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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 11:2 - 11:2
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Now follows the Solomonic “Pride goeth before a fall.”
There cometh arrogance, so also cometh shame;
But with the humble is wisdom.
Interpreted according to the Hebr.: if the former has come, so immediately also comes the latter. The general truth as to the causal connection of the two is conceived of historically; the fact, confirmed by many events, is represented in the form of a single occurrence as a warning example; the preterites are like the Greek aoristi gnomici (vid., p. 32); and the perf., with the fut. consec. following, is the expression of the immediate and almost simultaneous consequence (vid., at Hab 3:10): has haughtiness (זָדוֹן after the form לָצוֹן, from זִיד, to boil, to run over) appeared, then immediately also disgrace appeared, in which the arrogant behaviour is overwhelmed. The harmony of the sound of the Hebr. זָדוֹן and קָלוֹן cannot be reproduced in German [nor in English]; Hitzig and Ewald try to do so, but such a quid pro quo as “Kommt Unglimpf kommt an ihn Schimpf” [there comes arrogance, there comes to him disgrace] is not a translation, but a distortion of the text. If, now, the antithesis says that with the humble is wisdom, wisdom is meant which avoids such disgrace as arrogance draws along with it; for the צָנוּעַ thinks not more highly of himself than he ought to think (R. צן, subsidere, demitti, Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitsch. xxv. 185).