Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 12:9 - 12:9

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 12:9 - 12:9


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

9 Better is he who is lowly and has a servant,

Than he that makes himself mighty and is without bread.

This proverb, like Pro 15:17, commends the middle rank of life with its quiet excellences. נִקְלֶה (like 1Sa 18:23), from קָלָה, cognate with קָלַל, Syr. 'kly, to despise, properly levi pendere, levem habere (whence קָלוֹן, scorn, disgrace), here of a man who lives in a humble position and does not seek to raise himself up. Many of the ancients (lxx, Symmachus, Jerome, Syr., Rashi, Luther, Schultens) explain וְעֶבֶד לוֹ by, and is a servant to himself, serves himself; but in that case the words would have been עְבד לְנַפְשׁוֹ (Syr. דִּמְשַׁמֵּשׁ נַפְשֵׁהּ), or rather וְעַבְדּוֹ הוּא. וְעֹבֵד לוֹ would be more appropriate, as thus pointed by Ziegler, Ewald, and Hitzig. But if one adheres to the traditional reading, and interprets this, as it must be interpreted: et cui servus (Targ., Graec. Venet.), then that supplies a better contrast to וַחֲסַר־לַחֶם, for “the first necessity of an oriental in only moderate circumstances is a slave, just as was the case with the Greeks and Romans” (Fl.). A man of lowly rank, who is, however, not so poor that he cannot support a slave, is better than one who boasts himself and is yet a beggar (2Sa 3:29). The Hithpa. often expresses a striving to be, or to wish to appear to be, what the adj. corresponding to the verb states, e.g., הִתְגַּדֵּל, הִתְעַשֵּׁר; like the Greek middles, εζεσθαι, αζεσθαι, cf. הִתְחַכֵּם and σοφίζεσθαι. So here, where with Fleischer we have translated: who makes himself mighty, for כבד, gravem esse, is etymologically also the contrast of קלה. The proverb, Sirach 10:26: κρείσσων ἐργαζόμενος καὶ περισσεύων ἐν πᾶσιν, ἢ δοξαζόμενος καὶ ἀπορῶν ἄρτων (according to the text of Fritzsche), is a half remodelling, half translation of this before us.