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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 22:4 - 22:4
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4 The reward of humility is the fear of Jahve,
Is riches, and honour, and life.
As עַנְוָה־צֶדֶק, Psa 45:5, is understood of the two virtues, meekness and righteousness, so here the three Göttingen divines (Ewald, Bertheau, and Elster), as also Dunasch, see in 'עֲנָוָה יִרְאַת ה an asyndeton; the poet would then have omitted vav, because instead of the copulative connection he preferred the appositional (Schultens: praemium mansuetudinis quae est reverentia Jehovae) or the permutative (the reward of humility; more accurately expressed: the fear of God). It is in favour of this interpretation that the verse following (Pro 22:5) also shows an asyndeton. Luther otherwise: where one abides in the fear of the Lord; and Oetinger: the reward of humility, endurance, calmness in the fear of the Lord, is...; Fleischer also interprets 'יראת ה as Pro 21:4, חטאת (lucerna impiroum vitiosa), as the accus. of the nearer definition. But then is the nearest-lying construction: the reward of humility is the fear of God, as all old interpreters understand 4a (e.g., Symmachus, ὕστερον πραΰ́τητος φόβος κυρίου), a thought so incomprehensible, that one must adopt one or other of these expedients? On the one side, we may indeed say that the fear of God brings humility with it; but, on the other hand, it is just as conformable to experience that the fear of God is a consequence of humility; for actually to subordinate oneself to God, and to give honour to Him alone, one must have broken his self-will, and come to the knowledge of himself in his dependence, nothingness, and sin; and one consequence by which humility is rewarded, may be called the fear of God, because it is the root of all wisdom, or as is here said (cf. Pro 3:16; Pro 8:18), because riches, and honour, and life are in its train. Thus 4a is a concluded sentence, which in 4b is so continued, that from 4a the predicate is to be continued: the reward of humility is the fear of God; it is at the same time riches... Hitzig conjectures 'רְאוּת ה, the beholding Jahve; but the visio Dei (beatifica) is not a dogmatic idea thus expressed in the O.T. עֵקֶב denotes what follows a thing, from עָקַב, to tread on the heels (Fleischer); for עָקֵב (Arab. 'aḳib) is the heels, as the incurvation of the foot; and עֵקֶב, the consequence (cf. Arab. 'aḳb, 'ukb, posteritas), is mediated through the v. denom. עָקַב, to tread on the heels, to follow on the heels (cf. denominatives, such as Arab. batn, zahr, 'ân, עֹיִן, to strike the body, the back, the eye).