Bible Commentaries

In the group Proverbs 27:1-6 of this chapter every two proverbs form a pair. The first pair is directed against unseemly boasting:

1 Boast not thyself of to-morrow,

For thou knowest not what a day bringeth forth.

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

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2 Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth;

A stranger, and not thine own lips.

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

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The second pair of proverbs designates two kinds of violent passion as unbearable:

3 The heaviness of a stone, the weight of sand -

A fool's wrath is heavier than both.

We do not translate: Gravis est petra et onerosa arena , so that the substantives stand for strengthening the idea, instead of the corresponding adjective (Fleischer, as the lxx, Jerome, Syr., Targum); the two pairs of words stand, as 4a, in genit. relation (cf. on the contrary, Proverbs 31:30), and it is as if the poet said: represent to thyself the heaviness of a stone and the weight of sand, and thou shalt find that the wrath of a fool compared thereto is still heavier, viz., for him who has to bear it; thus heavier, not for the fool himself (Hitzig, Zצckler, Dהchsel), but for others against whom his anger goes forth. A Jewish proverb ( vid., Tendlau, No. 901) says, that one knows a man by his wine-glass ( כוס ), his purse ( כיס ), and his anger ( כעס ), viz., how he deports himself in the tumult; and another says that one reads what is in a man ביום כעסו , when he is in an ill-humour. Thus also כעס is to be here understood: the fool in a state of angry, wrathful excitement is so far not master of himself that the worst is to be feared; he sulks and shows hatred, and rages without being appeased; no one can calculate what he may attempt, his behaviour is unendurable. Sand, חול ,

(Note: Sand is called by the name חוּל ( חיל ), to change, whirl, particularly to form sand-wreaths, whence (Arab.) al - Habil , the region of moving sand; vid., Wetzstein's Nord-arabien, p. 56.)

as it appears, as to the number of its grains innumerable, so as to its mass (in weight) immeasurable, Job 6:3; Sir. 22:13. נטל the Venet. translates, with strict regard to the etymology, by ἅρμα .

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4 The madness of anger, and the overflowing of wrath -

And before jealousy who keeps his place!

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

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The third pair of proverbs passes over from this special love between husband and wife to that subsisting between friends:

5 Better is open accusation

Than secret love.

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

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6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend,

And overloaded [plentiful] the kisses of an enemy.

The contrast to נאמנים , true, i.e., honourable and good (with the transference of the character of the person to his act), would be fraudulenta (Jerome), or נהפכות , i.e., false (Ralbag); Ewald seeks this idea from עתר , to stumble, make a false step;

(Note: Thus also Schultens in the Animadversiones, which later he fancied was derived from עתר , nidor , from the meaning nidorosa , and thence virulenta .)

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

(Note: Vid., regarding this word, Schlottmann in Deutsch.-Morgenl. Zeitschrift, xxiv. 665, 668.)

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

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In Proverbs 27:7-10 there is also visible a weaving of the external with the internal. First, there are two proverbs, in each of which there is repeated a word terminating with נ .

7 A satisfied soul treadeth honeycomb under foot;

And a hungry soul - everything bitter is (to it) sweet.

It is unnecessary to read תּבוּז (Hitzig); תּבוּס is stronger; “to tread with the feet” is the extreme degree of scornful despite. That satiety and hunger are applicable to the soul, vid., under Proverbs 10:3. In 7b, the adverb להּ , relative to the nomin. absol., like Proverbs 28:7, but not Proverbs 13:18. “Hunger is the best cook,” according to a German proverb; the Hebrew proverb is so formed that it is easily transferred to the sphere of the soul. Let the man whom God has richly satisfied with good things guard himself against ingratitude towards the Giver, and against an undervaluing of the gifts received; and if they are spiritual blessings, let him guard himself against self-satisfaction and self-contentment, which is, in truth, the worst poverty, Revelation 3:17; for life without God is a constant hunger and thirst. There is in worldly things, even the most pleasing, a dissatisfaction felt, and a dissatisfaction awakening disgust; and in spiritual life, a satiety which supposes itself to be full of life, but which is nothing else than the decay of life, than the changing of life into death.

