Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Proverbs Chapitre 8

Far remote is the idea that 13a is dependent on אמצא (I acquire) (Löwenstein, Bertheau). With this verse begins a new series of thoughts raising themselves on the basis of the fundamental clause 13a. Wisdom says what she hates, and why she hates it:

13 “The fear of Jahve is to hate evil;

Pride and arrogancy, and an evil way

And a deceitful mouth, do I hate.”

If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 1:7), then wisdom, personally considered, stands before all else that is to be said of her in a relation of homage or reverence toward God corresponding to the fear of God on the part of man; and if, as the premiss 13a shows, the fear of God has as its reverse side the hatred of evil, then there arises what Wisdom says in שׂנאתי (I hate) of herself. Instead of the n. actionis שׂנאת (hatred), formed in the same way with יראת , which, admitting the article, becomes a substantive, the author uses, in order that he might designate the predicate as such (Hitzig), rather the n. actionis שׂנאת as מלאת , Jeremiah 29:10. קראת , Judges 8:1, is equivalent to שׂנאת like יבּשׁת , the becoming dry, יכלת , the being able; cf. (Arab.) shanat , hating, malât , well-being, ḳarât , reading (Fl.). The evil which Wisdom hates is now particularized as, Proverbs 6:16-19, the evil which Jahve hates. The virtue of all virtues is humility; therefore Wisdom hates, above all, self-exaltation in all its forms. The paronomasia גּאה וגאון (pride and haughtiness) expresses the idea in the whole of its contents and compass (cf. Isaiah 15:6; Isaiah 3:1, and above at Proverbs 1:27). גּאה (from גּאה , the nominal form), that which is lofty = pride, stands with גּאון , as Job 4:10, גבהּ , that which is high = arrogance. There follows the viam mali , representing the sins of walk, i.e., of conduct, and os fullax ( vid., at Proverbs 2:12), the sins of the mouth. Hitzig rightly rejects the interpunctuation רע , and prefers רע . In consequence of this Dechî ( Tiphcha init.), וּפי תהפּכת have in Codd. and good editions the servants Asla and Illuj ( vid., Baer's Torath Emeth, p. 11); Aben-Ezra and Moses Kimchi consider the Asla erroneously as disjunctive, and explain וּפי by et os = axioma meum , but Asla is conjunctive, and has after it the ת raphatum.

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Wisdom takes now a new departure, in establishing her right to be heard, and to be obeyed and loved by men. As the Divine King in Psalms 2:1-12 opposes to His adversaries the self-testimony: “I will speak concerning a decree! Jahve said unto me: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee;” so Wisdom here unfolds her divine patent of nobility: she originates with God before all creatures, and is the object of God's love and joy, as she also has the object of her love and joy on God's earth, and especially among the sons of men:

“Jahve brought me forth as the beginning of His way,

As the foremost of His works from of old.”

