Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 19:23 - 19:23
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
23 The fear of Jahve tendeth to life;
Satisfied, one spendeth the night, not visited by evil.
The first line is a variation of Pro 14:27. How the fear of God thus reacheth to life, i.e., helps to a life that is enduring, free from care and happy, 23b says: the promises are fulfilled to the God-fearing, Deu 11:15 and Lev 26:6; he does not go hungry to bed, and needs fear no awakening in terror out of his soft slumber (Pro 3:24). With ו explic., 23a is explained. לִין שָׂבֵעַ means to spend the night (the long night) hungry. as לִין עָרוּם, Job 24:7, to pass the night in nakedness (cold). נִפְקַד, of visitation of punishment, we read also at Isa 29:6, and instead of בְּרָע, as it might be according to this passage, we have here the accus. of the manner placing the meaning of the Niph. beyond a doubt (cf. Pro 11:15, רַע, in an evil manner). All is in harmony with the matter, and is good Heb.; on the contrary, Hitzig's ingenuity introduces, instead of שָׂבֵעַוְ, an unheard of word, וְשָׂרַע, “and he stretches himself.” One of the Greeks excellently translates: καὶ ἐμπλησθεὶς αὐλισθήσεται ἄνευ ἐπισκοπῆς πονηρᾶς. The lxx, which instead of רע, γνῶσις, translates thus, דֵּעַ, discredits itself. The Midrash - Lagarde says of its translation - varies in colour like an opal. In other words, it handles the text like wax, and forms it according to its own taste, like the Midrash with its “read not so, but so.”