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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 13:12 - 13:12
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The figures of paradise in Pro 13:12 and Pro 13:14 require us to take along with them the intermediate verse (Pro 13:13).
12 Deferred waiting maketh the heart sick,
And a tree of life is a wish accomplished.
Singularly the lxx Κρείσσων ἐναρχόμενος βοηθῶν καρδίᾳ, followed by the Syr. (which the Targ. Transcribes):
(Note: That the Targum of the Proverbs is a Jewish elaboration of the Peshito text, vid., Nöldeke in Merx' Archiv, Bd. ii. pp. 246-49.)
Better is he who begins to help than he who remains in hesitating expectation, by which תחלת is doubled, and is derived once from הוחיל, to wait, and the second time from החל, to begin. If the lxx, with its imitators, deteriorates to such a degree proverbs so clear, beautiful, and inviolable, what may one expect from it in the case of those not easily understood! מֻשַּׁךְ signifies also, Isa 18:2, to be widely extended (cf. Arab. meshaḳ), here in the sense of time, as נִמְשַׁךְ, to prolong, Isa 13:22, and post-bibl. מֶשֶׁךְ הַזְּמָן, the course of time. Regarding תּוֹחֶלֶת, vid., at Pro 10:28, where as Pro 11:27 תִּקְוַת, here תַּאֲוָה, as also Psa 78:29 of the object of the wish, and with בוא in the sense of being fulfilled (cf. Jos 21:43), as there with הביא in the sense of accomplishing or performing. Extended waiting makes the heart sick, causes heart-woe (מַֽחֲלָה, part. fem. Hiph. of חָלָה, to be slack, feeble, sick; R. חל, to loosen, to make loose); on the contrary, a wish that has been fulfilled is a tree of life (cf. p. 23), of a quickening and strengthening influence, like that tree of paradise which was destined to renew and extend the life of man.