The old translators render קנני (with Kametz by Dechî; vid., under Psalms 118:5) partly by verbs of creating (lxx ἔκτισε , Syr., Targ. בּראני ), partly by verbs of acquiring (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Venet. ἐκτήσατο ; Jerome, possedit ); Wisdom appears also as created, certainly not without reference to this passage, Sir. 1:4, προτέρα πάντων ἕκτισται σοφία ; 1:9, αὐτὸς ἕκτισεν αὐτήν ; 24:8, ὁ κτίσας με . In the christological controversy this word gained a dogmatic signification, for they proceeded generally on the identity of σοφία ὑποστατική ( sapientia substantialis ) with the hypostasis of the Son of God. The Arians used the ἔκτισέ με as a proof of their doctrine of the filius non genitus, sed factus , i.e., of His existence before the world began indeed, but yet not from eternity, but originating in time; while, on the contrary, the orthodox preferred the translation ἐκτήσατο , and understood it of the co-eternal existence of the Son with the Father, and agreed with the ἔκτισε of the lxx by referring it not to the actual existence, but to the position, place of the Son (Athanasius: Deus me creavit regem or caput operum suorum ; Cyrill.: non condidit secundum substantiam, sed constituit me totius universi principium et fundamentum ). But (1) Wisdom is not God, but is God's; she has personal existence in the Logos of the N.T., but is not herself the Logos; she is the world-idea, which, once projected, is objective to God, not as a dead form, but as a living spiritual image; she is the archetype of the world, which, originating from God, stands before God, the world of the idea which forms the medium between the Godhead and the world of actual existence, the communicated spiritual power in the origination and the completion of the world as God designed it to be. This wisdom the poet here personifies; he does not speak of the person as Logos, but the further progress of the revelation points to her actual personification in the Logos. And (2) since to her the poet attributes an existence preceding the creation of the world, he thereby declares her to be eternal, for to be before the world is to be before time. For if he places her at the head of the creatures, as the first of them, so therewith he does not seek to make her a creature of this world having its commencement in time; he connects her origination with the origination of the creature only on this account, because that à priori refers and tends to the latter; the power which was before heaven and earth were, and which operated at the creation of the earth and of the heavens, cannot certainly fall under the category of the creatures around and above us. Therefore (3) the translation with ἔκτισεν has nothing against it, but it is different from the κτίσις of the heavens and the earth, and the poet has intentionally written not בּראני , but קנני . Certainly קנה , Arab. knâ , like all the words used of creating, refers to one root-idea: that of forging ( vid., under Genesis 4:22), as ברא does to that of cutting ( vid., under Genesis 1:1); but the mark of a commencement in time does not affix itself to קנה in the same way as it does to ברא , which always expresses the divine production of that which has not hitherto existed. קנה comprehends in it the meanings to create, and to create something for oneself, to prepare, parare ( e.g., Psalms 139:13), and to prepare something for oneself, comparare , as κτίζειν and κτᾶσθαι , both from kshi, to build, the former expressed by struere , and the latter by sibi struere . In the קנני , then, there are the ideas, both that God produced wisdom, and that He made Himself to possess it; not certainly, however, as a man makes himself to possess wisdom from without, Proverbs 4:7. But the idea of the bringing forth is here the nearest demanded by the connection. For ראשׁית דּרכּו is not equivalent to בּראשׁית דרכו (Syr., Targ., Luther), as Jerome also reads: Ita enim scriptum est : adonai canani bresith dercho (Ep. cxl. ad Cyprian.); but it is, as Job 40:19 shows, the second accusative of the object (lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion). But if God made wisdom as the beginning of His way, i.e., of His creative efficiency (cf. Revelation 3:14 and Colossians 1:15), the making is not to be thought of as acquiring, but as a bringing forth, revealing this creative efficiency of God, having it in view; and this is also confirmed by the חוללתי ( genita sum ; cf. Genesis 4:1, קניתי , genui ) following. Accordingly, קדם מפעליו (foremost of His works) has to be regarded as a parallel second object. accusative. All the old translators interpret קדם as a preposition [before], but the usage of the language before us does not recognise it as such; this would be an Aramaism, for קדם , Daniel 7:7, frequently מן־קדם (Syr., Targ.), is so used. But as קדם signifies previous existence in space, and then in time ( vid., Orelli, Zeit und Ewigkeit, p. 76), so it may be used of the object in which the previous existence appears, thus (after Sir. 1:4): προτέραν τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ (Hitzig).

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A designation of the When? expressed first by מאז (Isaiah 48:8, cf. Isaiah 40:21), is further unfolded:

“From everlasting was I set up,

From the beginning, from the foundations of the earth.”

That נסּכתּי cannot be translated: I was anointed = consecrated, vid., at Psalms 2:6. But the translation also: I was woven = wrought (Hitzig, Ewald, and previously one of the Greeks, ἐδιάσθην ), does not commend itself, for רקּם (Psalms 139:15), used of the embryo, lies far from the metaphorical sense in which נסך = Arab. nasaj , texere , would here be translated of the origin of a person, and even of such a spiritual being as Wisdom; נסדתּי , as the lxx reads ( ἐθεμελιωσέ με ), is not once used of such. Rightly Aquila, κατεστάθην ; Symmachus, προκεχείρισμαι ; Jerome, ordinata sum . Literally, but unintelligibly, the Gr. Venet. κέχυμαι , according to which (cf. Sir. 1:10) Böttcher: I was poured forth = formed, but himself acknowledging that this figure is not suitable to personification; nor is it at all likely that the author applied the word, used in this sense of idols, to the origin of Wisdom. The fact is, that נסך , used as seldom of the anointing or consecration of kings, as סוּך , passes over, like יצק ( הצּיק ), צוּק ( מצוּק , a pillar), and יצג ( הצּיג ), from the meaning of pouring out to that of placing and appointing; the mediating idea appears to be that of the pouring forth of the metal, since נסיך , Daniel 11:8, like נסך , signifies a molten image. The Jewish interpreters quite correctly remark, in comparing it with the princely name נסיך [cf. Psalms 83:12] (although without etymological insight), that a placing in princely dignity is meant. Of the three synonyms of aeternitas a parte ante , מעולם points backwards into the infinite distance, מראשׁ into the beginning of the world, מקּדמי־ארץ not into the times which precede the origin of the earth, but into the oldest times of its gradual arising; this קדמי it is impossible to render, in conformity with the Hebr. use of language: it is an extensive plur. of time, Böttcher, §697. The מן repeated does not mean that the origin and greatness of Wisdom are contemporaneous with the foundation of the world; but that when the world was founded, she was already an actual existence.

