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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 15:7 - 15:7
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A second series which begins with a proverb of the power of human speech, and closes with proverbs of the advantages and disadvantages of wealth.
Pro 15:7
7 The lips of the wise spread knowledge;
But the direction is wanting to the heart of fools.
It is impossible that לֹא־כֵן can be a second object. accus. dependent on יְזָרוּ (dispergunt, not יִצְּרוּ, Pro 20:28; φυλάσσουσι, as Symmachus translates): but the heart of fools is unrighteous (error or falsehood) (Hitzig after Isa 16:6); for then why were the lips of the wise and the heart of the fools mentioned? לא־כן also does not mean οὐχ οὕτως (an old Greek anonymous translation, Jerome, Targ., Venet., Luther): the heart of the fool is quite different from the heart of the wise man, which spreads abroad knowledge (Zöckler), for it is not heart and heart, but lip and heart, that are placed opposite to each other. Better the lxx οὐκ ἀσφαλεῖς, and yet better the Syr. lo kinı̂n (not right, sure). We have seen, at Pro 11:19, that כן as a participial adj. means standing = being, continuing, or also standing erect = right, i.e., rightly directed, or having the right direction; כֵּן־צְדָקָה means there conducting oneself rightly, and thus genuine rectitude. What, after 7a, is more appropriate than to say of the heart of the fool, that it wants the receptivity for knowledge which the lips of the wise scatter abroad? The heart of the fool is not right, it has not the right direction, is crooked and perverse, has no mind for wisdom; and that which proceeds from the wise, therefore, finds with him neither estimation nor acceptance.
Pro 15:8
8 The sacrifice of the godless is an abhorrence to Jahve;
But the prayer of the upright is His delight.
Although the same is true of the prayer of the godless that is here said of their sacrifice, and of the sacrifice of the righteous that is here said of their prayer (vid., Pro 28:9, and cf. Psa 4:6 with Psa 27:6), yet it is not by accident that here (line first = Pro 21:27) the sacrifice is ascribed to the godless and the prayer to the upright. The sacrifice, as a material and legally-required performance, is much more related to dead works than prayer freely completing itself in the word, the most direct expression of the personality, which, although not commanded by the law, because natural to men, as such is yet the soul of all sacrifices; and the Chokma, like the Psalms and Prophets, in view of the ceremonial service which had become formal and dead in the opus operatum, is to such a degree penetrated by the knowledge of the incongruity of the offering up of animals and of plants, with the object in view, that a proverb like “the sacrifice of the righteous is pleasing to God” never anywhere occurs; and if it did occur without being expressly and unavoidably referred to the legal sacrifice, it would have to be understood rather after Psa 51:18. than Ps. 51:20f., rather after 1Sa 15:22 than after Psa 66:13-15. זֶבַח, which, when it is distinguished from עוֹלָה, means (cf. Pro 7:14) the sacrifice only in part coming to the altar, for the most part applied to a sacrificial feast, is here the common name for the bloody, and, per synecdochen, generally the legally-appointed sacrifice, consisting in external offering. The לרצין, Lev 1:3, used in the Tôra of sacrifices, is here, as at Ps. 19:15, transferred to prayer. The fundamental idea of the proverb is, that sacrifices well-pleasing to God, prayers acceptable to God (that are heard, Pro 15:29), depend on the relations in which the heart and life of the man stand to God.
Pro 15:9
Another proverb with the key-word תוֹעֲבַת
An abomination to Jahve is the way of the godless;
But He loveth him who searcheth after righteousness.
The manner and rule of life is called the way. מְרַדֵּף is the heightening of רֹדֵף, Pro 21:21, and can be used independently in bonam, as well as in malam partem (Pro 11:19, cf. Pro 13:21). Regarding the form יֶאְהָֽב, vid., Fleischer in Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitsch. xv. 382.
Pro 15:10
10 Sharp correction is for him who forsaketh the way;
Whoever hateth instruction shall die.
The way, thus absolute, is the God-pleasing right way (Pro 2:13), the forsaking of which is visited with the punishment of death, because it is that which leadeth unto life (Pro 10:17). And that which comes upon them who leave it is called מוּסַר רָע, castigatio dura, as much as to say that whoever does not welcome instruction, whoever rejects it, must at last receive it against his will in the form of peremptory punishment. The sharp correction (cf. Isa 28:28, Isa 28:19) is just the death under which he falls who accepts of no instruction (Pro 5:23), temporal death, but that as a token of wrath which it is not for the righteous (Pro 14:32).
Pro 15:11
11 The underworld [Sheol] and the abyss are before Jahve;
But how much more the hearts of the children of men!
A syllogism, a minori ad majus, with אַף כִּי (lxx τῶς οὐχὶ καὶ, Venet. μᾶλλον οὖν), like 12:32.
