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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 20:19 - 20:19
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19 He that goeth out gossiping revealeth a secret;
And the babbler have nothing to do.
Luther otherwise (like Hitzig) -
Be not complicated with him who revealeth a secret,
And with the slanderer, and with the false (better: loquacious) mouth,
so that לְ and the warning apply to the threefold description, a rendering which Kimchi also, and Immanuel, and others at least suggest. But in connection with Pro 11:13, the first line has the force of a judicium, which includes the warning to entrust nothing to a babbler which ought to be kept silent. Write גּוֹלֶה סּוֹד, as found in Codd. and old Edd., with Munach on the penultima, on which the tone is thrown back, and Dagesh to ס, after the rule of the דחיק (Gesen. §20, 2a), altogether like קוֹנֶה לֵב, Pro 15:32. 19b the Venet. translates after the first meaning of the word by Kimchi, τῷ ἀπαταιῶνι τοῖς χείλεσι, to him who slanders and befools, for it thus improves Theodotion's τῷ ἀπατῶντι τὰ χείλη αὐτοῦ. But פֹּתֶה means, Job 5:2 - cf. Hos 7:11 - not him who befools another, but him who is befooled, is slandered, by another (Aben Ezra: שׁיפתוהו אחרים), with which שְׂפָתָיו here does not agree. But now he who is easily befooled is called פֹּתֶה, as being open to influence (susceptible), patens; and if this particip. is used, as here, transitively, and, on account of the object שׂפתיו standing near cannot possibly be equivalent to מְפַתֶּה, the usage of the language also just noticed is against it, then it means patefaciens or dilatans (cf. הִפְתָּה, Gen 9:27, Targ. אַפְתֵּי = הִרְחִיב), and places itself as synon. to פֹשֵׂק, Pro 13:3; thus one is called who does not close his mouth, who cannot hold his mouth, who always idly babbles, and is therefore, because he can keep nothing to himself, a dangerous companion. The Complut. rightly translates: μετὰ πλατύνοντος τὰ ἑαυτοῦ μὴ μίχθητι χείλη.