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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 23:1 - 23:1
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Pro 22:29, which speaks of a high position near the king, is appropriately followed by a hexastich referring to the slipperiness of the smooth ground of the king's court.
1 When thou sittest to eat with a ruler,
Consider well whom thou hast before thee.
2 And put thy knife to thy throat
If thou art a man of good appetite.
3 Be not lustful after his dainties,
Because it is deceitful food.
The ל of לִלְחוֹם is that of end: ad cibum capiendum, thus as one invited by him to his table; in prose the expression would be לֶֽאֱכֹל לֶחֶם; לָחַם, to eat, is poet., Pro 4:17; Pro 9:5. The fut. תָּבִין clothes the admonition in the form of a wish or counsel; the infin. intens. בֵּין makes it urgent: consider well him whom thou hast before thee, viz., that he is not thine equal, but one higher, who can destroy thee as well as be useful to thee. With וְשַׂמְתָּ the jussive construction begun by תבין is continued. Zöckler and Dächsel, after Ewald and Hitzig, translate incorrectly: thou puttest..., the perf. consec. after an imperf., or, which is the same thing, a fut. meant optatively (e.g., Lev 19:18 with לא, and also Lev 19:34 without לא) continues the exhortation; to be thus understood, the author ought to have used the expression שַׂכִּין שַׂמְתָּ and not וְשׂמת שׂכין. Rightly Luther: “and put a knife to thy throat,” but continuing: “wilt thou preserve thy life,” herein caught in the same mistake of the idea with Jerome, the Syr., and Targ., to which נפשׁ here separates itself. שַׂכִּין (סַכִּין) (Arab. with the assimilated a sikkı̂n, plur. sekâkı̂n, whence sekâkı̂ni, cutler) designates a knife (R. סך שך, to stick, vid., at Isa 9:10). לוֹעַ, from לוּעַ, to devour, is the throat; the word in Aram. signifies only the cheek, while Lagarde seeks to interpret בְּלֹעֶךָ infinitively in the sense of (Arab.) bwlw'ak, if thou longest for (from wl'a); but that would make 2b a tautology. The verb לוּעַ (cf. Arab. l'al', to pant for) shows for the substantive the same primary meaning as glutus from glutire, which was then transferred from the inner organ of swallowing (Kimchi, בית הבליעה, Parchon; הַוֵּשְׂטְ, aesophagus) to the external. “Put a knife to thy throat, is a proverbial expression, like our: the knife stands at his throat; the poet means to say: restrain thy too eager desire by means of the strongest threatening of danger - threaten as it were death to it” (Fleischer). In בַּעַל נֶפֶשׁ, נפשׁ means, as at Pro 13:2, desire, and that desire of eating, as at Pro 6:30. Rightly Rashi: if thou art greedy with hunger, if thou art a glutton; cf. Sir. 34:12 (31:12), “If thou sittest at a great table, then open not widely thy throat (φάρυγγα), and say not: There is certainly much on it!” The knife thus denotes the restraining and moderating of too good an appetite.
In 3a the punctuation fluctuates between תתאָו (Michlol 131a) and תתאַו; the latter is found in Cod. 1294, the Erfurt 2 and 3, the Cod. Jaman., and thus it is also to be written at Pro 23:6 and Pro 24:1; ויתאַו, 1Ch 11:17 and Psa 45:12, Codd. and older Edd. (e.g., Complut. 1517, Ven. 1515, 1521) write with Pathach. מַטְעַמּוֹת, from טָעַם, signifies savoury dishes, dainties, like (Arab.) dhwâkt, from dhâk (to taste, to relish); cf. sapores, from sapere, in the proverb: the tit-bits of the king burn the lips (vid., Fleischer, Ali's Hundred Proverbs, etc., pp. 71, 104). With וְהוּא begins, as at Pro 3:29, a conditioning clause: since it is, indeed, the bread of deceit (the connection like עֵד־כְּחָבִים, Pro 21:28), food which, as it were, deceives him who eats it, i.e., appears to secure for him the lasting favour of princes, and often enough herein deceives him; cf. the proverb by Burckhardt and Meidani: whoever eats of the sultan's soup burns his lips, even though it may be after a length of time (Fleischer). One must come near to a king, says Calovius, hitting the meaning of the proverb, as to a fire: not too near, lest he be burned; nor too remote, so that he may be warmed therewith.