'*''); (@ epya, = maj? (Jag.) for
JiJ r^2yp; dirb yvuxrews, = yiv, for J^ yir. — IL qui fugiunt, as if 0->D or -iD'.
On a reading a;iin, for |^ oSoj, see De' Rossi. — 20. Kethib » (followed hy
(5), two Impvs. in conditional sentence; Qeri (followed by <S®1L) has Partcp.
and Impf., as in h. — T^ ■•- 1-; (5 yvujffdriffeTai, = Nif. or Ilof. of >n''; IL, freely,
similis efficietur ; in ^ &2E = J^.
276 PROVERBS
21, 22. Recompense of righteousness and unrighteousness. —
Antithetic, ternary. The doctrine of earthly reward according to
conduct ; see notes on 3^^^*.
21. Misfortune pursues sinners, 1
But good fortune is the lot of the righteous.
22. The good man leaves wealth to his children's children.
But the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous.
21. Misfortune is Ht. evil; good fortune is simply good in the
Hebrew. On the terms sinners and righteous see notes on i^ '"
2^. The second cl. is lit. : he (or, one^ recompenses the righteous
with good. The he is by some* taken to refer to God (Yahweh),
but this is improbable, since such omission of the divine name as
subject occurs nowhere else ; others f understand the subject to
be the indefinite one, and render the verb as passive i^the righteous
are recompensed^, a construction possible, but hardly employed
except where the connection points naturally to a definite subject ;
still others would construe good as subject {good rewards the
righteous^, taking it as = " the Good One," God (but God is
never in OT. called simply "the Good One"), or as = " pros-
perity" (but this expression represents the reward, not the re-
warder) . It is perhaps better, following the Grk., to change the
verb into overtakes, and make good (corresponding to evil in first
cl.) the subject: good overtakes (= is the lot of) the righteous;
for this use of the verb see Isa. 59^ Job 27^. The sense is un-
affected by this change of text. The Pass, form of the verb in
the Heb. is found in 11^^ 13'^ — 22. The term good describes
that which is satisfactory of its kind, well adapted to its ends, as
food (Gen. 3^), or land (Ex. 3'') ; used of persons it may mean
beautiful (Gen. 24'*^ i Sam. 9^), or kind (i Sam. 25^^ \^ 73^), or
morally exemplary ; here, from the parallelism, it is equivalent to
righteous, as in 12^ 14"- ^^ The reference is not to successful
thrift, or to the kindhearted, Uberal man who by dispensing bless-
ing is himself blessed (as in 11^), but to the morally good man
whose obedience to law is rewarded with worldly prosperity. The
ethical use of the term is frequent in Prov., less frequent in Pss.,
elsewhere rare. The bequeathal of wealth to descendants was in
* Saad. Now. Str. and apparently Schult. f Lat. De. RV.
XIII. 21-23 277
Israel (as among ancient peoples generally) a crowning test of
prosperity. This blessing is said to come to the righteous, but
not to sinners, whose wealth, on the contrary, passes (by natural
laws) into the hands of the good. On sinner see notes on 8^^
23. The Hebrew yields no satisfactory sense. It reads :
The fallow-ground of the poor yields (lit. is) abundance of food,
But many a man perishes (or, is swept away) by injustice.
The statement of first cl. is opposed to common observation and
to the declaration of lo'^, and uses the strange term fallow-
ground instead of some general word for " land " ; the second cl.
is vague (the injustice may belong to the perishing man or to his
destroyer), and between the two clauses there is no obvious rela-
tion— the productivity of a poor man's land has nothing to do
with a man's perishing by injustice. A sufficiently free para-
phrase may, indeed, supply the needed connection : " even the
fresh land (which requires severe labor, and is presumably of mod-
erate productive power) of a (pious or industrious) poor man
yields abundance of food, while many men (relatively rich) by
their unjust actions (fail to get nourishment from their land, and
in the end) are destroyed." * But these insertions overpass the
limits of allowable interpretation. There is nothing to indicate
that the poor man of first cl. is diligent or righteous — this cannot
be properly inferred (by contrast) from the injustice of second cl. ;
nor is the poor man, as such, ever commended in Prov. (not in
19^, and not in 3**) ; moreover, a man supplied abundantly with
food is hardly to be called poor (cf. v.-^). — The Anc. Vrss. vary
considerably from the Heb., and from one another. Grk. : the
righteous shall pass many years in wealth, but the unrighteous
shall be speedily destroyed ; and that there were variations in the
Greek versions is shown by the rendering of the Hexaplar Syriac,
which is based on the Greek text of Origen : the great enjoy
wealth many years, but some men perish little by Utile; Pesh. Syr. :
those who have no habitation (or, means of subsistence) [that is,
the poor] waste wealth many years, and some waste (it) [or, per-
• So substantially Ew. De. Reuss, Now. Str.
278 PROVERBS
haps, by emendation, peris/i] cotnpletely ; Targ. : the great man
devours the land of the poor, and some men are taken away
(= die) unjustly (or, without judgment) ; Lat. : there is much
food in the fresh land of the fathers (= chiefs, heads of families),
and (or, but) for others it is collected without judgment. The
medieval Jewish commentators are equally at a loss in translating
the verse. Saad. : food (that is, the manner of one's eating) is
often a sign of poverty, and matjy men are carried off without
judgtnent (that is, without knowing the judgment of God, or with-
out dying a natural death) ; Rashi allegorizes. — Frankenberg
emends :
The fallow-ground of the wicked yields abundance of food,
And wealth gathered by injustice.
But such a general affirmation is not found elsewhere in Pr., the
translation wealth collected is not probable, and the difficulty of
the fallow-ground remains. — The Hebrew text appears to be
corrupt beyond emendation.
24. The rod for children.
He who spares his rod hates his son,
But he who loves him chastises him.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary (or, ternary). 6/>ar^x = withholds,
fails to use (it does not mean "uses slightly") ; see 10^^ 11^* 17^
21^^ 24" Gen. 22'^ \p i9'3(i*> Job 7". Chastises is ht. seeks with
chastisement, = deals (with him) by chastisement ; the verb does
not contain the idea of " early, betimes, diligently " (De. RV. al.) ;
see notes on i"* 7'^ 8^' 11^. The proverb simply commends
bodily chastisement as a means of training ; details are left to the
judgment of parents; on chastisement see notes on i^-^ Similar
sayings are 22^^ 23^^ 29^^; the regulation of Dt. 21'^^^ (infliction
of death on a disobedient son) seems, in the later postexilian
period, to have fallen into desuetude.*
* On methods of corporal punishment of children among the Greeks and
Romans see Becker, Charicles, Exc. to Sc. I, and Gallus, Exc. II to Sc. I, and
A. Zimmern, The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks (transl. from the Germ, of H.
Bliimner), p. 98; for Chinese and other apophthegms relating to this point see
Malan.
XIII. 23-25 2/9
25. Belation of righteousness to supply of bodily wants.
The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite,
But the wicked suffers lack of food.
Antithetic, ternary. Lit. : the righteous eats ( = has food enough)
to the satisfying of his appetite, but the belly of the wicked lacks.
On appetite (= animal Ufe or soul) see notes on 6** i^". Belly is
the middle part of the body, rarely the outer surface (Job 40'®
Cant. 7^*^*)> usually the interior, including the womb (Gen. 25^
al.) and the cavity containing the bowels, regarded as the seat of
general feeling (Job 20^) or as the receptacle of food (here and
18^, on which see note) ; it thus comes to stand for the man's
being or personality {\j/ 17"), or the combination soul and belly
expresses the whole being (t/^ 31^*""). The reference in the prov-
erb is to the satisfaction of all bodily needs, food standing for all
the physical necessaries of life — not to the satisfaction of spiritual
needs, of which there is no suggestion in the words; the inward
life of spiritual experience is alluded to in Prov. always under the
general terms wisdom, fear of Yahweh, and the like. On bodily
compensation in this Hfe see notes on i^^ *^ 2^'^^, etc. — The dis-
tinctness of the phraseology of this verse brings out in sharp
relief the indistinctness of v.^.
21. J^ 3b oSt'' ; (S KaTa.\-r)tifeTa.i dyadd ; read y<2 JC" (Ew. Kamp.) ; Bi.
D^c''; Gratz oWi apis njrii; Lag. suggests that the word was written 'Sk'^
out of which (S made y£'>; Jag. regards aw> as the word read by <S, miswriting
of q'?B'\ — 22. To understand nini as subj. of Snr is unnatural and unnecessary.
Before 3t2 Bi. inserts B'n, but cf. 122. — %, Mly,Jitios et nepotes. — 23. @ may
be based on J^ : 5^/caiot (Jag. ai^", for |§ a'f si) ■Koiiiaovaiv (perh. Aram, lay
pass time, for |^ '^dn) kv TrXovrcf (|§ n_j lamt, taken as = weaWi) err) woWd
(=?^ 21), dSiKOL 8i (free rendering of PJ Z'-'i, to bring out contrast with
dlKaioi) diroXovvrai (= J^ nsDj) ffwrS/xwi (perh. free rendering of |§ wSa
iD2VT:, possibly = aNnc, omitting nSj). 5i = @, except that in » it has periph-
rasis for poor instead of righteous, and renders J^ Sjs by n3iN, and in •> also
has njiN, which, however, may be scribal error for n3N (Pink.). The Vrss.
appear thus to support the text of |§, but furnish no suggestions for its
emendation. — Frank, reads a-;r-\ for J^ au'Ni, and takes r; as = wealth; this
latter is here hard, and the resulting couplet is unsatisfactory. On it" see
BDB. — 24. 1^ iDD 'nnir, 'v with two objects, as atp, 2 K. \(f^; the suff.
refers to the son, not (Ew. al.') to 'O. — ® ^Trt^ueXtDs TraiSei^et, probably not
reading iD^D (Pink.), but taking 'tf as = seek carefidly, and rendering the
phrase according to Grk. idiom (as RV. according to Eng. idiom). This
280 PROVERBS
incorrect rendering of •^n"'- is found in S (which = ©, except that it expresses
the suff.) © (dTc) 1L {instanter) and an anonymous Grk. Vrs. {dpdpl^ei, in
Field), and is obviously due to a supposed derivation of this stem from ^^a'
dawn (so Saad. Rashi). — Gratz suggests nD''D nnna'a corrects him in {his)
youth, but the change is unnecessary. — 25. J^ p3; (5 ^vxo-i, perh. by
assimilation to *, 'z being usually rendered in (5 by KoiXla (so 'ASGE^H
here); ^^.S" Did (Heb. fij, Jer. si^*); % venter.
XIV. 1. Wisdom and folly in the home.
The Heb. text is in disorder, and the proper form is doubtful,
The Received Text reads :
The wise among women build (every one) her house,
But folly with her hands tears it down.
The improbable collocation of concrete and abstract (wise and
/o//y) may be got rid of by slight changes of text, as by reading,
in first cl., ^ke wisdom of luomen (so many recent expositors), or,
in second cl., the foolish (Anc. Vrss. RV.). In all these readings
the reference is to the wife as manager of household affairs, as in
2jio-3i^ where, indeed, as to her acts she is called capable, and
wise in her words only, but the difference is not significant. Else-
where in OT. the epithet wise, used of women, indicates sagacity
(Ju. 5^ 2 S. 14^ 20^®^^), artistic skill (Ex, 35^^), or the profession
of mourner (Jer. 9^^'^^'). The sense may thus here be : it is the
wisdom of the wife especially that secures the prosperity of the
household. This interpretation, however, assigns the wife a role
which is more important than is indicated elsewhere in Pr., and is
in itself not probable — the man is in OT. the more important
person of the family. A simpler statement of the general effi-
ciency of the housewife may be gained by further changes of the
text, with the resultant reading :
A wise woman builds her house,
A foolish woman with her hands tears it down.
Builds her house = builds up her household. — It is possible, how-
ever, that (as 9^ 24^ suggest) the word women of the present text
\s a gloss on the plu. adj. wise, and should be omitted. If, fur-
ther, we change wise to wisdom and omit the unnecessary ex-
pression with her hands, we have the rendering :
XIV. 1-3 28 1
Wisdom builds the house,
Folly tears it down.
The statement then is that wisdom is constructive, folly destruc-
tive, of the family and the best life. The objection to this emen-
dation is that wisdom and folly are not personified elsewhere in
chs. 10-29 '} ^" isolated case might, however, occur. — The word
women being omitted, the first line of this couplet is identical
with first line of 9', from which it may have been taken, and a dif-
ferent meaning given it. Or the expression may have been a
common one in gnomic discourse, and may have been employed
by different writers in different senses.
2. Identity of integrity and piety.
He whose life is upright fears Yahweh,
But he whose ways are wicked despises him.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary (or, ternary). Lit. he who walks
in his uprightness (but the his should be omitted), and he who is
wicked (crooked) in his ivays. That is, the good man shows by
his conduct that he reverences God who demands uprightness,
while the bad man practically sets him at defiance. — Subject and
predicate may be reversed, so as to read : He who fears Yahweh
is upright . . . he who despises him is bad, and the resulting sense
is substantially the same as before. The first translation defines
moral conduct by the man's relation to God, the second defines
the man's attitude toward God by his moral conduct. The first
is perhaps favored by the Hebrew order of words. — On wicked
(= crooked, 'KW . perverse) see note on 2'
,15
3. Discretion in speech. — The couplet reads in our Heb. text :
In the mouth of the fool is a sprig of pride,
But the lips of the wise preserve them.
Implicit antithesis, quaternary-ternary (or, ternary). The word
rendered sprig occurs elsewhere in OT. only in Isa. ii\ where it
signifies a small branch shooting from the stock of a tree ; here
the branch of pride springs from its stem in the fool's mouth.
The line simply characterizes the fool's language as proud ; but,
as second cl. declares the preservative effect of wise speech, we
282 PROVERBS
may probably infer that some effect of foolish proud speech is
implied in first cl., and this effect, according to the parallelism in
the present Heb. text, touches the fool himself — pride harms or
destroys him (as in ii^ i6^* 29^). It may be a question whether
we should not omit the theju in second cl., and interpret : " the
fool's words are proud (insolent toward others), but the words of
the wise are helpful (preservative of others)." This would accord
better with the function ascribed in Pr. to utterance. — The Anc.
Vrss., instead of sprig, have goad or 7-od. If this translation be
adopted, we may regard the rod of pride as wounding others (Syr.
Targ. Ew. Str. and perhaps Grk.), or as a scourge to the fool him-
self (De. Reuss, Zock.), = a rod for pride (Kamp.) ; Hitzig (by
a change of text) : a rod for his back (cf. 26'^ where, however,
the word rendered rod is different). But the translation rod is
doubtful, and the expression is not quite natural. The rendering
insolence (Barth) instead of sprig (or, rod) is not probable. —
Elsewhere the lips of the wise are said to give food (10^^), to dis-
pense knowledge (15"), or to keep knowledge (5^), here to save
(cf. 10"). As the Heb. verb is sing., De. would assume wisdom
as subject {the lips of the wise, wisdom preserves them), but this is
violent and unnecessary ; it is easier to take the verb as plural. —
The proverb, like many others, assumes the identity of speech
and thought, and enjoins prudence in words.
4. Importance of the ox for the farmer. — Antithetic, binary.
The Heb. text may perhaps be translated (as in RV.) :
Where there are no oxen the crib is clean,
But abundance of produce comes by the strength of the ox.
This form, however, does not offer a good contrast in the clauses
— we expect: "no oxen, no produce"; the xendermg clean (in
a physical sense) is doubtful (elsewhere, except Cant. 6', the
word means "morally pure," Job i\* xj/ 24*, etc.),* and, in any
case, the sense required is not clean, but empty, a meaning that
the Heb. term never has ; nor would it be necessary to say that
* On the use of the word in Canf. 6^ see the Comms. of Budde (in Marti) and
Siegfried (in Nowack). In ^ i820(iii) (= 2 S. 2221) the corresponding .loun is em-
ployed to describe the hands, but as a figure of moral purity
XIV. 3-6 283
where there are no oxen the crib is clean. A slight change of
text gives for the first line the rendering :
Where there are no oxen there is no corn.
In the second line we should expect : " many oxen, much prod-
uce," a statement that may be got from the present text, since the
stretigth (= working power) of oxen is in proportion to their
number; the precise statement is that the crops depend on the
ox, the animal used in ploughing. — The couplet states a fact of
agricultural economy : a wise farmer will see to it that his oxen
are numerous and in good condition. Care of animals is implied,
but not for their sake. The duty of kindness to working animals
is enjoined in 12^" Dt. 25'*.
5. True and false testimony.
A trustworthy witness does not lie.
But a false witness utters lies.
Antithetic, ternary. The thought is identical with that of 12", on
which see note ; the man makes public affirmation of truth or
falsehood. The proverb is aimed at the crime of false testifying
in a court of law. Cf 6'** 14-^ \<f.
6. Wisdom comes only to the serious.
The scoffer seeks wisdom and finds it not,
But to the man of understanding knowledge is easy.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. Wisdom = knoivledge, acquaint-
ance with right principles and methods, here especially in things
moral and religious. The term scoffer, as used in Prov., while it
is often a synonym of wicked, ungodly, always contains the ele-
ment of lack of moral seriousness, and generally, also, that of posi-
tive opposition to tmth ; it here stands in contrast with the man
of understanding, that is, intellectual sobriety and insight, based
on moral earnestness. The scoffer's desire for wisdom is not
explained ; the sage means, we may surmise, that he valued it
because it gave social power and excited admiration — he did not
love it for its own sake, had no real sympathy with it, and there-
fore no receptivity for it (cf. 2 Tim. 3' : "ever learning and never
able to come to a knowledge of the truth "). These two classes,
284 PROVERBS
here as elsewhere in Prov., are assumed as facts — no attempt is
made to analyze the characters, to trace their origin, or to suggest
methods of training, whereby the one may be strengthened and
the other transformed.
7. Text and meaning are uncertain. The Hebrew text more
naturally reads :
If thou go from the presence of a foolish man,
Thou hast not known lips of knowledge.
The first cl. has the Imperative go, = if thou go. If it be taken as
a command proper, the second cl. must be understood as giving
the ground of the exhortation : go from . . . for thou hast not ob-
served {in hi>n), etc., but this the Heb. does not warrant. The
same is true of Saadia's rendering : go from . . . else wilt thou
not know. Some (Schult. Ew. RV.) translate: go into the pres-
ence of, which is allowable, but less probable (it does not, how-
ever, change the general sense). As the couplet stands, the
meaning is that a fool has no knowledge, and that from inter-
course with him one gains nothing. This is an intelHgible state-
ment, but the form is strange, and the phraseology of second cl.
is not natural — the expression know lips occurs nowhere else,
and we expect the explanatory phrase /;/ him (inserted by RV.).
— The Anc. Vrss. give various turns to the couplet. Grk. (with
several variations from the Heb. text) : All thi?igs are adverse to
a foolish ?nan, but wise lips are weapons of discretion, an unsatis-
factory form, followed by Syr. and (with a slight modification) by
Bickell ; Targ. : Withdraiv into another path from the presence of
a fool, for there is no knowledge in his lips, a simple and natural
sentence, probably a free translation of our Hebrew ; Lat. : Go
into the presence of a foolish man, and he knows not lips of pru-
dence, in which the verb knows (3 pers. instead of 2 pers.) may
be the erroneous transcription of a Latin scribe. — These readings
show that there was difficulty in the Hebrew text, but it is not
easy to suggest a satisfactory emendation. The second cl. might
be conformed to 20'* : wise lips are a precious adornment, but
this stands in no relation to the first clause, the form of which in
the Grk. is not probable ; after 26^ we might read in first cl. :
there is no honor to a fool, but this has no support from Versions.
XIV. 6-8 285
The simplest emendation, perhaps, would be : go from the pres-
ence of a fool, for his lips do not utter knowledge ; cf. 15^.
8. Conduct must be carefully considered. — The couplet reads
in our Heb. text :
The wisdom of a man of sense consists in understanding (or, considering) his
way,
The folly of fools is deceit.
Free or loose antithesis, quaternary- ternary (or, ternary). The
first cl. gives the gist of the practical philosophy of the sages : a
man of good sense shows his wisdom not by fine words and the-
ories or by boldness and display, but in the capacity to consider
his actions, comprehend their real import, and choose that course
of conduct which is best adapted to secure happiness. The wis-
dom referred to is practical sagacity ; there is no mention of
moral or religious elements, though the second cl. may perhaps
suggest that these are involved. The second cl. does not offer an
explicit contrast to the first. We expect the statement that the
fool shows his folly by the absence of reflection and insight in the
direction of his affairs, instead of which it is deceit that marks him
— that is, craft, deception practised on others ; such is the mean-
ing of the term in Prov. (see 11^ j2^^'^-^ 14^ 20^ 26^^) and
throughout OT. The contrast would be obvious if we could take
the word in the sense of "self-deception" (so Berth. Ew. Zock.),
but the usage seems not to allow this. We may suppose that the
sage chooses to pass over the obvious mental incapacity of the
fool, to characterize him by his moral procedure, and to stigma-
tize or ridicule this as folly — folly, he may say, is best shown in
craft and fraud ; or, reversing subject and predicate, we may un-
derstand the line to say that deceit is essentially folly. Taking a
suggestion from the Grk., the line may be read :
The folly of fools leads them astray,
which furnishes a direct and natural antithesis, and should per-
haps be adopted. It is possible that the two lines did not origi-
nally stand together in one couplet.
XIV. 1. ]ij rc3n, fem. plu. const, of D3n, is improbable because of the sing,
vb. 1. ja and the abstr. sing. nSiN in *•; read PC3n, as in 9', on which see note.
286 PROVERBS
UVi is best omitted as gloss to adj. ncDn. If a reference to wise and foolish
women were intended, we should rather expect nc3n he'n (or nn^n rrx) and
nViN. — J^ '"'■'l''^ though logically unnecessary does not mar the rhythm (Bi.).
On the Vrss. see note on this v. above. — 2. The suff. in ^-\z'^ may be retained,
as in J§ 28^ (on which see note), but is better omitted, as in |§ 10^. On nS
see note on 2^^. <3 renders the vb. in *> by the passive, against the parallelism;
% further makes one sentence of the couplet : ambulans recto itinere et Hmens
Deum despicitur ab eo qui infami graditur via. — 3. I'j'n occurs elsewhere
only Isa. 11^, where it = shoot, stern, or branch; the Heb. word may have had
the meaning (which the word has in Aram.) rod, though that is probably not
the sense here, and there is no need to regard our word as Aramaic, The
sense pride (Barth., Etymol. Stud.), though it may have some support from
Arab, (ntaxn = walking with a proud gait') is not favored by Aram, or by the
connection here; cf. BDB. — J^ anicB'n is probably scribal error for Dnncn,
so @ (f>v\da-(rei avroijs; in the similar forms in Ex. iS'^*" Ru. 2^ the 1 may be
miswriting of ■!, or, more probably, erroneous scribal insertion. — 4. 'i'^n is half-
poetical synonym of ">j-. — The large a is scribal accident; see note in B-D. —
On the first vowel in D3vV see 01s. §§ 87, 175. The stem is apparently denom.,
■= furnish food ; so Partcp. Djs, i K. 5^ (4'^^) Pr. 15^", provided with food,
fatted, and subst. D3vxr, Jer. 50-®, a place where food is kept. But for D3N here
we should probably read D"n, taking -13 as = corn. — On the Mas. pointing of
13 see Buxt. Com. Crit. — 6. (@ ^■r\TT]aii.% ao(f)\.a.v irapa KaKois, = 'n a:i^3 t:'p3,
which accords less well than |§ with ^. — ^?] is Nif. Partcp. or Perf. of SSp,
masc. by poetic license, the subj. r^v being fem. — 7. ^ ij:d is here more
naturally from. — "vn> may be taken as general Present, but, after Impv. iS,
we expect Imperf. — (5 Trctvra, = S3 (for |Ej ^^), and i-it\a., = '•^3 (for |^ S3).
In ^ we may perhaps read: nyT vnci;" (or, im'') \-\v n*^ •'D. — 8. |^ 731; Bi. J3;
# iiTLyvdocreTaL, = p"', or it may be free rendering of |^. — |^ nr:->c; @ iv
TrXdvrj, perhaps free rendering of j|^, perhaps = nvnr, a reading better than
that of % — 1L = 'i^; & seems to be affected by (g.
9. Text and translation are doubtful. The natural rendering
of the Hebrew is :
The guilt-offering (or, guilt) mocks fools,
But among the upright there is good-will.
The second cl. is clear. Good-will may be divine or human, but
in the former case the divine name is expressed, as in 11' 12" 15*
18^ al. ; here the meaning must be that among upright men there
is kind feehng toward one another, or (with a slight change of
text), that the upright obtain the favor of other men, that is, are
prosperous. — The subject of second cl, (asham) is susceptible of
two renderings, both difficult in the connection. The representa-
tion of the sacrifice as mocking the sacrificer is unexampled —
XIV, 9-IO 287
elsewhere if is God who hates and rejects the formal offerings of
bad and unrepentant men (Am. 5^ Isa. i") ; and the verb here
used is never elsewhere employed in connection with sacrifice.
Further, the employment of the specific term guilt-offering
(which, in the later ritual, was confined to particular offences,
Lev. 5. 6. \(f^, RV. trespass-offeri7ig) would be somewhat strange.
If the object had been to say that God does not accept the sacri-
fice of the unrighteous, it would seem that a different phrase
would have been chosen. The rendering guilt mocks fools (Ew.)
is not natural. Sin is said (Num. 32"''), by its consequences, to
reach men, find them out (Ew. compares the Grk. Nemesis), but
the sort of personification involved in fnocks is violent and with-
out example. Nor is the rendering fools mock at guilt (RV.)
more satisfactory; it is not at guilt, but at sin (AV.) that bad
men may be supposed to mock, but the Heb. word is not a nat-
ural expression for sin. None of these translations exhibit a rela-
tion of thought between the two clauses, except by means of a
forced paraphrase, as : " the offering mockingly leaves fools unac-
cepted, but the upright do not mock one another (or, need no ex-
piatory offering one from another)"; or, "fools insolently laugh
at the guilt which their wrong-doing incurs, and thus bring hatred
on themselves, while among the upright there is that kindness
which is the natural product of well-doing." — Grk. (followed by
Syr.) : the houses of transgressors will owe (= will owe the law,
will need) purification, but the houses of the righteous are accept-
able (that is, to God and man) ; Targ. : fools speak in parables of
sin, but a?nong the i^pright is favor; Lat. as AV. Natural forms of
the couplet would be :
Fools incur guilt,
Good men have the favor of God;
or:
Fools suffer misfortune.
Good men are prosperous.
The clauses may be displaced ; the original reading of first cl. is
lost. For antitheses to the clauses see 11^ 15^
10. The Received text is to be translated :
Every heart knows its own sorrow.
And no other shares its joy.
288 PROVERBS
Formal antithesis, with identity of thought, quaternary-ternary
(or, ternary) . Lit. : the heart knows its own bitterness, and nc
stranger, etc. Heart = not the emotional nature, but simply
man. A simple statement of the familiar fact that every man in
his deeper feeUng stands alone. All experiences are included,
but there is no special reference to moral or religious emotion ;
rather (since no religious or ethical term is used) it is the com-
mon, everyday experience that is mainly contemplated. This
statement of psychological isolation is not at all in conflict with
the natural obligation of sympathy with others, as expressed, for
example, in Rom. 12'^. For similar proverbs among other nations
see Malan. In Eng. : " every man knows where the shoe pinches."
— Bickell, on the ground that isolation is natural to sorrow, but
not to joy, omits the negative in second cl., and reads : others
share its joy ; but the universality of the Heb. text seems prefer-
able. The Anc. Vrss. have the negative. As second line the Grk.
has : and when he rejoices, he has no fellowship with (or, there is
no tningling of) pride, in accordance with which the couplet
might be rendered :
Every man knows his sorrow.
And (therefore) with his joy no pride is mingled;
that is, the remembrance of sorrow makes one modest and mod-
erate in times of prosperity and joy (see, on the other hand, BS.
11^). This is a proper sentiment, but (even after the change of
stranger to pride) the construction {when one knows, etc., then,
etc.) is not naturally suggested by the Hebrew. Cf., however,
v.^'^ of this chapter. — To the form of the Heb. it has been ob-
jected that the idea of emotional isolation is foreign to the
thought of Prov. ; but it is doubtful whether this is a less probable
conception for the sages than that of the Greek.
11. The good endure, the bad pass away.
The house of the wicked will be destroyed,
But the tent of the upright will flourish.
Antithetic, ternary. Hotise = tent, = dwelling-place, including the
family-life, and the fortunes in general. The word tent is a sur-
vival from the old nomadic time ; the old rallying-cry was : " to
XIV. IO-I3 289
your tents, O Israel !" (2 Sam. 20' i K. 12^*^). On the doctrine
of permanence and impermanence see notes on i^- ^ al.
12. Vice is a road that leads to death.
There is a way that seems straight to a man,
But the end of it is the road to death.
Ternary-binary. Identity in subject, antithesis in predicate, = "a
way seemingly straight, but really fatal " ; or, complete antithesis,
= " the beginning of the way is straight, the end of it is death."
The figure is that of a journey, in which the traveller imagines
that he is pursuing a straight path that will lead him to his
desired goal of success and happiness, but finds, too late, that it
leads to earthly death, that is, to the destruction of happiness.
The substitution of the ethical term right (RV.) for j-Zr^/^/// aban-
dons the figure. The thought of the proverb is the illusive char-
acter of an immoral life : it seems to promise wealth, power,
happiness, while its inevitable issue is destruction — wickedness
fails, righteousness succeeds; see 2-^ 5^-^^ 7^' 9^* 10^ al. ; the
couplet occurs again at 16^. The process or method of delusion
is not described. In second cl. the Heb. has plur. ways (or,
roads). If the text be correct (we should perhaps read sing.,
with Targ.), the plur. is poetic conception of the road as consist-
ing of numerous paths ; it is not intended to indicate that immo-
rality leads by many paths to death, while to life there is one way
only ; against this interpretation is the sing, way in first cl. (cf
Mt. 7^^"). Grk. : the end of it goes ifito the depths of Hades.
There is no reference to punishment in the other world. On end
see note on 5''.
13. Alternation of joy and sorrow in human life.
Even in laughter the heart may be sad,
And the end of joy may be sorrow.
Identical parallelism, binary-ternary (or, ternary). The text may
be rendered : . . . the heart is sad . . . the end . . . is sorrow.
The proverb will then say that joy always passes into sorrow, a
pessimistic utterance, hardly in place in this Rook. Nor does the
sage mean to say that there is a deep-lying sadness in the human
u
290 PROVERBS
soul which springs from a sense of the vanity of Hfe (De.). This
is a conception found nowhere else in OT., not even in Eccles.,
in which, while life is regarded as vanity, there is no distinct refer-
ence to a universal sense of failure ; the OT. generally looks on
life as a good gift of God, and expects, by the divine blessing, to
find it full of joy (3'« s^* xf; 16"). Nor, as Reuss remarks, can
there be reference here to a pervading sense of sin as the cause
of sadness ; this conception also is foreign to OT. (and to NT. as
well, Mt. 6=^^ Rom. 12^^ Phil. 4^ Eph. 5^" Jno. 14^). The verse
probably speaks of the alternations of ordinary experiences, and
the mixed nature of emotions, and doubtless means to suggest
that men should not be surprised at the occurrence of these aher-
nations, or yield themselves irrationally to either sort of emotion
(cf v.i"). The assertion of Eccl. f, that sorrow is better than
laughter, represents a different conception of life.
14. Deeds determine fortune.
The bad man reaps the fruit of his acts,
The good man (enjoys the outcome) of his < deeds.»
Antithesis of subject, ternary-binary. Lit. : From his ways the
dad man is sated, and from himself the good man. Instead of the
improbable from himself we may read, by the insertion of one
letter, fro/n his deeds {Grk. from his thoughts) ; to take the Heb.
expression as meaning that the good man finds sufficient reward
in his inward experiences would be against the manner of thought
of Prov., which everywhere contemplates outward recompense;
cf. Isa. 3'". In first cl. the subject is lit. he who in mind turns
aside (that is, from the path of right) = the disobedient or wicked
or bad tnan (Zeph. i" x\i 44'^'"^>) ; RV. backslider conveys the
wrong impression of an apostate, one who declines from or aban-
dons his own previous position of moral right ; the Hebrew ex-
pression here implies simply non-adherence to the right. On
good see note on 13--; on the doctrine of the verse cf. tF^"^ al.,
Gal. 6".
15, 16. Necessity of thoughtfulness and prudence. Cf 22'
15. The simpleton believes every word,
But the man of sense takes heed to his step.
XIV. I3-I6 291
1 6. The wise man is cautious, and avoids misfortune,
But the fool is arrogant and confident.
15. Explicit antithesis of subject, implicit antithesis of predicate,
ternary. Simpleton is the person untrained, unformed intellectu-
ally (i* 2 2^ Ez. 45^ {p 19^***') or morally (i^^ 9*^) ; the term is here
used in the former sense, in contrast with the thoughtful, prudent
man. The point of view of i Cor. 13^ is different: love has a
largeminded, though not blind, trust in men ; the simpleton is
credulous, the man of love is sympathetic. — 16. Antithetic, ter-
nary. The reference, as in the preceding verse, is to intellectual
quahties — such is the intimation of second clause. Is cautious ;
lit. fears. Misfortune (or, harm) is Ht. evil, a term used in OT.
in the widest sense. In second cl. the first adj. is lit. passing
beyond bounds ; the verb usually = to be angry (Dt. 3^^ \p ^gzi.so. 62
3^38(39)^^ and the Partcp. in 26'^^ = g^^ excited, get into a passion;
for the meaning arrogant (which is suggested by the synonym
confident) see the corresponding substantive in 11^^ 21^* Isa. 16"
Jer. 48^. Other proposed renderings are presumptuous, insolent,
passionately excited. — In first cl. if fears had been meant in a
religious sense, the divine name would have been added ; see 3^
14^ 31''", and cf. i^ 8'^ 16^ 22* al. The word here = "is appre-
hensive (of men and things) and on his guard." The predicates
may be written : cautiously avoids and is arrogantly confident.
Instead of arrogant the Grk. has mingles with, and Frank, renders :
The wise man guards himself anxiously against evil,
But the fool lightly takes part therein,
evil being taken as = wicked conduct. The context (v.'^- ^^' **)
favors the translation given above.
9. 1^ V^^; (5 o^etXTjcrouffij', perh. = some form of an. In ^ <S has oIkIhi
(on) for 1^ pa, and it introduces this word in ^\ the resulting couplet is intelli-
gible, but not probable. A simpler reading, based on ©, would be : lan^ o'j'iN
ji-\ -D-c:'^^! ou's ; this assumes that the j-in exists, for the upright, without O'i'N.
— 2r read y^^, but renders it by J^nr, taking the stem in the sense speak in
parables. — Lag. changes (S KaOapidfibv to Ka6v^pi<Tfi6v, and gives as Ileb.
text of (S : HE'j nx'^Sn Smn. See Baum. — S has two forms of the couplet, one
= (5, the other nearer to |^; the second reads: fools commit (lay) sin, hul
the sons ('ja for J§ pa) etc.; for -'^^ it had, perhaps, some form of SSy (hardly
a form of yS'j). Gratz, j'^'; Frank, db'n j^^ 'ik p?. but the ]''•' is hardly appo-
292 PROVERBS
site. — 10. 1^ it; <@ l^j3pei, = jiT, adopted by Frank.; see note on this v.
above. The suff. in innca' might then be omitted. — 11. |§ ^^o'; <& (tttj-
(TovTai; Gr. suggests nn> Aave free space. — '^7\^, in Heb. tent; thence, in
Arab., family, people; of. Ass. alu, = city. — \2. J§ OT^; probably to be
read, with BC, sing. — 13. For ?§ 3^ 3N3> Gr. proposes \S 3sr. — |^ nmnN
nncr; the n is probably not anticipatory suffix (though it may have been
added by an Aramaic-speaking scribe, see 13*), and is not to be prefixed, as
art., to following word (which would be against the usage of Pr.), but is better
deleted as scribal inadvertence. — Before verb of » (5 inserts the neg., which
may be the slip of a scribe (Lag.), or may come from v.i", or from an altered
Heb. text. S attaches suff. to nno;:'. — 14. |§ iSyc; read iSS^'dd (De. Str.
Kamp.). On @ diavorifiaTUf (hardly = V^^-;t:, possibly r'?;, taken as = what
is in Aim) see Capp. Crit. 4, 17. 6, Buxt. Anticrit. 579, Jag. Lag. Baum.; on
S cf. Pinkuss. For the combination of -y^-^ and S'?iT see Ju. 2^^ Hos. 4* Jer. 4I8
17IO 32I9 Ez. 3621 Zech. i4-6 «/. — 15. % T^d; (5 d^a/cos, ignorant of evil,
simpleminded in good sense; and, on other hand, (g Trai/oOp-yos takes Di;' in
bad sense. In (g^ Tra.vovp'^o% hk epxerai els /jLerdvoiav, it is not clear what
Heb. is represented by els f^er.; Jag. idC'n''; Schl., =|^; Held., natj-nS.
SS; take ||J n::'N as from ii-'n good fortune ; % gressus is preferable. — IL adds
the couplet given in (g 132. — 16. J^ n^v.^D is read by (3 (followed by S>E
Frank.) as aipno (Capp. Crit., 4, 7. 3), dvcJ^V being addition of translator;
17, 18. Good sense versus irascibility and stupidity.
17. A quick-tempered man acts foolishly,
But a wise man < endures.'
18. Simpletons come into possession of folly.
But men of sense < acquire ' knowledge.
17. Antithetic, ternary. In second cl. the Heb. has : and a
schemer (or, a man of wicked devices) is hated. According to
this reading the proverb compares two bad dispositions by their
outcome and by the impression they make on men. The qtiick-
tempered man (he who is easily angered, RV. soon angry) often
acts foohshly, and thus loses the respect of his fellows ; the 7na-
licious plotter, on the other hand, is hated. But a better contrast
is obtained if (by the omission of one Heb. letter) we read (with
the Grk.) a man of thought endures, bears much without getting
angry. The verb bear, endure is used absolutely in Isa. i" 46*
Jer. 4422 (and cf. Pr. 19^''). In the subj. of second cl. the term
thought (or, schemes, plans) may be understood in a good sense
(hence wise tnan), or in a bad sense (hence wicked plotter) ; see
XIV. I7-20 293
note on the word in i* ; it is understood by all Anc. Vrss. except
Lat. in the good sense. The antithesis is chiastic : angry is con-
trasted with endures, ^xid foolish with wise. — 18. Antithetic, ter-
nary. Simpleton, as in v.'^. In first cl. the verb should not be
rendered by itiherit (RV.), which may suggest the incorrect inter-
pretation that the silly, unformed man falls heir to folly without
effort, while the man of reflection or good sense acquires knowl-
edge only by exertion ; the proverb affirms merely that a thought-
less person is ignorant and fooHsh, while a man who understands
the needs of life gains knowledge. — The translation in second cl.
are crowned with knowledge, or, wear knowledge as a crown,*
while it gives the same general sense as that of the emendation
here adopted, is lexicographically doubtful.
19. Triumph of goodness.
The bad bow before the good,
And the wicked at the gates of the righteous.
Identical parallelism, ternary. In second cl. we may supply some
such verb as stand suppliant. The adjectives are all to be under-
stood in the ethical sense. The form of expression is taken from
Oriental custom : the inferior prostrates himself before the supe-
rior, or waits humbly at the great man's gate to implore his favor.
The doctrine (based on belief in the immediate intervention of
God) that moral goodness must in this life triumph externally
over wickedness was held by Jewish philosophy till it accepted
the broader doctrine of ethical immortahty (Wisd. Sol. 2-5).
20, 21. Evils and claims of poverty. — Antithetic, ternary.
20. The poor man is hated even by his neighbor,
But the rich has many friends.
21. He who despises his neighbor sins,
But he who has pity on the poor, happy is he.
20. Neighbor is any one who stands in close social relations, from
whom, therefore, sympathy may be expected (Lu. 10''^). Hated
is probably to be taken literally, = " detested " as a troublesome
and obstructive person ; possibly, however, = " relatively disre-
* Theod. Targ. Saad. Rashi, Luth. RV. Schult. De Wette, Noyes, Reuss, De.
Kamp. Frank, al.
294 PROVERBS
garded" (cf. Lu. 14^ with Mt. 10'^). The second cl. is lit. : the
lovers of the rich are many. The proverb states, without com-
ment, a universal social fact. — 21. Neighbor, as in the preceding
verse, only he is here a person to whom sympathy is due, and it
is assumed that he is poor; despise (= contemptuously neglect
and repel) is substantially hate. The first cl., thus, passes judg-
ment on the coldhearted " neighbor " of v.^, declaring that he
sins against the law of God (see notes on 1^° 8^^). The parallel-
ism of the two proverbs points to the rendering poor (RV.) in
second cl. (= physically poor), though the Heb. word may also
mean afflicted, suffering in a general sense (De. Kamp. al.). — As
he who despises the poor sitis against God, so he who is kind to
him is happy (not in the consciousness of well-doing, but) in the
favor of God, who will reward such beneficence. Here we see
the starting-point for the later view (Dan. 42^(27)^ (.[^a,t almsgiving
has expiatory efficacy, and for the use of righteousness as = alms-
giving (Mt. 6^).
17. 1^ nnrn tn is taken in good sense by the Vrss., except GIL. — ?^ n:^';
(5 vTro(pipei; read Ntt"; Hi. JNS" is quiet ; Ew., against the usage, nv:'> (= nv;")
bears himself quietly, endures (he refers to i/' 131''^). ?L = |^. On ^ (= (5)
see Pink. ST paraphrases |^, only taking 'o in good sense, and Ni"" as Qal,
making subj. in * the same as in ^ — 18. For |^ n^S' neither the Heb.
meaning surround (as = get possession of, cf. Ez. 21^*) nor the Aram, wait
for (Job 36'^) is here appropriate. The denom. sense, from ipd crown
(favored by a large number of authorities, ancient and modern) is more
appropriate; but this use, which occurs nowhere else, is of doubtful correct-
ness, nor does it furnish an exact or specially apt antithesis to the i'?nj of *.
The term for crown in Pr. (4" 12* 142* 16^1 176) is i-\j;; the noun ->nD may
be Heb. (cf. mnb a capital, l K. 7^^, and Ass. kudur, a sort of cap or head
covering [De. Ass. IVSch.']), but, as it occurs only in Esth., and as, according
to Suidas, KlSapis was said to be a Persian term for royal or priestly crown, it
may be Persian. The Pers. word may, however, come from the Babylonian.
Kidapis (= KirapLs), it seems, meant also a felt hat, a sense which Bab. kudur
might well have. Cf. Lag. Gesamm. Abhandl. 207. De. compares post-Bibl.
■\"'02 giver of crowns, and nyin in^ crown of knowledge. Bi. n:?' buy, which
is not decidedly apposite; Gr. ■\-\^'^.ry' glory (as he and Cheyne read in ^ I42*)>
also unsatisfactory. The connection calls for the sense acquire, but the reading
is uncertain; we should, perhaps, emend to Vijh'- or \i?-\'^', or to iTnt<% which
<g KpaTTjffovffLv may represent. — 19. The Anc. Vrss., except it, supply a verb
in b; (5 depaTreiKTovcnv; BK ]' ' come. — 20. In J^ ^^'l"}^ the '^ expresses gen-
eral relation, = in respect to, for. The cl. may be rendered : even to his
XIV. 20-22 295
neighbor the poor man is a hated person. — 21. ^y; and ijy are identical in
meaning throughout OT. In Prov. Keth. always gives the former (3^* 1421
15I5 1610 22^^ 30" 3l3 2('), the latter is given by Qeri in f^ 1421 16^. Possibly
the Massoretes in the last-named passages, and in i// 913(12) joi2^ take 'jy in a
physical and u>' in a religious sense (cf. the opposite change in ^ g^^C^)); the
distinction is unwarranted, and it is difificult to see why they have altered the
text in just these passages. ^2C (po;:) understand the term in the physical
sense. In f gi^ S has por, 2C the vb. 'j;'. — ©« ir^vT/ras perhaps represents
Di:n (instead of in>'-i), but may be interpretative assimilation to the Trroixoi^s
of ^. — IL adds at end the gloss : qui credit in Domino misericordiam diligit,
22. Recompense of beneficence and maleficence.
Do not they go astray who devise evil ?
But they who devise good meet with kindness and faithfulness.
Antithetic, ternary. The interrogative form is emphatic, = verily,
they go astray. The derived sense devise is here better than the
more primitive cut, carve (Reuss), or plough (Ew.) ; devise evil,
devise good are general expressions for planning and doing wrong
and right. The figure in go astray is that of travel : the bad man
wanders hopelessly, and the expression may be rendered : go to
destruction. The expression kindness and faithfulness (or, as
hendiadys, faithful kindness) denotes honest, constant, friendly
dealing, on the part of man or of God ; see Gen. 47^ (Jacob asks
of Joseph), Jos. 2" (the spies promise Rahab), 2 Sam. 15^ (Da-
vid's farewell to Ittai), 2 Sam. 2^ (David's greeting to the men of
Jabesh-Gilead) ; the phrase occurs in Pr. 3'' (on which see note)
16'' 20^*, in which passages the reference is to human relations,
and such is probably the sense here. The proverb affirms that
bad men are without the friendly help of their fellows, while good
men meet with kindness. The translation mercy and truth (RV.)
may be retained for its beauty, if it be understood in the sense
given above. —The Grk. (followed by Syr.) has two forms of the
couplet. One follows the consonants of the Hebrew, but changes
the grammatical forms :
They who err devise evil,
Rut the good devise mercy and truth.
The other departs more widely from the Hebrew:
The workers of evil know not mercy and faith.
But acts of kindness and faith belong to good workers.
296 PROVERBS
In second cl. the Lat, has : mercy and truth devise good. These
readings offer no satisfactory suggestions for changes of the
Hebrew.
23. Work versus talk.
In all labor there is profit,
But mere talk tends only to penury.
Antithetic, ternary. In second cl., lit. : the talk of the lips is
only, etc. The Grk. interprets : he who is merry and careless can
only come to penury. The verse (the simple reflection of which
seemed bald) is paraphrased by the Syr, in a distinctly religious
sense : in all thine anxiety there is one thing which is profitable,
(namely,) he in whose life there is lack shall have repose and com-
fort; the Lord heals every sorrow ; but the talk of the lips of the
wicked brings them to penury. This is quite in the manner of the
Jewish Midrash (but the Targ. here is literal). Lagarde thinks
the paraphrase the work of a Christian scribe who had in mind
Lu. 16'^^ (parable of Lazarus) 10*^ (Mary's "good part"). The
proverb simply inculcates industry.
24. Coronets of sages and fools. The Hebrew reads :
The crown of the wise is their riches,
The folly of fools is folly,
which must be taken to mean that wealth is an ornament to those
who wisely use it (better : luealth is the [or, a;] crown, etc.), and
that folly, when accompanied by wealth, remains always folly.
But this interpretation requires too much to be supplied, and the
statement of first cl. is strange ; elsewhere in Pr. the crown is the
honor bestowed by wisdom (4^), or a good wife (12^), or the hoary
head (16^^), or grandchildren (17®) ; wealth is bestowed by wis-
dom (3^® 8'*), or is the reward of piety (22*), but not elsewhere
an ornament to wise men. The interpretation "wealth is that
crown of honor which is bestowed by wisdom " (4^ 3*^) seems
farfetched — the line here refers to the use made of wealth by the
wise. A couple of changes in the Hebrew (based on the Grk.)
give the reading :
The crown of the wise is their wisdom.
The diadem of fools is their folly.
XIV. 22-26 297
This offers a natural antithesis (ternary). In second cl. Targ. has :
the glory of fools ; Syr.: the subversion, ^\z. Cf. BS. 13-^ : Wealth
is good for him who is without sin, and poverty is bad ifi the
mouth{?) of the pious (or, according to another reading, the
ungodly).
25. True testimony saves, false testimony slays. Our Hebrew
reads : , .
A true witness saves lives,
But he who utters lies is (= causes) deception.
Antithetic, ternary. Instead of is deception we may read : de-
ceives. The reference is to legal procedures. Truthful testimony
saves men from death (when they are unjustly accused), and in
general from loss and misfortune, while false testimony, according
to the present Heb. text, deceives the judges and the public, and
thus brings ruin or loss on innocent persons. Similar sayings are
6'^ 12^' 14'. — But the form of second cl. is grammatically unsatis-
factory, and does not give a clear antithesis to first clause. It is
probably better, by a slight change of the Heb., to read :
But he who utters lies destroys.
26, 27. The preservative power of godly fear.
26. He who fears Yahweh has strong ground of confidence,
And his children will have a refuge.
27. The fear of Yahweh is a fountain of life,
Whereby one avoids the snares of death.
26. Continuous parallelism, ternary, or quaternary-ternary.
The Heb. has : in the fear of Yahweh is, etc., but this gives
no antecedent for the his of second cl., which cannot refer to
Yahweh; the usage of Prov., and the parallel aphorism, 20^, show
that the children of the God-fearing man are meant: such pas-
sages as Dt. 14^ (Ew.), i/^ 73", in which Israelites are called "sons
of God," have no bearing on this verse. Nor is it satisfactory to
consider the his as referring to a he who fears contained implicitly
in the fear (De. Str. al.) ; this is rhetorically hard and unnatural.
If the unity of the couplet is to be preserved, it is better (with
Luther) to change the text and read as above. To fear Yahweh is
to have reverent regard for his law, with its rewards and punish-
ments, and this ensures his protection. The second cl. involves
298 PROVERBS
the idea of solidarity and inheritance, according to which children
reap the fruits of the father's deeds (Ex. 20^-®, and contra, Dt. 24^®
Jer, 31^ Ez. 18^). It is less likely that the reference is to the
good training of pious fathers, whereby their children learn to fear
God and thus have him as a refuge ; this, if it were the sage's
thought, would be distinctly expressed. — 27. Continuous, ternary
or quaternary-ternary. Lit. : to avoid. The couplet is identical
with i'^'', with substitution of the fear of Yahweh for the law of
the wise, the two things being regarded in Prov. as mutually equiv-
alent, and as of equal authority (cf. BS. 19^). The teaching of
the sage rests on his own observation and conviction, but it
involves the recognition of God as the supreme source of truth. —
The change of figure {fountain and stiares) is not rhetorically bad.
28. Population the measure of strength.
A numerous people secures the king's glory,
But lack of people entails his destruction.
Antithetic, ternary (or, binary). Lit.: in the multitude of people
is . . . but in the lack . . . is the destruction of the prince ( De.,
unnecessarily and improbably, the destruction of his glory). This
political observation, which suits any time, refers to industrial
activity and international wars, and declares that wealth and mili-
tary strength are the decisive factors in national political Hfe — a
purely human point of view, standing in contrast with that of the
prophets and psalmists; see Isa. 7" 10^^ 37^ 14^^ 49^ Ez. 39^
]ot\z{Ay''''^ZZ''- Cf.v.^
29-33. Various exhibitions of wisdom and folly.
29. He who is slow to anger shows great wisdom.
He who is of hasty temper shows great folly.
30. A tranquil mind is the life of the body,
But passion is rottenness of bones.
31. He who oppresses the poor reviles his Maker,
He honors him who has mercy on the needy.
32. The wicked is overthrown by his wickedness,
But the righteous may trust <■ to his integrity.'
33. Wisdom takes up its abode in the mind of men of sense,
And i folly > in the mind of fools.
XIV. 26-31 299
29. Antithetic, ternary. Wisdom is, more exactly, good sense ;
the irascible man is characterized as a fool on general principles of
personal and social well-being. In second line the verb of our
Heb. text is lit. lifts up, exalts, which (if the text be retained) is
best understood * as = increases ( = is full of, brings to a high
pitch), orf as = proclaims aloud ; in any case the sense is that
hasty temper is a sign of lack of sense ; the renderings : takes
folly up (as it Hes before his feet) J and carries folly away (receives
it as his portion in life), § while they give the same general mean-
ing, are not favored by the parallelism. The text should probably
be changed so as to read increases. — 30. Antithetic, quaternary-
ternary. Tranquil mind is lit. heart of healing, = a mind or na-
ture which soothes its possessor ; its opposite is an excitable,
passionate disposition which keeps the man in turmoil, which is to
the soul as caries to the bones. Body {Wi. flesh) and bones stand
for the man's whole being (as often elsewhere), and are not to be
understood (De.) as referring to the close relation between body
and mind ; this physiologico-psychological observation is not found
in OT. The xtnder'ing pas sioti (for the word which often means
envy, jealousy, indignation) is suggested by the connection (the
term expresses the opposite of tranquillity) ; for a similar sense cf.
Ez. 5^^^ Isa. 42^^ Cant. S*'. Jealousy (if this translation be adopted)
will express the pain one feels at the success of others ; but we
should then expect in the first cl. the opposite feeling (sympathy,
well-wishing). — 31. Chiastic antithesis, ternary. The his may
refer to the subject he, or to the poor; in the former case, the
insult to God consists in the violation of his command to be good
to the poor, in the latter case the consideration is that neglect of
the creature is offence to the Creator. In either case the familiar
duty is based on religious grounds, but in the latter case (as De.
remarks) there is the implied recognition of a common humanity
— the needy man is not merely an object of passing sympathy, he
is respected as a creation of the divine wisdom. A similar idea is
found in Mai. 2^°, and an exact parallel in Job 31^^; in the well-
known hymn of Cleanthes all men are said to be sons of God.
Here a practical turn is given to the conception. Cf \f^ 19''
* So Grk. Targ. Syr. Fleisch. Kamp. J Ew.
t With Schult. Reuss. ^ Rashi, De. Str.
300 PROVERBS
BS 4^-^ (in which a special prudential motive is introduced).
Maker \% a divine name of the late reflective literature (Isa. 51^'
54^ Job 4" 35^" i/' 95®) ; Hos. 8" Isa. \f, in which also the word
occurs, are probably late editorial insertions. — 32. Antithetic,
ternary. In the reading given above (which follows the Grk.)
the contrast is the common one between the results of righteous-
ness and wickedness, the second cl. affirming that a good man, on
account of his integrity, has ground to expect the protection of
God. This does not involve self- righteousness (De.), but is sim-
ply the general teaching of Prov. as to the reward of the righteous.
— As the text stands, it must be rendered :
The wicked is overthrown by his calamity,
But the righteous has hope (even) in his death,
in which the contrast is between the absoluteness of the fall of a
wicked man, and the confidence or trust which the good man has
even in the greatest of calamities. One objection to this render-
ing is that the term hope (or, trust, cojifidence^ is nowhere else used
absolutely, but always with the addition of the object or ground
of hope (30* Isa. 30^ \\i 118* «/.). But the chief difficulty lies in
the necessity of defining hope in accordance with the usage of
Proverbs. The book does not recognize a joyful immortality, but
everywhere retains the old idea of Sheol, and regards death as a
misfortune. What hope could the righteous have for the here-
after? Delitzsch suggests that, though there was then no revela-
tion of true immortality, yet the pious trusted God, and fell asleep,
beheving that they were going home to him ; this, however, is but
another way of saying that they had the hope of immortal life.
We must either suppose that Prov. here announces a doctrine
which is ignored in the rest of the book, or we must recognize an
erroneous reading in the Hebrew text. A slight change gives the
reading of the Grk. — 33. Antithetic, ternary. Lit. : In the heart
(= mind) of the intelligent man wisdom reposes (or, is at 7-est),
but in the mind (or, inward pat't) 0/ fools it makes itself known
(or, is made knorvn). Since the meaning cannot be that true
wisdom is possessed by fools, the // (= wisdom) of second cl.
must be understood (according to the present text) in a sarcastic
or ironical or humorous sense, and known must express a contrast
XIV. 31-34 301
to reposes, so that we may paraphrase : " a man of sense, not
being ambitious to gain applause, keeps his wisdom to himself
(reserving it for fit occasion), while a fool, anxious to shine, or
ignorant of propriety, airs what he thinks his wisdom at every
opportunity." But this paraphrase contains too much explanation,
and the employment of wisdom in a sarcastic sense is unexampled
and improbable ; moreover the expression // tnakes itself known in
the tnind of fools is strange and hard. Cf. 1 2^, where a sentiment
of this sort is clearly expressed. The Grk. (followed by Syr.)
inserts the negative, and says that it is not known in fools, while
the Targ. reads : folly is known (or, makes itself known') ; these
emendations offer an intelligible statement, but they leave the
strange term known, which yields no satisfactory sense. The Lat.
gives the bold interpretation : it will teach fools also (cf. 8^), which,
however, the Heb. cannot mean. The rendering : {that which is)
in the inward part of fools is made kno7vn (Schult. RV.) is syn-
tactically highly improbable, if not impossible. The present text
seems impracticable ; the change of is known to folly (not a vio-
lent one in the Hebrew) gives a syntactically natural sentence,
with a sense substantially that of i"^^ 14^ 15"'" (and cf. Eccl. 7^) :
practical wisdom is the permanent possession of men who have a
true perception of the relations of life, while folly in conduct
(n'^iK) characterizes those who are intellectually dull ("td;). The
distinction between perception and conduct is made elsewhere in
Prov. (10^ 14* al).
34, 35. Relation of nations and kings to integrity and
intelligence.
34. Righteousness exalts a nation,
But sin is the disgrace of peoples.
35, The king's favor is bestowed on a servant who acts intelligently,
His anger rests on one who conducts affairs badly.
34. Antithetic, ternary. Righteoustiess here = general moral
integrity, its opposite is sin ; exalts = gives prosperity and power ;
disgrace = that which produces contempt, namely, on account of
lack of national vigor and power. The sentiment is substantially
that of the prophets, that national prosperity accompanies obedi-
ence to divine law — only, there is here no reference to the specific
Israelitish Law, and the relation between integrity and success is
302 PROVERBS
conceived under the general laws of social life. It is not clear
whether there is reference to the nation as a political unit, whether,
that is, we have here a principle of international ethics ; but, as
such a principle is nowhere else stated in OT., the reference is
probably intranational. The recognition of the necessity of in-
tegrity in the Hfe of the people is distinct and noteworthy; the
motive, as elsewhere in Prov., is utilitarian : morality is commer-
cially and socially profitable. — 35. Antithetic, ternary. In first
cl. the predicate is who acts cleverly, skilfully, that is, in adminis-
trative affairs; the contrasted predicate is who acts badly, that
is, is incompetent. Servant = any subordinate, here an official
person. The verse may be rendered :
A clever servant has the king's favor,
An incompetent one his displeasure.
22. 1^ NiSn is not expressed in any Anc. Vrs. {% ^x; the godless, and so 5E),
but is good in sense and rhythm. For 3§ lyn'' Hi. proposes ij;t, and for "' n Gr.
suggests layn'' nSr; neither of these emendations is a distinct improvement of
J^. Before Tin in ^ insert S (cf. 13I8 16®); so ©. — On the double rendering
in @S see Lag. Baum. Pink. Lag. regards the second form in @ as original,
but this is not clear. — 23. ® appears not to give a double translation of |§»
(Lag.), but to render |^ dipd;' 131 freely by y]lb% koX dvdXyrjTos. On S (which
follows (3, but also gives ^^ paraphrastically) cf. Pink. — 24. J^* oncy;
(5 TravoOpyoi; read omv or onmi'. — J^*" nSiN (first occurrence), rendered
freely by ® diarpi^-^; read n^iS (i^ 4^). The second 'n is better written
onSiN. — 1§ ^J:^D; read, with Hi., hdid destroys. — 26. |§ nin> HNn^a; read
•> N^^S, to gain an antecedent for the suffix in following m. — 27. ?§ nNn>;
(S irp6<rTaytJ.a, = mn, as in 13I* (Jag. Baum.). — 28. ^ jri, only here; else-
where (8^^ 31* Ju. 5^ Hab. i^** Isa. 402* xp 2^) jn; the stem (see the Arab.)
= heavy, weighty, powerful; (5 Swadrov; VL Dns (wpdvoos) provider, leader
(so Heb. ny-i); % ^Sd; IL principis ; cf. name of Syr. king |f\, i K. Ii^a. —
29. ?^ did; @ tVxi'pis {l(TxvpO)% B*'' !<<=•» A); ^T ''JD, apparently = naiD (Gr.),
which we should probably here read. — 30. (5* (followed by Si) Ttpq.idvp.oi
ii>T]p Kapdlai larpds is free rendering of J^, the two first words (|^ DiB'a "n)
having been conformed, by scribal caprice, to the beginning of v.'-^^, /xaKpSdv/noi
a.vr)p, and taken as subject; for J§ ndis a'^ (S appears to have read 2S Nsnc.
— 31. J§ p!£'V; ® o (rvKocpavTuv. — Si and ]i3S do not occur in chs. 1-9. —
32. 1^ ipfaa noh; <3 6 7reiroi^d>s ry eavrov dffidrrjTi; read iDn3 (Bi. Kamp.
Frank.). — 33. J^ >'""''n; read nSiN. For dv5p6s, in (§ iv Kapdlif. otyadrj dv8p&s
ffO(pia, Jag. proposes evedpos, which would satisfactorily represent |^ njn (see
Lag.). — 34. |§ iDn (apparently an Aramaism) ; <3 i\a<r<Tovov<n, = iDn (Jag.).
■ — 35. J^ 'imayi; @ ry di iavroO eixTT po(pl(f., = inmyi (Jag.). — @ has another
rendering of *> in 15^": 6pyi] a,ir6Wv<nv Kal (ppovlfiovi (!??)•
XIV. 34-XV. 4 303
XV. 1. Power of gentleness.
A soft answer turns away wrath,
But harsh words stir up anger.
Antithetic, ternary. ^^/= mild, gentle ; see 25^'. Turns away;
cf. 29" 24'^ Jer. 18^; one Greek text has causes to cease (= de-
stroys). Harsh {KW . grievous) is that which produces vexation
or pain. Hindu, Chinese, Greek and other parallels to this prov-
erb are given by Malan ; see also Ptah-hotep (in Art. Egyptian
Lit., in Lib. of World's Best Lit.). — To this couplet the Grk.
prefixes a modified form of second cl. of 14^ : anger destroys even
the wise.
2. Speech of sage and fool.
The tongue of the wise < dispenses > knowledge,
The mouth of fools utters folly.
Antithetic, quaternary (or, ternary). Dispenses is lit. drops (5^
Job 29^^ Am. 7'" Ez. 20^ [2 1"] al.), for which the Heb. has makes
good, that is, does or treats in a good, excellent way, RV. uttereth
aright ; this does not give so exact a contrast to utters as the read-
ing here adopted, which is obtained by a slight change in one
Heb. letter. The reference is to all wisdom and folly, religious
and other. Cf. lo^-^^-^^ 12^* 14^
3. God's criticism of life.
The eyes of Yahweh are in every place,
Keeping watch on wicked and good.
Continuous, ternary. The Participle in second cl. is used of the
watchman of a city (2 K. 9'^ Isa. 52'*), of the prophet as moral
and religious critic (Ez. 3''), of the wife as guardian of the house-
hold (31^), and the verb of God as observer of men {\\i 66'').
This universal divine criticism is adduced as a warning against
wrong-doing (De.) : Yahweh will punish the bad and reward the
good — nothing escapes his eye. Possibly also (Frank.) the
couplet is aimed at the philosophical theory that God looks with
indifference on human actions (Epicureanism).
4. Gentle speech.
A soothing tongue is a tree of life.
But violent words wound the soul.
304 PROVERBS
Antithetic, ternary. Soothhig tongue is lit. the healing of the
tongue, that is, its utterance which has power to heal or soothe
the feelings of others, becoming thus to them a source of enjoy
able life ; the two terms of the Heb. expression should perhaps
be inverted, so as to read a tongue of healing (such is the order
in 14^, a heart of healitig). RV. wholesome tongue ; De. gentle-
ness of tongue. On tree of life see note on 3'®. — The Heb. of
second cl. reads lit. : but violence (RV. perverseness) therei?i (that
is, in the tongue) is a breaking of the spirit, a crushing or wound-
ing of the man to whom or of whom such words are spoken ;
spirit — inner being or personality ; for the expression see Isa.
65" (RV. vexation of spirit). — Violent is that which passes
beyond the line of right, the immoderate, extravagant, or false ;
see note on 11^, and, for the corresponding verb, notes on 13" 19^
21^^ 22^. The parallelism here favors the sense immoderate (so
the Lat.) or violent, which gives a contrast like that in \}. — The
second cl. is misunderstood by all the Anc. Vrss. except the Latin.
5. Docility a mark of wisdom.
A fool despises his father's instruction,
But he who regards reproof acts wisely.
Antithetic, quaternary- ternary (or, ternary). Cf. 13^ 15^°. Acts
wisely = is wise, that is, shows his good sense in accepting re-
proof. The first cl. assumes that parental instruction is the basis
of moral life, but the characterization of the fool as a despiser
holds good, in Prov., in respect to all instruction (10^ 12^ al.).
6. Financial reward of righteousness.
In the house of the righteous are great stores,
But the revenues of the wicked are < cut off.'
Antithetic, ternary. Cf. 10^ ii* 15^. Physical prosperity is rep-
resented as the reward of virtue. The Heb. reads lit. : the house
of the righteous is a great store (or, treasure), but in the revenue
(or, produce) of the wicked is a thing troubled (that is, brought
into misfortune, calamity, or embarrassment, see Ju. 1 1^ i Sam.
14^ I K. 18") ; cf, 11^^-^*. This last expression is not here ap-
propriate ; calamity (RV. trouble) would be logically correct,
though the Heb. does not admit of this translation ; the antithesis
XV. 4-7 305
favors the reading (found in one Greek text) destroyed, cut off;
the prep, in should be removed from second cl., and inserted (as
in RV.) in first clause. The form of expression of the couplet is
drawn from agricultural life; the term revenue occurs in 3^" 8'**
iqI" 14* i6« \%^ Ex. 23i« Jos. 512 a/.— The Grk. has two render-
ings of the couplet, one differing slightly from the Heb., the other
conformed to it ; the former is probably the older, the latter a
revision.
7. Sages, not fools, seek knowledge.
The lips of the wise < preserve ' knowledge,
But the mind of fools is without <■ intelligence.*
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. The proverb contrasts the wise
man's devotion to knowledge with the intellectual dulness of the
opposite class. Wise and foolish denote tempers or constitutions
of mind ; knowledge is the product or the accumulated treasure of
wisdom. Lips and inind {hearty are substantially synonyms ; the
lips speak what the mind thinks ; so in v.-**, and cf. v.". Here, as
elsewhere in Pr., stress is laid on utterance and teaching. — In
the first line the verb in the Heb. is scatter, a word elsewhere
used of destructive dispersion (20** -'*' Ez. 5'" \^ 106-^ a/.) ; the ap-
propriate term presence is obtained by the change of one letter.
The last expression of second cl. reads in the Heb. is not so, or,
is not upright (or, honest, or, steadfast, or, trustworthy). The
first of these renderings is rhetorically lame and improbable, and
is hardly bettered by RV. doeth 7iot so ; the verb scatter, retained
by RV., suits lips, but not mind, though this difficulty disappears
if we xtd.^ preserve. The second rendering supplies no good con-
trast to first cl. ; the point is not the fool's lack of uprightness,
but his inability to appreciate knowledge. The contrast is gained
by a slight change in the Heb. text, whereby we have the sense
does not understand ; for similar expressions see 18'' 23'^ 28^ 29^.
The fool, whose point of view puts him out of sympathy with the
right, has no real comprehension of life.
8, 9. Two abominations of the Lord. — Antithetic, quaternary-
ternary.
8. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh,
But the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.
X
306 PROVERBS
9. Abomination to Yahweh is the life of the wicked,
But him who practises righteousness he loves.
8. This is one of the few places in Prov. in which the sacrificial
ritual is mentioned (see 7" 17^ 21^-^^), and here, as in 21^-^, it is
introduced in a connection which calls for disapprobation. Sacri-
fice without righteousness, say the sages and the prophets, is ab-
horrent to God ; sacrifice with righteousness is not mentioned in
Prov., perhaps because it was obviously proper, and called for no
remark. The sages recognize the ritual as a legitimate and bind-
ing form of worship, but they lay no stress on it — they never
enjoin obedience to its requirements. — The contrast oi sacrifice
and prayer appears to be doubly significant : it intimates that the
former is an outward service easily performed by a bad man,
while the latter is an inward service appropriate to the sincerely
pious ; and it suggests that, in a certain circle, a movement had
begun which, by laying stress on communion of heart with God,
tended to bring about the abolition of the sacrificial ritual; a sim-
ilar movement appears to be indicated in \\i 50'*, and is most fully
visible in the Sermon on the Mount. — The two terms can hardly
here be synonyms, standing each for a ritual complex which in-
cludes the commonly associated acts of sacrifice and prayer (see
I Sam. i^* 2 Sam. 7'*, and cf. Lu. i^") ; the antithesis is here
marked. — For a similar attitude toward sacrifice cf. Am. 5^- Isa.
i" Jer. 'f^ I Sam. 15" >\i 50**"" ^iis. i7(i8.]9)_ q^ sacrifice see note
on 7", on acceptable, notes on S""' 10''^ ii\ and, for the ritual use
of the term. Lev. i^. The prayer of the morally good man is
acceptable, is pleasing and is heard, simply because he is good —
but it is not said whether or not he also offers sacrifice. — 9. Par-
allel to the preceding couplet, with substitution of ethical for reli-
gious conditions. Life is lit. way, = line of conduct, manner of
life ; practises is Wt. /ollotvs after. — Possibly the editor, in putting
the two couplets together, meant to explain the first by the second.
10. He who will not learn must die.
There is stern correction for him who forsakes the way.
He who hates reproof shall die.
Identical, ternary. The way is that of truth and righteousness.
The stern (hard, grievous, sharp) correction is death (second cl.
XV. 8-1 1 307
shall die). On correction and reproof ?,tQ notes on i^^. The
person described is the morally wicked, disobedient man ; the
punishment is physical and earthly. Life is represented as a dis-
cipline — woe to him who fails to profit thereby ! — Grk., inter-
preting : shall die basely (or, a shameful death).
11. The depths of the soul are known to God.
Sheol and Abaddon lie open before Yahweh,
How much more the hearts of men !
Extended parallelism, ternary. The couplet expresses a conclu-
sion from the less to the greater ; it is assumed that the Under-
world is a more remote and mysterious region than the human
soul. On Sheol see notes on i^^ 5^ al. The term Abaddon
( = place of destruction, region of death) occurs elsewhere in OT.
in 27^ (in connection, as here, with Sheol), Job 26*^ (parallel to
Sheol), 28^^ (in connection with Death, = the Realm of death),
31I2 (= Underworld), i// SS"^'"^' (parallel to Grave, and = Under-
world) ; it is thus a synonym of Sheol, to which it is here added
for rhetorical emphasis. There is no authority for the opinion
(De.) that Abaddon is the lowest region of Sheol. The OT. does
not recognize strata in Sheol; the expression in Dt. 32" i/' 86''',
Sheol below (AV. lotvest hell, RV. lowest pit), simply describes
Sheol as a place beneath the earth, like the Nctherland {= Sheol)
of Ez. 31". In the NT. Apocalypse (9") Abaddon is the name
of the Angel of the Abyss ( = Angel who inflicts death, and sends
men to Sheol) ; in the Talmud {Shab. 89*) it is used in a similar
manner ; as the conception of the other life became more defi-
nite, the tendency was to personalize OT. expressions. Here, as
in Job 26", Yahweh is apparently represented as controlling Sheol ;
a different view is expressed in Isa. 39"*, where (as generally in
the earlier literature) Yahweh has nothing to do with the Under-
world (cf. note on i'^) ; the change of view was due to the com-
pleter development of the monotheistic idea. Even Job (Job
14") is not sure that God's power controls Sheol ; the view of
Prov. is more advanced, but still does not express a moral control
exercised by God over the denizens of the Underworld. — Men is
lit. children of men ; son of tnan is a comparatively late Heb.
308 PROVERBS
expression for " human being " ; so Ez. 2^ al., Job 25^ \^ 8*<*' 33"
Dan. 8*'' (and Aramaic, 7'^),
12. Indocility of the scoffer.
A scoffer loves not to be reproved,
And will not walk » with > the wise.
Explanatory parallelism, ternary-binary. On scoffer see note on
i^. In second cl. the Heb. has go to; the better reading is
given in 13™ (so the Grk. here) ; cf. 22^^ ("do not walk [asso-
ciate] with an irascible man"). Cf. also i''^ 4". The scoffer is
regarded as a man whose character is fixed. It is not suggested
that he miglit be helped by association with the wise.
13. Joy enlivens, sorrow depresses.
Joyous heart makes cheerful face,
But by sorrow of soul the spirit is broken.
Antithesis partly implicit, ternary. RV. (= AV.) : a inerry heart
maketh a cheerful countenance, in which the word mei-ry now ini-
phes more of movement and utterance than is contained in the
Heb. term, which means joyful, glad. Soul is lit. heart; heart
and spirit are synonyms, both signifying the inner nature or being,
but, in the connection, spirit may have the connotation (in Heb.
as in English) of courage and hope. — Exact antithesis in expres-
sion would require " sad face " in second cl. ; the variant phrase
implies that a broken spirit is manifested by sadness of counte-
nance, while a cheerful face shows a high, courageous spirit. The
proverb notes a fact of experience : joy is inspiring, sorrow is
depressing — the advantage of the former is clear. The man's
mood is shown by his countenance. Cf. BS. 13^.
14. The aliment of sages is knowledge, of fools folly.
The mind of the wise seeks knowledge,
The mouth of fools feeds on folly.
Antithetic, ternary. The relation between wise and knowledge
is the same here as in v.^, on which see note. In second cl. the
Heb. text has face, which Ewald retains ; but the reading of the
margin, fnouth (which is found in all the Anc. Vrss.) accords with
the \trh feeds, and is obviously better ; mouth feeds is a rhetorical
XV. II-I5 309
variation of mind seeks. — Instead oi feeds on, the verb of the sec-
ond cl. may be rendered is occupied with, strives after (lit. asso-
ciates with), or, delights in, but feeds better suits the noun mouth.
— The word rendered /(J^?/? denotes the highest degree of stoHdity,
insusceptibiHty and unreceptiveness ; the mental furniture and
nourishment of such an one is foolishness or folly in thought and
deed, and this is the product of ignorance. Here, as in 14^^ al.
and throughout chs. 1-9, virtue is allied with knowledge, vice with
ignorance. The verbs express eager interest and devotion.
XV. 1. p? 3:-; Berakoth, i-j a 3w'r: (Strack, Proleg., 105) —pj li; (5 freely
vTroiriiTTOvcra submissive. — ^ n'?;"; (g iyelpei, free rendering of |^, or of i';d,
as Si has it. — 2. p? 2^^; read ']-2-^ (Mic. 2^ Ez. 21^); the stem occurs in Pr.
only in 5'*, and then in the literal sense; (@ Ka\a eirlffTCLTai = |^ n;n 3ap. —
^ p^is; 5 v-ci^, = n'^N- (Jag.). — 4. In ^ (3&E diverge widely from J^ :
©6 5^ (TvvTr}pQ)v avTTfv ir\ri<T0-^<T€Tai irvfu/jiaTOi; ir\. = yj'J"; <tvvt. perh. from
D-'3 or D7}0 zveighs (Jag. Gr.) ; Schl. suggests fir) ffvvrrjpQu and awTpi^-q^eTai..
E (and substantially S) jjj^'j ^:^\-\-'B p 'rjxii (S adds njc), apparently free
rendering of @. Bi. writes l^b and yrr. There seems to be nothing better
than to retain J^, perh. omitting 3 in n-ia (Isa. 65^*) ; De., in support of the a,
adduces Arab, o'^pa -\V2 he has broken my heart ; the 1 would thus mark the
place of the act of breaking. — ^p (the stem in % usually "lo^, % "'p^"') occurs
only here and ii^, on which see note. — 5. ||J \'>:<y, <S nvKTtipi^ei. — 6. In
J§ rsara omit the 3, and insert the same prep, before p3 (so S^T). Bi. nbinj.
J^ TT?:; read mDi. — On (@ see Lag. Baum. — 7. |^ m-'; (g S^Scrat, from
ifN; S 0u\d(r(rou(rt ; read nx^ (Frank.). — "^ j:; (@ da-<^aXers; IL (l3 N^) </mi-
rwiVf/ read p'' (so also Gr. suggests). — 10. JIJ mx iv;"^; (g yvwpl^eTai vwb
tQ>v wapibvTwv, = s •'-i3>":' (Jag-), 7". being supplied to make the sentence
complete. — (@ clkixkov (^ ;-\), probably error for ko-kov (Jag.). $b follows (5;
2r nmN NV'JC, perh. free rendering of |^. — 1§ nc''; Gr. ;3D'_ (Hos. 13^). —
11. % nps; (5 dirwXeio.— 12. |^ '^n; read rs ((g ^eT-d). — 13. In •>
(g (TKvOpwwa^ei is sad maintains 3n as subject, while Si follows |§ except
that it makes the verb transitive; in both cases we have the natural freedom
of translators. — 14. Kethib ^jo; read Qere ^d (so <gSi2C). — p? nSiN nj,n^;
(g yvib<T€Tai. (I'l') /caKd (perh. = |^) ; Gr. nsi^ delights in, and Frank, njn-' as
corresponding Aram, form; all the senses of the stem nj,n seem to be closely
related to one another.
15. Happiness is better than sorrow.
Every day is hard for him who is in trouble.
But the happy man has a continual feast.
Antithetic, ternary. A statement of ordinary experience (cf.
v.*^), without ethical import, but with implied commendation of
3IO
PROVERBS
cheerfulness and happiness. Happy is \\\..good of heart, that is, in
a good, joyous, or cheerful frame of mind. 'Y\^t feast is the enjoy-
ment of the conditions of life. Hard here represents the same
Heb. word that is rendered by stern in v.^". On the adjective
translated in trouble (which elsewhere has also the senses poor,
afflicted, pious) see notes on f" 14^^^ i6^^
16, 17. Superiority of spiritual over physical wealth.
16. Better is little with the fear of Yahweh
Than great treasure and trouble therewith.
17. Better a dish of herbs with love
Than a fatted ox with hate.
16. Single sentence expressing an antithesis, ternary. Lit. in
the fear, etc., that is, so held. Trouble (a different word from that
rendered in trouble in preceding verse) is disturbance, anxiety,
perplexity. It is assumed that the/fo:;- of Yahweh, morality based
on or connected with religion, saves one from harassing care, since
it brings divine protection. It is not said that wealth necessarily
entails trouble and distress, but only that this may be the case —
a statement which the experience of all men, especially in highly
organized communities, abundantly confirms ; and the couplet is
a warning against rage for riches. — 17. Antithetic sentence, ter-
nary. Cf. I7^ The word rendered dish appears to mean prima-
rily, " that which one offers to a traveller," and then, in general,
" a portion of food " ; Grk. entertainment of a guest ; the allusion
in the proverb may be to such entertainment, though the applica-
tion is general, to all meals. The allusion, as in the preceding
couplet, is to the perils of wealth {fatted ox stands for luxury in
general). There is no polemic against wealth, but a reminder that
it is not always an unmixed blessing. On fatted see note on 14^
andcf. I K. 4==^ (5^).
18, 19. Commendation of patience and industry.
18. An irascible man stirs up contention,
One slow to anger appeases strife.
19. The way of the slothful is > hedged up with > thorns.
But the path of the < diligent ' is well-built.
18. Antithetic, ternary. The man of first cl. is not one who is
angry (RV. wrathful), but one prone to anger, quicktempered, in
XV. I5-20 311
contrast with the calm, patient man of second cl. See the similar
statements in 14^ 15' BS. 8^® 28^^-. — 19. Antithetic, quaternary-
ternary. Grk., happily : the way of the slothful is strown with
thorns, that of the sturdy is smooth. Heb. : is like a hedge of
thorns, in which the like is to be omitted (in accordance with the
form of second cl.) and the hedge changed to hedged — a path
cannot be compared to a hedge, but may be said to be hedged
up, encumbered ; so Hos. 2^<^^ : / 7vill hedge up thy wav with
thorns. The slothful man meets with obstacles at every point, and
makes no progress. On the other hand, the path of the industri-
ous man is carefully constructed and free from obstacles, like a
highway (so RV.); the adj. means cast up, roads having been con-
structed by throwing up earth (Jer. 18'^ Isa. 57"). The antithesis
requires that the man of second cl. be described as diligent; the
Heb. term {yashar) may mean honest, straightforward (usually,
upright), but an inconsiderable alteration gives the ordinary word
iox industrious (10'* 12^^^^ 13^ 21^).
