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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 24:13 - 24:13
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The proverb now following stands in no obvious relation with the preceding. But in both a commencement is made with two lines, which contain, in the former, the principal thought; in this here, its reason:
13 My son, eat honey, for it is good,
And honeycomb is sweet to thy taste.
14 So apprehend wisdom for thy soul;
When thou hast found it, there is a future,
And thy hope is not destroyed.
After its nearest fundamental thought, טוֹב, Arab. ṭejjib, means that which smells and tastes well; honey (דְּבַשׁ, from דָּבַשׁ, to be thick, consistent) has, besides, according to the old idea (e.g., in the Koran), healing virtue, as in general bitterness is viewed as a property of the poisonous, and sweetness that of the wholesome. נֹפֶתוְ is second accus. dependent on אֱכָל־, for honey and honeycomb were then spoken of as different; נֹפֶת (from נָפַת, to pour, to flow out) is the purest honey (virgin-honey), flowing of itself out of the comb. With right the accentuation takes 13b as independent, the substantival clause containing the reason, “for it is good:” honeycomb is sweet to thy taste, i.e., applying itself to it with the impression of sweetness; עַל, as at Neh 2:5; Psa 16:6 (Hitzig).
In the כֵּן of 14a, it is manifest that Pro 24:13 is not spoken for its own sake. To apprehend wisdom, is elsewhere equivalent to, to receive it into the mind, Pro 1:2; Ecc 1:17 (cf. דעת בינה, Pro 4:1, and frequently), according to which Böttcher also here explains: learn to understand wisdom. But כן unfolds itself in 14bc: even as honey has for the body, so wisdom has for the soul, beneficent wholesome effects. דעה חכמה is thus not absolute, but is meant in relation to these effects. Rightly Fleischer: talem reputa; Ewald: sic (talem) scito spaientiam (esse) animae tuae, know, recognise wisdom as something advantageous to thy soul, and worthy of commendation. Incorrectly Hitzig explains אִם־מָצָאתָ, “if the opportunity presents itself.” Apart from this, that in such a case the words would rather have been כִּי תִמְצָא, to find wisdom is always equivalent to, to obtain it, to make it one's own, Pro 3:13; Pro 8:35; cf. Pro 2:5; Pro 8:9. דְּעֶה
(Note: Write דְּעֶה with Illuj after the preceding Legarmeh, like 12b, הוּא (Thorath Emeth, p. 28).)
stands for דְּעָה, after the form רְדָה; שְׁבָה (after Böttcher, §396, not without the influence of the following commencing sound), cf. the similar transitions of ā into ě placed together at Psa 20:4; the form דְּעֵה is also found, but דְּעֶה is the form in the Cod. Hilleli,
(Note: Vid., Strack's Prolegomena critica in V.T. (1872), p. 19.)
as confirmed by Moses Kimchi in Comm., and by David Kimchi, Michlol 101b. With יֵשׁוְ begins the apodosis (lxx, Jerome, Targ., Luther, Rashi, Ewald, and others). In itself, וישׁ (cf. Gen 47:6) might also continue the conditional clause; but the explanation, si inveneris (eam) et ad postremum ventum erit (Fleischer, Bertheau, Zöckler), has this against it, that יֵשׁ אַֽחֲרִית does not mean: the end comes, but: there is an end, Pro 23:18; cf. Pro 19:18; here: there is an end for thee, viz., an issue that is a blessed reward. The promise is the same as at Pro 23:18. In our own language we speak of the hope of one being cut off; (Arab.) jaz'a, to be cut off, is equivalent to, to give oneself up to despair.