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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 10:19 - 10:19
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19 In a multitude of words transgression is not wanting;
But he who restrains his lips shows wisdom.
We do not, with Bertheau, understand 19a: by many words a transgression does not cease to be what it is; the contrast 19b requires a more general condemnation of the multitude of words, and חָדַל not only means to cease from doing (to leave off), and to cease from being (to take away), but also not at all to do (to intermit, Eze 3:11; Zec 11:12), and not at all to be (to fail, to be absent), thus: ubi verborum est abundantia non deest peccatum (Fl.). Michaelis suitably compares πολυλογία πολλὰ σφάλματα ἒχει by Stobäus, and כל המרבה דברים מביא חטא in the tractate Aboth i. 17, wherewith Rashi explains the proverb. פֶּשַׁע is not here, as elsewhere, e.g., Psa 19:14, with special reference to the sin of falling away from favour, apostasy, but, like the post-biblical עֲבֵרָה, generally with reference to every kind of violation (פשׁע = Arab. fsq dirumpere) of moral restraint; here, as Jansen remarks, peccatum sive mendacii, sive detractionis, sive alterius indiscretae laesionis, sive vanitatis, sive denique verbi otiosi. In 19b it is more appropriate to regard מַשְׂכִּיל as the present of the internal transitive (intelligenter agit) than to interpret it in the attributive sense (intelligens).