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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 14:17 - 14:17
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This verse, as if explanatory of מתעבר, connects itself with this interpretation of the contrasts, corresponding to the general usus loquendi, and particularly to the Mishle style.
One who is quick to anger worketh folly,
And a man of intrigues is hated.
Ewald finds here no right contrast. He understands אישׁ מְזִמָּה in a good sense, and accordingly corrects the text, substituting for ישׂנא, יְשַׁוֵּא (יְשַׁוֶּא), for he translates: but the man of consideration bears (properly smooths, viz., his soul). On the other hand it is also to be remarked, that אישׁ מזמה, when it occurs, is not to be understood necessarily in a good sense, since מזמה is used just like מזמות, at one time in a good and at another in a bad sense, and that we willingly miss the “most complete sense” thus arising, since the proverb, as it stands in the Masoretic text, is good Hebrew, and needs only to be rightly understood to let nothing be missed in completeness. The contrast, as Ewald seeks here to represent it (also Hitzig, who proposes יִשְׁאַן: the man of consideration remains quiet; Syr. ramys, circumspect), we have in Pro 14:29, where the μακρόθυμος stands over against the ὀξύθυμος (אַף or אַפַּיִם of the breathing of anger through the nose, cf. Theocritus, i. 18: καὶ οἱ ἀεὶ δριμεῖα χολὰ ποτὶ ῥινὶ κάθηται). Here the contrast is different: to the man who is quick to anger, who suddenly gives expression to his anger and displeasure, stands opposed the man of intrigues, who contrives secret vengeance against those with whom he is angry. Such a deceitful man, who contrives evil with calculating forethought and executes it in cold blood (cf. Psa 37:7), is hated; while on the contrary the noisy lets himself rush forward to inconsiderate, mad actions, but is not hated on that account; but if in his folly he injures or disgraces himself, or is derided, or if he even does injury to the body and the life of another, and afterwards with terror sees the evil done in its true light, then he is an object of compassion. Theodotion rightly: (ἀνὴρ δὲ) διαβουλιῶν μισηθήσεται, and Jerome: vir versutus odiosus est (not the Venet. ἀνὴρ βδελυγμῶν, for this signification has only זִמָּה, and that in the sing.); on the contrary, the lxx, Syr., Targum, and Symmachus incorrectly understand איש מזמות in bonam partem.