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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 12:19 - 12:19
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19 The lip of truth endures for ever,
But the lying tongue only while I wink with the eye.
None of the old translators understood the phrase וְעַד־אַרְגִּיעָה; the Venet. also, which follows Kimchi's first explanation, is incorrect: ἕως ῥήξεως, till I split (shatter) it (the tongue). Abulwalîd is nearer the correct rendering when he takes ארגיעה as a noun = רָגַע with He parag. Ahron b. Joseph is better in rendering the phrase by: until I make a רגע, and quite correct if רגע (from רָגַע = Arab. raj', which is used of the swinging of the balance) is taken in the sense of a twinkling of the eye (Schultens: vibramen); cf. Orelli's Die hebr. Synonyme der Zeit und Ewigkeit, p. 27f., where the synonyms for a twinkling of the eye, a moment, are placed together. עַד (properly progress) has in this phrase the meaning, while, so long as, and the cohortative signifies, in contradistinction to ארגיע, which may also denote an unwilling movement of the eyelids, a movement proceeding from a free determination, serving for the measurement of a short space of time, Ewald, §228a. ארגיעה, Jer 49:19; Jer 50:44, where Ewald takes כי ארגיעה (when I...) in the same sense as אד־ארגיעה here, which is more appropriate than the explanation of Hitzig, who regards כי as opening the principal clause, and attaches to הרגיע the quite too pregnant signification “to need (for an action) only a moment.” The lip of truth, i.e., the lip which speaketh truth, endures for ever (for truth, אֱמֶת = אֲמַנְתְּ, is just the enduring); but the tongue of falsehood is only for a moment, or a wink of the eye, for it is soon convicted, and with disgrace brings to silence; for a post-bibl. Aram. proverb says: קוּשְׁטָא קָאֵי שִׁקְרָא לָא קָאֵי, the truth endures, the lie endures not (Schabbath 104a), and a Hebrew proverb: הַשֶּׁקֶר אֵין לוֹ רַגְלַיִם, the lie has no feet (on which it can stand).
(Note: Vid., Duke's Rabbin. Blumenlese (1844), p. 231.)