20, 21. Wisdom and folly — their results for life. Antithetic,
ternary. Delitzsch makes v.^ (on account of its resemblance to
10^) the beginning of the third section (see 13^) of the collection
contained in 10^-22"^. It may mark the beginning of a separate
minor collection ; see the Introduction.
20. A wise son makes a glad father,
A fool scorns his mother.
21. Folly is delight to one who lacks sense,
But a man of understanding is straightforward in his ways.
20. The first cl. is identical with first cl. of lo'. In the second
cl., instead of the is a source of anxiety to of 10^ (which furnishes
an obvious contrast), we have the variation scorns, which may
be taken to mean " despises advice and so brings sorrow to his
mother," or " shows by his conduct that he despises his mother's
teaching," or simply " scorns his mother and her advice " (so
the Grk.) — that is, the wise son honors and gladdens his father,
the foolish laughs at and saddens his mother. The variation of
expression in a familiar apophthegm would be not unnatural ; it is
possible, however, that the second cl. stood originally with some
such line as a wise son honors his father. — In second cl. the
312 PROVERBS
Heb. reads (as in 21^) : a fool of a man {^ . foolish mati) — a
construction like that of Gen. 16'^, a wild ass of a tnan (a man
of the fool sort, of the wild ass species). The Anc. Vrss. and
some Heb. MSS. read foolis/i son, which may be assimilation of the
expression here to the more familiar form of io\ — 21. The term
folly here has a moral as well as an intellectual content. The
delight is made possible by intellectual and moral obtuseness —
the fool does not understand the consequences of his actions, and
therefore has no basis for his moral life ; he takes pleasure in
things bad not because they are bad, but because he does not
know that they are bad, and does not see or believe that they will
bring punishment on him. — He who has insight into the laws of
life, human and divine, acts in a straightforward way, is wisely
upright, knowing that this is the only safe rule of life. Knowledge
is thus represented as the foundation of character.
15. Before |^ j'j insert "'. — (5" Trdira rhv xpbvov ol 6<pda\fjLol tQv KaKwv
(= 2'.n ^r") TT/jocrS^x'"'''"'''' xaKa. Lag. supposes that the Grk. translator had
'>n 'i'l 7-1, which he read hvt p;^ o-n; perh., however, the Grk. stands for
ny-\ oyn ■'J^y^; Bi. ri;n yi ^j^;'. — |^ '"i;?"C; <3 ijcrvxdffova-iv, = nj:'^ (I-ag.). —
16. 1^ n;:.-!?;; Gr. r\o-\r:. The following '2 is omitted by Bi. on rhythmicai
grounds. — P'or ^ ',. (5 has d0o/3/as, a singular expression (= without the fear
of Vahzveh), but apparently chosen as contrast to the (pb^ov of "; the reading
uffejielas (S" 23. 252. Lag.) is scribal emendation; cf. Baum. On S see
Pinkuss. — 17. |^ i^C-is; (@ ^evia-fjibs; ^K rin-;' a meal; IL freely, vocari ad,
Bi. omits z\", instead of which (5 has /cat x^P'") perh. = jni (Bi.), perh.
rhetorical expansion. — S Ni-S*'; not Rabbin, (love of) the name, i.e. God
(Baum.), but (love of) reputation ; see Pinkuss. — 18. On the two renderings
of (S see Lag. Baum.; dffe/STjs (O-'n), as being farther from |^, is regarded by
Lag. as genuine; (@ Tr\v ij.iX\ov<rav (= the impending- or threatening quarrel^
is free rendering of |^ ^'^j or, possibly, = N3n; /xdWov, in like manner, may
freely express the contrast of the clauses, the pc of |§ being left untranslated.
& combines the two renderings of (@, perhaps by alterations of successive
scribes. — 19. |^ "5:',.:.; read "'7;b:. (so (5, cf. Lag.). — f^ O"^""; <5 dvdpeiwp;
read ox^n (cf. (5 in 10*). — 20. |^ ::-'.s ^D-; (3&E and 7 Heb. MSS. have
"td^ P, probably assimilation to lo^ — ^ nn; (g fxvKTripl^ei; ^ NP.-na dis-
grace (the same stem is employed in loi). — 21. (@ appears to leave nnnB'
untranslated, and to insert TpL^oi from the connection; Lag. emends ^vSeets to
ivSeei.
22, 23. Value of wise words.
22. Where there is no counsel plans are thwarted.
They succeed when many give advice. '"'^-^
XV. 20-24 313
23. Joy comes to a man from the utterance of his mouth,
And a word in season, how good is it !
22. Antithetic, ternary. The idea of the couplet is substan-
tially that of 1 1''', on which see note ; variations of such aphorisms
were doubtless common ; see note on v."". 'Vhe phjfis (RV. pur-
poses) may be those of a government or those of a private family
or person; thwarted (RV. disappointed) is lit. broken; succeed
(RV. are established) is lit. stand ; the last expression of second
line is lit. : by (or, through) the multitude of counsellors (or, ad-
visers) . The king had his cabinet, and the private man his circle
of friends. On counsel see 3^- 11'^ 20^^ 25®, and cf. Am. 3^ Jer. 23^*
Job 19*'' i/' 55"''^*. — 23. Synonymous, ternary. Utterance is lit.
ausiver, a term which is often used in OF. and NT. for expression
or speech in general, where there is no obvious response. The
meaning appears to be that a well-considered and apposite word
may bring profit and joy to him who utters it. The general ex-
pression utterance of the mouth is defined in second cl. as a word
in season (lit. in its time), appropriate to the situation. The ref-
erence will then be to all sorts of occasions of private intercourse
(business relations, and other social and family relations) and public
affairs in city and state. Good — useful, effective. — If the word in
season be understood as a word of advice, consolation, or general
friendliness, which is helpful not to the utterer, but to others, it
will be necessary to omit the possessive pronoun in first cl., and
read from an utterance of the mouth. — The omission of the pro-
noun still permits, however, the first interpretation of the couplet,
which may be rendered : a judicious utterance brings satisfaction,
a seasonable word is useful.
24. Wisdom is life.
The wise man's path goes upward, to life,
He avoids (the way to) Sheol beneath.
In form antithetic, in meaning identical, ternary. The second
cl. is lit. : so as to turn a7uay from Sheol beneath {= so that he
turns, etc.) — appositional proposition put (as is not uncommon
in OT.) in the form of result (or, what is the same thing in Heb.,
purpose). The first cl. is lit. : the 7vay of life upiaard is to {~ is
the way of) the ivise man; as beneath (or, dotvmvard) qualifies
314 PROVERBS
Sheol, 30 upward qualifies way of life ; the statement is that the
way of life (which is described as an upward one) pertains to the
wise and not to the unwise. Sheol stands here (as everywhere else
in Prov.) for physical death, and the Hfe of first cl. must, accord-
ingly, be physical life; see, for example, 13" 14". The signifi-
cance of the term upward is given in the paragraph 2'*"^ where
the way that leads down to the dead is contrasted with the path
of the righteous who continue to dwell on upper earth ; the
couplet repeats the familiar belief that good men (for wise includes
good) will enjoy long and happy life in this world ; see notes on
2I9 ^18 ^6 jqI; j^i4 ^^^_ -pj^g rendering of RV., lo the wise the way
of life {goeth) upward appears to imply that there may be a way
of life which goes in some other direction ; that of Reuss is better :
the wise man climbs the way of life. There is, however, no refer-
ence to an eminence above the earth (heaven, for example) to
which the wise man ascends ; men in OT. (except Enoch and
Elijah) go, after this life, not to heaven but to Sheol ; the upward
is simply the negation of the beneath (or, dowjiward) . — There is
in this verse, therefore, when its terms are interpreted in accord-
ance with the usage of the Book of Proverbs, no intimation of a
doctrine of happy immortality.
25, 26. Divine antagonism to moral evil. Antithetic, ternary.
25. Yahweh uproots the house of the proud,
But establishes the border of the widow.
26. Evil devices are an abomination to Yahweh
[But pleasant words are pure.]
25. Widow here stands for any poor, helpless person, the nat-
ural prey of the powerful and unscrupulous, here called the proud
(16^® Job 40" t/' 94^) ; Yahweh is described as the protector of the
weak (so always the chiefs, kings, and national deities of antiquity);
he is the father of the orphan, the judge who secures the rights of
the widow (i// 68^'^^). The word border alludes to the Israelitish
law which endeavored to maintain intact the landed property of
every family by forbidding its alienation (Dt. 19") ; greed of land
is denounced by the prophets (Isa. 5* Mic. 2'-') and the later mor-
ahsts (Job 24^ Pr. 22^*). The law, based at first on the insepa-
rable connection between land and citizenship, became later more
XV. 24-27 315
directly the expression of a sentiment of justice. — 26. Evil de-
vices are thoughts or plans which look to the injury of others. On
abomination see note on f"'. The second clause, as it stands,
cannot be original. The connection calls for the statement of
something which is not an offence to Yahweh — the clause simply
describes certain words. Many recent commentators and trans-
lators, in order to secure a connection between the two clauses,
insert the words to him in the second ; but, if this is done, the
difficulty remains that pure {tahor) is not a proper contrast to
abomination (^toeba) ; even if it be taken in a ritualistic sense as
= clean, its opposite is unclean {tame) ; in any case it is a singular
epithet to apply to friendly speech. Grk. (with a different Heb.
text from ours) : the sayings of the pure are held in honor, which
gives a good thought, but not a satisfactory contrast ; Lat. (follow-
ing Grk.) : pure speech luill be cpnfirmed by him as very beautiful.
We should, perhaps, change the text so as to read : pleasant (or,
gracious) coords are well-pleasing to him ; gracious words will then
stand as the sign of friendly intention. But even this reading
does not give a satisfactory contrast to the first cl., and the line
seems to be out of place as well as formally corrupt.
27. Against taking bribes.
He who is greedy of gain destroys his own house,
But he who hates gifts will live.
Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). The expression
greedy of gain involves injustice in the acquisition of wealth (see
note on i^^). A rebuke of avarice and highhanded dealing, with
special reference, in second cl. (and apparently in first cl. also)
to judicial and other bribery. Government in Oriental lands has
always included the giving and taking of gifts. See ii^, Ex. 23^
Ez. 2 2^^ Eccl. f. A greedy unscrupulous man (that is, a corrupt
judge or magnate) comes to grief, says the sage ; he is ruined by
natural causes, or by direct intervention of God.
From this point onward the order of verses in the Grk. varies
in an irregular manner from that of the Hebrew ; the nature of
the material (isolated sayings) made such variation easy. The
arrangement in the Greek (as in the Hebrew) seems to be some-
times determined by verbal resemblances, and there was here
3l6 PROVERBS
great play for the fancy of scribes. \Vhether the advantage in ar-
rangement is with the Heb. or with the Greek must be determined
separately in every case.
28. Speech of good and bad men.
The righteous considers his words,
The utterances of the wicked are vicious.
Antithetic, ternary. Lit. the tnind {heart) of the righteous consid-
ers (RV. studies) to answer, and the mouth of the wicked utters
bad thifigs ; the Heb. idiom likes to describe fully processes of
thought and action. — The antithesis is ethical, not merely intel-
lectual ; the meaning is not that the righteous speaks cautiously,
the wicked inconsiderately, but that the good man takes care to
speak what is true and kind, while the bad man, feeling no con-
cern on this point, follows the bent of his mind, and speaks evil.
The propositions are put as universal, in accordance with the eth-
ical system of Proverbs, which recognizes no nice distinctions,
but regards men as wholly good or wholly bad. The verb ren-
dered utters is lit. pours out (see i^ 15-), and is possibly, but not
probably, meant to contrast the wicked man's unscrupulous
deluge of words with the deliberate speech of the righteous. —
Grk. in first line : the hearts of the righteous meditate faithfulness,
which gives a better contrast with second line than the Hebrew,
and should perhaps be adopted.
29. What prayers are heard.
Yahweh is far from the wicked.
But he hears the prayer of the righteous.
Antithetic, ternary. Cf. v.*. iv?r/r^w = inaccessible to, deaf to
the appeal of. It is involved that the wicked may pray (that is,
ask for some favor), but their prayer will not be favorably re-
ceived. The case of a bad man's repenting is not considered ;
such a man, in the view of the OT., would, by his repentance, be
transferred from the category of the wicked to that of the
Tighteous.
30. Good news.
Pleasant news makes the heart glad,
Good tidings make the bones fat.
XV. 27-32 3I7
Synonymous, with variation of terms, ternary. Fleasatit news is
lit. light (or, shining) of the eyes, that is, the light which shines in
the eyes of the bringer of good news (as the second cl. suggests) ;
of. 1 6'^ Job 29-* \\i 4" 44'"*' 89'^ The expression is by some un-
derstood to mean good fortune, which gives the same general
sense ; but this meaning is doubtful, and does not furnish so
direct an antithesis as the rendering here adopted. Grk. (with a
variation of text) : the eye which sees beautiful tlmigs. Fat bones
are those which are full of marrow ; cf. \\i 63^*^', and notes on
11^ I3^
31-33. Docility and humility.
31. He who hearkens to life-giving admonition
Will dwell among the wise.
32. He who rejects instruction slights himself,
But he who regards admonition gains understanding.
33. The fear of Yahweh is instruction in wisdom.
And before honor goes humility.
31. Single sentence, quaternary-ternary. Lit. the ear that heark-
ens to the admonition of life ; the ear = the man ; on admonition
(or, reproof) see note on i^^. Dwell is properly lodge, pass the
night (Gen. 19^ 2 Sam. 17* Job 31^"), but the term is used in
poetry to express permanent dwelling (19-^ Job 19* \^ 91^)-
Teachableness is the key that unlocks the door of the sages.
The observation is a general one, but has an academic coloring.
The life is of this world, and primarily physical (see 3^ «/.), but
involves the higher moral and religious elements. To d^vell 7vith
the wise is synonym of success and happiness, knowledge is the
fundamental fact in life. — The abrupt and vigorous synecdoche
which, in second cl., puts ear for man, is especially natural in
gnomic poetry. — 32. Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. On instruc-
tion see note on i- ; admonition, as in preceding couplet. Slight
is despise, lightly esteem, then treat slightingly, and reject as being
of small value (i Sam. 8' Job 5" Pr. 3"). One who refuses to be
taught fails to become wise, and thus puts a slight on himself,
treats himself as being of small account. The contrast to this is
stated clearly in second clause. The Heb. has a formal antithe-
sis which cannot be reproduced in English : slights his soul
3l8 PROVERBS
(= personality, self) . . . gains heart (= understanding) ; the
parallelism forbids us to take soui as = life. The Greek transla-
tor abandons the text in order to get the sharp contrast : hates
himself . . . loves his own soul. Here, as in the preceding
couplet, understanding, knowledge, wisdom, is the essential thing
in life, the synonym of well-being. — 33. Quaternary-ternary.
The connection between the two clauses is not explicit — one of
them is perhaps out of place ; but see below. The fear of Yah-
weh is elsewhere described as the beginning of knowledge (i^) or
of wisdom (9^"), and here, in substantially the same sense, as the
instruction of wisdom, that is, the itistruction which wisdom gives,
or, more probably, instruction in wisdom. The latter expression
is, therefore, the proper subject of the sentence : the material or
the essence of wisdom is reverent regard for the divine law, for
(as Pr. elsewhere declares) this law is the perfect expression of
the truth of life, and obedience to it ensures safe guidance and
perfect happiness. This fundamental conception, the identity of
divine wisdom and human wisdom, is thus common to the two
Divisions, chs. 1-9 and chs. 10^-22'^ See notes on i^ 9^^ — The
proper antithesis to second cl. is found in 18^^: pride leads to de-
struction as humility to honor ; but a connection between humility
and the fear of Yahweh is given in 22^, which is an expansion of
this clause. According to 22^ the two things are substantially the
same : humility is a reverent attitude toward God as supreme and
holy ruler. If the term be so understood here, the honor is the
reward (as in 22*) which God bestows on those who obey him,
and our couplet contains an expanded paralleUsm : the fear of
God is wisdom, and it entails honor — first the intellectual product
of reverence, and then its reward. On the other hand, 18^^, com-
pared with 16^*, suggests that it is the natural social law that is
here contemplated : humble demeanor procures friends and
honor, as pride makes enemies and leads to downfall. Probably
both conceptions of the aphorism were held, and the gnomic
writers used one or the other as suited their purposes. The iden-
tity of the two conceptions results from the doctrine that God is
the author of natural law.
22. @ iki] TifiQvTes = op (|§ V^^); iv KapSlaii — lhl (|§ 3^3). — The
insertion of nx' counsel at end of •" (©SiZT) is adopted by Bi., who refers to
XV. 32-XVI. 319
the sing, opr; this insertion is possible, but hardly necessary; Gr. narnp nnon.
— On S, which follows @, but with arbitrary changes, see Baum. Pinkuss. —
23. (5 01) HT] inraKoixyrj 6 kokAs avr-^ ovdi fii} etirri Kalpi6i> tl koX KoXhv re? KOivi^
= 2b nc in>3 ■'3''1 iT'O i^3>fC3 C'N jjci;"' n'^, the man being interpreted as KaK6s,
and the couplet freely rendered throughout. — As to the original sense of the
stem ny; answer cf. Ges. TAes., and Arab, -^y;, ''jyc. — 24. |^ nS;jj;^; @ SiavoiJ-
yttara, perh. after Ez. ii^ perh. = n3rnc; cf. Jag. Lag. — J^ nac; @ a-uOy,
perh. = Sxn (Baum.), or na'7c (Jag.). — 26. On •* see note on this verse above.
@ ayvQv 8i pi^a-ea aeixval, in which it is doubtful what Heb. word a, repre-
sents. For 1^ Dina we should perhaps read ij'xi. — 27. Instead of o-wferat
(1^ rT'n'') 23. 103. 252. 253 have ^ijaeTai, a correction after the Heb. — See
notes of Lag. and Baum. on the dislocation of couplets at this point. — 28. In
8'^ 24^, '/' 2^ njn is followed by the object directly, in \p yj^^ 143^ by 3 and
object, here by 3 in ^ST; as, however, the object is here an act, the S is
appropriate. — |^ rj>^':; (3^ irla-reis; (3^^ irla-Tiv; Si^C (following (5) NnjC'^n;
these Vrss. seem to have had njcN or n'jSwS, which should perhaps be adopted
in J^. — 30. J^ a^y; inc; (& 16'^ 6ewpQi' dcpOaX/xbi /caXd, free rendering of J§
taken to mean " what the eye sees." The Heb. expression does not occur
elsewhere in OT., but appears to mean t/ie light that resides in the eyes (cf.
^ 90*); for the rendering good fortune there is no authority in OT.; ind
occurs only in late writings (from Ez. on). — 31. Lacking in (5, probably
by scribal accident. The rendering in 5" appears to be based on that of
ASeE; these Vrss. and SM = ?^; S>" differs from <S» in a couple of words. —
32. J^ D.sb and ruf ; (5 16^, freely, to gain a distinct contrast, juicret and
ti-ya7r$. — 33. ]IJ nin>; (5 (16*) ^ <•!• ^eoO; (gBAN Kvplov; which of these is
original in the Grk. it is hard to say. — 1§ iDc; Perles, Analekt. p. 60: nop
basis, which is suitable, but the change is not necessary. — See H-P, Lag
Swete.
XVI. 1-9. Divine control of life.
1. To man belong the plans of the mind.
But from Yahweh comes the answer of the tongue.
2. All a man's conduct seems to him pure.
But it is Yahweh who weighs the spirit.
3. Commit thy work to Yahweh,
Then will thy plans succeed.
4. Yahweh has made everything for its own end,
Yea, even the wicked for the evil day.
5. The proud man is an abomination to Yahweh,
He will assuredly not go unpunished.
6. By kindness and truth sin is expiated,
And by the fear of Yahweh one escapes misfortune.
7. When a man's ways please Yahweh,
He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
320 PROVERBS
8. Better is a little with righteousness
Than great revenues with injustice.
9. Man devises his way,
But Yahweh directs his steps.
1. Antithetic, ternary (or, binary). This proverb is identical in
meaning with v.^, and with our "man proposes, God disposes";
see Malan for Chinese and other parallels. Plans is arrange-
fnents {^N. preparations) ; mind is lit. heart; the answer of the
tongue = the final outcome of one's reflections and purposes. To
regard the couplet as contrasting merely thought and expression
(De.) is to empty it of meaning; Mt. 10'^ (referred to by De.)
is different. The idea of God's absolute control of human affairs
is found throughout OT., as, for ex., in Am. -^ \\i 118^ Ex. 10^, cf.
Rom. 9'^ In the term ansiver there is possibly allusion to the
task of speaking (defending one's self, etc.) before great men
(Frank.). See 22-', and note on 15^''. — 2. Antithetic, ternary.
See 3^ 14^^ 21- 24^^. Contrast between human and divine moral
judgments. The first cl. does not mean to affirm that men never
condemn their own conduct, but states a general rule of human
self-satisfaction, or is in the nature of a supposition, so that the
couplet may be paraphrased : " though a man's actions may seem
right to him, ignorant and prejudiced as he is, yet the final ver-
dict on them comes from the infallible investigation of God."
The suggestion is that men should not take their own judgment of
themselves, but should test themselves by the judgment of God,
that is, by the absolutely pure moral standard. Conduct and
spirit are lit. tvays and spirits; the latter terra expresses the
whole inward nature, its purposes and motives ; 7veighs = meas-
ures, determines, tries, appreciates. — In i Sam. 16' we have a
somewhat different contrast, namely, between human judgment
based on the merely outward and visible, and divine judgment
which regards the mind. — 3. Continuous, ternary-binary. Lit.
roll on Yahweh thy works (or, deeds), trust everything to him ; so
i// 37^, cf. \\i 2 2*'''^ Syr. Targ. Lat. read disclose. — V.^"^ are lack-
ing in the Greek. — 4. Continuous, ternary. The Heb. permits
the translation for his own end, but the rendering its is indicated
by second cl., which states the end or destiny for which wicked
men are created. The proverb declares, in a simple and direct
XVI. 1-5 321
way, the principle (recognized everywhere in OT.) of the abso-
luteness of Yahweh's government of the world, and it is added
that every one of his acts has a definite purpose ; since the
wicked are punished, it is Yahweh who has created them to that
end. This predestination to evil (to use the modern expression)
is held in OT., without metaphysical speculation and without em-
barrassment, in connection with the belief in human freedom —
men are considered to be either good or bad, but the good man
may at any moment become bad, or the bad man good ; see Ex.
9'« Ez. 14^ 18, BS. sg^*^^, cf. Eccl. 3'"". — Grk. reads: a// f/ie
works of the Lord {are done) with righteousness, and the wicked
man is kept for the evil day. — The evil day is the day of judg-
ment, retribution, punishment. — The prophets regard the nations
of the earth as controlled by Yahweh in the interests of Israel ;
the -sage considers individual men as created with a purpose.
This larger view belongs to the philosophic period of Jewish his-
tory. What God's purpose is in creating the wicked for punish-
ment the proverb does not say. According to Ezekiel (Ez. 38'*
39-') Gog is punished that Yahweh may manifest his power and
glory to all nations, and so in the Pentateuch Pharaoh is dealt
with (Ex. 9'*"', cf. Rom. 9''). The sage's point of view is not
clear — it is, perhaps, that the moral government of the world
makes the punishment of the bad man necessary ; but no explana-
tion is given of why the bad man should have been created at all.
There is no intimation of a belief that the wicked are a neces-
sary element of God's education of the world (cf. BS. 15'^). —
5. Continuous, ternary-binary. The first cl. is the same as
first cl. of 11^, with substitution oi proud {ox false ; the proud
man is he who sets himself presumptuously against Yahweh, and
refuses to obey the divine law. The second cl. is the same
as first cl. of 1 1-', with omission of the wicked ; on the expres-
sion assuredly (lit. hand to hand, = my hand on it!) see note
on 11^'.
Grk. here inserts the two couplets ;
The beginning of a good way is to do justly,
And it is more acceptable with (lod than to offer sacrifices.
He who seeks the Lord will find knowledge with righteousness.
And they who rightly seek him will lind peace.
Y
322 PROVERBS
These couplets (which may have been written originally in He-
brew) resemble proverbs in our Hebrew text ; the first may have
been suggested by 16'', the second by 28^ (cf. 14^). It is prob-
able that many aphorisms were in circulation which are not in-
cluded in our Book of Proverbs ; some of these are found in the
Greek text of Proverbs, others in Ben-Sira. — 6. Synonymous,
ternary. The expression kindness and truth stands for morality
or virtue in general ; so it is used in 3^, on which see note. By
such ethical integrity sin (or, iniquity) is expiated (lit. covered),
that is, the divine anger against sin is turned away, and the
man's relation to God is as though he had not sinned. The
priestly mode of expiating sin was by offerings, but prophets
and sages lay the greater stress on disposition of mind and
on conduct ; see Hos. 6" (where love to God and knowledge
of him are said to be more desired by Yahweh than sacrifice),
Jer. 7^--^ (where Yahweh is said to have commanded not sacrifice
but obedience) ; cf. Ez. 18 i/' 50^^ ^ jie. i7(i8. 19) ^ jj^ jg^^ ^^2 ^^ gjj^
of Jerusalem is said to have been expiated by her suffering. — The
fear of Yahweh is parallel and equivalent to kindness (or, love)
and truth; and misfortune (or, suffering), lit. evil, is identical
with the punishment which is averted when sin is expiated. —
7. Continuous, ternary. Grk. (the couplet occurs after 15^) :
the ways of righteous men are acceptable with the Lord, and by
them even enemies become friends, which is identical in meaning
with the Hebrew ; the form of the latter seems preferable. In-
stead of the by them of the Greek we should perhaps read to them.
In the Heb. couplet the happy condition of the righteous is
brought about directly by divine action ; but human causes, such
as the kindliness and helpfulness of the good man, are probably
not meant to be excluded. — 8. Comparison, ternary. Substan-
tially identical with 15^". The proverb differs from the others of
the group in not containing an explicit reference to the divine
government; but righteousness = the fear of Yahweh (15'"). —
9. Antithetic, ternary. Identical in meaning with v.^ Lit. the
mind (heart) of ma?i devises (or, thinks out, platis). Grk. : let the
heart of a man think (or, reckon^ justly, that his steps may be set
right by God, which misses the striking antithesis of the Heb., but
gives a good thought ; the justly is added from the connection. —
XVI. 5-9 323
In V.'- ^ we have two substantially identical aphorisms in close prox-
imity. One is a variant of the other, perhaps in a different collec-
tion ; the editors naturally took all good material that they found.
10-15. Functions of kings.
The couplets are extended parallelisms. The reference is to
all sovereigns, not merely to those of Israel ; if, as is probable,
the paragraph is postexilian in date, it is the numerous non-
Jewish monarchs of the Greek period (possibly, also, the Macca-
bean princes) that formed the writer's milieu. It is, however,
the ideal king whose character is here sketched (except in v." '•^),
whether the proverbs be preexilian or postexilian — the king who
governs in wisdom and justice. In such ideal portraitures in the
Prophets and the Psalms (Isa. ii'"^ \j/ 72) the king is guided by
God, and controlled by the divine law ; here, and elsewhere in
this part of Prov., the reference is to the human law of right (in
8'* to the personified divine-human wisdom). The term "theo-
cratic " can be used of the Israelitish kings only in the vague way
in which it is apphcable to all ancient sovereigns — they all per-
formed rehgious rites, and consulted the deity in important affairs.
The kings of Israel were as arbitrary and absolute as the inde-
pendent spirit of the clans, tribes, elders, and princes permitted
them to be — hardly one of them paid much respect to the moral
law of Yahweh in his political poHcy or his private concerns. De-
litzsch observes that the OT. never speaks of the actual king as
infallible ; the idea " the king can do no wrong " did not exist in
Israel. — Reference to kings is found both in chs. 1-9 and in chs.
10-31.
10. The lips of the king are an oracle,
In judgment his mouth transgresses not.
11. [] Balance and scales are I the king's,'
All the weights of the bag are his work.
12. It is abomination to kings to commit wickedness,
For the throne is cstat)lished by righteousness.
13. Righteous lips are the delight of kings.
And they love him who speaks right.
14. The anger of the king is a messenger of death, —
A wise man will pacify it.
15. In the light of the king's countenance is life,
And his favor is like a cloud of the Spring rain.
r
324 PROVERBS
10. Binary. Lit. on the lips . . . is an oracular decision (RV.
divine sentence^ : the decision of the ideal king is as just as if
God himself had given it — that is, as second cl. puts it, he does
not violate justice ; judgment = legal decision. The meaning (as
may be inferred from the parallel proverbs in chs. 10-31) is not
that God speaks through the king. Delitzsch's rendering : let not
his tnouth err is out of the question. — The term oracular decision
is literally divitiation, the consultation of the deity (Ez. 21^^'*^' Nu.
23^) ; the practice was condemned by the prophets as generally
connected with the worship of other gods than Yahweh (i Sam.
15-^ Dt. 18''' 2 K. 17'"), or with false pretensions to speaking in
his name (Jer. 14'* Ez. 13^). Here the term is used figuratively.
— Bickell emends to oracle oj Yahweh, but the addition is unnec-
essary— the divine name is understood. — 11. Ternary-binary.
Weights is lit. stones, which were kept in a bag. From Am. 8^ we
may, perhaps, infer that, as earb as the eighth century B.C., the
Israelites had a legal standard of weights and measures (and, for
the sixth century, cf. Ez. 45^°"'^ ; it is possible, indeed, that the
Babylonians had introduced their system into Canaan in or before
the fifteenth century.* It may be assumed that, after the Exile,
under the Persians and the Greeks, the Jews had a regular system
of stamped weights of stone or metal. — The balance is the steel-
yard —cf 11^ 2o'"''^=^ Am. 8" Hos. i2^(»' Mic. 6" Lev. \^^ Jer. 32I".
— In the first cl. the Heb. has are Yahweh' s, for which it seems
better (with Gratz) to read are the ki?ig's, with the sense that
the system of weights and measures is ordained by the king as
supreme authority and fountain of justice ; this emendation brings
the couplet into formal accord with the context. As the text
stands, God is the ordainer of the machinery of commercial trans-
actions, a statement which is not elsewhere found in OT. — he is
said (as in Lev. 19'^*' al.) to demand just weights, he is not said to
make or establish them. The word king may have been inter-
preted by some scribe as meaning the divine king, Yahweh. — In
the first line the Heb. reads: balance and Just weights are, etc.
* The Babylonian predominance in Canaan is shown by the fact that the
Amarna correspondence employs Babylonian script and language. On early
Babylonian weights and measures see C. F. Lehmann, AUbabylon. Maass- und
Gewichtssysfem, 1893, and G. A. Reisner on Bab. metrology.
XVI. IO-I5 325
It is singular that the adjective just should be attached to one of
these, and not to the other. The Lat. avoids this difficulty by
rendering (with a slight change of text) : balance and scales are
{matter of) Judgment for Yahweh, that is, he has to decide all
cases in which a false use of them occurs. But this interpretation
of the term judgment is difficult, and the resulting sentence does
not offer a proper parallel to the second line. It would be better
to omit the word balance (which would get rid of the difficulty),
but a more satisfactory sentence is gained by omitting the adjec-
tive, which is here not appropriate — as second cl. states that all
stones are the work, etc., so first cl. must state that balance and
7veights in general belong, etc. A scribe might naturally think it
desirable to note that the balances are just. — The rendering a
Just balance and scales are, etc., given by many commentators
and translations,* is grammatically incorrect. — 12. Ternary. Cf.
Dt. 17^^ 20 jgg^ 22I. The affirmation includes all kings considered
as ideal rulers ; such rulers understand that justice is essential to
their permanence. Grk., less well : he who does evil is an abovii-
nation, etc. — Cf. 2 Sam. 7^^"' i// 94^ Isa. 16^; similar aphorisms
are 20'-'^ 25'' 29". — 13. Ternary. Good kings desire honest coun-
sellors and servants. The verb love is sing, in the Hebrew, either
individualizing ("every king loves"), or agreeing with a sing.
king, instead of the kings of the text, or error for plural. —
14. Binary. The Heb. has plural messengers. The sense of
second cl. is probably not "it maybe pacified by a wise man"
(that is, by wise precautions or other measures), but "he who is
wise will seek to pacify it" (instead of braving it). The point of
the couplet is to magnify the king, not the wise man, and the
second line is more naturally understood as adding something to
the statement of the first line : the king's anger is so terrible a
thing that a man shows wisdom in trying to pacify it. The king
is represented as absolute, as was true, in many respects, of all
ancient monarchs ; this trait is not necessarily out of keeping with
his ideal character; the couplet, however, rather regards him
simply as ruler. — 15. Binary. The antithesis to the preceding
* Geier, Ew. De. Str. RV. al. These assume an exception to the grammatical
rule. Zockler : scale and just balances.
326 PROVERBS
aphorism. The light of the countenance is a friendly look, = favor,
gracious reception ; the word for light is different from that used
in 15^, but the general sense is the same. — Life is long and
happy life, = prosperity. The king, here as in v.", is regarded
simply as the arbiter of fate ; his moral qualities do not come into
consideration. — The Spring rain ("latter rain," March- April)
was essential to the ripening of the crops, and the cloud which
heralded it was a symbol of blessing; see Jer. 3" Zech. 10^ Job
29^; the Autumn rain ("former rain," October) preceded the
sowing (Hos. 6^ Dt. 11" Jer. s^'' Joel 2'^ i/^ 84*'(''). For details of
agriculture see Nowack, Arch. I. § 41.
XVI. 1. Wanting in 6^ found in SH(g2.Sai. ^^-^.^ (g252.253o!. ^gH add U^
ixiyas el toctovtov raireivov (yeavrdv Kai evavTL KVplov roO Oeov evpriceLS X''P"'»
= BS. 3!^ and perhaps thence taken hylS-^-"'-- — 2. The adj. y occurs only in
the late priestly ritual (Ex. 27^" 30'^ Lev. 242-'), Job, Prov., but the verb njr is
found in Isa. i^^ Mic 6^^. — The stem p", = establish, appears to be a second-
ary formation from p; the origin of the sense weigh, test is not clear. Gr.,
unnecessarily, jna. — The couplet is not found in this form in (5^; something
like it appears in (5 I6^ which is nearly related to the added couplet given
above under v.i; cf. BS. 35I718. — 3. Wanting in (@b, found in eS«@23a!.^
perhaps a late addition to |§, after ^yf. — On y> ^ see notes of Lag. Baum.
Bi. — 4, = 9 in (5. — |^ '^•■■; (^ ep-ya. — |^ 01; (5 (^I'Xdo-o-erai, = icr. This
is probably a mere scribal variation, and not an attempt to avoid the statement
that God destines the wicked to punishment (Pink., who refers to Baethgen,
JPT. 8, 413). — (@'s rendering of injvc'^ by pi.eTa SiKaioavvrjs is accounted for
by Heid. from the Rabbin, reference of the Heb. expression to students of law;
but, like K those who obey kitn, (@ simply takes the form in J^ as = obey. — In
|§ ^Tw^vh the vowel-point under ^ may be scribal error, or it may be anoma-
lously inserted to distinguish this expression from the prep. y;T:h with suffix (so
Ew. De. Philippi). — 5, = 6 in (g. — ?§ ^ayr; (g aKaOapTos (cf. ^d^Xvy/na,
1^26). — 10. cD|i, originally part, fragment {kx^h. portion), from stem =
divide ; divination is perhaps from the fragments (of stone, etc.) which were
used in divining processes (Halevy, RE/., 1887), perhaps from the verb —
divide, determine {z.i^%. — 11. The stems 0*^0 and jtN (Arab, wazan) appear
to express the idea of evenness, equality. — aorc qualifies only ^JTsr, not dVjj;
see Philippi, Stat. Const, im Heb., p. 1 2 ff. <5 poK7\ f 1/70O SiKaioavvy) wapa k. =
ni,-ii^ ooa-D D^jrsD dSd, taking afl'i'n as pred., and so SiH,. The odb'D is better
omitted as gloss. — 1§ nin-'S; read, with Gr., l^n'^; see note on this v. above.
— 12. S read r^T■p and ^rr, the latter word qualifying as'^c; S® appear to
have been influenced by (5; see Baum. Pink. — 13. |§ 3n{<>, Qal; % Nif. (and
so Jag.); if a change is thought necessary, it will be better to write the
vb. Qal. plur., or (with 6) the noun sing., I'i'C. — 14. ?^ pN^r; ®, sing., is
XVI. 15-17 32/
belter. — 15. Cp*?,.' is, perhaps, originally time of gathering, and mb, ni*>
sprinkler. On the reading of 2t see Fleisch., in Levy, Chald. W'ort.y I. 420^
and on S2C cf. the notes of Baum. and Pink.
16-19. Wisdom, integrity, humility.
16. Wisdom is better than gold.
And understanding more to be desired than silver.
17. The path of the upright avoids misfortune,
He guards his life who takes heed to his way.
18. Pride goes before destruction.
And a haughty spirit before a fall.
19. It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
16. Two equivalent comparisons, ternary. Lit. the getting of wis-
dom and the getting of understanding ; for the terms see note on
3'*. Fully expressed : " the acquisition of wisdom is better than
that of gold," etc. The Heb. of first cl. reads : the getting of wis-
dom— how much better is it than gold I but the hoxv much is
probably scribal error. The identity of the thought of this
couplet with that of 3" is an indication that the final form was
given to the two sections, chs. 1-9 and chs. 10-22^^, about the
same time. — 17. Identical, ternary-quaternary. In second cl.
he who pays careful attention to his (moral) conduct is said thus
to guard or preserve his life (or, himself, lit. his soul) — that is,
integrity is a guard against misfortune — this is the familiar teach-
ing of Proverbs ; in accordance with the parallelism the evil of
first cl. (as the Heb. lit. reads) is naturally tnisfortune, which the
path of the upright avoids. The interpretation " the conduct of
the upright consists in avoiding moral evil " is possible, but does
not furnish an antithesis. — The second cl. maybe rendered: he
who guards his life (or, himself) takes heed to his way, that is, he
who desires to have a good, happy life looks carefully to his con-
duct. Combining this with the second rendering of first cl., the
couplet would mean : " a good man avoids wrong, and he who
has care for himself looks to his conduct," which (if we may be
guided by the context) is less satisfactory than the interpretation :
" the upright man escapes misfortune, and he who is careful in
his conduct saves his life" — the surrounding couplets deal not
with the method of securing happiness, but with the results of
328 PROVERBS
good living. — Grk., adding three lines after first cl. of v.^'^, and
one line after second cl., makes three couplets, as follows :
The paths of life turn aside from evils,
And the ways of righteousness are length of life.
He who receives instruction will be prosperous,
And he who regards reproofs will be made wise.
He who guards his ways preserves his soul,
And he who loves his life will spare his mouth.
This is probably a scribe's expansion of the Hebrew couplet ; the
matter is all to be found in the Heb. Proverbs. — 18. Identical,
binary. Cf. ii^ (pride brings disgrace), 15^ (humility brings
honor), 16^^ 18^^ (contrast of pride and humility), 21^'' 22'' 30'^.
The reference seems to be to the social laws and conditions which
tend to abase pride. The Enghsh " pride will have a fall " may be
derived from this proverb. — 19. Chiastic comparison, ternary.
With lowly is contrasted proud, and with poor the rich who divide
the spoil. Instead oi poor we might render by humble (^^ . marg.
meek), but this would destroy the antithesis, and introduce a tau-
tology, since lowly = humble. The terms lowly and proud are
here ethical, = the unassuming or inoffensive, and the overbearing
or oppressive : they have, perhaps, also a religious import, = those
who submit themselves to God, and those who disobey and disre-
gard him. — The expression divide the spoil is taken from military
life (Gen. 49^^ Ex. 15" Jos. 238 Ju. 5^ i Sam. 30-2-2" j^^^ ^^12
^ ggi2(i3)^^ Qj. fj.Qjj^ |.]^g judicial and other civil injustices of the
rich; cf. i^^ 31".
20-25. Wisdom and graciousness.
20. He who gives heed to the word will prosper,
And the man that trusts in Yahweh, happy is he !
21. The wise man is called a man of discernment:
Sweetness of speech increases power of persuasion.
22. Wisdom is a wellspring of life to its possessor,
And folly is the chastisement of fools.
23. The wise man's mind makes his speech judicious,
And gives persuasiveness to his discourse.
24. Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
Sweet to the soul and healing to the body.
25. There is a way that seems right to a man.
But the end of it is the way to death.
XVI. 17-22 329
20. Synonymous, ternary. Gives heed is acts ivisely (in ref-
erence to) ; cf. 21'^. The word is the law of right as given by
the sages and by God, and it is unnecessary to add of Yahweh
(Gratz) ; see note on 13^'^ ; it is not improbable that the reference
is in part to (postexilian) legal and prophetical documents. Pros-
per is \\\..find good. — Trust substantially = gives heed, since trust
and obedience involve each the other. The good and happiness
include all desirable things of this life. The proverb gives the
purely religious point of view : God blesses those who obey and
trust him, and they need no other protection; see v.'' 3'- ". The
expression happy is he occurs in 14"^ 29'^ — 21. Synonymous, ter-
nary. The power of discreet gentleness of speech. Lit., in first
line : the luise of mind [lit. hcart'\ is called discerning. The dis-
cern7ne?it, as may be inferred from second line, shows itself in
selecting proper language by which to influence men. Is called =
"is recognized as, given credit for being." The last expression of
second line (RV. learning, as in i^) is to be rendered persuasive-
ness, as in 7^", on which see note ; such is the effect of sweetness
of speech (Ut. of lips) . A man of true wisdom of thought shows
himself intelligent, judicious, discerning (RV. prudent) by his
attractive words, whereby he brings men to his way of thinking, or
to a recognition of duty. The rendering increases learning does
not convey a distinct sense ; in i^ the sage adds, by study, to his
own learning ; sweetness of discourse could increase the learning
of others only, but the Heb. expression does not naturally convey
that idea. — Instead oi discerning {or, intelligent) Gratz, by change
of text, would read agreeable, and Bickell harp (that is, as melo-
dious as a harp) ; the latter reading is unnatural, the former
furnishes a good antithesis, but the Heb. text is favored by v.*.
— ^Sw("^//;<'j'j' = graciousness, friendliness ; on discerning 'i^t note
on i\ — 22. Antithetic, ternary. On tvellspring {or, fountain) of
life see 10" 13" 14^ 18*; on chastisement (the word is also ren-
dered instruction and correction) see i^ 3" 7^^ 13-* 22'^ As 7vis-
dom secures for its possessor (by natural and divine law) all the
blessings of life, so folly brings on its possessor loss of blessing,
and positively punishment. The chastisement is not here a means
of reformation, but merely a requital of wrongdoing; the fool is
once for all ignorant, inapprehensive, disobedient to human and
330 PROVERBS
divine law. — 23. Synonymous, ternary. Identical in thought
with V.-'. On makes judicious (a different term from the discern-
ing of v."^) see notes on i^ lo^'^^ 14^ 15^^ Here it is the wise
man's mind ( = good sense or sagacity) that makes his speech
persuasive ; in v.^^ the agent is sweetness of expression; but the
epithet judicious or sagacious favors the reading discerning (in-
stead of agreeable') in v.^^ The two couplets are variations of one
theme. Speech and discourse are lit. mouth and lips. — 24. Single
sentence (second cl. interpreting first cl.), binary (or, binary-
quaternary). Honeycomb, cf. \^ 19^"'"*, i Sam. 14^ Cant. 5^;
pleasant = graceful, gracious, friendly ; body is lit. bone. Gratz
finds in this couplet a suggestion for his emendation in v.^^; it
does give some support to his reading, yet it is to be observed
that the reference here is simply to charm of expression and man-
ner, while there the connection between wisdom and speech is
considered. — 25. Identical with 14^^.
16. On nj|i cf. 01s. § 173^, Ges.^^ § 75 « ; it seems probable that the form
is here, as 01s. suggests, scribal error for njp, since the latter occurs in •*;
IL Impv. in both clauses, inserting quia; Stade takes it as Inf. abs., Bi. as
Impv., but the ^ Infin. is more satisfactory. (@ vocra-ial, = r^:p or •<}p. — Omit
no (probably repetition of preceding nz), which is syntactically difficult, if not
impossible. — 17. In •> a reviser has brought the text of © into accord with |^,
which latter is obviously correct. Bi. makes two couplets, adopting the ^ and
the "= of (5; but no great advantage is thereby gained, and the preference
should probably be given to ^ as the shorter. — 18. On the dira^ Xey. j^rs
cf. Barth, Nominalhild. § 196 b. — 19. "^vc, Infin., taken as adj. by <S, which
inserts it also before ';% pointed -\r?. — On the relation between aij>' (here
Qeri) and z-'Vi (here Kethib) see critical note on 1421. — 20. 3^ i3i S>', where
"-!•} = according to, in respect to (cf. 1/' 119^ Ti3i3 so^^); Bi. 1313, after @ iv.
— Gr. T\\r\-^ 131. In *> the Grk. Codd. vary between 0e^ and Kvpiip, a varia-
tion that appears throughout OT., and is adduced by Klost. as proof that
difference of divine names in the Heb. text is not a sign of difference of
authorship (for a criticism of Klost. see E. Konig, T/ieot. Stud. u. Krit., 1893).
— 21. (@ expands |^ s*:" D3n into ao<t>ovs kclI ffwerovs. — |^ jbj; (5 (jiavKovs, =
S3J (Jag.), whence Bi. S33 harp ; Gr. suggests ay:. Si gives |§ freely. See
note on this v. above. — 22. Before ^ v'^-;2 insert ^, with (5 ; it fell out by
reason of the S of preceding S^r. — 23. diS vary from, but support, J^.
— 24. (5 in ^, less well, yXiiKaafia 5^ avrov ia<ns i^uxv^> — ^fl"'D V^Dih ipnpi. —
25. @Si2riL here vary slightly from their renderings of 14I2.
XVI. 23-28 331
26. Hunger makes a man industrious.
The laborer's appetite labors for him,
For his mouth impels him to work.
Single sentence (second cl. explaining first cl.), ternary. Cf.
Eccl. 6^ Appetite is Heb. nefesh ( = sour) , that part of the nature
which desires or craves food ; so 6^ 23'^ 27" Dt. 14-*' 23^^'-^' Job 33^.
The second cl. is lit. /or his mouth presses on him. The parono-
masia in first cl. is effective : man works, and his appetite works
for him. Hunger, says the proverb, is a useful thing, since it
drives a man on to work ; or, a man will work, whether he likes it
or not, for hunger forces him to gain food. Industry, from this
point of view, is not a virtue of high rank. Grk. : A man who
labors labors for himself, and drives away ruin; but the perverse
brings ruin on his own mouth; ruin is misreading of the Heb.
word for mouth, and the last clause is the comment of a scribe.
Syr.: the soul that inflicts suffering suffers, and fro ?n its mouth
comes ruin, which in part follows the Greek.
27, 30. Mischief-making. Ternary. Cf. 6'^"", a paragraph
which is out of place in chs. 1-9.
27. A wicked man digs (a pit of) mischief,
And on his lips there is as it were a scorching fire.
28. A false man scatters discord abroad,
And a backbiter separates friends.
29. A villain entices his neighbor.
And leads him in a way not good.
30. A slanderer devises falsehoods,
A backbiter consummates mischief.
27. A metaphor and a simile. Wicked man, lit. man of belial ;
see note on 6'". Mischief (or, misfortune) is lit. evil. The second
cl. indicates that the reference of the couplet is to slanderous talk :
the man's lips scorch, burn those of whom he talks — he digs a
pit into which they fall. — 28. Synonymous. Cf. 17^ Lit. a 7nan
of falsehoods, a liar; on this term see note on 2^^; backbiter is
lit. murmurer, whisperer; in the second line, lit. : separates a
friend, probably = not alienates his friend, but, as the parallelism
{discord) and 18'* suggest, separates (= alienates) one friend from
another ; on friend see 2'' (the RV. rendering, chief friends, =
332 PROVERBS
intimate friends, is possible but unnecessary) ; Rashi : alienates the
prince (sucli is the meaning of the Heb. word in Gen. 36'' Zech. 9"),
that is, God ; Luther : makes princes disagree. — 29. Extensive.
Villain is lit. man of violence, here in general a man of immoral
or criminal methods of procedure ; he entices his neighbor or
comrade (as in ii"-^**) into habits of vice and crime, not to some
secret place where he may rob or murder him — this last does not
suit the expression in a way not good. Neighbor = any associate
or acquaintance, and, in general, any man. — 30. Parallelism of
expressions. The couplet is almost identical with 6'^- '*. Lit. : he
who shuts (or, winks) his eyes to devise, etc., he 7vho shuts (or,
bites) his lips consummates, etc. ; in first cl. the Infinitive expresses
purpose, and the sentence is incomplete, or the meaning may be :
he who shuts, etc. {does it) to devise, etc. (RV.) ; in second cl. the
verb expresses the completed act. We may gain symmetry and
completeness by changing the Infinitive into a finite verb, and
reading : he who shuts . . . deinses, etc., and he who closes . . . con-
summates, etc. ; this reading supposes that the acts of shutting or
winking eyes and closing or gnawing lips are regarded as signs of
evil purpose, which, from 6'^- ", appears to be the case. On the
other hand, if we change the finite verb of second cl. into an
Infinitive, we have a natural expression, but, at the same time, two
incomplete sentences, and it must be supposed that a final clause
has been lost, the complete proverb reading : " he who closes (or,
winks) his eyes in order to concoct mischief, and he who shuts
(or, snaps) his lips in order to perfect (or, as a sign that he has
perfected) mischief, let him be avoided (or, he will surely come to
grief)." Such a couplet, however, would be contrary to the norm
of this Division, in which every couplet is complete in itself. The
construction with two finite verbs is the simpler and the more
natural. The expressions he who winks the eyes and he who closes
(or, gnaws) the lips are equivalent to slanderer and backbiter.
The progression of thought, devises . . . consummates, is rhetorical
— each of these classes of persons does both of these acts. — The
Grk. reads :
He who fixes his eyes devises falsities
And marks out all evils with his lips;
He is a furnace of wickedness.
XVI. 28-33 333
Whence Bickell : he who shuts his eyes is false, he who closes his
ears is a furnace of wickedness. — Lit. : he who 7vith astonished
eyes meditates wickedness biting his lips perfects evil — The general
sense of the couplet is plain, but form and translation are uncertain,
Cf. BS. 5".
31. Righteousness gives long life.
A hoary head is a crown of glory
Which is gained by a righteous life.
Continuous, ternary. The second cl. is lit. in the way ( = life)
of righteousness it is found (= cojne upon, acquired). The Heb.
hardly allows the rendering if it be foutid in, etc. (this idea is
expressed eloquently in BS. 25'^). The assertion is that old age
is the reward of rightdoing : righteousness, = wisdom, bestows long
life (s^'^*' al.). The possibility that a bad man may live to be old
is not here considered ; it is assumed that the wicked perish early
{2^ 12^ 24^« 29^ ^\, 9"('«> 55''''*')- This conception, which is the
prevailing one in OT. (it is opposed by Job) and in BS. (i^^ 16*),
was modified by the acceptance of the doctrine of happy immor-
tality (WS. 4*-^ "honorable age is not . . . measured by number
of years"), and is not found in NT.
32. Excellence of self-control.
He who is slow to anger is better than a warrior,
And he who rules himself than he who takes a city.
Synonymous, ternary-quaternary (or, ternary-binary). Himself
is lit. his spirit (= his inner nature, soul). The sage extols the
virtue of moderation, self-control, a familiar one to Greek thought
{(Twf^poa-vvt]) ; in or. it is referred to only in the Wisdom books.
Numerous parallel sayings (Chinese, Hindu, Greek, etc.) are cited
by Malan; see Hor., 01. 2, 2. Delitzsch refers to Firke Aboth,
4, I, Par. Regained, 2, 466 ff. — The Grk. adds, after first cl., its
rendering of second cl. of 24^: and a man of prudence than a
great estate.
33. God controls men's decisions.
The lot is cast into the lap,
But the whole decision of it is from Yahweh.
334 PROVERBS
Implied antithesis, ternary-binary. The thought is substantially
that of v.^- ^ : all human affairs are controlled by God — only, in
this case, the arbitrament is consciously referred to him. The de-
termination of the divine will by casting lots was probably universal
in the ancient world ; the deity was supposed to direct the throw ;
see Iliad, 3, 316 ff., Cic, De Divin., 2, 41 (Cicero says that edu-
cated people of his time regarded the custom as a superstition).
n OT. important public and private affairs are so determined
(Ju. i^ Isa. 34!^ Lev. i6«*f- Jon. i^ aL, cf. Acts i^") ; the priestly
decision by Urim and Thummin was probably by lot (i Sam. i4''^'^-
28® Nu. 27-' aL). The term lot v^zs used also as = one's part or
portion (Ju. i^ y\i 16'). On lap see notes on 5* 6"'; the reference
here is to the garment.
26. |§ ^Gj? ircj; (5 dvTjp iv irbvoi%; but 'j is better understood as = appetite.
— ?§in''D; (S dTrciXeiac, = Tifl (Hitz.) ; in (5 the line <= is gloss on •>. — The stem
tl3N appears to signify lay on (so in Axzh.), press, urge, impel ; in Syr. to be
solicitous; for the Assyr. see De. Assyr. Hdwbuch.; in |^ Job t,-^ the noun
1DK is probably to be emended, after (g, to r)D (01s. Siegf. Budde, a/.). Sy nss
is regarded by Wild, as Aramaism. Cf. BDB. — 27. On '?>"''?3 see critical note
on 612. 1^ n-\3; Gr. suggests (but unnecessarily) tnn. — Between Kethib
VT\iiV and Qeri inija* there is little choice. — 28. \y-\i was not understood by
the Vrss. : (5 \afjLTrrijpa 56\ov TrvpaeiJcrei KaKo?j, in which \. suggests ^^) (Lag.),
and K.is interpretation; K qtiarreller, ox fiery, irascible; Si einpty, inane;
% verbose; cf. Lag. Baum. — The small final Nun is doubtless due to some
scribal accident in the archetypal MS. (cf. Lag.). — 30. The stem nxj; = com-
press (so Syr.) or strike (so Arab.) ; see note above on this verse. Stade com-
pares DXj;, which stem, in its late-Heb. and Aram, sense, sJmt, should perhaps
be read here (so Gratz, Frank.). In any case the shut may suggest wink.
On y-ip see notes on 6^3 loi", and cf. ■^ 35^^ The sense gnaiv, bite, found in
Ass. (De. IVbcA.) suits the connection (lips) ; cf. eirLSaKvwv below, and the
connection of yip in Arab. Aram, with slander. — In (5 iravra. to. kcko. is
doublet of o\)To% Kdfnv6i ia-riv KuKla^, but which is the earlier is uncertain;
Bi. adopts Kdfuvos KUKlas, = n;n -\p. Instead of the opi^ei of (3^, = i-id
((gA dpyl^ei, perh. scribal error, perh. = ixp), a number of Codd. (23. 106.
109. 147. 149. 157. 252. 260.295.297) have iiriScLKvo}!' gna7ving, adding, how-
ever, opffei before iravra, and e. is probably the original (5 reading (Lag.). —
On & see Pink. — For y^p Gr. reads i'5p, a possible but unnecessary emenda-
tion.— 33. S-jjn PN after passive verb (so Gen. 4I8 al.); what is commonly
grammatical subject is here presented as the object of the action, or rather, as
the object of contemplation, as in Arab, after 'inna, 'anna ; it is an attempt,
on the part of the language, to give prominence and emphasis to the thing
by holding it up as object of thought; see Ew. § 295 b, Ges. -^ § 121 b. — ■
XVI. 33-xvii. 2 335
(3, having rendered itac^'n '^D by TrdvTa to. 8lKaia, assimilates * to •* by writing
irdvTa ToTs ddiKois, SiJ being left untranslated.
XVII. 1. Desirableness of a quiet life.
Better a dry morsel and quietness therewith
Than a house full of feasting and strife.
Antithetic comparison, ternary — the value of a quiet Hfe. Cf.
15'^ '^ 25'*. The word here rendered feastitig is Ht. sacrifices ; in
ancient Israel all eating of flesh was a rehgious act — the animal
was first presented to the deity by the priest, and then eaten by
the worshippers with the accompaniments of a feast ; see i Sam.
gi2. 13 20"^^. The ordinary term for this animal sacrifice is the
one employed in our verse. Such sacrifice was offered at a
shrine ; but the Deuteronomic code, which abolished all shrines
but the Jerusalem temple, expressly authorizes the killing and
eating of animals at home (Dt. 12'^ ^^). The old term for the
ritual slaying of beasts is, however, sometimes used to express
private slaying (Dt. 12'^ Ez. 39" Isa. 34^), and thus comes to
denote feasting (so RV. ; AV. marg. good cheer) ; this word suffi-
ciently expresses the contrast of the meagre dry tnorsel, bread
without savory accompaniments, and the richness of a meal in
which meat is the principal feature. It is uncertain whether the
proverb contemplates a sacrifice proper, or a private preparation
of animal food, but the general sense is the same in the two cases.
Cf. note on 7".
2. Cleverness succeeds.
A wise slave will rule over a profligate son,
And will share the inheritance among brethren.
Continuous sentence, quaternary (or, ternary). Wise = one who
acts with sagacity, a clever, capable person ; moral excellence is
not expressed, but is possibly to be understood. Profligate = one
who acts shamefully, in such a way as to bring disgrace on himself
and his family (see 10'' 12'' 14"). Share is lit. divide. The slave,
in the case here supposed, is said, not to act, after the father's
death, as executor of the estate, distributer of tlie property among
the heirs (De.), but himself to be one of the heirs, promoted
above the unworthy son ; for this sense of the verb see 29-^ (RV.
336 PROVERBS
is partner); share the inheritance need mean no more than come
into possession of part of the property. Slaves in Israel, even
when non-Israelite of origin, were considered as members of the
family, adopted the religion of the master, and took part in the
national festivals (Gen. 24^- Dt. 5'* 12'-'^^ 16""") ; in the later law
(Gen. 17^') the slave is required to be circumcised, though this
rule is relaxed in the Talmud {Yebam. 48 b). Abraham (Gen.
\^) speaks of his homeborn slave Eliezer as his heir; a man
sometimes gave his daughter in marriage to his slave (i Chr. 2^),
who thus came to be head of the household. So an unworthy
son, it is here said, might be partly or wholly set aside in favor of
a capable slave. Such a case was, no doubt, exceptional — the
Old Testament law regards sons as the heirs, but it appears that,
in later times, the father had considerable liberty in disposing of
his property (see 30^).* In regard to the value set on sons com-
pare what is said in Ben-Sira (16^) and Wisdom (4^) of the unde-
sirableness of bad children. — For the idea cf. BS. 10^.
3. God the judge of character.
The fining-pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold,
And Yahweh is the trier of hearts.
The couplet may be regarded (as in RV.) as expressing a con-
trast between material and spiritual testing, but is better under-
stood as an implied comparison: as ... so ; quaternary- (or,
binary-) ternary. Other references to the process of testing and
refining metals are Isa. i^'' Jer. 6^ Ez. 22^'"" Mai. f ; the figura-
tive use is found in Isa. 48^° i// 17-^ 66'" Dan. 12'" al. The charac-
ter of metals, says the proverb, is disclosed by the human process
of refining, and the true nature of the human soul by God — it is
involved, of course, that he alone can fully estimate the soul —
man may know something of it, but not all. The first cl, of this
verse occurs in 27-'.!
4. Moral badness of listening to evil talk.
A bad man gives heed to wicked words,
A < false > man listens to mischievous talk.
* Cf. Ewald, Alterfkiimer, p. 240 ; Nowack, Arch., ^ 29.
t See art. Refining in Smith, Diet, of Bib. ; Now., Arch., § 43. 4 ; Rawlinson,
Phoenicia, p. 317.
XVII. 2-6 337
Identical thought with variation of terms, ternary. Words and
talk are ht. lip and tongue ; wicked words is Ht. /// of wickedness
{Hob. aiven) — the defining noun is employed in 6^--^** lo^ ii'
12^^ al., and in OT. the majority of its occurrences are in Job, Ps.
Prov. ; mischievous talk is lit. tongue of injury (or, destruction^ ;
for a false man the Heb. text has falsity, hardly abstract for con-
crete, rather the text must be corrected; false is to be taken in
the sense oi false {or, faithless) to friends and companions (= un-
mindful of what is due to men), substantially equivalent to I>ad.
The purpose of the proverb seems to be not to define /tad and
false as those who give heed, etc., but to assert that those who so
give heed are bad and false. Another rendering of the couplet
(Frank.) is : deceit (?) results 7L'hen one gives heed, etc., falsehood
results when one listens, etc., but this is scarcely natural. — Many
MSS. of Grk. here add a couplet which in the Vatican MS. occurs
after v.*.
5. To laugh at misfortune is impious and dangerous.
He who mocks the poor reproaches his Maker,
He who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.
The rhythmical form is that of v.''. The first cl. is a variation of
i4''^% on which verse see note. The calamity is apparently, from
the parallelism, that which befalls the poor, and he who is glad at
misfortune thus mocks the unfortunate ; such an one, inasmuch as
he reproaches (contemptuously criticises) his divine Maker (by
mistaking and blaming his providential control of the world), will
incur punishment from God. The second cl, taken by itself,
might refer to the punishment of heartlessness through the opera-
tion of natural laws. The sympathy with the poor here expressed
is found throughout the Old Testament. The mocking is perhaps
simply or mainly the failure to give sympathy and aid ; cf. BS. 4^
— Grk. adds : and he luho is compassionate mill find mercy, a nat-
ural contrast, probably a gloss.
6. Parent and child — each the ornament of the other.
Children's children are the crown of old men,
And the adornment of children is their fathers.
Z
338 PROVERBS
Parallelism of form, two similar or complementary thoughts, ter-
nary. Cf. xj/ 127''"^ BS. 3" 25'^. The intimate relation between
parent and child, in general the value of the family, is expressed
by the statement that each member is the crown or adornment of
the others ; mother and daughter are to be included. Parent
and child form a social unit — each gives support, dignity, and
happiness to the other. — The RV. rendering in second c\.,g/orv,
is possible, if the term be taken as meaning " honor received,"
but the parallelism shows that it is here equivalent to the crown
of the first clause. — The value placed on children as procuring
respect for parents is apparent throughout OT. ; a sort of protest
against this feeling occurs in Wisd. Sol. 3'^^ " 4^ Originally this
desire for children was connected with the belief that the child-
less man, having no one, after his death, to provide food for his
Shade, would fare ill in the Otherworld. Of this primitive behef
(and of the related cult of ancestors) there are no definite traces
in OT. — The Grk. (Vat. MS.) adds:
To the faithful belongs the whole world of wealth,
But to the faithless not an obolus.
It is difificult to explain this couplet as a corruption of any He-
brew proverb, or to attach it to any distich in the context. The
sentiment resembles that of 3'*^, but the form is Greek, and we
must suppose that a Greek-speaking scribe has inserted the lines
in this place (or after v."*) as a familiar saying, or from a current
written collection of aphorisms.
7. Let fools be false, and good men true.
Honest words do not become a fool,
Much less do lies a man of rectitude.
Parallel between a less and a greater, ternary (or, ternary-binary) .
Lit. lip of excelle%t\e and lip of falsehood. The first cl. appears to
be sarcastic and jairdonic, = "a fool has no business to talk truth,"
or " true talk doe's not comport with a fool's character." Fool
(Heb. tiahal, in Pr. only here and 17-^ 30") is a contemptuous
and opprobrious term involving lack of intellectual and moral in-
sight and weight (i Sam. 25-^ 2 Sam. 3'^ Job 2'" 1/^14'); the con-
trasted word in second cl. {iiadib) elsewhere in Pr., except 17^,
XVII. 6-7 339
means nobleman or prince (8'" 25'), but here, from the parallel-
ism, better man of noble character, of rectitude (cf. Isa. 32^,
where it is contrasted, as here, \\\\\\fool). The general sense of
the aphorism is apparent from the similar sayings in 19^" 26^; in
both of these something is mentioned which is obviously out of
keeping with the status of the fool, and in 19^'' an advance is
made to something which is regarded as still less appropriate in
some other person. The precise sense of first cl. turns on the
meaning of the subject of the sentence. The term which there
in the Heb. defines speech signifies remainder or (in adverbial use)
exceedingly throughout OT. except in our verse and Gen. 49^ (in
Job 4"' the form is probably corrupt), but neither of these senses
{abundance, diffuseness) is here appropriate ; in Gen. 49^ the
meaning suggested by the connection is excellency or (as Dillmann
explains it) superiority, preeminence, and the same sense is found
in Syriac and in a related Heb. word which occurs a number of
times in Eccl. (2" f- al.). There appears to be no authority for
the meanings elevated, noble (Ew.) and pretentious, arrogant (De.
Reuss, RV. marg.). The proverb seems to offer a sharp and sar-
castic antithesis — the sage would say : " let every man act in
character — excellent (here = honest, true) words do not become
a fool, nor lies a man of rectitude." According to De. the mean-
ing is : " it is repulsive to us when an ignorant, vulgar man puts
himself impudently forward, and much more repulsive," etc. ; but
this meaning (if it could be got from the Heb.) is not appropri-
ate, since, from the tone of the second cl., we expect in first cl.
the mention of something which is alien to the fool. Nor, accord-
ing to OT. usage, can the contrast between the characters be a
social one : churl . . . nobleman. Grk. : faithful (or, true) words
do not become a fool, in which the adjective may be chosen as
offering a distinct contrast to false, but the sense is appropriate,
and may rest on a Heb. term ; Lat. : verba composita (feigned,
false words, which are in excess of the truth). — If the meaning
honest, true be regarded as foreign to the word of the Heb., it
may he got by a slight change of text.
XVII. 1. As n3i is rarely used of private slauj^hter of animals, Dys., not
without i>rohahility, proposes to read 'na ; here, as in 9'-; the \^rss. had the
word of ^?. — (S" ixiff Tjdovfjs probably = h^t • (sec %l 20I') for |Q ij^n (Jag.),
340 PROVERBS
but may be interpretation of |^ ; in ^ instead of the TroXXuii' of B we should per-
haps read irXrjprjs with nAC, and dyadQv Kal ABIkuv are expansion, d5. being
possibly scribal variation of /[;ieTa /xdx»?s. — 2. J§ ran p; <S deairoTwv d(pp6-
vwv, apparently = 'S >y2; Bi., comparing BS. lo'-^^ (iXevdepoi), reads aiha, but
this is hardly probable. — In » (g has free rendering of J^; in *) for \r\2 stands
iK\€KTai (s* iKX^yeraL), from inj. Instead of /cup/y l§^ has 9uj (6e(?), —
4. 1^ ""ir is Hif. Partcp. of >;n; we therefore expect a corresponding con-
crete form in ^, and may, with Gr., read ip:';: (cf. i S. 15^^) instead of npr;
I ; is for jusj ; both this verb and 3rpp are commonly and properly followed
by ^s, and so we should probably here read instead of ">;". — For an extraordi-
nary translation of this couplet see Schultens. — <5 aBoj. SLkclios Si ov wpoa-
^X^h probably scribal alteration to gain an antithesis; |^ is followed in
(gB8. 161. 248. Compi. — Qn a couplct here added in (gA o(. ggg note on v/'. —
6. 1^ t;;'; (& diroWv/ii^vii), perh. = ^2^• (Lag.). — After misfortune STIL add,
as interpretation, of another. — 6. On the couplet added in (5 see note on this
proverb above, and cf. notes of Lag. and Baumgartner. — 7. In * ® Trto-rd
may be free rendering of |§ i.-i-' to gain a contrast with the i/zeuS^ of ''; but
it is possibly error of Grk. scribe for irepKTa-d (Grabe, Lag.); in ^ diKal({)
(representing J|J :-)) may be miswriting of diKaffry or dvuda-rri (Jag.), or, the
Heb. may have been read py/, but (& may be free translation of J^. — -\-' must
mean either remainder or abundance or excellence ; see note on this couplet
above. The stem has the sense over and above in North Sem. (Ass. Aram.
Heb.) and South Sem. (Arab. Eth.) ; in all these dialects, except Ass. (so
far as reported in De. IVbch.) the noun also means string — whether this sense
is related to the other is uncertain. The word should here probably be
emended to ir .
8. Power of a bribe. The Heb. reads :
A stone of favor (or, beauty) is a gift in the eyes of its possessor —
Whithersoever he (or, it) turns, he (or, it) prospers (or, acts cleverly).
Extensive (second cl. explaining first cl), quaternary-ternary.
Gift here, from the connection, = Ifribe, as in Ex. 23^ ( = Dt.
i6^^);Isa. i^ \p 15'^ The possessor (or, owner) is more naturally
the briber, who succeeds by bribing; if it be taken as = the
bribed, the meaning is that the latter, stimulated by the gift, does
his best {acts cleverly, skilfully, wisely), or is successful. The
stone, if characterized by beauty, = precious stone (cf. i^ 3^^), and
the meaning will be that the bribe, as a costly, precious thing con-
trols the action of venal magnates. But this sense is too nearly
tautologous to be probable — to say that a bribe is a precious
stone is to say nothing to the point ; a bribe was in fact often lit-
XVII. 8-9 341
erally a precious stone, generally its equivalent in money. We
expect an expression describing the power of the bribe, and such
an expression is furnished by Frankenberg's interpretation of
stone of favor Si'^ — 2i stone that brings favor, a lucky stone or
magic stone. The Heb. expression does not occur in this sense
elsewhere in OT., but the Israelites had amulets (Ez. 13'"), and
charms, sometimes made of precious stones, were widely em-
ployed in antiquity. The rendering : a bribe is a source of good
luck gives an intelligible thought. — The expression in the eyes of,
= in the estimation of, suits the bribed better than the briber,
though it may be understood of the latter ; the reading /« the
hands ^ would be more appropriate for the briber. — The couplet
must be taken to mean either :
A bribe is a beautiful thing in the estimation of him who accepts it,
And he (accordingly) in all respects acts skilfully (or, successfully);
or :
A bribe is a thing of power in the hands of him who gives it.
In all that he untlertakes he prospers.
The latter interpretation is the more probable. If in second cl.
it be substituted for he, the general sense remains the same : the
bribe succeeds. — The two meanings of the verb {acts 7viscly and
succeeds) are substantially identical ; one states the manner, the
other the result of action; see i Sam. 18^ Isa. 52'^*, and cf. Pr.
JQ.5. 19 j^35 j^24 jg2o j ^2 ^^14 ^^u^ -pj^g g^gg gtafeg^ wlthout com-
ment, a fact of experience : bribery is a potent means of success.
It is forbidden in Ex. 23'' al.
9. Forbearance promotes friendship.
He who covers up transgression seeks love,
He who harps on a matter alienates his friend.
Antithetic, ternary. Similar reflections are found in 10*^ 16^**.
He who covers up (is silent about) the hasty speeches and ill-
advised acts of his friend thus puts aside occasions of quarrel,
and promotes kindliness of feeling ; he who repeats (or, spreads
abroad, or, harps oti) imprudent talk alienates his friend. The
proverb is concerned not with crime but with gossip. The inver-
sion of subject and predicate, so as to read he covers transgression
who seeks love (De., who refers to 10'^), is possible, but accords
342 PROVERBS
less well with second cl., in which the man's mode of dealing with
his friend's slips of word and deed is the subject ; in lo^^ the
point of view is different — hatred and love are the subjects. —
On friend see notes on 2'^ 16^*; on alienates (= separates') notes
on i6-» i8^», andcf. 18^ 19^
10. A wise man heeds criticism.
A reproof enters deeper into a man of sense
Than a hundred stripes into a fool.
Simple comparison, ternary. The Grk., following a different point-
ing of the Heb., has : " a threat humbles (lit. crushes) the heart
of a man of sense, but a fool, though scourged, does not under-
stand." The general meaning is the same in the two forms ;
there is no good ground for changing the present Hebrew. The
proverb is an observation of common experience, and has paral-
lels in other literatures. Hundred is a large round number ; cf.
the legal " forty stripes save one." VVe may render : " a reproof
affects (or, benefits)," etc. — Enters is lit. descends ; Hitzig com-
pares Sallust, Jug. 1 1 : altiiis in pectus descendit.
11. Rebellion is dangerous.
A 4 rebel > seekTto do mischief,
But a terrible messenger is sent to him.
Continuous sentence, ternary (as the text stands). The first cl.
reads literally : rebellion seeks only mischief, or possibly, rebellion
certainly seeks, etc. — the translation above given involves a slight
change of text ; there is no good authority in OT. usage for the
statement (De. Siegfried «/.) that the abstract rebellion is used for
the concrete rebellious (in Ez. 2" 44*^ we should read, with Grk.,
house of rebellion). Grk. (followed by Lat. and RV.) inverts this
order of subject and predicate : every bad man stirs up strifes,
but so general an allegation does not account for the sharp threat
of the second clause. The statement a bad man seeks only rebel-
lion (as the Heb. may be rendered) is not true unless the last
term is taken (as it is used elsewhere in OT.) as = "disobedience
to God " ; so it seems to be understood in part by the Grk.,
which renders the second cl. : but the Lord will send to him a pit-
XVII. 9-12 343
ikss angel (or, messenger), that is, some frightful misfortune
(storm, pestilence, or the like). This sense is, however, here im-
probable— if Yahweh were meant to be the subject, it would be
expressed — and the second cl. suggests that some flagrant crime
like rebellion is had in mind, and then the subject of the sentence
is naturally a rebellious man or a rebel. Rebellious, in the sense
of " disobedience to God," is distinctively a term of the Prophetic
thought. If the text be correct (as to which there is ground for
doubt) the proverb is purely political (like 23'"^, etc.), afifirming
that rebellion against constituted authority is an evil and danger-
ous thing. Such an opinion might suit many different periods of
history : it might possibly belong to the time of Ezekiel, who (Ez.
17) denounces Zedekiah for his rebellion against the King of
Babylon, or to the fifth or fourth century B.C., when the Jews were
accused (Neh. 6^^) of wishing to make themselves independent
of Persia, or when (according to Euseb. Chron., in the Armenian
translation) a considerable body of Jews was deported, by Artax-
erxes Ochus, to Hyrcania in punishment for an uprising ; but it
more naturally falls in the Greek period when rebellions were rife
in the various provinces into which Alexander's empire was di-
vided. — The emendation : the king 7vill send a terrible one
against him (Dyserinck) gives a good sense (substantially iden-
tical with that of our Heb.), and should, perhaps, be adopted.
On terrible (or, cruel) see 5^ 11^'^ 12'" Jer. 6^ Isa. 13^
12. A fool is dangerous.
Meet a bear robbed of her whelps
Rather than a fool in his folly.
Continuous sentence with implied comparison, binary. Lit. : let
a bear, etc., meet a man rather, etc. For the picture of the bear
see 2 Sam. 17** Hos. 13^. The point of comparison is the danger
involved in the two meetings ; in the animal the danger arises
from her ferocious anger, in the fool from his intellectual and
moral idiocy — he is capable of everything, his folly is an integral
part of him. The couplet may be based on an old folk-saying.
— Grk. (with a peculiar reading of the Heb.) : care may come on
a ivise man, but fools meditate evil.
344 PROVERBS
13. Punishment of returning evil for good.
Whoso returns evil for good,
From his house evil shall not depart.
Simple affirmation, ternary. Such base ingratitude, it is said, will
be punished — whether through the social laws that spring from
men's moral sense, or by direct divine action, is not said. For
the phrase of first cl. see i Sam. 25^^, and on returning good for
evil see Pr. 25^^-1
8. 1^ inii'n ]n ps, for which (& has /xicObs x^P^'^'^" iraiSela; Lag., with
probability, emends to a-radubs for jj.., and iirlSocns for ir.; K, inverting, .sod
Nnon Ninii'-'; S misunderstands; IL gemma gratissima expectatio praesto-
lantis. — 9. |^ nji:- repeat (with 3 introducing the thing in which the repeti-
tion occurs) gives a good sense; Gr. emends to nji' errs, and Winckler to
njCD reports, a meaning which occurs in Ass. (De. WbchJ) but not in Heb. —
(5 p.i.(TeL KpvTTTeiv, in which /x. = Nji- (and so ST), and k. may be rendering of
13T understood as = the idea contained in the icd;: of "^ (Lag.). On 5, which
is based on (5, see Pinkuss. — 10. In pj -n; (from rni) the first rad. is assimi-
lated, and the tone, for rhythmical reasons, is retracted; the assimilation occurs
also in Jer. ai^^ Job 20^, but not in \p 38^; cf. 01s. § 237 a, Ges.'-^*^ § 66/ The
.stem is perhaps Aramaic. — (S in * has free rendering of pj ; in "^ it seems to
have read dxd Sdd nzn^ (Jag. Lag.) or to have taken nnn from npn (<rvvTpi-
/3ei), a reading which Frank, adopts; the derivation from pn: seems more
appropriate. ST expands |^ ; S follows (g; IL = ?^. — 11. |^ in (wanting in
(3&VL, in IL rendered by semper) taken either as = on/y or as = certainly, is
inapposite, and the abstract ■'iD (read nj-io in (53L) is here very improbable, if
not impossible; read 'in i:\s (as SST have it). — After rbv the Prep. 3 seems
properly to introduce the object which one stretches out the hand to grasp;
we should here perh. read i*? or r'?vs. — Before i'-\ Bi., following (5, inserts '73;
for 1^ -\vh-z Gr. reads I'^ns (so 6"), but the difference is not important; Dys.,
more probably, i'^^ and n'?u'\ — 12. For the Heb. of (5« Jag. suggests trjo
S3U' t:'N3 n3N-i; in b (g read Sx instead of '^n : to a fool is folly. Si in " follows
^, only doubling the subject (^care and fear), in ^ = |^, with '?n for '^n. ^T in *
mingles J^ and %, in b, reading Sn, interprets |^. IL = |§.
14. Of quarrelling.
Text and translation are doubtful. Our Heb. may be rendered :
a letter out of water is the beginning of strife, and before getting
7vrotight up (= excited, angry) leave off contention, or . . . before
contention (or, quarrelling) breaks out, leave off. The word ren-
dered getting wrought up (or, quarrelling) occurs elsewhere in OT.
XVII. 13-15 345
only in i8^ 20'', on which see notes.* The reference in the first
line of our Heb. text seems to be to making a small aperture in a
dam or in anything which prevents the flow of water : it is easy to
let the water out, hard to stop it — the aperture grows larger, and
the flow of water stronger. This construction is intelligible,
though the language is somewhat indefinite ; we should expect
mention of the point whence the water is let out ; in any case, we
must, for grammatical accuracy, read : a letting out, etc. The
Grk. gives what is perhaps a better text by reading guards instead
of water, whence we have : outpouring of words is the beginning
of strife, a warning against thoughtless talk, as in lo^'' 17-^ — In
the second line the norm of the Book leads us to expect an asser-
tion (parallel to that of first Hne) that something comes before
something (as in 15^ 16'^) — perhaps (omitting the leave off) :
before conflict goes quarrelling, a progression in the thought.
Either the rendering of RV. {leave off contention before there be
quarrelling) or that of Siegfried {before contention break out leave
off) is, however, possible. Whatever the precise form of the
aphorism may be, its general sense is clear — it is a warning
against strife.
15. God abhors judicial corruption.
He who gives judgment for the wicked and he who condemns the righteous
Are both of them an abomination to Yahweh.
Simple affirmation, quaternary-ternary (or, binary-ternary). The
offence described is that of the unjust judge, controlled by preju-
dice, passion, servility to governors, or a bribe. The Heb. of
first cl. contains an assonance that cannot well be imitated in
modern English, somewhat as he who 7'ights the wrong and he
who zvrongs the right (the verb right as in Shakspere, Rich. III.
I, 3). The rendering of ^W., justifies (that h, pronounces Just),
now conveys a wrong impression, one too distinctly ethical, and
acquits is too narrow a term, since the bad man is not necessarily
the defendant in the trial. From this Heb. word the forensic ex-
T^XQ?,%\on justify has passed into NT. (Rom. 3^, etc.). Wicked is
* Schult. De. al. take it (from Arab, and Syr.) to mean show the teeth (in sign
of anger), whence qiiarrel ; according to others (Siegfried (?/.) it means break
forth (in a hostile way).
346 PROVERBS
he whose cause is bad, righteous he whose cause is good. On
abomuiation see note on 3^^ For the idea of the couplet cf. Ex,
23^ Dt. 25' Isa. 5^3 I K. S^*- Job 34^^ ./^ 94'^ Pr. 24^
16. Wisdom is beyond the fool's reach.
If the fool has money to buy wisdom,
What boots it, since he has no mind?
