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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 17:24 - 17:24
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
24 The understanding has his attention toward wisdom;
But the eyes of a fool are on the end of the earth.
Many interpreters explain, as Euchel:
“The understanding finds wisdom everywhere;
The eyes of the fool seek it at the end of the world.”
Ewald refers to Deu 30:11-14 as an unfolding of the same thought. But although it may be said of the fool (vid., on the contrary, Pro 15:14) that he seeks wisdom, only not at the right place, as at Pro 14:6, of the mocker that he seeks wisdom but in vain, yet here the order of the words, as well as the expression, lead us to another thought: before the eyes of the understanding אֶת־פְּנֵיע, as Gen 33:18; 1Sa 2:11, and frequently in the phrase 'את־פני ה, e.g., 1Sa 1:22) wisdom lies as his aim, his object, the end after which he strives; on the contrary, the eyes of the fool, without keeping that one necessary thing in view, wander in alia omnia, and roam about what is far off, without having any fixed object. The fool is everywhere with his thoughts, except where he ought to be. Leaving out of view that which lies nearest, he loses himself in aliena. The understanding has an ever present theme of wisdom, which arrests his attention, and on which he concentrates himself; but the fool flutters about fantastically from one thing to another, and that which is to him precisely of least importance interests him the most.