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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 21:19 - 21:19
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With this verse, a doublet to Pro 21:9 (Pro 25:24), the collector makes a new addition; in Pro 21:29 he reaches a proverb which resembles the closing proverb of the preceding group, in its placing in contrast the רשׁע and ישׁר; -
It is better to dwell in a waste land,
Than a contentious wife and vexation.
The corner of the roof, Hitzig remarks, has been made use of, and the author must look further out for a lonely seat. But this is as piquant as it is devoid of thought; for have both proverbs the same author, and if so, were they coined at the same time? Here also it is unnecessary to regard מֵאֵשֶׁת as an abbreviation for מִשֶּׁבֶת עם אשׁת. Hitzig supplies שְׁכֹן, by which אשׁת, as the accus.-obj., is governed; but it is not to be supplied, for the proverb places as opposite to one another dwelling in a waste land (read שֶׁבֶת בְּאֶֽרֶץ־מִדְבָּר, with Codd. and correct Ed.) and a contentious wife (Chethı̂b, מְדוֹנִים, Kerı̂, מִדְיָנִים) and vexation, and says the former is better than the latter. For וָכָֽעַס [and vexation] is not, as translated by the ancients, and generally received, a second governed genitive to אשׁת, but dependent on מן, follows “contentious woman” (cf. 9b): better that than a quarrelsome wife, and at the same time vexation.