Question, really prose, but arranged in ternary form. Lit. why
(or, of 7v hat avail) is there a price in the fooPs hand to buy wis-
dom, and intellect (lit. heart) there is none ? Grk. : 7vhy has a
fool wealth ? for a dolt cannot buy wisdom. The term fool ap-
pears to refer to both intellectual and moral weakness, since wis-
dom in Pr. is commonly employed in the wider sense. There
may be an allusion to attendance, by mentally and morally weak
persons, on the instruction of sages ; but, as it is doubtful whether
fees were taken by the Jewish teachers, the proverb may merely
affirm that wisdom cannot be got without certain qualities of
mind. Here, as elsewhere in the Book, the fool is absolutely ex-
cluded from the domain of wisdom, and nothing is said of a
change of mind whereby he may enter it. De. cites the " golden
proverb " of Democritus : " there are many who have learning
without mind (vow)"; but the antithesis of Pr. goes deeper —
the fool is not merely lacking in breadth and fineness of intellect-
ual apprehension, he is also unsympathetic toward all knowledge
and wisdom. Mind is properly " capacity to learn," which here
probably involves "disposition to learn." — The Grk. adds a
couplet made up from v.''''^ and v.^. ,
17. Value of friendship.
A friend is always friendly,
A brother is born for adversity.
Identical, ternary. As symbols of steadfast, helpful affection
friend and brother are here (as in \\i 35", cf 2 Sam. i-®) equiva-
lents : one is loving at all times, even in times of trial ; the other
is born for ( = intended for, adapted to, exercises his specific
function in) adversity, the occasion which most severely tests
friendship. — Many recent translators (De. Reuss, Kamp. RV
marg. al.) adopt the rendering and is born as a brother for (or,
XVII. I5-I8 347
in) adversity, that is, the true friend, in time of trial, is, as it were,
born anew into blood-kinship and assumes the role of brother.
This translation gives substantially the same sense as the other,
identifying /r/*?//^/ and brother in respect of faithfulness, but is less
natural, and less exact. — Some interpret the second line as ex-
pressing a contrast to (and an advance on) the first line, with the
sense : "a friend, it is true, is always friendly, but in time of trial
it is the brother (at other times indifferent) that comes forward " ;
but the term always appears to include times of trial ; the friend
is not friendly in fair weather only, and the brother does not con-
fine his kindness to seasons of adversity. A brother is a natural
representative of unselfish love; but Pr. in two places (iS''-* 19')
represents the fraternal relationship as far from perfect, and in
two places (18-^ 27'") puts it below the relationship of friend or
neighbor — that is, it estimates the bond of social affection as
higher than that of blood. — On the value of friendship see BS.
^14-16 2 22"\ The love of sister for brother or of brother for sister is
nowhere directly spoken of in OT. (in 2 Sam. 13^ Absalom is
next of kin and natural protector), but the word sister is used as
— dear friend (7'* Cant. 4^^/.).
18. Folly of going security.
Vuid of sense is he who pledges himself,
Who becomes security to another.
Identity of predicates, quaternary or ternary. Pledges himself is
lit. strikes hands ; on the expression see notes on 6^ 11'^. The
another refers to the creditor. To another is lit. in the presence
of his neighbor. Ork. : for his own friends, with the same gen-
eral sense. Similar warnings are given in 6'"^ 11''' 20'*^ 22'-*' 27"
BS. 29"*^-'". The O T. law says nothing of such security ; the cus-
tom arose, doubtless, in the later commercial life.
19, 20. Strife and falseness are destructive.
19. He loves < wounds > who loves strife,
He who <■ talks > proudly seeks destruction.
20. A false heart tinds no good,
A lying tongue falls into calamity.
348 PROVERBS
19. Chiastic parallelism, quaternary (or, binary). Instead of
wounds the Heb. has sin, not here appropriate, the corresponding
term in second cl. being destruction ; the emendation requires
only a slight change in the Hebrew. In second cl. the text reads :
he who makes high his door, which is understood to refer to the
pride and ostentation shown by building the house-door high*;
but no such custom is known to have existed in antiquity, and the
parallelism calls for an expression referring to strife ; the change
of a letter gives the reading makes high his mouth, = speaks lof-
tily, haughtily ; cf. the similar expression s/>eak loftily in i Sam. 2^1
— The parallelism involves the idea that proud words occasion
strife, and strife is always injurious, often destructive. Cf. ii^
i8^^ 20^ 29"^. — 20. Synonymous, binary-ternary. Lit. //if 7vho is
false in heart (= mind, inward being) and he who is false in
tongue; on the first of these terms {ox false see note on 2^* — it
means " that which deviates from the straight line," " morally
crooked"; the second means " that which is turned away from
the proper form." Finds = meets witli. T\\& good and cala?nit}'
(lit. evil) relate not to moral advantage or disadvantage, but, as
appears from the whole course of thought in the Book, to external
prosperity or adversity ; it would, besides, be tautological to say
that the liar is not morally good.
21. Children not always a joy.
He who begets a dolt does it to his sorrow,
And the father of a fool has no joy.
Identical, ternary. The two terms dolt (Heb. kes'il) and fool
(Heb. naif a I) are here practically identical in meaning. The
former (which occurs nearly fifty times in Pr., see note on i^")
is " dull, slow-witted," intellectually, morally, or religiously ; the
latter (found elsewhere in Pr. only in 17' 30", and less than
twenty times in the whole OT.) commonly, outside of Pr., relates
to religious folly. Here the reference may be to intellectual and
moral stupidity, or to the intellectual sort alone. Cf. v.^ of this
chapter, and BS. 22^ — Grk. (imitating 10^) adds: but a wise
* The Grk. has : who makes his house high.
t Ahen Ezra, Schult. al. interpret door a.s = mouth, but this is an improbable
metaphor.
XVII. 19-22 349
son makes a glad mother, an antithesis which might naturally have
been appended by a scribe.
22. Cheerfulness is health.
A cheerful heart is a good medicine,
But a broken spirit dries up the bones.
Antithetic, quaternary (or, binary). Cf. is"*, to first cl. of which
our first cl. is conformed by some critics ; but the variation of the
Heb. seems more probable. On heart and spirit see notes on 2^
and 11"^; both terms here relate to temper of mind — in first cl.
we have a cheery, courageous nature, in second cl. a broken-spir-
ited, dejected, downcast nature. In first cl. the predicate is lit.
causes good healing (or, recovery). The hones, as skeleton, repre-
sent the whole body ; they may be vigorous, fat, full of marrow
(3* 15'''' \(i^^ Isa. 58"), or feeble, rotten, eaten by caries (12^ 14^"
\\i 3i>"(^i' Job 30^") ; in this verse the dryness is contrasted with
\\\& fatness (fulness of marrow) of healthy bones. The reference
is primarily to the physiological effect of temper of mind, and
then, perhaps, to the general effect on life ; as to the old-Hebrew
conception of the relation of the bones to the rest of the body,
the process of nourishment in bones, and the relation of mind to
body we have no precise information. For similar sayings among
other peoples see Malan ; on ancient medicine see art. Medicine
in Smith, Diet, of Bible.
14. Tioip or -\ao is better than J^ tj'o (so Gr.). — On the stem ySj see Schult.
Ges. Thes. BDB. From Arab, it appears to signify uncover, disclose (= Heb.
n'^j), then show the teeth, quarrel, rage ; the last-named meaning suits the use
of the Hith. in Pr.; Gr. (after Nidda, viii. 2) takes it as = burst forth (so also
Siegf.); Heb. nSi, Syr. v'S', Arab. >•■", seem to be different stems. Frank.,
in opposition to the rendering before there be conflict, says that ^n'^ is never
used in dehortation, but always introduces something that actually precedes;
yet cf. Gen. 27^ inb ■'Jd'^. — (S is partly corrupt, partly based on a different
Heb. text from ours: ^^ouc/ai/ hih^jiaiv perh. = las gives f-ee course (but Jag.
refers to i/- 22^) ; X67ots = 3^" (instead of D"!:) ; Sixaioo-i/j'T/s is perh. for 5ia5t-
Kac/as and ^cSe/as for di/aiSefas (''^1^"') (Jag)- — S read ^"■' for ST, and
perh. a-iin for p'^irn (Baum.); % appears to expand ,S (cf. Pinkuss); IL*" et
antequam patiatur contutneliam (perh. = before he is stripped) judicium dese-
rit. — 16. On the arrangement of lines in (S see note on v.^^ below. — 17. To
take ms'? as = in adversity is perh. possible, Ijut is here hardly natural. — In ''
(55 has a doublet, the second niemjjer of which is al)ri(lge(l; or this secoml line
350 PROVERBS
may be an interpretative gloss. ^ y-in was, according to Jag., understood by
® as Hif. Impv. of r\y-\ make thee a frietid. — 18. ©IL take q^ yp.-i as a gesture
of joy. — 1^ in;n ^iih; Gr., retaining sense of J^, -i j^d*?; Bi., after <S (rwv
koMTov <pi\<i)v) ^ijn';-, making the reference general — the nature of the warning
is not thereby affected. — 19. J^ i'i's; Gr, ysD, which is preferable. — In @
the order of lines differs from that of J^ : after v.^^ come v.'^** and a modified
form of V.20, then vP (^'th doublet), is. i9a. 20. the change is due to an error of a
Grk. scribe. — ^ 'H-d; (5 rhv eavrov oIkov, = 1.-13 or in^3, a good sense, but
not preferable to that of J^. It is better, however, with Frank., to read id; cf.
the combination of n^i with -\2i, I Sam. 2^, — 21. |§ -i*^-; @ KapSla, = aS.
here inapposite and against the parallelism ; it is perh. induced by the k. of
v.2^. — 22. j^ in I is most naturally connected with the verb of Hos. 5^^, and
so, = healing. The similarity to 151* has suggested the sense face, for which,
however, there is no authority (see Arab. rr\\ and nji). The primitive signifi-
cation of the stem is uncertain; cf. Syr. xi% flee, withdraw (whence perhaps
our noun, = cessation, betterment), and see notes of De. Now., and the lexi-
cons. @ eieKTelv; S© read niu body, and Dys. Gr. emend to mj.
23. Wickedness of taking bribes.
A wicked man accepts a bribe
To pervert the course of justice.
Single sentence, ternary. Lit. . . . accepts a bribe from the bosom
(that is, of a briber) . . . the ways of Jus/ice. On bosom as = a
part of a garment, and on its use as pocket see notes on 6^ 16^ ;
on bribe (lit. gift) see v.* above, and on the power of gifts cf.
2I^^ The rendering . . . takes a bribe from {his ow7i) bosom
(that is, in order to corrupt a judge and pervert justice), while
possible, accords with the Heb. and with parallel sayings less well
than the translation above adopted. The wicked man is here the
corrupt judge or other influential person.
24, 25. Inanity and oppressiveness of the fool.
24. The goal of the man of understanding is wisdom,
The fool's eyes roam over all the world.
25. A foolish son is a grief to his father
And bitterness to her that bare him.
24. Antithetic, ternary. Lit. in front of the tnan of understand-
ing is ivisdom, but the eyes of the fool are on the ends of the earth.
The matt of understanding (see S** 17'" 2^) is he who compre-
XVII. 23-26 351
hends the issues of life, and makes it his aim to attain the true
principle and law of conduct (the divine law implanted in the
mind of man) ; the fool, on the other hand (Heb. kesil, see v.''*),
lacking in insight and stability, is incapable of fixing his attention
on any one thing, and therefore does not seek wisdom. The in-
terpretation " the man of sense sees wisdom everywhere, the fool
seeks it unsuccessfully everywhere" (Ew. al.) is improbable —
the fool is not represented in Pr. as seeking wisdom except in the
moment of final deadly peril (i^*), while the reference here is to
the man's ordinary thought, and the point is his lack of serious-
ness ; cf., on the other hand, the attitude of the scoffer in 14^
For the expression ends of the earth see Jer. 25^ Dt. 28*^ i/^ 135^
Mt. 12*^ al.; it denotes the extremities of the then known world,
that is, the region south of Ethiopia, the south of Arabia, the
region just east of the Tigris (perhaps to the centre of Asia), Asia
Minor, and the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. — 25. Identical,
ternary-binary. The proverb is a variation of 10^ x'^^ if^. Fool
{kesil) as in v.^^-^^ — Delitzsch makes 17^-18^ a separate section
on the ground that it begins and ends with the same thoughts
which open and close the preceding passage, \f^'^^; but the
repetition of a proverb hardly warrants such a division ; see the
Introduction.
26. Against injustice under forms of law.
The first hne of the Heb. is clear :
Also to fine the righteous is not good.
The word also (= intensive and), which implies a conjunction or
contrast with something that precedes, is here without significance,
unless we suppose a lost line or couplet with which this line or
this couplet stands in contrast (possibly 18"') ; and even if the
order of lines in the couplet be inverted, the word will still be in-
apposite, since the relation of thought between the two lines does
not call for such an emphatic connective ; the rendering even
(Kamphausen: already') is, for the same reason, improper. —
Fine (usually employed of a pecuniary mulct, Dt. 22^^ al.) may
= more generally punish (as in 22"''). Not good = not proper. —
The second line may be rendered : To smite the noble for upright
352 PROVERBS
ness (RV.), or: ... against equity, = unjustly (Frank. <?/.), or:
. . . is against equity, = is imseemly (Wild.). The first sense is
improbable : in first line the bad act is simply punishing a just or
righteous man (without the addition " for his justice or righteous-
ness"), nor in fact is the "noble" man commonly assailed "for
(= on account of) his nobleness," but in a rapacious spirit which
cares not whether its victim be noble or ignoble, or his cause just
or unjust. The second rendering (in which the expression is not
good must be supplied from first line) involves a tautology — any
punishment of a righteous man must be unjust. The third ren-
dering gives a distinct parallelism of predicates in the clauses.
Kamphausen changes the text and renders : to smite the noble is
so in high degree (that is, is emphatically not good), but the trans-
lation is doubtful, and a climax here is improbable. — If the word
noble be retained, it must, from the parallelism, be understood in
a moral sense, as = i-ighteous. It may mean nobleman, prince
(8^® 25^ Job 12^^ i/' 118" al.), or willing, freehearted (Ex. 35^), but
also, apparently, morally noble : thus in v.^ of this chapter it is
put over against fool, and in Isa. 32^"^ is contrasted with fool and
knave. — Another emendation of text (Frank.) gives the reading :
to oppress {him) in court imjustly (or, inequitably) , to which the
tautology {oppress . . . unjustly) seems a decisive objection.
Probably the second line should be read either : // is not seemly
(or, fair) to oppress the upright, or : // is not seemly to pen'ert
justice. Cf. 18*, which appears to be a variation of this couplet,
and after it our line might be read : to oppress the upright in
court.
27, 28. Value of silence. — Identical, quaternary-ternary (or,
ternary).
27. He who is sparing of words is wise,
A man of cool spirit is judicious.
28. Even a fool, if he hold his peace, is accounted wise,
Sensible, if he keep his lips shut.
27. Cf. 10". First cl. lit. , . . knows knowledge; cf. ^,know
understanding. The man of cool spirit (lit. he who is cool of
spirit) is one who maintains composure and self-control, is not
under the dominion of excited feeling, and is therefore cautious in
xviT. 26-28 353
speaking ; the proverb is primarily directed not against literary
loquacity (though this may well be included), but against lan-
guage which may stir up ill feeling. — Subjects and predicates
may be inverted, so as to read : The wise man is sparing of words,
the judicious man is cool. — The ancient Heb. editors (in the Ma-
sora) read, in second cl., he who is precious (= costly, dear, rare)
of spirit, which is interpreted by Rashi (perhaps guided by first
cl.) to mean he who is sparing of words, by others of worthy bear-
ing (Saadia) or character (Schult. AV.). The two last render-
ings are tautological (cf. De.) ; the translation cool (which is
generally adopted by recent expositors) seems satisfactory ; Grk.
longanimous ; Targ. humble. — Wise, lit. a man of tvisdom (or,
comprehension). — 28. The meaning is not that the fool shows
wisdom in keeping silence, but that silence conceals folly, and is,
moreover, commonly regarded as a sign of profundity. See many
proverbs, similar to these two, in Malan's Notes.
23. ® gives a very free rendering of the whole couplet as a single sentence,
and adds a doublet of the second half; see Lag.'s attempt to explain the word-
ing, and Baum.'s criticism of Lag. ■ — Si he who receives bribes is wicked, and per-
verts the tuay of justice, less probable than ||J. — 24. "^ n tn alongside of, in
front of; Gr. emends improperly to -i 1 "-n" toward. Before )i' Bi. inserts c'v,
unnecessarily; sense and rhythm in |fc| are good. In (SSi^T "N is not ren-
dered. — With (@'"'- ^^^- '^'^ the Grk. text is better read -Kpiaw-Kov <tvv€tov d.v8pbs
ffo<})6v, (@s giving no sense (Lag.). The ]'^n rejoice of ST''"!? must be emended,
after S, to ]'y"n look, as in the Breslau Codex (Pink.). — 26. Omit 3) as mean-
ingless ( f. note on v.''^^ below). The "^ before p-^i" is improbable, since t'y; is
elsewhere followed by noun without Prep, (see 21'^); we should perh. read
tyh (see the ^ in *>) ; the insertion of the Prep, before the noun may be error
of eye, or may be due to an Aramaic-speaking scribe. — |^ ~rn^; better r^n'rh
(Frank.). For a-i) cf. Arab. D-"] active, excellent ( = physically or morally good),
and Eth. JTip exposed to peril {= pressed on) ; the stem perhaps = fnove on,
press forivard. — ^^ tu'^ '•'-'•; affords no satisfactory sense; read 1 "^ S3 (Gr.), as
(5 ov5i: Sffioj' (Dys. -\t'' ^^1) ; the emendation n"' ^^" superabundantly (Kamp.)
does not accord with the context. SST who say what is right ; IL qui recta
judical. — 27. K ipi; Q -\p-. The latter is followed freely by (53C1L and the
medieval Jewish interpreters, the former by S — 28. |tj :2i introduces a con-
trast between the '^in and the naturally suggested a^n (in v.^" there is no
such natural suggestion of contrast between pix and j-'-'i)- — (5 dcoTjTv iwepw-
T-qcravTi (^^'-\i'.) (TO(f>lav (TO(f>la (T,.3n) XoyiffdrjcreTai, an improbable reading.
Gn the unimportant coujilet added in (S ^- '''^ to v.'^', and apparently a free
variation of v.''^*, see Lag. — S repeats Ji'nOD in ^.
2A
354 PROVERBS
XVIII. 1. Our Heb. reads: One who separates himself (or,
holds himself aloof, or, is alienated) seeks desire, quarrels with
(or, rages against) all wisdom (or, quarrels by every means).
This is now generally held to mean that one who holds himself
aloof from his friends or from society follows his own selfish de-
sires and ambitions, and opposes everything reasonable.* This
observation, however, does not accord with the tone of Proverbs.
The character thus described is that of a man who, wrapped up
in himself, ignores the interests and claims of the community, and
thus becomes an enemy of society. The same thought, in ecclesi-
astical form, is expressed in Hillel's saying {Pirke Aboth, 2, 4) :
"separate not thyself from the congregation," that is, "be not a
separatist, a free-lance or schismatic, do not withdraw thyself
from the mass of behef and custom represented by the commu-
nity " — an idea natural to an Israelite of the later time, but, in its
broader form improbable for the sages of Proverbs. — Grk. (fol-
lowed by Lat.) has : a man who wishes to separate from friends
seeks pretexts, but at all times he will be liable to reproach (or, per-
haps, and . . . will be full of reproach), which reads pretext for
desire and will be reproached for will quar?-el, and adds from
friends. This reading is adopted substantially by Hitzig and
Frankenberg. The latter renders : the alienated friend seeks an
occasion [of quarrel], seeks by all means to stir up strife, which in
its homely tone resembles other aphorisms of the Book, but
appears to be over-cynical. The renderings at all times (Grk.)
dixAby all means (Frank.) are doubtful. Hitzig's translation is
not more satisfactory : he who is excluded [by men from th^ir
society] seeks afi occasion, gnashes his teeth against all that is ben-
eficial [to others]. It seems impossible to get a satisfactory
sense from the Hebrew, and no good emendation presents itself.
2. The fool's fatuousness.
A fool takes no pleasure in sound sense.
But rather in revealing his nature.
* So Luth. RV. Ew. De. al. For the views of the early commentators see Crit-
ici Sacri and Geier. Aben Ezra explained it as referring to the traveller who
leaves home in order to search out all knowledge. So nearlv B. Hodgson (Ox-
ford, 1788) : A retired man pursueth the researches he delighteth in, and hath
pleasure in each branch of science, a pleasing picture, but forbidden by the verb
of the second clause.
XVIII. 1-3 355
Antithetic, ternary. On fool {kesil) see notes on i^^ 17^^ Sound
sense is comprehension and the conduct which follows therefrom ;
see note on 2^. The second cl. is lit. but in his tnind^s [^hear/'s]
disclosing itself. The fool, that is, having no inkling of what is
wise and noble, has fatuous satisfaction in following out and man-
ifesting his intellectual and moral feebleness, which he regards as
wisdom.
3. Vice entails disgrace.
When i wickedness > comes then comes also contempt.
And on i insolence > follows scorn.
Synonymous, binary (or, quaternary-binary) . The Heb. reads :
when the wicked man comes, comes also contempt, and ivith dis-
grace is scorn. The reading wickedness (obtained by a change
of vowels) is favored by the form of expression of first cl., by the
second cl., and by the parallel line in 1 1^ {comes pride, then comes
disgrace). — Of the three other nouns of our Heb. the first and
third are active (expressing one's feeling toward a person), the
second is passive (expressing the state of the despised person).
The relation of the nouns of first cl. to each other is ambiguous :
the contempt may be felt by the wicked for others, or by others
for him ; the second sense is favored by the parallelism (the
scorn of second cl. is directed toward the bad man), and by such
proverbs as ii^ — The second cl. in our Heb. affords no satisfac-
tory sense. Disgrace cannot be taken (Zockler) as = shameful
conduct (synonymous with 7vickedness) . The couplet is by some *
understood to mean : " the wicked man despises others, but with
the disgrace which he inflicts on others comes scorn from others
for him," a forced interpretation of second cl. Others,t following
the Grk., read : " When the wicked comes, comes also contempt,
disgrace, and scorn," which is grammatically and rhythmically
improbable. A slight change of text gives the reading for sec-
ond cl. \ : and with him are disgrace and scorti, that is, he (the
wicked man) inflicts these on others ; this (identical in sense
with Fleischer's rendering, but grammatically better) is intel-
ligible, but is not quite natural. — A parallel to first cl. is got if
• Strack, al. t With Fleischer. X Gratz, Bickell.
356 PROVERBS
(by an easy change of consonants) we substitute insolence (or,
pride) for disgrace : " with wickedness is contempt, with pride is
scorn." The ambiguity of direction in scorn remains ; for the
reasons given above it is better to take it as felt toward the bad
man. Grk. and Lat. regard the cojitempt of first cl. as inflicted
by the wicked ; in second cl. Lat. makes him the sufferer, Grk. is
doubtful. — On contempt, disgrace, scorn see notes on 1 2^ 3"^ 6'^.
The distinction made by Delitzsch, that the first and third of
these terms relate to words, and the second to conduct, is not
warranted by OT. usage.
4. The Heb. text reads : The words of a man''s mouth are deep
waters, a flowing brook, a ivellspring of wisdom. This unre-
stricted statement does not accord with the thought of Prov., in
which no such excellence is ascribed to men in general (in 12"
the text is to be changed) ; nor can we take man as = " the ideal
man," or paraphrase (Ew. De.) "it often happens that the words,"
etc. — this is not in the manner of the Book. As the couplet
stands, the man must be qualified by some term like " good," or,
" wise," and the second cl. must be regarded as continuing the
predicate of first cl. To take second cl. as an independent sen-
tence, and describe the wellspring of ivisdom as a flowing brook
(RV.) is to introduce an impropriety of language — a fountain is
not a brook ; and the rendering the words, etc., are deepetied
tvaters [that is, of a cistern, which is exhaustible], the wel/spring,
etc., is a flowing [or, bubbling, = inexhaustible] brook (Hitz.)
supposes a meaning ("deepened") which the Heb. does not
permit, and thus introduces an unwarranted antithesis between
"man's words" and "wisdom." — The two lines of the couplet
do not agree well together. A comparison like that of our first cl.
is found in 20', but in a sense which is hardly applicable here :
there a man's secret thought is compared to " deep water," as
hard to fathom and get possession of; here the deep water is
rather the symbol of inexhaustible supply, a sense which is given
by the parallel terms flowing brook and tvellspring. This inex-
haustibleness cannot be meant to be affirmed of men in general ;
the man must be defined. We may supply righteous (as in 10"),
or wise (cf. 13^* i6'^), but then the ivisdom of second cl. will not
XVIII. 3-5 357
be appropriate — it is not naturally related to "righteous," and,
with " wise " in first cl., it would produce an identical proposition.
Further, the itrm foun/ain (Heb. tnaqor), when it is used meta-
phorically, always occurs elsewhere in connection with the idea of
"hfe" (5^« lo" 13" 14^' i62-^ Jer. 2^^ if^ if, 36'W 68^<^^0, and the
definition /(fe here suits the context better than wisdom. The ex-
pression fountai7i of life may mean either " fountain of life-giving
water," or " perennial fountain " ; the latter sense accords with
the parallel brook. The reading life, instead of wisdom, is found
in the Grk. and in a few Heb. MSS. ; the testimony of the latter
is not of great value, and the Greek reading may be a correction
after lo^^ But the usage of Prov. must be allowed to have
weight, and we should perhaps read the couplet : The words of
the wise are deep waters, a flowing brook, a perennial fountain,
that is, an inexhaustible source of counsel and blessing. — On
word dii equivalent to thought see note on 10".
5. Against legal injustice.
To favor the guilty is not good,
Nor to oppress the innocent in court.
Identical thought with antithesis of terms, ternary. A forensic
saying, = 17^® (cf. 17^') ; guilty and innocent axe the terms usually
rendered wicked and righteous respectively. Favor is lit. lift up
the face, that is, " raise a suppliant from the ground in token of
favor" (Lev. 19'^ Mai. i* 2^ Job 13^ ^\i 82^, and the verb alone in
Gen. i9^\ = accept) ; the implication here is that the flivoring is
unjust. — The Heb. of second cl. reads: to oppress (lit. turn
aside, that is, from one's rights), etc., which may be taken to
mean so as to oppress, etc. (RV. marg.), but it is more natural to
understand second cl. as simply parallel to first cl. Court is lit.
judgment, = legal decision. Lat. : that thou mayest decline from
the truth of justice (reading truth or righteousness instead of right-
eous). Grk. (expressing the implied adjective) : nor is it holy to
pervert justice in judgment. Cf. i K. 21^^^ Am. 5^ Isa. i'^ Jer.
22'' Ez. 22'- al.
XVIII. 1. T0 -11X-; @ Trpofpda-eis, = njNP, as in Ju. 14* (Capp. Cri/. Sac. 4,
5, 13), which should, perhaps, be adopted; cf. 2 K. 5''. Possibly jj-\j slanderer
should be read instead of 'io'; cf. 16^*; the '^ of J^ appears to be taken by (S
358 PROVERBS
as sign of Ace. — J^ n^rin ^j3; <@ 4v vavTl Kaipy, perh. free rendering of J^;
on 'n see Lag on this passage. — |^ >7)-^; ® iiroveidia-Tos, = '^^'^;3:^^^ or i^Vn''
(Capp. 4, 7, 3). — On S and ST see notes of Pink, and Baum. — 2. <5 AYerat
(supplied by the translator) is apparently scribal error for Ayarai (Jag.), and
a<f>po(Tvvri is interpretation of J§ u'r' .'?j.-n, or perh. (Gr. Baum.) represents
nSSn (which, however, it does not represent in Eccl. lo*^). — 3. |§ ;'C^ and
i':'|-'; read •;iff-\_ and Jif. — r3, i'?]-, nij-in, are general terms for contempt, which
is naturally often expressed by words, sometimes also by deeds; see 12*^ 6^',
335 ^ 8^17^ 533 ju_ ^i8_ Bj (an(j go Gr. doubtfully) reads -"D^Ji. — (5 ei's /3a^oj
is ingeniously explained by Jag. as = aixa r'w/o the pool (for |^ Di n2), but it
is doubtful whether /3d^os would be used for sjn, a word which (@ elsewhere
in OT. perfectly understands; one might rather think of pD;'; cf. ^adii in v.*,
3^ npcj.'. — 4. For rs ■'s read ddh (Gr. njpn r.s), and for neon read 3"n (so (@
and several Heb. MSS.). — <@ \670s iv Kapdig. a.v5p6s, = C'.s 3'?2 13-', in which
aSa appears to have arisen out of |^ s^^2 (in ^d iO"^), the 1 and d becoming >
and 3 (Lag.). — <3 dmirijSuet Lag. regards as error for avaindvei.
6-8. Foolish and slanderous talk.
6. The lips of a fool lead him into strife,
And his mouth brings on him stripes.
7. A fool's mouth is his ruin,
And his lips a snare to him.
8. The words of a slanderer are like dainty morsels.
They penetrate into the innermost recesses of a man.
6. Identical, ternary. Cf. 17"^^ iq^^ 20". Lit. come into strife,
= lead, etc, ; or a slight change of the Heb. will give lead (so
the Grk.). Brings on him is lit. calls for. The fool's thoughtless
or malicious words involve him in disputes (legal or other), which,
since he is in the wrong, entail punishment. — 7. Identical, bi-
nary-ternary. Cf. 12^^ 13* 17^^ The thought is the same as in
the preceding couplet. Ruin is to be taken as = " grievous ca-
lamity, crushing misfortune." The Heb. is lit. a snare to his
person {\\i. soul) , — to himself — 8. Comparison explained, ter-
nary. The couplet occurs again at 26-^ ; cf 16^*26^. Ihe slan-
derer is one who whispers malicious gossip, which, says the
proverb, is received by the hearers as eagerly as choice morsels
of food, and, like them, pass into men's being, and so affect their
thought and action. On other translations of the word here ren-
dered dainty morsels (such as sport or mockery, blows [AV.
7V0unds^ burning, tormenting, simple, reserved, soft) see critical
note below. The text does not express an antithesis in the two
XVIII. 6-9 359
lines : the words are soft (or, reserved), nevertheless they penetrate
(lit. go down) ; it is the quality of sweetness in the words that
makes them acceptable. The Heb. has lit. in second cl. go down
into the inner chambers of the belly, in accordance with the men-
tion of food in first cl. ; the expression the recesses of a /nan is
more appropriate to the acceptance of gossip. On inner cham-
bers (here = interior) see note on 7^. The proverb simply states
a fact — men's readiness to listen to malicious talk — without com-
ment. For the concluding phrase cf. 20^.
9. Sloth is destructive.
He who is slack in his work
Is brother to him who destroys.
Single sentence, binary-ternary. Against indolence and careless-
ness. The primary reference in work is probably to the ordinary
bread-winning occupations of life, but the term may include all
affairs, of friendship, statesmanship, etc. The slothful or indolent
man, the proverb declares, ruins things as effectually as the spend-
thrift or traitor or any one who sets himself to destroy. Indo-
lence, as an offence against physical well-being, is specially
denounced in Proverbs; so in 6^" 10^ 12^^ i^'^'^ 20*- ^^ 21^ 24'^'^*
26^^i« (cf. BS. 22' 2 4o2'^-50). Brother = "one of similar nature"
(so companion in 28'^''). Him who destroys is lit. a possessor
{—a dealer) of destruction ; the reference is not to robbers and
murderers, but simply to those who bring ruin on their own
affairs and those of others. Rashi explains the expression as
referring to Satan.
6. J^ Qal 1.S3-; ®E Hif. in3% unnecessary. — |^ n'^n'i'nc''; (5 rd Opaci)
dAvaTov; the last word seems to represent the three last letters of |^ (Jag.),
the rest is doubtful : Jag. suggests that (5 out of n^s made n::n (comparing
9'^ 20I), Baum. suggests n^hn (9I3 -yuv?? . . . dpaa-fia), and Levy {Chald.
Wort., s.v. Ni-i^n) -\,-ie'^ (out of '^nc':') ; the reading ncnn is the most probable.
— 8. On jnj see note on i628. — |^ ocnS-'C (found only here and in the
duplicate couplet 26'2) has been variously explained: i. (S (in 26-'2) naXaKoL
(which elsewhere in (5 = -\-^) ; cf. p^n 282" flattering (so Kimhi, Geier), and
Arab, nrn^ soft (Ew. compares Ci'0> or (Frank.) Aram, n'^n S7veet ; possibly
2 (26^2) iv irap^pycf) subordinate, incidental is here to be included, in the
sense o{ feigned, hut see below under sport. 2. Whisper, murmur (= B*n'^) ;
A (26'^2j yoTjTiKoL jugglers; Ew. suggests comparison with Aram. a>n as
360 PROVERBS
possible, = murmur, as expressing either the transient or the insinuating
character of words. 3. BT ?3ni disturb, vex (and so substantially 5>), as = qSh
strike ; so Immanuel (in Reuchlin), Rashi wounds (cf. an^, Heb. and Arab.)
or (26*^*) combatants, Luther, AV. (see text and margin), Levi, Vatablus those
who feigtt themselves wounded. Similar is 3C pi (26'-^'^) strike down, perh. scribal
variation of J3N1 (cf Levy). 4. S in <S" I'-''cr, = a.Kipat.01. (Middeldorpf Sko-
kol), 1L simplicia, 0 (26^^) e^aTrXo^/ue^'oi, perh. free rendering of <@, perh. error
of text. 5. Sport, play, taking nnV as = •nri^; so Saad. Mich. Zock. 6. Hidden
(Aben Ezra) , perh. with reference to Arab, an'', IV, or connected with whisper.
7. Burning (Ew.) = destructive (like poison), taking Dn> as = 2nS, — ^The
comparison with Arab, zrp swallow with avidity seems to be the most satisfac-
tory, though the rendering sweet morsels is possible. — <B omits the couplet,
substituting 19^^, but with changes (Jag. Lag.). — 9. |^ d:i, with reference to
other classes of persons who are destructive. Originally it may have pointed
to an immediately preceding statement; in the present connection it is with-
out significance.
10, 11. God and wealth as fortresses.
10, The name of Yahweh is a strong fortress.
To which the righteous runs and is safe.
11. A rich man's wealth is his strong city,
It is like a high wall in his estimation.
10. Single sentence, ternary (or, binary- ternary). The expres-
sion 7iame of Yahweh, common elsewhere in OT. (except in Ju.
Ru. Ezr. Esth. Job [discourses] Eccl. Cant.), is found in Pr. only
here (a similar expression in 30''). The name = \\\q person,
because it expressed his nature and qualities (as early names com-
monly did), and because in very ancient times the name was re-
garded (perhaps in consequence of its significance) as having an
objective existence and as identical with its possessor,* and the
locution which thence arose survived in later times when the old
crude conception had vanished. Every people came to associate
with the name of its god all that it attributed to the god. The
name Yahweh was significant to the Jews at this time not because
it was a " tetragrammaton " or had in it any mysterious meaning,
but because, as the proper name of the national deity, it repre-
sented for them all ideas of divine guidance and protection. On
the period of the history during which the name was commonly
employed see note on i^ The superstitious notions which were
* See Spencer, Social., \. 263 ; Jevons, Introd. to Hist, of Rel., pp. 245, 361 ;
Brinton, Rel. of Prim. Peoples, pp. 92 f.
XVIII. IO-I3 3^1
later attached to the " tetragrammaton" are unknown to the OT.*
Cf. Ex, 3". — Is safe, lit. is set on high or in a high place, where
he is safe from the attacks of enemies. The proverb affirms gen-
erally that God protects the righteous ; it says nothing of the
means employed. Cf. i/' 27^ — 11. Parallel comparisons, quater-
nary-ternary. Estimation, lit. picture, then, apparently, imagina-
tion, thought; cf. ^ 73^, and note on Pr. 25". A better
parallelism is given by reading : and like a high wall is his riches.
The Heb. appears to say that wealth is a protection not really,
but only in the opinion of its possessor ; this is possibly the cor-
rection of an editor who took offence at the role ascribed to
wealth. Whichever reading be adopted, the couplet simply states
a fact ; it is doubtful whether praise or blame is implied ; cf. 10^'',
in which our first cl. occurs. Wealth is regarded in Pr. sometimes
as a desirable source of power, sometimes as associated with im-
moral and irreligious pride. — From the collocation of v.'"" it
might be surmised that the former is a correction of the latter, or
a protest against it. Such protest may have been added or inserted
by an editor ; v." stood originally, no doubt, as a simple record of
observation.
12, 13, Danger of pride and hasty speech.
12. Pride goes before destruction,
And before honor humility.
13. He who answers before he hears,
It is folly and shame to him.
12. Antithetic, ternary-binary. Lit., in first cl., before destruction
a man (lit. a man's heart) is haughty ; see 16"^. The second cl.
occurs in I5'''''. — 13. Single sentence, ternary. Hears = " g\wGs
attention to " ; shame — " disgrace." Cf. BS. 11^, Firk. Ab. 5, 7.
14, 15. Value of courage and wisdom.
14. The spirit of a man sustains misfortune,
But a broken spirit who can l)ear?
15. The mind of the intelligent ac(iuires knowledge,
The ear of the wise seeks after knowledge.
* See Buxt. Lex. s. v. uho and 'J'tiio or. In Lev. 24'1- 1" " the Name " should
be read " the name of Yahweh " ; the " Yahweh " was omitted causa reverentiae by
late scribes.
362 PROVERBS
14. Implicit antithesis, ternary, = " an unimpaired spirit is strong,
a broken spirit is weak." Frankenberg, in first cl., not so well :
He who soothes a man sustains ( = controls) his anger. Spirit is
the inner being thought of as the seat of vigor and courage (as in
Eng. spirited^ ; broken = stricken, crushed. Sustain and bear are
here synonyms; the rendering raise up (RV. marg.), instead of
bear (= endure'), is here improbable. Mis/ortufie is lit. sickness
(RV. infirmity), here used of any suffering. The proverb records
a fact of human experience, the sense being : when the spirit,
which is the source of strength, is itself crushed, what help is
there? (for the rhetorical form cf. Mk. 9^''), and the implied ex-
hortation is : be brave, do not succumb to trouble. There is no
reference or allusion to divine aid. There is here a near approach
to the Greek conception of " courage " as a virtue, a conception
hardly elsewhere formulated in OT. — 15. Identical parallelism,
ternary. The first cl., with variation of verb, occurs in 15", in
which the second cl. introduces the foot as contrast. — Intelligent
(see note on 1*) and wise are synonyms, and so acquires and
seeks after. The word ear points to oral instruction. A progres-
sion of thought, such a.s : " the intelligent (the higher grade of
mind) already possesses knowledge, the wise (the inferior grade)
is only seeking it," is improbable. No such distinction exists in
Pr. between intelligent and wise.
16-18. Legal and other contests.
16. A man's gift makes room for him,
And brings him before great men.
17. The first comer is right in his plea,
Then comes the other and tests him.
18. The lot puts an end to disputes,
And decides between the mighty.
16. Synonymous parallelism, ternary. The gift is not intellectual
endowment,* a sense foreign to the Heb. term, nor the bounty
which a liberal man benevolently dispenses (19"), thereby gaining
friends, t nor precisely a bribe, but probably, as second cl. appears
to indicate, a present made to gi-eat and powerful men, whereby
they become well disposed to the giver, afford him protection and
* Hitzig. t De. Str. al.
XVIII. 14-19 3^3
aid, and he thus has room, a free field, access (as in second line)
to the presence of the patron. Cf. 17^ The custom of making
such presents to the great, common in Israel and elsewhere, was
notably prevalent in the Greek period of Jewish history ; see, for
ex., the stories of Joseph, Hyrcanus, and Herod in Jos. Ant. 12,
4, 2. 9; 14, 12, 2. — 17. Single sentence, with implied antithesis,
ternary-binary. First corner, he who first presents his cause
before the judge, and is naturally able to make out a good case ;
is right, that is, in appearance ; plea, lit. lawsuit (RV, cause) ;
the other, lit. his neighbor, the other party to the suit ; tests him,
lit. searches him, examines his argument, and presents the other
side. The first cl. may be translated he zuho is first in his plea
{K^. pleadeth his cause first) is right*; the sense remains the
same. — In Pirk. Ab. i, 8 it is said that the judge, so long as the
parties are in his presence, must regard both as guilty, that is,
must distrust both. — The proverb = audi alteratn partem. —
18. Synonymous, ternary-binary. On the employment of the lot
among the Israehtes see note on 16^^. In this case the contend-
ing parties, instead of going into court, agree to refer their dis-
pute not to an arbitrator, who would weigh the arguments and
decide like a judge, but to God, who was supposed to order the
drawing or casting of the lots in accordance with justice ; this
divine decision, if accepted in good faith, would at once stop con-
tention, even when the contestants were powerful. The questions
in which the lot was resorted to in the later time were, it is proba-
ble, chiefly or wholly such as concerned property rights of private
persons — political disputes would commonly be otherwise settled.
Decides is lit. separates, that is, parts the contestants, so that the
dispute ceases.
19. It is difficult, if not impossible, to construe the Heb. text.
Lit. : a brother sinned against (?) than a strong city, and disputes
are like the bar of a fortress. The translations sinned against
{^treated perfidiously, injured, offended)^ and who resists, sets him-
self in opposition f are grammatically doubtful. The insertions
harder, stronger, harder to be won, etc., before the comparative
sign than, are unwarranted ; it would be necessary, if the preced-
• So De. Reuss, al. f Rashi, RV. al. X Ew. Zock. al.
364 PROVERBS
ing word should be retained, to change thati to like (see second
hne). But even then the comparison of an injured friend and of
disputes to a fortified city or a fortress is strange and improbable.
It is not impossible that the couplet is a variant of v." of this
chapter (cf. 10^^), and should read: the rich mail's wealth is a
strong city, arid his riches is like the bars of a fortress. — Grk. : a
brother helped by a brother is like a strofig and lofty cit)', and is as
strong as a wellfounded palace. This is better than the Heb.,
but is still unsatisfactory — there is no reason why a brother
helped by a brother should be thus singled out. — For the bars of
cities and fortresses see Ju. 16^ i K. 4^^^ Isa. 45^ Neh. 3^, and cf.
Nowack, Arch. i. 142, 368 ff.
10. (5 iK fieyaKo}(rvvt]s, = SVjd (Jag.). — 11. |^ n^t'C (cf. 25") apparently
= "something graved or fashioned"; the meaning of the stem is uncertain,
Frank, suggests vsyDJ or vd^j, which is, perhaps, to be adopted. — 12. J^ !;'n
need not be omitted in the interests of the rhythm, since C'n 2^ may be
pronounced as one word. — 14. |tj '?^[]'" '■> <S depdiruv <f>pbviixos, according to
Jag., = n'inD (cf. 19'') one who carefully attends to him (see Lag.'s note),
which Frank, adopts, rendering : zver ihn schmeichelnd hesanftigt, and taking
ni as = anger, but the resulting line does not offer a good antithesis to second
line. — f^ nxpj n"i; % spiritum ad irascendttm facilem. — 17. K Nb"'; Q K31.
Either reading gives a good sense, but a connective is natural, and we should
perh. write N3m; a i may have fallen out by reason of preceding 1. — (5 eavroO
Karriyopos, = mr (l Sam. 2^') or m (Isa. 45^). — 18. ^ SVjn; (gABs- ffiyt}-
p6s {— (Tiyr)\6s) a silent man; better KXijpos, as in (g'^c. a. marg. ^11 ^/_ —
1^ acxv; Gr. suggests n:sj or D'i':2 contestants. — 19. |§ >'u'd) ns; (g (followed
by SSTiL) ddeXcpbs uTrd d5eX0oO ^orjdoijp.ei'os, = i'C'j nx, improbable in the con-
nection. The isolated ^'i^oi is suspicious; the Nif. occurs only here, and the
Qal is always followed by 3 or *?;?; De. compares "'Cp = ''S;» acp, but to this it
may be replied that the two forms are different (Frank.) — in the case of an
Act. Partcp. the construction is possible, but not in the case of Pass. Partcp.
See note on this v. above. — |^ i; niipr, though syntactically possible, is hard ;
the substitution of d for d is favored by ^ and by (gSiSTIL. — On K DJ-in,
Q OVID see critical note on 6'*. — 1§ pix ma's; (@, inverting order, oicnrep
Ted€fj,€\iwiJi^vov ^acrLXfwv as a firinly founded palace ; for t. (ABs a/.) Lag.
would read p.ejxoyXivp.ivov (^^ rt/.) barred,
20, 21. Power of the tongue.
20. From the fruit of the mouth comes requital to men,
The outcome of the lips they must bear.
21. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
They who use it must eat its fruit.
xviii. 19-22 365
20. Synonymous, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). The thought
is that of 12" 13"", on which see notes — a man must take the
consequences of his words, which are here regarded as expressing
his thought and nature. lAt. from the fruit of a tnaii's mouth his
belly is filled, the outcome (or, product) of his lips fills him. Fill
and belly belong to the figure employed (eating) — words are
spoken of as something that a man feeds on, they, by their conse-
quences, determine his position and fate, they bring requital, for
good or for evil according to their character. On outcome
{^ = produce, product) see notes on 3^". — 21. Synonymous, ter-
nary. See 13^ Good and bad speech are contrasted by their
results. The death and life are physical ; see notes on 3^ 5^.
Are in the power of ^= "are at the disposition of, are dealt out by."
Caution in speech is suggested, since words may bring the great-
est misfortune (the termination of earthly life) or the greatest
good fortune (a long and prosperous life). — In second cl. the
Heb. reads lit. they who love it (the tongue), which, in the con-
nection, can mean only they ivho air fond of using it, but the verb
is not natural, and the text is perhaps wrong. Grk. they who con-
trol it does not agree with the general form of the predicate of
second cl., or with the thought of first cl. ; the predicate to such
a subject should be will enjoy good. The suggestions of De., that
the it may refer to wisdom, or should be read Yahweh, are out of
the question. Cf. BS. 37^^.
22-24. Wife, wealth, friend.
22. If one finds a wife, it is a piece of good fortune,
A favor bestowed on him by Yahweh.
23. The poor man uses entreaties,
The rich man answers roughly.
24. There are friends who only seek society,
And there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
22. Synonymous, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). Lit. he who
finds a wife (that is, a good wife) finds good, and obtains favor
from Yahtveh, that is, he finds, not a good thing (RV.), but good
fortune, which, says second cl., he must regard as a special favor
from God, who bestows all good fortune (not " he may, in conse-
quence, expect favor from God"). Reuss : niixy congratulate
366 PROVERBS
himself, it is a favor from God. On the sentiment and on the
meaning of good (= capable) as used of a wife see 12* 19" ^^i^^^^
BS. f^ 25« 26i-='->='"-^« 2^ 40^3 (read prudeni wife) ; cf. h"^ Gen. 2''
Eccl. 9^ (for another view see Eccl. 7-**). Rashi : " he who finds
the law " ; Saadia sees in the wife an allusion to Eve. — Cf. 8^, in
which our second cl. occurs, the reference there being to the find-
ing of wisdom. Numerous similar sayings are cited by Malan. —
The Grk. adds : " he who puts away a good wife puts away good,
and he who retains an adulteress is foolish and ungodly," a scribal
addition intended to bring the thought of the couplet out more
fully. — 23. Antithetic, ternary (or, binary-ternary). The social
eminence and the rudeness of manner which sometimes accom-
pany wealth, and the social dependence and humble bearing of
the poor man — put by the proverb as a general rule ; this may
be taken as a testimony to the manners of the time (probably the
Greek period) ; cf. 22^ BS. 13^ — 24. Antithetic, ternary. Heb.,
first line : A man of frieiids is to be broken [= crushed, ruined'],
that is, his nominal friends, so far from helping him, will only use
him for their own purposes. This interpretation * is exaggerated
in its statement, does not offer a satisfactory antithesis to the
second line, does not follow the best Heb. text, and is in part a
doubtful translation. The expression man of friends, with the
sense " he who possesses (or, makes) many friends " is not quite
in accordance with OT. usage, in which the defining noun after
man states a personal quality or a characteristic occupation (see
3^ 10^^ 12^ 19^^ 29* Isa. 53^ \p 4i'<^*") ; thus in Gen. 46** the 7nen
of the flock means precisely not " men owning flocks," but " men
whose business is the tending of flocks." Apart from this the
parallelism (supported by a Jewish tradition) favors the reading
there are instead of man (the difference between the two is that
of a vowel), and first line might be rendered : there are fricrids
for being crushed, that is, who only bring ruin. But, since the
second line speaks of a steady, reliable friend, we expect in first
line a reference to superficial, untrustworthy (rather than to hurt-
ful) friends ; this reference is gained by giving to the verb the
sense of " friendly association," a sense which is found in several
* Adopted by Schultens, De. RV., and the majority of modern expositors.
XVIII. 22-24 3^7
Anc. Vrss.,* and is adopted by Luther, Mercer, Geier, AV. The
verbal form (the Prep, to + Infin. in the Heb.) must be under-
stood to express the purpose and function of the friends : they
seek only society, and are found wanting in time of stress, while,
on the other hand, there are friends who stand by a man in his
darkest days, and are more to be relied on than the nearest blood-
kinsman. Friends, says the sage, are of two sorts : some are fair-
weather comrades, but some are stout and faithful helpers. — The
\.t\xa.% friends (first line) axid friend (lit. iover, second Hne) are in
themselves synonyms — the difference between them here in-
tended is suggested by the context. The second line has some-
times been understood to refer to the Messiah. Cf. BS. 6^"
(especially v.^") 37* ^
20. Bi. omits the Prep, in ''n:i-, making the noun the subject of the verb —
possible, but unnecessary. — The reading 3'j u\v, suggested by Gr. (who refers
to 12I*) is here inappropriate. — 21. |^ st. 3t.s; (S Kparovvres, from tns,
which affords no good sense; all other ancient authorities and most moderns
follow ^, which can hardly be original. No good emendation has been sug-
gested; neither i^; {those who are subject to it) nor \..t^ {those who give heed
to if) (Gr.) is satisfactory. Rashi : "he who loves his tongue and exercises
himself in the law." Saadia : " according as he loves one or the other "
(death or life). — 22. The insertion of r\y^ after nrs ((SS^TIL) is natural, but
unnecessary (cf. Eccl. 7'^*). — On the couplet added in (S (and in SIL) see
note on this proverb above ; ^ follows closely the norm of "^^ and '^ is the
natural antithesis. — 23. Lacking in (g-^^B • ^ given in S" and H-P 23. 103. al.;
see notes of H-P, Field, Lag. — 24. |§ >.P'"> not from >"; (Gr. Ven.), or ;?i
bad (Zock. al.'), but from •;"> break. Read r-n"-, from i.n (so SKiL®-''). —
1^ Z'H is read u'; by 2C Hitz. Lowenstein, Frank, al., and is, from the parallel-
ism, to be adopted. Baer (in App. Crit. to the B-D ed. of Prov.) observes
(from the Masora) that this is one of the three occurrences of cw, in which
B" is to be e.xpected, the others being 2 Sam. 14'^ Mic. 6^''; see Kunhi, Libr.
Rad., s.v. .:"s. — The couplet, like the preceding, is wanting in (g^ui.^ found
in II-P 23 al.; >j,n.inS is rendered by toO eraipeva-acrdai, cf. IL ad societatcm.
S'* a matt loves himself in order that he may be loved, either a free rendering
of (5, or a corrupt Syr. text. The construction of ||J is periphrastic future,
= nnS 7\-'7\, is going to be (or, is to be) ruined. In the emended text > + Inf.
expresses purpose. Cf. critical note on 19^.
* Targ. Lat. and some Grk.
368 PROVERBS
XIX. 1-4. Poverty, wealth, folly.
1. Better is a poor man, upright in life,
Than he who is false in speech, even though he be « rich.'
2. To act without reflection is not good.
He who is hasty in action fails of his aim.
3. A man's folly ruins his affairs.
And then he is angry with God.
4. Wealth adds many friends.
But the poor man — his (one) friend withdraws.
1. Comparison, antithetic, ternary. In first cl., lit. who walks in
his uprightness {or, perfectness). Speech is lit. lips ; on false (RV.
perverse) see note on 2^^. Instead of rich the Heb. has a fool.
The couplet occurs again at 28^, with rich instead oi fool, a read-
ing here required both by the parallelism of the clauses {poor
. . . rich) and by the obviously intended antithesis in second cl. :
the though he be (lit. and he is) naturally introduces something
which might appear to oppose the better, but fool could only
strengthen the comparison. Ewald thinks that rich was the orig-
inal reading, but retains fool on the ground that this expression
( = haughty) is a synonym of rich * ; but this is obviously not
true in Pr. — the poor may be upright, but he is never identical
with the religiously h; mble ; and the rich, though he may be arro-
gant, is always the ';; ^f physical wealth. — 2. Synonymous,
ternary. Against less. The Heb. begins with the word
also, which is s' ificam uere only in case it is intended to add
heedlessness to falsity (v.^) as a thing not good, and this is hardly
probable. — The first half of first cl. is defective, lit. without
knowledge of soul, that is, " in the soul," = without reflection, as
appears from the parallel haste of second cl. ; the verb, act or be,
must be supplied, and soul should perhaps be omitted. The Heb.
word for soul may also mean self or desire, but the renderings to
be without self-knowledge (Ew.) and desire without reflection
(Hitz.) are not in accordance with the usage of the Book. The
translation that the soul be without knowledge (RV.) is grammati-
cally untenable. So, also, the interpretation : when one pays no
regard to his desires (that is, denies himself all pleasures, in order
* So Zock. De. Nowack al. The reading rich is adopted by Gratz and Kamp-
hausen.
XIX. 1-6 369
to save money) , that is not good, is hardly to be obtained from
the Heb., and is not a probable reflection for Pr. The last ex-
pression of first cl. means " not a good (or, sensible, useful, help-
ful) thing," nearly = imsuccessful ; Reuss's blind eagerness can
only be hurtful, and Wildeboer's where there is no kno7vledge (or,
reflection), there also (even) eagerness is not good are grammati-
cally doubtful. — In second cl. is hasty ifi action is Ht. hastes
with his feet — If the proverb be taken in connection with the
preceding, it must be interpreted as directed particularly against
heedless pursuit of wealth ; but it seems better to understand it
as a condemnation of thoughtless eagerness and hastiness in gen-
eral. Fails of his aim = misses the mark (see 8^ Job 5^*). —
3. Continued thought, quaternary-ternary. Ruins = overturtis
(RV. subverteth) ; affairs is lit. 7vay ; God, lit. Yahiveh. For
the thought cf. BS. 15""^ Soph. Oed. Col. 1693 ff., and other par-
allels in Malan. — The couplet is a criticism of the allegation that
failure is the work of God ; the reply is that the fault is with men
themselves — a practical way of dealing with a much-debated
question characteristic of Pr., and standing in marked contrast
with the lines of thought of Job and Ecclesiastes. — 4. Antithetic,
quaternary-ternary. Cf. v.^ and 14^". The second cl. may also
be rendered : the poor is separated from his friend (so RV). On
the terms wealth 2ir\(\ poor see notes on i^^ lo^^
5-7. Perjury, liberality, poverty.
5. A false witness will not go unpunished.
He who utters lies will not escape.
6. Many seek the favor of the liberal man,
All are friends to him who gives.
7. All the poor man's brethren hate him —
How much more do his friends stand aloof!
5. Identical in thought, ternary (or, binary-ternary). For the
expressions see 6'-' 14"'^ and v." below, of which this couplet is a
doublet, and here not in place ; the reference is to legal proceed-
ings, and the certainty of punishment is affirmed as a general rule
— a testimony to the justice of the courts of law of the time. — •
6. Identical in sense, with increment of expression, ternary. The
2B
370 PROVERBS
indefinite many is heightened into the definite all, and thus
receives the suggestion of universality. Seek the favor is Ut.
stroke (or, smooth) the face (caressingly) or make the face soft
(gentle, favorable) ; see Job ii^^ \p 45'"'^''^ i K. 13^ \p 119^, etc.
The translation liberal (lit. willing) is suggested by the parallel-
ism, but the Heb. word {nadib) may also be rendered poteritate
(Grk. kings) or noble; see notes on 8^® if"^. The reference is
probably to the munificence of the rich private man or prince
who seeks, by gifts, to attach men to his person and his cause —
such was the method in ancient political and social life. A more
general reference to unselfish liberality is possible, but the prov-
erb appears to contemplate the somewhat corrupt city life of the
later period of Judaism. — 7. Advance from the less to the
greater, ternary (or, ternary-quaternary, or, binary-ternary).
Hate is to be understood literally — a poor man, as likely to be
burdensome, easily becomes an object of detestation ; brethren
= kinsfolk in blood, and friends are associates, not bound by the
tie of blood, whose friendship is superficial and untrue. It is
assumed that blood-kinsmen are under greater obligation than
friends to help.
At the end of this couplet the Heb. has a line which is now
unintelligible, reading lit. he who pursues words, they are not
(Heb. marg. his they are), which RV. interprets as meaning he
[the poor man] pursueth them with words, but they are gone, a
sense which is not contained in the Heb., and is forced and unnat-
ural in form (RV. marg. is correct except the expressions which
are nought and he pur sue th). Lat. : he who pursues only words
shall have nothing, which is intelligible (though not a rendering
of our Heb.), but the expression pursue words is strange. The
line appears to be the corrupt remnant of a lost couplet, but it is
hardly possible, with our present means of information, to recover
the original form.
8, 9. Wisdom is profitable, falseness is fatal.
8. He who acquires understanding is a friend to himself.
He who follows wisdom < will > get good.
9. A false witness will not escape,
He who utters lies will perish.
XIX. 6-IO 371
8. Synonymous, binary- (or, quaternary-) ternary. Understand-
ing, lit. heart, = mind, intellectual perception, with reference to
all the affairs of life ; the same idea is expressed by wisdom, lit.
" apprehension, comprehension, insight " (see note on 2^) ; fol-
lows = presen'es, pays due regard to; is a friend to (or, loves)
himself (lit. loves his soul) = " has regard for his own interests " ;
as predicate of second cl. the Heb. has to find (or, get) good,
which may be understood as = "is going to get," etc., but a
simple change of letters gives the better reading will get; good
= " what is advantageous." The sense is : intellectual insight
(= clearness of thought, good sense) is profitable in this life, the
moral as well as the physical life being probably included ; cf.
^13-18^ etc. — 9. Synonymous, ternary (or, binary-ternary). The
couplet is a variation of v.^, with the stronger expression perish in
second clause.
10. Wealth and power befit only the wise and the free.
Luxury is not a fitting thing for a fool,
Much less for a slave is rule over princes.
CHmax, ternary. Fitting = appropriate (not exactly seemly or
becomifig) ; see 17' 26^ The proverb compares two things in
which there is no propriety : the value and use of luxury are not
understood by an obtuse, uncultivated man, rather it develops his
bad qualities, and he becomes ridiculous and disgusting; and a
slave, with all the vices of a servile class, elevated to political
power, is likely to become arrogant and tyrannical. Wealth was
often acquired by men morally and intellectually dull, and the pro-
motion of slaves to places of authority was not uncommon in
Asiatic and African governments (Strack refers to the role played
by eunuchs) ; cf. 30^ Eccl. 10" BS. 11^. The fool of first cl, may
be identical with the slave of second cl., but this is not necessary.
On the other hand, slaves sometimes proved excellent governors ;
cf. 17- 14^. — On the position of Heb. slaves see notes on 11^^
12^ 22".*
• Cf. Job 4i< [4028], from which, however, it cannot be inferred that the relation
of a slave to his master was based on an agreement between the two.
372 PROVERBS
11. Forbearance is wise.
It is wisdom in a man to be slow to anger.
It is his glory to pass over transgression.
Synonymous, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). On whdom^
= "sound sense," see note on 12*' (in 3'' the text is incorrect) ;
the couplet in the Heb. is Ht. : a man's wisdom defers his anger,
and his glory ( = that on which he may pride himself) is to pass,
etc. ; the translation given above is obtained by changing the
vowels of one word, whereby we gain the exact parallelism to be
slow ( = to defer') . . . to pass, corresponding to the other paral-
lel expressions a man's wisdom . . . his glory. The same
thought is found in 14"-^, and cf. 25^^^^ and Eccl. 8\ Forgive-
ness of errors and injuries is here represented as a sensible thing,
probably because it promotes social peace and wellbeing ; there
appears to be no reference to divine reward, though there may be
an implication of moral law. For the expression pass over trans-
gression cf. Mic. 7^^.
12. A king's anger is dreadful, his favor refreshing.
The wrath of a king is like the roaring of a lion,
His favor like dew on vegetation.
Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). The first cl., with
change ot one word, occurs in 20^ on which see note ; similar
references to royal power see in 16" 28'' Eccl. S^'*. The picture
of the king suits many periods of history, but particularly the time
when the Jews had special reason to fear the caprices of foreign
rulers. The word rendered by vegetation includes grass, herbs
and cereals.
XIX. 1. Wanting in (5<abc. ^h ^ub ast. Compl. H-P 23. 103. 253 = |^.—
jl^ '^d:?; Si n-iti;-, 3L dives (but adds et insipiens at end) ; read -1E7, which the
parallelism imperatively demands. The insipiens of IL and the xSpD of some
MSS. oi S> are corrections after |^. — For "^ vnst:' SSC have ways, which may
be free rendering of |^, or may represent Heb. rom (cf. Pink.). — 2. Lacking
in (5 'ABC J H-P 23 al. without knowledge of the soul there is no good ; S^ to
be without knowledge etc. is not good ; Saad. Compl. without knowledge the soul
is not good; Si^T he who does not knoiv himself it is not good for him ; IL where
there is no knowledge of the soul it is not good ; Rashi as H-P 23 IL. — 3t3 N^
must be predicate; N'?a + noun always qualities a preceding word (noun or
XIX. II-I4 373
verb), and cannot here qualify roj ("a soul without knowledge"). The
Heb. text appears to be defective. Gr. proposes to attach " to the ^dd of v.^
change dj to dj (cf. Isa. 21^^), and insert '^ before N*^, but the resulting sense,
" a fool flees without knowledge of soul to what is not good," is awkward, and
^oj is probably not original. The rsj is unnecessary and strange, and looks
like a gloss on n>"i; if this be omitted, and a> be changed to nf-; or r^t'-; (cf.
2i') or n"'."', the clause becomes clear in construction and meaning. — vsi may
be a gloss on n>'T nV^ nvi. — 4. In |^ in>-\D the D may be Prep., or nominal
preformative. — 6. The art. in yin is to be omitted; Bi. •;•}_ nSp. — 7. |^ injjnD
is defectively written plu. — (S follows '^^■^ with change of pointing. —
Bi. adopts the additional couplet of (5 and renders it into Hebrew. —
8. "^ NSC'?; read nss', as apparently (SS^EiL (and so Dys.), though these
Vrss. may merely give idiomatic translations of nse'^; to take it as abridged
periphrastic Future, = 'cS nin (De. Wild, a/.) is allowable, but seems here
less natural; cf. note on i'innn'', i8'^*. — 9. See notes on v.^ — 11. Point
T\xn as Inf. (so apparently A95>). <3 is corrupt (see Jag. Baumg.).
13, 14. Bad sons, bad and good wives.
13. A foolish son is ruin to his father,
The quarrelling of a wife is like the continual dripping of a roof.
14. House and riches are an inheritance from fathers,
But a wise wife is the gift of God.
13. Collocation of two similar things, ternary. The thought of
first cl. is found in 10^ 17-^-^ (and cf. v.^* below), that of second
cl. in 27^'. We expect, as contrast to first cl., a reference to the
wise son, or, as contrast to second cl., a reference (as in v.") to
the good wife ; the couplet is perhaps made up from two others.
The noun drippi7ig (or, dropping) is found elsewhere in OT. only
in 27''^ the verb drip, drop only in Job 16'" \\i 119^* Eccl. 10^^, all
late passages ; the term continual (lit. pushing, driving) occurs in
Heb. only here and 27'^ (Aramaic in Dan. 425.32.33(22.29.30) ^21) ^f
VVisd. Sol. 3^^ — Wife is lit. 7vo?nan, here possibly any "woman,"
but the special reference is more probable. An Arab proverb,
which De. heard from Wetzstein, says that three things make a
house intolerable : iak (the leaking through of rain), nak (a wife's
nagging) and bak (bugs) ; other parallels are cited by Malan. —
14. Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). Wealth, says
the sage, is an accident of birth, while a wise wife is a special
favor from God (lit. Yahvjeh). This seems to be a curious limi-
tation of divine providence, which, we e.xpect an Israelite to say,
374 PROVERBS
certainly controls a man's birth and inheritance of property as
well as his choice of a wife ; the distinction made between social
conditions established by social law and acts controlled by the
will of the individual is popular, not philosophical or theocratic
(the form in i8^^ is better) ; it shows, however, the value set on a
good wife. In early times the wife was usually chosen by the
young man's parents (Gen. 24'^'' 38"), though not always (Ju.
14^); at a later period considerable freedom was doubtless
accorded the man, and a happy choice on his part is here repre-
sented as due to special divine guidance. V.^^ suggests an un-
happy choice. — IVise = intelligeiit, probably in the special sense
of thrifty ; cf. 31^""^^ This second cl. gives a contrast to the
second cl. of v.^^ Cf. iS^^ (and Eccl. 9') ; in BS. 26^ a good wife
is the portion of those who fear God, and such is the implication
in our passage.
15. Inconveniences of idleness.
Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep,
The idle man must suffer hunger.
Synonymous, ternary. The noun deep sleep is found in Gen. 2^
15'^ I Sam. 26^- Isa. 29'° Job 4^^^ 33'*, the corresponding verb in
Ju. 4^^ Jon. I* Dan. 8^**, the Participle in 10^ (on which see note)
\\i 76*'<'' Jon. i^ Dan. lo^ The expression here signifies complete
inactivity. Man, lit. soul { = person). Cf. 6'' ^^ 10* 12^* 20^^ 24^-^.
16. Obedience to law gives life.
He who obeys the law preserves his life,
He who despises the « word > will die.
Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. Lit. he who keeps the command-
ment keeps his life (lit. soul), he who despises his ways will die.
The law may be human (especially the teaching of the sages) or
divine ; the principle of the couplet is the same in both cases, but
in the latter case it is God who (directly or indirectly) deals out
reward or punishment (as in 3^), while in the latter the agent of
retribution is the court of justice, or the natural law of human
society. — We may also translate : he who obeys (or, conforms to)
law, that is, regulates his conduct by an established (and, presum-
XIX. I4-I8 375
ably, wise) norm, instead of by his own caprice ; the general
sense remains the same. — For the Heb. despises his ways an easy
change of text gives the reading: despises the ivord (as in 13"),
which supplies the appropriate parallelism of nouns ; the verb
despises cannot well be used of a man's ways (Frank.). Will die
is the reading of the Heb. margin (Masoretic), the text has will
be put to death, that is, by decision of the judge — the common
legal expression (as in Ex. 21^^-^*, etc.) ; the former is more in
accordance with the manner of Pr., which regards death as the
natural consequence of wrong-doing. Cf. 13^^ 15^" 16".
17. God rewards kindness to the poor.
He who has pity on the poor lends to Yahweh,
And he will repay him his deed.
Continued thought, binary, or ternary-binary. On poor see note
on 10'^; cf. 22' 29'' ^ 4i'<^>. In second cl. we may render good
deed (as RV.), the adj. being supplied from the connection ; the
Heb. word signifies "something done," sometimes good (i/^ 103^),
sometimes bad (i/^ 137^), often with the suggestion that there is to
be retribution or recompense for the thing done, as here and 1 2".
Kindness to the poor is regarded as done to God (cf. Mt. 25*"),
who will repay it, as the whole Book suggests, by. bestowing long
life and worldly prosperity. — The ethical basis of the proverb is
the recognition of the natural duty of caring for the poor. The
motive urged is not the obligation to do right, but the reward of
rightdoing.
18. Chastisement saves a child.
Chastise thy son while there is still hope —
Set not thy heart on his destruction.
Implicit parallelism, quaternary-ternary. Chastise is teach {\p 2'"),
reprove (Pr. 9'), correct (Jer, 30"), here punish bodily, as in
2^17 19 ]3j 2 1 18^ Instead of while the Heb. may be rendered /^r
(RV. seeing). Set not thy heart is lit. lift not up thy soul (= thy
desire), as in \p 24^ 25' 86*. On his destruction is lit. to kill him.
Cf. 13^'' 23" 29'^ The sense is : train thy son by bodily chastise-
ment in the docile period of childhood — do not, through weak
376 PROVERBS
or mistaken kindness, so neglect to control him that he shall go
astray and finally suffer death as the natural (legal or other) conse-
quence of his ill- doing. The second cl. can hardly be understood
as a warning against excessive bodily punishment (^do not carry
your chastisement so far as to kill him). According to Dt. 2\^^''-^
a son, on the representation of his father that he was intractable,
might be sentenced to death by the elders of the city ; but the
more refined feeling of later times revolted against this procedure.*
In the family life contemplated by Pr. it is highly improbable that
a father would ever think of carrying chastisement to the point of
killing his son. The meaning of the couplet is given in 23'^ —
Bickell : do not fancy that thou could' st kill him, a violent and
inappropriate emendation. The rendering let not thy soul spare
for his crying (AV.)| is hardly permitted by the Hebrew.
13. Before |§ ^'^1 dripping should, perhaps, be inserted. — 14. ^ r^oi'c
prudent ; (S ap/xd^erai (with which Lag. compares the (§ rendering of "^j.' in
Gen. 48^*) takes the Heb. word as = is luisely adapted, that is, given in
marriage (and so Sb^). — 15. The couplet occurs in (5 in 18^, with variations.
— 16. Bi. changes the second idb' of ^ to 3ns to avoid repetition (referring
to V.8) ; but the repetition is here effective. — 1§ i^m; read "'j-', to agree
with nib. Keth. np^; read Qerl rp\ — 18. % 'ppn ^h; (g (followed by Si) ei's
vpptv, = ipiDH Sx, from n;;n (Jag.), or Aram. N;:n neglect, despise (Lag.) ; ASTIL
= J^. — The text appears to be corrupt, but no satisfactory emendation offers
itself. Bi. : iroj nb-h dip ^ni.
19. Text and translation doubtful.
The Heb. margin reads : A tnan of g7'eat anger pays a fine (or,
must bear a penalty') (or, he who pays a fine is very angry), for,
(or, but, or, in truth) if thou rescue, thou must do so again (or,
thou wilt increase). In first cl. great is the reading of the Heb.
margin ; the text has an obscure word, variously rendered {stony,
* In the oldest known Semitic material there is no mention of tlie father's power
of life and death over the son ; see the Sumerian " Laws relating to the family "
(found in Assurbanipal's library, and probably adopted by the Assyrians), in
which the severest punishment that could be inflicted on a refractory son is expul-
sion from the father's house. But the law in Dt. 21I8-21 js probably a modification
of an earlier Hebrew regulation, according to which the father had the power of
inflicting death (cf. Ex. 2il5l7). Cf. W. R. Smith, Relig. Sem:\ pp. 59 f. The
power of life and death was originally included in the Roman patria potestas.
t Following medieval Jewish authorities.
XIX. I8-20 377
hard, rough, frequent) . Of the many interpretations offered of
second cl. the following are the principal : If thou save [thine
enemy] thou wilt add [good to thyself] * ; If thou save [thy son,
by moderate chastisement], thou mayst continue [chastisement,
and so educate him to virtue] f ; If thou save [the angry man
from the legal penalty, thine interposition is useless], thou must
do it again [since he will repeat his offence] \ ; If thou save [the
person who is the object of the angry man's wrath], thou increas-
es! [the angry man's wrath]. § These interpretations supply a
great deal, and the two last assume (what is improbable) that
anger is a finable offence. With changes of text we may read :
The more he sins, the more he adds to his punishment t| ; or, [a
man who is fined is very angry] but if he show contempt [of
court], he has to pay more If; but such details of legal penalties
(even if they could be got naturally) are out of place in this
series of aphorisms. The text appears to be incurably corrupt,
and there is perhaps, in addition, a dislocation.
20, 21. Human counsel, human and divine plans.
20. Hearken to counsel, and receive instruction,
That thou mayst be wise in future.
21. Many are the thoughts in a man's mind,
But the plan of Yahweh, it will stand.
20. Continuous, ternary, or quaternary-ternary (possibly binary-
ternary). On counsel dJid instruction see notes on i^-; they are
the teaching of the sages, or of sagacious persons in general, and
they make one wise in all affairs. The thought may be simply
the commonsense one : " take advice if you would act sensibly —
only a fool refuses to take advice," or there may be a reference to
the philosophical, ideal conception of wisdom of chs. 1-9. ///
future is lit. in thine after-life (RV. thy latter end), an expression
which generally means " the end of life " (see 5^), but here, from
the connection, seems to signify " hereafter [after receiving
instruction] in thy life." The Syriac reading in thy ways is per-
* Rashi. t Saad. Michaelis. J Bertheau, RV. at.
\ Str. Wild. Strack quotes Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar {Pirke Aboth 4, 18) : " do
not try to soothe thy neighbor when he is angry," for you thereby only exasperate
him. II Syr. Targ. ^ Frankenberg.
378 PROVERBS
haps better. It is not probable that the couplet, taken as an
address to the pupil, refers to technical teaching and promotion
in the schools : " thou art now only a beginner, but listen to
instruction, and thou wilt become a sage" (Wild.). — 21. Anti-
thetic, ternary. Thoughts — reflections, designs ; plan is in Heb.
the same word as that rendered counsel in v.^", but here decision,
design (regarded as the result of deliberation). The absolutely
wise and sure divine purpose in the government of the affairs of
men is contrasted with the diversity and uncertainty of human
plans; cf. ib''-^'^ 20^' f.
22. Form and sense are uncertain.
Lit. : the desire of a yuan is his kindness, and a poor man is
better than a liar. The meaning of first cl. is doubtful. It may
be taken (with objective genitival construction) to be : " the
desire felt toward a man (our regard for him) is called forth by
his kindness" (to us or to others), but this* is an improbable
translation ; or " that which is desired by man is to receive kind-
ness " (Saad.), or "man's desire and joy is to show kindness,"!
both of which are doubtful as translations, and give a thought
which is not in accordance with the tone of the Book. Many
recent expositors \ render : " a man's goodwill is his kindness,"
that is, beneficence lies in the intention ; but the Heb. word
hardly means "goodwill" — it is "desire" or " the thing desired," §
as in lo^"* 11^^ 1^12.19 ^ jqi; ^320 q^i^ ^^ and never elsewhere in
or. has the sense of " intention." And further, if it could be
held to have that sense here, the form of the Heb. sentence
would still be hard and improbable. None of these translations
establish a relation between the two clauses of the couplet ; the
interpretation: "the essence of beneficence is the intention — a
poor man who would give, but cannot, is better than a rich man
who could give, but hes and says he cannot give " || manifestly
imports into the text what does not exist there. — Grk. (with
change of text) " mercy is fruit to a man," whence Ew. " a man's
gain is his pious love," and so a poor man who has this love (Grk.
* RV. marg., Rashi and other medieval Jewish expositors, Schult. Noyes ("that
which makes a man beloved").
t Bertheau, Zock. \ Stade, Kamp. Wild.
X Euchel, De. Reuss, Now. Str., and so RV. || De. Str. al.
XIX. 21-23 379
a righteous poor man) is better than one who has become rich by
lying (Grk. a rich liar) ; this, though more intelHgible than the
Heb., is still forced. It would give a better sense to read : a
mail's kindness is a revenue to him, that is, " kindness is good
policy," but the Heb. would not be a natural form of expression
for this thought. The Lat. gets the doubtful proposition in first
cl.: "a needy man is merciful." Hitzig, taking the suggestion of
the Grk., renders : " from the revenue of a man is his kind gift,"
an insignificant truism. Dyserinck, changing the text in second
cl. : " what is attractive in a man is his friendliness, but better
rough (or, crabbed) than false"; but the interpretation of "the
desire of a man " as = " what is desirable in a man " is not sup-
ported by OT. usage. — The second cl. should probably read : an
honest poor matt is better than a rich liar. The first cl. must be
left untranslated, as affording no satisfactory sense; and it cannot
be brought into natural connection with the second clause.
23. Piety gives safety.
The fear of Yahweh leads to life,
< Who hopes in him > will be unvisited by harm.
Synonymous. Lit. : the fear of Yahweh {tends) to life, and he
dwells (or, abides) satisfied, he will not be visited by evil. The
enallage of subject in the Received Text is harsh, and not in
accordance with the style of Pr. — the he of second cl. has no
antecedent; the rendering one dwells (De. Zock.) is not allow-
able, but, if our Heb. text be retained, this form, or the insertion
of " to man " in first cl. or the explanation " he who has it dwells "
(RV. and most recent translators) is necessary for syntactical
clearness ; the Heb. text is in bad condition, and something like
the emendation above suggested seems necessary ; cf 29^ \\i 146*.
Life — long life and prosperity, bestowed by God as reward of
obedience; see notes on i^'^ 3^. On divell see note on 15^'.
Satisfied = content {2f \p 17'^ cf. Pr. 30^ \p 16"). With first cl.
cf. 14", with second cl. cf. 10^.
24-29. Sluggards, mockers of parents and of truth, perjurers.
24. The lazy man ili])S his hand into the dish,
And will not brinj^ it to his mouth.
380 PROVERBS
25. Smite a mocker, and the ignorant becomes wise,
Reprove a man of sense, and he gains knowledge.
26. He who maltreats his father and drives away his mother
Is a son who acts shamefully and disgracefully.
27. ? ' He who ceases > to listen to instruction
< Will ' wander from words of knowledge?
28. A false witness scoffs at justice.
And the mouth of the wicked i utters ' iniquity.
29. Penalties are prepared for scoffers.
And stripes for the backs of fools.
24. Continuous, quaternary-ternary. A humorous and sarcastic
rebuke of laziness, repeated, with variation of expression in
second cl.; in 26^^. Dips is in the Heb. lit. hides (RV. burieth) ;
dish occurs in 2 K. 21'^ (and nearly the same Heb. word in 2 K.
2^ 2 C. 35^^) ; the scene is a meal, and the method of eating is
Oriental (cf. Mk. 14^). The verb of the Heb. {taman) is hardly
appropriate (Schult. Bi.), and should perhaps be changed (to
tabal, dip). The last word of first cl. is rendered or read vari-
ously in the Anc. Vrss, : bosom* ; armpit^ ; Rashi reports a ren-
dering slit in a garment (= bosom), and Gratz suggests garment.
There seems to be no good reason for changing the reading dish,
though bosom gives a good sense. — 25. Antithetic, quaternary or
ternary. On mocker (=one who contemptuously rejects right
teaching, is unteachable) see note on i". Ignorant = simple,
moral simpleton (i''^"). The morally ignorant man, says the
proverb, is warned when bad men are punished — it is an intelli-
gible object-lesson ; a wise man learns in a more rational way, by
giving heed to advice. — 26. Continuous, binary-ternary. In
second cl. we may render : ivho is vile and despicable (Reuss), or
who causes shame and reproach (RV. De., cf. 29^^). Cf. 10^ 13*
1 7*^. Nothing is said of the punishment of the unworthy son ; the
old laws (Ex. 21^^-^^) had probably at this time fallen into desue-
tude.— Maltreats is probably equivalent to drives away. The
son here seems to be in possession of the property in his father's
lifetime ; the latter is presumably decrepit, the care of the property
falls naturally to the son, whose unfilial conduct, though it may be
condemned by public opinion, does not come under the cogni-
* Grk. Syr., and so some medieval Jewish commentators, AV. Bickell.
t Aq. Sym. Targ. Lat.
