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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 16:15 - 16:15
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15 In the light on the king's countenance there is life,
And his favour is as a cloud of the latter rains.
Hitzig regards אוֹר as the inf. (cf. Pro 4:18), but one says substantively אוֹר פְּנֵי, Job 29:24, etc., and in a similar sense מְאוֹר עֵינַיִם, Pro 15:30; light is the condition of life, and the exhilaration of life, wherefore אוֹר הַחַיִּים, Ps. 56:14, Job 33:30, is equivalent to a fresh, joyous life; in the light of the king's countenance is life, means that life goes forth from the cheerful approbation of the king, which shows itself in his face, viz., in the showing of favour, which cheers the heart and beautifies the life. To speak of liberality as a shower is so common to the Semitic, that it has in Arab. the general name of nadnâ, rain. 15b conforms itself to this. מַלְקוֹשׁ (cf. Job 29:23) is the latter rain, which, falling about the spring equinox, brings to maturity the barley-harvest; on the contrary, מוֹרֶה (יוֹרֶה) is the early rain, which comes at the time of ploughing and sowing; the former is thus the harvest rain, and the latter the spring rain. Like a cloud which discharges the rain that mollifies the earth and refreshes the growing corn, is the king's favour. The noun עָב, thus in the st. constr., retains its Kametz. Michlol 191b. This proverb is the contrast to Pro 16:14. Pro 20:2 has also the anger of the king as its theme. In Pro 19:12 the figures of the darkness and the light stand together as parts of one proverb. The proverbs relating to the king are now at an end. Pro 16:10 contains a direct warning for the king; Pro 16:12 an indirect warning, as a conclusion arising from 12b (cf. Pro 20:28, where יִצְּרוּ is not to be translated tueantur; the proverb has, however, the value of a nota bene). Pro 16:13 in like manner presents an indirect warning, less to the king than to those who have intercourse with him (cf. Pro 25:5), and Pro 16:14 and Pro 16:15 show what power of good and evil, of wrath and of blessing, is given to a king, whence so much the greater responsibility arises to him, but, at the same time also, the duty of all to repress the lust to evil that may be in him, and to awaken and foster in him the desire for good.