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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 10:21 - 10:21
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
21 The lips of the righteous edify many;
But fools die through want of understanding.
The lxx translate 21a: the lips of the righteous ἐπίσταται ὑψηλά, which would at least require ידעו רבות. רָעָה is, like the post-bibl. pir|neec (vid., the Hebr. Römerbrief, p. 97), another figure for the N.T. οἰκοδομεῖν: to afford spiritual nourishment and strengthening, to which Fleischer compares the ecclesiastical expressions: pastor, ovile ecclesiae, les ouailles; רֹעֶה means leader, Jer 10:21, as well as teacher, Ecc 12:11, for it contains partly the prevailing idea of leading, partly of feeding. יִרְעוּ stands for תִּרְעֶינָה, as Pro 10:32, Pro 5:2. In 21b, Bertheau incorrectly explains, as Euchel and Michaelis: stulti complures per dementem unum moriuntur; the food has truly enough in his own folly, and needs not to be first drawn by others into destruction. חֲסַר is not here the connective form of חָסֵר (Jewish interpreters: for that reason, that he is such an one), nor of חֶסֶר (Hitzig, Zöckler), which denotes, as a concluded idea, penuria, but like רְחַב, Pro 21:4, שְׁכַב, Pro 6:10, and שְׁפַל, Pro 16:19, infin.: they die by want of understanding (cf. Pro 5:23); this amentia is the cause of their death, for it leads fools to meet destruction without their observing it (Hos 4:6).