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8 As a bird that wandereth from her nest,

So is a man that wandereth from his home.

It is not a flying out that is meant, from which at any moment a return is possible, but an unwilling taking to flight (lxx 8b: ὅταν ἀποξενωθῇ ; Venet.: πλανούμενον ... πλανούμενος ); for עוף נודד , Isaiah 16:2, cf. Jeremiah 4:25, birds that have been frightened; and נדד , Proverbs 21:15., designates the fugitive; cf. נע ונד , Genesis 4:14, and above, Proverbs 26:2, where נוּד designates aimless roving about. Otherwise Fleischer: “warning against unnecessary roaming about, in journeyings and wanderings far from home: as a bird far from its nest is easily wounded, caught, or killed, so, on such excursions, one easily comes to injury and want. One may think of a journey in the East. The Arabs say, in one of their proverbs: âlsafar ḳaṭ'at man âlklyym (= journeying is a part of the pains of hell).” But נדד here is not to be understood in the sense of a libere vagari . Rightly C. B. Michaelis: qui vagatur extorris et exul a loco suo sc. natali vel habitationis ordinariae . This proverb mediately recommends the love of one's fatherland, i.e., “love to the land in which our father has his home; on which our paternal mansion stands; in which we have spent the years of our childhood, so significant a part of one's whole life; from which we have derived our bodily and intellectual nourishment; and in which home we recognise bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.”

(Note: Gustave Baur's article “Vaterlandsliebe,” in Schmid's Pädagogischer Encyklopädie.)

But next it says, that to be in a strange land must be an unhappiness, because a man never feels better than at home, as the bird in its nest. We say: Heimat [home] - this beautiful word becomes the German language, which has also coined the expressive idea of Heimweh [longing for home]; the Heb. uses, to express the idea of home, the word מקומי ; and of fatherland, the word ארצי or אדמתי . The Heb. שׁבוּת corresponds

(Note: The translators transfer to this place a note from vol. ii. p. 191f. of the author's larger Comm. ü. den Psalter, to which Delitzsch refers the reader: - “The modern High German adj. elend , middle High German ellende , old High German alilandi, elilendi , or elilenti , is composed of ali and land . The adj. ali occurs only in old High German in composition. In the Gothic it is found as an independent adj., in the sense of alius and ἄλλυς ( vid., Ulfilas, Galatians 5:10). The primary meaning of elilenti is consequently: of another country, foreign. In glosses and translations it is rendered by the Lat. words peregrinus, exul, advena , also captivus . In these meanings it occurs very frequently. In the old High German translation of Ammonius, Diatessaron, sive Harmoniae in quatuor Evangelica, the word proselytism, occurring in Matthew 23:15, is rendered by elilantan . To the adj. the old High German subst. corresponds. This has the meaning exilium, transmigratio, captivitas . The connection in elilenti or elilentes , used adverbially, is rendered by the Lat. peregre . In the middle High German, however, the proper signification of both words greatly predominates. But as, in the old High German, the idea of miser is often at the same time comprehended in the proper signification: he who is miserable through banishment, imprisonment, or through sojourning in a strange land; thus, in several places of the middle High German, this derived idea begins to separate itself from the fundamental conception, so that ellende comes in general to be called miser . In the new High German this derived conception is almost alone maintained. Yet here also, in certain connections, there are found traces of the original idea, e.g., in's Elend schicken , for to banish. Very early also the word came to be used, in a spiritual sense, to denote our present abode, in contrast to paradise or the heavenly kingdom.... Thus, e.g., in one of Luther's hymns, when we pray to the Holy Ghost:

Das er vns behüte, an vnserm ende,

Wenn wir heim farn aus diesem elende .”

[That He guard us to our end

When we go home from this world.]

• Rud. von Raumer)

to the German Elend , but = Ellend, elilenti , of another land, strange.

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