XIX. 24-29 3^1
zance of the law. — 27. Lit. cease, my son, to listen to instruction, to
wander from the words of k7iowledge. The saying has been inter-
preted as a serious exhortation, = " cease to listen to that sort of
teaching which will cause thee to wander," etc.,* but the Heb.
term here rendered instructioji can hardly be understood, when
used without an adjective, to mean anything but right instruction,
nor has it any other meaning elsewhere in Pr. ; or f " cease to
listen to [good] instruction in order (that is, if thy purpose is, or,
if the result for thee is to be) to wander," etc., but such an exhor-
tation ( = " better not hear than hear and not obey ") is foreign
to the thought of Pr., which elsewhere divides men into the two
classes, those who hear and those who do not hear, and does not
deal with the case of those who dally with teaching or seek it in
sport or know and act not (Wildeboer refers to Lu. 12'"^). Ewald
and Reuss regard the exhortation as ironical, = " only cease to hear,
and you will soon wander," etc., but the latter thinks such a form
unexampled in Pr. and doubtful. The grammatical construction of
the Hebrew, also, is not clear, and the address my son does not else-
where occur in this division of the Book ( io'-2 2"'). The text must
be changed either as in the translation given above, or so as to
read : Cease, my son, to hate instruction, to wander, etc., or, do
not cease, my son, to listen, etc., and do not wander, etc. If the
second or third reading be adopted, the couplet should be trans-
ferred to chs. 1-9 (cf. 5^'-) or chs. 22^'-24"^ (cf. 23^^). — 28. Syn-
onymous, quaternary or ternary. False is lit. wicked; for the mean-
ing of the term {belial) see note on 6'^ The scene of first cl. is a
court of justice (Ex. 20'*^ Lev. 5^), and the second cl., from the par-
allelism, is to be so understood : the wicked witness inflicts injury
by false statements ; the ifiiquity is the harm done by the perjurer
not to his own soul (so the Grk.), but to the legal rights of others.
Instead of Heb. gulps dotvn, read utters (see i^ 15^ lA 59^'**^ 78^).
Cf. 6^* 14^ 25'^ — 29. Synonymous, ternary. Penalties, Wl. judg-
ments, a term which occurs only in the plu., and is found elsewhere
only in Ez. and later parts of Ex. Num. Chr. ; a change of one
letter of the Heb. gives rods (so the Grk,), which offers an exacter
parallelism to the stripes of second cl. On scoffers (to which fools
* Saad. Schult. Str. t Oetinger, De. Now.
382 t^roverbs
is here equivalent) see note on i'^. The punishment spoken of is
that inflicted by men.
19. Kethib SiJ, with which Arab. '^'\3 stony, hard may be compared (Ew.
explains it by Arab, h^u frtquent, but the interchange of i and n is improbable).
The stem Su in this sense may be found in ^-\\ lot (originally, perhaps, pebble,
Schult. «/.), but as the adj. does not elsewhere occur in North-Semitic, the
Qeri SiJ (so 8) seems preferable. For J^ '?x,n and qDn Frank, proposes ^'S'
and 1D\ — l^** appears to be corrupt, but a satisfactory emendation is difficult.
— 20. l^imnNi; Si l^niNa, perhaps to be adopted. — 22. |^ ni^n; <3 Kapirbs,
whence Ew. and Bi. emend to hnjo revenue ; kindness may be said to be a
source of revenue, but cannot be called revenue. -iDn is not " pious love "
(Ew.), but general benevolence and friendliness. — In *> (5 supplies the sug-
gested adjectives. — 23. "^ fV vat' appears to be a corrupt expression. An
intelligible reading of ^ would be: pn -\^p\ S3 r'^p irj'; the same thought is
expressed in 292*, with n-J3 instead of na^'. — 24. |^ nnSx; (S k^Xwov accords
with the verb of |[^, |Ct;, and is perhaps a guess induced by this verb. The
noun in |§ is more pertinent (for why should a man take his hand from his
bosom in order to carry it to his mouth?), and the verb should perhaps be
changed to Saa. — 26. |^ -nc';. ; Gr. i^'io (f/Vr/i, to secure exacter parallelism
with n-13^, or, as he writes it, m2^. — 27. (5: nin for |l? nr;*, and yi for
1^ npT; 3L: do not cease . . . and be not ignorant etc.; SSC : cease, my son,
and hear . . . and thou wilt not wander etc. The Heb. form is doubtful; we
may insert the neg. with 3L, or write xjf for |^ v'd;:', or, omitting 'ja, read SVn
and nj-j"' for ||J ^-in and n'j::''^. — 28. 3^ '^^'''^a -<r; (So ^771'w/oiefos 7ra?5a
&(ppova, = '2 p 2nV (Lag.). — 1§ pSa^; Frank., better, yai. — 29. J§ ddbip;
(5 yudcTTiYes, = DBac, perh. better.
XX. 1. Folly of drinking to excess.
Wine is a mocker, mead is a brawler,
Whoever is overtaken thereby is not wise.
Extensive, quaternary- (or, binary-) ternary. The sense is : it is
not prudent or sensible to indulge to excess in intoxicating drinks,
or : one thus overtaken (that is, drunk) does not in this condi-
tion behave or act wisely. Wine {yayin) is the fermented juice
of the grape; of mead (RV. strong drink) all that appears from
OT. is that it was intoxicating (Isa. 28^), and, in the later legisla-
tion (Lev. 10^) forbidden to priests, that it was a common bev-
erage of the people in the religious feasts of the preexilic time
(Dt. 14^), and that Nazirites (and probably also the Rechabites,
Jer. 35) abstained from it (not on account of its intoxicating
XIX. 29-XX. 4 383
qualities, but because they represented the old pastoral life, and
rejected agricultural novelties). It is not improbable that it was
the fermented juice of fruits (other than grapes), such as the
pomegranate (cf. Cant. 8-) and the date.* Mocker, scoffing at all
things good and true ; brawler, violent, loud, uncontrolled. The
drink is credited with the characteristics which it produces in
men. Is overtaken, lit. reels (Isa. 28^), is ifitoxicated (cf. 5**^) ;
the rendering errs (RV.) or is deceived (AV.) is possible, but less
appropriate.
2. Royal anger.
The wrath of a king is like the roar of a lion,
He who I angers > him sins against himself.
Comparison and its explanation, quaternary-ternary. Wrath of,
lit. terror of, = " terror inspired by " ; Grk. t/ireat is formally a
more appropriate expression — the lion's roar is properly an illus-
tration of an utterance of the king ; the Heb. means to say : the
terror produced by an angry king is as great as that produced by
the roar of a lion. The translation atigers follows the Grk. ; the
Heb. is rather is angry with (RV. marg.). Instead of himself we
may render his own life {nefesh, soul). For sins against we
should perhaps read harms, as in 8^. Cf. 16" 19^.
3. Folly of strife.
It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife,
Only fools are quarrelsome.
Antithetic, quaternary-binary. The second cl. reads lit. : but
every fool is quarrelsotne (or, quarrels, RV., will be quarrellifig) .
On the word here rendered quarrel ste notes on 17" i8^
4. Sloth produces no bread.
In the autumn the sluggard does not plough,
And therefore in harvest he looks in vain (for a crop).
Continuous, ternary. Autumn is here particularly the season,
following the last ingathering of crops, when the ground is to be
* Our words sugar, saccharine probably have the same stem as the Heb. term
(^shikar). On its meaning cf. Lag., A/Z/M^/wwi'^w, 2, 357 ; Nowack, ^r<:A., r, 120.
384 PROVERBS
prepared for sowing (the season of the " former " or " early "
rain) , beginning in October and lasting four or five months ; the
Heb. term is, however, generally used for the colder half of the
year (Gen. 8^^ Am. 3^* </' 74'") as opposed to the warmer half
which includes harvest-time and summer. The harvest begins in
April (barley) and lasts till September (grapes). The rendering
by reason of the whiter (RV.) or of the cold (Lat.) is improbable
— the sluggard is deterred not by cold, but by laziness ; from the
beginning of autunm on (De. Str.) is possible, but less natural
than in autumn. Looks in vain, lit. asks and there is nothing ;
he seeks food from his fields, but, owing to his neglect, there is
none; the rendering begs (or, shall beg, Lat. RV.) is inappro-
priate— the man's slothfulness would not prevent his being
helped by his neighbors, especially in the plentiful and joyous
time of harvest.
5. Shrewdness discovers plans.
The purpose in a man's mind is deep water.
But a man of sagacity will draw it out.
Continuous, quaternary-ternary. A man's real thought, the prov-
erb says, is hard to fathom, but may be discovered by one who
knows how to sound the mind. Purpose is counsel, plan, the
result of deliberation ; mind is lit. heart ; deep water (plu. in the
Heb.) is the symbol of something hard to exhaust or apprehend.
The figure is that of a mass of water which has to be drawn from
a well or reservoir ; the deeper the water the harder the task.
The allusion is to men's disposition to conceal their plans. A
clever man will discover a plan by shrewd inquiries and guesses.
The proverb has no moral content. See i8\ in which our first cl.
occurs with words for purpose, and mouth for ftiind.
6. Rarity of real friendship.
Many men profess friendship,
But a trustworthy man who can find?
Antithetic, ternary. The first line is lit. : many men proclaim
every one his kindness (or, many a man proclaims his kindness),
= " professions of wiUingness to be helpful are frequent," with
the implication that such professions are frequently hollow — it
XX. 4-7 385
is not easy to find a man trustworthy or faithfid, one who can
be relied on for sympathy and aid in time of stress.* — The text
has also been rendered : many a mati ?neets a ma?i of kindness
(or, a man who is kind to him), taking kind in the sense of
" kind in words only," or " kind in occasional matters " (with the
implication that the friendliness does not go far).t The general
sense in this translation is the same as that given above, but the
meaning attached to kindness is hardly permitted by the Hebrew
— the word means "real kindliness." The same general sense
also is given by the rendering (which involves a slight departure
from our Heb. text) : tnany a man is called kind, J in which the
antithesis is direct and natural. Either this translation or the one
here adopted gives a satisfactory form to the couplet.
7-11. Rectitude of conduct. — Single sentences (partial par-
allelism in v.'-*).
7. A man of probity and righteousness —
Happy are his children after him !
8. A king who sits on the judgment-seat
Winnows all evil with his eyes.
9. Who can say : " I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from sin " ?
10. Divers weights, divers measures,
Abomination to Yahweh are they both.
11. « Even a child > is known by his deeds,
According as his conduct is good or < bad.»
7. Ternary. Lit. one who walks in his probity as a righteous
man. The expressions in probity and righteous are to be taken
together as hendiadys. The term probity (lit. per/ectness, integ-
rity) signifies hearty conformity to divine and human law, not abso-
lute sinlessness (cf. v.^) ; see 2' 10^ 19^ Job 4" \\i 26* loi^, and cf.
the adj. in Dt. 18" Job i> ^\, 37' Pr. 2-^ 28^^ 29^" al. Instead of
righteous we may translate hy Just — each of these terms here
— perfect. The first line may also (but not so well) be rendered :
the righteous man walks in his probity (or, in probity'). — The
second cl. states the common O'V. doctrine of the heritability of
blessing for good conduct; see, on the other side, Job 21*"'^
* So Saad. Ew. RV. al. t He. Reuss. Wild. al. X Syr. Targ. Lat. Kamp.
2C
386 PROVERBS
if/ 17". — 8. Ternary. The Oriental king (like the chief of the
tribe or clan) acted personally as judge ; cf. 2 Sam. 15-"* i K. 3^
Isa. 11^* \p 72* (so also, for ex., the Califs of Bagdad). The king
(who is assumed to be just, see note on iG^"^) whinows all
causes with his eyes, personally examines all claims and charges,
sifts the evidence, especially sifts and exposes all crime and
injustice. The verb of second cl. may also mean scatters (RV),
= dissipates, destroys ; but the other sense accords with the
expression with his eyes, and is supported by the use of the verb
in v.^®. — 9. Ternary-binary, A declaration of human moral
imperfectness. Such a belief was doubtless coeval with ethical
reflection in Israel (Gen. 3 Isa. 6^), being a necessary result of
observation. In the earlier literature (down to the sixth or fifth
century B.C.) it is taken for granted without formal statement.
The distinct recognition of sinfulness as an element of human
nature begins to appear in Ezekiel (18. t^^), and the formulation
of the view is found in philosophical or reflective writings and
utterances (i K. 8^ Job 4^^"^^ 14* [apparently an interpolation]
^ gj5(7) J 20^ Eccl. 7™) ; in the Psalter we have only two or three
occurrences of the general affirmation, the reference in i/' 14^ and
similar passages being (as the context indicates) to the enemies
of pious Israel. The two conceptions, universal sinfulness (v.'*)
and the possibility of practical perfectness (v.^), were held
together, without attempt to harmonize them logically — they
furnish the raw material of later theological dogma ; in our Book
of Job the hero is pronounced perfect by God (Job i**), yet is
charged with sin not only by Elihu (Job 34^^ *) but also appar-
ently by God himself (Job 40*). There is, in OT., no refer-
ence of human peccability to the event described in Gen. 3. —
10. Binary. See ii^ 20-^ Am. 8^ Dt. 2^^""^^ Ez. 45^ and, for
second line, 17^*; cf. BS. 26-'', and v." below. — 11. Ternary.
The Heb. reads : also (or, eveyi) by his deeds a child is (or,
makes hif7tself) known, whether his work be pure or right. The
initial particle here qualifies either the expression by his deeds, or
the whole clause ; in the former case it introduces a contrast
between deeds and something else (conceivably, words) as mark
of character, but of such other thing there is no trace ; in the
latter case it contrasts this clause with some other, but there is no
XX. 8-1 1 387
Other with which it stands in contrast. The natural suggestion is
that the emphasis is on child, and the position of the particle must
be changed so that it shall quahfy this word. Even a young child,
the sense is, shows character by conduct ; the suggestion is that
conduct is always the test of character (Mt. 7^'), and that training
must begin early. In second cl. the form of the Heb. implies an
antithesis, and it is therefore better to read bad instead of right:
whether the child's conduct be good or bad, in either case it
indicates his character. The translation good and right (Lat.)
gives up the antithesis. The rendering even in play (Ew.) is not
supported by Heb. usage, and the sense /^/^«, dissemble (Gen. 42^)
for the verb of first cl. is here inappropriate. The rendering
whether his actions [hereafter] will be pure etc. is syntactically
improbable. In chs. 1-9 of Pr. child is used of mature young
manhood, in chs. 10-31 it signifies a person under the control of
parents, living (unmarried) in the father's house.
XX. 2. For 1^ PD'N Frank, suggests pcn; cf. the '\<pi of 1 9^2. — -oi'nn else-
where = (0 be (or, become) angry with ; the Vrss. take it here as = provoke,
and it may be so poetically used, in a sense for which we might expect Piel,
but this form is not found with such a meaning; a reading 3-\pnc, as in v.^^,
is here improbable. Hi. conjectures nai"rr, denom. Tiphel from the late
(Targumic) ib>n anger, but such a verb does n t occur. Possibly we should
read id;'3D (cf. Dt. 32^1). After N"jn the object sinned against is elsewhere
introduced by 3 or Sy; 8-'^ ■'N'Jn he who misses me appears, indeed, to show
that a direct object is possible, but we should perhaps here adopt the reading
of that passage yz'Q: Dr;n (so Lag. Gr.) ; otherwise 3 should be inserted before
''ro:; |§ is supported by (SSiSTlL. — 3. (S airotTTpicpeadai, = 3ii' turn away from,
a good reading; |^, from aj"' or P3-', is more vigorous; 5L separat se ; 3C = ^ ;
3 trans, to put away strife. — 4. The Prep, p may indicate the time at which
something is done. — 5. The reading X670S (= |§ Pi'>) of H-P 109. 147 al.,
instead of the /3ou\t^ of Codd. Bs'A, is regarded by Lag. and Baumg. as
original, on the ground that it could not have been a correction of the latter.
If this view be correct, the word presents a noteworthy instance of the preser-
vation of an original reading by cursive MSS. But at most it can only be
looked on as probable; the possibility of a change of ^ov\i\ into \6705, or of
an independent rendering of the Heb. by the latter term, must be admitted.
— 6. In |§ '■'Dn omit the suff., which may be scribal insertion from following 1,
— 3^ ^"V^; @ T^juiof, = -\|-i\ — 8. 1^ mic; (5 ovK ^wvTiouToi, = Pass. m?c,
which Gr. adopts with the sense fastidio est. — 10. (S, interpreting : a-Tddnov
lU^a, xal ixiKpbv. — (5^ nere, varying from J^, gives the order of couplets as
^^9.20-22 1>13. 23-,'ii). the order of ^ is given in N 23. The reason for the differ-
388
PROVERBS
ence is not apparent; but as there is no logical connection between couplets,
accident or scribal caprice might easily vary the order. — 11. Transpose Dt to
stand before i;'j, and for li" read ;'-'-i. — IL Bi. omit the second cn. — &iE
refer ^t to -i;j, and i;" to ^^c, which does not relieve the syntactical difficulty.
12-14. Man's faculties the gift of God. Industry, honesty.
12. The hearing ear, the seeing eye —
Yahweh has made them both.
13. Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty;
Open thine eyes, and thou wilt have plenty of bread.
14. " Bad, bad ! " says the buyer;
But when he is gone, then he boasts.
12. Continuous, quaternary- (or, binary-) ternary. Hearing and
sight here stand for all man's faculties — all, says the proverb, are
the creation and gift of God. The suggestion is that he is greater
than -they, that he watches them, and that they must be used in
obedience to him. Cf. y\i 94^ — 13. Antithetic, ternary. Lit.
open . . . have plenty (or, be sated with), two Imperatives, the
first stating the condition, the second stating the result — a com-
mon construction in Hebrew. — Instead of bread we may %z.y food;
the same term means for the pastoral Arabs meat, and for the
agricultural Hebrews bread. — 14. Continuous, quaternary-ter-
nary. A trick of trade. The purchaser disparages the ware,
beats down the seller, and boasts of his cleverness.
15-18. Wisdom, fraud.
15. Store of gold and wealth of corals
And precious vessels — (all this) are wise lips.
16. Take his garment — he is surety for another !
For another hold him in pledge !
17. Sweet to a man is bread gained by fraud,
But afterwards his mouth will be filled with gravel.
18. » Arrange ' thy plans by counsel.
Carry on war under advice.
15. Single sentence, ternary. Wealth is abundance ; wise lips is
lit. lips of knowledge ; the Heb. has sing, a precious vessel. The
syntactical order is not certain, but the translation here given, in
which the three first expressions all describe wise lips, is the most
natural. The couplet is sometimes rendered in antithetic form:
XX. I2-I8 389
Store, etc., hut (or, yet) lips of knowledge are a precious vessel, but
this leaves first cl. syntactically suspended, and the resultant sense
either suggests that a precious vessel is more valuable than gold
and corals (" gold etc. is valuable, get wise lips " etc.), or puts
wisdom and gold together as similar values ("gold etc. is valu-
able, and wise lips [also] are valuable ") ; neither of these state-
ments is probable. Most expositors render : there is gold etc.,
but lips of knowledge are a precious vessel (or, jewel'). In this
translation the antithetic form makes a difficulty, as above, and
the expression " there is gold etc." is, in the connection, strange,
feeble, and syntactically loose. Possibly the text should be
changed so as to give a comparison like those of 3"- ^^ 8". — On
corals (RV. rubies, or corals, or pearls) see note on 3*^. Vessels
are articles of household furniture, sometimes made of precious
metals, sometimes ornamented with precious stones (see Gen.
24'^ Ex. 3^^ 31^'^) ; the Heb. word is also used for articles of per-
sonal adornment, as of a bride (Isa. 61'*'), comprising jewels and
similar ornaments. — 16. Synonymous, ternary. Lit. for (or,
tvhen) he is surety etc. ; in second cl. the Heb. text has plu.
others (or, strangers), the margin fern. sing, a strange woman
(= "another man's wife"); the latter reading is less probable
from the parallelism, which also favors masc. singular. — The
couplet (which occurs again in 27") is an exclamation of con-
temptuous rebuke : " he has been foolish enough to become
responsible for another man's debt — hol(l him to account, exact
the legal penalty ! " The garment, commonly given as security
(Dt. 2^^^^), could be taken by the creditor if the debt was not
paid. — In second cl. we should perhaps translate: hold it (the
garment), for, though the person might be pledged for debt (Neh.
S"*), the reference, as first cl. suggests, is rather to the garment;
hold him in pledge may, however, be understood to mean not
" hold his person as security," but " hold him to account as secu-
rity."— On the ierm another see note on 2'". — 17. Antithetic,
ternary. Lit. bread of fraud (or, deceit). Gravel is a mass of
small particles (Lam. 3'*^), here perhaps earth or sand. Pleasure
fraudulently gained, says the couplet, is not lasting; cf. 10^ 2 3''
Job 20'^''". — 18. Synonymous, ternary. The necessity of consul-
tation and deliberation in all proceedings ; the thought is substan-
390 PROVERBS
tially identical with that of 24". Counsel is the advice of wise
persons. The first cl. in the Heb. is declarative : plans are
arraftged by counsel, to the form of which the second cl. may be
assimilated by reading : and by (or, under) advice war is carried
on. But it is better to understand the couplet as an injunction,
and assimilate first cl. to second cl., with the sense : " when thou
formest plans or carriest on war, do it under skilful guidance "
(with the advice of able counsellors, statesmen, and generals).
In any case war is spoken of as a common incident of life ; nothing
is said of its moral accompaniments or its desirableness or unde-
sirableness. Cf. 21^' 24* Ecc. 3^ Lu. 14'''. There seems to be no
ground for taking war to refer to the common affairs of life, such
as legal processes, and similar conflicts (Frank.) ; in the Psalms
(27^ 35^ 120^^ al.) terms relating to war are doubtless sometimes to
be understood figuratively, but such can hardly be the sense here.
On plans and direction see notes on 6^* i^.
19-21. Gossip, filial impiety, unjust acquisition.
19. A talebearer reveals secrets —
Have nothing to do with a gossip.
20. He who curses father or mother,
His lamp will go out in midnight darkness.
21. Property got prematurely at first
Will in the end not be blessed.
19. Developed thought, quaternary- (or, binary-) ternary. On
the terms in first cl. see the substantially identical first cl. of ii'^
— Gossip is lit. one 7vho opens wide his lips, as in 13^ (where, how-
ever, the Heb. verb is different) ; the Heb. expression would ordi-
narily mean foolish of lips, which might possibly be understood as
= " gossip," but it is easier to take the Partcp. in the sense of
" opening," or else change the text. Luther false mouth and AV.
hi^n that flattereth (marg. entice th) with his lips are incorrect ; RV.
openeth wide his lips. — 20. Single sentence, ternary or ternary-
quaternary. In the old law the punishment for cursing a parent is
death (Ex. 21^' Lev. 20^, and cf. Dt. 27^^) ; the reference here is to
the natural consequences of barbarous impiety (so 30'^) ; it is not
probable that the old law was in force in later times — the punish-
ment for the oifence in question was rather social, as now, and such
XX. 1 8-21 391
is the point of view of the Wisdom-books ; cf. BS. 3^*, and see in
BS. (7^**) the moral motive urged for honoring parents (another
motive is given in Ex. 20^^). The old legal control of children
was gradually replaced by the control of the family and of society.
— Midnight darkness is lit. the pupil of darkness, = deepest dark-
ness; on pupil (of the eye) see note on 7-". On the meaning of
the expression his lamp will go out see note on 13". — 21. Single
sentence, ternary, or ternary-binary. Instead of property, we may
render inheritance, property which comes to one from one's
father (cf. 17^ 19") ; the more general reference is the more
probable. Got prematurely (one word in the Heb.) is the read-
ing of the Heb. margin, which is adopted by most recent expos-
itors ; the verb means to act hastily, precipitately, and (if this
reading be accepted) the suggestion here is that the man accu-
mulates wealth unfairly (or that the heir does not wait to receive
his inheritance in due course of nature, but obtains it prematurely,
by foul means) ; no blessing, the proverb declares, will attend prop-
erty so acquired. Saadia, referring the couplet to the impious son
of the preceding couplet : his inheritance will be full of trouble.
The meaning of the verb of the Heb. text is doubtful : Schult. :
(an inheritance on which) rests the curse of niggardliness; Ew. : is
cursed ; Geiger : full-grown ; modern lexicons : is loathed, disgust-
ing, abominable (cf. Zech. 11^), that is (if this reading be here
adopted), because obtained by foul means. The marginal read-
ing here adopted, which is that of the Anc. Vrss., appears to yield
the more satisfactory sense. — In the end refers to the final out-
come of the man's wealth (see note on 5''), perhaps with conno-
tation of divine retribution.
13. |ij niu'; (S KaToKakelv, for which Jiig. compares 17^ BS. 19''; Lag.
refers to \f/ loi^ where k. = a form of the stem ja-'?. — 1§ z'-\-p is by some
derived from un^ and = shall be expelled (or, deprived), by others taken as
metaplastic formation from ri to be poor ; better, perhaps, as Hof. of v\. —
14. '"^ is reference of the action to the personality of the grammatical subject,
the so-called ethical Dative. — |^ Ss; Gr. Sn, = '^in bought cheap, from Sir.
— V.i-«-'9 are wanting in ®; they are supplied, from 9, in S" 23. 149. 253.
260. The omission is probably connected with the fact that our v.20-22 are
placed after our v.**, but the origin of the change is uncertain; there is nothing
in v.'"'-''-' to cast doubt on their genuineness. — 16. ?lj 3-it r;; Gr. 'ic -»p\ On
B'l see note on 8-' ; it is belter to take it here as noun, but it is possible to
392 PROVERBS
understand it as verb. — 16. The Inipv. n,-''^ is found elsewhere only Ex. 29*
Ez. 37I®. — 1§ ti; Gr. 11^, as in 6>, which is allowable, but apparently not
necessary; for noun without Prep, after 2-\y see ii^^ 27''. — K d^i^j, Q nnaj;
read sing. masc. •'ijj. — in'?3n might, so far as its form is concerned, be Impv.
or Perf.; the latter would be possible only in the sense he has pledged (paral-
lel to aty), which does not elsewhere occur; as Impv. it is to be taken as
Qal, not as Piel (Konig), which would = injure. — 17. ?§ ">nN; Gr. \~-\nN
(see 23^2), unnecessary. — 18. For |^ Impv. 1^7 we might, to secure com-
pleter parallelism, read Infin. (so Bi.), or Nif. Impf. (so apparently S^TIL),
but it is better to change |^ frn to Hif. Impv. jp"'. — 19. ||J nprj; 3C jjt.:'d
entices, — Piel of r^-^z, here hardly appropriate; 0, similarly, dn-aTtDi'Tt;
S pmDD hasten, perhaps free rendering, = open wide ; % dilatat. — 1§ can
mean ovXy foolish (of lips), and this sense is here possible. If the text be
changed, we should take not nno (which is used, in connection with lips, only
in a general sense, of speech, never in a bad sense) but p.:';-, as in 13^ (so Gr.).
— 20. K jiu^''n; Q jirs;, a word of doubtful meaning, rendered in ^T by the
equally doubtful njipn, on which see De. and Levy, Chald. Whch. ; the other
Vrss. render Kethib. Instead of Prep. 3 (of J§) S® read d, which suits the
connection less well. — 21. K nVn^r;, Q r'>^7\^;:^. Schult. explains Sn3 as
= Arab. Vna avaricious, Ew. as Snj curse, the Lexicons as = Syr. '?n3, which
is appropriate in Zech. ii^, but not here. Read Qeri. Ew. adopts curse
as antithesis of the bless of'', but the contrast thus gained is not satisfactory —
we rather expect in * an explanation of why the property is not blessed. —
For MSS. and edd. which give the Qeri see De' Rossi.
22-24. God's control of life.
22. Say not: " I will take revenge for wrong";
Trust to Yahweh, and he will save thee.
23. Divers weights are an abomination to Yahweh,
And a false balance is not good.
24. A man's steps are ordered by Yahweh;
How, then, can man understand his way?
22. Sentence with implied antithesis, ternary, or binary-ternary.
The same injunction is given in 24^^, and is implied in 25^' ; so, in
NT., I Th. s'' Rom. 12'^ i Pet. f, cf. Heb. lo''". It is the pro-
test which the advancing moral feeling made against the prevalent
principle of retaliation ; see note on 24^. — The groimd or motive
adduced in second cl. appears to be simply that God will dehver
his servants from the machinations and injuries of enemies (so
De.), there being no reference to revenge, an interpretation which
is favored by 24'*. God is thus represented not as avenging, but as
saving. The conception of Yahweh's vengeance on enemies in
XX. 22-25 393
Dt. 32^ (quoted in Rom. 12'^ Heb. 10'^) does not refer to private
relations between man and man. — Take revenge for turong is lit.
repay evil, that is, with evil ; trust to is hope i?i, wait on, that is,
confide a matter to God, wait for him to act. — For similar sayings
among other peoples see Malan. — 23. Synonymous, ternary. See
v.'" and 1 1\ — 24. Continuous, with implied antithesis, ternary. See
3" 1 6'-^ 19^^ Jer. lo^''. Since, says the proverb, human life is con-
trolled by God [a principle which is a necessary inference from the
doctrine of divine omnipotence], it is obvious [as Jeremiah had
already affirmed] that no man can comprehend fully the meaning
of his own experiences. The suggestion is that man must throw
himself on God, acknowledge, obey and trust him (v.^ 3^) — then
his life will be rationally and successfully directed. Exactly how
this reliance on God is to be reached our couplet does not say;
there is no mention of written law, of Tora or Prophets (though
these a pious Jew would naturally have in mind) — here, as else-
where in Proverbs, the sage rests on the conscience enlightened
by all available means. — If, in the second line, we emend under-
stand to order, the meaning of the couplet remains the same. —
This Division of the Book is thus at one with the first Division in
the recognition of absolute divine sovereignty, and no attempt is
made to reconcile this belief with the belief (held with equal dis-
tinctness) in human freedom. — The first cl. is nearly identical
with first cl. of (/^ 37^^ and is perhaps taken from it (though the
sentence may have been a commonplace of religious thought) ;
but, while the psalmist uses it to point out that a good man will
be upheld by God, to the sage it suggests the limitations of
human knowledge (and so, it may be inferred, the necessity of
intellectual and moral humility and reverence) ; the former is
national-religious, the latter is philosophical-religious.
26. Text and translation are uncertain. Our Heb. may be ren-
dered : // is a snare to a man jvhen he rashly says ^^ sacred T'
and after voivs to make search, that is, perhaps, to try to avoid
payment. To declare a thing sacred (or, holy) was to renounce
ownership in it (for ever, or for a time), and make it the property
of the Temple (Lev. 27). The Heb. is not syntactically or logic-
ally clear : the snare (or, danger) to the man is expressed in the
394 PROVERBS
first line only ; the second line appears to give the ground of this
statement, that is, the nature of the danger ; and the word ren-
dered rashly says is doubtful. The Grk. is clearer : it is a snare
to a man hastily to consecrate property, for after {such) voiving
comes repentance ; this may be a free rendering of our Heb., or
may represent a different text. — The precise meaning of the
expression make search is not certain. Elsewhere in OT. it signi-
fies look after, look for, seek out (Ez. 34"' '^ of lost sheep; Lev.
13''®, of signs of leprosy on the skin), or make inquiry (Lev. 27^,
of inquiring and distinguishing between good and bad parts of the
tithe), and perhaps inquire of an oracle (2 K. 16'^ i/' 27^, though
the reading in these passages is doubtful) ; for the rendering
reflect on there is no authority, and the sense make a selection,
= " endeavor to substitute a less valuable thing for the thing
vowed" (Frank., who refers to the expression in Lev. 27'^:
inquire between good and bad) is hardly here appropriate, since
there is no question of choosing particular objects out of a mass
(as was true in the case of tithes). The more natural sense
appears to be : " make inquiry into one's affairs or into the terms
of the vow, so as to escape payment." The couplet may be con-
jecturally rendered:
It is dangerous for a man hastily to consecrate property,
For, after vowing, he begins to make inquiry.
Under some sudden impulse, good or bad, men would sometimes
make gifts which they afterwards regretted : they would see (as
sometimes happens now to those who make religious or charitable
donations) that they had given beyond their means, or had been
unjust to other obligations, or, when the motive was one of selfish
personal interest, that they had failed to gain their ends. Such a
procedure the proverb declares to be a snare as leading into diffi-
culties financial and moral ; in like manner Koheleth (Ecc.
^2.4-6(i.3-.5)'j ridicules hasty vows, when a man, called on to pay
(for rates of redemption see Lev. 27), has to say lamely to the
Temple collector that he made a mistake. Against this thought-
less, immoral habit of giving to religious objects the sages protest ;
a similar evil is rebuked in Mk. 7-^ where, however, the gift
{corban) is made advisedly, and for a bad purpose. On vows
XX. 25-26, 28 395
see note on 7". The renderings to devour holy things (which
were lawful only for sacred persons), and destroy holy things are
improbable. Saadia, who has the first of these, explains the
search of second cl. as referring to attempts to get possession of
property consecrated by others, or to avoid paying one's own
vows. Cf. the Talmud \.X2SX Nedarim [Vows] 21a.
26, 28. The ideal king is just and kind. — The two apho-
risms, by their contents, belong together.
26. A wise king winnows the wicked,
And passes the wheel over them.
28. Kindness and truth guard the king.
And by (justice > his throne is sustained.
26. Synonymous, quaternary-ternary. On first cl. see note on
v.^ ; here the king is described as wise, and it is the persons, the
zvicked, who are winnowed, sifted, disposed of. The wheel is that
not of fortune, but of the threshing-cart (Isa. 28^''-^), which sepa-
rated the grain from the straw,* and there is also the implication
of destructive or serious punishment ; the winnowing proper was
done with fork and shovel (Isa. 30-^ Jer. 15"). In Am. i^ the
devastation of the Syrian invasion is compared to the crushing
power of the threshing-sledge — it was the custom of war of the
time.f A slight change in second cl. gives the reading : and
repays them their iniquity. Cf. Isa. ii^ — 28. Synonymous, ter-
nary. On kindness and truth see notes on 3'', and cf. 11^'' 14-^
16'"*. Truth involves faithfulness to all obligations; kindness is
not merely mercy (= compassion or clemency), but general
benevolence. The combination of the two terms (frequent in
OT.) gives an expression of high and attractive moral character.
The two are applied to a king in Isa. 16^; in the Prophetic por-
traitures of the ideal king it is more commonly justice that is
emphasized (Isa. 11* 1/^ 72^ Zech. g'-*). — In second cl. the Heb.
reads lit. : and he sustains (or, supports, or upholds) his throne by
kindness. The repetition of only one of the two qualities men-
* See Nowack, Arch. I. \ 41.
t On the interpretation of 2 Sam. 128I see Hoffmann, '/.AW. 1882 (in which it is
maintained that David did not torture the Ammonites, but only set them to work),
Slade, GVI. I. 278, Driver, Samuel, and cf. Geier's note.
396 PROVERBS
tioned in first cl. is strange, and the substitution, in the Grk., of
the other quaUty which should characterize royal administration is
probably right.
27. Conscience is God's search-light.
The spirit of man is the lamp of Yahweh,
Searching all the chambers of the soul.
Single sentence, ternary-binary. The spirit is the breath (Heb.
neshama) which is breathed into the body by God (as in Gen.
2'^), whereby man becomes a "living soul," that is, a complete
living person. The OT. conception appears to be that into every
human body, as soon as it is formed, there is introduced a new
" breath," which is the inward moral and intellectual being * ; but
there is no theory of preexistence of souls, such as is found in
IVisd. Sol. 8^. — The spirit is here man's moral and intellectual
perception, the conscience, represented as the critic of the moral
life, and therefore the search-light of God, who is the supreme
and final critic ; the presupposition is that the conscience is not
only the creation of God, but also morally identical with him. —
On chambers (fully secret chambers^ see 18*^; soul (lit. interior,
or belly, as in 18**, cf. Job 32^**) = the whole inward being, here
especially the moral nature. Though, in the expression " the
spirit searches the soul," there is a formal antithesis of " spirit "
and "soul," the two terms are really equivalent each to the other,
as in our expression " the conscience judges the soul " ; but the
former denotes the moral nature in its capacity of judge, with ref-
erence to the moral ideal, while the latter exhibits it on the side
of its actual life. — Cf. i Cor. 2^". — The rendering the light of
Yahweh searches the spirit of man and all etc. (Gratz) is rhyth-
mically unsatisfactory.
29. Strength in youth, wisdom in old age.
The glory of young men is their strength,
The beauty of the old is the hoary head.
Antithetic, ternary. Glory = beauty, = adornment, that which
constitutes the highest attraction, and is thus an indication of per-
* Cf. the later theory of creatianism, as opposed to traducianism.
XX. 28, 27, 29-30 397
fectness. The proverb must be understood as giving one aspect
of things : what is most characteristic, attractive, and admirable is,
in the young (persons in the prime of Ufe), physical strength and
exuberant animal life, in the old, gray hair regarded as the indica-
tion of gravity and wisdom ; the sage would doubtless hold that a
young man should have something more than bodily vigor, and
an old man more than wisdom. Cf. i6*^, and the references
there given.
30. Text and translation are uncertain. The Heb. may be ren-
dered : " wounds from stripes [RV. : stripes that wound] cleanse
away evil (or, cleanse the bad man), and blows (cleanse) the
inward parts (or, and reach the inward parts, or, and blows which
reach the inward parts)." — Grk. (with different text) : blows and
contusions befall bad men, and stripes (penetrate) into the inward
parts; Lat. (followed by AV.) : the blueness (or, bruise) of a
wound cleanses away evil things ; Rashi : bruises and wounds are
remedies [lit. abstergents] for evil, and blows {entering into) the
inward parts. Modern expositors * generally adopt Rashi's ren-
dering. In second cl. De. translates : and reach the inward parts
(Partcp. striking, reaching instead of Subst. blows) ; RV. : and
strokes {reach) etc. — The thought of the proverb appears to be
(cf. 17'°) that moral evil must be put away by severe chastisement.
The word in first cl. representing "cleansing" occurs as noun in
Esth. 2^-^-^^ in the sense of " cosmetics " (applications to the skin)
for women of a harem, and as verb in Jer. 46* Lev. 6-**<-" 2 Chr. 4'*''
in the sense of "furbish" (of weapons and vessels). The text
appears to be in bad condition, and we should, perhaps, adopt
the reading of the Grk., or emend so as to read : Stripes cleanse
the body, and blows the imvard parts, in which body and inward
parts may both refer to the moral being, or the first term may be
taken literally, and the second as = soul ; or, since it is difficult to
understand how stripes (or bruises) cleanse the body, we may
read : Cosmetics purify the body, and blotus the soul.
24. Instead of jp^ several MSS. (and so 5) have jO' (cf. \p 37^*), which
also gives a good sense. — 25. |^ vS'' may he Impf. of ';y'^ or yh or nyS, or
Perf. or Impf. of -j^'. Lag. identifies the stem with Arah. j?Si IV., = ittcUe,
* Geier, Schult. Mich. Reuss, Zock. Noyes, Kamp. al.
398 PROVERBS
and so, hasten, and he would then point the following word tnj^; the two
words, he observes, would thus be correctly rendered by (5 rax^ • ■ • a.'yi.a.ijai.
Another proposed derivation (De.) is from ny'^, = Arab, ny'?, speak carelessly
(of. ij;*? pD^ a vow made lightly) ; ySi may thus be taken as Impf. of yy'? or
yiS, = "that he should lightly say": cf. Job 6^ (in Obad. i6 some form of
ySa should perhaps be read). — @ may = 'j'-ip^ Sn3 (Frank.). — ^, mj vow,
free rendering, or guess based on ''; IL devorare, = p^3. — 1§ ipa; <5, well,
ixfravoeiv. — Gr. reads j'^'' and mN, procrastinate in paying one's vows. —
26. 3§ JON; Gr. djs (and requites them for) their iniquity (\// 9428).—
27. ?^ ■'P.; <5 0WS) = ■'J or ns, or is perhaps free rendering of ^. — Clem.
Al. 221*^ iryevixa Kvplov \vxvos ipevvCov to, Tafxeta ttjs yacrpds, affected by
I Cor. 2I''. — 28. 1^ i>D, the subj. being the iSc; Nif., Perf. or Impf., would
perhaps be better (though Nif. does not occur elsewhere). — 30. K p^'^'cr,
Q pnnn, 3 sing. fem. of Hif. and Qal, or two nouns; <5 ffwavrgi, = nnpp
(Lag.), or ny-\pr\ (Frank.), or, less probably, Diipn (Gr.). — |^ p-^a; Kamp.
ynp. — 5^ ninan and yxo are synonyms (Ex. 2r'^^ Isa. i''), and the latter should
perhaps be omitted as gloss. For J^ yi3 we may read ira ; better perhaps :
^B'3 piDP lan; for Hif. of Tia see Jer. 4" ^i^K
XXI. 1-3. God's control of men.
1. Like watercourses is a king's heart in the hands of Yahweh —
Whither he will he turns it.
2. All that a man does he thinks right.
But Yahweh tries the heart.
3. To do justice and equity
Is more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice,
1. Comparison with explanation, ternary, A king is generally
supposed to be autocratic, but God, the proverb declares, con-
trols even his decisions and actions. I/earf = mind. The pic-
ture is that of a land (as Egypt or Babylonia, but not Palestine),
or a garden, watered by canals (cf. 5** Isa. 58"), whose flow is reg-
ulated by officers or gardeners ; in the fertilizing wa^er there may
be an allusion to royal deeds of kindness (cf. 16'"'), but the main
reference is to the divine control of kings. Cf. Tob. i" Esth.
(Grk.) 14'^ — 2. Antithetic, ternary. See note on i6^ with
which this couplet is nearly identical ; cf. le^'^ 17^ Lit. eve/y
way of a man is right in his eyes. Tries is lit. weighs or measures.
— 3. Single sentence, ternary. Cf. v.^' 15^ .^ 40'*^' 5116.17(18.19)
Am. 5=*-=^^ Isa. i" al. (and see also Hos. 6*'). The ethical concep-
XXI. 1-5 399
tion of piety, announced by the prophets, lost none of its force
with the sages; see BS. 34^^-*^ 35"- ^
4. Text and sense doubtful.
The couplet appears to contain fragments of two couplets.
Lit. : haughty look and proud heart (or, haughty of look and
proud of heart) — the tillage (or, ploughing) of the wicked is sin.
This may be understood to mean that pride, which is the industry
or occupation of the wicked, is sin ; but the figure is strange and
forced. In Hos. 10^- Jer. 4^* preparing one's heart for a new life
is called " breaking up the fallow ground " ; so here in second cl.
the bad man's preparation for life may be supposed to be called
sin, but this is not a probable sense — the meaning is rather that
his life itself is sin. — The difficulty is not diminished if, by the
change of a vowel, we read (with Grk. RV.) lamp instead of
tillage ; the sentence the lamp of the wicked is sin conveys no
meaning; cf. 13^, where the figure of light and lamp is simple
and clear. — The first cl. recalls 16^, the second cl. 10'^ 13^ 24®;
new couplets might be conjecturally constructed, but the recovery
of the precise form seems impossible ; see Lagarde and Wildeboer.
5. Industry and sloth. — Antithetic, ternary. The Heb. reads :
The methods of the industrious lead surely to gain,
But every one who hastes (hastes) surely to want.
Hastes can here be understood to mean only " hastes to be rich,"
as in 13" 28^' ; but in that case we expect the term to be defined,
as in 13'^ 19^ 28^ 29^". Hasty (even if it be taken to mean
"using improper methods") is not a proper antithesis io indus-
trious; we rather tx^eci slothful, as in 13* (so the Lat.). The
parallelism also suggests, instead of every one, some term equiva-
lent to methods, and the word surely (or, only) adds nothing to
the meaning. We may thus read :
The methods of the industrious lead to gain,
The ways of the slothful to want.
Methods = Xhovi^i'i, reflections, plans {it' 15^ 16' 20'''). The
couplet is an exhortation to industry ; so 10^ 12'^ cf. C*"*"" 24^*^^^
400 PROVERBS
6-10. The way of the wicked.
6. The acquisition of wealth by a lying tongue
Is a fleeting breath, a deadly < snare.'
7. The violence of the wicked will sweep them away
Because they refuse to act justly.
8. Crooked is the way of the vicious,
But the conduct of the pure is straight.
9. It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop
Than with a quarrelsome woman in a < large > house.
10. The wicked desires to do harm;
He has no kindly feeling toward his neighbor.
6. Single sentence, quaternary (or, binary-ternary). Cf. lo^ In
first cl. acquisition of ivealth may be understood as = wealth
acquired. Fleeting breath is lit. breath driven (by the wind) ; cf.
Isa. 19^ i/' 68^^^\ The last expression of second cl. stands in the
Heb. : seekers of death, or (by a slight change of text) the sing,
may be read : (the acquisition etc.) is a fleeting breath, seeking
death, an obscure and improbable form. The reading snare,
instead of seekers, comes from the Greek, which has : he who
gains wealth by a lying tongue pursues vafiities to (or, on) snares
of death. — 7. Single sentence, ternary (or, binary-ternary). For
the thought cf i^^. Violence is highhanded, oppressive conduct ; see
24^ (RV. oppression) . Sweep atvay, = " take away, carry off " ; see
Hab. i^^ (RV. catcheth), and a similar verb in Ju. 5-^ The instru-
ment of punishment for the wicked is law, divine and human. —
8. Antithetic, ternary. The word here translated vicious is by
some rendered sin-laden (De. RV.), by others false, dishonorable
(Barth), or, with the omission of a letter, proud or insolent
(Gratz) ; the general sense is the same in all these translations ;
the rhythm appears to favor the last (and cf. v.^^), of which
vicious is a synonym. By some critics the word is regarded as a
corrupt form, of which no translation is possible. — The second cl.
reads lit. : but the pure, straight (= upright) is his conduct (lit.
doing or work). — ^The sense is : bad men are underhand in their
procedures, good men are straightforward — that is, no man, what-
ever his pretensions, can be called pure, if he does not act
uprightly. — 9. Single sentence, ternary-quaternary. The couplet
= 25^*; cf. 19^^ 21^^ 27^*. Lit.: better the dwelling . . . than a
XXI. 6-IO 401
quarrelsome woman etc. It was customary to sleep on the roof
(so Saul, I Sam. 9^^, according to the Grk. and RV. marg.), and
there a simply-furnished guest-room might be built, such as Elijah
(i K. 17^^) and Elisha (2 K. 4'") occupied ; but to live always in
so narrow a space would be lonely and inconvenient. — The sense
large (or, wide^ is obtained by transposition of letters ; the Heb.
text has house of a cotnpanion, which is interpreted to mean house
of society * common house, ^ or house in common, \ that is, a house
in which one has society ; but the phrase is not a natural one — •
we should at least expect the plu. companions ; or the companion
is taken to be the wife, the man being thus described as a house-
holder (Frank.), an interpretation equally difficult. In any case,
the antithesis in first cl. is "loneliness" (cf. «// 102**) and discom-
fort.— The wojnan is probably the wife, but any woman, as a
mother or a sister, may be meant. — Others § translate : it is
better to sit on the pinnacle etc., a situation of danger as well as of
inconvenience ; but, though the word may mean corner-tower
(Zeph. i^^), the idea of danger is not probable — the point is
rather the discomfort of the situation : rather any privation with
peace than luxury with strife. — The Grk., with a different text, or
else moralizing, has unrighteousness instead of a quarrelsome
woman. — 10. Synonymous, ternary. Lit. the soul of the wicked
etc., and his neighbor does not find fnercy (or, kindfiess) in his
eyes. Cf. 4'^ lo'^ 12'" Isa. i".
XXI. 1. ^ run'; (5 Beov. — % "^jr; read, with Bi., ^s. — (5!L interpret » as
comparison : as ... so ; S}% have only as ; ^, as cutter, is probably original.
— 2. JJJ t:"'; Tosef. Yebam. i, 11, It, doubtless scribal variation, after \(i^.
tor 1^ I^^ Gr. (as in \iF) reads jna, but unnecessarily, since "n may = tries.
pn (from p) , —fix accurately, determine, and so, perhaps, weigh. — 3. |^ nin^S ;
(5 Trapd Qi(^. — 4. II? "^i; (ScSEIL ■^•. <5TL make " a complete sentence; S2C,
inserting i before "(j, make the cou])let a single sentence; Bi. makes ^ an
exclamation, and inserts i before 15. Possibly some such word as ppt (cf. 24^)
should be substituted for -\:. — 5. Wanting in ®; 95" = ?^.— ?t? r« "'^i;
3r and the foot (as if it read Vn) of the hasty ; S and {those) of the wicked,
perh. reading v^ (Pink.), perh. free rendering of |^; IL omnis autem piger,
= Ssy S3\ — Read "^sv ''3"n; ^x" is read by Clr. The ts may be retained, but
is unnecessary, and the thought is better without it.^ — 6. © reads Partcp. S>'c.
— 1^ ^^3; (S 5id)Kei, = l-n (Jag.). — ?^ ^-cp^::; <5 iraylda^, IL laqueos, = •'tt'pb
* Schult. t Lat. Ew. X De. RV. marg. ^ Mercer, Geier, De. al.
402 PROVERBS
(so Rashi, Ew. Hitz. Reuss, Kamp. «/.), obviously to be preferred to |^. — (5's
form of the couplet, adopted by Bi. Frank., is not clear. — 7. ^ aVr; (g eTri^evw-
dT^a-erai, = Dir (Hitz.), improbable. — 8. ||J ir\ iiir. 'Key., may be a noun of
agency from a stem nti (Capp.), which occurs in Arab, in the sense dear a bur-
den, and (as denom. from wizr, burden, sin) commit sitt ; it would then mean
not sin-laden, but simply sinner. The derivation from a stem -iir, in Arab. =
turn aside, be false, is less probable (but cf. (5 cr/coXtas oSoi's). <S2C1L foreign
(■\t). Gr., taking the i to be scribal insertion from following ir', reads -it, which
also gives a good sense, and is perhaps preferable to f^. — 9. On K D^jnr,
Q □•'jnc, see note on 6i*. — |^ -\2n p^j is followed by @2;eiL; ST xpTj -3 a
closed house, free contrast to " open roof," perh. after (5 KeKoviajxivois; & omits.
For •\in read am (so Gr.).
11. How simple and sage are taught.
When the scoffer is punished, the simple is made wise,
When the wise man is instructed, he receives knowledge.
Antithetic, binary-ternary. On scoffer and simple see notes on
i^*. The punishment of the bad man is a warning to the
morally untrained, who is too unripe, intellectually and morally, to
be benefited by instruction ; the wise man, on the other hand, is
receptive and teachable. Cf. 19^. — The three similar terms of
second cl. are here employed with different shades of meaning :
wise denotes general comprehension of the issues and needs of
life ; to instruct is to cause to know, to give insight into practical
truth; and the result is knoivledge, acquaintance with definite
rules of conduct.
12. Text and translation are uncertain.
The Heb. may be rendered : the righteous cotisiders the house
of the wicked tnan, overturns the wicked to 7nisfortune (or, ruin).
As the Heb. text stands the subject of the couplet must be God,
the righteous one (so most recent expositors, and RV. marg.) ; a
righteous man might be said to note the wicked, but could not be
said to hurl them to ruin ; the rendering " one hurls the wicked
etc.," = " the wicked are hurled " (RV. ho7v the wicked are over-
thrown to their ruiti), is difficult if not impossible, and the same
thing is true of the interpretation : "the righteous man notes etc.,
he (= God) hurls etc."; see textual note on lo'*. The refer-
ence to God is favored by 22^-, in which it is said that Yahweh
overthrows (= hurls down) the affairs (or, words) of the wicked.
XXI. II-I4 403
— On the other hand, the designation of God as " a (or, the)
righteous one " * occurs nowhere else in Proverbs, and elsewhere
in OT. only in Job 34'^ " the just-mighty one," where the context
makes the reference obvious and natural ; here, on the contrary,
the word is isolated.f — The Heb. text seems not to be in its
original form. Hitzig emends so as to read : the righteous man
considers his house, but wickedness hurls the wicked to ruin (cf.
13"), a possible sense for the lines separately, but giving no
natural connection between them. The repetition of the term
wicked is strange — we expect a contrast in the lines, such as Hit-
zig gains, or, with closer connection : Yahweh considers the right-
eous, but overthrows the house of the wicked ; cf. 3^, and \p 41^'^^
— Consider (or, note) is lit. to act loisely in reference to a thing,
direct one's intelligence to it ; cf. \\i 41^*-^ The house of the
wicked is his household or family, which stands for his social
position. On hurls (or, overthrows) see 13" 19^ 22^^. Ruin is lit.
evil, harm.
13, 14. Kindness to the poor. Bribery.
13. Whoso closes his ears to the cry of the poor,
He also shall call and not be answered.
14. A gift in secret turns away anger,
And a present in the bosom violent wrath.
13. Single sentence, ternary. The poor is the physically needy.
Also emphasizes the fact that the unkind man will suffer the same
fate as the man whom he neglects ; it is the law of retaliation.
He will mil not to God (Targ. Syr.), but to his fellow-men ; the
statement is that a hardhearted man need expect no sympathy in
his misfortunes. For anstvered vfQ may write heard (RV.), in the
sense listened to. Cf. BS. 4'"*' Jas. 2'''. — 14. Synonymous, ter-
nary. The gift and the present are bribes, carried by the briber
in his bosom and given in secret; the reference is to dealing with
* Delifzsch's assertion that the word, being without the Art., cannot mean "the
righteous one" is disproved by Job 34I'.
t The Anc. Vrss. all understand the righteous to mean righteous man, and so
the body of interpreters (except Rashi) up to De Wette, Fleisch. Ew. ; Rashi refers
it to God, but this exegesis of his has no great weight, for the reason that he
habitually introduces references to divine things (God and the Tora), often without
ground. " God " is supplied as subj. of second cl. by AV. Geier, Mich. Wordsw. al.
404 PROVERBS
judges and other great men. For the use of the bosom of the
dress as a pocket see 1 7^. — For turns away some Anc. Vrss.*
have extinguishes (RV. pacific th), a probable reading. The Grk.
makes second cl. antithetic : he who withholds a gift stirs up vio-
lent wrath, a sense good in itself, but less probable than that of
the Hebrew. — The power of a bribe is here noted simply as a
fact. Against bribery see 17^.
15, 16. Punishment of bad men.
15. The execution of justice is a joy to the righteous,
But destruction to evil-doers.
16. The man who wanders from the path of wisdom
Will rest in the assembly of the Shades.
15. Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. The sense is : to those who
are in sympathy with what is good, and are conscious of right-
doing, the execution of justice (by courts or otherwise) can only
be a source of satisfaction (making manifest their integrity), while
to offenders against law and right it means destruction. Instead
of destruction we may render dismay, terror,^ which furnishes a
more direct antithesis to the Joy of first clause ; but destruction is
the meaning of the Heb. word elsewhere in Pr., and gives an
effective heightening of the thought. — The subject of first cl. is
lit. to do justice, which may be taken to mean " rectitude of con-
duct," X but this interpretation affords no satisfactory sense for
the second cl. ; the statement that "rectitude, or obedience to
the law of God, alarms evil-doers " § is unnatural in itself, and is
foreign to the tone of Proverbs. The rendering there is destruc-
tion to the etc. (AV.) is not favored by the parallelism, which
suggests that destruction must be predicate of the subject of first
clause. — 16. Single sentence, quaternary-ternary. Wisdom her q
= " understanding, insight, intelligence " in the law of life, which
is the law of God. The assembly of the Shades is the population
of Sheol ; to rest therein is to be numbered with the dead. The
verb rest (= "take position") is the poetic equivalent of dwell,
and is probably not meant to convey the idea of repose. In Job
* Sym. Targ. Lat. + De. Reuss, RV. al.
t So De. Wild. al. k De. Wild.
XXI. i4-i8 405
3^'^ the " weary " find rest in Sheol from the wicked who trouble
them on earth ; but here it is the wicked themselves who are said
to rest. There is possibly a tinge of sarcasm in the expression ;
but this is hardly probable. The idea of the couplet is the old
one that bad men die prematurely — physical death is the punish-
ment of sin; cf. i(/ 8^'*'*' 55^""^''* Pr. i^^ etc. — On wisdo))i and
Shades (Rephaim) see notes on i^ 2^^
17-21. Thrift, righteousness, comfort.
17. He who loves pleasure will come to want,
He who loves wine and oil will not be rich.
18. The wicked is a ransom for the righteous —
Instead of the upright stands the bad man.
19. It is better to dwell in a wilderness
Than with a quarrelsome and vexatious woman.
20. There is precious treasure [] in the abode of the wise,
But the fool swallows it up.
21. Whoso follows after justice and kindness
He finds life [] and honor.
17. Synonymous, ternary. Immoderate love of pleasure and of
luxurious living is meant ; cf. 3'", where wine is regarded as a
blessing, and, for the representation of wine and oil as common
sources of enjoyment, cf. 27" Ju. g''^^ \\i 104'^ BS. 31^^ Among
the Hebrews, as among the Greeks and Romans, they were usual
accompaniments of feasts; see Am. d^ Dt. 14"'' Neh. 8'"; the oil
was used for anointing the person. In first cl. the Lat. has who
loves feasts, but the reference is rather to unbridled luxury in gen-
eral, which is likely to lead to excessive expenditure of money
and to poverty; cf. BS. 19^ — 18. Synonymous, ternary. Rati-
som is that which is given to free a person from a penalty to
which he is exposed ; in 6'" it is a sum paid to an injured
husband, in 13" it is money considered as securing its possessor
against legal judgment or the oppression of great men, and so in
i/' 49^'**^ a consideration paid to God for averting physical death,
the common lot of men ; it is the old legal term for weregeld (Ex.
2 1'^); in I Sam. 12'' it appears to be ecjuivalent to "bribe."
Here, as second cl. suggests, the idea is a more general one :
when punishment is inflicted (by God) on a community, it is the
406 PROVERBS
bad man, and not the good, on whom it falls. The form of the
couplet suggests the sense that the righteous would, in the ordi-
nary course of justice, be punished, but that God takes the wicked
as his substitute ; but this is too crude a conception — the thought
appears to be simply that the bad and not the good suffer, a fact
which is poetically represented as a substitution of the former for
the latter. See note on ii^. — On bad (or, faithless), here
= wicked, see note on 2^1 — 19. Single sentence, quaternary-ter-
nary. See V." 25^'', from which this differs in putting ivildcrness
instead of housetop, both lonely and incommodious dwelling-
places, but at least affording peace. Wilderness is pasture-land,
not wholly without houses and people, but sparsely settled and
quiet. — In second cl. we may render (so RV. marg.) a quarrel-
some 7vo»ian and vexation ; the sense is the same, since the vexa-
tion comes from the woman. — The Heb. is lit. better abode in a
wilderness than a quarrelsome etc. — 20. Antithetic, quaternary-
ternary. The meaning appears to be : the wise man amasses
wealth, the fool squanders it ; cf. io\ The form of expression is
somewhat strange : elsewhere in this Division of Prov. the sage is
not represented as rich, and here the fool seems to squander the
wealth amassed by the sage (as if he were his heir) . The it must
mean the fool's own treasure, and wise must = " provident." On
treasure (physical, not spiritual, riches) see 10^ i^^^ 21"; precious
is lit. desirable (Gen. 2^ ^ ig^"*"*)- The Heb. has precious treas-
ure and oil; the oil (wanting in the Grk.) is, however, here
inappropriate, and must be regarded as an incorrect scribal inser-
tion (perhaps from v.^'). Fool is lit. a fool of a man. as in
15^". — Grk.: precious treasure will rest on the mouth of the
sage (cf. lo"-^^"), but how the fool can swallow this treasure is
not clear. — 21. Single sentence, ternary. Probity, the proverb
says, brings long life and honor — the same thought as in 3^-^® al.
Instead oi justice the Heb. word might be rendered righteousness,
but this general term would make the following kindness unnec-
essary ; a good life is summed up in the two qualities justice (see
8^* i^) and kindness (see 3^), as in 3'' it is summed up in kindness
and faithfulness. — In second cl., after life, the Heb. adds justice
(or, righteousness), which is manifestly a scribal insertion (prob-
ably an error of eye) from first clause ; to say that he who follows
XXI. i8-23 407
righteousness finds righteousness is meaningless. — On life and
honor see notes on 2^' 3^^
11. In J^ D^n"^ the Prep, is possible, after ^yyn, but may be scribal repeti-
tion of preceding -. — 12. It is doubtful whether "^^-'n can be understood as
= " observe in order to control." It occurs in the sense of give heed to (the
law) for the purpose of obeying (Neh. 8^'^ Dan. 9^^), consider (one's ways)
for the purpose of rightly ordering (16^'), and be {kindly) considerate o/"(the
poor, \p 4i''^) ; nowhere else in OT. is the term used to express observation on
the part of God. The difficulty would thus not be set aside if ni.T were
substituted for pix. The deliberate hostility, moreover, thus ascribed to
Yahweh, is unexampled in Pr., even in i2<-32. These considerations would
incline us to interpret |■'^s of the good man, but J^, as the text stands, cannot
be so understood. Dys. ^••v^t, for '^Drr, hardly helps; Gr. ic'n i.no^, for
j?^n rT'2'^, and I^P', for n^?-> gains a contrast between the reward {good
fortune') of the righteous and the punishment {destruction) of the wicked, but
gives a text which is syntactically difficult. — 1L apparently read j,nr: ajjiin nSoS
{ut detrahat), but such procedure is not elsewhere in Pr. ascribed to the |"nx,
and I'^D is nowhere else in OT. used in a good sense. — It is probable that the
original form of the couplet stated a contrast between the actions or fortunes
of righteous and wicked men. We should, possibly, read : noi ("nx nin^ Sjb'D
ri'^DD Nin y^.^, — 14. 1^ •■195"; ® i<-sy-^T.,TL extinguit, — 'r\iz'. — 15. |§ nnnn;
(§ d/cdSaproj, perh. reading ns-jn ; dfo-ios is then supplied as subject. —
16. 1^ CNcn; (5 'itri6.vT(j3v; SSC n>in 'J3. — 18. <5 omits ^ (probably by
accident), and v.^^'' was then wrongly attached to v.^". — 21. Omit the second
np-ix, with ^^^ "'■, Ziegler, Elster, Gr. Bi.
22, 23. Power of wisdom and prudence.
22. A wise man scales the city of the mighty,
And casts down the stronghold in which it trusted.
• 23. He who is careful of mouth and tongue
Saves himself from trouble.
22. Synonymous, ternary. Intellect or practical sagacity versus
physical strength. Cf. Eccl. 9"-^* 7^^ Pr. 20''' 2^. Scales is lit.
ascends (Joel 2"). In second cl. lit. stronghold of its confidence ;
the Heb. has strength, which may be understood as = stronghold,
or the text may be changed (by the addition of one letter) .* —
23. Single sentence, ternary. Lit. he 7vho guards etc. guards
himself (lit. his soul) from troubles. Cautiousness in speech is
* On the ancient Semitic methods of defending and attacking cities see Nowack,
Arch., ^^ 71. 72; BiUerbeck, Der Untergang Ninex'eh's (in Beitr. z. Assyriol., iii.).
408 PROVERBS
inculcated, as in 13^ 18^'. The troubles referred to are probably
social and legal difficulties into which imprudent talk brings one,
especially in a community in which there are gossips and profes-
sional informers (Eccl. 10''") ; the reference is hardly to distress
of conscience (De.).
24. Definition of scoffer.
Scoffer is the name of the proud, arrogant man,
Him who acts with insolent pride.
Single sentence, ternary. The syntactical construction is not per-
fectly clear. The Heb. is lit. : proud, arrogant, scoffer is his
nanie, acting in insolence of pride. We cannot well translate " he
who acts with insolent pride is proud and arrogant and is called a
scoffer" (Reuss), or " the proud and haughty man, scorner is his
name, he worketh etc." (RV.), since this would be defining /;y;/^^/
hy pride. The couplet must rather be taken as a definition of the
term scoffer ; in that case it and 24^ are the only examples of
formal definition in the Book. If this interpretation be correct, it
appears to point to the existence of a precise, philosophical form
of instruction in the schools, and to the distinct recognition of a
class of arrogant disregarders of moral law, both of which facts
suit the time when the Jews came under Greek influence. The
term rendered proud occurs only here in Pr., and is not found in
any preexiUan writing ; from such passages as Mai. 3^* \\i 119^' we
should infer that it was sometimes a designation of those Jews
who were faithless to the national law. The corresponding sub-
stantive occurs in 11^ 13^°, where it = haughtiness in the ordinary
individual sense. Arrogant (found elsewhere only in Hab. 2*)
must here be a synonym oi proud. Insolence is lit. outbreak, used
of anger and pride. On scoffer see note on i-^ The definition
given in the couplet appears to include all persons who acted with
bold disregard of moral and religious law. The word does not
mean "freethinker" in the modern speculative sense (De.) — it
is conduct with which Pr. deals — nor (to judge from the general
tone of Proverbs) can it designate merely national enemies or
apostate Jews (as in the Psalms) ; it is simply " insolently wicked,"
one who scoffs not at belief, but at law.
XXI. 23-27 409
25. Sloth kills.
The desire of the sluggard slays him,
P"or his hands refuse to labor.
Single sentence, ternary. The sluggard's desire is for ease, and
this kills him, since his indolence prevents his acquiring food and
clothing and other necessaries of life. For desire see 10^^ 13^'' Nu.
II'' Job 33^ i the, word has a wider sense than appetite. Cf. 19^*
24^.
26. Text and meaning uncertain. Lit. : All the day he desires
desire, but the righteous gives and withholds not. The second cl.
apparently refers to the good man's kindness to the poor (cf.
Mt. 5^-), but with this the first cl. stands in no relation, and in
itself yields no sense. The repetition of the word desire points to
the preceding v., and the clause (read all day long he desires) may
be merely a variant of, or a gloss on, v.-^". The meaning of the
couplet is by some * taken to be : people are all the time wishing
and begging, but the righteous man, so far from asking for himself,
is always ready to give to others ; but the Heb. does not permit
this interpretation. — No satisfactory emendation has been pro-
posed. Grk. : the wicked man desires . . . bad desires, \\\\\c\\ gives
no antithesis to second cl. ; Bickell : all day long there is request
on request, which fails to say who they are that request. The
substitution of diligent for righteous in second cl. gives an improb-
able statement. The clauses appear to be dislocated. The first,
by a violent emendation, may be read : tlie sluggard desires and
has not, with antithesis as in 13^, and a new couplet might be
formed on the second clause.
27-29. The wicked man's methods and perils.
27. The sacrifice of the wicked is (in itself) an abomination —
How much more when it is brought as atonement for crime !
28. A false witness will perish,
29. A wicked man harilens his face,
An ujiright man considers his acts.
27. Climax, ternary. The first cl. occurs in 15", with the addi-
tion to Yahwch, which ought perhaps to be inserted here, though
* De. Bick. al.
41 0 PROVERBS
it is naturally taken for granted. The proverb declares (as Am.
^21-24 jgg^^ i"-i') that sacrifice without righteousness is displeasing
to God. A bad man's offering, even in the ordinary performance
of ritual commands (vows, passover etc.), is abhorrent; how
much more when, offered without repentance, it is meant merely
to relieve one from the consequences of evil-doing ! Sacrifices
were prescribed, in the law, for sins of inadvertence (Lev. 4) and
for certain cases of fraud (Lev. 5 6^"^ [Heb. ch. 5]), but not for
more serious crimes, such as murder and adultery ; but it is not
improbable that in the popular view an offering atoned for any
offence (see if/ 50'""^'). The suggestion is that this superstitious
and immoral conception of the power of sacrifice existed among
the Jews of the writer's time. The case of genuine repentance is
not considered ; the wicked man is regarded as one who is given
over to sin. — As atonement for crime (RV. marg.) is lit. in crime,
that is, " in the case of a crime." The word here rendered crime
means originally plaji, but appears to be used in OT. always in a
bad sense (10^^ 24''), often of unchastity (Ez. 16^ 22'' 23^'°' Lev.
18'^).* — This seems to be the most probable understanding of
the expression, the meaning of which is, however, doubtful. Grk. :
wickedly (or, unlaw/uliy), — " yviih. evil design" (RV. : with a
wicked mind) ; the "wicked design" is naturally to secure safety
for the offerer, hardly to do harm to others. We know regret-
tably little of the customs and ideas of sacrifice of the later Jewish
period. — 28. The first cl. is nearly identical with first cl. in 19^^;
there the false witness is punished, here he perishes, either by
course of law (cf. Dt. ig^"^), or by divine intervention. — The
second cl. is obscure, lit. a man who hears (lit. a man hearing)
shall (or, will) speak for ever. The expression a man who hears
yields, in this connection, no good sense. It cannot mean one
who hears God (Saad.) or is obedient to the la^v of God (Rashi),
for such predicates are elsewhere either expressed (i^ ^s j^si ^^_^
or clearly suggested by the context (i* al. Ez. 2'^). In i K. 3^
the hearing tnind which Solomon asks for, in order that he may
judge the people, is a mind which attentively considers, and in
this sense the term is here understood by some interpreters f ;
* In Job 17II the text is doubtful ; see Budde, Hiob. f Saad. Ew. De. al.
XXI. 27-29 411
but there the context clearly indicates the nature of the hearing,
here there is no such indication ; a hearing man is a strange
phrase by which to express the conception a man who carefully
listens (and so is able to give trustworthy testimony). — The pred-
icate is not less obscure. To speak for ever is something which
would not be naturally said of (or desired for) any man, good or
bad, in a court of law or elsewhere. Delitzsch interprets it to
mean " will never need to be silent," or, preferably, " what he
says will stand " (RV. shall speak unchallenged^ , but these mean-
ings are not contained in the words. Instead oi for ever we may
perhaps render to victory (or, glory) * ; but this rendering is
obscure and unnatural. VVildeboer connects this term with the
preceding, and suggests the translation : a man tvho is known as
trustworthy may speak, but the interpretations known and trust-
worthy are both lexicographically improbable. Graetz changes
the text and reads : a man of truth will be remembered for ever,
in which truth stands in satisfactory contrast \^\\}i\ false , but remem-
bered for ever seems to be too large a reward for the man of truth,
if, as the connection would suggest, he is simply a " true witness " ;
cf. 10", where such a reward is assigned to the fust, the man of
general probity. We expect a statement equivalent to " a true*
witness will be established." — In default of a satisfactory interpre-
tation or emendation the clause is better left untranslated. —
29. Antithetic, ternary. On " hardening the face " see note on
y'''. Here the expression (lit. shows boldness in his face) refers
to the impudence with which a bad man deports himself toward
facts and persons ; he unblushingly maintains what suits him,
without regard to truth. On the other hand, the upt'ight or vir-
tuous man, anxious to do right, carefully considers his ways
(= conduct, acts). Considers is the reading of the Heb. margin
(and of the Grk.) ; the text has establishes, which Reuss prefers,
finding thus the admirable antithesis : " a bad man fixes his face,
a good man his deeds " (cf. 4^'') ; so RV. : ordereth his ways.
On the other hand, the marginal reading offers a better antithesis
to the picture of effrontery which appears to be given in the first
clause. On establish see note on 4^, on consider notes on 2* 14".
* Aq. Sym. Tlieod. will advance to victory ; Lat. will speak victory.
412 PROVERBS
30, 31. Divine sovereignty.
30. There is no wisdom nor understanding
Nor counsel against Yahweh.
31. The horse is prepared for the day of battle,
But to Yahweh belongs the victory.
30. Single sentence, binary. In the second line the preposition
may mean over against, in comparison with, or against. The two
meanings give the same general sense for the couplet ; the second
meaning appears to be favored by v.'^^ : " no human wisdom can
avail against Yahweh." A similar thought is found in Job 5^^-^^,
cf. Jer. 9^. The three nouns of the subject are practically syn-
onyms,* counsel involving " capacity for giving advice " ; see
notes on i^ 2^ i^^ 8". — 31. Antithetic, ternary-binary. Victory
in battle, the couplet says, is decided by God, in spite of human
arrangements. A similar thought, from a national point of view,
is found in \p 33'" 76"'"' 124; here the point of view is universal.
Victory is deliverance from enemies ; see 11^* {safef}'). Prepared
— set, harnessed. — The horse is here spoken of as a usual (and
apparently as a legitimate) feature in an army. The early
Hebrews in Canaan, being mostly mountaineers, did not employ
horses in war, and the use of them, as characteristic of foreigners,
was not favored by the prophets; see Hos. i'^ Dt. i7'"Zech. 9^"
al. Horses were imported from Egypt by Solomon (i K. 10"^) .f
22. In p) nn'^3C the suff. n is written without Mappiq, and quiesces in the
preceding vowel, the object being to secure a fuller vowel sound at the end
of the couplet; for a list of occurrences of He raphativn in OT. see Bottcher,
Lehrb. §418. On the Segol under a see Ges.-^ § 29 w. — (@ interprets the
suff. as = ot d(re/3e?x; % omits the suff., perh. by error of copyist. — 23. Sing,
mx is given in Kenn. 30. 253, Bibl. Soncin., Brixiens., (SSiST. — 24. On ^^^
see Ges. Thes. and De.'s note; the stem is probably n.T', with which th is
allied (cf. Arab.); the Aram. Vrss. render it by mc, a stem (found also in
Arab.) with a related sense. — 26. S>3r = |§; 3L in "^ concupiscit et desiderai ,
Bi. niND nixr. |^ nixn seems to be scribal repetition out of the preceding
word. — On the unexpressed subj. see Ew. § 294, Ges.^^ § 144. — 27. nini is
* Immanuel, cited by Delitzsch, interprets the first of theology, the second of
worldly science, the third of politics; but no such distinction exists in the Hebrew
terms.
t On Assyrian war-horses cf. Rawlinson, Anc. Mon. i. 414-427. The horse
appears to be native in Central Asia.
XXI. 30-XXII. 2 4^3
read or supplied after njjjn (r^;,-) in (S and S", and is added by Dys. Reuss,
Kamp. — ||J •'^ IN is inexactly represented in <S by Kal yap; in the other
Vrss., including S", 1*^' is neglected. — 28. J^ yCr; <S vtttjkoos, for iinfjKooi.
— 1^ "?.^-; ® 0vXa(Tcr6(Uews, = I'xj'^ (Capp.), or possibly free rendering of |^
(Baumg.) ; S>" has tj:; .SST rightly ; It victoriam ; AS0 ei's j/t/cos. — Gr. K'ni
"OP nsj'? PCN. — The Heb. noun nxj appears to represent two stems: one
= shine (Syr. Arab.), whence glory, victory, clearness (of voice), purity
(of heart), and hence perh. nxii: ; the other = endure, whence continuance
(^•i'b forever'). Cf. Orelli, Syn., pp. 95 ff. — 29. K pi is given in the great
mass of Heb. MSS., and in ASS2CII; Q p^ is found in ^%x, and about 50
Heb. MSS. — K vj-n; Q 0-1^. — 30. "^ nin<; (gB o(. 7.^^ dcre^^ (in some
cursives Kvpiov) ; da-elirj is perh. error for evcre^rj, perh. (Baumg.) represents
nvT' in'^ to him zvho is unfaithful to Yahweh (see \p 73^^); possibly the Heb.
expression was written '1 -\i2 (= nin> 3), and the "> was overlooked by the
Grk. scribe.
XXII. 1, 2. Value of reputation. Mutual relations of rich
and poor.
1. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.
To be well thought of is better than silver and gold.
2. The rich and the poor stand side by side,
Yahweh is the maker of them all.
1. Synonymous, ternary, or quaternary-ternary. The Heb. has
simply navie, — " repute, standing," here involving the predicate
good, as in Gen. 6*, men of (military) reputation, Job 30^ a name-
less race (God -forsaken, without social standing), Eccl. 7^ (good)
repute is better than oil, BS. 41'" ^i? careful of thy (good) name.
To be well thought of (lit. favor') is to have kindly appreciation,
good reception from others, to be persona grata ; and, from the
parallelism, natne is the estimation in which one is held by others,
during life, and after death. On favor see notes on i^ 13^^, cf.
Eccl. 9". A good reputation, the proverb appears to say, is val-
uable for the advantage it brings, respect, influence, material pros-
perity. Or, the sense may be the larger one that good repute,
involving high intellectual and moral character, is a more precious
possession than material wealth. The first interpretation is per-
haps supported by the term favor. — RV. loving (Xxi.gooil) favor
is improbable ; good is not a proper epithet oi favor (in which it
is implied), and does not so occur elsewhere in OT. See note
on i". — 2. Single sentence with suggested antithesis, ternary.
414 PROVERBS
Stand side by side is lit. meet one another. The meaning is :
There are social differences among men — but all men, as crea-
tures of God, have their rights, and their mutual obhgations of
respect and kindness. This conception of human equality, having
its roots in the old Hebrew life, and recognized by the Prophets,
is more definitely expressed in the later gnomic literature, which
looks at men apart from accidents of birth and station. Cf. Job
34^'' BS. ii"; Frank, refers to Syriac Menander 66.
3-5. Sagacity, piety.
3. A prudent man sees danger and hides himself,
Simpletons go on and are mulcted.
4. The reward of humility (and) of the fear of Yahweh
Is riches and honor and life.
5. < Traps and > snares are in the path of the lawless,
He who has regard to himself avoids them.
3. Antithetic, quaternary-ternary. The couplet occurs again in 27^.
Ovi prudent = " observant, sagacious," see notes on 1 2^^ i^ Danger
is lit. evil, anything which is a source of injury, financial, physical, or
moral. Simpleton, a favorite term in Pr., occurs elsewhere only in
Pss. (three times) and Ez. (once) ; it expresses lack of good sense,
and is not properly represented by Eng. " simple " ; see note on I^
Mulcted or subjected to fine (Ex. 2\^- Dt. 22^^ Am. 2® 2 C. 36^) here
= sujfer injury or are punished in general, but the legal coloring
may be retained in the translation; see \f^ 21". — The prudent
man here is not a sneak or a coldblooded and selfish person, but
simply a man of forethought and acuteness. — Grk., first cl. : an
intelligent man, seeing a bad jnan severely published, is himself
instructed— a. sense good in itself (cf. 21"), but not that of the
Hebrew. — 4. Single sentence, ternary or quaternary-ternary.
The and of first cl. is not in the Heb., but should probably be
inserted. The cl. may be rendered : the reward of humilitx is the
fear of Yahweh,* but humility, in such a connection, is substan-
tially identical with the fear of God, or if a relation of sequence
be supposed, it is rather the fear that precedes. — The combina-
tion of the two terms is, however, somewhat strange. They might
be taken as in apposition (Now.) : humility (which is) the fear of
* De. Wild.
XXII. 2-6 415
Yahweh, in which case Jiumility would have the religious sense,
and would = piety ; the sage must then be supposed to be
guarding against the non-religious interpretation of the term —
" humility," he would say, " provided it be the fear of Yahweh, is
rewarded " ; this construction, however, seems hardly natural, for
elsewhere (15^^ 18^-) honor is declared to be the reward of non-
religious humility. The term humility may, however, be a gloss
explaining fear of Yahweh. Or, the couplet may be based on
15^, combining in one clause the two subjects there standing in
two clauses (see note on 15^) ; in that case humility may here be
understood as non-religious. Cf. the similar expression in \\i 45'***'.
For humility see 15^ 18^-, and cf. xp iS'^'^) (= 2 Sam. 2 23«).—
The general meaning of the text is clear : reward follows humiUty
and piety. On the nature of the reward see notes on 3- ^^. —
5. Single sentence, with impHed antithesis, quaternary. On law-
less (= cf'ooked) see notes on 2^^ 1 1-'". He who has regard to (lit.
keeps) himself (lit. his soul) takes care to avoid {\\i. be far from)
the dangers of the lawless life. Instead of traps the Heb. reading
is thorns, an expression which, in the connection, is hardly appro-
priate ; if the word be correct, the reference may be to hedges,
which bar the way of the vagrant. It is better to emend to a
term synonymous with snares (see Job i8'''). Snares are set for
trespassers. — Dyserinck reads : snares are hidden in the path etc.,
which gives a good sense.
6. Education forms the man.
Train up a child in the way he is to go,
And even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Single sentence (condition and consequence), ternary, or quater-
nary-ternary. Train up = give instruction, experience. In the way
he is to go, lit. according to his way, that is, not exactly " in the
path of industry and piety " * (which would require in the right
way), nor " according to the bodily and mental development of the
child "t (which does not agree with second cl.), but "in accord-
ance with the manner of life to which he is destined," } the impli-
cation being that the manner of life will not be morally bad ; but
* Ew. AV. RV. t Saad. Do. + Now. Zock. Wild.
4l6 PROVERBS
the point on which stress is laid is the power of education.
Frank, renders : train a child iti the beginning of his way, then
etc. ; but the translation in the beginning is without authority.
The couplet reflects the opinion of a couimunity in which the pre-
cise training of children was recognized as possible and obligatory.
7-9. Thrift, improbity, liberality.
7. The rich rules over the poor,
And the borrower is slave to the lender.
8. He who sows iniquity will reap calamity,
And < the produce of his work > will come to naught.
9. The kindly man will be blessed
Because he gives bread to the poor.