(Note: In Rabbin. this concluding form is called קַל וָחֹמֶר (light and heavy over against one another), and דִּין (judgment, viz., from premisses, thus conclusion), κατ ̓ ἐξ. Instead of the biblical אף כי, the latter form of the language has כָּל־שֶׁכֵּן (all speaks for it that it is so), עַל־אַחַת כַּמָּה וְכַמָּה (so much the more), אֵינוֹ דִּין, or also קל וחמר (as minori ad majus = quanto magis); vid., the Hebr. Römerbrief, p. 14.)
אֲבַדּוֹן has a meaning analogous to that of τάρταρος (cf. ταρταροῦν, 2Pe 2:4, to throw down into the τάρταρος), which denotes the lowest region of Hades (שְׁאוֹל תַּחְתִּית or תַּחְתִּיָּה 'שׁ), and also in general, Hades. If אבדון and מָוֶת are connected, Job 37:22, and if אבדון is the parallel word to קֶבֶר, Psa 88:12, or also to שׁאול, as in the passage similar to this proverb, Job 26:6 (cf. Job 38:17): “Sheôl is naked before Him, and Abaddon has no covering;” since אבדון is the general name of the underworld, including the grave, i.e., the inner place of the earth which receives the body of the dead, as the kingdom of the dead, lying deeper, does the soul. But where, as here and at Pro 27:10, שׁאול and אבדון stand together, they are related to each other, as ᾅδης and ταρταρος or ἅβυσσος, Rev 9:11 : אבדון is the lowest hell, the place of deepest descent, of uttermost destruction. The conclusion which is drawn in the proverb proceeds from the supposition that in the region of creation there is nothing more separated, and by a wide distance, from God, than the depth, and especially the undermost depth, of the realm of the dead. If now God has this region in its whole compass wide open before Him, if it is visible and thoroughly cognisable by Him (נֶגֶד, acc. adv.: in conspectu, from נָגַד, eminere, conspicuum esse) - for He is also present in the underworld, Psa 139:8 - then much more will the hearts of the children of men be open, the inward thoughts of men living and acting on the earth being known already from their expressions. Man sees through man, and also himself, never perfectly; but the Lord can try the heart and prove the reins, Jer 17:10. What that means this proverb gives us to understand, for it places over against the hearts of men nothing less than the depths of the underworld in eternity.
Pro 15:12
12 The scorner liketh not that one reprove him,
To wise men he will not go.
The inf. absol., abruptly denoting the action, may take the place of the object, as here (cf. Job 9:18; Isa 42:24), as well as of the subject (Pro 25:27, Job 6:25). Thus הוכיח is (Pro 9:7) construed with the dat. obj. Regarding the probable conclusion which presents itself from passages such as Pro 15:12 and Pro 13:20, as to the study of wisdom in Israel, vid., p. 39. Instead of אֶל, we read, Pro 13:20 (cf. Pro 22:24), אֶת־; for לֶכֶת אֶת־ means to have intercourse with one, to go a journey with one (Mal 2:6, cf. Gen 5:24, but not 2Sa 15:22, where we are to translate with Keil), according to which the lxx has here μετὰ δὲ σοφῶν οὐχ ὁμιλήσει. The mocker of religion and of virtue shuns the circle of the wise, for he loves not to have his treatment of that which is holy reproved, nor to be convicted of his sin against truth; he prefers the society where his frivolity finds approbation and a response.
Pro 15:13
13 A joyful heart maketh the countenance cheerful;
But in sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
The expression of the countenance, as well as the spiritual habitus of a man, is conditioned by the state of the heart. A joyful heart maketh the countenance טוב, which means friendly, but here happy-looking = cheerful (for טוב ro is the most general designation of that which makes an impression which is pleasant to the senses or to the mind); on the contrary, with sorrow of heart (עַצְּבַת, constr. of עַצֶּבֶת, Pro 10:10, as חַטַאת = חַטְּאַת, from חַטָּאָה) there is connected a stricken, broken, downcast heart; the spiritual functions of the man are paralyzed; self-confidence, without which energetic action is impossible, is shattered; he appears discouraged, whereby רוּחַ is thought of as the power of self-consciousness and of self-determination, but לֵב, as our “Gemüt” [animus], as the oneness of thinking and willing, and thus as the seat of determination, which decides the intellectual-corporeal life-expression of the man, or without being able to be wholly restrained, communicates itself to them. The בְ of וּבְעַצְּבַת is, as Pro 15:16., Pro 16:8; Pro 17:1, meant in the force of being together or along with, so that רוּחַ נְכֵאָה do not need to be taken separate from each other as subject and predicate: the sense of the noun-clause is in the ב, as e.g., also Pro 7:23 (it is about his life, i.e., it concerns his life). Elsewhere the crushed spirit, like the broken heart, is equivalent to the heart despairing in itself and prepared for grace. The heart with a more clouded mien may be well, for sorrow has in it a healing power (Ecc 7:3). But here the matter is the general psychological truth, that the corporeal and spiritual life of man has its regulator in the heart, and that the condition of the heart leaves its stamp on the appearance and on the activity of the man. The translation of the רוח נכאה by “oppressed breath” (Umbreit, Hitzig) is impossible; the breath cannot be spoken of as broken.
