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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 11:13 - 11:13
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13 He who goeth about tattling revealeth secrets;
But he who is of a faithful spirit concealeth a matter.
The tattler is called רָכִיל (intensive form of רֹכֵל), from his going hither and thither. אַנְשֵׁי רָכִיל, Eze 22:9, are men given to tattling, backbiters; הוֹלֵךְ רָכִיל (cf. Lev 19:16), one of the tattlers or backbiters goes, a divulger of the matter, a tell-tale. It is of such an one that the proverb speaks, that he reveals the secret (סוֹד, properly the being close together for the purpose of private intercourse, then that intercourse itself, vid., at Psa 25:14); one has thus to be on his guard against confiding in him. On the contrary, a נֱאֶמַן־רוּחַ, firmus (fidus) spiritu, properly one who is established, or reflexively one who proves himself firm and true (vid., at Gen 15:6), conceals a matter, keeps it back from the knowledge and power of another. Zöckler rightly concludes, in opposition to Hitzig, from the parallelism that the הולך רכיל is subject; the arrangement going before also shows that this is the “ground-word” (Ewald); in Pro 20:19 the relation is reversed: the revealer of secrets is rightly named (cf. Sir. 27:16, ὁ ἀποκαλύπτων μυστήρια, κ.τ.λ.).