7. Synonymous, ternary. Cf. 1 1^ 1 2^'* i 'f. The couplet states a
natural social law ; the reference appears to be not to legal con-
trol, but to the state of dependence consequent on poverty and
borrowing ; this is expressed by the strong tenn slave, which is
probably not to be taken hterally. According to the old Heb. law
a man might sell himself or his children into slavery (Ex. 21^"^ Neh.
5*), or the creditor might sell the debtor (Am. 2" 2 K. 4^) ; how
long this law continued in force is uncertain, but the parallelism
in our couplet suggests the more general sense for the term slave.
— 8. Synonymous, ternary. Iniquity = moral badness in general
(Hos. lo''') ; see the similar term in 29-'. — The term (awen)
here rendered calamity ( = trouble^ commonly means iniquity (so
in 6^- 10"^ 21*^ al), sometimes idolatry ox false god (as in Beth-
aven, Hosea's contemptuous name for Bethel, Hos. 4^^), here the
result of wickedness (as in 12^'). — In second line the Heb. has:
and the sceptre of his insolence (or, the rod of his wrath) will (or,
shall) fail { = pass away), the reference being apparently to the
tyranny of bad and powerful men * ; the interpretation the rod of
his punishment ( = the wrath that falls on him) shall come to pass
(be fulfilled) t is improbable. Gratz, with change of text: will
destroy him. The expression of the Heb. is, however, unnatural
(whether rod be taken as emblem of rule or as instrument of pun-
ishment), and offers no good antithesis to first clause. The emen-
dation above adopted J {work being tilHng) preserves the figure
* De. RV. t Schult. Ew. J Frank.
XXII. 6-1 1 417
of first line, and furnishes a precise antithesis. On the doctrine
see notes on i^ 2^- etc. — 9. Single sentence, ternary. Kindly is
lit. good of eye ; the opposite, evil of eye, occurs in 23^ 28^. Eye
here = look, expression ; there is no immediate connection with
the idea in the magical "evil eye." — Blessed, by God, immedi-
ately or through natural laws, and by men ; see 10" ii^''. Bread,
lit. of his bread Cf. 14'' 19" 31^ BS. f WS. f.
10. Insulting words stir up strife.
Expel the scoffer, and discord vanishes,
And strife and insult cease.
Synonymous (second cl. = predicate of first cl.), quaternary-ter-
nary. On scoffer see note on i-^. Strife is ht. decision or judg-
ment, then a lawsuit, here, from the connection, any quarrelling
or contention, = discord. Insult, lit. disgrace (3^ 9'), here sub-
stantially the talk that tends to inflict disgrace. — The Grk., read-
ing second cl. differently : for, when he sits in a council (o-ui/eSpt'o)),
he insults (or, dishonors^ everybody. The reference in the Heb.
is probably not specially to proceedings in courts of law. Cf. 17"
11. Defective text. The Heb. reads : He who loves purity of
heart (or, the pure of hearty the grace of his lips the king is his
friend, which is syntactically defective. A slight change of text
may give the sense : he who loves etc., on whose lips is grace, the
king etc.* ; this is intelligible, and the combination of ethical and
intellectual qualities (purity and eloquence^, though not usual
(see i2i'-'-»^ 14^' 15-- 16'" 18* 20**-^ 25'' 29*" •/'45'*'' Eccl. lo")
occurs in 16'^. Ewald : he who loves with pure heart, which the
Heb. does not allow. Lat. (followed by RV.), emending by the
insertion of a Preposition : he 7vho loves etc., for the grace etc.,
which introduces an inconsequence in saying that, if a man is
morally pure, then he is loved not for this purity, but for his gra-
ciousness of speech. Grk. : the Lord loves holy hearts. Delitzsch
mentions a Jewish interpretation which, in second cl., translates :
his friend is a king, that is, the friend of an honorable and culti-
« Rashi, Luther (who takes kin^ to be = God), De. Reuss al.
2E
41 8 PROVERBS
vated man is as fortunate and happy as a king — which, as De.
remarks, is a beautiful, but improbable, exegesis. — If resort be
had to conjectural emendation, we may suppose either that there
is a contrast between God and king, or that kirig is the subj. of
the whole couplet. In the first case we may read : God loves the
pure in heart, grace of lips pleases the king (so Wild.) ; such a
contrast occurs nowhere else, and is not probable. In the second
case the reading will be : the king loves the pure in heart, and
grace of lips is his delight (so substantially Rashi and Luther), and
this seems to offer the most probable sense (see i6^^),
12. Text and translation doubtful. Lit. : The eyes of Yahweh
guard knowledge, but he overthrows the words of the wicked. The
text of first cl. cannot be correct for several reasons. The verb
can here (as predicate of the eyes of Yahweh) mean only guard
(not obey), and cannot be followed by the abstract term knowl-
edge, nor does OT. usage permit the interpretation of this term as
= him who has knowledge * ; and the verb is not an appropriate
predicate of the eyes of Yahweh, which are said elsewhere to " rest
upon, be directed toward," but never to " guard, protect." For
this latter reason the emendation (Ew.) knowers of knowledge is
unsatisfactory. Somewhat better Griitz : the eyes of Yahweh are
071 those 7V ho keep (= obsetTe, obey, or, preserve) knowledge ; the
verb, in the sense obey, is elsewhere followed by a concrete noun,
as law (28^ \p 119**) or precepts {\p 119^'') ; in the sense preserve,
guard, it is followed by sagacity (3'"''), which is a quality of
the mind, and instruction (4"), which is concrete, and it is, in
any case, doubtful whether such technical philosophical terms
would be employed in a theocratic couplet. Frank, interprets :
Yahweh possesses (all) knowledge, and etc., but the verb does
not mean possess, and this rendering offers no good antithesis
or synthesis of the two lines. As the ordinary antithesis to
wicked is a term = upright, we may perhaps read : the eyes of
Yahweh are on the righteous ; cf. xp 3415(16) j^^c^ 'y\\q expression
"the eyes are on" carries, in OT., an implication of benevolence.
— On overthrows and wicked {faithless) see notes on 13'' 2^\ and
cf. 21^.
* Saad. De. Zock. RV. al.
XXTI. 11-15 419
13-15. Sloth, adultery, folly.
13. The sluggard says : There is a lion without,
On the street I shall be slain.
14. The mouth of the adulteress is a deep pit,
He with whom Yahweh is angry will fall thereinto,
15. Folly is bound to the mind of a child,
But the rod of correction will remove it.
13. Continuous, with synonymous predicates, quaternary-ternary.
Humorous sarcasm : to suppose that there was a Hon on the
street (Heb. streets or open places) was absurd, but any excuse
would do for one who was determined not to stir from his place.
In the Heb. the danger in second cl. is from the Hon, in the Grk.
from human murderers {there are murdereis in the streets) ; see
the parallel 26^^. On the sluggard see 6^'^ 10^^ 13* 15^^ 19'* 20"* 21^
24'*' 26'^^*-'*^''. — 14. Continuous, ternary. Adulteress (plu. in the
Heb.) is lit. strange woman, on which see note on 2^^. Mouth is
a reference to her seductive speech. — Except in this couplet and
its parallel 23^ the term here rendered strange woman in RV.
occurs in Pr. only in chs. 1-9 (2''' 5'^^'' 6^* 7'), and Ewald would
therefore here read harlot. But a reference to this vice in the
present section is not improbable, if the final revision of the Book
be put in the Greek period.* — In second cl. De. has cursed of
God, and RV, abhorred of the Lord, both possible, but the ordi-
nary sense of the Heb. term, angry, is more appropriate. — •
15. Continuous, ternary. Children, the proverb says, are morally
immature, and the rod is the best discipline for them; see 13^*
2^13.14 2gi5_ "Yhg fQQi is tQ \^Q similarly treated (10^'' 26''). Cor-
poral chastisement of children was probably universal in antiquity
(so in Egypt, Greece, and Rome — Plato commends moral train-
ing, Laws v., p. 729). — The affirmation of the couplet is general,
and is not to be put as conditional : " if folly is bound . . . then
the rod" etc, — Cf, Menander, Afonost ^22 : he who is not flogged
is not educated. \
* Another word for adulteress (lit. strange ivomati) occurs five times in chs. i-g
(2I6 5I0. 20 624 yS)^ once (23-') in the rest of the Book; still another is found once
(in a gloss, 302"). The term ior harlot is found twice in chs. 1-9 (626 7ic),and
twice in the rest of the Book (232? 298).
t See Becker. Char., Exc. to Sc. I., Gallus, Exc. II. to So. I., and, for Egypt,
the maxims of Ptahhetep and Dauf.
420 PROVERBS
16. Lit. : He who oppresses the poor, to bring increase to him,
he who gives to the rich, only to loss. Interpretations have varied
according as the couplet has been taken as a single sentence or as
antithetic, and according as the him of first cl. has been referred
to he or to the poor, and the loss of second cl. to he or to the rich.
Hence a great number of forced translations.* Possibly, follow-
ing 28^-^^ (cf. 11^'*), the oppresses should be changed io gives to:
he who gives to the poor it is gain to him, he who gives to the rich
it is only loss ; we should then have a double contrast, between
poor and rich, and between gain and loss, and the couplet would
be a commendation of benevolence and a condemnation of bri-
bery and servility. Gifts were made to the rich not out of love,
but to secure their favor. — Cf. 14^^ 19^^ 28".
XXII. 1. After |§ zv an adj. = good is inserted by (gSTlL Bi., not by 5;
the adj. is probably not original — the usage permits, and the rhythm rather
favors, its omission. — 1§ j'j is not a proper epithet of jn, and must be taken
as predicate. — 2. Gr., referring to 2()^^, supposes that there is a lacuna before
nvi. The statement " Y. enlightens (or protects) them all " would be appro-
priate; but 5^ gives a good sense. — 3. K irD', Q ^roi; between the two
there is little choice — the time is present, the Impf. with i would follow the
general rule of sequence, with i would isolate the act as inchoate, the Perf.
would be parallel to nxi. — 4. Before pnti insert i. — nij; occurs outside of
Pr. only in Zeph. 2' (where it is parallel to pix), 2 Sam. 22^^, = ^ 18^^
(where it is an attribute of God), and ^ 45^; in the last passage it
apparently forms a compound with pix, but the text is doubtful (see Wellh.
in SBOT., and cf. Cheyne, Psalms and Psalter). Here it is unnecessary,
probably a gloss. — 5. |^ DJi"; © rpl^oXoi thorns or thistles ; IL anna (taking
njx as = shield); <S2C xarj snares, = o-^x (Job 18^), which is the better read-
ing; Gr. Ven. &Kav6ai. The sense thorns for |^ may perh. be inferred from
njx, Am. 4'-^, parallel to nn n^D fishhooks ; masc. plu. zn occurs elsewhere
only in Job 5^, where the text appears to be corrupt (cf. Budde, Hiob). —
Dys. D30X (^snares are hidden), which is appropriate and should perh. be
adopted, though Dji gives a more satisfactory parallelism in first line. —
6. The couplet is wanting in <5^'^'^', found in 23. 109. 147. al., and in Sb^,
where it is ascribed to O. — The stem "^jn in OT. = dedicate (a building,
Dt. 20^ I K. 8^^ f 30^ Dan. 3^) and, only here, train. In Arab., in the sense
give training, experience, sound judgment (cf. Eth. understand), the verb is
a denom. from ^jn (Heb. ^n palate); this sense may be supposed to come
from taking the palate as the seat of taste, first physical and then intellectual
(so Ges. Tkes.), or from the guidance of an animal by a bridle in the mouth,
* See the Anc. Vrss. Saad. Lulh. Ew. Hi. De. Reuss, Sir. Wild. RV. a/.
XXII. i6 421
or from the rubbing of children's palates (with dates, etc.) as an act of initia-
tion into full membership in the clan; this last appears best to account for
the two senses of the verb in Heb. — The '? before -lyj may result from the
meaning of the verb give inUiaiion or training (to the child) ; otherwise it
must be regarded as an Aramaism. — J^ n;^. is omitted by Bi. as having no
antecedent; but it refers naturally to ijt-. — 8. J^ 'n^y aar; for 7 @ has
epYwp, = im33? (so Wild.); Frank., better: ima; -\2Z\ |^ nSj"'; Gr. ■in'731.
10. (S read p_ P5 arn. — H. Read either in;?n r.no-^ pnDi aV ina nin> 3.-1N
•]Sd, or, with transposition, ^j'xi DTiflr jni 3*^ nna iSa 2nN. S> '\n^ : and he
(God) loves (= pn) //^^ lips of those who love (= ■'in) the king. — 12. Ew. un'''
nn; Gr, -n nxj Sj?; Hi. n;?-\ for nj?i. Read either 't iyi> ^-j nin^ -.rj? (which,
however, does not offer a good contrast to -\iz "'■»3-i), or Dp-tp "1 ijij?.
14. J^ nnr; Gr. mr. — 16. ?^ pty; read perh. jnj, though this is graphically
not easy.
III. SECOND COLLECTION OF APHORISMS
(XXII. 17-XXIV. 34).
This collection consists of two parts, 22^^-24^^, and 24^^^ the
second being an appendix to the first. The collection is marked
off from the preceding (io'-2 2''') by the introduction of the
author (22''-'') and by the title prefixed by the continuator (24^'),
It differs also in tone and structure from the preceding collection :
it is in the form of an address to the pupil (who is called the son),
it is intimate, argumentative, descriptive, and it is arranged in
strophes instead of couplets. In the two last points it approaches
Ben-Sira. The moral and religious content is the same as that of
the rest of the Book. On the date see the Introduction.
XXII. 17-21. The author's introduction.
The person of the author of 22^^-24^^ is unknown; he is prob-
ably not the same with the author of I'-p'", the structure and
material being very different in the two sections. This introduc-
tion differs also from that (i^-*') which is prefixed to the whole
Book — it is more personal in tone, and less lapidary in style.
The author speaks as a sage who has composed or collected a
body of maxims which he regards as of high importance.
The text is doubtful ; the Greek form differs considerably from
the Hebrew.
The Hebrew reads :
17. Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise.
And apply thy mind to my knowledge.
18. For it is pleasant that thou keep them in thy mind.
That they be ready on thy lips.
19. That thy trust may be in Yahweh
I instruct thee to-day, thee also;
20. Did I not formerly (?) write for thee
In plans and knowledge,
21. To cause thee to know the truth of words of truth,
To return answer, truth, to him who sends thee?
422
XXII. 17-21 423
17, 18. The expression the ivise seems to be a marginal title
(as in 24^) which has got into the text ; read my words. The
description of keep thcin by pleasant is improbable ; this term
properly describes knoivledge (so the verb in 2'"), but "keeping"
is rather characterized as wise or beneficial (2^'" 3^''^^ a/.). The
Grk. has in 1 7'' : apply thy mind that thou mayest know that they are
good, but the proper object of "know" is "instruction" (i^ 4').
Ewald, better : apply thy heart to knowledge, because it is pleasant.
— Be ready is lit. he fixed, established, = ready for use. —
19, 20. By the to-day thee also of the Heb. the sage appears to
intimate that he had taught other persons at a former time, but
he does not further explain this. In the formerly (?) there
would be a reference to former instruction given to the pupil here
addressed ; the Heb. word may be a fragment of the common
expression for formerly (lit. yesterday and the day before) . This
rendering is, in any case, improbable, for the reason that it intro-
duces a strange contrast between the instruction now given to
teach trust in Yahweh, and that formerly given to impart the
capacity of answering (v.^*). — The Heb. margin, instead of this
word, has a term meaning officers (2 Sam. 23"^ 2 K. 7^ 9^' Ez.
23^^), which by most interpreters, from Saadia on,* is taken as
= tioble (or, excellent) sayings, a rendering which is without
authority in Heb. usage, and cannot be called probable.
Delitzsch, in support of it, refers to the noble thifigs of 8" (which
is probably an error of text) , to the royal laiv of Jas. 2*, and to
Plato's /xc/ar; ^ycyutoi/es {Tim. 91 <?), = " governing powers of the
soul " ; but neither of these references is in point, since the terms
"royal" and "governing" are epithets of the nouns "law" and
" parts," while here the word officers stands alone and undefined,
and the designation of a maxim simply as a " captain " (or, " offi-
cer") is unexampled and unnatural. — In some Anc. Vrss.f the
word is rendered triply (which Rashi explains as referring to the
Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa) , by Luther, freely, tnan-
ifoldly. This rendering (which may perhaps be taken as = repeat-
edly) is intelligible in the Grk. translation {do thou transcribe
them triply for thyself), but not in the Hebrew. — 21. In the
* AV. Mich. De. Rcuss, RV. Kamp. al. f Grk. Syr. Targ. Lat.
424 PROVERBS
Hebrew the first truth is superfluous, probably a gloss. Similarly
truth has been repeated, by scribal error, in second cl. — The
expression to him who sends thee (or, in some texts, to those who
send thee) could only be understood to mean " to thy parent or
guardian, who has sent thee to school, and desires an account of
thy progress." A better sense is given by the Grk. reading to
those who question thee* The pupil, as sage, would be consulted
by many persons, and the proof of his maturity would be his
ability to answer questions concerning the conduct of life ; cf.
I K. lo^ BS. 39«i«WS. 81"-^^
The text of the passage has suffered greatly; the following
translation is an attempt at a restoration of the original.
17. Lend thine ear and hear my words,
And give heed to learn right things,
18. So that thou may est keep them in mind,
And they be ready on thy lips.
19. That thy trust may be in Yahweh
I teach thee my words.
20. I write (? ) for thee . . .
That thy plans may be intelligent.
21. I teach thee words of truth,
That thou mayest answer him who questions thee.
On the omission of the wise see the note on this verse above. To
learn, lit. to know (v.^') is adopted from the Greek ; right things
is suggested by 23^®. The form of v.'"'' is taken from i^^. The
term write is suspicious, since elsewhere in the Book the instruc-
tion given by the sages is oral ; but cf. Eccl. 12^*'. The verb sug-
gests a very late date for the final recension of our passage. For
the word omitted in v.^* I can offer no emendation ; the connec-
tion suggests a word = " wise counsel or instruction " or " excel-
lent things." In v. "^^ plans and knowledge may be understood as
hendiadys, = plans of knowledge ; on plans see note on i^^ (RV.,
there, devices) ; we might perhaps render : that thy counsels (to
others) inay be intelligent.
Notwithstanding the difficulties of the text, the general thought
of the paragraph is plain : the pupil is to devote himself to study,
in order that his religious life may be firmly established, and that
* So Saad. Rashi, Ew. De. Reuss, Now. Bick. Frank.
XXII. 21-23 425
he may be able to give wise counsel to those who seek advice.
The exhortation supposes a community in which study is valued
and provided for : there are teachers and recognized bodies of
truth — this is the Jewish reproduction of the Greek schools of
philosophy.
XXII. 17, 18. 3^ ar:'2n, though given in the Vrss., appears to be a gloss, a
marginal title, perhaps originally DO^n*^; cf. 24-^. (5 has a doublet, one form
(Kai S,Kov€ fudf \6yov) apparently omitting 'n. Read •'1:1"'. — J^ dvj •'d \"'yT";
(5 IVa 7^4)5 firt KaXol ei(Ti.v, read 3-i.:"C n>"]V — S^C because they are pleasant,
keep them etc. — Bi. inserts iphonS at the beginning of v.^', and makes v.i"- '**
triplets; but the triplet is rather to be avoided than sought in this Section. —
19, 20. 1^ n.iN r|x a\-| yields no good sense; (5 Ty)v 656v <tov may be inter-
pretation, the n,-i« IS being carried over (Jager) to the next v. (xai <r{i); yet
the connection favors some such reading, perh. ii^-, — K a^''^-', Q 0'^^''^;
(S Tpto-ffws; It tripliciter ; 31^(5) TJ^t N.-i*?.-! '-'•;. The embarrassment of the
Grk. translators and expounders is shown by the variety of readings in v.^^- ^,
on which see H-P, Lag. In ^ psvba we should perhaps write S for 1. —
In Megil. 7 « |§ v.-"'" is cited (against the proposal to canonize the Book of
Esther) as showing that the three divisions of the Canon were already made
up : have I not written three (and no more) ? — 21. |§ T'-'n^ ; better, perhaps,
q\n>.'"in. — 3^ 'OU'p is the gloss of an Aramaic-speaking scribe. (§ omits p, but
expands the line by a second clause; <S appears to have read apr quiet instead
of '|"> (Pink.), and to have followed (@ freely in its insertion; ®1L insert 1
between 'p and nr;s. — |i| I'l^-'^, and so all Vrss. except (5; (5 rots TrpojSaXXo-
fjL^voLS (Toi, for which Lag. reads toTs ■n-po^aWov(rl crot, = "p'^Ni;''?. Read sing.
The Maxims of the Second Collection (22^^-24^).
22, 23. Against oppression of the poor.
22. Rob not the poor because he is poor,
And oppress not the lowly in the gate.
23. For Yahweh will plead their cause,
And rob their robbers of life.
22. Synonymous, ternary. Poor (see 10''') and hnvly (see 3'^)
are here synonyms, both referring to physical poverty, which car-
ries with it low social position and defencelessness {^because he is
poor). Oppress, = crush, = " rob of possessions." The ga/e is
the place of dispensing justice; cf. i^' 24^. — 23. Synonymous,
ternary. Cf. Ex. 2 2-'"-^'''""^* 23" Dt. 24"- '^ The word rendered
rob (different from that of v.'^) occurs elsewhere only in Mai. 3*^ '•'
426 PROVERBS
(where Wellhausen changes the text so as to read cheat) ; its
exact meaning is not certain, but some such sense as " rob, cheat "
is suggested by the connection.
24, 25. Against passionateness.
24. Consort not with a man given to anger,
And go not with a passionate man,
25. Lest thou learn his ways,
And bring destruction on thyself.
24. Synonymous, ternary. Cotisoft not with (or, be not friendly
with) = go not with. Cf. 15^*. — 25. Single sentence, binary-
ternary. Leant (= accusto?n thyself to), a late, poetic word ; the
stem is found elsewhere only in the causative form, = teach (Job
15^ 33^ 35")- — Ways is the reading of the Heb. margin; the
text has way. — Destruction is lit. a snare, which is explained by
some * as = danger, but the suggestion in the word is rather death ;
see 12'^ 13" 14^'' 29". Anger is denounced not as immoral, but as
injurious ; the obvious implication, however, is that it is morally
bad. The destruction (or, danger) comes through the violation
of human law, which the sage doubtless regards as also divine law.
Cf. BS. 8^^^^ — Bickell (v.-^^.L^oa-j . and be not friendly tmth a pas-
sionate man, lest thou get in his way, that is, the destruction
comes from his passionate violence (see BS. ubi sup.) — but the
translation is lexicographically doubtful.
26, 27. Against going security.
26. Be not of those who pledge themselves.
Of those who are surety for debts.
27. If thou have not wherewith to pay,
Thy bed will be taken from under thee.
26. Synonymous, binary. Similar cautions in 6^ 11'^ 17'^ 20".
Pledge themselves is lit. strike hands. Are surety for debts, lit.
bind {or, pledge) themselves for (other persons') loans. — 27. Sin-
gle sentence, ternary (or, binary-ternary). Heb.: ivhy should
one (or, he) take thy bed etc.? the why is scribal repetition (ditto-
gram) ; the question would be appropriate only if the first cl.
* Ew. Reuss.
XXII. 23-29 427
were omitted. On the legal right of the creditor to seize the
debtor's bed see notes on the couplets cited above (on v.^) .
28. Rights of property.
Remove not the ancient landmark
Which thy fathers set up.
Partially synonymous (second cl. explains predicate of first cl.),
ternary. The couplet is substantially identical with part of Dt.
19". As citizenship and a share in the protection of the tribal or
national deity were regarded, among ancient peoples, as depend-
ent on possession of land, boundaries were treated as sacred, and
were placed under the protection of deities (Zeus Horios, Ter-
minus etc.). The land of the poor was often encroached on by
the rich and the powerful (i K. 21^^ Hos. 5'" Is, 5^ Dt. 2^ Job
24^). The antiquity of a boundary-Une {= layidmark) gave it
special sacredness. Cf. note on 15^^, and see 23^", which is a vari-
ation of this couplet. — Bickell omits the couplet as a shortened
form of 23^*^, with a gloss (the second cl.) on ancient taken from
Dt. 19" (in which the Grk. has thy fathers instead of Heb. they of
old). It is true that we expect a strophe of two couplets here, as
above, and there is, perhaps, some derangement in the Heb. text.
29. Praise of business capacity.
Seest thou a man skilful in business?
Before kings he shall stand,
Not stand before obscure men.
The triplet form, unusual in Pr., perhaps indicates the loss of a
line. Skilful, as in Ezr. f \\i 45^(2^ ; the Heb. word may also be
rendered quick, sivift, and so, perhaps, diligent (RV.), but the
suggestion is rather of readiness and skill. Stand before — enter
the serz'ice of. Obscure; 'KN. mean.
23. On the meaning of •;2^ cf. Ges. Thes. and Lag. In Arab, the stem
= hi(/e,m ArSiTa. fx Jirmly. Possibly we should read 3p;'; in Mai. t,^-'^ (5
has iwT^pviae, — ■i^f-;. SC jjto take revenge; % configet {— transfix'). —
27. The interrog. in ^ is not given by (SS'2C. In JQ n^s the vh seems to be
dittogram of preceding a^ (in a'-:-'-). — 29. J^ U'n --nn; (5 opariKdv &v8pa,
= nun -i's (Jag.). — Bi. makes a couplet of » by inserting nj3" after rx.
428 PROVERBS
XXIII. 1, 2. Good manners at a king's table. — The qua-
train is a single sentence, ternary.
1. When thou sittest to eat with a ruler,
Consider well who is before thee,
2. And put a knife to thy throat,
If thou be a man of great appetite.
If one be in danger of excess in eating, one must be severely cau-
tious — anything like voracity will excite the contempt, and per-
haps the hostility, of the ruler.* — " To put a knife to the throat "
is said by Fleischer to be a proverbial expression for self-restraint ;
one, as it were, threatens to kill one's self if one misbehaves. — In
v.^** we may render : if thou have a great appetite (on this particu-
lar occasion) ; the moral is the same. In v.^" lit. : consider him
who etc. The rendering what is before thee (= the dishes) is
possible — it would enjoin a wise choice of food — but is less
probable than the other ; it is the ruler that the guest must have
in mind. To this interpretation it may be objected that to
describe the ruler as being " in the ])resence " of his guest is
unseemly — rather the expression should be : consider in whose
presence thou art (so Frank.) ; yet see Gen. i8-^, where it is said
(in the correct text) : and Yahweh was still standing before
Abrahatn. The modern courtliness of expression appears not to
have been the rule in the OT. times. — Evvald : thou wilt put a
knife to thy throat (= wilt bring ruin on thyself) if thou give free
rein to desire (that is, if the avaricious ruler perceive that thou
too art avaricious) ; but this does not so well accord with the
place (the d inner- table ). — Cf. BS. si^^'^^.
In the Heb. follows, as v.^ the couplet :
Do not desire his dainties.
Seeing it is bread of deceit.
This appears to be out of place, since the point in the preceding
quatrain is control of appetite, and not treachery or insincerity on
the part of the king. The first cl. is identical with second cl. of
v.^, where it is appropriate, and whence it may by mistake have
* Cf. Prisse Papyrus, Sect. 2 (translated by Griffith, in Lib. of the World's Best
Lit., Vol. 13), and Malan.
XXIII. 1-5 429
got to this place (so Bickell). The second cl. also is misplaced
— the sing, it does not accord with the plu. daifities. Bickell
places it after first cl. of v.**. — Bread of deceit is food offered with
deceitful purpose. Cf. Firke Aboth, 2, 3 : "be cautious in inter-
course with the powerful ; they are friendly only so long as they
can use men for their own interests."
4, 5. Against anxiety for wealth.
4. Toil nut to make thyself rich,
From such a i purpose > desist,
5. For < riches > makes itself wings
As an eagle that heavenward flies.
4. Synonymous, binary. First clause : " make not wearisome
effort (= take no pains) to become rich," that is, it is not worth
the trouble. The second cl. is lit. from thy wisdovi (or under-
standitig, or inteiligefice) desist (RV. cease from thine cwti wisdom),
which appears to say that the man holds it wise to get riches ;
this is a singular form of expression, and is certainly not the point
of the couplet. Some such term as purpose must be understood.
— 5. The Heb. text is in disorder : lit. shait thine eye fly to (or,
on) it, and it is gone (lit. is not) ? (or, Heb. marg., make thine eye
fly to it etc.), for it assuredly makes itself 7vings etc., in which the
" flying of the eye " is an impossible expression, and the /'/ has no
antecedent. The first fly appears to be a scribal insertion from the
nearly identical form {flies) at the end ; the expression thifie eye
{is) on it, and it is go7ie is a gloss on the couplet (describing the
fleeting character of riches) — cf. Job 7^ ; the assuredly is mis-
writing of the word for riches. The couplet, thus restored,
expresses simply and effectively the reason why one should not be
anxious to be rich. The rendering of RV. : wilt thou set thine
eyes upon that zvhich is not? is not permitted by the Heb.; see
RV. margin, where the correct translation is given.
6-8a, 3t». The niggardly (or, churlish) host.
6. Eat not the bread of a niggard,
And desire not his dainties.
"J a. (?) For as he deals with himself,
']b. So he deals with thee (?).
430 PROVERBS
7 c. " Eat and drink," he says,
7 d. But his heart is not with thee.
8 a. The morsel thou eatest thou must spit out,
3 i>. For it is bread of deceit.
6. Synonymous, ternary-binary. Niggard \s lit. a man of evil eye,
illnatured, ungenerous, inhospitable ; the expression occurs in OT.
only here and in 28-^ (cf. 22®) ; see in Firke Aboth 5, 13 four
classes of the "evil-eyed." The eye represents the look with
which one regards men, and evil (or, bad^ is simply the opposite
of good and kind. In our couplet either niggard or churl suits
the connection. — 7. The Heb. of the first couplet (which has
apparently lost some word or words) hardly admits of a satisfac-
tory translation. The renderings : as he reckons within himself
(lit. in his soul), so is he (RV.) ; as one who reckons etc. (De.
Reuss) ; as he had decided etc. (Saad.) ; after he has reckoned in
his (jiiggardly) soul, then he says to thee etc. (Frank.; "ve no nat-
ural sense, and do not connect themselves with the context ; to
describe the churl simply as a calculating person, looking after his
own interest, is not what we expect, nor would this be a natural
way of expressing that idea. Moreover the translation reckon
(derived from the later Jewish usage) is open to doubt. Bickell
emends so as to read : for selfish and calculating is he in soul, but
with his lips not so is he, in which the two adjectives are both
doubtful. Possibly : for not as he is with his lips, so is he in his
soul; or, for kindness is on his lips, but in his soul he is not so ;
or, as the verse is rendered above : " he deals stingily with thee,
as with himself." — 8. According to a possible rendering, the
sage, continuing the injunction (after eat not), bids the guest spit
out, as something offensive, any morsel ( = any small bit) which
he may have eaten ; but it is probably better to translate by thou
must (or, wilt) spit out (or, vomit up) the disgusting morsel
which offends the taste or turns the stomach — the verb will then
describe simply the result of the eating. — As second cl. the Heb.
has : and thou wilt lose thy pleasant words, a statement which has
only a farfetched relation to the preceding context (it would
mean that the guest had thrown away his agreeable conversation
or his thanks on the host), but connects itself naturally with v.^
to which it should be transferred. What we here expect is a line
XXIII. 6-IO 431
describing the disgusting morsel, and this may perhaps be given
by second cl. of v.'' : it is bread of deceit, that is, not offered in
true hospitaUty. — In any case the paragraph is a maxim of social
intercourse, a caution against indiscriminate dining out. Cf BS.
29-- -*.
9, St'. Do not try to teach a fool.
9. Speak not to a fool,
For he will despise thy wise discourse,
8 b. And thou wilt throw away thy goodly words.
Single sentence, ternary. Lit. : speak not in the ears of a fool,
that is, so that he can distinctly hear, not merely " speak in his
hearing" (RV.) ; the expression "uncover the ear," = "reveal a
secret" (i Sam. 22*) is different. — Lit. despise the wisdom of thy
words. On fool and wisdom see i" 12^, — The suggestion* that
S*" be attached to this couplet commends itself as good; the
change makes a natural connection. Lit. : thou wilt lose (or,
riling thy goodly {or, pleasant) 7vords ; \k\Q 2i^]. goodly (QixY. beau-
tiful, or good) occurs nowhere else as epithet of words — it
appears to belong to the philosophical vocabulary (Grk. KaAos),
in which " beautiful " and "good " are synonyms. f — A line, nec-
essary to form, with S**, a couplet, has perhaps been lost — some-
thing like " thou wilt weary thyself in vain." — Cf. 9* 26*^ BS. 22'^
10, 11. Respect the land of widows and orphans.
10. Remove not the landmark of < the widow, >
Into the field of the orphan enter not;
11. For their redeemer is mighty,
He will plead their cause against thee.
10. Synonymous, ternary. Heb. : the ancient landmark, proba-
bly taken from 22^ or Dt. 19"; the parallelism favors widoxv (the
graphic difference is not great in Heb.) as natural correspondent
to orphan \ ; for the collocation of the terms see Dt. 10^ 14^ al.
* Pinsker, Babyl.-Hebr. Punktations-system , p. 134.
t Such terms may have been introduced in imitation of Greek phraseology.
The question whether there was such borrowing is discussed in recent works on
Ecclesiastes (Tyler, Piumptre, Renan, Wright, Siegfried), and cf. Siegfried, in
Z. Wiss. Jhtol., 1875, Pfleiderer, Her adit, Bois, Phil. Judeo-Alex.
X So Dys. Bi. Wild.
432 PROVERBS
Jer. 7® Job 22^ 24' a/, i/' 146^ — 11. Single sentence, binary-ter-
nary. Redeemer (or, protector) is the technical term goel, the
next of kin, whose duty it was, under the Hebrew law, to redeem
the lands of kinsfolk which had for any reason been alienated.
Here the supposition is that there is no human goel, in which case
God himself will act as protector. For the function of the goel
in regard to land see Lev. 25^ (cf. Nu. 5^) Ruth 4^ ■*. — Cf. note
on 22^*.
XXIII. 1. 5§ TiJijS itfN PN; (5 TO. irapaTid^/xevd ffoi (and so S^IL).— •
2. 1^ ^>"^3. The air. \ey. jjS has been rendered by throat from Saad. on
(Rashi: throat, lit. jaws), which seems required by the ]tc ns"'i. The verb
has the sense swallow in Ob.^^, and in Aram. = lap (cf. Arab. pSi) ; the noun
in Aram. = chin, and is here rendered by ST chin, by S mouth. It was
perhaps a general designation of the parts concerned in swallowing, with
different special applications in the various dialects. Lag. : in thy longing,
from stem >•'? = •;'^:^ (in Arab, desire), but this does not go well with the
preceding words. — 4. |^ -irynS; (5 Tr\ovaLt^, — ^t'-!'^ (Hitz.). — 5. |^ 7\-y';;
read ib'j.'. — K liyi; read Q in". — 7. |^ "'vu'; <@ rplx^j = "*"?'> and so Sb;
2C yiP, = "^vtj'; IL quoniam in similitudine arioli et coniectoris aestimat quod
ignorat, apparently free rendering of J^ taken as = " guess, predict." The
stem = in Aram, estimate, reckon, in Arab, know,* neither of which senses
suits here; the word is probably error of text. Frank, takes in3 as conjunc-
tion (after the Aram.), = after, and regards the words 7\~\v\ Son as citation
placed between the subj. Nin and the verb tcn"; but this rendering of -"C^ is
without authority, the corresponding sense of p, then, is equally doubtful, and
the interposition of a speech between subj. and verb is unexampled in Hebrew.
Bi. lyri dd; the sense he attributes to the former of these, holding back,
= self-seeking, is doubtful, and the occurrence together of two Aram, words,
otherwise unknown in OT., would be somewhat strange. Possibly we should
read: -\i n-^7> p Vi'jjja ntryi ids. — 9. The noun '^pr occurs, in preexilic
writings, only in i S. 25^; it became a term of the gnomic literature. — V.^b
(properly added after v.^) is expanded by Bi. into a couplet by the insertion
of ^^Dj? pi'? after the first word; it would be rhythmically better to keep v.^**
as a line, and insert a second full line parallel to it. — 10. J^ dVj;; read hjdSn.
12. Introductory exhortation.
Apply thy mind to instruction
And thine ear to words of knowledge.
* On the old-Arab, poet as = seer, diviner, cf. I. Goldziher, in Trans, of Tenth
Internat. Cotigr. of Orientalists.
XXIII. II-I6 433
Synonymous, ternary-binary. The appeal is similar to that in
22" 23'' '•' '^ -*' ; it is intended to call special attention to what fol-
lows, and perhaps once introduced a longer collection of apho-
risms. See note on i^.
13, 14. Training of children.
13. Withhold not chastisement from the child;
, If thou beat him with the rod, he will not die.
14. Thou must beat him with the rod,
And rescue him thus from Sheol.
Ternary. The two couplets are mutually identical in meaning,
perhaps independent variations on the same theme. Chastise-
ment represents the same Heb. word as instruction in v.'- ; the
connection indicates that it here means corporal correction or
instruction. The second cl. of v.'^ reads lit. : and deliver his life
(lit. soul) from Sheol. The implication is that ill conduct brings
physical death, by human and divine law ; from this fate the child
is saved by instruction, in which corporal chastisement is recog-
nized as a universal and necessary means; see notes on 19'^ 22'^.
On death and Sheol see notes on 2'** i^^
15, 16. Exhortation to the pupil.
15. My son, if thou be wise,
I shall be glad;
16. I shall rejoice
When thou speakest right things.
The quatrain is chiastic, the fourth line being parallel to the first,
the third to the second. The first couplet is ternary, the second,
as the text stands, binary-ternary, but a word may be lacking. —
The second cl. of v.'^ has lit. : / a/so, here = " I, on my side " —
" wisdom for thee, gladness for me." The same contrast exists in
V.""', though the word also is not there written. — In second cl. of
v.''' the subject is my heart, — my mind, = myself; in first cl. of
v.^" the subject is my kidneys (RV. reins), = my mind, = myself.
The Hebrews regarded both the heart and the kidneys (on
account of their physiological importance) as seats of intellectual,
moral, and religious life, and the two terms are in this respect
treated as synonyms (Jer. 11'* 17'-'*' \\i 26^); both are regarded also
2F
434 PROVERBS
as seats of physical life. Whether or not there was some specific
difference in the intellectual functions ascribed to them the state-
ments of OT. do not indicate. — On right things see note on i^
— It does not appear why this hortatory address is inserted just
here. Possibly the section is a collection of fragments, and the
following quatrain, which this address introduces, is only a part of
a paragraph.
17, 18. Reward of fearing Ood.
17. Do not envy sinners,
But fear thou Yahweh always,
18. For there is a future,
And thy hope will not come to naught.
17. Antithetic, ternary. The second cl. reads in the Heb. : but
in the fear of Yahweh all the day, an incomplete sentence. The
line has been rendered : but those who are ifi the fear of V. etc.
(Saad.), but the insertion of those who are is not allowable, and
the verb envy, in this construction, is always used in a bad sense.
This latter objection applies to the translation : but on account of
the fear etc., that is, = " seek after not sinners but the fear of
God"*; this rendering is forced and contrary to usage. By
others f the Subst. Verb is supplied in second cl. : but be thou in
the fear etc. ; this also violates the usage of the language. A simple
change in the Heb. gives the reading : but fear thou Yahweh etc.
(cf. 24-I), which follows naturally on first cl — In first cl. lit. let not
thy heart envy etc. — 18. The second cl. expands and explains first
cl. The introductory particle of the Heb. is a compound, lit. " for
if." The renderings/?/- ^«;r/v (RV.) and rather (Ew.) are syntac-
tically impossible. It is better (with Saad.) to omit the if, which
may be scribal repetition from the preceding couplet. — The word
future (ht. end) may signify the last part of a man's life (5* " 19^
Job 8^ ^2>f) or of a certain period of time (Isa. 46^"), or the result
or outcome of a thing or act {\^^--^'^ 16-') ; here the reference is
to the termination (RV. marg. sequel) and the outcome of the
righteous man's life, and the word nearly = ;rwar^ (so RV.).
The outcome (= the hope) is long life and prosperity, as in 2^^
* Schult. Hitz. De. Zock. Wild. al. f Grk. Lat. Ew. Reuss, Bi. RV.
XXIII. i6-2i 435
^7.8 jo27.28 j^sa 1^32 (^cotitru, of the wicked, lo^ ii^, not the life
beyond the grave. Grk. : posterity. — The form of first cl. is
somewhat strange ; everywhere else (except in the identical
phrase in 24^^) the term end is defined by some special word or
(Isa. 46^") by the context, and here Grk. adds for thee. Reuss,
not so well : everything has an end at last; this expresses resigna-
tion, but the connection suggests confidence.
19-21. Exhortation. Warning against drunkenness and
° '' 19. Hearken, my son, and be wise.
And walk in the path of < prudence.'
20. Be not thou among winebibbers.
Among gluttonous eaters of flesh;
21. For drunkard and glutton come to poverty,
And drowsiness clothes one in rags.
19. Synonymous, ternary. The second cl. is lit. : make thy heart
walk (^= guide thy heart) in the way ; on the verb of the Heb. see
notes on 4" 9". The way, according to this reading, is the path
of rectitude or wisdom ; cf. Jno. 14*' and the Buddhist and Moslem
use of the term for the rule of life which leads to perfection and
happiness. But the term does not occur elsewhere in Prov. in this
absolute (undefined) sense, and the text must be changed so as
to read a word (as prudence or understanding, cf. 9") parallel to
the wise of the first line. — 20. Synonymous, ternary. IVinebib-
hers = "those who drink wine to excess" or "drunkards in wine."
Gluttonous eaters (one word in the Heb.), lit. "squanderers,
excessive consumers." The ^esh is not their own bodies, as if
drunkards were described as self-destroyers (Ges. Ew. al.), but
(as the parallelism shows) meat consumed at table. — 21. Par-
allel, ternary. Drunkard, the same word as in v.-'" above {lubber,
without the wine). — The dro7vsiness (or, sleepyheadedness) is the
torpor which follows excessive eating and drinking. Cf. Pirk Ab.
3. 3-
22-25. Value of parental instruction and approval. — V.'^
(which is wanting in the (irk.) belongs more naturally with v.'".
Bickell omits v.^"*, makes a quatrain of v.-^ ^^, and regards v.^ as an
appendix of the editor. The paragraph interrupts the series of
436 PROVERBS
injunctions relating to definite lines of conduct, and was probably
here inserted by a scribe or editor. It belongs more properly at
the beginning of the series, just after 22-^
22. Hearken to the father who begat thee,
And despise not »the words of' thy mother.
23. Buy the truth, and sell it not,
Wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
24. The father of a righteous man will be glad,
The < mother ' of a wise son will rejoice. ',■<,/
Let thy father [] rejoice, ^^ '' \ \ | <»
25-
Let thy mother be glad !
22. Parallel, ternary. Lit. thy father who etc. The injunction
relates not to honoring parents, but to heeding their instruction.
Hence the Heb. of second cl., despise ?tot thy mother whe7i (or,
because) she is old, does not accord with first cl. ; BS. 3" exhorts
a son not to despise his father when the old man's intellect fails,
and we might suppose a similar reference to the aged and failing
mother here, but the question in the paragraph is one not of age,
but of instruction, and it seems better to change the text accord-
ingly ; cf. I**.* — 23. Synonymous, ternary. Cf. 4^" 15'^ The
nouns are here substantially synonyms : instruction is training in
truth; understanding and tvisdom are perception and practical
knowledge of truth; see notes on 3^ il — 24. Parallel, ternary.
In second cl. the Heb. has the begetter of a wise man, but the par-
allelism and v.^ suggest mention of the mother. — 25. Parallel,
binary. In first cl. the Heb. has thy father and thy mother, but
as mother (lit. she who bore thee) stands properly in second cl. as
obvious parallel to \}a.Q father oi^\%X cl., it should not be anticipated.
26. Exhortation (introductory to the two following paragraphs).
Give heed, my son, to me,
Let thine eyes take note of my ways.
Synonymous, ternary. The first cl. is lit. my son, give me thy
heart, that is, thy mind, thine attention (not thy affection, or, thy
spiritual devotion). As all other introductory exhortations in
this Section are by the sage, there is no ground for holding that
* With the expression thy father who begat thee cf. the phrase, frequent in the
Assyrian royal inscriptions, my father, my begetter.
XXIII. 22-28 437
the speaker here is Wisdom, and that she is contrasted with the
harlot of v.^, as the two characters are contrasted in ch. 9 * ; the
exhortation in ^^* also is by the sage (cf. 7"*) . — The reading fake
note of {= "watch, for the purpose of following") is that of the
Heb. margin and of most Anc. Vrss. ; the Heb. text has delight in
(so RV.), which gives a good sense, but the other reading is a
common term in Pr. (3^ 4^^ 6^ a/.), while delight in occurs else-
where in the Book only once (3^"), and then does not refer to
instruction. For the sense take note of ci. Nah. 2^<-' : "keep an
eye on the fortification, watch the way." See note on 22*^. —
The ways of the sage are those which he enjoins ; cf. 22^^"^^
27, 28. Warning against the harlot.
27. The harlot is a deep pit,
The adulteress a narrow well.
28. Yea, she lies in wait like a robber,
Many are they she > plunders.'
27. Synonymous, ternary. Adulteress, lit. strange woman ; see
note on 2^^ She is a married woman, in character a harlot ; see
7^-^*'. The two lines apparently introduce the two classes of
unchaste women, the unmarried and the married ; but the same
destructive character is ascribed to both. For /// (RV. ditch)
see 22" Jer. 2^ 18^ -^. Well (RV. ///) is here used in its literal
sense, not figuratively as in 5'^ (cf. i/' 55"'^"^^ 6<y^^^^^). The nar-
rowness of the well (or, pit) would make it harder to get out
when one had fallen in. — The conjunction /<?;-, with which, in the
Heb., the couplet begins, may introduce it as the ground of the
exhortation of v.^", or may be incorrect scribal insertion. —
28. Parallel, ternary. Yea (= also) introduces an additional
thought : she is not only a pit into which the unwary may fall, a
passive danger, she is also an active danger, like a robber who
attacks. This word for robber occurs only here in OT. ; the
expression cannot be rendered as for a prey (RV. marg.). — The
second cl. reads in the Heb. : and the faithless among men she
tnakes many (RV. increases). Faithless may mean "unfaithful to
the law of God" (2^ ii^-^ if^^ 21'* 22^-), or, "untrustworthy"
(25''-') ; the second cl. might be rendered : she increases, among
* De. Now. Str. Wild.
438 PROVERBS
men, the sinners, or, she increases the sinners among men. But
the parallelism suggests for second line a term similar to the
robber of first line, and a change of vowels gives treacheries (Jer.
12* Isa. 2^^^), = wickednesses (cf 22*'), instead oi faithless (or,
sinners) ; the woman's treachery is that of a robber or plunderer.
Render : plundering of men she practises largely, or, as above,
many are they etc.
13. |i| '^ is omitted by Bi., but this seems unnecessary. — 17. |§ nNi)3-,
read pn st. — 19. The Piel "iB's means not guide, or 5^/ right (in Isa. i^'^ the
word is probably error of text), and -\-\-\ cannot be taken as = right 7vay, or
absolutely the way; we might perhaps read ir' t?iake right (Frank., and,
apparently, (S), but the resulting sentence is not quite natural, and the
parallelism suggests a term corresponding to asn; read r\y^ -jiia -.u'N. —
20, 21. (5 crvfipoXaTs (cf. 3L symbola in v.'^^), in its sense of feasts may
well = (cpeujv ayopaapjols, and may represent |^ i"?*?? consumers. The Grk.
term is adopted in the Talmud (n^jD), but it seems unnecessary to suppose,
with Lag., that it here renders |i_^'^3iD3, scribal repetition of 5^ l" 'Naba. —
ncu is Hw. Xey. — 22. On nr as Rel. Pron. see the grammars. — |^ idn njpr •■o
does not accord with the rest of the strophe, and the 7 •'3 appears to be a gloss
which displaced the original word •'i:;>s or nai or iD^. Bi. : ipc ]p_', but
V.24. M niake it probable that the reference to the mother should be retained
here. — 23. The couplet should perhaps stand at the beginning of this strophe,
or it may be omitted. — 24. Read Q ^ir ^'J. — If masc. i^' be retained, then
Q ncri must be adopted (the connecting 1 of K would here imply that Sr is
repeated) ; but it seems better to preserve the antithesis of v.^- ^, and read
m'?^ and t\:.v: , in which the .~ may perhaps account for the m of K nrtt'M. —
25.' Omit ||? n3N'. — 26. K njxi.n; Q, better, nj-j'x;. — 27. |^ n,TCiJ nn-^ (of
the harlot), which (5 (cf. 22'*) renders by viBo^ m p-r\ti.kvo<i; the expression is
taken (Jag.) from a Grk. proverb, which is cited by Erasmus (I. 10, 33) from
Aristotle {Econ. i. 6) — to get riches without being able to keep it is " to draw
water in a sieve and a perforated tub"; thus the aWbrpios oIkos (^ njt) is
wasteful and destructive (see Lag.). — 28. The &ir. \ey. r|rn is, from the
connection, a concrete noun, = roMer (in form like "i^'); the verb ']rn
occurs once (Job 9I2). The stem is written with n here and Job g'^; else-
where (Ju. 2i2i \// lo^) written with \i, as in Aramaic. — 1§ ^IPi read, from
the parallelism, in, or om (cf. Frank.).
29-35. Against drunkenness.
29. Who cries " woe " ? who " alas " ? who has strifes? who complaints?
Who has wounds without cause? who redness of eyes?
30. They who linger long over wine,
Who often taste mixed wine.
XXIII. 28-31 439
31. Look not on wine when it is red,
When it sparkles in the cup. [] *
32. At the end it bites Hke a snake,
It pierces like an adder.
22- Thou wilt see strange things.
Queer things thou wilt say.
34. Thou wilt be like one who is sleeping at sea,
Like one asleep in a » violent storm.'
35. " I have been struck, but I feel no pain,
I have been beaten, I am not conscious of it.
When shall I awake < from my wine > ?
I will seek it yet again."
29o General parallelism, quaternary (or, a quatrain). A lively
description of the bodily effects of excess in wine. Instead of
nouns the first Une uses interjections — lit.: 7v/io has oh! who
has alas ! The man quarrels over his cups, gets into difficulties,
whence complaints (Job 10^ 21* 23^ \\i 64^*^') ; in scuffles he is
wounded (cf. Zech. 13") without cause, that is, unnecessarily, for
those slight and groundless differences that arise among drunken
men; his eyes, by their dulness or redness (cf. Gen. 49'^), pro-
claim his dissipation, and indicate that he is not fit for work. — ■
30. Synonymous, ternary, or binary-ternary. How mixed wine
(lit. simply mixture) was prepared is not known, perhaps by
adding spices ; cf. note on 2o\ — Lit. go to try, — investigate, test,
taste; the man is a devotee — he drinks continually. — 31. Sec-
ond line = predicate of first line, ternary. Description of wine
when complete fermentation has taken place. The wine of
Canaan seems to have been red ; cf. the expression " the blood of
the grape" (Gen. 49^'), and Is. 63^"^. — Sparkles is lit. gives its
gleam (the term rendered gleam is the ordinary word for eye),
that is, is full of life. — The Heb. adds : it goes straight (cf. Cant.
^9(10)^ . ^i^jg (jQgg j^Qj. accord well with the rest of the couplet, and
appears, as the text stands, to be a gloss, explaining that wine in
this state glides straight or smoothly down the throat ; the expres-
sion was perhaps here inserted from Canticles, and was possibly
meant as contrast to v.''^. Or, it may be original, in which case
we should perhaps read : At first it glides smoothly down, over the
* The Heb. adds : it goes straight (or, smoothly).
440 PROVERBS
lips and the palate, but at last it bites etc. We should thus have a
quatrain instead of the couplet, v.'-, or the triplet, v.''''^-^^. —
32. Synonymous, ternary-binary (the second line is perhaps
defective). Lit.: its end is : it bites etc. The rendering ^rt'^^r
is uncertain — the species of snake meant is not known ( Jer. 8^'
Is. II* 59^)' — The precise signification of the verb in second line
is not sure (it must be a synonym of bites) ; it has been rendered
stings* = pierces, and poisons.^ The point of comparison is the
deadly character of the result, but there may also be allusion to
the silent, treacherous attack of the snake. — 33. Synonymous,
ternary. Lit. : thine eyes will see . . . thy heart (= thou) will
speak. Description of the erratic fancies and fantastic talk of the
drunken man — perhaps reference to delirium tremens. — The
connection forbids the interpretation of strange (fem. plu. adj. in
the Heb.) z.^ = strange women. — On queer {:= distorted, topsy-
turvy, false) see note on 2^^. — 34. Synonymous, ternary.
Description of the man's unsteady, whirling brain. In both lines
we may render : like one who sleeps, or : like one tvho lies down ;
both renderings represent the disturbed rest, the perturbation of
thought, occasioned by the motion of the ship at sea; the first
seems to be favored by v.^, in which the drunken man is awaking
from sleep. — In the first line the Heb. is lit. : ifi the midst of the
sea, which means not at the bottom of the sea (a place where
men do not usually lie down), or on the surface of the water (on
a plank, for example), but (as in Ez. 27^^® 28--* Jon. z'**^*) sur-
rounded by water, on the high seas, at sea. — The text of the sec-
ond line appears to be corrupt. Literally it reads : a?id as one
sleeping (or, lying) on the head . . ; the word left untranslated ( RV.
mast) occurs only here in OT., and its meaning, if it be a real
word, is unknown ; it is similar to the term for line, rope, but can
hardly mean mast (which is a mere guess). Grk. : and as a pilot
in a heavy sea ; Targ. : as a sailor who is asleep in a ship ; and
so Frank. : as a sleeping sailor in a storm. A sailor, however, is
precisely the person who sleeps well in rough weather, or, in gen-
eral, at sea. It is simpler to adopt the expression in a violent
storm (see Jon. i*), which requires no great change in the
* De. RV. t Grk. Lat. Saad.
xxiii. 31-35 441
Hebrew. The couplet apparently describes the broken, unsound
sleep of the reveller — his head is whirling, his mind is confused.
There is no reference to the danger of drowning ; the main refer-
ence is not to any danger, but to giddiness. — 35. The first coup-
let is synonymous, binary ; the second couplet is two sentences,
and, as emended, ternary. The words of the drunken man as he
is awaking from his debauch. He recollects that he was beaten
in a quarrel, and congratulates himself that he feels no bad effects
from the blows. The first couplet may also be rendered : / was
struck but I felt no pain, I was beaten but I did not know it, with
reference to his former happy state of insensibility ; but the solilo-
quy appears to describe his present feeling. — Hitzig (by a slight
change of text) reads : // [the wine] has smitten me . . . it has
beaten me; but, though wine is represented in 20^ as a mocker
and brawler, its sudden introduction here unannounced is not
quite natural. His experience teaches him nothing — his only
desire is to get back to his debauch. When shall I awake ? that
is, I hope I shall soon recover full consciousness and strength ;
not if I awake, which the Heb. does not permit. — The expres-
sion from my wine is not in the Heb., but seems to be required
by the following it, which otherwise, in the translation here
adopted, would have no antecedent (so Bickell) ; it also gives
rhythmical symmetry to the couplet. If Hitzig's rendering be
adopted, the insertion will not be grammatically necessary. — This
paragraph, v.^^*^, gives the fullest and liveliest description of drunk-
enness in OT. ; cf. Is. 28'^^", BS. 19". In its length and vividness
it resembles certain paragraphs of chs. 1-9 (see chs. 5 and 7).
29. On the form of en:: see critical note on 6^*. — |t? Z'.r^; (5, here and
Job 2-^ 9I'' 22^, 5ta Kfvrji, hut usually in Pr. Sicpedv; Lag. calls attention to the
difference of usage in the two books. — The stem '^d.t = dark; cf. Ass. akal
(in De. Ass. Handtvbch.), Schult., Ges. Thes. BDB. ; the reference appears to
be to the dull red effect produced by excessive drinking of wine, perhaps,
however, simply to the dulness of stupor. — 31. K D'; read Q d' . — ^ ?■".'
here hardly refers to the round bubbles, like pearls, on the surface of the wine
(Ges. Fleisch.), for which, as De. remarks, the plur. would naturally be used
(for a possible Ass. use in this sense see De. Ass. Whch.'). Since the eye is
the determining feature of expression, the word is used in Heb. for the appear-
ance of a thing, and so here, perhaps, from the connection, sparkle, ^s^leam
(or perhaps from the sparkle of the eye). — In J^ -"!'.3 T?^ ' the Hith.
442 PROVERBS
is somewhat strange (Cant. 7^ has Qal). — 32. ^ x-nns is defined by the
pred. -\u-> rnjD. — For the stem tr^D cf. Ass. /aruHu staff {T>^.) Aram, b'-id ox-
goad, which appear to involve "piercing," cf. Schult. Ges. De. — 34. % 3DB01
Van tt'Nia; @ Ka.1 wa-irep Kv^epv-^Ttji iv ttoXXc? KXiidwvi, whence Frank.: '73n3i
(or myt:o) C';7i3 23r. A preferable reading is : '■'■m -i;dj 23;oi. — 35. (5 : w^^«
wzV/ iV ^<' morning, that I may go and seek those with whom I may associate,
the suff. having perhaps been understood (Schult.) to refer to the symposium;
but such a reference would be too remote.
XXIV. 1, 2. Bad men are not proper objects of envy.
1. Do not envy bad men,
Desire not to be with them,
2. For they meditate harm,
And talk of mischief.
1. Synonymous, ternary. Ejtvy^"he stirred up by, seek to
emulate," attracted by their apparent success. Bad men is lit.
men of badness, with special reference not to disposition, but to
deeds. — 2. Synonymous, ternary. Lit.: their mind {\\X. heart)
?neditates and their lips speak. They plot evil, and will come to
grief; cf. i^^^^ 3^1 ''^ 24'^ </' 37^ ^ We have here again a resem-
blance to chs. 1-9. Harm is "spoliation, robbery" (21^ Job
52122 p^^ ^\<i Hab. i'') ; the term mischief (properly "harmful
deeds") occurs in Job 4^ <// 7"^^^^ Isa. 59' etc.
3, 4. Domestic utility of wisdom.
3. By wisdom a house is built.
By intelligence it is established,
4. By knowledge its chambers are filled
With all precious and goodly wealth.
The quatrain forms one sentence ; the first couplet is synonymous,
binary (or, ternary-binary), the second is a single clause, ternary.
The three nouns wisdom, intelligence (see i^), knowledge are syn-
onyms, all expressing practical sagacity, without reference to
moral and religious qualities. The house is here not the family,
but the building ; its erection and furnishing are, however, put as
the sign of domestic permanence and prosperity. On chambers
see 72^ i8« 2o2^, on precious, i", on goodly (or, pleasani^, 22'* 23*
i/^ 16*^ Cant. i'*'. Cf. 141. —This quatrain probably does not give
the antithesis to the preceding.
XXIV. 1-7 443,
5, 6. Military value of wisdom.
5. A wise man is < better than a warrior,'
And he who has knowledge < than he who > has strength,
6. For war is conducted by wise guidance,
And victory lies in counsellors.
5. Synonymous, ternary. Heb. : a wise man is in strength, and
a man of knowledge strengthens might. The second couplet, how-
ever, indicates that a contrast is intended between intellectual
insight and bodily strength. — Warrior, lit. mighty man. — Has
strength, lit. strengthens might. — 6. Synonymous, ternary. Lit.
thou con due test (or, makes t) war; cf. 20'*. — Lit. safety is in the
multitude of counsellors, that is, in well-considered advice. On
wise guidance or plannitig ( = wise counselling, steering) see i^
11" \2'' 20'** Job 37'^; as the guidance is civil, political, and mili-
tary, the terms " statesmanship " and " generalship " are too nar-
row. — An exacter parallelism is gained by writing counsel instead
of counsellors. For victory see 21''^ Ju. 15^^ i Sam. 11^ 2 K. 5^ al.
Cf. Eccl. 7" gi^i"- ^«\
7. Text and meaning doubtful. Heb. : Corals to the fool is
wisdom, in the gate he opens not his inouth. This reading of first
cl.* gives no satisfactory sense. Corals (or, pearls) is taken as
= "unattainable treasure," of which the fool can make no use;
but the term is elsewhere (Ez. 27'" Job 28^*) used in the sense of
a thing esteemed as valuable, and the addition " unattainable " is
farfetched. Moreover, elsewhere in Pr. (17-^ 18" «/.) the fool is
only too ready to open his mouth, and the one moment in his life
when he may be called wise is when he closes his lips. On gate
see note on i^^ — The first clause may also (by a slight change)
be rendered : wisdom is high to a fool, which is held f to mean
too high, = "unattainable " (identical in sense, therefore, with the
preceding reading) ; this interpretation of the Heb. is doubtful,
and, if it be accepted, the difficulty of second cl. remains. — Bick-
ell : If thou art silent in the presence of a fool, thou art wise. If
thou hold thy peace, it is to thy credit ; For a ivise man refrains
from strife. In the gate he opens not his mouth. This reconstruc-
• Adopted by Rashi, Da. Rcuss, Now. Str.
t By Saad. Luth. Mich. Ew. RV. al.
444 PROVERBS
tion is ingenious, but in 31^ it is an, honor to the man that he is
known in the gate, the place of public deliberation. We expect a
quatrain, in which the loquacity of the fool is contrasted with the
reticence of the wise man ; an exact restoration of the text is
hardly possible,
8, 9. Public opinion condemns the mischievous man.
8. He who is intent on mischief,
Men call him an intriguer.
9. Sin is folly's intrigue,
And a scoffer is offensive to men.
8. Single sentence, binary-ternary. Lit. : he who devises to do
evil, that is, harm to others. Intriguer (^schemer, plotter, trickster)
is lit. master of {evil) plans. The term was perhaps a popular
epithet of scheming, mischief-making men. On plans see notes
on I'' 12^. The couplet gives a definition of a current term ; cf.
21^''. — 9. Synonymous, ternary. The translation given above
imitates the paronomasia of the Heb. l>aal mezimmot {intrigue?-)
and zimmat {intrigue) . The latter word means " scheme, plan,"
good or bad ; see notes on 10-'' 21^. The first cl. is lit. : the plan
of folly is sin, in which plan may be taken as subject, and folly
will then be defined as sin (so Lat. RV. al); but, from the par-
allelism (second cl. is ht. : an abomination to man is the scoffer),
it is better to regard sin as subject,* it being thus defined as the
scheme of folly, and therefore despicable, just as a scoffer is des-
picable to men. On scoffer (here equivalent to " mischiefmaker ")
see notes on i^" 19^. — Offensive — "that which produces loath-
ing " ; see note on 3^-.
10. Text in bad condition. Heb. : If thou art inert {or, slack)
in the day of adversity, narrow is thy strength ; or : If thou art
inert, in the day of adversity thy strength will he narrow. The
general idea is intelligible (an exhortation to work while there is
opportunity), but the wording and form are doubtful. Strength
may be understood in the sense of substance, 7vealth (as in 5^" Job
6^^) : indolence brings poverty. But narrow (as Hitz. points out)
is not a proper epithet of strength, whether the term = power ox
* So De. Reuss, Wild, al.
XXIV. 7-12 445
= wealth; cf., for the use of this adj., 23-^ Nu. 22'" Is. 49^ (in
Isa. 59'^ Job 41^^ the text is probably to be changed). We might
suppose a paronomasia: /// the day of straits (Heb. sarah) strait
(Heb. sar) is thy strength, but it is doubtful whether the word
would be thus used out of its proper sense. — Bickell : Trust not
in thy good fortune, And let not thy hands be slack; If thou be
slack in the day of prosperity, In the day of straits thy strength will
be strait.
11, 12. Duty of rescuing those who are going to death. —
It may be a question whether we should take these verses sepa-
rately, or regard them as giving a couplet followed by a prose
comment. The couplet reads :
11. Deliver those who are taken to death,
Save those who are tottering to slaughter.
Synonymous, ternary. The expressions taken and tottering appear
to describe the gait of persons who are condemned, by the polit-
ical or judicial authorities, to death. The reference may be to
the ransom of prisoners of war, or to the rescue, by legal means,
of innocent men who have been condemned by the tribunals.
Perhaps some time of persecution of Jews is referred to (see WS»
2I0-20 J Mac. i"*^ Jos. Ant. 12. 4. i ; 12. 5. 4) ; or, the injunction
may be a general one, suggested by the customs of corrupt and
tyrannical governments. The vigorous character of the expres-
sions {death, slaughter) makes it improbable that the reference is
merely to the ordinary oppression of the poor by the rich, who
deprive them of wealth, and thus of livelihood (=life). It is
still more improbable that the couplet should refer to the holding
back of those who, by vice or imprudence, are hastening to death.
The verb rendered save is lit. hold back ; elsewhere (as in i Sam.
25^^ ip igi''*"') it implies restraint of the man's voluntary effort,
but the parallelism {deliver) here requires the sense save, as in
Job Z2,'' «A 78^"-
V.^^ of the Heb., of which the English translation may be writ-
ten stichometrically, reads (with one slight change) :
12. If thou say: "< I > did not know this,"
He who weighs hearts, does he not perceive?
446 PROVERBS
He who observes thy soul, does he not know?
And will he not requite every man according to his deed?
In first line the Heb. has : we did not know this; it is better, with
the Grk., to write the sing., in accordance with the thou and thy
soul. — The this, in this reading, may refer to the situation
described in the preceding couplet ; if a man plead ignorance of
the situation, the answer is that he ought to have known. Or, the
this may possibly (though not probably) refer to the obligation to
help the suffering ; the man would then say : " I did not know
my duty," but this would be an extreme case of ignorance. Cf.
Tobit i^^^. It is an objection to both these interpretations that
the this has no expressed antecedent, since v." does not state a
fact, but only enjoins action in a supposed case. The Lat. ren-
dering : // is not in my power, is, therefore, perhaps preferable.
The man pleads inabihty — but this plea will be scrutinized by
God. If this reading be adopted, the // may be regarded as refer-
ring to the duty enjoined in v." ; or v.'^ may perhaps be taken as
an independent exhortation. Bickell omits first and second lines,
and thus makes a quatrain of v." *-, in which there is no excuse
and answer, but simply the statement (the interrogative particle
being omitted) that God observes and rewards deeds of kindness.
The first and second lines may have been inserted by a scribe
who supposed that the third and fourth lines contained a rebuke
of negligence. Or, the whole verse may be regarded as the anno-
tation of a scribe or editor who wished to enforce the exhortation
of v.^\ — For the expression iveighs hearts cf. i6'^ 21^. Heart z.nd
soul here = " inward being" (or, "thought"). On the fourth
line cf. 12" 2^ Jer. 25" 50^ Job 34".
XXIV. 2. J^ Ti', or plene ivj'; © ^ev8fj, = sir, with N for ■», a confusion
which appears to suppose the old alphabet (Lag.); cf. 10-* 192^ 20* 24}^ 28'^.
— 5. 1^ Tpa D3n n3); © (followed by ^VL) KpeL<T<Tuv {— I'ji) ffo(pbs iffx^pov.
Read: tj7D 3B ddh -laj, or rvp DDn niiJ. Similarly, in ^, for ^ n VP**'^» read
no vpNr: (cf. Job 9*). — 7. Bi.'s reconstruction is as follows: no^n SiN*^ nbi
Dp nno^ n':' "^yi?'? ^"'P ^r^ oon •'3 TpiNonS nchnn. It is hardly probable that
so much of the Heb. text would have fallen out. — 10. Bickell: 2^3 n'jan '^n
1^3 ■*? ^^7? Q''''^ np^nn nao n-'O V'^'y-^ ^x l'-';^ l^^n. — 11. For as* as hortative
particle cf. 1/' 81^ 139^®. It was treated by (SSiL as if = "^n, is lacking in tZT,
and may be omitted without detriment to the sense, and with advantage to
the rhythm. — 12. |^ U""'''; @ ovk olda, = \-iyTi nS; 1L 7'ires non suppettint.
XXIV. 12-15 447
= uSj^ N^, or better i-ii hnh px, a reading which may be adopted. — J^ ]db;
(5 yLvuffice, ■— ]^2P (Jag.).
13, 14. Comparison of wisdom to honey. — The Heb. has
first an incomplete quatrain :
13. My son, eat honey, for it is good,
And honeycomb is sweet to thy taste.
14. So know wisdom (to be) to thy soul,
If thou find it.
To this is appended the remark : and there is an end, and thy
hope will not be cut off. This remark is hardly here appropriate ;
elsewhere in Pr. there is reference to the end only when there is
direct question of retribution; see 5* " x^'^'^'^ 16^ 19^ 20^^ 23'*-^^
24^^ 25^ 29^'. The sentence seems to be here improperly inserted
from 23^*, where it is in place. — Note the difference of statement
in v.^'^ and 25'®; for other references to honey and honeycomb see
5" i6^^ The address tny son should perhaps be omitted, and for
eat we might write thou eatest. Taste is lit. palate. — In v." we
expect the statement, in couplet form, that wisdom is sweet to the
soul. The expression // thou find it is suspicious ; a reference to
finding is natural in such passages as 3" 8^ 25^^, but not here
where the sweetness of wisdom is the point. Comparing 2^" 16-*
we may surmise that the original form of the couplet was in sub-
stance *
So knowledge will be pleasant to thee.
And wisdom sweet to thy soul.
The general sense of the quatrain is clear, though the form is
doubtful.
15, 16. Caution against assailing good men.
15. Lie not in wait [] for the home of the just.
And assault not his dwelling-place.
16. For seven times the just man falls and rises.
But the wicked are overthrown by calamity.
15. Synonymous, binary, or ternary-binary. After lie not in wait
the Heb. inserts O zvicked man ; this is stylistically out of place
(since throughout this Section it is the pupil who is addressed
and warned against the wicked), mars the rhythm, and is proba-
448 PROVERBS
bly a gloss. — Hotne is abode {■^ 21™) ; just = righteous ; assault
= do violence to, violently assail, injure, devastate (see ir'' 19^*
21^ Am. 3'" Jer. 5® Job 5-') ; dwelling-place, properly couching-
place, the lair of animals (Is. 35^ 65^"), used of Israel when the
nation is called a flock of sheep (Jer. 50^), the verb also, ordina-
rily used of animals (Is. 11® i// 104^-), sometimes referring poet-
ically to men (Gen. 49^ \\i 23-). The injunction is against secret
and open attempts on the homes of righteous men, and contem-
plates a period of violence, probably in a great city. — 16. Anti-
thetic, ternary, or quaternary-ternary. Seven, a round number
(cf. Job 5'" Mt. 1 8"-^-) — the righteous, it is said, shall never be
permanently cast down (cf. Mic. 7*) ; the wicked, on the con-
trary, has no power to rise above misfortune — once down, he
does not rise. The couplet probably refers not to the natural
inspiriting power of integrity and the depressing effect of moral
evil, but to divine retribution. — Are overthrown, lit. are made to
stumble, or do stumble. Instead of by calamity we may render in
calamity, that is, " in time of calamity."
17, 18. Against taking pleasure in the misfortunes of enemies.
17. At the fall of thine enemy rejoice not,
At his overthrow do not exult,
18. Lest Yahweh see and be displeased,
And turn his anger from him.
17. Synonymous, ternary. Lit. at the falling of and at his being
overthrown. In second cl. lit. let fwt thy heart exult. The verbs
rejoice and exult commonly signify the audible expression of joy ;
the exultation may be generous (as in 5^* 23^^), or malicious (as
here and in \^ 35"). The injunction is negative (cf. Job 31^),
against exultation over enemies ; the positive side, sympathy with
enemies (see i/^ 35^^^^ Mt. 5**), is not expressed, but is perhaps
involved. — 18. Single sentence, ternary. The ///;■// his anger from
him (that is, from the enemy) is not to be understood as affirming
that God will cease punishing a wicked man because another man
is pleased at the punishment ; the full form of the expression is
" turn from him to thee," and the stress is to be laid on the " to
thee." "Thou," says the sage, "wilt then become the greater
sinner, and Yahweh will be more concerned to punish thee than
XXIV. 15-22 449
to punish him." — The motive here assigned — fear of Yahweh's
displeasure — belongs to the ethical system of Proverbs. But
this motive does not impair the dignity of the moral standard pre-
sented. Yahweh's displeasure is the expression of the moral ideal :
it is one's duty, says the proverb, not to rejoice at the misfortunes
of enemies. This duty is enforced by a reference to compensa-
tion, but it remains a duty.
19, 20. It is unreasonable to envy the wicked, seeing their
end is unhappy.
19. Fret not thyself because of evil-doers,
Envy not the wicked;
20. For there will be no (happy) end for the bad man,
The lamp of the wicked will be put out.
Both couplets are synonymous ; the first is binary, the second ter-
nary, or ternary-binary. Cf. 3^''''- 23^' '^ 2V t^ 3?' ""^"^ 73- ^^'^
= " be not angrily excited," that is, at the apparent prosperity of
the wicked. On end see note on 23'^ Lit. : there will be no end,
no outcome of life — that is, no good outcome. This pregnant
use of the term is found only here and in 23^^ (see note on 24") ;
everywhere else it is defined. Thus it might be rendered future
(Saad. al.), or rezvard (RV.) in this life. Grk. posterity (as in
\^ 109^^) is, in this connection, less probable. — On the figure in
v.^"* see notes on 13^ 20*'. — The problem of the quatrain is that
of the Book of Job ; the practical morahsts retained the old view,
holding that it furnished the strongest incentive to well-doing that
could be urged.
21,22. Duty of obedience to constituted authorities. — Our
Hebrew text reads :
21. Fear Yahweh, my son, and the king,
And with those who change have naught to do;
22. For suddenly arises their ruin,
And the destruction of them both who can know?
The address my son, because of its strange position and because it
mars the rhythm of the Heb., is better omitted as scribal insertion.
Have naught to do is lit. 7nix {ox, Joiti) not thyself. — Who can
know ? = " comes suddenly, unexpectedly." — The expression
450 PROVERBS
who change (intransitive) lias been variously rendered : Schult.
RV. : them that are given to change, which can mean only nova-
rum reriun avidi, political agitators ; a slight modification of the
word gives the sense changers (transitive), wrongly interpreted
(by Hitzig «/.) as =^ revolutionists, insurrectionists; Mich, al.:
those who are of a different fnind, that is, those who do not fear
God and the king — a rendering lexicographically inexact ; Ewald :
the quarrelsome; Reuss : the discontented ; Syr. Targ. : fools;
Lat. : detractors. — Grk. : do not disobey either of them (^= to
than both be 7wt disobedient). If in the expressions their ruin and
the destruction of them both the pronouns be understood as refer-
ring to God and the king (with the sense : " the ruin and destruc-
tion inflicted by them"), the Greek reading is satisfactory. If
the expressions in question mean "the ruin etc, which befall them,"
the reference must be to persons mentioned in the second line of
v.^^, and the reading them both is impossible (since the expression
cannot designate the two classes, those who fear Yahweh, and
those who fear the king). If the pronouns be taken as objective,
we may read :
Fear thou God and the king,
With the wicked (or, with fools) have naught to do;
For on them falls sudden ruin,
And destruction unforeseen.
If the pronouns be regarded as subjective, a natural reading will be :
Fear thou God and the king.
Anger not either of them;
For the ruin they inflict is sudden.
And the destruction they send unforeseen.
The general sense is the same in the two forms : obedience to
God as supreme religious authority, and to the king as supreme
civil authority, is enjoined (so i Pet. i^') ; opposition to them by
wicked conduct will be punished with destruction. — God, as the
more familiar word, may be substituted for Yahiveh. — The trans-
lation of v.-^** : the destruction of their years who can kno7v ? * is
unnatural — in OT. years (as = life) are said to be increased or
lengthened (9"), or diminished (10"), but never to be destroyed.
* Syr. Targ. De. RV. marg.
XXIV. 22-23 451
— The Grk, here inserts 30^" of the Heb., giving an improbable
order.
13, 14. The Vrss. substantially reproduce |^. The pointing of the Energic
Impv. n;n (Cod. Hillel), instead of nv, is due (as in the Art. before n) to
the following n, to which the vowel is made to conform; see Strack, Proleg.,
p. 19, and notes of De. B-D, Ginsburg. — 15. Omit |^ ;ti, with Bi., as the
gloss of a scribe who incorrectly assumed that the warning must be addressed
to wicked men; the word is represented in all Vrss., but S has da-^^eiav, and
3L impietatem. — 16. J^ ]:2V, = seven times, as in V 119^^*. — 17. K plur.
Ti3\s; Q, better, sing. — Jlj i'?;'?3, as if abridged form of Nif.; better Qal
iStt'33. — 18. 3^ jni is better understood as 3 s. m. Perf. with 1 consecutive;
the adj. would properly be followed by .sin; (@ /cai o^/c ap^ffei. — 19. J§ "'"'?'?>
<3 xatP^) = ■'"^ (Lag.). — 21. Omit 3^ ^J3. — "^ o^yt; B (and ®) N^ai' /00/s,
= " those whose intellect is changed, witless " (cf. Aram, nj:') ; IL detractori-
bus, = " disparagers," perh. = " those who change their attitude, opponents,"
perh. = " haters "; Venet. toT<i t^iffova-t, = a^i<it\ — (@, in *>: Kal fj-rjOeripcp
avTuv d-n-eidT^arii, = -\2yDD Ss Dn^:r '^i' (Jag.). — See De' Rossi on v.^'. —
22. 3^ o-i^JU" gives no satisfactory sense. Ew. : n'lijj'; Bi. : D;^'jt:' tkeir
idiocy, taking ri)i' in the Aram, sense. nn^K' is perhaps corrupted scribal
repetition of the D^jr of v.^i; in that case we should add suff. to |^ -ir, and
make it parallel to a-<N. — On the added couplets in @ see Ew., Jahrb. d. Bibl.
Wiss., xi. pp. 18 ff., Bi. Baumg.
■Vx
Appendix to the Preceding Collection. 24^^^.
This appendix was added by an editor, probably by him who
collected 2 2'"-24^^, possibly by the general editor of the Book.
It is introduced by the title :
23 a. These also are by the sages,
in which the also appears to allude to the similar title in 22"
(according to the emended text). The plur. sages points to the
existence of a special class of wise men, who were oral teachers or
writers. The utterances of these men formed a distinct body of
thought, part of which is preserved in the Book of Proverbs, and
other parts are given in Ben-Sira and Ecclesiastes. While it is
not probable that all that they said has been edited, it is likely
that we have in the various collections the gist of their thought. —
The present group is part prose, part in defective rhythm ; its
contents nearly resemble in tone those of the preceding part of
the Section.
452 PROVERBS
23t>-26. Judicial partiality. Honest words. — The mutual
relations of the lines are doubtful. V.^** may be retained as
prose, or emended into rhythmical form ; v.-^ may be connected
witii v.^^ or with v.^". The verses read in the Heb. :
ZT^b. Partiality in judicial decisions is not goo<l.
24. Who says to him who is in the wrong : " ] h 11 art in the right ";
Him men will execrate, and people curse.
25. But (or, and) they who reprove fare well,
On them rests the blessing of prosperity.
26. He does a friendly act
Who gives an honest answer.
Here v. ^'' is a prose sentence, a legal maxim ; its thought is con-
tinued in v.^* by the statement that the partisan judge is univer-
sally execrated. Bickell, changing the text of v.^** and dividing
second line of v.^^ into two parts, makes a quatrain : he who is
partial in judgment, who says etc. The emendation is attractive,
and should perhaps be adopted ; if he who is partial had been
corrupted into to be partial, a scribe would naturally add the
words not good ; it is, however, doubtful whether symmetry of
poetical form can here be insisted on. — As the text stands, v.^
appears to describe, as contrast to v.^*, the happiness of the
upright judge, the reprove (or, rebuke) being taken as = "reprove
the wrong, judge justly" (RV., interpreting, inserts him, as
explicit reference to the wicked man of v.^*) ; the blessing (the of
prosperity being omitted, as in the Grk.) will then stand over
against the curse of v.^''. But the verb reprove is not elsewhere in
Pr. used in the sense "judge justly" ; v.^^ may be understood to
refer to those who frankly rebuke wrong in general, and will then
stand in close connection with v.-^ Bickell transposes v.^ ^*, read-
ing : \}ie ivho rebukes'] is a true friend etc., and they who reprove
etc., making the quatrain relate to honest rebuke, and gaining a
natural position for the and of v.^* as a connective of the two
couplets. The only important difference between the two inter-
pretations of the paragraph lies in the sense given to 7-eprove. —
23''. Lit. to have respect of persons, to look (with partial eye) on
a person ; see Dt. 16'^ (and i''), from which this Hne is probably
taken ; it occurs again, in slightly modified form, in 28^'. —
24. On the technical forensic expressions of first line (usually
XXIV. 23-27 453
rendered wicked and righteous) see notes on 2^ ^^. The line may
be translated : he who says to the guilty : Thou art innocent. —
Execrate (ii"" Job 3") and curse (22'* 25^^) are synonyms (Nu.
