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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 10:7 - 10:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Thus, as Pro 10:6 says how it goes with the righteous and the wicked in this life, so this verse tells how it fares with them after death:
The memory of the righteous remains in blessings,
And the name of the godless rots.
The tradition regarding the writing of זכר with five (זֵכֶר) or six points (זֶכֶר) is doubtful (vid., Heidenheim in his ed. of the Pentateuch, Meôr Enajim, under Exo 17:14); the Cod. 1294 and old printed copies have here זֵכֶר. Instead of לִבְרָכָה, יְבֹרָךְ might be used; the phrase היה לברכה (opp. היה לִקְלָלָה, often used by Jeremiah), subordinate to the substantival clause, paraphrases the passive, for it expresses a growing to something, and thus the entrance into a state of endurance. The remembrance of the righteous endures after his death, for he is thought of with thankfulness (צל''ז = זכר צדיק לברכה, the usual appendix to the name of an honoured, beloved man who has died), because his works, rich in blessing, continue; the name of the godless, on the contrary, far from continuing fresh and green (Psa 62:1-12 :17) after his departure, becomes corrupt (רקב, from רק, to be or to become thin, to dissolve in fine parts, tabescere), like a worm-eaten decayed tree (Isa 40:20). The Talmud explains it thus, Joma 38b: foulness comes over their name, so that we call no one after their name. Also the idea suggests itself, that his name becomes corrupt, as it were, with his bones; the Mishnah, at least Ohaloth ii. 1, uses רָקָב of the dust of corruption.