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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 17:12 - 17:12
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12 Meet a bear robbed of one of her whelps,
Only not a fool in his folly.
The name of the bear, as that of the cow, Job 21:10; Psa 144:14, preserves its masculine form, even when used in reference to sexual relationship (Ewald, §174b); the ursa catulis orbata is proverbially a raging beast. How the abstract expression of the action פָּגוֹשׁ [to meet], here as e.g., Psa 17:5, with the subj. following, must sound as finite (occurrat, may always meet), follows from וְאַל = וְאַל־יִפְגֹּשׁ (non autem occurrat). פָּגוֹשׁ has on the last syllable Mehuppach, and Zinnorith on the preceding open syllable (according to the rule, Accentssystem, vi. §5d).
(Note: In the Torath Emeth, p. 18, the word is irregularly represented as Milel - a closed syllable with Cholem can suffer no retrogression of the tone.)
שַׁכּוּל, in the state of his folly, i.e., when he is in a paroxysm of his anger, corresponds with the conditional noun-adjective שַׁכּוּל, for folly morbidly heightened is madness (cf. Hos 11:7; Psychol. p. 291f.).