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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 24:28 - 24:28
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Warning against unnecessary witnessing to the disadvantage of another:
Never be a causeless witness against thy neighbour;
And shouldest thou use deceit with thy lips?
The phrase עֵד־חִנָּם does not mean a witness who appears against his neighbour without knowledge of the facts of the case, but one who has no substantial reason for his giving of testimony; חִנָּם means groundless, with reference to the occasion and motive, Pro 3:30; Pro 23:29; Pro 26:2. Other designations stood for false witnesses (lxx, Syr., Targ.). Rightly Jerome, the Venet., and Luther, without, however, rendering the gen. connection עד־חנם, as it might have been by the adj.
In 28b, Chajûg derives וַֽהֲפִתִּיתָ from פָּתַת, to break in pieces, to crumble; for he remarks it might stand, with the passing over of ô into î, for וַֽהֲפִתּוֹתָ [and thou wilt whisper]. But the ancients had no acquaintance with the laws of sound, and therefore with naive arbitrariness regarded all as possible; and Böttcher, indeed, maintains that the Hiphil of פתת may be הפתִּית as well as הפתּוֹת; but the former of these forms with î could only be metaplastically possible, and would be הִפְתִּיתָ (vid., Hitzig under Jer 11:20). And what can this Hiph. of פתת mean? “To crumble” one's neighbours (Chajûg) is an unheard of expression; and the meanings, to throw out crumbs, viz., crumbs of words (Böttcher), or to speak with a broken, subdued voice (Hitzig), are extracted from the rare Arab. fatâfit (faṭafiṭ), for which the lexicographers note the meaning of a secret, moaning sound. When we see והפתית standing along with בִּשְׂפָתֶיךָ, then before all we are led to think of פתה [to open], Pro 20:19; Ps. 73:36. But we stumble at the interrog. הֲ, which nowhere else appears connected with ו. Ewald therefore purposes to read וְהִפְתִּיתָ [and will open wide] (lxx μηδὲ πλατύνου): “that thou usest treachery with thy lips;” but from הפתה, to make wide open, Gen 9:27, “to use treachery” is, only for the flight of imagination, not too wide a distance. On וַֽהֲ, et num, one need not stumble; וַֽהֲלוֹא, 2Sa 15:35, shows that the connection of a question by means of ו is not inadmissible; Ewald himself takes notice that in the Arab. the connection of the interrogatives 'a and hal with w and f is quite common;
(Note: We use the forms âwa, âba, âthûmm, for we suppose the interrogative to the copula; we also say fahad, vid., Mufaṣsal, p. 941.)
and thus he reaches the explanation: wilt thou befool then by thy lips, i.e., pollute by deceit, by inconsiderate, wanton testimony against others? This is the right explanation, which Ewald hesitates about only from the fact that the interrog. הֲ comes in between the ו consec. and its perf., a thing which is elsewhere unheard of. But this difficulty is removed by the syntactic observation, that the perf. after interrogatives has often the modal colouring of a conj. or optative, e.g., after the interrog. pronoun, Gen 21:7, quis dixerit, and after the interrogative particle, as here and at 2Ki 20:9, iveritne, where it is to be supplied (vid., at Isa 38:8). Thus: et num persuaseris (deceperis) labiis tuis, and shouldest thou practise slander with thy lips, for thou bringest thy neighbour, without need, by thy uncalled for rashness, into disrepute? “It is a question, âl'nakar (cf. Pro 23:5), for which 'a (not hal), in the usual Arab. interrogative: how, thou wouldest? one then permits the inquirer to draw the negative answer: “No, I will not do it” (Fleischer).