Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 11:24 - 11:24

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 11:24 - 11:24


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Three proverbs regarding giving which is not loss but gain.

24 There is one who giveth bounteously, and he increaseth still more;

And (there is) one who withholdeth what is due, only to his loss.

The first of the proverbs with יֵשׁ (there is), which are peculiar to the first collection (vid., p. 32). The meaning is, that the possessions of the liberal giver do not decrease but increase, and that, on the contrary, the possessions of the niggardly do not increase but decrease. מְפַזֵּר is not to be understood after Psa 112:9. Instead of וְנוֹסָף עוֹד the three Erfurt codd. have ונוסַף (with retrogression of the tone?), which Hitzig approves of; but the traditional phrase which refers (et qui augetur insuper) ונוסף not to the possession of him who scattereth, but to himself, is finer in the expression. In the characteristic of the other, מִיּשֶׁר is commonly interpreted comparatively: plus aequo (Cocceius) or justo (Schelling). But מִן after חָשַׂךְ is to be regarded as governed by it, and ישֶׁר denotes not competence, riches, as Arab. yusr (Bertheau, Zöckler), also not uprightness = beneficence (Midrash, מן הצדקה), but duty, uprightness, as Job 33:23, where it denotes that which is advantageous to man, as here that which befits him: he who holds back, namely himself, from that which is due to himself, and thus should permit to himself, such an one profits nothing at all by this ἀφειδία (17b, Col 2:23), but it tends only to loss to him, only to the lessening of that which he possesses. We shall meet with this (לְמַחְסּוֹר) אַךְ לְמַחְסוֹר Pro 14:23, and frequently again - it is a common Mashal formula (cf. καὶ τόσῳ μᾶλλον ὑστερεῖται, Sir. 11:11). The cause of the strange phenomenon that the liberal gains and the niggardly loses is not here expressed, but the following proverb gives the explanation of it: