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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 12:7 - 12:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
7 The godless are overturned and are no more,
But the house of the righteous stands.
Bertheau and Zöckler explain: The wicked turn about, then are they no more; i.e., as we say: it is over with them “in the turning of a hand.” The noun in the inf. absol. may certainly be the subject, like Pro 17:12, as well as the object (Ewald, §328c), and הָפַךְ may be used of the turning about of oneself, Psa 78:9; 2Ki 5:26; 2Ch 9:12. That explanation also may claim for itself that הפך nowhere occurs with a personal object, if we except one questionable passage, Isa 1:7. But here the interpretation of the רשׁעים as the object lies near the contrast of בית, and moreover the interpretation of the הפך, not in the sense of στρέφεσθαι (lxx), but of καταστρέφειν (Syr., Targ., Jerome, Graec. Venet., Luther), lies near the contrast of יַעֲמֹד. The inf. absol. thus leaves the power from which the catastrophe proceeds indefinite, as the pass. יֵהָֽפְפכוּ would also leave it, and the act designedly presented in a vague manner to connect with ו the certain consequences therewith, as Pro 25:4., as if to say: there comes only from some quarter an unparalleled overthrow which overwhelms the godless; thus no rising up again is to be thought on, it is all over with them; while, on the contrary, the house of the righteous withstands the storm which sweeps away the godless.