Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 23:15 - 23:15

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 23:15 - 23:15


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The following proverb passes from the educator to the pupil:

15 My son, if thine heart becometh wise,

My heart also in return will rejoice;

16 And my reins will exult

If thy lips speak right things.

Wisdom is inborn in no one. A true Arab. proverb says, “The wise knows how the fool feels, for he himself was also once a fool;”

(Note: The second part of the saying is, “But a fool knows not how a wise man feels, for he has never been a wise man.” I heard this many years ago, from the mouth of the American missionary Schaufler, in Constantinople.)

and folly is bound up in the heart of a child, according to Pro 22:15, which must be driven out by severe discipline. 15b, as many others, cf. Pro 22:19, shows that these “words of the wise” are penetrated by the subjectivity of an author; the author means: if thy heart becomes wise, so will mine in return, i.e., corresponding to it (cf. גַּם, Gen 20:6), rejoice. The thought of the heart in Pro 23:15 repeats itself in Pro 23:16, with reference to the utterance of the mouth. Regarding מֵישָׁרִים, vid., Pro 1:5. Regarding the “reins,” כְּלָיוֹת (perhaps from כָּלָה, to languish, Job 19:21), with which the tender and inmost affections are connected, vid., Psychologie, p. 268f.