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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 2:9 - 2:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
With the אָז repeated, the promises encouraging to the endeavour after wisdom take a new departure:
9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and justice,
And uprightness; every way of good.
10 For wisdom will enter into thine heart,
And knowledge will do good to thy soul;
11 Discretion will keep watch over thee,
Understanding will keep thee.
Regarding the ethical triad מֵישָׁרִים [righteousness, rightness], מִשְׁפָּט [judgment], and צֶדֶק [rectitude], vid., Pro 1:3. Seb. Schmid is wrong in his rendering, et omnis via qua bonum aditur erit tibi plana, which in comparison with Isa 26:7 would be feebly expressed. J. H. Michaelis rightly interprets all these four conceptions as object-accusatives; the fourth is the summarizing asyndeton (cf. Psa 8:7) breaking off the enumeration: omnem denique orbitam boni; Jerome, bonam: in this case, however, טוֹב would be genitive (vid., Pro 17:2). מַעְגָּל is the way in which the chariot rolls along; in עגל there are united the root-conceptions of that which is found (גל) and rolling (גל). Whether כִּי, Pro 2:10, is the argumentative “because” (according to the versions and most interpreters) or “for” (“denn,” J. H. Michaelis, Ewald, and others), is a question. That with כִּי = “for” the subject would precede the verb, as at Pro 2:6, Pro 2:21, and Pro 1:32 (Hitzig), determines nothing, as Pro 2:18 shows. On the one hand, the opinion that כִּי = “because” is opposed by the analogy of the כִּי, Pro 2:6, following אָז, Pro 2:5; the inequality between Pro 2:5-8 and Pro 2:9. if the new commencement, Pro 2:9, at once gives place to another, Pro 2:10; the relationship of the subject ideas in Pro 2:10, Pro 2:11, which makes Pro 2:11 unsuitable to be a conclusion from Pro 2:10. On the contrary, the promise not only of intellectual, but at the same time also of practical, insight into the right and the good, according to their whole compass and in their manifoldness, can be established or explained quite well as we thus read Pro 2:10, Pro 2:11 : For wisdom will enter (namely, to make it a dwelling-place, Pro 14:33; cf. Joh 14:23) into thine heart, and knowledge will do good to thy soul (namely, by the enjoyment which arises from the possession of knowledge, and the rest which its certainty yields). דַּעַת, γνῶσις, is elsewhere fem. (Psa 139:6), but here, as at Pro 8:10; Pro 14:6, in the sense of τὸ γνῶναι, is masc. In Pro 2:11 the contents of the אז תבין (Pro 2:9) are further explained. שָׁמַר עַל, of watching (for Job 16:16 is to be interpreted differently), is used only by our poet (here and at Pro 6:22). Discretion, i.e., the capacity of well-considered action, will hold watch over thee, take thee under protection; understanding, i.e., the capacity in the case of opposing rules to make the right choice, and in the matter of extremes to choose the right medium, will be bestowed upon thee. In תִּנְצְרֶכָּה, as in Psa 61:8; Psa 140:2, Psa 140:5; Deu 33:9, etc., the first stem letter is not assimilated, in order that the word may have a fuller sound; the writing ֶכָּה for ֶךָ is meant to affect the eye.
(Note: For the right succession of the accents here, see Torath Emeth, p. 49, § 5; Accentuationssystem, xviii. § 3.)