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But not only did her existence precede the laying of the foundation of the world; she was also actively taking part in the creative work:

“When He prepared the heavens, I was there,

When He measured out a circle for the mirror of the multitude of waters.”

Again a sentence clothed with two designations of time. The adv. of place שׁם is used, chiefly poetically, for אז , eo tempore (Arab. thumm , in contradistinction to thamm , eo loco ); but here it has the signification of place, which includes that of time: Wisdom was there when God created the world, and had then already long before that come into existence, like as the servant of Jahve, Isaiah 48:16, with just such a שׁם אני , says that He is there from the time that the history of nations received a new direction, beginning with Cyrus. הכין signifies to give a firm position or a definite direction. Thus Job 28:27 of Wisdom, whom the Creator places before Himself as a pattern (ideal); here, as Jeremiah 10:12; Psalms 65:7, of the setting up, restoring throughout the whole world. In the parallel member, חוּג , corresponding to שׁמים , appears necessarily to designate the circle or the vault of the heavens (Job 22:14), which, according to the idea of the Hebrews, as in Homer, rests as a half-globe on the outermost ends of the disc of the earth surrounded with water, and thus lies on the waters. Vid., Hupfeld under Psalms 24:2. This idea of the ocean girdling the earth is introduced into the O.T. without its being sanctioned by it. The lxx ( καὶ ὅτε ἀφώριζε τὸν ἑαυτοῦ θρόνον ἐπ ̓ ἀνέμων ) appears to understand תהום of the waters above; but תהום never has this meaning, ים (Job 9:8; Job 36:30) might rather be interpreted of the ocean of the heavens. The passage in accordance with which this before us is to be expounded is Job 26:10: He has set a limit for the surface of the waters, i.e., describing over them a circle setting bounds to their region. So here, with the exchange of the functions of the two words; when He marked out a circle over the surface of the multitude of waters, viz., to appoint a fixed region ( מקוה , Genesis 1:10) for them, i.e., the seas, fountains, rivers, in which the waters under the heavens spread over the earth. חקק signifies incidere, figere , to prescribe, to measure off, to consign, and directly to mark out, which is done by means of firm impressions of the graver's tools. But here this verb is without the Dagesh, to distinguish between the infinitive and the substantive חקּו (his statute or limit); for correct texts have בּחקו ( Michlol 147a); and although a monosyllable follows, yet there is no throwing back of the tone, after the rule that words terminating in o in this case maintain their ultima accentuation ( e.g., משׂמו אל , Numbers 24:23). Fleischer also finally decides for the explanation: quum delinearet circulum super abysso , when He marked out the region of the sea as with the circle.

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After that Wisdom has shown in Proverbs 8:22-31 how worthy her fellowship is of being an object of desire from her mediating place between God and the world, she begins with this verse (as Proverbs 7:24; Proverbs 5:7) the hortatory ( parהnetische ) concluding part of her discourse:

“And now, ye sons, hearken unto me,

And salvation to those who keep my ways!”

The lxx omits Proverbs 8:33, and obviates the disturbing element of ואשׁרי , 32b, arising from its ו , by a transposition of the stichs. But this ואשרי is the same as the καὶ μακάριος , Matthew 11:6; the organic connection lies hid, as Schleiermacher ( Hermeneutik, p. 73) well expresses it, in the mere sequence; the clause containing the proof is connected by ו with that for which proof is to be assigned, instead of subordinating itself to it with כּי . Such an exclamatory clause has already been met with in Proverbs 3:13, there אדם follows as the governed genitive, here a complete sentence (instead of the usual participial construction, שׁמרי דרכי ) forms this genitive, Gesen. §123, 3, Anm. 1.

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