23*, where RV., for the second, has defy). Men is lit. " nations,"
and people is "peoples"; for the meaning see 11^* 14^^ 29^-^*
\\i 94^ ; the plu. form, if it be genuine, must be understood to sig-
nify " all bodies of the people." — 26. Lit. and (or, but) to (or,
with) those who reprove it is well (or, pleasant) ; for the last
expression see 2^" 9^^ 2 Sam. i^^ — Second line lit. on them comes
(or, will come) blessing of good, that is, not " good (or, rich) bless-
ing," but a blessing which consists in good fortune (cf. \^ 2i^<^').
The tone of the verse in the Heb. form suits the good man rather
than the just judge ; if of prosperity be omitted, it may be under-
stood of the latter. — 26. Lit. he kisses the lips who returns honest
(or, pure, upright) words : the first expression signifies not " he
wins love," but " he shows love," he is a true friend.* Straight-
forward, honest speech, says the verse, is a mark of true friend-
ship.
27. Preparation for marriage.
Set in order thy work without,
Make it ready in the field;
Then thou mayest (take a wife),
And build thee up a house.
The first couplet is synonymous, ternary ; the second appears to
be defective. Without and in the field refer to agricultural life ;
see note on 3^", and cf. Mt. <f' 12^ — The Heb. has lit. after-
wards then (lit. and) thou mayest build — a construction in itself
intelligible and good, but the defective rhythm suggests that after
the adverb a verb has fallen out. Most expositors, from Rashi on,
see in the second couplet a reference to the setting up of a
domestic establishment {house — household, family, cf. Ru. 4"),
and understand that some such expression as take thee a wife is
* This is the only place in OT. where there is explicit mention of kissing the
lips; there seems to be reference to it in Cant. 4II (interpreted by Cant. 5I). In
the ancient world one kissed the hand, breast, knee, or foot of a superior, and the
cheek of a friend. Herodotus (i, 134) mentions kissing the lips as a custom of the
Persians. Possibly from them it came to the Jews.
454
PROVERBS
lo be supplied in the first line. The verse enjoins providence :
" first acquire the means of supporting a family, then thou mayest
marry, and accomplish thy desire to build thee a house." The
establishment of a family was a main ambition in Israelitish and
all ancient hfe.
28, 29. Against revenge.
28. Be not a witness against thy neighbor without ground,
And mislead not with thy lips.
29. Say not : " I will do to him as he did to me,
I will repay the man for his deed."
The quatrain has parallelism of form, but, like v.^^ above, is pro-
saic rather than poetical. The supposed scene is a court of
law, as in 3^°. — 28. Without ground — " when he has given you
no ground for testifying against him" (see note on 3^) ; Grk. :
be not a false witness. The expression is sometimes (by Reuss
al.) taken to mean : " when you are not legally required to testify,
but come forward, actuated by the spirit of revenge, as a volun-
tary witness " — a sense possible, but opposed by 3^. Elsewhere
falsity of testimony is expressed by words meaning deceit (so 6^^
12^^ Ex. 20^^ al.), or, wickedness (19^*), or, malice (if/ 35"), here
by the term groundlessness. — In the second line the literal read-
ing is : and dost thou mislead (or, befool') etc. ? It is better, with
the Grk., to take the cl. as a prohibition. For the sense mislead
see Jer. 20^ Ez. 14^; in Pr. i^" 16^ the verb means etitice. —
29. Bickell omits one clause in first line, and writes: say not: as
he did to me, so I will repay etc. ; but this is stylistically bad —
the omission of the expression / will do to him is hardly per-
mitted by Heb. usage. There is possibly a reference or allusion
to v.^l The Lat. makes the second line a general statement : /
will repay every one etc. ; this is less probable than the reference
to the particular case. — The quatrain (especially v.^) is a modifi-
cation of the old law of retaliation, as given in Ex. 21^^^ Dt. 19^^
Lev. 24"-^". This regulation, it is true, was, in the later legisla-
tion, not a matter of private revenge, but a legal right, controlled
by judges ; it was, however, based on the old principle of retalia-
tion, and breathed its spirit. It was gradually modified by the
advance of moral and refined feeling, and would be substantially
XXIV. 27-31 455
set aside by the principle announced in this quatrain; the sage
here expresses the higher moral idea of his time.*
30-34. The sluggard.
30. I passed by the field of the sluggard,
By the vineyard of the thriftless,
31. And lo, it was all overgrown with thistles,
Its surface was covered with nettles,
And its stone wall was broken down.
32. I beheld and reflected thereon,
I saw and learned a lesson.
^^. A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest;
34. And thy poverty will come as a < highwayman,'
And thy want as an armed man.
See notes on 6*^", to which this paragraph is parallel. The two
passages accord literally in only one quatrain : 6*" " = 24^ ^ ; it
is hardly necessary to attempt to bring them into closer similarity
— the sages doubtless had many variations on the same text. —
We expect quatrains here, but Bickell's method of gaining them
(omitting part of v.^^ and inserting 6'* after v.^^) is somewhat vio-
lent.— 30. Synonymous, ternary. A supposed or imaginary case ;
we may render : a s/uggan/ and an unthrifty (or, a negligent')
man. Thriftless is lit. the man void of understanding, lacking in
the good sense which would make him provident. f — 31. Ter-
nary, triplet. The first and second lines are mutually equivalent,
the third line stands alone. We may obtain a quatrain by adding
a line (parallel to third line), or a couplet by omitting second line
or third line, or by combining the two first lines into one. The
triplet is suspicious, but it is not clear how the text is to be
treated. — The precise meaning of the words rendered thistles
(RV. thorns') and nettles is not certain ; the first occurs only here
in OT., the second elsewhere only in Zeph. 2^ Job 30^^, perhaps a
sort of lathyrus or vetch. The two represent the growth that
springs up in deserted and neglected places. Sto?ies are abundant
* Similarly, in Mt. s^S- 39 it is assumed that the spirit of the old legislation was
morally defective.
t On viticulture in ancient Israel see Nowack, Arch., ^ 42, and the Bib. Diets.;
on the modern cuhure of the grape see Robinson, Bibl. Researches, ii. 81 al.
456 PROVERBS
in Palestine, and have always been used for building walls about
fields and vineyards (cf. Is. 5''). — ^32. Synonymous, ternary.
Reflected thereon, lit. applied my mind, absented, took note (RV.
considered well). — Leartied a lesson, lit. received instruction. —
33, 34. See notes on 6'° ". In that passage the description of
the sluggard's laziness is introduced by an address to him ; here
the introduction to v.^-^^ is given by v.^", so that the insertion of
6^ (Bick.) is hardly necessary. — In v.^* the Heb. has: afid thy
poverty will come walking (or, a lualker) ; a slight change of the
last word gives the sense as a highwayman (as in 6'^), which is
obviously the right reading (RV. as a robber).
23. 1^ i;;n; Bi. reads t-j and omits 3l3 ^^3. — 25. (S omits 3B. Hif. of
n3' occurs in the sense decide, Judge (always with connotation of just decision)
in Isa. 1 1^ al., sometimes absolutely; in Pr., absolutely, only here. — 26. (S : they
kiss lips which ans2ver ; ^ST : . . . the lips of those who reprove (C return
right words) ; li-. he who answers etc. ivill be kissed with the lips ; 3L, cor-
rectly: he kisses . . . who answers. — 27. On the 1 in |^ ""ni "inx" as introduc-
ing the apodosis see Ew. § 344^, Ges.^^ § 112, 5. c. It seems better, on
rhythmical grounds, to insert n-^N n^ n;?-. — 28. J^ "'"'"^1) interrog. part, and
Piel introduced by •, a construction (n preceded by 1) which is found in
2 S. 15^^. The 1 is better omitted, and the neg. may then be continued
from ^, or we may read ' i "^n ; (g (x.i\bk. The sense make wide, for Hif.
((5 Tz\a.T<>vov) seems to be assured by Gen. 9^''. — On the reading mpcn-, from
rnc, see De' Rossi. — 30. For J^ '^7 in both cases <@ has wo-Trep, and it omits
■"^ir:. — 31. C'ji'OP is written with either t' or r; see B-D, Ginsb. On
the meaning of the terms ti;vo,-i or -^I'on (Hos. <f Is. 34^^) and '?in see Low,
Aram. Pflanzennam. — 33, 34. See notes on ip- I'. — J§ 1?'Ii'"i. ; read ^'7^D.
IV. CHAPTERS XXV.-XXIX.
This Section falls, by its style, into two parts. The first (25^-
2f') bears greater resemblance to III. (2 2''-24'"), the second
(28. 29) to II, (10^-22^") ; between the two stands a discourse
(27'^^') after the manner of III. The Section thus appears to
have been formed by the combination of two collections. It has
certain couplets in common with the other collections. See the
Introduction.
The Title. 25^
The title reads : These also are proverbs of Solomon which the
men of Hezekiah, king of Jiidah, transcribed.
The verb has this sense only here in OT. ; elsewhere (Gen. 12^
Job 9' 2 1^^ rt!/.*) it means remove (in space or in time), and its sig-
nification here {transcribe =^ "remove from one book to another")
belongs to the late literary vocabulary. f This superscription thus
belongs in the same category with the titles found in the Prophet-
ical Books and the Psalter, and has no value as a witness to the
date of the original collection or to the origin of the particular
proverbs ; it only bears testimony to the disposition, in later times,
to ascribe all wise sayings to Solomon, and a special suggestion of
Solomonic authorship may have been found in the mention of
kings with which the collection opens. Internal evidence leads
us to refer this Section to the same general period as that of chs.
10-24; see the Introduction. — The supposition of the title is
that, in addition to Solomon's own book (10^-22*^), other collec-
tions of his proverbs were in existence in written form, and that
these were copied out (or, in modern phrase, edited) by Heze-
kiah's men. \ This indicates the opinion that our Section was
* Job 32I5 appears to be an interpolation; see Budde, Hiob.
t On the Talmudic use see Buxt., Lexicon.
J If the meaning were that the proverbs wen- handed down orally, and com-
mitted to writing from the mouths of men, the verb would naturally be ivrote.
457
458 PROVERBS
later than II., an opinion which is supported by considerations of
matter and style. Hezekiah's time may have been selected by
the author of the title (or by the tradition which he represents)
as being the next great literary period, in Judah, after Solomon,
the time of Isaiah and Micah, or, the selection may have been
suggested by the military glory of the period (the repulse of the
Assyrian army), and the fame of Hezekiah as a pious monarch
and a vigorous reformer of the national religious life ; the men of
Hezekiah are the literary men of his court. The period would, in
these regards, be an appropriate one, but the history of Israelitish
literature makes it improbable that such a work should have been
then undertaken ; to regard Hezekiah as a Jewish Pisistratus
(De.) is to ascribe to the time a literary spirit of which our doc-
uments give no hint. It might be supposed that the fall of
Samaria would have led the men of Judah to collect the literature
of the northern kingdom, and our Section has, in fact, been
regarded as Ephraimitic ; but the vocabulary, style, and matter of
the Section do not warrant such a supposition.
2-7b. On kings.
2. It is the glory of God to conceal,
It is the glory of kings to search out.
3. The heaven for height and the earth for depth,
And the mind of kings is unsearchable.
4. Take away the dross from silver,
And I it ' comes forth <■ perfectly pure.'
5. Take away the wicked from the king,
And his throne is established by righteousness.
6. Claim not honor in the presence of a king,
And stand not in the place of great men.
7. Better that it be said to thee : " Come up hither,"
Than that thou be humbled before the prince. []
The paragraph consists of three quatrains, a structure similar to
that of the third Section. The space devoted to kings is note-
worthy; cf., in the first Section, S''"', in the second, 14^^-^ jgio. 12-15
19I2 2o2«-26-28 21I 22", in the third, 2 2'-^'-' 24^ in the fourth, 29^",
in the fifth, ^o''"'^*-^^ 31^ *, and similar sayings in Eccl. and BS.
The pohtical condition assumed is probably not that of old Israel.
XXV. i-s 459
2. Antithetic, quaternary, or ternary. It belongs, says the
proverb, to the greatness of God that his work (in nature and in
history) is mysterious, and his purposes inscrutable ; on the other
hand, the function of rulers is to investigate (not the purposes of
God, but) all the affairs of the State — they should be open and
straightforward in government. The saying is perhaps directed
against the tortuous diplomacy and other underhand methods of
the time. — Lit. : conceal a thing and search out a thing, that is,
anything and everything. — Cf. Robert Hall's sermon entitled :
"The glory of God in concealing." — 3. Comparison, quaternary
or quaternary-ternary. As heaven and earth are too large to be
comprehended, so the purposes of kings. The couplet is comple-
mentary to the preceding; both are to be taken as statements
of political facts, not at all as sarcastic or disparaging. The
sage has a great respect for kings. — The heaveti is the sky, the
indefinite visible upper region, somewhere in which is the abode
of God (Eccl. 5^) ; the earth is indefinitely deep, reaching down
to Sheol (2'* 5^ Jon. 2^^). — Dehtzsch regards the form of the
couplet as that of the priamel, the three subjects having the com-
mon predicate unsearchable ; but it is more natural to confine
this latter to the second line, the first line having the two predi-
cates high {height) and deep {depth). — 4, 5. The quatrain forms
a comparison (the couplets are ternary). In the second line of
v.'' the Heb. reads : and a vessel comes forth to the smith (RV.
finer) . The vessel, according to this reading, has, as its parallel,
the throne of v.^ ; both may be said to be products of skill, and
the vessel (according to some expositors) may be poetically con-
ceived of as emerging to (or, for) the artist out of the refining
process (cf. Aaron's brief history of the golden calf, Ex. 32^^).
But this is not a natural form of expression — the vessel (as Wilde-
boer remarks) does not come to the silversmith simply by the
process of refining, and the parallelism points to a comparison
between the purity of the silver and that of the throne. It is,
therefore, better to follow the suggestion of the Greek, which has :
it will be purified entirely pure. — For dross see Isa. i"^ Ez. 22^*
\\i 119"^. — By righteousness, that is, by means of righteous coun-
sellors and counsels ; the Heb. expression may be rendered in
righteousness, that is, in the sphere of righteousness or justice. —
46o
PROVERBS
For the Heb. smith {silversmith or goldsmith, lit. refiner) see Ju.
I']* Isa. 40". In postexilic times the goldsmiths formed a guild
(Neh. 3**) ; the reference in Neh. is to general artistic work, else-
where in OT. to the making of images.* — 6. Synonymous,
binary, or binary-ternary. Claim not honor; the sense is well
given in RV. : put not thyself forward. One's place in the royal
presence was determined by rank or royal favor ; the reference
here seems to be to a feast. For an example of prudence see
Jos., Ant. 12, 4. 9. — 7. Single sentence, containing antithetic
comparison, ternary. The scene is a dinner; cf. Lu. 14^".
Hither, that is, near the prince ; Grk. to me. — Be hwnbled,
z= be put lower (RV.) at table. — After prince the Heb. has:
whom (or, what) thine eyes see (or, have seen), a lame and
insignificant expression in the connection. Grk. Syr. Sym. Lat.
attach the words to the following Une. Sym, (with v.*") : what
thine eyes have seen do tiot bring out to the multitude quickly.
7°-10. Condemnation of gossip and tattling. — V.^ ^^ form a
quatrain, and v.^ gives three lines, for which a fourth may be
found by adopting the reading of Sym. given above, and we then
have two variant quatrains. Otherwise it is difficult to make any-
thing out of the concluding line of v.^ We may provisionally
render as follows :
7 c. What thine eyes have seen
8. Report not hastily » in public;
i For ' what wilt thou do in the end
When thy neighbor puts thee to the blush?
9. Discuss the matter with thy neighbor (in private),
And reveal not his secret < to > another,
10. Lest he who hears put thee to shame,
And thine ill-repute pass not away.
7°, 8. Single sentence, ternary. What thine eyes have seen (or,
see), that is, of thy neighbor's affairs. — The reading of the second
line of the couplet is got by changing two vowels ; lit. : do not
bring forth to the multitude hastily (Heb.: go not forth to strive
[or, to strife'] hastily) . Instead of a warning against lawsuits or
* On casting in metal see Now., Arch. ^ 43, 4; Rawl., Phoen., ch. 7; Pietsch-
mann, Phoen., pp. 175, 246 al.; Moore, Judges, on Ju. 178.
XXV. 5-IO 4^1
quarrels we thus have a caution against gossip (see note on i6^*),
which is the topic of the next quatrain. The term hastily impHes
thoughtlessness, impropriety. — In the third line the Heb. has :
lest what wilt thou do etc. ? or, lest what thou wilt do etc., which
is syntactically impossible, and the majority of expositors have
supplied a word after lest, as : lest thou know not what to do* \
lest it be said : " zvhat wilt thou do''?-\' lest the question "what
doest thou ? " be the end of it. % These insertions are not easy,
and do not produce satisfactory senses, and Ewald's translation,
lest thou do somethi7ig{\.\\dX is, something thou oughtest not to do),
is equally unsatisfactory. It is better to change lest io/or, or (with
Reuss) to omit it. — The second couplet describes the confusion of
the tattler when "he is charged with his fault. Neighbor htxt = any
man with whom one has relations (cf. Lu. lo^*^). The situation
described is a private difficulty. Cf. BS. 2 7^*^-^ — 9, 10. Single sen-
tence ; v.^ is ternary, v.'° is binary (or binary-ternary) . The injunc-
tion is identical with that of the preceding quatrain. Lit. quarrel
thy quarrel etc., = debate thy cause (RV.) or discuss the ^natter
(Hodgson) ivith thy neighbor, that is, with him alone, in private —
do not talk of his affairs to others. He who hears thee = any one
who hears thy talk, and thus becomes aware of thy gossiping, un-
trustworthy, and dangerous character ; but we should perhaps, with
the Grk., read thy neighbor, &s in v.*. — On secret see notes on 3^^
11^^ The second cl. of v.^ reads, in the Heb. : and reveal not an-
other's secret; Lat. : do not reveal a secret to another, which is a
more appropriate injunction than that of the Heb., being exactly
parallel to the preceding line. — Jll-repute, properly, defamatory
talk, usually active, concerning others (Gen. 37^ Jer. 20^" Pr. 10'*),
here concerning the man himself, and so equivalent to his reputa-
tion; a babbler, the proverb says, is universally disliked and
despised.
XXV. 1. "% •'"^■VT.; ©B TraiSaat = noc; <S^ <=■»• ^ Tropot/ufat, probably cor-
rection after ||J. — (5 adds at aSiaKpiToi. (var. evdidKpiroi, diaKpiroi), perh.
= mtscet/aneous, and representing |^ a ) (Jag.) ; S?C render (5 by •'ppy pro-
found, that is, " not (easily) comprehensible." ST omits ||J nnSr, probably
by scribal error. — 2. pj -^'pn; iS ri/iq. (Grabe reads nfidv), = '\i^h (Jag.),
from •\p\ — 4. 1^ ^'^^ n"'^"' '^^"'i; ® ''"■^ Kadapiffdi/iaeTai KaOapbv &irav (TJ^O
« Saad. Rashi, Schult. RV. f Hitz. De. Str. al. % Wild.
462 PROVERBS
was read by S and Bemidbar Rab. c. 7); read with Dys. Wild. iSa t\-\-ii njii;
Frank. fT)X, instead of q-(Xj. — ST nois p, = t^xd. — 7c, 8a. S a elSoj' oi
d(p9a\iJ.oL (Tov firj i^eviyKyi els irXrjdoi rax^- Read, with Bi., in v.** : Nsn Sn
■\nn a^'?. Elsewhere a^S = in abundance, and z^, except in such adverbial
expressions, is always defined by a noun (so 12 times in Pr.) ; yet it is possible
that from such an expression as din a^i (20*^) it may have come to be = mui-
titude ; cf. Syr. sain. If this sense be thought improbable, then for 2^ we
might read ^3■3. — For |^ J3 read 13.
11, 12. Value of wise advice. — The meaning of several words
in the quatrain is so uncertain, and the text is in such bad condi-
tion, that only a tentative translation can be given. The Heb.
11. Golden fruits in silver carvings
Is a word fitly (?) spoken.
12. A golden earring and a necklace (?) of gold
Is a wise reprover to an ear that hears.
11. The first noun (RV. apples here and Joel i^^ Cant. 2^^ f^^^
8^) is variously understood as meaning apple, apricot, quince,
citron, orange ; all that is certain is that it signifies some sort of
fruit.* — The second noun signifies canned 7vork on a stone or
image (Lev. 26^ Nu. 33*^) or carvings or drawings or pictures on
a wall (Ez. 8^^).t Here it has been rendered ornameiital objects
(Saad.), admirable things (Sym. Theod.), beate7i work (Syr.
Tzxg.), filigree-work (RV. ma.Tg.), pictures (AV. Wild.), salvers
(Luth. De.), baskets (Ew. RV.), necklace (Grk., possibly error of
text for basket^, couches, or sofas (Lat). — The golden fruit of
the Heb. text must be understood to mean an object of solid gold,
which does not accord with " pictures of silver " or " baskets of
silver " ; solid gold apples or other fruits were never put in such
pictures or baskets, nor would the representation thus given fur-
nish a natural simile for the thought of the couplet. The inter-
pretation golden-colored fruits is not permitted by the usage of the
language.]: — The interpretation yf/-^ (that is, under proper cir-
* H. B. Tristram {Survey of West. Pal., 4, 294, and Nat. Hist, of the Bible)
apricot; W. R. Smith (Journ. of Philol., 13, 65) and I. Low (.Aram. PJlanz.,
P- 155) o-pple ; Celsus {Hierobot., i, 254 ff.) and Houghton {PSBA., 12, i, 42)
quince ; De. takes golden apples (aurea mala) to be oranges.
t For the sense thought, imagining see iSH 1// 73".
X Tristram : golden apricots in silvery foliage, a charming picture, but not
obtainable from the text.
XXV. 1 1- 1 2 463
cumstances and conditions, in due season) is inferred from 15^
and from the connection ; the meaning of the Heb. expression is
doubtful. — 12. Earring, as in Gen. 35* Ju. S^"* ; the word may
also mean nosering, as in \i^ Gen. 24^^ Isa. 3^^ Ez. \(P. — The
rendering tiecklace (RV. ornament) suits Cant. 7^'^' (the only
other place where the word occurs in OT.), and corresponds well
to earring; the Anc. Vrss., however, take the word to mean some
sort of precious stone (a sense which also would suit Cant. 7'*^')>
and its signification must be regarded as doubtful. The second
gold (Lam. 4^ Isa. 13^- Job 28^«i3 31^* x\, ^^^(^^^ Cant. 5" Dan. lo^
is a poetic word (RV. fine gold). By changes of text the qua-
train may be rendered conjecturally as follows :
Like graved work of gold and carved work of silver
Is a word fitly (?) spoken.
Like an earring of gold and an ornament of silver
Is a wise reproof to an ear that hears.
Like is supplied (twice) as an expression more natural in Eng.
than the Heb. form. The sense graved work is obtained by a
transposition of two letters in the Hebrew ; the resulting word
occurs in Ex. 28"- ^^-^^ ^^b.m.so j j^_ ^29 ^ q 27(6).i4(I3) 2ech. 3^
"A 74"- — The and (instead of in or on) follows the norm of the
third line, and secures a better sense — the rendering like golden
graving on silver carved work (or, on a carved figure of silver)
gives a combination hardly congruous. — In the third line the
term silver is substituted (by an easy change of letters) for the
word of the Heb., and the line is thus more nearly assimilated to
the first line. Reproof (instead of reprover) is parallel to word,
and requires only a slight change in the Hebrew. — The point of
comparison in both couplets seems to be the adornment of char-
acter which results from wise advice given to receptive minds ;
see i'' 3^^ 4^ 14-*, and cf. BS. 50^ 22". This last passage compares
a mind composed and fixed by wisdom to ornamentation (sculp-
tures) on a wall, and it has been held that in like manner the
thought of v." is the fixedness and enduring character of counsel
given to a man of sense (Frank.). To this interpretation it seems
to be an objection that it does not accord with v.'^, with which v."
is probably identical in meaning, whether the two couplets form a
real quatrain, or v.^- be a variant of v.'^
464 PROVERBS
13. The faithful messenger.
Like the coolness of snow in harvest-time
Is a faithful messenger to those who send him.
Comparison, with added explanation, — ternary. The rhythmic
norm here changes from the quatrain (as in III.) to the coiipkt
(as in II.). On the time of harvest see note on 6^ Grk. here
understands a fall of snow, but this, as is suggested in 26\ would
be untimely (so Rashi) ; the reference is more probably to drinks
cooled by snow brought from the mountains.* — As third line
the Heb. adds : he restores ( = refreshes) his master's soul
(= spirit), an unnecessary explanation (contrary to the manner
of proverbs), a gloss. — Bickell makes the Heb. text a couplet:
As snow in heat is a faithful etc., he refreshes etc.
14. Braggart pretence of liberality.
Clouds and wind and no rain —
So is the man who boasts of gifts ungiven.
Comparison, ternary. The first line describes a deceitful appear-
ance or attitude : clouds and wind, as it were, boast of rain, and
there is none. In second line lit. a gift of falsity, which must
refer not to what is received (Hitz.), but (Saad. Ew. al.) to what
is bestowed. Clouds, properly vapors, mists (Jer. 10" 5i^^i/' 135^),
which ascend. For Arabic parallels see Schult. De., and, for
others, Malan.
15. Power of patience and gentleness.
By forbearance < anger is pacified,*
And a mild word breaks the bone.
Synonymous, ternary. The Heb. has a prince (instead of anger) ;
but one does not show forbearance to a prince — it is he who may
be forbearing. The emendation requires only the change of a
letter. Forbearance, lit. slowness to (lit. deferring of) anger
(1429 15^8 i632 Ex. 34«). On prince (Ju. ii« Isa. i^" Dan. ii^»)
see note on 6'; the rendering y«^(? (De. RV. marg.) is improb-
* For the ancient custom see Xen., Mem., 2, r. 30; Aul. Gel., 19, S; a similar
usage in Austria is mentioned by Michaelis ; cf. notes of Hitz. and Zockler, and,
for the modern custom in Syria, Hackett, Illust. 0/ Script., pp. 53 ff.
XXV. 13-19 4^5
able. Instead of is pacified the Heb. has : is befooled, deceived,
enticed (i"* i6^ 24^^ i K. 22^), a strange term in the connection ;
the emendation is taken from 15'*. Breaks the bone = "destroys
power," that is, in this case, takes away desire and disposition to
speak angrily,
16. Moderation in enjoyments.
If thou findest honey, eat what is enough,
Lest thou be surfeited and vomit it up.
Single sentence, binary. On honey see note on 16^*. With the
couplet cf. v^^^ below, and see 24" Cf. BS. 31'' 37''-''.
17. Caution against wearying one's friends with visits.
Let thy foot be seldom in thy neighbor's house,
Lest he be sated with thee and hate thee.
Single sentence, ternary-binary. Lit. make precious (= rare) thy
foot. Cf. BS. 21^ 13^. — This couplet bears a general resemblance
to the preceding, but is not so like it that the two should be con-
sidered as forming a quatrain.
18. The false witness.
A maul, a sword, a sharp arrow —
Such is the man who bears false witness against his neighbor.
Single sentence, virtual comparison, ternary. In the Heb. the
couplet is a metaphor : a maul etc. is the ?nan etc. The term
rendered maul means " that which shatters," as a hammer or a
club; related terms are found in Jer. 51* Ez. ff. — The second
line has the expression of the Decalogue (Ex. 20^^ Dt. S^^'^'O,
probably a common legal phrase.
19. The hope of a bad man is ill-founded.
A broken tooth and an unsteady foot,
Such is a bad man's ground of hope in time of trouble.
Metaphor, quaternary. Such is supplied as in the preceding coup-
let. The rendering broken requires a slight change in the Hebrew.
Unsteady, or out of Joint, or palsied, is lit. wavering, tottering
(Job 12^). On bad (or, faithless) see notes on 2^ 23^. For the
%txvit ground of hope (one word in Heb.) see i4'-* Job 8" 31-* Jer.
2H
466 PROVERBS
17^ Ez. 29'^ That on which the bad man relies will fail him,
says the proverb, in time of stress. — To break a man's teeth is to
deprive him of power {ij/ 3^'^' 58®'''), an expression derived, per-
haps, from observation of wild beasts (cf. ip 35'® 112"*) or of
savage men. — The translation : (such is) confidence in a bad (or,
unfaithful) man etc. (De. RV. <?/.) is in itself improbable, and
gives a statement that is not quite correct : it is not confidence
but the ground or basis of confidence that is as unreliable as a
broken tooth etc. — The ground of hope referred to is wealth or
power, or deceit and violence.
9. For J^ -iriN ib read nnxS nD. — 11. |^ ■'nsn; read 'nno. Write 1 instead
of 1 before n'ljiJ'D. See Lag.'s note. — J^ rjoN ''j,'; see Geier, Ges. Thes. Ges.-
Buhl, DBD. and De.'s note. ©^S omit; S (and so IL) iv Kaipf aiirov;
5E n>K''Os, perh. (Pink.) from d^d (Treio-is), and = " in the way of argument (or,
persuasion)"; 'AG®^"^"* iirl dp^6fou(Tt>' ayrip, perh. = " under suitable con-
ditions, on appropriate occasions," perh. (Ges. Lag.) represents sjsn'^, cf. S***,
a reading (adopted by Frank.) which is not precisely parallel to an ear that
hears, and is not quite natural in the connection. Ges. Orelli al. take the
stem in rjQN to be px turn (as in jain wheel), and the noun as = time (Ges.)
or circumstance (Orelli) ; Barth. assumes st. njr, and the expression (after the
Arab.) as = " according to its propriety." Others compare the late Jew. use
of JOIN in the sense of manner (Rashi according to its modes, = on its basis).
None of these explanations are satisfactory — the word may be scribal error —
but nothing better suggests itself than to adopt the interpretation of 2. —
12. 3^ D.'^D; read ^dj. The origin of onj is unknown. Neither cover, conceal
for the stem (Ass. Arab.) nor mark, spot (Aram.) suggests a suitable sense;
the meaning blood-red in Jew. Aram, is prob. merely a special sense of mark.
^ np'c; @ \670s; Bi. lai; better nnih. — 13. |^ nn and a^o; <@ e|o5os
(= PNx) and Kard. Kav/M (= aha). S follows (5; 9t follows 3^. —
16-18. |§ jxp nno'; read risp ta^B"; Frank. t]-sp. — |^ yoxi is regarded by
Lag. as incorrect pointing for v?? (Jer. 512", cf. Ez. 9^) ; the stem yo: shatter
is more suitable than I'o scatter. — 19. J^ hi-t may be Qal Part, (for nvp)^
= crumbling (Fleisch.), IL ptitridus, which would answer to following un-
steady; an equivalent sense is given by the reading n-i {^%% and perhaps
IL); it is better to read n-ni, the first letter may have fallen out after preced-
ing \ (Frank.). — 1§ n^i'ir, as if abbreviated Pu. Part.; better Qal Part, myn-
— On the haggadic interpretation of the couplet as referring to faithless
Israel's reliance on other nations (tooth and foot of beasts) Wild, cites
Houtsma, in ZATIV. 1895, PP- '5' f-
20. Gayety in the presence of sorrow. — Heb. : One zvho lays
off{?) a garment in time of cold, vinegar on soda, {so is) he who
XXV. I9-20 4^7
sings songs to a troubled heart. The rendering lays off is doubtful ;
the verb usually means adorn (Isa. 6i^" Job 40'" al.), once (Job 28*)
pass (or, stalk) by, whence the Causative (which occurs only here)
might = put off (as in Jon. 3®, with a different verb, laid off his robe
is lit. made his robe pass from him). But, even if this translation be
correct, the line is not in place, for it describes an act of impru-
dence, while the connection calls for something not only inappro-
priate but painful. Nor does the translation he who adorns himself
with a garment give a suitable sense. Moreover the line is sub-
stantially, in the Heb., the repetition (with difference of vowels) of
second line of v.'^, and is not found in the Grk. ; it is better, there-
fore, to omit it as dittogram. — There remains a couplet, in which
also the form of first line is not clear. The Heb. neter is not our
nitre (potassium nitrate), but native sodium carbonate, nearly our
common soda, more precisely natron (Grk. virpov, Lat. nitrum) ;
it is mentioned elsewhere in OT. only in Jer. 2^-, from which
passage it appears that it was used in washing the person. The
effect of the acid vinegar on the alkali natron would be to destroy
the efficiency of the latter ; but destruction of efficiency is not the
point of the aphorism, which rather calls for some painful effect.
The Grk. has : as vinegar for a wound (or, a sore), which is suit-
able, since the immediate effect of the application of vinegar to a
wound is painful.* — If the reading of the Grk. be adopted, and
be supposed to stand for another word than Heb. neter, there still
remains the latter to be accounted for. It might be regarded as
erroneous insertion ; but, from the norm of v.'*- ^'•*, we expect the
mention of two combinations. Bickell : water on natron, and
Grk. : as a moth in a garment and a worm in wood do not suit
the couplet ; possibly the missing expression is : smoke to the eyes
(10^^). The couplet may have read :
Vinegar to a wound and . . . ,
So is a song to a troubled heart.
In second line the Heb. is lit. : and one who sings in songs, in
which, in any case, the and and in must be omitted, and the cor-
* On the medicinal use of vinegar for wounds see Lag.'s note. The modern
Egyptians mix it with natron as remedy for toothache.
468 PROVERBS
respondent to vinegar is rather song than singer. A joyous song
gives a pang to a sad heart.
21, 22. Repaying evil with good.
21. If thine enemy be hungry, give him to eat,
And if he be thirsty, give him to drink;
22. For thou wilt heap coals of fire on his head,
And Yahweh will reward thee.
The quatrain is a single sentence, ternary (as emended). The
quatrain form suggests that this aphorism properly belongs in III.
(cf. 24^^'*) or in the paragraph 25^"^^. — Enemy is lit. he 7vho
hates thee. The Heb. has bread to eat and water to drink ; bread
and water (omitted in the Grk. and Rom. 12-"^) appear to be
glosses. Heap coals of fire on his head — " produce sharp pain,"
and the pain can here be only the pang of contrition — the
enemy will be converted into a friend ; the reference, in the con-
nection, cannot be to punishment inflicted by God. Or, less
naturally, v.^-" may be understood to mean : " thou wilt take ven-
geance on him," that is, the noble vengeance of returning good
for evil. — The ethical rule is lofty, though the motives presented
are those of advantage to self. Instead of urging the simple obli-
gation of universal love, the sage insists on what he thinks the
strongest motive with men. The declaration Yahweh will reivard
thee assumes that kindness to enemies belonged to the divine
ethical code. Cf. 20"^ 24''- 1» ^^ BS. 281-' Mt. 5" Rom. 122".—
Bickell omits on his head, taking the meaning to be : " thou wilt
put away the burning coals of hate," and so make a friend of an
enemy — a sense not different from the one given above, but it is
doubtful whether the verb can have this meaning.
23. Malicious talk.
A north wind brings rain.
And a backbiting tongue makes an angry face.
Two parallel sentences involving an illustration, ternary. In Pal-
estine rain comes usually from the west (cf. Lu. 12**) ; it may
have come also from the northern mountains, or the word north
may be used here in a general sense, as = " northerly," including
XXV. 20-26 469
northwest.* The word is possibly an error of text. — The last
expression in second Hne may be rendered by the plu., angry
faces; the reference is to the person or persons maligned. —
Backbiting is lit. secret. — Grk. and Lat., in second line, make
face subject.
24 = XXI. 9. — The natural suggestion is that this particular
collection (25^-27^^) was made independently of collection II.
( 10^-2 2>«).
25. Good news from afar.
As cold water to a tWrsty man,
So is good news from a far country.
Virtual comparison, quaternary. The Heb. puts the two state-
ments side by side, and lets the comparison suggest itself : cold
water etc. and good news etc., better, however, cold water etc. is
good news etc. as in v.^**"^. — Thirsty is properly weary, the special
sense coming from the connection, as in Job 22^ — Man is Ht.
soul (= person). — The difficulty of getting news from a distant
place heightens the refreshment it gives. Cf. 15^. Wildeboer
refers to Gen. 45^.
26. The overthrow of a good man.
A troubled fountain and a ruined spring —
Such is the righteous man who falls before the wicked.
Virtual comparison, quaternary-ternary. Troubled is lit. trampled
(Ez. 32^ 34*^) ; it was and is the custom in Western Asia for men
and beasts to enter a fountain or pond, for drinking or washing,
and so to foul the water as to make it useless. — The vexh falls
(properly is moved out of otie^s place) is the standing expression
for loss of position, that is, of wealth and all that makes life pros-
perous and enjoyable ; usually in OT. it is said that the righteous
will never be moved (lo"" 12'^ xjj 10*' 15^ 16^ al.), will never be
ejected from his position by the machinations of his enemies. In
one passage {\p 17*) the verb signifies moral faltering, and in this
sense it is sometimes here understood,! with the rendering : the
* On Palestinian winds see Robinson, Bibl. Researches, i, 429 ; Now., Arch. } ii.
t So Mercer, Geier, Lag. De. al.
470 PROVERBS
righteous man who yields to (the temptation of) the wicked —
such an one is a melancholy picture of lost purity and usefulness,
like a ruined spring. In this sense, however, it is the path of rec-
titude from which the man is moved (so in \^ 17^), the verb is
not naturally followed by such an expression as before the wicked,
and it seems better to understand our couplet as referring to the
loss of social standing and prosperity by the plots of bad men
(see 12^ xd^ 24- \\i 11^ 17'' al). — For the reason given above the
couplet probably does not contain a reference to yielding to evil
through false modesty and fear of men (Reuss) ; nor can the
stress be laid on the wicked as contrasted with the righteous, with
the interpretation : " if a good man's fall is known only to good
men, it does not injure others, but if it is known to bad men, it
encourages them in mockery and all evil " (Str. Wild.) — this limi-
tation of the range of the couplet is not suggested by first hne or
by the general tone of the Book, and such a secret society of the
righteous, concealing the sins of its members from the outside
world, would be immoral, if it were possible.
27. The Heb. gives two unrelated Hues. With the first : to
eat much honey is not good cf. v.^^. The second reads lit. : the
investigation (or, searching out) of their glory is glory, an obvi-
ously corrupt text. Some expositors, by change of vowels, get
the intelligible sentence : the investigation of difficult things is
glory (or, honor)* that is: "there may be a surfeit of honey,
there cannot be excess of investigation" — a not very attractive
antithesis, and the rendering difficult is doubtful. Noyes : so the
search of high things is weariness (cf. 2 7^) , which offers a scep-
tical sentiment, proper to Eccles., but strange in Proverbs. Grk. :
// is proper to honor notable sayings, and Frank. : therefore refrain
from cotnplintentary luords (lit. words of honor), a sort of speech
as cloying as honey — a rendering in itself appropriate, but else-
where in OT. the Genitive defining words is always subjective
(characterizing them as true or false etc.), never objective
(stating their aim or result). — Probably each line has lost its
* So De. Reuss, Str. Bi., and the same translation, without change of text, is
given by Zock. al. Hodgson's in deeds of virtue to exceed is glorious furnishes an
antithesis to the first line, but cannot be got from the Hebrew.
XXV. 26-XXVI. I 471
companion line, and the text of second line remains doubtful ; it
is perhaps a corruption of v.*''. — For other attempts at translation
see the notes of De. and Zockler.
28. Absence of self-control is fatal.
A city broken through, without a wall —
Such is a man without self-control.
Virtual comparison, ternary. Broken through, a breach made in
the wall, so that it is defenceless — the wall is practically
destroyed ; the reference may or may not be to a siege. — In
second line, lit. : a man to whose spirit there is no restraint — he
has no defence against anger and similar emotions. — Such is
supplied.
20. 5^ -^~}i ^v; <5 ^Xxet, whence Oort pn: scab or scurf (hex. 13'"), but
this is not suitable; Bi. writes i^n after ^y, and adds "^y a^D before inj. —
^ o>-ira ir;; read simply lu'. — (5 in ^, ira ij'; (5** is variation of •>;
(5"= is perhaps based on 1^". — 21. ^ an*^ and o^d are probably glosses;
their absence from (@ may, however, be free translation. — |^ is)t;"; @ 6
ix&P^^ ""o". perh. = J^, perh. == ria^N (so Bi.). — 22. J§ n-h; <5 (Twpetjo-eis,
IL congregahis. The stem seems to mean snatch, seize in Isa. 30'* i// 52" Pr. 6";
see Ges. Thes. BDB. ; here, in pregnant sense, seize and put, — heap. Whether
\K = snatch away (Bi.) is doubtful; the sense away might come from the
context (as perh. in ^ 52^), but here, after the omission of ■'rxi '^y, such
pregnant sense would be difficult. On the Ass. stem see De. BDB. —
23. 1^ ''-' n-, brings forth, from '^in; (g ^^e7e//3ei; IL dissipat, from '^'^n. —
25. J^ ps is omitted by Bi. unnecessarily. — 27. 3§ noin has been construed
(De. Wild, al.) as subject of the sentence and defined by -ot Son : " to make
great the eating of honey"; but this construction is unnatural (Stade), and
it is better to read "131"', as adj. much (so the Vrss.). — J^ □■''33; De. Dys. :
3133. (S in *> : Tiixq-v 8k xPV X670US ip86^ovs, perh. = 133 ai3DJ i^ni; Frank. :
133 n3T -ipni. — S>3r (and RV.) carry over the neg. into ^
XXVI. 1-12 (except v.^) form a Book of Fools — a string of
sarcasms on the class most detested by the sages. The folly
described is intellectual.
1. The fool and honor.
As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest.
So honor does not befit a fool.
472
PROVERBS
Comparison, quaternary-ternary. Honor is high position, respect,
especially public. The saying is probably aimed at the elevation
of incompetent men to high places in the governments of state
and city. On the seasons see notes on 6^ 25^*.
2. The groundless curse.
Like the sparrow in its flitting, like the swallow in its flying,
The curse that is groundless does not strike.
Comparison, quaternary-ternary. Flitting, lit. wandering. Strike,
lit. come, RV. light. — The point in first Una is the aimlessness of
the birds' motion, which never reaches a definite place. The apho-
rism is. a partial denial of the old belief (generally held among
early peoples), that blessings and curses had objective existence,
and, by whomsoever and howsoever uttered, always reached that
at which they were aimed — that is, that the deity invoked (in the
blessing or curse) was coerced by the utterance of his name, and
could not but respond to the adjuration. This belief, held by the
earher Hebrews (Gen. 27'^ Ju. 17^), necessarily receded, to some
extent, before the advance of a purer theistic faith. It is so
far modified in the proverb that the power of an unjust curse
is denied. How far the belief in the efificiency of well-founded
blessings and curses remained we have no means of ascertaining.
— In second line the Heb. margin reads : the curse . . . comes
to him, the hi^n referring to the curser or to the cursed (the old
belief, never completely eradicated) ; but the neg. particle is
required by the illustration of first fine, in which the point is
failure to reach, not certainty of reaching. — The translations
sparroiv (6' -f Gen. 7" x\i 11^ 84^''" Eccl. 9^- al.) and swallow
(i// 84^'^*), though not certain, are probably substantially correct.*
3. Government of the fool.
A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass,
And a rod for the back of fools.
Virtual comparison, quaternary- (or, binary-) ternary. A fool,
says the proverb, is like a beast, not to be controlled by appeal to
* See Bochart, Hierozoicon ; Tristram, Survey of West. Pal., and Nat. Hist, of
the Bib. ; Now., Arch. ; Hastings, Diet, of the Bib. ; Cheyne, Cyclop. Bibl.
XXVI. 1-6 473
reason. The designation of whip for horse and bridle for ass may
be in part rhetorical variation — both animals may at times have
required both instruments of guidance ; but there may be special
propriety in the terms; the ass, the favorite riding-animal (Gen.
22^ Ju. i" I S. 25-" Zech. 9"), hardly needed the whip in moving
over the rough mountain roads of Palestine ; but for horses, rarely
employed except in war and on plains (21''' 2 S. 15^ 2 K. 9^* Isa. 31^
Job 39'*' '^ i/' 20'''*'), the whip might be useful; cf. note on 21^^
See 10^^ ^p 32^
4, 5. How to answer fools.
4. Answer not a fool according to his folly
Lest thou become like him.
5. Answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest he become wise in his own conceit.
Each couplet is a single sentence, ternary ; the two form an anti-
thetic quatrain. The first is a warning against descending in man-
ner of thought to the fool's level ; the second enjoins rebuke of
folly. The Talmudic interpretation,* which refers v.* to worldly
things, v.'' to religious things, misses the point ; such juxtaposition
of contradictories belongs to the nature of gnomic teaching. The
rabbis, however, took exception to these discrepancies, and hesi-
tated to receive Proverbs into the Canon ; the objection was
removed by such interpretations as that quoted above. Cf. Aboth
Rabbi Nathan, i., and see notes on f 1 1''. The second line of
v.* is lit. ksi thou also become like him. Cf. BS. 22'^.
6. The fool as messenger. — Heb. : He cuts off {his) feet,
drinks in violence, who sends a message by a fool. The second
line expresses an imprudent act, of which the injurious conse-
quence is described in first line, but the text and meaning of
the latter are not clear. Cuts off {his) feet is commonly taken
to signify: "deprives himself of the power of locomotion" —
that is, to send a fool is equivalent to not sending at all ; the
expression is perhaps designedly bizarre. In the phrase drinks in
violence the verb must mean not '* practices " (as in 4" Job 15'")
* Shabbath, 30^, cited by De.
474 PROVERBS
but "suffers" violence (as in Job 21^). The noun makes a diffi-
culty ; the connection calls for a sense like " damage, injury " (so
De. RV. a/.), but the word means "violent wrong, highhanded
injustice" (cf. 4^^), an expression which seems here out of place.
— The text of first line appears to be in disorder; we might read
for the second phrase : prepares disgrace (for himself) ; or, for
the line : he cuts off his messenger's legs. We get from the couplet
only the general sense that it is imprudent or dangerous to employ
a fool as a messenger.
7. The fool as proverb-monger. — The second line : and a
proverb in the mouth of fools is clear, but no precise translation of
first line can be given. The first word of the Heb. is taken to
mean either " draw up, elevate, take away," or " hang loose."
Hence : take away the power of locomotion from the lame (Grk.),
that is, if a lame man can walk, a fool can utter wise sayings * ;
the legs [of others] are higher than those of the lame, and so a
proverb is too high for a fool (Rashi) ; like dancing to a cripple,
so is etc. (Luth.) ; the legs of the la?tie are not equal (AV.) ; the
lame man's legs ha fig too loose (Ew.), or . . . hang loose (RV.) f
With change of text : 7vhat the lame man's legs are to him, so is a
proverb etc. (Reuss) ; {as) the leaping of the legs of a lame tnan,
{so is) a proverb etc., that is, both are impossible (Hi. Frank.,
= Grk. Luth.). The sense of the couplet perhaps is: a fool
fares with an aphorism as a lame man with his legs — he limps
and does not go far.
8. Honoring a fool. — The least improbable translation of the
Heb. is that of AV. : As he who binds a stone in a sling so is he
who gives honor to a fool. The first line then expresses an absurd
procedure, namely, the fixing a stone in a sling so firmly that it can-
not be thrown out (so Ew.). Delitzsch (following Rashi) takes the
meaning to be : " as a stone is placed in a sling only to be thrown
out, so honor, bestowed on a fool, does not remain " ; but if the
author had meant this, he would rather have said : " as a stone is
slung from a sHng, so honor vanishes from a fool." — The meaning
* So substantially Syr. Targ. Lat. Saad. Zock. al.
t So substantially Ges. De. Str. Kamp. Wild. al.
XXVI. 6-IO 475
Sling given (in the Grk.) to the last word of the line is by no means
certain ; it may also perhaps be translated stone-heap, but to bind
(or, enclose) a stone in a stone-heap (that is, it is said, to do a use-
less thing) is not a natural expression. — Nor, if we take the first
word as = bag (or, bundle) (as in 7^), does the rendering as a
bag (or, bundle) of stones (properly a stone-bag) in a stone-heap
offer any clear sense, and if, on the authority of Zech. 3" i C. 29*,
we make the first stone = precious stotie, gem (Saad. RV.), this
does not suit the verb bind, or the noun bundle. — It is equally
inadmissible to give to the first word the meaning //// = lay,
throw, as in Lat. : as he who casts a stone on the heap 0/ Mercury,*
that is, as he who takes part in idolacrous worship ; the allusion is
to the custom of casting stones on a sacred cairn, particularly at
the foot of a Hermes-pillar, the survival of a very old usage. f
Luther : as one who throws a Jewel on the gallows-heap (that is,
the heap of stones at the foot of the gallows). — The proverb may
have had some such form as : " like him who puts a jewel on a
swine's snout is he who gives honor to a fool."
9. The fool with an aphorism. — The second line is identical
with second line of v.^ The first line may read, if we follow the
usage of Biblical Hebrew : a thorn gro7vs up in the hand of a
dru)tken man, which is meaningless, or a thorn goes up into the
hand etc. (RV.), which is contrary to fact (the verb does not
mean pierce). Or, instead oi thorn we may render thornbush (as
in 2 K. 14^ Cant. 2'), and, with De., assuming that the expression
contains a late-Heb. idiom, translate : a thorn-branch comes into
the hand (= ijito the possession) of a drunken man ; the resulting
sense is not inapposite : there is a touch of humor in the compari-
son of a fool with a wise saw in his mouth to a half-crazy drunken
man brandishing a stick. We may, perhaps, read : like a thorn-
stick in the hands of a drunken fnan is an aphorism in the mouth
of a fool.
10. Corrupt text ; lit. : much produces (or, wounds) all, and
he who hires a fool and he who hires passers-by ; the word ren-
* So the Midrash ; cf. the Talm. tract Cholin, 133 a.
t The god was often, in early times, represented by a cairn, and it was a pious
duty to throw a stone on the heap.
4/6 PROVERBS
dered 77iuch rtiay also mean master, lord, and is by some (proba-
bly incorrectly) rendered an archer. Many combinations and
modifications of the words may be made, but the text is in too
bad condition to permit a translation, and no satisfactory emen-
dation has been suggested.*
11. The fool as learner.
Like a dog that returns to his vomit
So the fool repeats his folly. i
Comparison, ternary. Or, first line freely : as a dog returns etc.
Returns etc., that is, to eat it ; the fool, how often soever warned,
does not learn; cf. Terence, ^^.?^/i., i, i, Hor. ^/., x. 24.! — ^
The Grk. adds a couplet which is word for word the same with
BS. 4"^' (Jiiger) ; the addition is probably by a Christian scribe.
12. Folly versus self-conceit.
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit —
There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Single sentence, quaternary-ternary. Lit. in his 07vn eyes, and
more hope to a fool. Folly is obtuse, but self-conceit is blind and
unapproachable. The folly is intellectual. Elsewhere (except
* Of the innumerable attempts at translation and emendation the following are
the principal : Grk.: all the fiesh of fools suffers much, for their fury is crushed;
Syr. Targ. : the flesh of fools suffers much, and the drunken man crosses the sea ;
Sym. Theod. in second line : and he who shuts up [Th. muzzles'] a fool shuts up
[Th. muzzles'] anger ; Lat. : Judgment decides causes, and he who imposes silence on
a fool tnitigates anger; Saadia (connecting with v.9) : he [the fool] repels
[= wounds] all with it [with his wise saying], refusing it to the ignorant and the
bygoers ; Aben Ezra: a lord [= a ruler] afflicts all, hiring fools etc. [that is, to
make them work] ; Rashi : The Lord [= God] creates all, giving pay to fool and
passer-by (cf. Mt. 5^5) ; Luth. Fleisch. : a (good) master makes all right [= fashions
everything], but he xuho hires a bungler [= a fool] ruins it ; Reuss (cf. RV. marg.):
the master does everything himself the fool hires the first comer ; Ew. RV. : an
archer who 7uounds every one — and he who hires fools and loungers [= bypassers] ;
De. : much produces all [that is, he who has much gains much], but the fool's hire
and his hirer pass away ; Bickell : (like) an archer who wounds all bypassers is he
who hires fools and drunkards.
t The first line appears in 2 Pet. a^'^ as part of a couplet different from ours,
which is cited not as " Scripture " but as a " true proverb " ; it would seem either
that the line, taken from Pr., had been recombined in popular use in the second
century of our era, or that Pr. took it from a popular saying. The reading in Pet
agrees with the Heb. and the Aram, of Pr., not with the Grk.
xxvi. 10-17 ^477
29*) the fool IS treated as incurable ; here a possibihty (though a
very small one) is granted him. The point of the proverb is the
denunciation of self-conceit. See v.^^ and 29^".
Here ends the Book of Fools, and is followed by a Book of
Sluggards (v.'^^") ; cf. 6*^" 243*^.
13. The sluggard says : " There is a roaring beast without,
A lion is on the street."
14. The door turns on its hinges
And the sluggard in his bed.
15. The sluggard dips his hand into the dish —
To bring it to his mouth costs him an effort.
16. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit
Than seven men who can answer intelligently.
13. Single sentence containing a parallelism, quaternary-ternary.
Without, lit. in the way, that is, in the street. Roaring beast, lit.
lion, a poetic word (Hos. 5" Job 4'" 1// 91^^ al.) ; for this animal
Heb. has many names ; see Job 4^*'- ". A variation of the proverb
is given in 22^^ — 14. Comparison, ternary-binary. The sluggard
turns in his bed without getting out of it. Cf. 6''-^" 24''". —
15. Single sentence, quaternary- ternary. Bring it, lit. bring it
again. Costs him a7i effort, lit. wearies him, — he is too lazy to
bring it etc. See note on 19^*, with which this couplet is nearly
identical. — 16. Single sentence, ternary. His own conceit, as in
v.'^. Answer intelligently, lit. answer good sense, — answer dis-
creetly (RV. marg.), not exactly render a reason (RV.), though
this is involved. — Seven is a round number. — The proverb appar-
ently means to say that the sluggard thinks himself wise in avoid-
ing trouble and thus enjoying life — men about him are toiling,
but he has repose. Possibly the sage has in mind some form of
Epicureanism ; the intimation then is that the sluggard is blind to
the higher pleasures of life. He is put beneath the fool in intelli-
gence (cf. v.^^).
17. Meddling with other men's quarrels.
He seizes a dog by the ears
Who meddles with a quarrel not his own.
Single sentence, ternary. In second line lit. : excites himself over,
= takes tart in, meddles 7vith (Lat. AV.), or this sense may be
478 PROVERBS
got by a simple change of text. — At the beginning of second
hne or the end of first line the Heb. inserts the adj. passitig by,
whence the translations who, passing by, takes part (or, vexes
himself, RV.), or seizes a passing dog etc. The first of these
renderings is the more appropriate : it is folly in a bypasser to
mix in a quarrel, but there is no special propriety in designating
the dog as one that happens to be passing by. This is under-
stood (De. Bi. al.) to refer to a strange dog; one may, it is
suggested, with impunity seize one's own dog, but not a passing
dog. But the dog was not a domestic animal in Palestine, and to
seize any dog was dangerous. The adj. in question is in any case
unnecessary and cumbersome, and is probably a gloss or an erro-
neous repetition ; its omission also improves the rhythm.
18, 19. Folly of deceiving for amusement.
1 8. Like a madman who hurls about
Deadly brands and arrows
19. Is he who deceives his neighbor
And says " I did it in jest " !
18. Single sentence, binary-ternary. In first line the noun of the
Heb. text may mean "one who is exhausted" (Gen. 47"), or
(Aram.) " stupefied " ; neither of these senses is here appropriate.
A slight change of text gives the sense madman (Jer. 51^), or,
one who plays the fool, feigns madness (i Sam. 21"), that is, the
jesting deceiver is Hke a man really insane, or, like one who pre-
tends to be insane ; the second interpretation agrees with ihtjest
of v.^^, but the first seems better to convey the sense of the qua-
train.— The second line is lit. : brands, arrows, and death, the
last term qualifying the two preceding. — 19. Single sentence, ter-
nary. In second line lit. : was (or, am) I not in jest? The
quatrain forms a comparison.
20-22. Malicious gossip.
20. When there is no wood the fire goes out,
And when there is no talebearer strife will cease.
21. Charcoal for embers, and wood for fire.
And a quarrelsome man to make strife hot.
32. = 188.
XXVI. 17-25 479
20. Virtual comparison, ternary-quaternary. On talebearer see
1 8**. — 21. Virtual comparison, quaternary. The rendering char-
coal accords with the term wood (that is, in each member fuel is
mentioned), but is not certain; in the other passages in which
the term occurs (Isa. 44^^ 54'") it may mean burning coal, a sense
not here appropriate. A change of text gives the reading bellows
(Wild.), which should perhaps be adopted.
23-28. Hypocritical words.
23. Impure silver laid over a sherd —
Such is « smooth > discourse when the heart is bad.
24. With his lips one who hates dissembles,
But in his heart he nourishes deceit.
25. When he speaks fair believe him not,
For seven abominations are in his heart.
26. One may conceal hatred by guile,
But his malice will be revealed in the congregation.
27. He who digs a pit will fall into it,
And he who rolls a stone, it will come back on him.
28. A false tongue i brings about destruction,'
And an insincere mouth works ruin.
23. Virtual comparison, quaternary- ternary. Impure silver, lit.
silver of dross, = the impure mass left when, in the process of
refining, the pure silver has been removed (RV. silver dross,
= the dross which contains silver).* A sherd overlaid with this
mixture had a gloss which resembled that of silver, a false exterior
which concealed a mean material. — In the second line the Heb.
has burning ( = glotving, fervent) lips, which is taken to mean fer-
vent protestations of friendship, but it is hardly a natural expres-
sion ; the smooth { = flattering, specious') of the Grk. accords with
the first line and with v.^'" -"* ; on the word see note on 5^ —
24. Antithetic, ternary. Dissembles, cf. Gen. 42' i K. 14*. hi
his heart is lit. in his inward part. Nourishes, lit. puts, sets ; cf.,
for the verb, Job 38''^ \^ loi^; the rendering arranges is less
appropriate. — 25. Single sentence, ternary. With the preceding
this couplet may be considered to form a quatrain. Speaks fair,
* It is probable that this dross was largely composed of lead oxide. See Raw-
linson, Phoen., ch. x., and the Bible-Diets, under silver and lead.
48o PROVERBS
lit. makes gracious his voice; cf, v.^**. Seven abominations,
— " countless wickednesses." On abomination see note on f^.
— 26. Single sentence, with one antithesis, ternary. The Heb.
reads : hatred may conceal itself; the insertion of his before
hatred (so RV.) gives a satisfactory sense ; a different change of
text gives the equivalent reading : one may conceal hatred. One
or the other of these changes is required by the following expres-
sion his malice. — ThQ term congregation (5^* 21^'^) means any
assembly. From the time of Deuteronomy on it is generally used
(but not in Job and Prov.) to designate Israel assembled in a
theocratic or ecclesiastical capacity (i K. 8" Joel 2^" al.). In
the Persian and Greek periods the Jewish communities in various
parts of the world acquired civic organization, with the right to
administer justice, and the allusion is probably to this function of
the congregation.* — 27. Two parallel sentences, quaternary (or,
ternary) . Mischief recoils on the perpetrator — a widely diffused
proverb. The pit is supposed to be dug with malicious motive ;
Grk. adds for his neighbor, an unnecessary explanation. The
stone is apparently rolled uphill, so that it may descend and crush.
Cf. \l> yi^- i«(i«- 1") Eccl. io« BS. 272^^ Esth. 9^ Dan. 6-". — This gen-
eral observation seems to receive a special application in the next
couplet. — 28. Two parallel lines, ternary. Ruin is "a blow that
causes a destructive (or, fatal) fall," and so the "ruinous fall"
itself. — The form of the Heb. in first line : a false tongue hates
its afflicted ones is improbable, and has called forth a number of
forced interpretations, some of which may be seen in the notes of
Delitzsch and Zockler. The rendering of RV. : hateth those
whom it hath wounded (marg. crushed) is incorrect: the last
word is a simple adj., = oppressed, unfortunate {\\i 9^'^"' 10''^ 74-^) ;
and further, the tongue is said in OT. to speak and to smite and
pierce, but never to hate or to crush a person (in 25^-^ it is the
soft tongue that breaks the bone, a figurative expression, = " dis-
arms opposition "), and the rendering <r;-«^/i is not found in any
Anc. Version. The expression 7vorks ruin appears to require in
first line some such sense as deceives its possessor (or, owner), or
brings (or, produces) hate or destruction ; Fleischer (assuming an
* On the later Jew. civil organization cf. Schurer, Hist, of the Jew. People, § 27.
:vxvi. 25-38 481
hypallage) : crushes those whom it hates, but this is hardly allow-
able— it is better to change the text. — The couplet may refer to
the ruin brought by the false tongue either on others or on its pos-
sessor ; the latter interpretation is suggested by the sense of the
preceding couplet ; the former is the more natural suggestion of
the words.
XXVI. 2. K nS; Q iS; the authorities are given by Ginsburg. The Anc.
Vrss. follow Kethib. — 3. |^ ii; @ iQvn, = ■'\), improbable. On the form of
^) see 01s. § 153, Ew. § 146 f., Stade, § 184. — 5. <S2C, stumbling at the formal
contradiction between v."* and v.^, put here -j-icon in place of |^ inViN. —
6. 1^ •■'??P-; (5S read nx-ip ((gBai- dddv should be irodwv, as in S" 106 al.);
IL clandus ; 2E xann he who rtins, a free rendering or guess; Bi. i^i^r. , which
he takes as = at the end, finally, a sense not supported by usage, and not here
specially appropriate; Ew. nx.'^r, perh. better than the Act. — |ij D,;n; (@ JSvti-
5os, = nD-(p, which is better. (5 Troieirai; read irlerai. — r\m< is perh. corrup-
tion of n*?.:'; we might read: ion^d ^"rn n-ai^. — 7. ^ i—-, possibly intended
for Aramaizing Pi. Impv. of n^--, which, however, is here inappropriate in
senses Ew. Stade v^"" Oal; De. ^v , but the sense of verbal noun, which he
T T ^ • '
gives to this form, the hanging down, is doubtful (see 01s. § 186 1>, Barth. Sem.
Nam.-Bildung); Hitz. Frank. .177 (cf. Isa. 35'). but the expression the leaping
of the legs is strange and improbable. The form of •> permits either a noun or
a verb as first word of *, but what noun or verb is not clear — the whole clause
is suspicious. — 8. J^ ^^S; better ny ((@ os dTroSeir/ieiyet), parallel to J.jj. But
the whole line seems to be corrupt; possibly it should read: 1X3 mp'> px3
"ijn. — 10. The meaning archer for ]-; is doubtful. In Jer. 50^9 job 16^^ we may
pbint Q2^ (instead of a^-]) ; in the latter passage Budde retains the pointing of
||J, but renders, by conjecture, missiles. In Gen. 21^^ Ball emends .13^ to no"!. —
17. 1^ ■'Jix; (S KipKov tail, = ny (Jag.). — Omit -\2'; as insertion out of follow-
ing word (-\3y.-11:). SIL 3-i;.-i:;, which should be adopted. — 18, 19. J^ ri'^nVrn;
Frank. SSh.nc. On n,-|S in Gen. 47I3 cf. Ball (in SBOT.) ; the stem appears to
be Aram, (not found in Ass. Arab.), but might occur in Prov. — 21. ||J cm;
@ iaxo-po- hearth; % carbones ; Bi. 'rr\^. Inf. of n5l; Wild, n-^c (Perles,
Analekt. p. 90). — On |^ D^jnn see note on 6I*. — 23. |^ av*?-!; (@ \e?a; read
a^pS-i (Jag.).— 24. ?^ xju-; (5 ^x^P^', whence Bi. 3vn-. — 26. ?^ norn, Hith.;
<S o KpvTTTwv, = "ipj or n--)r (and so SSTIL)- Read (or ipxj::') nxji:' 'c, or
i-ixrr nD3P. — On the form of j'Sr^o (from xrj) see 01s. § 215 d. 11. —
27. 3§ v^n; (5 ^0' eaurdi/; read r*?;. — 28. |^ 13T xrf;; (S M'<^er a.\y)d€iav
(and so Si^EIL), a guess from the connection, or reading Aram. X3i pure.
Possibly in 'Ci we have ^^vi (from xrj), and for 131 we might read vSya
(^befools its possessor) ; n''3^ n.xif, brings hatred, is graphically easy, but 'a* does
not give a full contrast with in-'r ; better (or, nv ) -\y} n^-^\ — On the omis-
sion of the •> in r-i (Ilahn r i) see B-D, Ginsb.; it is perhaps a scribal
accident, perhaps veils a different reading of the text.
21
482 PROVERBS
XXVII. 1, 2. Of boasting.
1. Boast not thyself of tomorrow,
For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
2. Let another praise thee — not thine own mouth;
Some other — not thine own lips.
1. Single sentence, ternary.* The boast implies overweening
sense of one's capacity and power. We may omit day, reading
what it may etc. ; the sense is the same. Cf. Isa. 56'' BS. 10"*'
11*^ Jas. 4^^^^. — 2. Synonymous, ternary-binary. Atiother and
some other are lit. stranger ; on these terms see note on 2^".
3, 4. Folly and jealousy.
3. A stone is heavy, sand is weighty,
But a fool [] is heavier than both.
4. Wrath is ruthless, anger destructive,
But before jealousy who can stand?
3. Comparison, quaternary- (or, binary-) ternary. Lit. : the
heaviness of a stone, a^id the weighti7iess of sand / that is, these
things are well known, but etc, — In second line the Heb. has : a
fool's anger is heavier etc. ; but heavy is not a proper epithet of
anger — it is the fool himself that is burdensome; cf. BS. 22" ^^,
where it is said that a fool is harder to bear than lead, sand, salt,
or iron ; anger is a gloss, perh. suggested by the next couplet. —
On anger see 12^" 17^ 21^*^; in the Heb. it is the effect of the
anger not on the fool himself (Zock.), but on others, that is
meant. Frank., less well, regards the anger as that excited in one
by the folly of the fool. — 4. Comparison, quaternary, or binary-
ternary. Lit.: ruthlessness of wrath, a flood of anger! The
flood is probably here thought of as destructive ; cf. Nah. i* Job
38"' (/' 32" Dan. 9-" 1 1". — On jealousy see notes on 6^^ 14*^. The
reference is to the jealousy of a husband; cf. Cant. 8** (the
jealousy of married love).
5, 6. Healthy rebuke.
5. Better is open rebuke
Than a love that is hidden.
* Each memher of this couplet is composed of four Iambi, but it is evident from
the punctuation that the Heb. editors did not so read it ; they divided it not by
feet, but by ictus.
XXVII. 1-7 4^3
6. Sincere are the wounds of a friend,
< Deceitful ' the kisses of an enemy.
5. Comparison, ternary-binary. Opeyi (lit. manifested), frank,
direct, from friend or foe. The love is hidden, invisible, manifest-
ing itself by no rebuking word, and therefore morally useless ; or,
by change of vowels : love that conceals, that is, does not tell the
friend his faults. Frank. : love given up, that is, the man, instead
of telling his friend his fault, withdraws his friendship without a
word ; but the rendering given up is not possible. De. : " love
that does not show itself by helpful deed in time of need,"
but this gives no antithesis. Cf. BS. 19^^^^. — The Heb. text is
not quite satisfactory — the antithesis rebuke . . . love is not
clear, and possibly hate should be substituted for love (cf. v^) —
"hatred hidden under pretence of friendship." — 6. Antithetic,
ternary. The adj. of first cl. is faithful, trustworthy, here = sin-
cere. In second line we expect a contrasted term, instead of which
our Heb. text gives a word which is represented in the Anc. Vrss.
by suppliant, confused, fraudulent, bad, but is generally interpreted
by modern expositors as = rich, plentiful, profuse (so RV.), that
is, the enemy is profuse in insincere professions of love. This
latter rendering is to be rejected as lexicographically doubtful,
and as not furnishing a proper antithesis. For the reading deceit-
ful (AV., after Lat.) a change of text is necessary. — Y ox faithful
cf. 25^'^ Dt. 7^ Job 12^' ; for wounds cf. Job 9'^ ; friend and enemy
are lit. lover and hater.
7. Hunger is the best sauce.
One who has enough refuses honeycomb;
To the hungry any bitter thing is sweet.
Antithetic, quaternary. Lit. : the full soul tramples on {= dis-
dainfully rejects) honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter
thing is sweet. Soul here = the person, especially as possessing
appetite. RV. loatheth, = refects. There is perhaps an allusion
to praise and congratulation, which may be nauseous to him who
has much of it, grateful to him to whom it rarely comes. — Cf.
the references to honey in 2^^*^-^'^.
484 PROVERBS
8. There's no place like home.
Like a bird that wanders from her nest
Is a man who wanders from his home.
Synonymous comparison, ternary. Hoitie is lit. place, a general
term which may signify either the abode of the individual man
or family (Ju. f i S. 2^), Eng. home, or the land of abode,
Germ, hcimath (i S. i^^). For "native land" the Heb. usu-
ally says simply " land" ; for Eng. " home " it has only the terms
" place " and " house " (cf. Fr. chez lid, Germ, zu hause), but the
idea of "home" was doubtless coeval with that of "family."^
The reference in the proverb appears to be to any withdrawal
from the security and comfort of one's permanent dwelling-place
— the wandering of a merchant or a vagrant, the enforced jour-
neying of an exile, or the departure of one who is ejected from his
house by creditors or enemies.* There is probably, however, no
allusion to Jewish national exile, or to the absence of the Dis-
persed Jews from Palestine — for that the language is too general,
and the Jews of the Dispersion were quite at home in their
adopted countries. — The renderings a bird scared from and a
man driveji from are not exact.
9. Lit. : Oil and perfume (or, incense) make the heart glad,
afid the stveetiiess of his friend from counsel (or, sorroiv) of soul.
The first line describes a physical pleasure which is presumably
the illustration of a spiritual pleasure to be next described. The
second line of the Heb. is unintelligible : the his has no antece-
dent, the expression "sweetness of a friend" is strange and doubt-
ful (cf 16-^), and coufisel of soul, if it be a possible expression,
means simply "counsel given," not hearty] (or, highmi?ided \)
counsel, or ofie's oivn counsel. % — Grk. (with different text) : and
(or, but) the soul is rent by misfortunes, which offers neither par-
* De. calls attention to the pathos of the Germ. adj. elend " wretched," = e/i lend
" foreign land " ; see the citations in Grimm's Worterbuch.
t See Mich. De. Str. al. AV. RV.
X Ew. : but a friend's sweetness comes from counsel of soul (from a " deep, full
soul," in contrast vi\\h perfume) .
§ Saad. Rashi, ZQck. al. : the sweetness ( = agreeable discourse) of a friend is
better than one's own (oansel.
XXVII. S-io 485
allel nor contrast to first line ; Lat. (by inversion) : and the soul
is sweetened by the good counsels of a frie7id, an appropriate par-
allel ; Kamphausen : but sweeter is one's friend than fragrant
woods (cf. perfume-boxes, Isa. 3^^), but the introduction of
another physical illustration is improbable ; Reuss : sweet friend-
ship (= " the sweetness of a friend ") strengthens the soul, a satis-
factory reading but for the phrase " sweetness of a friend." Pos-
sibly : sweetness of speech (or, of counsel^ strengthens etc. ;
"sweetness" is an epithet not of persons, but of things ; cf. 16^^
•A 55"''''.— (?// (21" Am. 6" Ez. i6» Cant, i^ 4^") and perfume
(see the adj. in Cant. 3^) are cosmetics and accompaniments of
feasts. Cf. y^ 104'^ BS. 40^0 ^i.*
XXVII. 1. I& 3" is omitted by S, Bi.; (g ^ ^TrtoOo-a. — 2. The nS in »
distinguishes ^lo from nr; in i* the *?}<! makes TTiDi:' the subject of the prohibi-
tion. It is a question whether this difference is rhetorical variation, or whether
the nS should be written "^s, or the Sn be written n^. — 3. Omit "^ d;'d as
scribal insertion. — 5. ||J njnx may have been induced by the aiN of v.^. —
6. 1^ nnnv'J. The stem -in", = abundance, is Aram., but can hardly be Ileb.,
since the proper correspondmg Ileb. form ~\t') exists; cf. Smend, Cornill, Toy
(in SBOT.) on Ez. 35^^ and <B in Jer. 336. But, even if |§ be accepted as
Aramaizing form, it is here inappropriate in the only sense {abundant) pos-
sible for it. The Vrss. give no helpful suggestion. (5 7; eKoixria, whence Bi.
naiJD than the willingness. Dys. : n^s"';: dreadful. But these emendations
do not furnish the desired antithesis. The form of the couplet does not favor
the introduction of ^ by |p (as in (5); as correspondent to a"'jDNj we expect
an adj., possibly Nif. Part, of typ;' (cf. 28'^) or of rw;, = crooked, evil, deceitful.
— 9. T^~<'2\^ is used elsewhere only of the fragrant vapor or incense of the
ritual service; but the verb (Pu. Part.) = perfume in Cant. 3", and the noun
may have this sense here. — (5 otvois is scribal addition for fulness. — ||J prr
inp; (5 KarapriyvvTaL, = r\v\?r\r2 (Jag.), which reading (accepted by Hi. Bi.
Frank.) is incongruous with ". — p? c'o: nxyp; Reuss 'j yo^D, good graphically
and in sense. Kamp. : 'j "i"7", taking 'j as = fragrance. Bi. j nxyp n;;-i|-inDi;
Frank.: 'j nbx;?D 'D1. Possibly the line should read: 'j fDND nsjJ pHDi.
10. Of friendship. — The verse is composed of three lines
which, in their present form, appear to have no immediate con-
nection one with another. — 10^, A friend of thyself and of thy
father forsake not (lit. : thy friend and thy father's friend etc.),
= " do not abandon an old family friend for new friends," as
* For Grk. and Rom. use of cosmeticg see Beck. Mommsen and Marqnnrdt,
Blumner (Eng. tr. by Zimmern).
486 PROVERBS
youth is often disposed to do. The reference is not specially to
seeking aid from such an one, but in general to maintaining
friendly relations with him. Only one friend is spoken of. —
10''. Lit. : And to the house of thy brother go not in the day of thy
calamity. But to whom should one go if not to a brother? " A
brother," it is said (17"), "is born for adversity." And even if
there be a friendship which is stronger than fraternal affection
(18^*), this would be no reason for ignoring the family tie — nor
is anything here said of such a stronger friendship (see note on
v.^""" below). It is futile to suppose that the prohibition wishes to
save the brother distress (Saadia), nor is the reference to exces-
sive visiting (as in 25"), and it is impossible that the sage should
lay down the general rule that one should not go to a brother in
time of need — such scepticism and cynicism would be out of
keeping with the tone of the Book. The text must be regarded
as defective, or the clause must be taken as a gloss inserted by
some scribe whose experience had made him bitter against
brothers, as Koheleth (Eccl. 7^^) is bitter against women. We
might omit the negative particle and read : bi4t go to a brother's
house etc., which would be an isolated and unnecessary injunction,
unless, with Bickell, the brother be taken as = the fi'iend of the
preceding line, and this is improbable — \{ friend \\2A been meant,
it would have been so written. Cf. the warning, in 25^', against
wearying one's neighbor with visits. — 10°. Better is a neighbor
who is near than a brother who is far off. The near and far
refer to space, not to feeling ; the saying is a maxim of common
experience. But there is nothing to show that it is this " far-off
brother " who is meant in the preceding line — on the contrary
the " brother " of the second line is regarded as near. As the text
stands, the third line is an independent aphorism, perhaps part of
a full couplet, of which the rest has been lost. — A connection
between the three lines may once have existed ; but if so, the
links have disappeared. If the second Hne be omitted, a couplet
might possibly be formed of the other two.
11-15. Wisdom, prudence, hypocrisy, strife.
II. Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad,
That I may answer him who shall taunt me.
XXVII. IO-I4 487
12. = 22'.
13- = 2oi6_
14. When one blesses another with a loud voice, []
It is to be reckoned as equivalent to a curse.
15. A constant dripping in a rainy day
And a quarrelsome woman are alike.
11. Single sentence, condition and consequence, quaternary-ter-
nary. The speaker is the teacher (whether the father or some
other), who is concerned for the young man's career, and desires
that he may so conduct himself as to furnish a triumphant answer
to all assailants. IVi'se is to be taken in the most general sense. For
the verb taunt {ox, reproach) see 14''^ 17^ \^ ii9''^(in the psalm the
answer is furnished by religious trust, in the proverb by wisdom) ;
for the noun see 6^^ 18^. The taunt (here mentioned as a possibility
of the future) will have been induced by some real or supposed mis-
conduct or display of ignorance on the part of the youth. The
teacher is held responsible for the faults of the pupil. Cf. 22^^ 23^^
BS. 30'"". — 13. The text in second line has fem, sing, a strange
woman, which is to be emended, from the parallelism, to masc.
sing, (or, plu.) ; the reference is simply to going security for other
persons. — 14. Condition and consequence, quaternary-ternary.
Heb. : he who blesses his neighbor (or, friend) with a loud voice
early in the morning {ox, in the morning, rising early), a curse it is
(or, will be) reckoned to him. The expression early in the morning
refers not to the dawn of good luck (this is not warranted by Heb.
usage of language) but to the zeal of the blesser (Jer. 7'^) ; the
him may be either the blesser (he shall be considered to have
uttered a curse) or the blessed (he shall be considered to have
been cursed). It may be man or God who reckons. In the
former case the proverb is a rebuke of hypocritical loud-mouthed
adulation, which public opinion will regard as concealing willing-
ness to ruin its object, if profit is to be thereby gained. In the
latter case the meaning is that a loud-mouthed blessing will excite
the anger of the deity, and call down a curse on the person
blessed ; in this interpretation the early is commonly held to
mean " before the issue of the man's good fortune is known " —
the deity is offended by this premature assumption. On divine
jealousy of human pretensions cf. note on 6'' ; elsewhere in OT.
488 PROVERBS
except in early mythical narrative (Gen. ii^O? ^^ '^ directed
against Israel's enemies, or against wickedness, not against mere
good fortune. It seems better, therefore, to adopt the first inter-
pretation mentioned above. — The early in the morning is unnec-
essary, mars the rhythmical symmetry, and is probably to be
omitted as gloss. On curse see note on 26^, and cf. 20^. —
15. Comparison, quaternary-ternary. The couplet is substantially
identical with second line of 19'^, on which see note. — Grk. : drops
drive a man on a wintry day out of the house, so a railing wotnajt
also [drives him] out of his own house. Our Heb. may in fact be
translated : dripping drives on a i-ainy day, out of which the Grk.
expands its line. Syr. better : a drop which drops ( = continues to
drop). Lat. : leaking roofs in a cold day, in which roofs is free
translation, and cold follows Grk. wintry, a sense less probable
than rainy. The roof, made of board, with a layer of earth and
straw, was kept from leaking only by constant repairs.*
16. Lit. : He 7vho hides her hides wind, and oil meets his right
hand (or, his right hand calls for [or, meets'] oil), which conveys
no sense. Lat. he who restrains her is as one who restrains
the witid-\ connects the couplet with the preceding, the sense
being supposed to be that he who undertakes to restrain the
woman of v.^' (whom Rashi regards as unchaste) might as well
try to hold the wind or slippery oil (or, according to Rashi, he
uses oil to get rid of the taint of her presence). But the verb
does not mean restrain, and the interpretation is obscure, unnat-
ural, and improbable. Grk. : the north wind is a severe wind, but
by its name is termed auspicious. \ Bickell : the north wi?id [it is
true] is the cheerfulest of winds, but the [hot and oppressive]
southwind is called " auspicious.''^ But, whatever the Grk. trans-
lator might attempt, one hardly expects such subtle etymologizing
from the Heb. sage. § No satisfactory construction of the couplet
has been suggested. Cf. 25"-^ 26^
* On Pal. roofs see Thomson, Land a?td Book, ch. 25; Now., Arch.; cf. Mk. 2*.
t So Saad. Rashi, Luth. Ew. De. Kamp. RV. al., but not AV.
