Bibelkommentare

II. First Collection of Proverbs 10:1 to Proverbs 22:16Ch. 10. Title. The Proverbs of Solomon

At this point we pass from the direct and continuous appeal of the opening chapters of the Book to the first and by far the largest Collection of proverbs proper, that is to say of short and for the most part disconnected maxims, each of them contained as a rule in a couplet or distich formed strictly on the model of Hebrew parallelism. “Golden sayings,” Maurer calls them, “not unworthy of Solomon, and fitted to form and fashion the whole life.” It is only however as regards the mould in which it is cast, not in its tone or principles, that the teaching of the Book takes here a new departure.

In this first Collection each verse contains a proverb, generally antithetic, and consists of two members only. On the apparent exception, Proverbs 19:7, see note there.

1. heaviness] or sorrow, as the same somewhat uncommon word is rendered in Proverbs 17:21.

It is perhaps significant that the first proverb deals with so fundamental a relation of human society.

2. Treasures of wickedness … righteousness] The contrast would seem to be between “wickedness” in its highest prosperity and success, when it has amassed “treasures,” when it has “found all precious substance and filled the house with spoil” (Proverbs 1:13), and “righteousness,” in itself considered, independently of the consequences which may attach to it. Comp. Proverbs 11:4.

3. to famish] Comp. Psalm 37:25; and for the soul’s highest hungering, Matthew 5:6.

casteth away the substance] Rather, thrusteth away (as Gehazi would have done the Shunammite, 2 Kings 4:27) the desire, R.V.

4. He becometh poor] It has been thought that the change of a single vowel point would give A slack hand maketh poor, which is an exact parallel to the second clause of the verse, and is adopted by the Vulg., egestatem operata est manus remissa.

5. sleepeth] Sleeps heavily, goes fast to sleep. Stertit, Vulg. Comp. Jonah 1:5-6, where the Heb. word is the same.

This is an example of an exactly balanced proverb in the wording of the two clauses, especially if with R.V. marg. we render literally, a son that doeth wisely … that doeth shamefully.

The LXX., having introduced another proverb at the beginning of this verse:

“A son who receives instruction shall be wise,

And shall serve himself of the fool as his minister,”

gives as the equivalent of our present proverb,

“A prudent son shall be saved from the heat,

But a son that is a transgressor shall be carried away by the wind in harvest.”

6. violence covereth &c.] This, which is the rendering both of A.V. and R.V. text, is to be preferred to the rendering of R.V. marg., “the mouth of the wicked covereth violence,” i.e. in what he says there is a covert purpose of violence, which he endeavours to conceal.

So rendered it may mean either (a) the violence of the wicked man himself covers his mouth—he never opens it without pouring forth violence; and then perhaps we are to complete the parallelism by supplying from the first clause, “you may judge therefore what comes upon his head”; or (b) in more obvious parallelism, instead of the blessings which all men pour upon the head of the just, the mouth of the wicked they cover with violence, with reproaches, and it may be with blows (Acts 23:2). To this, however, it is objected that the Heb. word always connotes wrongful treatment.

The idea of covering the mouth as a sign of condemnation is farfetched, and it is not borne out by the passages cited in support of it (Esther 7:8; Leviticus 13:45; Ezekiel 24:17; Micah 3:7), in all of which it is the “lip” or the “face,” and not the “mouth” which is covered.

8. a prating fool] A happy rendering, lit. the foolish of lips.

shall fall] Or, shall be overthrown, or laid low. R.V. marg.