Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 12:6 - 12:6

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 12:6 - 12:6


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

6 The word of the godless is to lie in wait for the blood of others,

But the mouth of the upright delivereth them.

Our editions have דברי רשׁעים, but the right sequence of the accents (in Cod. 1294 and elsewhere) is דברי רשׁעים; the logical relation in this transformation, which is only rhythmically conditioned, remains the same. The vocalization wavers between אֱרָב־, which would be imper., and אֲרָב־, which is infin., like אֲמָר־, Pro 25:7, עֲנָשׁ־, Pro 21:11, אֲכָל־, Gen 3:11. However one punctuates it, the infin. is intended in any case, in which the expression always remains sketchy enough: the words of the godless are lying in wait for blood, i.e., they are calculated to bring others to this, into the danger of their lives, e.g., before the tribunal by false charges and false witness. דָּם is the accus. of the object; for instead of ארב לְדָם (Pro 1:11), to lurk for blood, a shorter expression, ארב דָּם, is used (Ewald, §282a). The suffix of יַצִּילֵם

(Note: Elias Levita, in his note to the root פה in Kimchi's Wörterbuch, reads תַּצִּילֵם, and so also do 6 codd. in Kennicot. But פֶּה is masculine.)

might appear, after Pro 11:6, to refer back to the יְשָׁרִים; but the thought that their mouth saves the upright, that they thus know to speak themselves out of the danger, is by far less appropriate (vid., on the contrary, בדעת, Pro 11:9) than the thought that the mouth of the upright delivereth from danger those whose lives are threatened by the godless, as is rightly explained by Ewald, Bertheau, Elster. The personal subject or object is in the Mashal style often to be evolved from the connection, e.g., Pro 14:26; Pro 19:23.