X The Heb. word for hide may also = north ; the right hand represents good
fortune in Grk. Lat. Aram. Arab., though apparently not in Bibl. Heb. ; its name
comes from a slight change in the word for oil.
\ For other impossible readings see De. Wild.
XXVII. 14-17 489
12. Before n-D] insert \ — 13. |§ t 3T'; (S 7rapr}\dei> . . . i>ppi.(TT7]s, — ^2'J
IT (Jag.). — 1^ H'T^i; read n^j; the n is insertion induced by fuUowing n, or
else the incorrect interpretation of a scribe. — 14. ^ D^yc'^ "ip-i^; (5 to wpoji
may include both words. — |^ '*? is to be retained. — 15. Lag. regards |i] ^^t
and in ID as unintelligible, and thinks the sense continual for tij "very
funny." But the signification drop for ^'^^ (which is perh. Aram.) seems
assured by Job 16^' \^ 119-8 Eccl. lo^^ (cf. note on 19^^) and by Aram, and
Arab, usage. — The origin of the Stt. Xe7. i^tid is doubtful; (5 x^'/^^P'"]?
(= irD?); TL frigoris ; S3C TD. The stem -\ D in Heb. and Aram. = shut,
enclose ; in Arab, it = fill, whence the noun = a filling rain (see the authori-
ties in Lane). Or, our noun may be from a secondary .S"-steni, formed on nj
= go (used in Ass. of the running of water) ; cf. Levy, Nil IV. The connec-
tion, with the support of the Ass. or Arab., may justify the rendering rain. —
The stem t^:: = drive in Aram, and Ass. ((S here sK^dWovaiv) ; for the
intransitive sense cf. Arab, i^to, == t/iat which follows on, a successor. — On
J§ z'i\-^r:: see note on 6^*. — 1§ ni-iE'] is regarded by some (Qamhi, Miklol,
131 a) as Nithpael (cf. Dt. 21^ Ez. 23*^), with omission of Dagesh and trans-
position of n and .;•, by others (01s. § 275 Stade, § 410 b, A Ges."'^^, § 75 Jr
Hi. De. Str. al.') as Nifal. As the form stands, it may be regarded as masc.
(from nir), or as fem., with metathesis of i and n (Bottch. Kon. i. 591 f.); it
is better, with Ols. Stade, to read fem. r\7^\i'i (see Str.'s note). — 16. De.,
for ": nn jox y7\ >i<ii,~he who lays up riches etc. Bi., for the couplet:
N-\p> njD"' pni (= .-'^^) mt rn-i 7\'>^st. Wild.: nn \^-i n^px, and perhaps
Nip' nijD'> JCC'i, = and oil the southwind is called, or the oil of the south is
named (= is fizmous). These are all desperate expedients.
17-20. Influence, fidelity, sympathy, greed.
17. As iron sharpens iron,
So man sharpens man.
18. He who tends a figtree will eat its fruit,
And he who has due regard to his master will be honored.
19. As [] face answers to face,
So men's minds one to another.
20. Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied,
And the eyes of man are never satisfied.
17. Comparison, ternary. Lit. : Iron s/iarfiens iron (or, iron is
sharpened by iron), and a man sharpens the face of his friend,
= " friendly social intercourse develops character." J^ace (if the
word be retained in the text) = person, as in 18^ — the whole
man. Friend = neighbor = any associate. Ew. : iron together
with iron, and one together with the face of another, that is, as
iron attracts iron (a fact known as early as Homer), so should
490
PROVERBS
men stand and work together — a good sentiment, but an unnat-
ural translation. Reuss, not so well : is polished. — 18. Compari-
son, quaternary-ternary. The reward of faithful devotion to one's
master as to one's work. The proverb is addressed to servants,
and contemplates only the human tnasfer; cf. Eph. 6^ Has due
regard to is lit. observes, — gives heed to (Hos. 4'"). — Grk. he
7oho plants a figtree offers no advantage over the Heb. —
19. Comparison, ternary. Heb.: as water face to face, so the
heart (= mind) of man to man (breviloquence for so the heart of
man to the heart of fnati), or, the heart man to man. The first
line in the Heb. yields no sense, and the text has been variously
changed. Those who read as in water etc.,* or, as water shows
face etc. so the heart shows man etc. (RV. marg.), take the refer-
ence to be to the reflection of the face in water, and understand
the couplet to state the psychological identity and mutual sympa-
thy of men, or the supposed fact that every man sees only his own
nature (pride, for ex.) in other men, or sees himself reflected in
other hearts. The as water is, however, probably error of text
for as, and the expression as face to face may signify either simi-
larity t or diversity % : men's faces and minds are like or unlike.
The latter sense is favored by the fact that what most strikes the
attention in men's faces is their unlikeness, and the proverb may
= " many men of many minds " ; but the wording of the text
rather suggests the former sense, and this interpretation is per-
haps supported by v.^^ — 20. Comparison, ternary. Cf. 30'^
On Shcol and Abaddon see note on 15'^ The former is the ordi-
nary name of the Underworld, the latter is a poetical synonym ;
the combination of the two is rhetorical fulness. As, says the
proverb, generations of men forever troop down to the land of
Shades, which yet is nevier filled, so men's desires are never satis-
fied. On the eye as the symbol of desire see Eccl. 2^" 4^, and cf.
Eccl. i^ In the connection the reference cannot be to the wish
to see new sights. — The Grk. adds the couplet : he who fixes his
eyes is an abomination to the Lord ; and the uninstructed do not
restrain their tongues ; cf. 16^" 21-^. The couplet is possibly a part
of the original Heb. text, more probably a scribal addition.
* De. Str. Wild. RV. al. f So most expositors. J So Grk. Frank.
XXVII. 17-22 491
21. Public opinion as test of character.
The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold,
And a man (is to be estimated) according to his reputation.
Comparison, quaternary-ternary. The second line is lit. : a7id a
man according to his praise, probably the praise he receives from
others. The proverb will thus state the half-truth : " public opin-
ion is generally right " (another side is given in Mt. 5") — it tests
a man as fire tests metals. Less probable are the renderings :
according to that tvhich he praises, and that on which he prides
himself ( = what he regards as his praise, that is, as his title to
praise) — these fail to bring out distinctly the notion of test con-
tained in first line. Fleischer : a man is (a test) to him who
praises him ; but obviously the couplet means to apply the test to
the man himself. — In 17^ it is Yahweh who is the tester ; here it
is man. Section IV. has less of the religious tone than II. —
On methods of refining see notes on 17'' 26-\ — The Grk. adds :
The heart of the transgressor seeks evil, but the upright heart seeks
knowledge — a sentiment which has many parallels in the Book,
and may belong to the original text, or to some similar collection.
22. Folly ineradicable.
Though thou bray a fool in a mortar, []
Thou'lt not < get > his folly out of him.
Single sentence, ternary. The Heb. reads : his folly ivill not
depart from him; the causative form thou wilt not remove (so
Grk.) suits the first line better. — The proverb is a picturesque
and forcible way of saying that a fool's folly is his nature ; the
folly is intellectual, not moral. — At the end of first line the Heb.
adds: iti the juidst of grit (or, bruised corn, or, pounded grain^
with a pestle, which mars the symmetry of the couplet by unnec-
essary additions : the " pestle " goes as a matter of course with
the mortar, and the " grit " is out of place — it is the fool alone
that is pounded. The phrase appears to be a gloss. — Vat. Grk. :
though thou scourge a fool, disgracing him in the coimcil etc.
One Grk. text represents the process as beating the fool up in a
mass of preserved fruit (figs, olives, or grapes).*
* On the word rendered mortar see Moore, Judges (on Ju. 15^''*), and G. A.
Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets (on Zeph. i'").
492 PROVERBS
17. Omit ■'JD. — On ^^1 cf. Kon. i. 373 f. ; the stem is probably Tin (Job l^),
and the first - may be Hof. (Ez. 21I') or Hif., the second Hifil. If the first
be read Hif., the Prep. 3 should be omitted. — 19. |§ D'pi; (g wa-irfp; read
\:j with Vog. Bi.; Bottch. De. : 0^1:2 nrxp. — (@ ovx ofjLoia, which Bottch.
explains as = D''D"i |''Nr, misreading of ain3 ik'nj; or, the negative particle
may be interpretation of the translator. © follows 5, except that it inserts
the o^D of 1^. — 22. |§ u'.ij- ; (@ fxacmyois. — On the stem see Ges. 7'kes.
BDB.; cf. Heb. Aram, and Arab. 7\r^D. The stem Z'.-^d seems to be used of
any pounding or pressing of hard or soft substances. It is perhaps Aram.;
cf. D. H. Muller, Sendsch. 58. — f^ ''^•^ pionn "l^n^ d'jis?; (5 kv [kiat^ a-vve-
8piov dTi/xdfwj', after which Bi. omits '03, makes 73 the beginning of '', and
also with (3, omits r'^vr ; dri/Ltafwc he refers to some form of "?■?;'. N. Herz
(cited by Cheyne) makes crvv. — r\^■2n a company or society (Job 34*) ; Cheyne
prefers man, and renders the Heb. : . . . a fool amidst his associates (or, equals
in rank, cf. ^ \^'), you would not remove etc. See Expos. Times for May,
June, July, 1897. It seems better to retain 'J^, and omit the three next words
of ||J; (5 may have omitted 'op from its similarity to following "iina. — On
rDin see Hi. (who makes the stem lii), Ges. The word occurs elsewhere in
OT. only in 2 S. 17^^; 'AS TTTtcrdi'os; GTraXd^as; "^ ptisanas {barley-groats) ;
in 2 S. 17!^ (5 a.pa(p(I)d. The form of the stem is uncertain; perhaps ID"), ']^^^
or n£3-\; cf. Job 26^1, and Aral). Aram. IDi, strike, break.
23-27. Importance of small and large cattle for the farmer.
23. Look well to the appearance of thy flock,
Give careful attention to < thy > herds,
24. For riches last not forever.
Nor < wealth > to all generations.
25. When the hay is removed, and the aftergrowth appears,
And the grass of the mountains is gathered,
26. Then the lambs will supply thee with clothing,
And goats furnish the price of a field,
27. And there will be goat's milk enough for thy food, []
And (enough) for the maintenance of thy maidens.
The poem is a short treatise on the culture of animals, and gives
us a glimpse into the life of the rural population of Palestine.
The soil of Israelitish Palestine was better adapted to the raising
of sheep and oxen than to the production of grain, and the writer
points out that it is to the former that the country landowner
must look as his chief source of wealth. The introduction of this
subject is in accordance with the practical aim of the Jewish
gnomic writings. Cf. the works and remarks on agriculture by
XXVII. 23-26 493
Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cato, Varro, Virgil, and others, and the
extracts in the Geoponica.
23. Synonymous, ternary, or quaternary-ternary. Look well,
lit. know (emphatic). Appearance, lit. face, = state or condition
(RV.). Flock, of sheep and goats. Give careful attention to, lit.
set thy mind on. The Heb. has simply herds (that is, of cattle
or of sheep and goats) ; the insertion of thy (so Grk. and Lat.)
is favored by the parallelism. The context (v.-*^-') shows that
the writer has in mind sheep and goats, not large cattle ; so
Nabal (i S. 25" ^•'*) has sheep and goats. Oxen, however, were
owned in the south of Canaan (Isa. 7^^ Dt. 8^^), though the
country seems to have been better adapted to small cattle. See
7-- 14'' 15^'' for mention of oxen. — 24. Synonymous, ternary.
Exhortation to continual effort, which is necessary because one's
stores are constantly being consumed — if one would transmit
wealth, one must be all the time amassing it ; the ivealth is then
that of rural products, especially sheep and oxen. Or, the wealth
referred to may be non-agricultural, ready money and the like,
and the meaning will then be that flocks and herds are the only
solid and permanent riches ; in that case we must think of the
writer as unfriendly to urban and commercial life. — In second
line the Heb. has crown as the term corresponding to riches ; this
is explained as = " princely dignity," but the expression is inap-
propriate to the condition of such a person as is here described ;
a slight change of letters gives the parallel wealth (cf. Jer. 20").
— 25. Single sentence, quaternary-ternary. Lit. : the grass is
reinoved and etc. The connection indicates that this verse gives
the protasis or condition of a conditional sentence, of which the
apodosis or result is expressed in the following verses.* The
grass is removed to the barn in the form of hay as food for the
animals. After it is stored appears the second growth of grass
(RV. tender grass), the aftergrowth. This is the growth of the
lower lands, but the high lands {mou 71 tains') furnished admirable
pastures (i Sam. 25-), from which also, it appears, the grass (the
term including all herbage) was gathered. The haying began in
Nisan (March-April). — 26. Synonymous, binary-ternary (the
* So Saad. Rashi, Fleisch. De. Str. Wild. Frank, al.
494 PROVERBS
first member is perhaps defective). Provision thus laid up, the
flock will be well nourished and profitable ; animals may be sold,
and will thus furnish money to buy clothing or a Jieltf. Probably
also in first line there is reference to the making of clothing at
home from wool (cf. Job 31-°) ; the clothing of the household
for the year was doubtless prepared at this time. — 27. Parallel
statements, ternary-binary (according to the emended text).
Goafs milk here appears as a common article of food. In the
enumeration of foods in Dt. 32^^", besides cereals, honey, oil,
flesh, and wine, we find curd (= sour milk) of kine and milk of
small cattle (sheep and goats). Meat was rarely eaten; the
staples of food were bread, honey, fruits, and the products of the
dairy.* — The second line is Ht. : aiid maintenance (lit. life) for
thy maidens, but the Prep, {for) is probably to be continued. —
After for thy food the Heb. adds : for the food of thy household,
thus giving three terms after enough, of which Syr. omits the third,
and Grk. the second ; these two are really synonymous, and it is
better to omit the second, which seems to be a gloss (explanation
of the third). t
23. f^ •'n; <5 '/'uxas, perhaps = ti'DJ, perhaps (Jag.) = ijd in sense of'
person. — |^ an^y; read, with (5, I'lV. — 24. |^ -itp; read ^s^! (cf. Jer. 20^).
— J§ DN] may be retained, or we may read n'?i ((5 ou5^). — Before second it
insert 1 (Qere). — 27. Omit f^ r\r^i cn^'^ (as gloss) with (5, whose depa-
■trbvTuv represents |§ ^'^;'J (Jag.) rather than P'3. — The first fw^v of @
appears to be assimilation of the Heb. expression (nn'^) to the following
phrase, in which fw^v = \in (J§ Diin).
XXVIII. 1, The courage of a good conscience.
The wicked flee when no one pursues,
But the righteous are as bold as a lion.
Antithetic, ternary. ^<7/^= confident, secure (11'^ 31" Ju. 18^).
A bad conscience suspects accusers everywhere.
* Cf. the standing expression in OT. : a land flowing- with milk and honey (Ex.
333 Ez. 206 al.) ; cf. also Eurip., Dacch., 142 ; Ovid, Met. i, iii. For modern cus-
toms in Arabia and Palestine see Robinson, Bib. Res., i. 571 al. ; Palmer, Desert 0/
the Exodus, p. 239 al.; Thomson, Land attd Book, I. xxii al.
t With this paragraph cf. those passages of the Avesta (as Fargard 3) in which
similar prominence is given to the culture of cattle.
XXVII. 26-XXVIII. 3 495
2. The first cl. reads : By the transgression of a land many are
its princes, that is, unstable government (a rapid succession of
rulers) is a result of social corruption. Rapid change of rulers
may, however, be an accident of the political situation. Possibly
we should read : by etc. many are its enemies (or, misfortunes). —
The second line is lit. : but by intelligent {and) instructed men
right lasts long, or, by men intelligent {and) cognizant of right it
(the existing status) lasts long; the second translation (in which
the verb is taken as indefinite) is not probable. To understand
right (in the first transl.) as = "jurisdiction, poHtical authority "
(De.) is a somewhat forced interpretation. Still less natural is
RV.'s rendering, state {= existing status), from the sense " place,
basis," which the Heb. word sometimes has. Instead of jnen we
may write man (De.), the meaning then being that by a single
intelligent man political order will be maintained. — Grk., with dif-
ferent text : by the sin of utigodly 7nen disputes arise, but a clever
man will extinguish them, which is intelligible, but disputes are
said in Pr. to arise from the nature of the wicked, not from their
sin — the disputes are themselves sin. — If the expression knowing
right be omitted (as gloss on intelligent), we may read : by a man
(or, by men) of insight it [the land] is made stable {— is estab-
lished) (cf 2(f) ; or, \i days be inserted : by a man of intelligence
its existence is p7-olonged. — The text puts "intelligence" as antith-
esis of "transgression"; this may be understood in accordance
with the point of view of Pr., which makes moral error the result
of ignorance, — The general sense of the couplet appears to be
that moral ignorance and transgression is responsible for political
distress or disorder (so the Heb.), or, perh., that quarrels and law-
suits are the work of bad men (so the Grk.), and that order, or
peace, is maintained by a broad intelligence which recognizes the
claims of the moral law. It is possible, however, that the two
lines of the couplet do not belong together.
3. Oppression of the poor.
A < wicked ruler > who oppresses the poor
Is a beating rain which leaves no food.
Virtual comparison, ternary or quaternary-ternary. The Heb.
reads : a poor man and an oppressor of the poor, a beating rain
496 PROVERBS
and no bread, that is, a poor man who oppresses etc. is etc. But
in Pr. (or in OT.) a poor man is not conceived of as an oppressor
of the poor, is not thought of as being in position to oppress ; nor
does it add to the distress of the poor that their oppressor is one
of their own class. — Grk. : a bold (or, courageous) man by wick-
edtiess oppresses (or, accuses) the poor, whence we might read : a
wicked man who oppresses etc. By the change of a vowel the
sense is obtained : a ruler (lit. a man, a chief) who etc.,* but it is
doubtful whether this is an allowable Heb. construction.! The
reading here adopted, which is suggested by v.^^, is obtained by a
couple of simple changes of the text.
4. Attitude of faithful and faithless toward the wicked.
Those who forsake the law praise the wicked,
But those who observe the law are zealous against them.
Antithetic, ternary, or quaternary-ternary. The special interpreta-
tion of the couplet depends on the meaning given to the word
law. If this means the " law of Yahweh," the national code, then
the reference is probably not only to the general fact therein
announced, but particularly to the condition of things in the
Greek period when many Jews did give up the national religion
and attach themselves to foreign rulers and magnates, who are
often in the Psalms referred to as the "wicked," and Reuss is sub-
stantially right in translating : the apostates praise the heathen. If
this be the correct interpretation, the couplet forms the only refer-
ence in Prov. to such apostasy (cf. i/^ 119^^ WS. 2-5). — li law be
taken to be the instruction of the wise (3^ 4^ 7^ 28^^) the couplet
will mean that he who refuses this instruction does thus in effect
endorse the wicked, while he who gives heed to it will in effect
oppose them. This precise form of expression is not elsewhere
employed by the sages in speaking of their own instruction, but
the idea is found throughout the Book, particularly in chs. 1-9. —
The sense "law in general" does not accord with the vtxh forsake,
which implies a body of instruction with which the man stands in
* Hitz. De. Bi. Str. Wild. al.
t It occurs elsewhere only in the title chief priest (2 K. 25I8 al.) ; in Ez. 382 the
construction is different, Rosh being a proper name.
XXVIII. 3-6 497
special relation ; for the general idea of law the appropriate verb
would be " transgress." The second interpretation seems to be
the more probable. — The interpretation: they who praise the
wicked forsake the law (De.) is not a natural rendering of the
Hebrew.
5. Piety comprehends justice.
Wicked men do not understand justice,
But they who seek Yahweh understand it completely.
Antithetic, ternary- quaternary. To "seek Yahweh" is to inquire
of him in order to learn his will in any given case. It was the
technical expression for inquiry at an oracle (2 S. 21' al.), and so
came to signify dependence on and devotion to the will of God.
— Understand it completely is lit. understand all, the reference
being to justice (in dealings with men). It is only, says the prov-
erb, from the divine will (here = the divine law) \\^'x\. justice (here
= right in general) can be known. — The couplet has a national
tone rare in Proverbs.
XXVIII. 1. |§ iDj with sing, noun, and o^inx with sing, verb; (5, sing.,
0ei57ei and Skaios. — 2. For |^ nine' we should perhaps read 7\-'-\-i or hti^s
(cf. Dt. 31"). (5'' read av^'i and D3i; (§•', for ||J T'IN'' \-} j?y, Ka.ra.a^iai.i.
auTcis, = idj;t' (Lag.). The reading of « is not probable; that of "^ is better,
but not satisfactory. — Bi. omits TiiNi (as repetition out of the two preceding
words), and for p jjti reads jpyi;. Dys. : an i-is ly-''. We may perh. read:
nppn pD a-iN2i or mny 'D dini. — 3. pj uh ~\i\; (3 dvSpeTos iv dae^eiais;
read p'i'T n^i, and omit the 1 before p;'>'; Dys. iTi^ -i3J; Frank, ye'i -i3J. —
J§ DnS pNi; (5 Kal av(j3<pe\y]%, on which see Lag.
6. Honest poverty better than dishonest wealth.
Better is a poor man whose life is upright
Than one whose conduct is base, though he be rich.
Antithetic comparison, ternary. A variation of 19^ on which see
note. Lit. who walks in his perfectness and one crooked of ways.
— The Heb. has the dual, two ways, which is commonly inter-
preted as referring to the good way and the bad way, between
which the man has to choose ; but this representation (appropri-
ate in BS. 2'**) is here inappropriate — the expression crooked in
ways is a common one for "dishonest, base" ; a change of vowds
gives the plu. Cf. v.'** below.
2K
498 PROVERBS
7. Profligacy is unwise.
He who obeys instruction is a wise son,
He who consorts with profligates brings disgrace on his father.
Implicit antithesis, ternary-quaternary. Cf. lo^ 13^ if^ ig^^^e
23^* 27". Obeys, lit. keeps, observes. The instruction meant is
that of the father and teacher, not the national law (cf. v.^-^).
Wise is lit. intelligent. On profligates i^= spendthrifts, rioters)
see 23^- ^\ The text assumes that he who heeds instruction will
not associate with profligates, and that a wise son brings joy to
his father. The first line may also be translated : a wise son
obeys instruction ; the antithesis of wise will then be profligate.
The two lines belong perhaps to different couplets.
8. Against demanding interest on loans.
He who adds to his wealth by taking interest and increase
Gathers it for him who is kind to the poor.
Single sentence, quaternary-ternary. In the OT. legislation the
taking of interest is regarded as oppressive and is strictly prohib-
ited between Israelites (Ex. 2 2-^<24) j^^^ ^^v^m ^^^^ 2f^\ cf. Ez.
18* \\i 15^), though allowed in transactions with foreigners (Dt.
2^20(21)^ # . ^}^g ]^^ ^y^g^ however, frequently violated (Ez. 22^^^
Neh. 5^"). Later, when the dispersion of the Jews forced them
into commercial life, its provisions were made more stringent
(yBab. Mes. v.). — The objection to charging interest was based
on the fact that loans were made to poor men to supply the
necessaries of life, not to be employed productively ; to demand
interest was to take advantage of a fellowman's distress, the antith-
esis being kindness to the poor.^ The 0'I\ rule was thus ethically
good, except in so far as it excluded foreigners from its benefit.
The punishment of the interest-taker here announced is loss of
* This interpretation of Dt. 2320 is denied, but on insufficient grounds, by Rab-
binowicz in the Introd. to his transl. of Baba Mesia {Legist, civ. du Thalmud, Vol. 3).
t Charging interest was from early times common in Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
and evidently in Israel also; it was a natural condition of lending money and other
property. In Greece and Rome it was regulated by law. The opposition to it
came from the moralists (as Plato, Arist., Demosthenes), not from the people, and
no prohibition of it (in Israel, for example) was effective. See Wilkinson, Anc.
Egypt.; Erman, Egypt; Smith, Diet, of Grk. and Rom. Antiq.^
XXVIII. 7-IO 499
wealth, which comes through social laws and divine retribution ;
the wealth, by these same laws, falls to the benevolent man (14'''
19^^ 22'^). Cf. BS. 3'^"^". Whether there was any difference of
meaning between the terms hiterest and increase is not clear.*
RV. retains the word usury in its old sense of interest.
8. The prayer of a bad man is futile.
He who refuses to listen to instruction,
His prayer is an abomination.
Single sentence, quaternary-binary (or, binary). Cf. i5*-29 Isa.
i'* BS. 35^*''^^. Lit. he who turns aside his ear from hearing: the
reference is to the instruction of the teacher or parent. On abom-
ination see note on 3^^ — In second line the Heb. has : also (or,
eve7i) his prayer etc. ; the " prayer " is, doubtless, merely a peti-
tion for some physical gift, and the also probably = " on the
other hand," the couplet expressing an antithesis, or a relation of
reciprocity: "if a man, on his part, is deaf to instruction, then
God, on his part, is deaf to prayer." Cf. ./. i82^-26(26-27).
10. Malice rebounds on itself.
He who seduces the upright to evil
Will fall into his own pit. []
Single sentence, ternary-binary (in the emended text). Lit. into
an evil way, that is, probably (as in S^'') into morally bad con-
duct. The OT. assumes that good men may go astray (Ez. 3^ al.).
For second line cf. 26^. — The first line is sometimes rendered:
he who misleads the upright into misfortune ; but it is doubtful
whether, if leading into unwise investments and the like were
meant, the statement would be restricted to the upright (cf. BS.
37^). Elsewhere (5^^ \<f 20^ Job 6'^ ^ 119'° al.) the verb seduce,
lead astray, is used in a moral sense. — The Heb. adds : A7id the
perfect will inherit (or, possess) good, which may be a gloss on
this couplet (a reminiscence of such passages as 2^ ip 3 7^- 9- "•22. 29 ^^
* A distinction is perh. made in Lev. 253', interest referring to loans of money,
increase to loans of food, but the variation of terms may be merely rhetorical. In
Dt. 2310(20) the former ap|)ears to be used as a general term for interest, and the
latter is so employed in Bab. Mcs. v. i. Cf. Fleisch. in De., Wild. Litt. des AT,
\ 7, Now. Arch., \ 66.
500 PROVERBS
to bring out the other side of the picture, or perhaps the half of a
new couplet, of which the other line has disappeared.
11. A self -conceited rich man.
A rich man may think himself wise,
But an intelligent poor man will probe him thoroughly.
Single sentence involving antithesis, ternary. Lit. : a rich man
may he (or, is) wise in his own eyes ; probe thoroughly = search
out. Rich men, the proverb holds, being financially successful,
are inclined to have great confidence in themselves (cf. i8"), but
wisdom does not always go with wealth. Here, as elsewhere, the
sage takes a defensive attitude for the poor against the rich —
doubtless from the conviction that the former need help (cf. EccL
12. Contrasted administrations of righteous and wicked. —
The text is uncertain. Heb. : 7vhen the righteous rejoice, great is
the glory, but when the wicked arise, men are sought out (or,
searched). Antithetic. Rejoice is explained as= triumph, equiv-
alent to arise, that is, " come into power," and are sought out as
= must be sought out, = hide themselves, or, are plundered (with
reference to Ob. 6, in which, however, the text appears to be
defective). These interpretations are strained; in the sense
search (= examine) the last verb of the couplet is not elsewhere
in OT. followed by a noun meaning a person. The couplet
should probably be emended so as to read somewhat as follows :
when the righteous are exalted there is great confidence, but ivhen
tlie wicked come into poiver men hide themselves, that is, when good
men control a city or state, there is prosperity — when bad men
are in power, the people suffer. Cf. for exalted \\i 47"*^°^ 97^, and
for confidence Job 4".
6. J^du. Di3-n; point as plu. — 12. |^ r'^i-!?; read, perh. n'^vn^. — |^ n-^Non
is possibly for nip-. — For |^ ir'pn'' we may read -\-^p'' {y?^) which is graphically
not impossible. Dys. : rjrn^ or -£ivv; Perles and Frank, suggest rsn tremble.
— In " Bi. omits nn-i on rhythmic grounds.
13. True repentance.
He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
XXVIII. IO-I6 50I
Antithetic, ternary. Co?iceals is lit. covers, = refuses to confess.
The confession is made to God and the mercy is accorded by him.
Cf. Hos. 14^"^ Isa. i^^^* Job 3133*' ^ 32^ Forgiveness is here made
to depend not on sacrifice, but on purely ethical conduct. Con-
fession is assumed to be a necessary accompaniment of repentance.
Kindness to a repentant sinner is enjoined in BS. 8\
14. Fear of sin.
Happy is the man who fears always,
But he who hardens his heart will fall into misfortune.
Antithetic, quaternary (or, ternary). Fears = not reverences (3^
24^^), but is afraid of, in dread of (3^^ Job 3-'). The object of
the verb is here probably not " God," but " sin " considered as
involving " punishment " : one who fears that he may transgress a
divine command is said to be happy because he is on his guard,
and will thus escape punishment. — Hardens his heart (that is,
his mind, himself), braces himself in his own doings, does not
dread sin. The misfortune (contrasted with happy) is sent by
God, but is probably thought of as produced by natural agencies.
The point presented is not directly fear of moral impurity, but
dread of its physical consequences.
15. The oppressive ruler.
A roaring lion and a ranging bear —
Such is a wicked ruler over a poor people.
Comparison, ternary, or quaternary- ternary. Cf. v.^ Roaring
lion, cf. 19'^ Jud. 14^ Zeph. 3" Ez. 22^'' Job 4^" \\i 22'^''"". Bear, cf.
17^^ 2 K. 2^'' Am. 5'^* Isa. 59". The lion and the bear occur
together in i S. xf". — Ranging is roaming in pursuit of prey (cf.
Joel 2^), or the word may = ^r^if^ (cf. Isa. 29** \\i \of); we
should perhaps read robbed of her whelps, as in 1 7^^. — The refer-
ence in a poor people may be to any financially poor community,
or there may be special allusion to the later Jewish communities.
16. Folly of oppression. — Lit. : A prince (or, O prince)
devoid of understanding and a great oppressor — he who hates
unrighteous gain will prolong his days. The first line may also be
read : a prince etc. is a great oppressor, but the natural form
502
PROVERBS
would be : a prince who is an oppressor is devoid of intelligence.
The word prince should probably be omitted as the gloss of a
scribe who interpreted this couplet by the preceding. We should
probably read : he who is oppressive is lacking in intelligence, he
who hates wijust gain will live long. The live long, = " be happy,"
forms an implicit contrast to lacking in intelligence, = " knows not
what is good for him."
17. Lit. : A man oppressed by the blood of a person flees (or,
must flee) to a (or, the) pit — let them not seize him (or, support
or fnaintain hitn). The words yield no sense. The term
oppressed cannot mean conscience-stricken (De.) — elsewhere in
OT. it always refers to external acts ; nor is it a natural expres-
sion for "weighted with guilt." The /// is not the grave (De.
Frank.) — a man cannot be said to " flee to the grave." The
criminal referred to is hardly the grinding, destructive oppressor
of the poor (Frank., see note on i") —if such an one should be
"fleeing to the grave" it would be quite unnecessary to forbid
men to help him. Possibly there is some reference to the lex
talionis : " if a man charged with homicide flee to a cily, let no
one seize (or, protect) him." The sentence (which is prose)
perh. belonged in a lawbook, and was here inserted by mistake.
18. Profit in integrity.
He who lives blamelessly will be kept in safety,
But a man of vicious life will fall [].
Antithetic, ternary (in the text as emended). Lit. he who walks,
and one crooked of ways. The second line reads in the Heb. :
but one crooked { = false, evil) in two 7vays will fall in one. The
dual t7vo ways is improbable (see note on v.^ above), but if it be
retained, the statement that a man doubly false is sure to fall in
one way or another seems an unnatural and improbable mode of
expression. The sense at once, suddenly, for the word above ren-
dered in one is doubtful, and here not appropriate. Lagarde
emends : into a pit. This is possible, but it is better to omit the
word, and thus gain the simple and sufficient contrast of be kept
in safety (lit. be rescued) and fall ; the in one (of the ways)
appears to be a gloss on the two ways of the Heb. text. — The
XXVIII. 16-21 5^3
reward and punishment are to be referred to God. On blame-
lessly, lit. blameless, perfect, see notes on i'^ 2^^, and on vicious (or,
evil'), = crooked, see 2'^.
15. 1^ 31; (5 Xy/cos, apparently = Aram, an or 3X-'. For J^ ^^t we should
perh. read '?i';'C'. — 16. Omit J^ imj (as gloss) and the 1 before J^, and insert
1 before nj;- (Q). -imj in sense of prime only here in Pr.; of. Job t,\^'^
Dan. 925.26 ij22_ por 5^ 3T1 Dys. reads 3;;i^. — '^ nijnn; (g Trpo<T65u)v,
= Tvsnn (Trom.); Lag. cites Suet., 6a%. 38. — 17. For the expression oi
tt-DJ cf. Jer. 23*. — J§ -1:3 -i;; @ 6 ^77i/u)/tiej/oj, = lav (Lag.). — |^ '^.s; @IL
render as if it were s''. — J§ pv- and 10; possibly to be read -\-'.-' ^^^ ''■>•
— 18. |§ du. no-n; read plu. — f^ ''"?^'?; ® ifiirXaK-rja-eTai, to which 254.
297 add ei's (ca/cd; ^ nxouj, = -ini:?a (Vogel), of. v.^'^. Lag. (and so Dys. Bi.)
reads Dnv2. The word is better omitted as gloss suggested by v.^'^.
19-22. Industry, integrity, greed,
19. He who tills his land will have plenty of bread,
And he who follows vain pursuits will have plenty of poverty.
20. A trustworthy man will be richly blessed.
But he who hastes to be rich will not go unpunished,
2i. To have respect of persons is not good —
For a piece of bread a man may sin.
22. An avaricious man hastens to be rich.
Not knowing that want will befall him,
19. Antithetic, ternary. Variation of 12", on which see note;
the antithesis (bread , , . poverty) is here more direct. —
20. Antithetic, binary (or, ternary). 7>-«.f/a/^;-M^ = faithful to
commercial and other obligations. Lit. : will be great in blessings;
the blessings are the products (and so the rewards) of honest
labor, as in Gen. 49-^ Mai. 3^", or, gifts, as in Ju. i^^, the giver,
however, being God. — The hastes, it is assumed, involves dis-
honest procedures ; the man, in that case, will not be unpunished,
or will not be (or, be held) free from guilt (cf. 6^ 11^^ i6'^ 17^
19'^^). The former sense gives a direct contrast to \\\q blessed ;
possibly, however, the meaning is : "a man who is in a hurry to
become rich will fall into dishonest practices and thus incur guilt "
(see I Tim. 6^). — Cf. BS. 31*"*. — 21. Synonymous, binary. On
first line see notes on first line of 18'' and second line of 24-''.
The couplet refers to corruption in courts of law — a man miy be
tempted (or, many a man is tempted) even by a small bribe {a
504 PROVERBS
piece of bread, cf. 6^"). — 22. Single sentence involving antithesis,
ternary. Afi avaricious man, lit. one evil of eye, one whose look
is unsympathetic, self-seeking ; the expression occurs in OT. only
here and 23^ (on which see note), the opposite, good of eye
(= kindly benevolent), in 22^ The man stints himself and
others ; but his parsimony is an economic mistake, and leads to
poverty. There may also be the suggestion (as in v.^) that greed
leads to or involves sin, and will be punished. — Not knowing, cf.
f^ ; the expression may also here = not considering, hardly with-
out his knowing (= unawares).
23. Reproof vs. flattery.
He who reproves [] will find more favor
Than he who flatters with the tongue.
Single sentence, ternary-binary. An assertion that men's good
sense will prefer honest reproof to flattery ; cf. 15^'^ 25'^ 27^*^ 29^
— Lit. : he who reproves a fnan, after which the Heb. has after
me. This latter, if it here mean anything, can mean only " in
accordance with my instructions," a strange and improbable direc-
tion for the sage to give.* The translation : a man going back-
ward (De.), is out of the question. Better, by change of text:
will afterward find, that is, though flattery at first be sweet, one
will in the end be grateful for honest rebuke. f But the sense
" afterward " is involved in the declaration, and the word is prob-
ably a gloss. Bickell, improbably : than he who flatters with the
tongue after him, that is, servilely follows him with flattery.
24. On robbing parents.
He who despoils father or mother
(Saying : " there is no wrong in it ")
Is companion to him who is a destroyer.
Triplet (if the second line be original), single sentence, ternary-
binary-ternary. Despoils — robs (22^') ; destroyer, that is, of prop-
erty (cf. 6^^ 11^ 18"), or, of the family life — probably, from the
connection, not murderer. The proverb appears to be aimed at
* Aben Ezra, Mich. : afier my [Solomon's] example and precepts.
t Lat. Rashi, RV. Reuss, Kamp. Wild. Frank.
XXVIII. 22-26 505
attempts (legal or other) by children to get control of the prop-
erty of parents, and thus diminish their resources (cf Mk. 7"'^^).
For ordinary theft, or for simple unkindness, no such form of
condemnation would have been used. The practice in question
was evidently not uncommon, and (as appears from second line)
was sometimes defended as morally proper, probably on the ground
that the family was a unit, that what belonged to the parents be-
longed legally to the children. The OT. legislation, in fact, con-
tains no provision bearing on this point ; the declaration of the
proverb is based on general ethical grounds. The second line
states in a natural way the defence offered by the son ; yet the
very naturalness of it suggests that it is a gloss. To the people of
the time the couplet would be complete and intelligible without it,
but such an explanation would easily occur to an editor. — The
couplet is sometimes understood to refer to the case of a son who
is master in the house and is bound to support his parents, but
withholds their proper maintenance. This interpretation hardly
credits the verb despoil with its full force ; nor does it appear how
a son could be master in the hfetime of his father. — Cf. Pers.,
Sat. 6 ; Juv., Sat. 14.
25, 26. On trust in self and trust in God.
25. A greedy man stirs up strife,
But he who trusts in Yahweh will prosper.
26. He who trusts in himself is a fool,
But he who walks in wisdom will be saved (from harm).
Antithetic, ternary. Greedy is lit. large (lit. wide^ of appetite (lit.
soul) ; cf. Isa. 5" Hab. 2^.* — Prosper, lit. be made fat; see 11^
13* is''"- — To "trust in one's self" (one's heart, intellect) is
(according to the parallelism) to follow the untrained suggestions
of the mind (passion, selfishness, dishonesty), or, to rely wholly
on one's own mental resources, opposed to which is living in
accordance with the instruction of ethical wisdom. — Will be
saved, that is, in any emergency where true insight into life is
* On the similar phrase wide of heart, = proud, see note on 21^. De.'s state-
ment that nefesh (soul) = the "natural heart," and leb {heart) = the "spiritual
heart," is without support in OT.
5o6 PROVERBS
required. — The lines appear to be dislocated : v.^-^*' form a nat-
ural couplet ; v.^"- ^^^ have lost their correspondents.
27. Kindness to the poor.
He who gives to the poor will not lack,
But he who disregards them will have many a curse.
Antithetic, ternary. Similar exhortations to liberaHty and kind-
ness are found in ii^'*-^^ i^""' 19^' 22^ BS. 4' f 29^0; cf. ^i'^^-^.—
Disregards, lit. hides his eyes, so as not to see distress. — The
curse is uttered by the poor ; cf. BS. 4^', in which it is said that
such curse will be heard oy God. Cf. note on 26^.
28. Wicked government.
When the wicked are in power men hide themselves,
And when they perish the righteous increase.
Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). A^-e in power is ht.
rise. Increase, that is, in numbers, being free froni oppression.
See note on v.^" above. The reference is to political administra-
tion in the City and the State, perhaps especially to the later for-
tunes of the Jews. Cf. notes on ii^" 29^- ^^ — The interpretation
of increase as = become mighty is hardly allowable (in 29^ the text
must be changed), and its emendation to mk is not appropriate ;
cf. 29^
20. In explanation of (5 Lag. refers to ii^i ig'-a. — 21. |^ d''jt; (S^<^^ vpbff-
ojva diKalwv, and Sattl. &^ had apparently tr. adiKuv, whence Bi. reads mo
□ •s:'"!; but it seems more probable that the insertion is interpretation, after
18*^; cf. Dt. i^''. — 22. Bi. omits ^ ^^, but his rendering: /le knows not —
%va7ii comes, is doubtful. — 23. |^ '"^C]^'; ® 65oi>s perh. = imN; (Lag.), a some-
what unnatural locution; Kamp. Wild, ins; Frank, suggests that |^ may be
an Aramaic form, = -inN. The word is better omitted as gloss or dittogram. —
24. If we omit |^ pro ]^n ir'N% then following Nin is, on rhythmical grounds,
better omitted. Bi. makes a couplet of the v., omitting ^dni as dittogram,
and writing *: yro j^'N idsi ion Sij — a division rhythmically and syntactically
good, if ^ be retained.
XXIX. 1-3. Peril of persistence iu sin. Value of probity.
I. He who, being often reproved, persists in wrong-doing
Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
When the righteous < rule.' the people rejoice,
"^JThen tfte wicKeu govern, cne people groan.
XXVIII. 26-XXIX. 5 507
3. A man who loves wisdom rejoices his father,
He who keeps company with harlots wastes his substance.
1. Single sentence, ternary. Lit. : a ma?i of reproofs who har-
dens (or, stiffens) his neck zvill suddenly be broken to pieces etc. ;
of. 6'^ 13'* 15'*^. Stiffening the neck, in obstinate persistence, is
the opposite of bending the neck, in token of submission. — The
term suddenly may refer to the law of divine intervention ; more
probably it signifies that the man, secure in his obstinacy, does
not foresee misfortune. The reproof comes from human teachers
and judges. — 2. Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary- ternary).
The Heb. has : when the righteous increase, the suggestion being
that they then have control of affairs (so Saad. RV. marg.) ; the
change of a letter gives the reading rule, which is required by the
govern of second line. Cf. nioi' 28'-- -^ — 3. Antithetic, quater-
nary-ternary. On first line cf. 10^ 23"-^* 27"; on second line cf.
5^- ^". Licentiousness is put as the opposite of wisdom, as in 2^"- ^^
^1-3 ^23.24 gi.i3^ — Yxs. second line the predicate wastes etc. (instead
of the precise antithesis grieves his father) states that which
causes the father sorrow.
4, 5. Royal administration. Malicious cajolery.
4. A king by justice gives stal)ility to a land,
But he whose exactions are excessive ruins it.
5. A man who cajoles his neighbor
Spreads a net for his steps.
4. Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary-ternary). Gives stability,
lit. establishes {causes to stand) ; stability involves prosperity. In
second line lit. a man of exactions ; cf. a man of reproofs in v). —
Everywhere else in OT. the word here rendered exactions denotes
ritual offerings (2 S. i^^ Isa. 40^*'), which in the Israelitish law were
of the nature of imposts or taxes (Dt. 12^ Ex. 25^ Ez. 44'''* 45'^'''
Lev. 7" Nu. 5" Mai. 3^) ; here the term is employed in the non-
ritual sense. The royal exactions might be legal taxes or demands
for "voluntary" gifts; probably all sorts of demands for money
are meant. Cf. v.".* — 5. Single sentence, ternary. Cf. 2'® 7*
* On the method of collecting taxes in Egypt in the middle of the third century
B.C. see the great Greek papyrus discovered by Fetrie, and published by Grenfell
and Mahaffy (cf. Recent Research in Bible Lands).
508 PROVERBS
26^* 28^. His neighbor = any person. The word flatter in first
line (RV.) does not exactly represent the Heb. term, which sug-
gests guile and seduction.
6. Security and happiness of probity. — Antithetic, ternary.
Heb. : in the transgression of a bad man is a snare, but the good
man is joyful and glad. In first line the Syr. has the simpler
form : the bad man is snared in (or, by^ his sin. The implica-
tion is that the righteous has no fear of snares, and may therefore
be lighthearted ; the text does not warrant the interpretation that
he rejoices because the sinner has fallen into the snare and been
destroyed. — A more satisfactory form is perh. given by reading
path for transgression, and may run for is joyful.
7. The cause of the poor. — Heb. : the good man regards the
rights of the poor, the bad man does not u?iderstand knowledge.
Antithetic. Good — righteous. Rega^-ds is lit. knows, — " has
sympathetic knowledge of," " considers favorably " ; see note on
12^", and cf. i/' i^ 37"* ; this pregnant sense of the verb belongs par-
ticularly to the later language.* Rights = cause (properly the
legal judgment, the justice due) ; see 20* ji^** Jer. 5^ \\i 140'^**^^
The word poor refers to physical poverty (lo'^ 19'' 22-^ \\i 41^'^'
a/.). — The expression does not understand hunuledge is usually
explained as = " has no knowledge of ( = no concern for) the
poor," but the words will hardly bear this interpretation ; under-
stand knowledge means simply " have understanding or knowledge
or insight " (19"^ Isa. 32*), and such reference to intellectual
clearness and vigor is not what is required in our couplet. The
text may be changed so as to read the wicked (or, bad) tnan does
not understayid justice, or . . . does not plead for the needy (cf,
31' Jer. 5^').
8. Wisdom is a peacemaker.
Unscrupulous men kindle discord in a city,
But wise men turn aside anger.
Antithetic, ternary. Unscrupulous men, lit. fnen of scoffing (see
i^^, men who laugh at moral obligations, and stir up the baser
* Cf. the early use " fo know intimately (that is, carnally)," as in Gen. 4I.
XXIX. 5-16 ^09
passions of their fellow-citizens (Isa. 28"). Kindle discord in,
Elizabethan Eng. inflame (RV, set in a flame), lit. blow up (a
fire) ; so in Ez. 21^^'''^', cf. Cant. 2" 4^-^*^. Elsewhere in Pr. the
verb = utter (that is, "puff out words," 6^^ 12^^ 14*-^ 19*^) ; cf.
\li 10^, puffs at, poohpoohs ; in i/' 12^*®^ the sense is rather pants
after, desires. — The anger is that of the men (the parties) of the
city.
9. Lawsuits between wise men and fools. — Lit. : A wise
mafi has a lawsuit with a fool, and he is excited (lit. trembles)
and laughs and there is ?io quiet (or, ?-est). The subject of second
line may be the wise man (Lat.), with the sense : whether he be
angry or laugh, there is tio quiet (no end to the contention), or
the/<?^/ (Grk.), who is then said to show, by his excitement (that
is, probably, his anger) and his frivolous or derisive laughter, that
he has no sense of the seriousness of the situation. The predi-
cates is angry and laughs appear to belong more naturally to the
fool than to the wise man, who is rather marked by quiet (Eccl.
9'") ; the expression there is no quiet can hardly mean constantly
(see Job 17^" Eccl. 4^ 6^). — The general sense seems to be that it
is not advisable for a wise man to have a controversy with a fool.
According to OT. usage the predicate in first line signifies an
action at law (i S. 12^ Jer. 2'^ Ez. if Isa. 432" ^ Q'''""'), not any
quarrel or controversy. Quiet (or, peace) is understood by some
as = silence, that is, the fool talks so much that there can be no
profitable discussion.
XXIX. 2. p? P':3i; (5 ^7Ka>;tttafo/(x^;'wc, = nbna (Jag.) or perhaps Ti^sn
(Lag.); read m^. — |^ plu. npii-; better sing. (Bi.). — 3. The parallelism
suggests the omission of v-a. — 4. |§ nrnn Z'^^; (5 (followed by SE) irapdvo-
/ios, = .-iiDin C'-'^ (Lag.) or nimn cin (Baumg.), cf. Kethib in Jer. 14". IL ava-
rtts. — 6. |fc? ;c*>; Pinsker {Bab.-Heb. Punktalionssystem,-^. 156) yrp (l S. 20^).
— P? \y, Pinsk. yy; Dys. O";-; S -'P J . • • V^'fl^.— 7. |^ nyi jj; is suspi-
cious; possibly ^y; fy. — 9. •u:"}* pn may be omitted.
10. Lit. : Men of blood hate a perfect man, and upright men
seek his life, the second line of which is impossible. To put a
pause after upright men, reading : men of blood hate a perfect man
and upright men — they seek his blood, gives an unsymmetrical
division of lines and a loose grammatical form. The renderings :
5IO PROVERBS
and as for the upright, they (the men of blood) seek his (the
upright's) life (RV.) and (Zock. RV. marg.) : but the upright care
for his life (or, soul) are unwarranted (the construction is differ-
ent in \\i i42^<^'). We may change upright to wicked, or seek to
seek out (that is, "care for "). The emended verb occurs in 20^*
in the sense examine into, reflect on (vows), and in Ez. 34" ^^ in
that of seek out (scattered sheep) ; in this sense of inquire after
it may =" look after the interests of" (cf. \^ i42*<^^). Bickell :
the upright seek to refresh (or, sustain) him. — The second emen-
dation calls for the less change in the Hebrew ; the first gives the
more probable sense.
11. Restraint of anger. ,
A fool utters all his wrath,
But a wise man < restrains his anger.>
Antithetic, ternary. In second line the Heb. reads : but a wise
man stills it back ; the //naturally refers to the fool's wrath, but it
is obviously the wise man's wrath that the couplet contemplates.
The verb still (if, Sg^'^"') does not accord with the adverb back,
and the constr. pregnans (RV. keepeth it back and stilleth it) is
improbable ; nor can back = " in the background of his soul "
(De.), or "afterwards" (Siegf.). The Grk. suggests the appro-
priate term restrain (Bi.), and for the doubtful back we may read
his anger (Frank.).— Wrath is lit. spirit (= mind or frame of
mitid or temper), here, from the connection (as in Eccl. 10^), a
state of wrath.
12-14. Great and poor.
12. If a ruler listens to falsehood,
All his servants are wicked.
13. The poor and the oppressor meet together,
Yahweh gives light to the eyes of both.
14. A king who deals equitably with the poor.
His throne will be established forever.
12. Condition and consequence, ternary-binary. Falsehood is here
any sort of untruthful statement, as unjust accusation (especially
of the poor), falsity in civil administration and political relations;
the courtiers adjust themselves to the prince. — Servant is any
XXIX. IO-I6 5"
functionary in the service of the king (i S. i6^ 2 S. 2^^-^^ 2 K. 5®
Pr. 14^ a/.). — 13. Single sentence, ternary. A variation of 22^,
on which see note. Oppressor seems to be a general term,
involving all sorts of hard proceduies, financial and other (cf. the
similar term in \\i 16' 55"'^^' 72"), but there may be special refer-
ence to money (cf. the rich of 22^) ; Grk. : creditor and debtor.
— Meet together^ as in 22^ — The second line = " God enables
both to see," that is, " gives to both the light of life" (t/^ 13* Job
33*^ Eccl. 1 1^), creates both, permits them to exist, and controls
them — that is, there must be social classes, but God governs all.
— 14. Single sentence, quaternary-ternary. Lit. : who judges the
poor in truth. Cf. 16'" 20-^ 25^ 31*. The perpetual duration of
the dynasty is made to depend not on physical or intellectual but
on moral character ; the sage has in mind probably divine bless-
ing, possibly economic and other social laws; cf. \\i 18^"^*'' 45^^^^
72".
15-17. Training of children. Triumph of the righteous.
15. The rod of correction gives wisdom,
But a child left to himself brings disgrace on his mother.
16. When the wicked < are in power,' wrong increases,
But the righteous will feast their eyes on their fall.
17. Correct thy son, and he will yield thee comfort,
And give delight to thy soul.
15. Antithetic, ternary (or, quaternary). Lit. : rod and correc-
tion, hendiadys. Cf. 13^^ 23^^ For left to himself {Wi. let go,
= unrestrained) see Isa. 16^ {scattered nestlings') 27^" {a scattered
home), and cf. Job 39*. Brings disgrace, cf. 10^ 17^'. The mother
appears to be named not as being the tenderer parent, perhaps as
the one who has most to do with the training of the young child,
possibly for rhetorical variation (cf. 17^^ 23-^^). Grk. parents
may be free translation. — 16. Implicit antithesis, ternary. Cf.
jjio. n 2Z\i.-i% 2g2_ jj^ ^j.gj. ijj^g^ fyj. jjeb increase, read govern (as
in 29^), or are in potver. — The second line assumes that right
will prevail in civil government as in all other things. Feast the
eyes on is lit. see in (so Ez. 28") ; the fall of the wicked is the
salvation of the righteous (i/^ 3^***' s'"*'" 34^"^"' ^nd passim) — s.
sentiment engendered by the conflicts of the later times (cf. the
512
PROVERBS
English Puritans of the seventeenth century), — The couplet sepa-
rates two similar couplets, and is perhaps out of place. In the Grk.
it stands both here and after 28^'. — 17. Single sentence (with two
identical consequents), ternary. See 19'^ and passages referred
to under v.^^. Yield comfort is lit. give rest, relieve from anxiety ;
see Dt. i2^» 2 S. 7' Ez. 5^^ Lam. 5= al.
18. Heb. : ^vhere there is no vision people perish (or, become
disorderly), but he who obeys instruction {or, law), happy is he.
Antithetic, ternary. The word vision must refer to divine com-
munications to prophets, and the text gives the two forms of Isra-
elitish divine revelation. But the vision can hardly be genuine.
The statement of first cl. is historically incorrect : the most calam-
itous period of IsraeUte history, politically and morally, was that
during which prophecy was at its height (and foreign nations do
not come into consideration), and the people were obedient at a
time when God hid his face and there was no prophet (i// 44. 74).
Moreover, Pr. nowhere else mentions prophetic teaching, its
guide being wisdom, the instruction of the sages. We should
probably substitute for vision some such word as guidance (see
1 1^*).— People = " folk," as in 24"* Ez. 36^ i// 2 2«('', not the people,
the nation. The precise meaning of the verb of first line is
doubtful; it appears to be equivalent to the "fall" of 11"; the
signification " become disorderly, throw off restraint " is assumed
from Ex. 32^.
10. ^ r^'p?-; Dys. np3-. It is perhaps better to change Q-^u-^ to ^yp.—
Bi. iC'D) irp3-, citing, for such Aram, form, the ---; of Hos. 13I; but the form
nm is doubtful (see (g), and for a Heb. verbal noun r-i there is no authority;
for ^ii respiration, quiet see Buxt. lex. — \\. On the sense quiet for stem
nac* see Lane (/.^x.), who holds the fundamental meaning to be/ar removed,
free (from care), whence declare free (from imperfections) = praise ; cf. the
Talmudic use to make better, more effective. (@ Ta/iiei/rat; SE TCr\; IL differ t
et reservat. Read ifn, with Bi. — ?^ ^nsa; SST Nry->-, in thought. Read
^pn. — 13. J^ ^m-^ -i'Si C'-^; <@ ha-viarov /cai xpe'^<^'^^T0«' (as if = t6kos, Lag.).
The sense of stem ^^ appears to be press, repress, oppress (so Aram. Arab.) ;
cf. -^n. — ie. 1^ nam; read m-)p. — 18. |^ ?rn; (g ^^ijt^jttjs ^?</-?, perhaps
free rendering of ?^, possibly = r^Dnr, which, however, is elsewhere (except
in Job 37I2) represented by /cuja^pvijo-ts or Kvjiepvwcns. — S® avoid the state-
ment of ^ (which probably seemed to them disparaging to an age that had
no visions), and substitute, from v.i*^, when the 'virkeJ increase {Y\x^.^. — We
XXIX. I6-I9, 21 5^3
>1 ould perhaps read rS^n"; '^3n line (not curb) hardly suits. — J^ may have
teen influenced by the HTn of v."'^'^. For ||J ;'to^ Frank, suggests, as possible,
yno' will be scattered, which, however, is hardly suitable. On stem >-io see
Ges. Tkes. and note on i'^^; the sense perish may perh. be allied with the
sense free ; cf. Arab. yifl.
19. The training of servants.
Not by words must a servant be taught,
For he understands, but does not obey.
Single sentence, ternary. The servant, so the proverb intimates,
like the son (v.^^), must be trained by the rod — words will not
guide him — he is not quite a rational being. On servant (prop-
erly slave) see note on ii-'''. Taught = corrected, set right, disci-
plined (9' 19^* 29^^ cf. 31')- T>oes not obey is lit. there is no
answer. — Grk., interpreting : a stubborn servant. The render-
ing : that servant will not amend upon admonition who, under-
statiding, will yet give no answer (Hodgson) misses the point of
the couplet. Cf. Ben-Sira's detailed instructions for the manage-
ment of servants (BS. 2>Z^^^)'
21. The couplet seems to belong with v.'^ Heb. : he who
delicately brings up his servant front a child, in the end he will be
. . . The subject of second line may be the subject {lie) or
the object {servant) of first line. In the end = at the conclusion
of this mode of procedure — it denotes the outcome of the exper-
iment, not necessarily the end of life. The omitted word, which
occurs only here, has been rendered refractory (Lat.), unthankful
(Ew.), j-<7« (Saad. ^W.), young gentleman (Luth.) etc. ; it is prob-
ably an error of text. De. : he [the master] will finally becotne a
nursery, that is, his house will be overrun by the children of his
pampered servant. — Grk. : he who from a child lives luxuriously
will be a servant, and in the end will come to grief Some such
reading as this for second cl. should probably be adopted, though
it is not clear whether it is the master or the servant or the child
that comes to grief.
20, 22, 23. Of passion and pride.
20. Seest thou a man hasty in his words?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.
2L
514 PROVERBS
22. An irascible man stirs up strife,
And a passionate man is the cause of much wrong.
23. A man's pride will bring him low,
But he who is of a lowly spirit will obtain honor.
20. Condition and consequence, ternary. The rendering affairs,
business (RV. marg.) instead of words is possible — the general
sense is the same : haste is destructive of reflection ; cf. 10*. —
For second line see note on 26^^. Cf. BS. 9^* Jas. i^^. — 22. Syn-
onymous, ternary. Irascible man, lit. man of anger = one given
to anger (not an angry man, which expresses a merely temporary
feeling), = passionate (lit. possessor of wrath). The predicate of
second cl. is lit. great (or, abounding) in transgression, that is,
causing sin in himself and others by occasioning and fomenting
quarrels, Cf. 15^* i4>^-2^ 16''" 22-^ al. — 23. Antithetic, ternary.
See notes on 11^ 13'° 15^ i6^'^-'^ — The paronomasia low . . .
lowly is found in the Hebrew.
24. Partnership in theft.
He who is partner with a thief is enemy to himself —
He hears the curse and discloses nothing.
Single sentence, quaternary-ternary. Is partner with, lit. walks
with, that is, probably, belongs to a gang of thieves (see i'**"^^).
The case contemplated (if the text be correct) may be that of a
theft in which the guilty person is unknown — a curse is pro-
nounced on the unknown thief — the man in question hears it,
but is afraid to say anything, and the curse, which has objective
or magic power (see note on 26^), strikes him; cf. Ju. 17^.* As
an oath involved a curse (the vengeance of the deity being
invoked against the violator of the oath), the word here used may
also mean oath (as in Gen. 24*^ i K. 8^^ Ez. 17^^); in Dt.
2^14(13). 19(18) jj^g \.txva. is equivalent to covenant (a curse being pro-
nounced against a delinquent). The case described in Lev. 5^ is
apparently that of a witness in court who, having heard the curse
uttered on an unknown offender, fails to tell what he knows, and
thus hinders the execution of justice ; he is acquitted on present-
ing an offering. — The couplet is otherwise explained as referring
* See Moore, Judges.
XXIX. 20, 22-27 5 ' 5
to the accomplice in a theft who is called into court as witlle;:,^^,
has an oath administered to him (RV. he heareth the adjuration),
and perjures himself. But in that case the connection between
the two lines is not clear. Partnership with a thief does not nec-
essarily or usually involve being summoned as witness, it does
involve moral injury to the man whether he is forced into perjury
or not, and the perjury does not bring physical injury unless it is
discovered ; moreover, the verb hears is not the natural expres-
sion for taking an oath — we should rather expect : he swears to
tell the truth, yet discloses nothing. Hitzig, therefore, interprets :
" he is really partner with a thief who, being called on to testify,
says nothing." Possibly second line is corrupt, or out of place. —
The proverb may be aimed at men in high places who employed
inferiors in acts of robbery or peculation, and shielded them in
legal inquiries,
25-27. Of piety and probity.
25. The fear of man brings a snare,
But he who trusts in Yahweh is safe.
26. Many seek the ruler's favor.
But every man's case is decided by Yahweh.
27. The righteous abhor the vicious,
The wicked abhor the upright.
25. Antithetic, ternary. Fear of man = regulation of one's con-
duct by the opinion 01 attitude of morally untrained men, fearing
to speak truth and do right lest it should provoke enmity.
Brings a snare = involves in misfortune. He is safe (lit. set on
high in a safe place, cf. 18^"" \p 20'^^') who trusts for protection
in God, and does his duty. Cf. 10^ 12^ al. — 26. Antithetic, ter-
nary, or, ternary-binary. Cf. i6^-^-^. Favor is Wi.face ; cf. 1/^ 27*
and Pr. 6'" i/' 10" 16". The face showed the disposition or
temper of mind, and the term is equivalent in Heb. to presence.
The proverb deplores immoral (cringing or corrupt) reliance on
human (especially political) power — God decides every man's
destiny. — 27. Antithetic, ternary. Lit. : the abomination of the
righteous is etc., and the abomination of the wicked is etc. On
abomination see note on 3''^; vicious, lit. man of iniquity ; upright,
lit. upright of way. Cf. 8^ 15^ 24'-*.
5l6 PROVERBS
21. |§ Jjr, air, "Key,, is usually taken as = pj j<rz(5«, offspring, a sense
possible but not probable; Berth. 's emendation jn:: does not afford a satisfac-
torily definite antithesis; ']-\x (cf. 25!^ 27!^ 3°^'^) would be better — the sing,
form of this word is found in 30I'' Keth., in the other instances the plur. The
choice of a air. Xe^., = son, instead of p, would be strange; the word is
probably a miswriting. © idwrjO-qaerai, = (Jag.) jra n\n'; ^ r\:r'r<:2 (from
n:N); 2r i^~}~- For pa Ew. (/«/i;-/!'. xi. p. loff.) cites Eth. mannani, ^«^ 7e^/4o
despises. (S^ should probably be adopted; for * either |^ or (S gives a good
sense. — 23. Note the assonance in ^t'' \ and ^tj'. — 24. After J^ 3Ji Bi.
inserts nail ct' 2:n, and omits ^^, which may be a gloss after Lev. 5I. Bi.'s
emendation is ingenious, and the resultant sense is not inapposite, but n^ji :f
is an improbable expression (see, for ex.. Gen. 43'^^). — 25. (S has two versions
of the couplet, J^ din nnnn being rendered in the second by dcrd^fia, free
translation, opposite of Oeoffi^eia (Lag.).
V. CHAPTERS XXX., XXXI.
Chapter XXX.
The chapter forms a separate collection of sayings, differing
markedly in tone from the rest of the Book. Its contents lead
us to refer it to the latest period of gnomic collections ; it was
probably added by the latest editor, that is, after collections I.-IV.
had been made up. It appears also to have undergone editorial
revision; see notes on v.^"- '^- ^•'.
It consists of the title (v.^"), what appears to be the "words of
Agur" (v."^), an exhortation to trust God (v.^-®), a prayer (v.'"^),
an isolated maxim (v.'"), a series of tetrads (v.""^'), and a sextet
on pride and anger (v.^^'^).
How much of the chapter the collector intended to include in
the "words of Agur" it is hardly possible to say. By some expos-
itors the whole ch. is referred to Agur, by others v.'"'' or v.'"'", by
others v.'"*. The plu. sayings might suggest a number of gnomes,
but cf. 31^"^. Since the paragraphs are in thought independent,
and must be treated separately, the question of unity of author-
ship is not important. — The Heb. of v.* reads : The words of
Agur, the son of Yakeh {Jakeh), the prophecy (or, oracle), the
prophetic utterance (or, divine utterance) of the man to Ithiel, to
Ithiel and Ucal. Since the expression prophetic utterance always
introduces the words uttered (Gen. 22^*^ Nu. 24^ Am. 2" a/.), the
title proper consists of the preceding part of the verse. In this
title the word prophecy {tnassa) is inapposite ; it is a term of the
Prophetic vocabulary (rendered in AV. RV. by burden*), and
expresses a divine message or oracle, a form of utterance quite
out of keeping with the individual and reflective tone of what fol-
lows. How the word is to be treated is uncertain. One Grk.
* It means burden as well 2i% prophetic utterance ; in Jar. 2333-*' there is possibly
a play on the two senses of the word.
5l8 PROVERBS
Vrs. and many expositors take it as the name of a place, or name
derived from name of place, and emend to frotn (or, of) Massa,
or, the Massaite. Others, by a different emendation, read : the
gnomic saying (Heb. mashal), or, the gnomic writer (Heb.
moshel). Those who regard it as a proper name identify it with
the region Massa of Gen. 25" i C. i''", of which the exact loca-
tion is not known, though it was presumably not far from the Isra-
eUtish border (cf. note on 31*). In that case Agur (like the
personages of the Book of Job) would be a resident of a non-
Jewish region ; it would not follow that he was not a Jew, or that,
if a Gentile, he was unacquainted with Jewish thought. But, as
we know nothing of the civilization of this Massa, the name adds
nothing to the understanding of the passage. The second read-
ing (Saad. Geig. Bick.) has the advantage of relieving the ques-
tion from the geographical discussion. But, if it be adopted, it
must probably be regarded as not original, since sayings is a suffi-
cient description of what follows ; or, if it be original, it must
have been defined in some way (see note on 31^), but the text
gives no definition (the Lat., improperly attaching following cl.,
has: the vision which the man spoke). The word of the third
reading (Gratz), ?noshei, is found elsewhere only in Nu. 21^'' Ez.
16'" 18- (the verb several times in Ez.), and then in the sense of
"speaker, reciter, writer, or employer of proverbs," and it appears
not to belong to the vocabulary of the philosophical school ; we
should rather expect sage as the epithet of Agur. trailing a satis-
factory emendation, we may regard the word of the text as a gloss
or as unintelligible, and omit it without detriment to the sense,
rendering provisionally :
la. The title proper. The words of Agur Ben-Yakeh. Of the
Anc. Vrss. Syr. Targ. and Venet. Grk. take Agur and Yakeh as
proper names ; Lat. regards the words as descriptive appellatives,
and translates : the tvords of the assembler, the son of the vomiter,
in which assembler = " teacher, one who gathers the people for
instruction," and vomiter = " one who pours out words of instruc-
tion." Agur is identified with Solomon (Yakeh then being David)
by many Jewish and Christian expositors (Rashi, Aben Ezra, L.
de Dieu, Stier al.) ; by others (Saad. Mich, al.) he is taken to be
XXX. I 519
an otherwise unknown ancient sage. The name " Yakeh " is by
some (Mlihlau, De.) held to mean obedient, pious ; the Midrash
explains son of Yakeh as = " one who is free from all sin and
iniquity " ; Hitzig changes the word and renders : Agur, son of
her whofn Massa obeys (Zockler : son of the princess of Massa),
Agur being thus made into a brother of Lemuel (31'). Grk. sees
no proper names in the sentence ; it renders : reverence my words,
son, and receive them and repent. — There seems to be nothing
better than to keep the Agur Ben- Yakeh, and to regard Agur as a
sage, Jewish or non-Jewish, not of the time of Solomon, but of the
late reflective period, or else as a man (like Job) famous in tradi-
tion, and taken by ^ome late writer as his mouthpiece for the
expression of philosophic thought.
I*'. Secondary title (?). Lit. : inspired titterance of the man
to Ithiel, to Ithieland Ukal, in which most of the older interpreters
see the names of two ancient sages, some suggesting that Ukal
might be the Calcol of i K. 4^^[5"]. The names were sometimes
interpreted as significant, Ithiel (Neh. 11') as = "signs (= pre-
cepts) of God," or " with me is God," or " there is a God,"
Ukal as = " I can " (that is, " I can maintain my obedience to
God "), the reference being to Solomon or to some other man or
men. — Very early, however, there were attempts to get rid of the
proper names and explain the sentence as an expression of
thought introductory to what follows. Grk. : these things says the
man to those who trust in God, and I cease ; Aq. : to Ethiel, and
do thou fjiish ; Th. : to Ethiel, and I shall be able; Lat. para-
phrases : the vision spoken by the man with whom God is, and
who, because God abides with him, is strengthened. In 1669 Coc-
ceius (Koch) in his Lexicon proposed to translate the words fol-
lowing the word man : I have labored on account of God, and I
have obtaified, and this form of rendering, which found little favor
at the time, has been almost universally adopted, though with vari-
ations, by modern expositors. The clause (after the word man)
is translated : I have ivearied fnyself about God (or, O God), I
have wearied myself about God (or, O God), and I have pined
away (or, am consumed or faint, or, have finished) ; or, with the
insertion of the negative : / liave wearied myself etc., and have
520 PROVERBS
not succeeded (or, prevailed, lit. am twt able). In all such inter-
pretations, if ths letters of the present Heb. text be retained
unchanged, the Vocative, O God, must be adopted ; the render-
ing about God is unwarranted. The expressions have pitied
away, or atfi faint, or am at an end (that is, of my powers)
are somewhat forced; the form with the negative (Bick.) is
better. Apart from these differences of construction the sen-
tence, thus emended, expresses Agur's complete failure in his
effort to comprehend God's nature and mode of procedure. This
confession of ignorance (agnosticism) may be a reverent acknowl-
edgment of the transcendence of God (cf. Job ii'"^"), or it may
be an expression of purely philosophic doubt ; see notes on v.''"*.
— None of these emendations, however, can be considered satis-
factory. In the first place, the man cannot stand isolated, but
must be followed by a descriptive phrase, as in Nu. 24^ *-^^-^^ 2 S.
23^*; and Bickell accordingly changes the text and renders:
utterance of the man who has wearied himself about God : I have
wearied myself etc. ; but this repetition is unnatural and improb-
able. It is more likely that the second of these expressions is
erroneous scribal repetition of the first, or a corruption of some
other word. In the next place, the word utterance, which is the
technical term for the message of the prophet or the chant of the
seer, is here out of place as definition of a philosophical dictum.
It is understood by some as an ironical designation (by Agur or
an editor) of the doubt expressed in v.^"* : " behold the exalted
effusion of the champion " ; but such irony is extremely improb-
able. Probably a descriptive expression originally followed the
name Agur Ben-Yakeh (cf. 31') or some statement the ground of
which is introduced by the for of v.^, but the text appears to be
corrupt beyond possibility of restoration. Fortunately the sense
of the following verses is independent of this clause.
2-4. Agur's dictum.
2. I am stupid, beneath man's level,
Have not human intelligence.
* The text of ^ 361(2) jg corrupt ; see 01s. Cheyne, and Wellh. in Haupt's Sacred
Books,
XXX. 1-4 521
3. I have not learned wisdom,
I do not comprehend the Holy One.
4. Who has ascended to heaven.and descended,
Gathered the wind in his fist,
Bound the waters in a garment.
Fixed the boundaries of the earth?
What is his name, and what his son's name?
Surely thou knowest.
2, 3. Synonymous, ternary. The Heb. begins the v. with /c>r, the
reference being apparently to some preceding statement now lost.
Apparently a sarcastic avowal of intellectual dulness, = " there are
some who profess to understand God perfectly, and can give a
full explanation of all that he does — I am not one of these wise
men " — a sarcasm possibly aimed at men like the Three Friends
and Ehhu in Job, Agur sympathizing with Job himself; only,
while Job's doubt is agony of soul, Agur's interest is dispassionate.
— The first cl. of v.^ is lit. : /am sti/pid (or, a brute beast) from
man, not, that is, "the most stupid (or, the least learned) of men,"
but " of a stupidity that separates me from humanity, and equals
me with the lower animals," and this is the sense of second cl.
also. — Stupid, cf. 12^ \\i 73"; here it refers to the intellect. On
Holy One see note on 9^**. Possibly there is here allusion to such
declarations as that of 9"* ; cf. Job 6'". Wisdom = the pretended
wisdom of the schools. — 4. Five questions, ternary. The sub-
ject cannot be " God " (De. a/.) — this interpretation is excluded
by the sequence ascended . . . descended (the starting-point being
the earth), and by the reference to the son* Since the questions
(which appear to be modelled on Job 38, cf. Pr. S-'^-"-') express
divine acts, they must be regarded as a sarcastic description of a
man who controls the phenomena of the universe (cf. Reuss) ;
only such an one (as Yahweh says to Job) can speak authorita-
tively of God's nature and administration. — The garmetit is the
* In support of the reference to God, Cheyne {yob and Solomon, p. 151 f.) cites
Rig- Veda, 10, 129: "Who knows, who here can declare, whence has sprung,
whence, this creation ? ... From what this creation arose, and whether [any
one] made it, or not, he who in the highest heaven is its ruler, he verily knows, or
[even] he does not know." But, as Cheyne himself intimates, between the specu-
lations of an Indian philosopher and the skepticism of a Jewish sage there is a
wide gulf.
522 PROVERBS
clouds (Job 26^). Cf. notes on 8'^"^^ To know a man's name
and his sort's name is to be well acquainted with him. The satir-
ical tone is continued in the last words : surely thou knowest, or
less well that thou should'' st know, or if thou knowest. Cf. Job
38^. — The questions are by some expositors supposed to be
asked not by Agur, but by a doubter (the man of v.^), to whom
Agur replies inv.^-^; see notes on v.\ — On the supposition that
the subject of the v. is " God " the son has been understood as
= Israel {MidrasK) , or the demiurge (Levi ben-Gerson), or Christ
(Procop. rt'/.), or as an adumbration of the Alexandrian doctrine
of the Logos (Ew.) or of the NT. doctrine of the Son of God
(De.). But in all these cases both the name and the son's
name would be known, — The brevity of Agur's discourse makes
it obscure. But there is no reason to regard it as irreverent
toward God or as a denial of his existence, or as scofifing at
"revealed religion"; the conception of "revealed religion," in
the modern sense of the expression, did not then exist. He
seems to take the position of the discourse of Yahweh (Job
38^^"') ; his attitude is one of reverent agnosticism, and he
belongs to the school of the last reviser of the Book of Job and
Koheleth. Cf. the submissive tone of i/' 131 in the face of ques-
tions like that here raised.
5, 6. Exhortation to trust and obey God.
5. Every word of God is pure;
He is a shield to those who trust in him.
6. Add not to his words,
Lest he rebuke thee, and thou be found a liar.
v.'* is a couplet, ternary, taken from x\i iS^"''^" (=28. 22^^) ; cf.
i/' i2"'^> 119"". V.*' is a prose sentence, the first half of which is
taken from Dt. 4^ (or \r-'^ [13']), and the second half appears to
be based on Job 13''"'. — The word God is in the Heb. the sing,
form {Elo^h, plu. Elohini), found in Prov. only here, often in Job,
elsewhere rare, always in postexilian writings, except Dt. 32^^"'
Hab. i" Isa. 44* (and in the two last passages, and perhaps in the
first, it is not a proper name, but a common noun) ; in \\i 18^" the
name is YaMveh. — The adj. in v.'^ may be x^wA^xtA pure, purified,
like a metal, morally perfect, a perfect guide, or tried, trustworthy.
XXX. 4-6 523
SO that his promise may be reUed on. — Rebuke = reprove, correct,
set right ; see 3'- q'^** 15^^ al. — The passage is by some regarded
as the editor's reply to Agur's preceding sceptical utterance, by
others as Agur's reply to the sceptical opinion quoted by him.
But the expressions are too general for a formal reply ; in a
polemic we should expect a more specific reference to what pre-
cedes. V.^ assert that God is incomprehensible ; v.^- ^ declare
that God's word is pure, final, and complete, and that he pro-
tects those who trust him. The paragraph may have been here
inserted by the editor to relieve the negative tone of v.^"^, but
hardly to refute the assertion of the latter. — The stress is here
laid on the completeness of God's words, and the paragraph is
aimed at certain persons who wished to add to them. The words
are the written revelation, that is, the Law, and probably the
Prophets, and also the Psalms, since one of these is quoted.
The threefold division of the Jewish Scriptures (Law, Prophets,
Writings) is first expressly mentioned in the Preface to Ben-Sira
(B.C. 132), and this paragraph may have been written not far from
that time. It is difficult to say what additions are referred to.
In the preceding paragraph (v.--^) there is no indication of inten-
tion to add to the written word ; rather, if any modification of the
word is suggested, it is a subtraction (see notes above), but our
sage, in quoting from Deut., omits the injunction take not from it,
as if he had only additions in mind. These are more probably
doctrinal than ritual, and more probably religious than philosoph-
ical. Possibly the allusion is to the new doctrines of resurrection
and immortality, which began to take shape among the Jews in
the second century B.C. The writer, in that case, belonged to the
conservative party. The authority of the written word was univer-
sally recognized ; but the progressive party (afterward known as
the Pharisees) adopted suggestions from Persian and Greek
thought, and thus made additions to the teaching of Law, Proph-
ets, and Psalms. Koheleth (Eccl. 9^) combats the doctrine of
immortality; Daniel (ch. 12) affirms resurrection of Israelites,
but says nothing of immortality proper ; Wisd. of Solomon (ch. 3)
accepts this latter doctrine, but says nothing of resurrection. The
two ideas were not established without a struggle.
Omitting y.^"- 1^- ^- 32- =»^ the remainder of the chapter consists of
524 PROVERBS
proverbs in which groups of two or four things are named (as in
6"'"''*). This numerical arrangement is found as early as the
eighth century b.c. (Am. 1^-2"), and appears several times in late
poetry (ip 62"'^-* Job 5''^ :^^^^ 40'), but is most fully employed in
this chapter. It is probably a very ancient form of the Heb.
mashal or stanza, in which it was useful as an aid to memory.
The peculiarity of enumeration seems to be merely a mode of
expressing indefiniteness {^ three or four), in accordance with
the mashalic principle of parallelism (heightening). — Cf. BS. 23**^
25^ 26^, and the Kalevala.
7-9. A prayer for preservation from the temptations of
poverty and riches.
7. Two things I ask of thee,
Deny me them not before I die :
8. Deceit and lying put far from me,
Poverty and riches give me not —
Provide me with the food I need —
9. Lest I be full and deny thee,
And say : " Who is Yahweh ? "
Or be needy and steal,
And profane the name of my God.
The form of the stanza is not symmetrical. Of the two things
mentioned in the petition, namely, deceit and financial extremes,
only the latter is referred to in v.^ ; the poet, perhaps, thought the
reason for the prayer against lying too obvious to need mention.
The third line of v.* looks like a gloss ; it is involved in the second
line. Inv.^ we might expect, in accordance with the norm of sev-
eral following stanzas, the enumeration one . . . tivo (De.). Also
the expression before I die is somewhat strange. The similar
expression in \\i 39i'^<"' involves the meaning : " I am soon to die ;
grant me relief from my present suffering that I may taste some
happiness before I die and lose the possibility of enjoyment."
Here, however, the situation is different : the petitioner asks not
for cessation of suffering, but for a lifelong provision ; in the Ps.
the rehef might be deferred till death, here the petition involves
life, so that the before I die is unnecessary, and, as it involves the
present, the setting a future limit is inappropriate. The couplet
should perhaps read : one thing I ask of thee, t7vo things deny me
XXX. 6-IO 52^
not,- the norm one . . . two is perhaps, however, intentionally
departed from; cf. v."'" below. — The insertion of O Yahwch
after of thee (Bick.) is appropriate but not necessary. Deceit
(RV. vanity) is synonym of lying (lit. word of falsehood) ; see
y\i 24'* 144*". Provide me, lit. cause me to secure. The food I
need, lit. the l>7rad of my determined (that is, proper) portion;
Reuss : my sufficient bread ; De. not so well : the dread allotted
me (by God) — the bread is of course allotted by God, but what
the petitioner desires is that necessary provision which avoids
extremes.* Deny {thee) : because a man of independent means
is apt to forget that all comes from God. The use of the national
name Yahweh would seem unfavorable to the supposition that
v.^-^ are by the same author. — Profane, lit. lay hold of, that is,
not use disrespectfully (by venting discontent on God, reproaching
him with his apparent injustice), but bring into disrepute (by
stealing) ; cf. Ez. 36-'". To profane is to make common (the
opposite of sacred, holy), to cause (a divine person or a sacred
thing) to be considered unworthy of reverence. — We might
expect the prayer : " teach me to use both poverty and riches
aright " ; but the writer's experience and observation have appar-
ently impressed him with the dangers of both.
10. Against speaking ill of a servant.
Defame not a servant to his master,
Lest he curse thee, and thou be held guilty.
