Bibelkommentare

Another - An "alienus" rather than "alius." Praise to be worth anything must be altogether independent.

Compare Ecclus. 22:15; a like comparison between the heaviest material burdens and the more intolerable load of unreasoning passion.

Envy - Better, as in the margin, the violence of passion in the husband who thinks himself wronged (compare Proverbs 6:34).

Secret love - Better, love that is hidden; i. e., love which never shows itself in this one way of rebuking faults. Rebuke, whether from friend or foe, is better than such love.

Deceitful - Better, abundant. Very lavish is the enemy of the kisses that cover perfidy, but lavish of them only. His courtesy goes no deeper.

The special instance covers the general law, that indulgence in pleasure of any kind brings on satiety and weariness, but self-restraint multiplies the sources of enjoyment.

Change of place is thought of as in itself an evil. It is not easy for the man to find another home or the bird another nest. The maxim is characteristic of the earlier stages of Hebrew history, before exile and travel had made change of country a more familiar thing. Compare the feeling which made the thought of being "a fugitive and a vagabond" Genesis 4:12-13 the most terrible of all punishments.

"Better is a neighbor" who is really "near" in heart and spirit, than a brother who though closer by blood, is "far off" in feeling.