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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 11:10 - 11:10
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Three proverbs follow relating to the nature of city and national life, and between them two against mockery and backbiting:
10 In the prosperity of the righteous the city rejoiceth;
And if the wicked come to ruin, there is jubilation.
The בְּ of בְּטוּב denotes the ground but not the object, as elsewhere, but the cause of the rejoicing, like the ב 10b, and in the similar proverb, Pro 29:2, cf. Pro 28:12. If it goes well with the righteous, the city has cause for joy, because it is for the advantage of the community; and if the wicked (godless) come to an end, then there is jubilation (substantival clause for תָּרֹן), for although they are honoured in their lifetime, yet men breathe freer when the city is delivered from the tyranny and oppression which they exercised, and from the evil example which they gave. Such proverbs, in which the city (civitas) represents the state, the πόλις the πολιτεία, may, as Ewald thinks, be of earlier date than the days of an Asa or Jehoshaphat; for “from the days of Moses and Joshua to the days of David and Solomon, Israel was a great nation, divided indeed into many branches and sections, but bound together by covenant, whose life did not at all revolve around one great city alone.” We value such critical judgments according to great historical points of view, but confess not to understand why קִרְיָה must just be the chief city and may not be any city, and how on the whole a language which had not as yet framed the conception of the state (post-bibl. מְדִינָה), when it would described the community individually and as a whole, could speak otherwise than of city and people.