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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 2:20 - 2:20
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With לְמַעַן there commences a new section, coordinating itself with the לְהַצִּילְךָ (“to deliver thee”) of Pro 2:12, Pro 2:16, unfolding that which wisdom accomplishes as a preserver and guide:
20 So that thou walkest in the good way,
And keepest the right paths.
21 For the upright shall inhabit the land,
And the innocent shall remain in it.
22 But the godless are cut off out the land,
And the faithless are rooted out of it.
Wisdom - thus the connection - will keep thee, so that thou shalt not fall under the seductions of man or of woman; keep, in order that thou... לְמַעַן (from מַעַן = מַעֲנֶה, tendency, purpose) refers to the intention and object of the protecting wisdom. To the two negative designations of design there follows, as the third and last, a positive one. טוֹביִם (contrast to רָעִים, Pro 14:19) is here used in a general ethical sense: the good (Guten, not Gütigen, the kind). שָׁמַר, with the object of the way, may in another connection also mean to keep oneself from, cavere ab (Psa 17:4); here it means: carefully to keep in it. The promise of Pro 2:21 is the same as in the Mashal Psa 37:9, Psa 37:11, Psa 37:22; cf. Pro 10:30. אָרֶץ is Canaan, or the land which God promised to the patriarchs, and in which He planted Israel, whom He had brought out of Egypt; not the earth, as Mat 5:5, according to the extended, unlimited N.T. circle of vision. יִוָּֽתְרוּ (Milel) is erroneously explained by Schultens: funiculis bene firmis irroborabunt in terra. The verb יָתַר, Arab. watar, signifies to yoke (whence יֶתֶר, a cord, rope), then intrans. to be stretched out in length, to be hanging over (vid., Fleischer on Job 30:11); whence יֶתֶר, residue, Zep 2:9, and after which the lxx here renders ὑπολειφθήσονται, and Jerome permanebunt. In 22b the old translators render יִסְּחוּ as the fut. of the pass. נִסַּח, Deu 28:63; but in this case it would be יִנָּֽסְחוּ. The form יִסְּחוּ, pointed יִסַּחוּ, might be the Niph. of סָחַח, but סָחַח can neither be taken as one with נָסַח, of the same meaning, nor with Hitzig is it to be vocalized יֻסְּחוּ (Hoph. of נסח); nor, with Böttcher (§1100, p. 453), is יִסְּחוּ to be regarded as a veritable fut. Niph. יִסְּחוּ is, as at Pro 15:25; Psa 52:7, active: evellant; and this, with the subj. remaining indefinite (for which J. H. Michaelis refers to Hos 12:9), is equivalent to evellentur. This indefinite “they” or “one” (“man”), Fleischer remarks, can even be used of God, as here and Job 7:3 - a thing which is common in Persian, where e.g., the expression rendered hominem ex pulvere fecerunt is used instead of the fuller form, which would be rendered homo a Deo ex pulvere factus est. בּוֹגְדִים bears (as בֶּגֶד proves) the primary meaning of concealed, i.e., malicious (treacherous and rapacious, Isa 33:1), and then faithless men.
(Note: Similar is the relation in Arab. of labbasa to libâs (לְבוּשׁ); it means to make a thing unknown by covering it; whence telbı̂s, deceit, mulebbis, a falsifier.)