Single sentence, ternary-binary. Defame, lit. wag the tongue
against, gossip about. If the defamation be false, the act is
slander (so (// 101^) ; here it seems better to adopt the more gen-
eral sense, since slander is always a crime, and a special prohibi-
tion in the case of a servant was not necessary. The proverb
forbids meddling in other men's household arrangements. — The
ground of the warning is the punishment that will fall on the med-
dler. The aggrieved servant will curse his traducer, and the curse
will certainly affect the latter ; see note on 26^. The verb be held
guilty (or, be guilty) is a common technical term of the later
ritual (Lev. ^'^ Nu.'s" al., and cf. xfj 5'"^'" 3421- ^2(2-'. 23)) . jj occurs
* Cf. the Tov iniovaiov of Mt. 611 Lu. u3_
526 PROVERBS
only here in Pr., but the corresponding noun is found in 14^ On
set-vant see note on 11^. — The proverb would stand more natu-
rally in chs. 23. 24, and has probably been misplaced by a scribe,
who connected its curse with the curse of v.". Ewald seeks to
bring it into relation with the preceding context by rendering:
incite not the servant [ = the pious man] against his Lord [ = Yah-
weh], but the translation incite is doubtful, and the sense then
given to second cl. (" the pious man, when he perceives the error
into which he has been led, curses his seducer ") is improbable.*
XXX. The section 301-1* stands in (g next after 2422. — Some MSS. and
printed edd. have Ni^'^ instead of npj. — 1. @ read anpi •'j3 njp 1-131; tieravdei
may be explanatory insertion (in which case }^ sron is not rendered), or may
represent some form of xfj. — J^ won; Sj'iH who received a prophecy, com-
bining xra with aNj; !L visio, = |§. It should perh. be read Sro, and
regarded as a gloss on ^^ai; cf. notes on 311. — ?^ nxj is hardly the ^inflated
expression of a late editor who wished to imitate the old Prophetic style.
1^ i3^n is rendered in S) by and he was strong, = naji. — Ginsb. : Vn tin iS.
— 1§ '^w may be pointed "i-^n (from n'^o) or "r-^N (from '^^2) or(Geig. Urschrift,
p. 61) SrN (from "-o^); Geig. takes it as interrog. : how could I ? Bick. inserts
nS. On the pointings Von with 3 raphatum (which is the better supported) and
S-N see De. and B-D. — 3. The neg. n'^ is to be continued into ^, or inserted
in the text; cf. v.is. (5 eih%,-^>>.\ — ^. |§ rjono; (5 kv Kb\irif, = yyinz.~
1^ ^3 ; (5 r^Kxots (xvTov. — For |^ ::pn Bi. writes rch, and after |^ fix inserts
Sn "^y ^^."^p^} as introduction to the following questions. — 8. |^ ^^t\ dhS, for
which, in Gen. 4722, stands simply pn (Frank.). — Bi. converts » into a couplet
by inserting 1 Dp^J after -i3ti. — 9. J^ nin^ >n; (5 nrm ^d.
11-14. Four depraved classes of men.
11. Men who curse their fathers.
And do not bless their mothers !
12. Men who count themselves pure.
Yet are not cleansed of filthiness !
13. Men of haughty looks
And supercilious bearing !
14. Men whose teeth are swords.
And their mouths armed with knives !
In the last verse the Heb. adds the couplet :
To devour the poor from off the earth.
And the needy from among men.
* Cf. the similar representation in Koran 1423-27 3430-32.
XXX. IO-I4 527
The four classes are the unfilial, the self-righteous, the arrogant,
and the rapacious. — As the text stands, each couplet is the
exclamatory mention of a class, with descriptive relative clause,
but without predicate, and this is the most satisfactory reading.
Grk. inserts an adj. and takes the verb as predicate : a wicked gen-
eration curses etc. ; others supply the substantive verb : there is a
gefieration ivho etc. (RV. al.), or take the first noun as Voc. : O
generation, that curses etc. (Ew.) ; the reading woe to the genera-
tion etc. is not in accordance with the norm of the chapter. The
couplets appear to approach the rhythmical norm of the Heb.
elegy, as if the writer mingled sadness with his denunciation. —
11. Lit. : a generation which etc., the word generation meaning
not a genealogical group, or a mass of people living in the same
age, but a class or circle, — {certain) men, as in i!/ 24*^. — On the
sin referred to see note on 20^. — 12. Lit. : a generation pure in
its {own) eyes, yet from its filthiness not washed, men who thought
themselves morally good because they observed certain conven-
tional or ritual proprieties, yet at heart were bad. Cf. 20* Mt.
23-^-". The term filthiness, or, filth, here (and in Isa. 4'*) signify-
ing moral defilement, is used in a physical sense in 2 K. 18-^
(= Isa. 36'^) Isa. 288 (cf. Dt. 23"<") Ez. 4^2 Zech. f^).—
13. Lit. : a generation, how lofity are their eyes, and their eyelids
are lifited up! Cf 6'" \\i 131^ — 14. Lit.: a generation, their
teeth are swords, and their teeth knives. The Heb. has two words
(synonyms) for teeth; the second (a poetic word. Job 29^^ Joel
i" i/' 58"*^') does not mean jaw-teeth or tnolars (Grk. RV. al.). —
The sin denounced is unscrupulous use of power to gain one's
ends ; the figure is that of a ravening beast. — It was natural that
this description of rapacity should be interpreted (as in the
appended couplet, v."" '^), by a scribe, as a reference to oppres-
sion of the poor. But the addition of an interpretation is not the
manner of the numerical groups of this chapter; the aphorism is
supposed to carry its own interpretation. The couplet may refer,
in general, to oppression of the poor, or the terms poor and needy
(which are synonyms) may= Israel (as in xp 35^" 82^ al.) ; the former
interpretation appears to be favored by 31" -'". On poor and needy
see notes on 3*^ 14^'. — The whole stanza may refer to Israelitish
offenders, or to rich and powerful foreigners (cf ip 13. 14. loi. 120,
123 al.).
528 PROVERBS
Here begins the series of tetrads proper, the progressive form
of numeration, tkree . . . four, being employed, except in the
group in v.^^^. V.^'*, however, stands out of connection with
what follows.
15*. Lit. : Aluka has two daughters, give, give. The word
aluka means leech in Syr. and Late-Heb. (and the Arab, has
nearly the same form), is here so rendered in the Anc. Vrss., and
is so understood by the great body of recent expositors. Allegor-
ical interpretations, such as the Ufiderworht, with its two daughters,
Paradise and Gehenna {Midrash of Pss. Rashi), or simply
Gehenna {Aboda Zara 17 a. Midr. of Pr.), or No?ieniiiy (Saad.),
or Wicked Desire (Calvin), or Greediness (De.), are without foun-
dation. Nor is there any philological ground (Ew. al.) for
regarding the word as the name of a bloodsucking or cannibal
demon, similar to Heb. lilith, Rom. lamia, Arab, gtil, Hindoo
vetala, Egypt, ka. — The two daughters are explained as the two
mouths of the leech, or two young leeches, or paradise and
gehenna, or avarice and ambition, or two sorts of nothingness etc.
There is a difference between calling a hill a " son of oil," that is,
"fruitful" (Isa. 5^), and saying not " Sheol etc. are daughters of
the leech," but " the leech has two daughters." The double give,
give is regarded by some as giving the names of the daughters, by
others as an exclamation or cry uttered by them : daughters \_7vh0
continually cry ,•] give, give ! — Various emendations of the text
have been proposed. Ewald : the bloodsucker has two daughters,
" hither, hither'" ! three that say : " hither, hither, hither the blood 1
the blood of the bad child '^ /, to which he then attaches v.". De.
supposes a triplet, which ran: the Aluka has two daughters;
Give ! give ! — Sheol and the barren womb ; there are three that
are never satisfied, the three being Aluka and her two daughters ;
and on this, he suggests, followed a quatrain (of which only a part
remains), beginning: four say not enough (v.^^"). Bickell : three
things are not satisfied; four say not: enough! Aluka has two
datighters : give, give, Sheol and the womb, and the rest as in the
Heb. text. These reconstructions, all arbitrary, are called forth
by the desire to bring v.^** into logical connection with the follow-
ing lines. The first word in the Heb. has also been taken as a
XXX. 15-17 529
title : By Alukah, which adds nothing to our knowledge, and,
from the norm of the chapter, is highly improbable. The line is
a fragment, or a gloss, whose text has suffered, so that the original
sense is no longer visible. An illustration may have been drawn
from the habits of the leech ; the persistency of the animal, in
clinging to the object on which it fastens itself till it is glutted
with blood, was well known to the ancients (Horace, Ep. ad Pis.
476). — The remainder of the paragraph accords with the norm
of the following groups (characterized by three . . . four), and
obviously forms in itself a complete proverb.
15t>, 16. Four insatiable things.
15 <^. Three things are never satisfied,
Four say not : " Enough " :
16. Sheol; the barren womb;
The earth is unsated with water;
Fire says not : " Enough."
In v.^^ a quatrain (as in the following groups) may be obtained by
expanding first line, possibly : Sheol is never satisfied with dead,
the barren womb never sated with children. Sheol is described in
27^ as never satisfied; cf. Isa. 5'^ Hab. 2^. The barren womb is
lit. the closing of the womb ; cf. Gen. 16^ 30^ 20^*; the reference
is to the desire of a childless wife for children. The earth,
desiring to be fruitful, is always thirsty ; fire ever needs fuel. — Cf.
the Indian proverb : Fire is not sated with wood, nor the ocean
with the streams, nor death with all the living, nor women with
men {Nitopade(a 2, 113) ; and an Arab, proverb (Freytag Prov-
erb. Arab. iii. i. p. 61), in a long list of triads of insatiable things,
has, as two of its three things, wood by fire, and the earth by rai?i.
Whether the Heb. and Arab, proverbs can be traced to the East
is uncertain. — Our proverb has no ethical meaning or application ;
it is simply a record of observation, which may broaden the
pupil's knowledge of the world.
17. Punishment of filial disobedience.
The eye that mocks a father,
And scorns < the old age of >(?) a mother.
The ravens of the valley will pick it out,
And vultures will eat it.
2M
530 PROVERBS
A quatrain, both couplets synonymous, the first ternary, the sec-
ond binary, or ternary-binary. This serious quatrain, out of place
in a string of satirical and descriptive tetrads, naturally attaches
itself to v.", to which it was perhaps added as commentary or
admonition. — The eye is named as the organ of the expression of
feeling (cf. Job i6^ Ez. 28'^). The reading old age is from the
Grk. ; the word of the Heb. text, now commonly rendered obedi-
ence, is doubtful in form and meaning, and this sense is here
hardly appropriate — the proper object of scorns is the person of
the mother. The raven and the vulture (so, and not eagle, the
Heb. is probably to be rendered) picked out the eyes and ate the
flesh not of the living, but of the dead (i S. 17** i K. 14" Jer. 16^
Ez. 2(f 39").* Disobedient children are to die violent deaths,
their bodies are to lie unburied and be food for birds, they will be
honored with no funeral rites, and their position in Sheol will
therefore be an inferior one. The verse is an expression of the
high estimation in which regard for parental authority was held
(cf. 23^^ Ex. 20^^). — Valley is the bed of a water-course, or a
depression through which a winter stream runs (Arab, wady).'
Vultures is Ht. sons of the vulture, that is, not "young vultures"
(RV. young eagles), but "members of the species vulture," like
" sons of the prophets," = members of prophetic guilds, and
"sons of the Elohim," = beings of the Elohim class. — The verse
is by some regarded as a polemic against Agur's alleged repudia-
tion (v.^) of parental instruction ; but of this there is no hint in
the text.
18, 19. Four mysterious things.
18. Three things are beyond my ken,
And four I do not understand :
19. The way of the vulture in the air;
The way of a serpent over a rock;
The way of a ship on the high sea;
And the way of a man with a woman.
The first couplet is quaternary-ternary, the others are ternary. —
Beyond ftiy ken, lit. too wonderful for 7ne, or wonderful beyond me.
* Cf. Iliad i. 4. 5 and the imprecations e? Kopaicas, fiaW U Kopaxas. Geier refers
to Arist. //ist Anunal. c. i, and Epictetus : ravens destroy the eyes of the dead, flat-
terers the souls and eyes of the living.
XXX. I7-20 531
— It is held by many expositors (Mercer al.) that the character-
istic intended in the four things is that they leave no trace behind ;
on the tracelessness of a ship and a bird see the fine passage in
Wisd. of Sol. (5^" "). This characteristic holds of the three first
cases, but hardly of the fourth ; and as to the second, there would
be no reason for particularizing the serpent, since no trace is left
on a rock by the passage of any animal. The point is rather the
wonderfulness of the things named (Geier). The soaring flight of
a great bird (Job 39'"- ^0, the mysterious movement of the serpent,
performed without feet (Gen. 3" ),* the path of the ship through
the trackless deep (WS. 14''^),! and the procreation of a human
being {*p 139''''^*' Eccl. 11') excite the admiration of the writer.
Apparently no religious sentiment is involved ; the stanza is rather
a lesson in natural history and physics. — On vulture see note on
v.^'. On the high sea is lit. i?i the heart of the sea; cf. 23^^
Woman, proper\y young k'o man (Gen. 24*=^ Ex. 2^ Isa. 7" if/ eS^'^^^
Cant. 1^6*), married (as in Isa.), or upniarried (as in Gen. Ex.
ij/ and__probably in Cant.}. J
20. To the last line of v.^^ an annotator has added a prose
explanation : So is the way of an adulteress : she eats a7id wipes
her mouth, and says : " / have done nothing wi-ong" The eats
and 7vipes her mouth is a humorous figurative expression of the
woman's non-moral indifference. The annotation misses the
point of the aphorism : the latter is concerned with the wonderful-
ness of the act, the former with the supposed moral carelessness
of one of the actors ; the gloss assumes that the young woman is
unchaste. On adulteress (lit. adulterous womaji) and 7vrong cf.
notes on 6^^-^^ lo^'*. — The v. is regarded as a gloss by Hitz. De.
Reuss, Strack, Frank, al.
12. On the Mas. change of nxx to nsx (as if from kx>) see Geig. Urschrift,
p. 410. — 15. The section 3615-33 stands in (S next after 24*^; the order in
1^ is better. |§ r^^'^y, from stem = stick to; cf. Ass. ilkitu (De.), name of an
animal. — |^ an an; (@ d7a7rij(7€t dvaTrciyuei'at, from an, and so % ja^an, from
* The Jerusalem Targum inserts, as part of the curse : thy feet shall be cut off.
t In 1// 10426 the word ships is doubtful ; or the first cl. may be an interpolation ;
the second cl. connects itself immediately with vZ-iS.
X That the term does not mean virgin (RV. in Isa. and Cant.) may be regarded
as certain.
532 PROVERBS
which (or from |§) ST incorrectly writes X'^^l^'Z, burning (^— destructive). —
16. 1^ 3rn li'V; @ epws 7uvat/c6s, '"i being taken as = woman (cf. Ju. 5^'',
Inscript. of Mesha, 1. 17), and 'y guessed at or rendered freely (cf. the force
of 1XJ7 in 2 C. 14!'^' Dan, lo^), or it was perhaps not in (@'s Heb. text. The
word should perh. be omitted (Bi.) ; it may be scribal explanation. —
17. ?^ nnp", elsewhere only in Gen. 49'*^, on which cf. Ball, in SBOT.
On the form see De. Ols. § 83 a, Ges.'^'' § 20 h. The possibility of a Heb.
stem npi obey seems to be proved by Ass. aku (De. Wbch.), but the noun nnp^
is doubtful. It was not understood by the medieval Jew. commentators (who
generally render it collection or 7veakness) , and was not read by any extant
Anc. Vrs. (@ (and so <Si2b Kashi) 7^/3as, = rjp;; "H par turn. The rendering
obedience appears to have been first proposed by Abu'l Walid (c. A.c. 1000),
from Arab, p , but is here inappropriate. Read pjpt. Bi. further inserts
na-'ir before jn. — 19. J§ ^-y_'^; <S ev fe6Ti7Ti, = vn'?;;? (Lag.). — 20. |^ npnn
nis; (5 dTTovi^a/x^vrj — J^. — Bi. omits "; but the whole v. is a gloss.
21-23. Four intolerable things.
21. Under three things the earth totters,
And under four it cannot bear up :
22. A servant when he becomes a king;
A fool when he is prosperous;
23. An unwooed woman when she (at last) finds a husband;
A maidservant when she is heir to her mistress.
The couplets are apparently ternary. The tone seems to be
humorous or whimsical : the earth is said to /oUer (or, tremble)
under the intolerable burden of the characters named. The
expression may be taken (but less probably) to mean that by the
changes of fortune here described the moral order of society is
subverted. The cases cited are all of persons of relatively infe-
rior position who come into power, and the intimation appears to
be that they are then excessively pretentious, arrogant, and dis-
agreeable ; it is hardly probable that the writer was so bitter a
conservative that he viewed with horror any departure from estab-
lished rules. The examples are taken equally from the two sexes.
— The rendering /<7r, oti accoufit of, instead o{ under, is weak and
not quite accurate. The word servant (or, slave) may denote an
officer of high rank (like Zimri, i K. 16^), who, however, is far
beneath a king; such sudden elevations have always been com-
mon in Oriental lands (for example, the Mamluk [that is, Slave]
dynasty of Egypt) ; see notes on 11^ 19'". — The term>^/ (Heb.
XXX. 21-23 533
nahal') means, in the early narrative literature, a person of low
grade, socially (2 S. 3''^), or intellectually {x'f-^^), perhaps also
(cf. I S. 25^) a boorish person ; in Prophetic writings its signifi-
cation is religious and ethical (Dt. 32^ Ez. 13'' Isa. 32^ *'), in the
devotional literature it is used in the sense of "ungodly" (i/' 14*
a/.) ; here, as elsewhere in the Wisdom books (Job 2'° 30*), it
appears to be employed in the intellectual sense. Is prosperous,
lit. is filled (or, satisfied) with bread, = is wealthy. — Unwooed, lit.
hated, that is, the object of dislike, or, not liked, not beloved
(and so, nearly, not attractive) ; the term is used of an unloved
wife in Gen. 29^'-^ Dt. 21^^"^-; here it means not odious (RV.),
but simply unattractive, utisought, and describes a woman who
has long remained unmarried, and has felt the disgrace of her
position (Hitzig). The couplet supposes a society in which a
woman's personal attractiveness entered into her chances of mar-
riage, in which, that is, there was freedom of choice to the man ;
this appears to have been the case in old, pre-monarchical, Israel
(Gen. 29^** Ju. 14^"^ I S. 25^''), and in the Greek period, doubtless,
considerable freedom existed.* — The term hated is by some
(Dathe al.) understood to mean divorced (Dt. 24^"^). But the
word never has this sense. Hatred (that is, dislike) on the part
of the husband was, under the law, a ground of divorce, but the
divorced woman is never called simply one hated (not in Isa.
60'^). Moreover, a divorced woman was not uect?,%dj\\y persona
ingrata to others than her former husband ; the law allowed her to
marry again, and such a second marriage would be looked on not
as subversive of order or offensive to the common sense of propri-
ety, but as natural and proper. Grk. a hated woman, if she
obtain a good husband appears to understand the term as = dis-
liked.— Is heir to, that is, inherits property, and herself becomes
a mistress. The verb may mean supplants, that is, gains the favor
of the husband, and thus becomes the real mistress of the house-
hold. Between these two senses of the verb it is not easy to
choose, but both give the same general meaning for the clause. —
In the OT. law the next of kin inherits, usually the son (Dt. 2I'^
cf. Gen. 21*"), and (in the late legislation, Nu. 2f), if there were
• Cf. Moore, Judges, on Ju. 14' ^- ; Now. Arch. \ 27.
534 PROVERBS
no son, the daughter ; in late times a man or woman may have
had the legal right to bequeath property at pleasure (cf. Job 42^*).
In the present case, if the rendering is heir to be correct, the
property- holder is a woman, a case not contemplated in the OT.
legislation (in Nu. 27^® the heiress must marry a man of her own
tribe, who then becomes the owner of the property), nor do we
know what the property-rights of Israelitish women were in the
fourth, third, and second centuries b.c. ; in the Roman law a
woman could make a will, and this freedom had not improbably
crept into Jewish society. See note on 17^.*
24-28. Four things little but wise.
24. Four things there are, small in the earth,
But yet exceedingly clever :
25. Ants — a people not strong,
Yet they prepare their food in summer;
26. Shaphans — a people not mighty,
But they make their houses in the rocks;
27. Locusts — they have no king.
But they march all in ranks;
28. Lizards — one may be grasped in the hands,
Yet are they in kings' palaces.
Ternary. Small animals which show contrivance and skill. The
proverb is simply descriptive of the habits of the animals, a bit of
natural history, without expressed reference to human life, but per-
haps with the implied suggestion that success is not confined to
bigness; cf. Aristotle, Hist. Ani?n., cap. i. — 24. The number
four alone is given, not the sequence three . . . /our/ the varia-
tion is possibly purely rhetorical, the predicates in the two lines
being antithetic, not, as in v.'^- ^^ ^^- ^, synonymous. — Exceedingly
clever, lit. 7vise, endowed with tvisdom; Grk. : 7viser than the 7vise.
— 25. See note on 6^ The word people, here and in next v.,
appears to refer to the industrial organization of the animals in
question. The intimation is that ants lay up in the summer their
food for the winter. — 26. The shaphan, as is now agreed by nat-
uralists, is the Syrian hyrax, a small pachyderm, which lives in
crevices of rocks.f This habit (mentioned here and in i/^ 104")
* For the Talmudic law of inheritance see Baba Dathra 120 a (cf. Taanith 306).
t See Tristram, in Survey of West. Pal. ; Wood, Bible Animals.
XXX. 23-30 535
is proof that it is not a "cony (or, coney)," that is, rabbit. It
was erroneously supposed (Lev. ii^ Dt. 14^) to chew the cud, an
inference from its habit of moving its jaws from side to side. —
27. March, Ht. go forth. In ranks, = in orderly array. In Joel
i^ four species of locusts are mentioned, of which one (Heb.
arbeh^ is the sort here named ; a vivid description of their war-
like array is given in Joel 2 (cf. Ju. 6^ Job 39^). In the OT. leg-
islation locusts are "clean" (Lev. n^^, cf. Mk. i«).* — 28. The
fourth animal is probably not the swallow (Saad. al.^, or the ape
(Aben Ezra a/.), or the spider (Levi, Luther, AV.), but the lizard
(Grk. Lat. and modern expositors generally). The first line may
be translated (RV. al.^ : the lizard seizes with its hands, but, as in
the other couplets the first line refers to the animal's weakness, it
is better to render : the lizard thou mayest grasp, or, by a change
of vowels, may be grasped. The form given above : lizards etc.,
is assimilated to that of the preceding couplets. — The lizard's
habit of running over the walls of houses, in pursuit of food, is
well known.
29-31. Four stately things. — Heb. :
29. Three things there are of stately step,
Yea, four of stately gait :
30, The lion, mightiest of beasts —
He turns before no foe;
31 ; the he-goat;
A king
29. Quaternary-ternary. The form recurs to the sequence three
. . . four, the two lines of this coupLet being synonymous. The
characteristic fact is noble carriage, which, in the case of the lion,
is associated with power, and this last is probably to be under-
stood in the others. The proverb is an admiring remark, without
moral or religious suggestion. Lit. are good (or, excellent) in step
(or, march), and are good in gait (or, going). Step occurs in 4'^
5^ 16^, gait m 2^^ 4^- 15^^ — 30. Synonymous, ternary-binary. Lit.
a mighty one among beasts, and turns not back before anything.
This term for lion is found elsewhere only in Isa. 30^ Job 4" (in
* See Tristr. Wood. A description of a recent invasion of locusts is given by
Thomson, Land and Hook, ii. 102-108.
536
PROVERBS
the last passage RV. has incorrectly old lion). — The word here
used for beasts commonly signifies domestic animals as distin-
guished from wild animals (Gen. r^ Lev. i^ i// 148^", RV. cattle),
but in poetical or elevated and gnomic style is sometimes
employed for animals in general (Ez. 8"' Isa. 30" «/.). — 31. The
couplet enumerates three objects (so v."'" has two objects), of
which only one is clear. The first expression (omitted above)
appears to be lit. girded (or, girthed, or, compressed) about the
loins, and has been understood to be a description of some animal,
as cock (so all the Anc. Vrss., except Venet. Grk.), from its war-
like strut, or eagle (Saad.), or greyhound (Ven. Grk. Luth. RV.
a/.), as being narrow in the flanks, or zebra (Ludolf), from its
girding stripes, or warhorse (Ges. Wild. RV. marg. «;/.), as accou-
tred for battle (cf. Job 39'^^-'). Of these renderings warhorse
suits best in respect of stateliness, but cock has the best ancient
support. If this sense be adopted for the first word of the
expression, a change in the following word gives the reading:
the cock lifting himself up (or, holding his head high), or the
proudly stepping cock. The Grk. fills out the picture : the cock
marching bravely among his hens. — The he-goat is the leader
of the flock (Grk. adds ; tvho leads the flock). Cf. Dan. 8'
(where, however, the Heb. term is different). — The last clause
reads : and a kijig alkum with him (or, by the change of a vowel,
his people), in which the word alkum is unintelligible. Grk.: a
king who harangues a people (that is, stands up to address a
nation) ; Lat. : nor is there a king who can resist (= stafid up
agaiftst) him (that is, the goat) ; Saad. RV. : the king against
whom there is no risijig up. These renderings are all grammat-
ically impossible. Others (Gesen. De. al.) take alkutn as pure
Arabic, and render : the king who has authority to call out the
host; but the employment of a foreign term, for which Heb. had
an equivalent (2 S. 20*), is improbable. Lowenstein : King Rest-
less, that is, one who does not stand still or pause in his career of
conquest. — Failing a natural sense in the Heb. expression, emen-
dation of the text has been resorted to. As the Jews, in Tal-
mudic times, sometimes, to avoid profanation of the divine name
Elohim, substituted a k for its h, Hitzig here reads : a king with
whom God is ; but the religious expression is out of place in this
XXX. 30-33 537
series of non-religious tetrads. Dys. : a king with whom are
thousands; Bick. : . . . who stands up for {^the protection of^ his
people. — Halevy (^Melanges, p. 123) regards <z//^^;« as the name
of an Arabian deity {Kaum), but the king who had the support
of Kaum would hardly excite the admiration of an old Jewish
gnomist. Geiger {Urschri/t, pp. 61 ff.) takes it to be the anti-
Maccabean highpriest Alcimus (i Mac. 7^^^ ^i- 54-56 j^g^ j^^^ ^2, g,
7 ; 12, 10, 6), here ironically called "king," a title to which he
possibly aspired ; the introduction of a personal name, however,
in this series is not what we should expect, and the reference to
the king is obviously not ironical, but serious. We can only sur-
mise that king and album are corrupted forms, and that the orig-
inal text referred to the majestic mien and movement of some
animal.
In v.^^ ^ the tetradic form is lacking, and the expressions,
though quaint, are not humorous or ironical. In the present
state of the text it is impossible to say whether there was origi-
nally (as the for of v.^ appears to suggest) a connection between
the two verses. — 32. Heb. : If thou . . . in exalting thyself,
and if thou hast planned — hand to mouth. The omitted word is
usually rendered hast acted foolishly (or, art foolish), but this
sense is found nowhere else in OT., and is doubtful ; the transla-
tion thought evil (RV. al.) for planned is possible only when the
connection shows that the plan is evil. Before hand the verb lay
is commonly inserted. The sense thus obtained is : " if thou
exaltest thyself in mere folly or by deliberate plan," or, " if thou
art foolish in exalting thyself or in planning," or, " if thou art fool-
ishly elated and plannest evil," or, " if thou art contemptible, it is
by boasting; and if thou art wise (= plannest well) " — "then
preserve silence." Taken in connection with what follows, the
meaning of the v. would be that silence is pacific ; but text and
sense are doubtful. — 33. For, pressing milk bri^igs out curd, a?id
pressing the nose brings out blood, and pressing anger brings out
strife. The first line is perh. a scribal addition ; blood, but not
cmd, is allied to strife; in ttose (Heb. ap) and anger (Heb.
appayim) there is a play upon words. — Curd, or, sour milk (not
butter, or, cream), is produced by shaking milk in a vessel; it is
a refreshing drink, and was a favorite beverage of the pastoral
538 PROVERBS
Israelites (Ju. s"" Gen. i8« Dt. 32" 2 S. 17^ Isa. 7" ^2 job 20"),
as it is of the Bedawin to-day.*
23. y^ U'^Ti; (5 iKlSaXr], — J^ ^"?'^ I ® ^"'' ''''^XV o.vdpbs dyaOov. —
26. }^ D'joir; © x<"P°7/"'^^""> hedgehogs; SST DJn, probably the hyrax,
Arab. wabrXcL Payne-Smith, r^ifj. Syr.); % lepusculus. — 2%. Of |^ z^yi
t'onn (@ has two renderings: xepcrii' epetSiyttevos supports itself by its hands,
reading Piel or Qal; and ei)dXwros (Sf, easily taken, reading Nifal. — 31. On
the post-Bibl. Jew. interpretation of -\r-\[ as a bird of the raven species see De.
For 1^ □"ijPD we might read hd )r, which would suit the cock or the horse, hardly
the raven. — Arabic ^n! (or ^n^) is starling; if the name be mimetic, it might
have been applied to more than one bird. The derivation from iin, bind, is
improbable. Cf. 3 Mac. 5^3. — Jlj 'OJ dv*?*?; © d7iiJ.riyopQv iv edvei, perhaps
_ ^D"; Sn o'lp (Jag.), less probably iDi'*? Dp (Bi.), better 'y ha ap; and so
substantially SC; IL nee est rex qui resistat ei, = iQi? Oi-j n'? ~\^z^; Hitz.
ChSn; Dys. 0''£3'?x. The n. p. Alcimus is written Dop'?N in the great bilingual
Palmyrene inscr., col. 2, 1. 28. □p"'N might be corruption of pNi (A. S. Wald-
stein, in an oral communication), though wild goat (Dt. 14^) would be very
near he-goat. iVn may be corruption of cp'^N, or vice versa. For |§ en in
read irini. — 32. Everywhere else in OT. the Qal hzi = fade, languish (on
Job 14I8 and xp iS*** see notes of Budde and Wellh.) ; cf. Ass. nahdlu, dry
{land), and nablu, flame ; in Arab, the stem has the sense of skill, capacity.
Whether Qal is ever denom. may be doubtful; it is so taken by 9Si2ClL, but
their rendering may be a guess. What Heb. text is represented by (5 ^d»'
irpbrn (reavrbv if eixppoffvvrj is not clear. — 83. Bi. makes a quatrain by inserting
after first yn : vni D'? ^T'' ^^■'^'
XXXI. 1-9. A manual for kings or judges, a warning against
such indulgence of appetite as might hinder the execution of
justice. The Aramaizing diction suggests a late date (not earlier
than second century B.C.). Cf. the aphorisms in 16'""^' al., the
national religious admonitions of Dt. 17^^^, the theocratic por-
traiture in Isa. 9*'^(^<5) n^-^ 32^-^ al., and the religious tone of
WS. 1-9.
1. Superscription. — ^Heb. : The words of Lemuel, a king, the
oracle ivhich his mother taught him ; or : The words of L., king
of Massa, which etc. (or, whose mother taught him). The trans-
lation . . . of king L. (RV.) requires a change in the text. The
* See Rob. Res. ii. 405; Thomson, Land and Book, ii. 149; Doughty, Arab.
Desert, i. 263; Now. Arch. i. 113; Moore, Judges, on Ju. 5^5; Driver, Deut., on
Dt, 32I*.
XXX. 33-XXXI. 2 539
rendering oracle is out of the question ; see note (on ynassa) on
3o\ " Lemuel " might be regarded as " king of Massa" if there
were any good ground for supposing that there was a country
Massa, governed by a king, and somehow associated with wisdom
and learning ; but of such a land nothing is known.* Nor is
there any reason for interpreting the name Lemuel (= "to God,"
that is, "devoted to God") symbolically (De. «/.). The super-
scription is not necessarily by the author of the manual ; it may
be from the hand of a late scribe, representing his guess at the
origin of the counsel ; the word king may be scribal insertion
(Frank.), or Lemuel may have been introduced from a corruption
of text in v.'' (Bick.). The advice is not inappropriately put into
the mouth of the mother, but of her nothing is known, and her
introduction into the title may be the result of a wrong reading of
y}. — On taught (= set in the right way) see 9^ 19^* 29'^- ^^
2-9. The counsel.
2. What, my son? and what, son whom I bore?
And what, son granted to my vows?
3. Give not thy strength to women.
Nor thy heart to < those who > destroy kings.
4. It is not for kings [] to drink wine.
Nor for rulers < to mix > strong drink,
5. Lest, drinking, they forget the law.
And disregard the rights of the suffering.
6. Give strong drink to him who is perishing,
Wine to him who is in bitter distress,
7. That, drinking, he may forget his poverty,
And think of his misery no more.
8. Let thy decisions be < true,'
Uphold the rights of all who < suffer >;
9. Pronounce thy judgments with equity.
Maintain the cause of the poor and the needy,
2. If the text be correct, the repetition expresses earnestness,
and the what refers to the content of the advice, = " what shall I
say to thee?" But the form of expression is strange and doubt-
ful ; possibly, taking a suggestion from the Grk., we should read :
• See Dillm. on Gen. 25", De. Parodies, p. 302, Ptol. 5, 19, 2.
540 PROVERBS
give heed, my son, to 7ny sajmgs, and observe my words (see 5^ 7'
al., and cf. Frank.) ; the speaker will then be the sage. — The
word for son is Aram. On vows in general see 7''' 20^ Eccl. 5^*^*
\^ 50", and, in connection with prayer for a son, i S. i". - —
3. Synonymous, ternary. Second line lit. : nor thy ways so as
(or, in order) to destroy kings ; the change of a vowel gives the
reading those who destroy, as the parallelism suggests {women
= destroyers of kings) ; that 7vhich destroyeth (RV.) is not
allowed by the Heb. ; Targ. : to daughters of kings ; Syr. : to the
food of ki?tgs (against luxurious eating). Ways may be freely
rendered by heart, or the text may be changed to gain this sense,
or, by another emendation, to read love. Strength apparently = vi-
rility, not wealth. The couplet seems to be directed against such
debauchery as is described in chs. 2. 5. 6. 7. 9. — 4. First line
lit. : be it not to (^=zfar be it from) kings, Lemuel, be it not to
kings to drink wine ; the repetition be it not to kings, though rhe-
torically intelligible as emphatic, mars the rhythm, and is proba-
bly a scribal error, and the Lemuel also appears to be repetition
of a part of the preceding word. The text is, however, doubtful ;
one Grk. reading is : do everything prudently, drink tvine pru-
dently.— Second line Ht. : nor for rulers where {ox, or) strong
drink, in which where is probably scribal error for a verb mean-
ing mix (Isa. 5"), or one meaning drink, indulge in (Isa. 56'-).
On wine and strong drink see notes on 9- 2o\ — 5. Synonymous,
ternary. The reason for the preceding warning. The verbs in
the Heb. are sing. ; the connection (the plu. subjects in v.^)
favors the plu. The law is the civil law of the land. On s7iffer-
ing (or, poor, or, lowly) see note on 3^'*. Disregard (RV. per-
vert) is lit. change. — 6, 7. Synonymous, ternary. Two proper
occasions for the use of alcoholic drinks : bodily suffering (from
hunger and want) and mental distress. In v.*"* lit. : to those ivho
are bitter of soul. The quatrain is symmetrical — v.*'" is explained
by v.^% and v."'' by v.^^ V.Ms parallel to v.^ — 8. Synonymous,
ternary. Lit. : open thy mouth for the dumb. The term dumb, if
it were the right reading, would obviously not refer to physical
incapacity of speech (for the man, in that case, would depend
not on the king, but on his nearest friend or his legal representa-
tive), but would mean (as is commonly understood) "one who,
XXXI. 2-9 541
from poverty, or timidity, or some such cause, is unable to defend
liimself, by pleading, against his oppressor." This sense is, how-
ever, inappropriate : the Oriental man or woman, when wronged,
is anything but "dumb" (see, for ex., i K. 3^^"' 2 K. 6-*^*^) —
the king is always accessible ; and the parallelism suggests a term
synonymous with the equity of v.^* (v.^* is parallel to v.**, and v.***
to v.***). Read : open thy mouth in truth (cf. 20^* 29" \\i 45'*'^') ;
in truth = " with faithful regard for justice." Another emenda-
tion (Bick.) reads /or the luidow, but this, though simple and
attractive, does not so well accord with the parallelism. All who
suffer is an emendation (Dys.) of the Heb. all the sons of the
passing-by, interpreted (but without ground) to mean those who
disappear, = those who are perishing (Ew. De. al.), or those who
are left behind, = left desolate (RV.), and this is taken to mean
orphans (Noyes, Bick. Frank.) and other persons destitute of
protectors. — 9. Synonymous, ternary. Lit.: open thy mouth,
Judge justly, a?id fudge the poor and the needy. On equity see
note on i^, on poor and needy, notes on 3^^ 14^^
XXXI. In (@ the section 311-^ stands just before |^ 25; the date and cause
of ^he dislocation are unknown. — 1. (5 had ^^D n;*:: "^n! ^n^ •'-\2-\ (Jag.). —
2. The plus of (5 is mainly rhetorical expansion, though irpuroyevis may
= 1J3. — 3. 1^ -|""n; (g crbu itXovtov. — % T^"'"'; Dys. i^ti (Cant. 71^);
possibly we should read i^n'^. — Jt| n^'n*:'^; read rnb*? (Ges. Bott. Dys. al.);
(S els vjTepo^ovXlav, — p'^n an';*^ (Lag.). — 4. The second ap^oV Sx appears
(from the rhythm) to be scribal repetition, and ^.yc^ to be miswriting of preced-
ing as'^D'^ (Bi-)' — ^^ the form of this name (Prep. + divine name) cf. Gray,
Heb. Proper Names, p. 207, where similar forms are given (Heb. '?n'^, Palmy-
rene rcr'^ a/.). "^ 's (Q -x) can hardly be read ^s (as (@ and Saad. seem to have
understood it). The rendering cupiditas (Schult.) is without lexicographical
support, and {to say) where is etc. (Mich. De. RV. a/.) is forced and unnatural.
Read ")D:; or n'jD. — (@ ^ovXrjs supposes p^C for |^ a^i^c; its iravra iroUi
perhaps = Sr'^, for J^ '^.x'.^. — SSC 0/ kings lake care, = |§, and so IL* nv/i
regibiis dare vinum ; 1L'' quia nullum secretum est ubi regnat ebrietas is
interpretation, with allusion (Baumg.) to Aram, r-i secret. — 5. |^ ^J should
perhaps be omitted, with (5. — 8. ^ a^N; (5 X67<t) Oeov (perhaps = n?r:, with
the divine name added), which Lag. emends to fj.oyi\d\if} (see Isa. ^^^);
5C t/iose who do not pervert judgment, free rendering from the connection, the
sense dumb seeming improbable ; % the zuord of truth, based. Lag. suggests,
on a Grk. reading X67V a.\7)9ei (a corruption of p.oyi\d\(i>) — possibly it
represents Heb. pdn. — Something like this latter should be read as parallel
to ]^ p-ii- in v.». Bi. nn^st. — Jt? P "^x; better p , as in v.».— |^ I'^n ^p;
542 PROVERBS
read, with Dys., "''^n '3 (see Jer. 6^ Eccl. 62). — 9. Before J^ \2sv we may
insert i or V.
10-31. The ideal housewife. — This description, the Alpha-
betic Ode or " Golden ABC " of the perfect wife, is notable both
for what it includes and for what it omits. She is the indus-
trious, sagacious business manager of the house, a kindhearted
mistress, the trusted friend of husband and children, honored in
her own person for what she does — a picture not romantic, but
also not " Philistine.'" On the other hand, nothing is said of intel-
lectual interests or pursuits. Nor is religion mentioned (see note
on v.^) ; this is due (as in ch. 30, Esth. Cant.) to the fact that the
author is concerned with something else. The husband takes no
part in the domestic administration — he is occupied with public
affairs (v.^^) .* — The alphabetic structure is complete, twenty-two
letters (as in ij/ 119). This arrangement (found in the Pss. and
other late writings), mnemonically useful, is often rhetorically bad,
inducing an unnatural diction and order of couplets (see, for ex.,
v.^^). The rhythmical norm is ternary.
10. A good wife who can find?
Far above the worth of corals is her worth.
11. To her her husband trusts,
And has no lack of gain.
12. She does him good and not harm
All the days of his life.
13. She gathers wool and flax,
And works it up as she will.
14. She is like the ships of the merchant,
From afar she brings her food.
15. She rises while it is still night,
And gives food to her household. []
16. She examines a field and buys it,
With her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17. She girds herself with strength,
Makes her arms strong (for work).
18. She perceives that her profit is good:
Her lamp goes not out at night.
* Cf., for Egypt, life, Wilkinson, Anc. Eg., ch. 8, Art. Egypt. Lit., in Lib. of
World's Best Lit., and for Grk. and Rom., Becker, Char, and Gallus.
XXXI. IO-I2 543
19. She lays her hand on the distaff,
Her hand grasps the spindle.
20. She stretches out her hand to the poor,
Extends her hand to the needy.
21 a. She fears not snow for her household,
22 a. Coverlets she makes her.
22 b. Her clothing is linen and purple,
21 b. Her household are clad in scarlet.
23. Her husband is distinguished in the council.
When he sits among the elders of the land.
24. She makes linen cloth and sells it,
Girdles she delivers to the merchant.
25. Strength and honor are her clothing,
She laughs at the time to come.
26. Her speech is full of w^isdom.
And kindly instruction is on her tongue.
27. She looks well to the ways of her household.
She eats not the bread of idleness.
28. Her children congratulate her,
And her husband praises her (saying) :
29. " Many women c'lo well.
But thou excellest them all."
30. Beauty is deceitful, and comeliness is transitory,
A woman < of intelligence,' she will have praise.
31. Give her credit for what her hands have wrought!
Let her works praise her among the people !
10-12. First stanza : praise in general terms. — 10. On the ren-
dering good wife see note on la'*; on corals, note on 3'^. The
sense is: "a good wife is not easily found, but, when she is found,
she is of inestimable value." — 11. Lit. : the mind (Ht. heart) of
her husband ; the reference is not to the husband's affection, but
to his confidence in her capacity as manager of household affairs.
— The second line is ambiguous — lit. spoil (or, outcome) is not
lacking, in which we may supply to her (Grk.), or to him (Lat. ),
or to the household (Ew.) ; probably, from the connection, to him,
as representative of the household. — Spoil everywhere else in OT.
means " booty taken in war " ; the more general sense acquisition,
gain appears in the verb (RV.pull out) in Ru. 2'". The military
term came to be employed in a peaceful sense. — 12. The good
544
PROVERBS
and harm refer, according to the connection, to the general
(more particularly, the financial) prosperity of the household. —
13-15. Second stanza : the industrial pursuits of the household.
— 13. Gathers, lit. seeks. On wool and flax as industrial prod-
ucts see Hos. 2^-^<'"' Jos. 2" Dt. 22"; the preparation of cloths
and garments from this material was the work of women.* — Sec-
ond line lit. : a7id she works in (or, according to) the pleasure of
her hands — she works up the raw material into such forms (of
garments, girdles etc.) as seems to her best. The interpretation
with her hands' pleasure, = jvillingly, cheerfully, diligently (Ew.
RV. al.), involving a personification of the hands, is unnatural (it
is not supported by 1// 78^-). Hitzig's rendering : she works in the
business of her hands (cf. Isa. 58'' Eccl. 3^ ^' al.) is allowable, but
the statement has no special connection with first line. — 14. She
does not rely solely on local supplies, but from all quarters pro-
vides maintenance for her household. — 15. In the Heb. the v. is
a triplet, but it seems probable that the third line and portions to
her tnaidens is a gloss, a repetition or explanation of second line.
Portion, from the parallelism, = food (30* Gen. \f- Ez. 16-^, not
"appointed work" (RV. task). Bickell omits first line, but it
would then be hard to account for its presence in the text. —
Food, as in (/^ iii^ (cf. Mai. 3^'* Job 24^) ; the Heb. word usually
means prey. — 16-18. Third stanza : the housewife's financial
enterprise. — 16. Examines (RV. considers) (see 30^^-) = reflects
on, that is, examines from a business point of view. — Buys, lit.
takes, gets possession of (see Neh. ^^). One might almost say:
" she speculates in land" (Frank.). Bick., not so well : Consid-
ers .. . in order to buy it. — Plants is the reading of the Heb.
margin; the text has : [considers] M<?//<a:«//;/^ ^/ etc. Her earn-
ings is lit. : the fruit of her hands. — The culture of the vine was,
and is, an important industry in Palestine (see 24'° Ju. 9^' Neh. 5'
al.). — 17. Lit.: she girds her loins with strength, that is, proba-
bly, not strongly (Grk.), but, by a figure, with strength as a girdle :
the gathering up the robe with a girdle was a necessary prepara-
tion for serious work (2 K. 4^). — The expression '/^r work.
*See Schroder, De vestitu Mid. Hebr. ; Hnrtmann, Die Hebrderin etc.; H.
Weiss, Kosiiimkunde ; Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, p. 74.
XXXI. 12-21 545
added above, is obviously implied. — 18. The verb here rendered
perceives means generally taste, physically (i S. 14-^ Job 12" al.),
and so, by natural transference from the physical to the intellect-
ual (like Lat. sentire), perceive ; the transition of meaning is vis-
ible in i/' J4'"*"* : taste (= find out by trial) and see (= become
convinced) that Yahweh is good. So here the housewife learns
by trial that her work is bringing pecuniary profit, and this state-
ment is repeated and expanded in second line, the meaning of
which is not : "she is indefatigable in work," but (Wild.) : " her
house is prosperous." In a well-ordered house the lamp burned
all night as a sign of life (see note on 13-') ; its extinction marked
calamity (Jer. 25'" Job 18").* — 19, 20, 21^, 22^. Fourth stanza :
her provision for her household and for the poor. — 19. Lays on
is lit. stretches out to. The translation on the distaff is inferred
from the connection. The Anc. Vrss. (except, perh., Targ.)
understand the expression as adverbial : Grk. to useful things ;
Lat. to strong things ; Aq. Sym. Th. Syr. strenuously. — 20. This
couplet belongs, by its contents, with v.-^- -" ; it was placed here
perh. because the phrase stretches occurs in v.'^. — 21. On the
occurrence of snow in Palestine see notes on 25"' 26'. — As the
text is arranged the reading of the Heb. (v.-'**) are clothed in
scarlet is improbable. The connection calls for the mention of
some warm sort of clothing ; a scarlet robe, though made of wool-
len material, was not necessarily warm enough for winter — and,
if it were, it is unlikely that the writer would use this term instead
of saying directly that the clothing was warm.f If the Heb.
order of lines be retained, we might change the text so as to get
the meaning warmly. But it is easier to change the order of
hnes as above. According to this arrangement the cover-lets
(v.^^*) are the protection against the cold, and the colored gar-
ments come together in one couplet. — Lat. (followed by AV.
marg.) improbably : clothed in double garments. — 22*. On cover-
lets see note on 7^".
* Cf. Now., Arch., p. 144 ; Benzinger, Arch., p. 124.
t Scarlet robes were articles of luxury and magnificence (Ex. 25^ 2 S. i^^ Jer.
48O, cf. Lam. 4^). On the cochineal insect, from which the coloring matter was
obtained, cf. Rawl., Phoen., ch. 8.
546 PROVERBS
The section 3ii"-3i stands in <3 next after pj 29. — 16. K v_^]; read Q n-01.
Bi. retains K, and omits the connective 1 in ||J ini ■}]. — 18. The K "^^^j poeti-
cal form (Isa. 16^ Lam. 2^^), may be retained; Q gives the usual form n^>^.
— 19. ?§ T C''-2; (5 (followed by S) eVJ to, ffvixcpipovTa, = 1^-3 (Lag. p^U'dj),
see ^ 68', and cf. Esth. 8^ Eccl. io^° 2-1 «/.; AS9 dj-Spet^, and IL ad fortia,
from -lU'p or nr,-, or perh. = (5; ST sTiiba (so ed. Ven. of 1568, Lag.), written
also NTma (Buxt.) or n"i'.:'::3 (MS. of A.c. 1238); the second form (of which
the third is a variation) is a rendering of |^ •\t' navel in 3^, and is not elsewhere
found in any other sense (Levy's rendering distaff is a mere conjecture) ; the
first form is repetition or transference of the word of |^, and its meaning is
unknown (it can be only guessed to be = distaff^ ; comparison of the stem
Tj'j as probably = straight, and of Targ. and Talm. lit-^ beam makes it proba-
ble that the word in ST and in f^ = distaff, which sense is suggested by the
correspondent ?^ i^t spindle. Frank, emends to Talmud, ru spindle {Shab.
Mishna 17, see Buxt. Lex.), but it seems more likely here that the expression
would be varied; possibly, however, -'io and X"-^ ^^^ ""t exactly synonymous.
— 21. |§ ^Mt:*; (5 Siffo-ds, which it makes the beginning of v.-'^; "iL dttplicibus ;
hence it has been proposed to emend pj to z^rc, which, however, is lexico-
graphically improbable, and the emendation cn^ for zvartnth (Hag. i^) is
graphically hard. The change in the order of the lines, as given above,
appears to remove the difficulty in the interpretation of |^.
— 22t>, 21b, 23, 24. Fifth stanza : the distinction which she gains
by her industry. — 22t>. The term here rendered litien (RV. fine
linen) signifies some fine material, made of flax or of a mixture of
flax and cotton, and was probably an Egyptian product (Gen„
41'''- Ez. 16'" '^ 2f Ex. 25-39). — The purple coloring matter was
obtained from a Mediterranean shellfish {inurex., or purpura'),
and its preparation was an important Phoenician industry (Rawl.,
Fhoen., ch. 8). Garments dyed with it indicated wealth or high
rank (Ju. 8-" Jer. 10" Ex. 25-39 Cant. 3^^). — The housewife's
wardrobe is costly and luxurious. — 2V^. See above, under v.'^ —
23. Distinguished, lit. knowfi, a prominent well-known man. —
Council, lit. gales, the place of assembly of the elders of the city ;
see notes on i^^ 24''. The old-Israelitish government by " elders "
(somewhat similar to that of the old-Aryan village*) appears to
have continued to a late period (Ju. 8" 11^ \p 107^^ Joel i"). —
The husband thus derives civil benefit from his wife's reputation
— it is assumed by the people that the head of so well-ordered a
household must be a worthy man, though it is probably not his
* Cf. the Saxon witenagemot and the New England town-meeting.
XXXI. 21-27 547
dress (as v.^- might suggest) that gives him distinction. The
order of couplets is not good. — 24. The linen cloth (a different
term from the linen of v.-'^) was some fine fabric, the precise
nature of which is not known, though it may be inferred from the
ancient Jewish authorities that its material was linen. What the
housewife made and sold was probably a square piece of cloth
that could be used as an outer garment or as a night-dress. The
term occurs elsewhere in OT. only in Ju. 14'^-'^ Isa. -^ ; cf. Mk.
14*^ {sindon) Herod. 2, 86 al. The girdle was probably of simi-
lar material (Jer. 13^ Ez. 16"^) ; for the various sorts of girdle see
the Bib. Diets. The weaving of fine material appears to have
been a Palestinian industry from a comparatively early period. —
Delivers, lit. gi7>es, that is, in exchange for money or for other
articles ; cf. Tob. 2". — Merchant, lit. Canaanite, that is, here,
Phoenician. From the commercial character of the Canaanites
the name came to be used as = merchant (Zech. 14^^ Job
41" [40"°], cf. Hos. i2'<'** Isa. 23* Zeph. i" Ez. 17*). Later the
commerce was largely in the hands of the Tyrians ; and it would
appear that trade between Israelites and Phoenicians began as
early as the tenth century B.C.* — 25-27. Sixth stanza: her wis-
dom and prosperity. — 25. The strength and honor which she
enjoys come from her firm financial and social position. She is
so well established that she laughs at the future, is without anxiety.
— In v.'" the strength is physical, here it is social. — 26. Her wis-
dom is common sense, good judgment, discretion. Kindly
instruction is lit. instruction of kindness (RV. laiv of kindness),
instruction, to her children, servants, and friends, which springs
from a kindly, friendly nature : though firm in her administration,
as becomes a business woman, she is not domineering or harsh.
The interpretation : " instruction in the duty of kindness to
others" does not so well suit the connection, which rather marks
the kindness as a quality of the woman herself. — The first line is
lit.: she opens her mouth in (or, 7mth) wisdom. — On kindness
see notes on 3^ 11'". — 27. Looks well to = acts as luatchman for
(is'' 2 S. 18^* Ez. 3^^ \\i 37"-). — Ways = " conduct, doings " ; she
supervises all that goes on. — This couplet would stand more
* On Phoen. commerce see Rawl., Phoen.; Now., Arch., \ 44
548 PROVERBS
properly next after v.^*. — 28, 29. Seventh stanza : her merits are
recognized by her family. — 28. Lit.: her children rise up a?id
call her happy — her husband [rises up] and praises her. She
has the praise of her own immediate circle, those who know her
best. — Bick. inverts the order of lines of the couplet, but the lan-
guage of v.^ is more appropriate for the husband than for the
children. — Frank. : Ner sons prosper, therefore people congratu-
late her — her husband, therefore people praise her. This sense is
in itself appropriate — the community congratulating a woman on
the success of her husband and sons — except that it seems to
give her all the credit for their good performance. But the Heb.
hardly permits this interpretation : the verb rise up cannot mean
prosper (the rise to power in 28^^ is different), and the supplying
people (that is, they) as the subject of the other verbs is very
doubtful, if not quite out of the question. For the verb call
happy see Mai. 3'^^^ \^ 72" Gen. 30^^; the rise up describes the
movement preparatory to a formal utterance (Gen. 37^). —
29. Lit. : many daughters do etc. The use of the word daughter
as = woman (only here and Cant. 2- 6^) is a survival (found only
in poetry) from the time when the woman, even after marriage,
remained always a member of her father's family, and was defined
as his "daughter." — /^F(?// represents the same Heb. word 2,?, good
in v.'", = " vigorously, effectively, admirably." — These words of
praise are obviously uttered by the husband as the spokesman of
the family ; the writer speaks of his heroine in the third person.
— 30, 31. Eighth stanza: laudatory summing-up by the poet. —
30. The author's point of view : what he values in a wife is
domestic efficiency. He need not be understood as despising
beauty — he says only that it is transitory, while intelligence is a
lasting source of domestic happiness. — On beauty and comeliness
(here synonyms) see notes on i^ 11^® 6^. The two adjs., also,
deceitful (lit. deceit, see 6^^ «/.) and transitory (lit. a breath, a
nothing, see 13") are probably meant as synonyms : beauty is
said to be deceitful because it passes away, and with it passes the
hope of happiness based on it. The meaning may, however, be :
he who judges a woman merely by her beauty may be disap-
pointed in her character. — The second line reads in the Heb. :
a woman who fears Yahweh, she etc. But this, while a sentiment
XXXI. 28-31 549
natural in itself, is improbable in the connection : the ode else-
where makes no reference to religion, confining itself to a por-
traiture of the woman's domestic ability ; in the second line of
this couplet the verb //a/^^ obviously contemplates the same char-
acteristic (namely, housewifely skill) that the same verb in v.^*
has in view, and, from the tenor of the ode, the contrast to beauty
is not pieiy, but intelligence, thrift, administrative capacity, indus-
try ; in accordance with this view v.^^ refers solely to her industrial
achievement. Following a Grk. text, we may read of intelligence
instead of ivho fears Yahiveh ; the latter reading may be the cor-
rection of a scribe who thought that a poem describing the ideal
woman should not fail to mention piety as an element of her char-
acter.— 31. Lit. : give her of the fruit of her hands, that is, as
second line indicates, let her have recognition and credit for her
industry and skill — such ability as hers deserves general praise.
The woman is regarded by the author as an independent individ-
ual, not merely as an appendage to her husband. The expression
perhaps contains an intimation that women, by reason of the pri-
vacy of their life, did not always get public credit for their admin-
istrative ability or for the important part they played in securing
the well-being of the family. — Among the people is lit. /;/ the gates,
the place where the people gathered and talked over the affairs of
the community ; see note on v.^^.
24. 1^ Y-O; (5 (Tivhovas (followed by IL sindorteni) muslin garments. In
Targ. (Lam. 2^^-^ \p 104-) pD signifies an enveloping cloth or garment, and
it is used in Talmud for any covering for da^ or for night (Kimchi nightdress') ;
cf. Ass. sudinnu, garment (in De. Ass. IVbch.), and Arab, sidn, = a curtain,
whence sddin, curtain-keeper or doorkeeper (to the Kaaba or any shrine).
See notes of Geier, Mich. De. on this v., Moore on Ju. \i^- ^^ Cheyne and
Davidson on Isa. -f^. — Grk. a-ivdibv seems to be derived from the Sem. word.
Herod, uses it of a cloth through which the Babylonians sifted pounded fish
(i, 200), of a similar material in which the Egyptians wrapped the bodies of
their dead (2, 86), and of bandages which the Persians used for the wounded
(7, 181). To the derivation from Sindhu (the Indus) the objection lies
(Schrader, Forsch. zu Hatidelsgesck., I. 199 ff.) that the old Grk. name for the
Indus was not a-Lv56s, but iV56s (from the Eranian form); and no appropriate
Egypt, etymology has been proposed. If the sense garment for Ass. sudinnu
be correct, the Heb. word is undoubtedly Semitic, and from such a form the
Grk. could come by the insertion of n; the a> of the Grk. perhaps points to a
form Sudan or sudon. Syr. nj-d appears to be a loan-word from the Grk.,
550
PROVERBS
influenced, perhaps, by the Heb. form. No verb pD occurs in Semitic, and
the meaning of the stem is unknown. See Bochart, Phaleg, col. 751, and
H. Lewy, Sent. Frimdwort. im Griech., p. 84.-25. ?§ innN- Bi., unnecessa-
rily: -\na the fttorrow. — In @ v.^^ follows v-'-^s (of f§), the order of letters
being thus Pe . . . Ayin, as in Lam. 2. 3. 4 (the order in \p 10 Nah. l--^", cited
by Bi., is uncertain) ; this arrangement may indicate an early variation in the
order of the letters of the alphabet.* — In the Sahidic Vrs. the order of lines
jg. y 25a. 27b. a. 25b. 26a. b_ — 26. |^ "Dn PIP; (5 Ta^iv i(TTfi\aTO, perh. = in
■^•j-nn. — 27. K n^DSvi is scribal error for Q P^y'^n. — <g adds the greater part
of V.26; see also <@'s addition at 3!'^. — 30. J§ nin^ pn-;^ .ic-n, for which (@ has
the doublet yvvrj <TvvfT7] and (p6^ov Kvplov; the former appears to be the
original reading, since it would be less easy to account for its introduction by
ascribe; read nyz nU'N (cf. 30^) or n:2: nz'x (cf. I^). — 31. <5 x"^^'-^". for
1^ T-i , should probably be emended to x^pw)/ (so SS^, Compl.). — |^ n>E';»D;
(S 6 dvTjp avTTjs, — n>>"3 or nrN (the preceding word ends in a).
* Accidental variations of order are perhaps found in i/« 25. 34.
INDEX
Cloths, preparation of, 544
Cock, the, 536
Conscience, 163
Daughters,
Death, violent,
198
530
Demon, bloodthirsty,
528
Determinative, appositional.
192
Divine jealousy of human pre-
tensions,
487
Divorce in later times,
141
Dog in Palestine,
478
Early marriage,
114
Early rising,
124
PAGE
PAGE
Aboth Rabbi Nathan,
473
Eccl. 12I, 11 2 n.
Adultery, punishment of,
141
Education of Jewish children, 14,86
Agnosticism,
520
Elo^h, 522
Agricultural life.
63
Elohim, 35
Alcimus, the high priest.
537
Epicureanism, 43, 46, 104, 303,376,477
Alexander (J. A.), hymn
of.
29 n.
Esoterism, 8
Angel, mediating.
8
Antiochus Epiphanes,
9.37
Fuurth Gospel, 26, 169, 174
Apostates,
496
Aristotle, proverb of.
438
Generation, eternal, 181
Asidean,
37
God, connection of, with land, 52, 218
Ass, use of.
473
Greek element in Pr., 22
thought, 35
Beatitudes of Proverbs
67
Guest-room, 401
Bowels,
33,98
Brain,
33,98
Harlots, 44
Haying, season of, 493
Cairn, sacred,
475
Hermes pillar, 475
Children, education of.
Horses, use of, 412, 473
14, 86,
278. 376, 419
Hyrax, the, 534
Immortality, 300, 522, 523
Indefmite construction, 215
Indra, 1 28
Interest on money, 498 n.
Jewish communities, jurisdic-
tion of, no
Jews, apostate, 23
in Palestine, agricultural life of, 201
of the dispersion, 484
Job 5, date of, 65
15', xxxiii
book of, 80
Justice, 39
551
552
INDEX
PAGE
PAGE
Kaum, Arabian deity,
537
Retaliation, law of,
454
Kidneys,
98
Revelation, divine,
32
Kings, attitude of OT. toward,
168
Rigveda, 5
21 n.
functions of,
323
Koran,
112,
199
Sacrifice,
Schools, 8, 9, 14, 51, 65, 84, 270
410
424
Leech,
529
Seasons,
124
Liver,
98
Shaphan, the,
534
Lot,
363
Sheol, 15, 131, 307, 314, 338
404
Luck,
487
see also Underworld, Yahweh.
Silver dross,
479
Marriage,
533
Sinner, attitude of sages toward,
27
ceremonies.
47
Sister,
347
Mashal,
3
524
Slavery among the Jews,
238
Massa, land of.
539
Slaves as rulers.
371
Mazdean sacred books.
43
price of, 24b n.
Mead,
382
Socrates,
22
Midrash, 185, 475 n.
519
Soul,
40
Moshel,
518
Suretyship,
121
Name, significance of.
360
Talmud, the, 14, 47, 107, 152,
Naukratis,
45
155, 199, 225, 307, 336,
Nazirites,
382
395, 401, 473 n., 475 n.
498
Night-patrol,
151
Taxes, Egyptian,
507
Israelitish, 507 n.
Paitan,
3"-
Parents, obligation to.
505
Underworld, Babylonian,
158
Peccability, human,
386
Urim and Thummim,
16
Perfection, human,
386
Vows,
394
Pharisees,
522
.523
Pirke Aboth, 354, 377,
429
430
Weights and measures.
324
Piyut,
3"-
Wife, how chosen.
374
Prometheus,
128
Wine, use of,
185
Prostitution,
45
Wisdom identical with God's
Ptahhetep,
142
.303
moral law,
27
Punitive blindness.
28
Wisdom of Sol.,
Women, divorced.
531
533
Rain in Palestine,
468
position of, 103, 149, 198, 228
, 243
Rechabites,
382
property rights of.
534
Repentance,
28
Resentment,
252
Yahweh, name of,
360
Responsibility, individual,
195
use of the name,
10
Resurrection,
522
,523
and Sheol,
307
INDEX
553
ABB RE VIA TIONS *
A.C.
Aid.
Aq.
Ar.
AV.
Baumg.
B-D
BDB.
Beck.
Berth.
Bi.
Bott.
BS.
Buxt.
Cappel.
CI. Al.
Cocc.
Compl.
Copt.
De.
Deism.
De R.
Dr.
Dys.
Ew.
Fleisch.
P'rank.
After Christ.
Aldine Grk. text of OT.
Aquila.
Arab. Version of OT.
Eng. Authorized Version.
A. J. Baumgartner.
Baer and Delitzsch, Liber
Proverb, (textum masore-
ticum).
Heb. and Eng. Lex. of OT.,
ed. F. Brown, S. R. Driver,
C. A. Briggs.
W. A. Becker, Charicles or
Gall us (Eng. trans.).
E. Bertheau, Die Spriiche
Salomo's.
G. Bickell.
F. Bottcher, Neue Aehrenlese.
Ben-Sira (Ecclesiasticus).
J. Buxtorf, Lex. Chald. Tal-
mud, et Rabbin.
L. Cappellus, Critica Sacra.
Clement of Alexandria.
J. Cocceius (Koch), Lex.
Heb. et Chald.
Complutensian Polyglot.
Coptic Versions of Prov.
Franz Delitzsch, Das Salo-
mon. Spruchbuch.
Friedr. Delitzsch, Assyr.
Handworterbuch.
Deissmann, Bibelstudien.
J. B. De-Rossi, Var. lect. Vet.
Test.
S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy.
J. Dyserinck.
H. Ewald.
IL L. P'leischer.
W. Frankenberg.
© Alexandrian Version of OT. ;
l3^, Vat. MS. of (&, etc.
Geig. A. Geiger.
Ges. W. Gesenius.
Ginsb. Ginsburg's masoretic text of
OT.
Graec. Ven. Codex Venetus (= H-P
23).
Gr. PL Gratz.
1^ Masoretic text.
Heid. M. Heidenheim.
Hi. or Hitz. F. Hitzig.
H-P
Holmes and Parsons, Vet.
Test, graece.
Houb.
C. F. Iloubigant, Biblia Ilebr.
Jag.
J. G. Jaeger.
/A OS.
Journ. of Amer. Oriental
Soc'y.
Kamp.
A. Kamphausen (in
Kautzsch's Heilige
Schrift).
Kenn.
B. Keunicott, Vet. Test. Heb.
Klost.
A. Klostermann.
Kon.
F. E. Konig, Lehrgebaude
d. hebr. Sprache.
IL
Jerome's Version of OT.
Lag.
P. de Lagarde.
Luth.
Martin Luther.
Mich.
C. B. Michaelis.
NHW.
Levy, Neuhebr. Worterbuch.
Now.
W. Nowack.
01s.
J. Olshausen, Lehrbuch d.
heb. Sprache.
Pesh.
Peshita Syr. Version of OT.
Pink.
H. Pinkuss.
Pirk. Ab
. Pirke Aboth.
Proc.
Procopius.
Rawl.
G. Rawlinson.
RV.
Eng. Revised V'^ersion.
* Cf. Bibliography, p. xxxv.
554
INDEX
S Peshita ; S^^^, ed. of Lee, etc.
5" Hexaplar Syriac.
Saad. Saadia's Arab. tr. of Prov.
SBOT. Haupt's Sacred Books of OT.
Schl. J. F. Schleusner, Lex. in
LXX.
Schult. A. Schultens.
Siegf. C. Siegfried (in SS.).
SS. Siegfried and Stade, Heb.
Worterbuch.
Str. H. L. Strack.
Sym. Symmachus.
2r Targum.
Th. Theodotion.
Venet. (or, Ven.) Grk. Codex Venetus,
Vog. G. J. L. Vogel,
Wellh. J. Wellhausen.
Wild. G. Wildeboer.
Zock. O. Zockler.
A, or 'A Aquila.
S Symmachus.
0 Theodotion.
DIACRITICAL MARKS
() Insertion for clearness.
' ' Emendation of mas. text.
[] Omission of Heb. word or
words.
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THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. By \VlLLlAM Adams
Brown, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological
.Seminary, New York.
CHRISTIAN ETHICS. By Newman S.MYTH, D.D., Pastor of Congrega-
tional Church, New Haven. \Revised and Enlarged Edition.
THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR AND THE WORKING CHURCH. By
Washington Glauuen, D.D., Pastor of Congregational Church, Columbus,
Ohio. \N'o-,i< Ready.
THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER. [.4iithor to lie announced later.
RAbBINICAL LITERATURE. By S. ScHECHTER, M.A., President of
the Jewibh Thcolcjgical Seminary, New York City.
The International Theological Library
A History of the Reformation
I. THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY
II. THE REFORMATION IN LANDS BEYOND GERMANY
By THOMAS M. LINDSAY, M.A., D.D.
Principal of the United Free Church College, Glasgow
Orown 8vo, 544 pages, 2 vols. Each $2.50 net
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tion it is almost encyclopaedic in its convenience and conciseness. It is a
book no library, public or private, can really be without." — Record of Chris-
tian Work.
"No previous history, we believe, has given so full and graphic a por-
traiture of the intellectual, social and religious life of the age which gave
birth to the Reformation, or exhibited so clearly the intimate connection
of the evangelical revival under Luther with the family religion present and
taught in German homes from medieval times." — The Christian Intelligencer.
"The book, as a whole, is one of rare value. It is full of pictures as vivid
as if they were drawn from life. In a sense they were, for Dr. Lindsay has
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which he writes, to a remarkable degree. The reader who completes this
intensely interesting volume, will look forward eagerly to the next." —
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material, makes the work a real addition to our materials for study." — TJie
Congregationalist.
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notes and bibliographies give it interest and value for the special student." —
New York Observer.
The International Theologicat, Library
Theology of the New Testament
By GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University
Crown 8vo, 638 pages. $2.50 net
'In style it is rarely clear, simple, and strong, adapted alike to the gen-
eral reader and the theological student. The former class will find it read-
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lliorough scholarship and completeness of treatment. His work has a sim-
plicity, beauty, and freshness that add greatly to its scholarly excellence and
worth." — Christian Advocate.
"It is a fine example of painstaking, discriminating, imjjartial research
and statement." — The Congrcgationahst.
"It will certainly take its place, after careful reading, as a valual)le
synopsis, neither bare nor over-elaborate, to which recourse will be had by
the student or teacher who re(iuires within moderate compass the gist of
modern research"." — The Literary World.
The Ancient Catholic Church
From the Accession of Trajan to the Fourth
General Council (A. D. 98=451)
By ROBERT RAINY, D.D.
Principal of the New College, Edinburgh
CTOwn 8vo, 554 pages. $2.50 net
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been despairing of a restoration of true catholic unity in God's good time, it
is a book to fill him with hope and confidence." — The Church Standard.
'Principal Rainy has written a fascinating book. He has the gifts of an
historian and an expositor. His fresh presentation of so intricate and time-
worn a subject as Gnosticism grips and holds the attention from first to last.
Familiarity with most of the subjects which fall to be treated within these
limits of Christian history had bred a fancy that we might safely and profit-
ably skip some of the chapters, but we found ourselves returning to close up
the gaps; we should advise those who are led to read the book through this
notice not to repeat our experiment. It is a dish of well-cooked and well-
seasoned meat, savory and rich, with abundance of gravy; and, while no
on? wishes to be a clntton, he will miss something nutritious if he does not
trike time to consunif it all." — Methodist Review.
The International Theological Library
History of Christian Doctrine
By GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D.
Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale University
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variety and range, clearness of statement, judicious guidance, and catholicity
of tone." — London Nonconjormisl and Independent.
"It is only just to say that Dr. Fisher has produced the best History of
Doctrine that we have in English." — The New York Evangelist.
"It meets the severest standard; there is fullness of knowledge, thorough
research, keenly analytic thought, and rarest enrichment for a positive,
profound and learned critic. There is interpretative and reveaUng sympathy.
It is of the class of works that mark epochs in their several departments." —
The Outlook.
Christian Institutions
By ALEXANDER V. Q. ALLEN, D.D.
Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the Episcopal Theological School in
Cambridge
Crown 8vo, 577 pages. $2.50 net
"Professor Allen's Christian Institutions may be regarded as the most
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of the United States has yet made to general theological thought." — The
American Journal 0} Theology.
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wish to be abreast of the age." — The Lutheran Church Review.
"It is a treasury of expert knowledge, arranged in an orderly and lucid
manner, and more than ordinarily readable. ... It is controlled by the
candid and critical spirit of the careful historian who, of course, has his
convictions and preferences, but who makes no claims in their behalf which
the facts do not seem to warrant." — The Congregationalist.
"He writes in a charming style, and has collected a vast amount of im-
.portant material pertaining to his subject which can be found in no other
work in so compact a form." — The New York Observer.
The International Theological Library
Apologetics
Or, Christianity Defensively Stated
By ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, D.D.
Professor of Apologetics and New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College,
Glasgow; Author of "The Training of the Twelve," "The Humilia-
tion of Christ," "The Kingdom of God," etc.
Crown 8vo, 528 pages. $2.50 net
"The book is well-nigh indispensable to those who propose to keep
abreast of the times." — Western Christian Advocate.
"In a word, he tells precisely what all intelligent persons wish to know,
and tells it in a clear, fresh and convincing manner. Scarcely anyone has
so successfully rendered the service of showing what the result of the higher
criticism is for the proper understanding of the history and religion of
Israel." — Andover Review.
"We have not for a long time taken a book in hand that is more stimulating
to faith. . . . Without commenting further, we repeat that this volume is
the ablest, most scholarly, most advanced, and sharpest defence of Chris-
tianity that has ever been written. No theological library should be with-
out it." — Zion's Herald.
Christian Ethics
By NEWMAN SMYTH, D.D., New Haven
Crown 8vo, 508 pages. $2.50 net
"As this book is the latest, so it is the fullest and most attractive treat-
ment of the subject that we are familiar with. Patient and exhaustive in
its method of inquiry, and stimulating and suggestive in the topic it handles,
we are confident that it will be a help to the task of the moral understanding
and interpretation of human Ufe." — The Living Church.
"This book of Dr. Newman Smyth is of extraordinary interest and value.
It is an honor to American scholarship and American Christian thinking.
It is a work \v'hich has been wrought out with remarkable grasp of con-
ception, and power of just analysis, fullness of information, richness of
thought, and affluence of apt and luminous illustration. Its style is singu-
larly clear, simple, facile, and strong. Too much gratification can hardly
be expressed at the way the author lifts the whole subject of ethics up out
of the slough of mere naturalism into its own place, where it is seen to be
"llumined bv ihf Christian revelation and vision." — The Advance.
The International Theological Library
The Theology of the Old Testament
By A. B. DAVID50N, D.D., LL.D., D.Litt.
Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis, New College, Edinburgh
EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MANUSCRIPTS
By 5. D. P. 5ALM0ND, D.D., F.E.I.5.
Princijial of the United Free Church College, Aberdeen
Crown 8vo, 568 pages. $2.50 net
"We hope every clerg\Tnan will not rest content till he has procured and
studied this most admirable and useful book. Every really useful cjuestion
relating to man — his nature, his fall, and his redemption, his present life of
grace, his life after death, his future life — is treated of. We may add that the
most conservatively inclined believer in the Old Testament will find nothing
in this book to startle him, v.'hile, at the same time, the book is fully cogni-
zant of the altered views regarding the ancient Scriptures. The tone is
reverent throughout, and no one who reads attentively can fail to derive fresh
light and benefit from the exposition here given." — The Canadian Church-
man.
"We commend this book with a special prayer, believing that it will make
the Old Testament a richer book; and make the foundation upon which the
teachings of the New Testament stand more secure to every one who reads
it." — The Heidelberg Teacher.
A HISTORY OF
Christianity in the Apostolic Age
By ARTHUR CUSHMAN McQIFFERT, Ph.D., D.D.
Washburn Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Seminar}",
New York
Crown Svo, 68i pages. $3 50 net
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of the thoroughness of its criticism and the boldness of its views." — The
Scotsman.
"Dr. McGiffert has produced an able, scholarly, suggestive, and con-
structive work. He is in thorough and easy possession of his sources and
materials, so that his positive construction is seldom interrupted by citations,
the demolition of opposing views, or the irrelevant discussion of subordinate
questions." — The Methodist Revieiv.
"The clearness, self-consistency, and force of the whole impression of
Apostolic Christianity with which we leave this book, goes far to guarantee
its permanent value and success." — The Expositor.
The International Theological Library
AN lINTkODUCTION TO
The Literature of the Old Testament
By Prof. S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt.
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford
New Edition Revised
Crown 8vo, 558 pages. $2.50 net
"His judgment is singularly fair, calm, unbiassed, and independent. It
Is also thoroughly reverential. . . . The service, which his book will render
in the present confusion of mind on this great subject, can scarcely be over-
estimated."— The London Times.
"... Canon Driver's book is characterized throughout by thorough
Christian scholarship, faithful research, caution in the expression of mere
opinions, candor in the statement of facts and of the necessary inferences
from them, and the devout recognition of the divine inworking in the religious
life of the Hebrews, and of the tokens of divine inspiration in the literature
which records and embodies it." — Dr. A. P. Peabody, in the Cambridge
Tribune.
Old Testament History
By HENRY PRESERVED SHITH, D.D.
Professor of Biblical History and Interpretation, Amherst College
Crown 8vo, 538 pages. $2.50 net
"Professor Smith has, by his comprehensive and vitalized history, laid
all who care for the Old Testament under great obligations." — The In-
dependent.
"The volume is characterized by extraordinary clearness of conception
and representation, thorough scholarly ability, and charm of style." — The
Interior.
"We have a clear, interesting, instructive account of the growth of Israc 1,
embodying a series of careful judgments on the countless problems that face
the man who tries to understand the life of that remarkable people. The
'History' takes its place worthily by the side of Driver's Introduction.
The student of to-day is to be congratulated on having so valuable an atl-
dition made to his stock of tools." — The Expository Times.
The International Theological Library
The Christian Doctrine of Salvation
By GEORGE B. STEVENS, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D.
Dwight Professor of Systematic Theology in Yale University
Crown 8vo, 558 pages. $2.50 net
"The book is a great work, whatever one's own dogmatic opinions niay
be, or however one might wish to criticize some of the j)Ositions taken by
Dr. Stevens. It shows mastery of the subject, breadth of view combined
with the minutiae of scholarship, that is admirable. It should have a wide
reading, and it can do much for this transitional time of ours, when nothing
is more needed than the reintcrpretation of the old formulas in the life of
to-day." — The Examiner.
"Professor Stevens has performed a task of great importance, certain
to exert wide and helpful influence in settling the minds of men. He has
treated the subject historically and has given to Christ the first place in
interpreting his own mission." — Congregationalist and Christian World.
The Christian Pastor and the Working Church
By WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., LL.D.
Author of "Applied Christianity," "Who Wrote the Bible?" "Ruling
Ideas of the Present Age," etc.
Crown 8vo, 485 pages. $2.50 net
"Packed with wisdom and instruction and a profound piety. ... It is
pithy, pertinent, and judicious from cover to cover. . . . An exceedingly
comprehensive, sagacious, and suggestive study and application of its
theme." — The Congregationalist.
"We have here, for the pastor, the most modern practical treatise yet
published — sagacious, balanced, devout, inspiring." — The Dial.
"A comprehensive, inspiring, and helpful guide to a busy pastor. One
finds in it a multitude of practical suggestions for the development of the
spiritual and working life of the Church, and the answer to many problems
that are a constant perplexity to the faithful minister." — The Christian
Intelligencer.
The International Theological Library
Canon and Text of the New Testament
By CASPAR RENE GREGORY, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Leipzig.
Crown 8vo, 539 pages. $2.50 net
"The book is a treasury of learning, and its fairness in dealing with the
matter in hand is admirable. From first to last, the purpose of the author
is not to show upon how slight basis our confidence in the canonicity of the
New Testament is based, but rather upon how solid a foundation our con-
fidence rests.'" — Journal and Messenger.
"lie has succeeded in giving us on a rather dull subject a book bright,
fresh, readable and entertaining, and at the same time one heavily freighted
with most valuable information. To read the ' Canon and Text ' will be
to any Christian a help, a stimulus, a means of grace."
— The New York Observer.
"This volume is one of the most interesting and important in the series
known as The International Theological Library. It is a book with which
every Biblical scholar must become familiar, and which an intelligent lay-
man will find instructive and helpful."
— The Congregationalist and Christian World.
"A work like the 'Canon and Text of the New Testament,' prepared by
one of such ability and after such research, we must naturally think would
be of inestimable value to the Biblical student. The reading of it will con-
firm any unprejudiced mind in this opinion. Had we possessed it as a text-
book in our seminary days the study of Introduction would have been far
more interesting and far more conclusive in its results. The style of the
author is very attractive in its simplicity and clearness. There is a familiar-
ity and a conversational tone about his descriptions and illustrations that
makes the reading easy and pleasant." — 77/6' Westminster.
" Dr. Gregory has every qualification for the laborious task that he set
before himself in planning this remarkable work on the evidence that under-
lies the ' Canon and Text of the New Testament,' and it may be said at once
that his labour of love has been crowned with complete success."
— Contemporary Revieiv.
"This substantial volume fully maintains the high standard of scholar-
ship which has hitherto distinguished this well-known series. ... A bril-
liant contribution to New Testament scholarship." — Scotsman.
"It may be said at once that this learned and copious work will enhance
a reputation already deservedly high. . . . His book is a treasury in which
are gathered all 'allusions to the existence of the New Testament books,
quotations from these, direct references to the books by name, and signs of
special value attached to them by Christians." — Methodist Recorder.
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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
Bible
Comment
(O.T.)
Proverbs
T
Toy, Crawford H,
The international critical
commentary on Proverbs
31
h