Pro 15:14
14 The heart of the understanding seeketh after knowledge,
And the mouth of fools practiseth folly.
Luther interprets רעה as metaphor. for to govern, but with such ethical conceptions it is metaphor. for to be urgently circumspect about anything (vid., Pro 13:20), like Arab. ra'y and r'âyt, intentional, careful, concern about anything. No right translation can be made of the Chethib פני, which Schultens, Hitzig, Ewald, and Zöckler prefer; the predicate can go before the פְּנֵי, after the Semitic rule in the fem. of the sing., 2Sa 10:9, cf. Job 16:16, Chethib, but cannot follow in the masc. of the sing.; besides, the operations of his look and aspect are ascribed to his face, but not spiritual functions as here, much more to the mouth, i.e., to the spirit speaking through it. The heart is within a man, and the mouth without; and while the former gives and takes, the latter is always only giving out. In Pro 18:15, where a synonymous distich is formed from the antithetic distich, the ear, as hearing, is mentioned along with the heart as appropriating. נָבוֹן is not an adj., but is gen., like צדיק, 28a (opp. ופי). חכם, Pro 16:23. The φιλοσοφία of the understanding is placed over against the μωρολογία of the fools. The lxx translates καρδία ὀρθὴ ζητεῖ αἲσθησιν (cf. Pro 14:10, καρδία ἀδρὸς αἰσθητική); it uses this word after the Hellenistic usus loq. for דעת, of experimental knowledge.
Pro 15:15
15 All the days of the afflicted are evil;
But he who is of a joyful heart hath a perpetual feast.
Regarding עָנִי (the afflicted), vid., 21b. They are so called on whom a misfortune, or several of them, press externally or internally. If such an one is surrounded by ever so many blessings, yet is his life day by day a sad one, because with each new day the feeling of his woe which oppresses him renews itself; whoever, on the contrary, is of joyful heart (gen. connection as Pro 11:13; Pro 12:8), such an one (his life) is always a feast, a banquet (not מִשְׁתֵּה, as it may be also pointed, but מִשְׁתֶּה and תָּמִיד thus adv., for it is never adj.; the post-bib. usage is תְּמִידִין for עוֹלוֹת תָּמִיד). Hitzig (and also Zöckler) renders 15b: And (the days) of one who is of a joyful heart are.... Others supply לו (cf. Pro 27:7), but our rendering does not need that. We have here again an example of that attribution (Arab. isnâd) in which that which is attributed (musnad) is a condition (hal) of a logical subject (the musnad ilêhi), and thus he who speaks has this, not in itself, but in the sense of the condition; the inwardly cheerful is feasts evermore, i.e., the condition of such an one is like a continual festival. The true and real happiness of a man is thus defined, not by external things, but by the state of the heart, in which, in spite of the apparently prosperous condition, a secret sorrow may gnaw, and which, in spite of an externally sorrowful state, may be at peace, and be joyfully confident in God.
Pro 15:16
16 Better is little with the fear of Jahve,
Than great store and trouble therewith.
The ב in both cases the lxx rightly renders by μετά. How מְהוּמָה (elsewhere of wild, confused disorder, extreme discord) is meant of store and treasure, Psa 39:7 shows: it is restless, covetous care and trouble, as the contrast of the quietness and contentment proceeding from the fear of God, the noisy, wild, stormy running and hunting about of the slave of mammon. Theodotion translates the word here, as Aquila and Symmachus elsewhere, by words which correspond (φαγέδαινα = φάγαινα or ἀχορτασία) with the Syr. יענותא, greed or insatiability.
Pro 15:17
17 Better a dish of cabbage, and love with it,
Than a fatted ox together with hatred.
With בו is here interchanged שׁם, which, used both of things and of persons, means to be there along with something. Both have the Dag. forte conj., cf. to the contrary, Deu 30:20; Mic 1:11; Deu 11:22; the punctuation varies, if the first of the two words is a n. actionis ending in ָה. The dish (portion) is called אֲרֻחָה, which the lxx and other Greek versions render by ξενισμός, entertainment, and thus understand it of that which is set before a guest, perhaps rightly so, for the Arab. ârrakh (to date, to determine), to which it is compared by Gesenius and Dietrich, is equivalent to warrh, a denom. of the name of the moon. Love and hatred are, according to circumstances, the disposition of the host, or of the participant, the spirit of the family:
Cum dat oluscula mensa minuscula pace quietâ,
Ne pete grandia lautaque prandia lite repleta.