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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 10:26 - 10:26
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This proverb stands out of connection with the series:
As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes,
So is the sluggard to them who gives him a commission.
A parabolic proverb (vid., p. 9), priamel-like in its formation (p. 13). Here and there לַשִּׁנַּיִם is found with Mugrash, but in correct texts it has Rebîa-magnum; the verse is divided into two by Athnach, whose subordinate distributive is (Accentssystem, xi. §1) Rebîa-magnum. Smoke makes itself disagreeably perceptible to the sense of smell, and particularly to the eyes, which it causes to smart so that they overflow with tears; wherefore Virgil speaks of it as amarus, and Horace lacrimosus. חֹמֶץ (from חָמֵץ, to be sour, harsh) signifies properly that which is sour, as acetum, ὄξος; here, after the lxx ὄμφαξ, the unripe grapes, but which are called בֹּסֶר (בֵּסֶר) (vid., under Job 15:33), by which the Syr., here following the lxx, translates, and which also in the Talmud, Demaï i. 1, is named חֹמֶץ, after a doubtful meaning (vid., Aruch, and on the other side Rashi), thus: vinegar, which the word commonly means, and which also accords with the object of the comparison, especially if one thinks of the sharp vinegar-wine of the south, which has an effect on the teeth denoted by the Hebr. verb קהה, as the effect of smoke is by כהה (Fl.). The plur. לְשֹֽׁלְחָיו is that of the category, like Pro 22:21; Pro 25:13; the parallel אֲדֹנָיו of the latter passage does not at least make it necessary to regard it, like this, as a plur. excellentiae (Bertheau, Hitzig, Ewald). They who send a sluggard, i.e., who make him their agent, do it to their own sorrow; his slothfulness is for them, and for that which they have in view, of dull, i.e., slow and restrained, of biting, i.e., sensibly injurious operation.