Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 17:28 - 17:28

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 17:28 - 17:28


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Ver. 28 continues the same theme, the value of silence:

Even a fool, when he keeps silence, is counted wise;

When he shutteth his mouth, discreet.

The subj. as well as the pred. of the first line avail for the second. אָטַם, obturare, occludere, usually of the closing the ear, is here transferred to the mouth. The Hiph. הֶֽחֱרִישׁ means mutum agere (cf. Arab. khrs, mutum esse), from חֵרֵשׁ, which, like κωφός, passes from the meaning surdus to that of mutus (Fl.). The words of Job 13:5, and also those of Alexander: si tacuisses sapiens mansisses, are applicable to fools. An Arab. proverb says, “silence is the covering of the stupid.” In the epigrammatical hexameter,

πᾶς τις ἀπαίδευτος φρονιμώτατός ἐστι σιωπῶν,

the word σιωπῶν has the very same syntactical position as these two participles.

(Note: Cf. C. Schultze's Die bibl. Sprichwörter (1860), p. 60f.)