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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 24:30 - 24:30
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A Mashal ode of the slothful, in the form of a record of experiences, concludes this second supplement (vid., vol. i. p. 17):
30 The field of a slothful man I came past,
And the vineyard of a man devoid of understanding.
31 And, lo! it was wholly filled up with thorns;
Its face was covered with nettles;
And its wall of stones was broken down.
32 But I looked and directed my attention to it;
I saw it, and took instruction from it:
33 “A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest.
34 Then cometh thy poverty apace,
And thy want as an armed man.”
The line 29b with לאישׁ is followed by one with אישׁ. The form of the narrative in which this warning against drowsy slothfulness is clothed, is like Psa 37:35. The distinguishing of different classes of men by אישׁ and אדם (cf. Pro 24:20) is common in proverbial poetry. עָבַרְתִּי, at the close of the first parallel member, retains its Pathach unchanged. The description: and, lo! (הִנֵּהוְ, with Pazer, after Thorath Emeth, p. 34, Anm. 2) it was... refers to the vineyard, for נֶדֶר אֲבָנָיו (its stone wall, like Isa 2:20, “its idols of silver”) is, like Num 22:24; Isa 5:5, the fencing in of the vineyard. עָלָה כֻלּוֹ, totus excreverat (in carduos), refers to this as subject, cf. in Ausonius: apex vitibus assurgit; the Heb. construction is as Isa 5:6; Isa 34:13; Gesen. §133, 1, Anm. 2. The sing. קִמָּשׁוֹן of קִמְּשׁוֹנִים does not occur; perhaps it means properly the weed which one tears up to cast it aside, for (Arab.) kumâsh is matter dug out of the ground.
(Note: This is particularly the name of what lies round about on the ground in the Bedouin tents, and which one takes up from thence (from ḳamesh, cogn. קבץ קמץ, ramasser, cf. the journal המגיד, 1871, p. 287b); in modern Arab., linen and matter of all kinds; vid., Bocthor, under linge and étoffe.)
The ancients interpret it by urticae; and חָרוּל, plur. חֲרֻלִּים (as from חָרֹל), R. חר, to burn, appears, indeed, to be the name of the nettle; the botanical name (Arab.) khullar (beans, pease, at least a leguminous plant) is from its sound not Arab., and thus lies remote.
(Note: Perhaps ὄλυρα, vid., Lagarde's Gesamm. Abhandl. p. 59.)
The Pual כָּסּוּ sounds like Psa 80:11 (cf. כָּלּוּ, Psa 72:20); the position of the words is as this passage of the Psalm; the Syr., Targ., Jerome, and the Venet. render the construction actively, as if the word were כִּסּוּ.
In Pro 24:32, Hitzig proposes to read וָאֹֽחֲזָה: and I stopped (stood still); but אחז is trans., not only at Ecc 7:9, but also at Ecc 2:15 : to hold anything fast; not: to hold oneself still. And for what purpose the change? A contemplating and looking at a thing, with which the turning and standing near is here connected, manifestly includes a standing still; רָאִיתִי, after וָאֶֽחֱזֶה, is, as commonly after הביט (e.g., Job 35:5, cf. Isa 42:18), the expression of a lingering looking at an object after the attention has been directed to it. In modern impressions, ואחזה אנכי are incorrectly accentuated; the old editions have rightly ואחזה with Rebîa; for not אנכי 'וא, but אנכי אשׁית are connected. In Pro 8:17, this prominence of the personal pronoun serves for the expression of reciprocity; elsewhere, as e.g., Gen 21:24; 2Ki 6:3, and particularly, frequently in Hosea, this circumstantiality does not make the subject prominent, but the action; here the suitable extension denotes that he rightly makes his comments at leisure (Hitzig). שִׁית לֵב is, as at Pro 22:17, the turning of attention and reflection; elsewhere לָקַח מוּסָר, to receive a moral, Pro 8:10, Jer 7:28, is here equivalent to, to abstract, deduce one from a fact, to take to oneself a lesson from it. In Pro 24:33 and Pro 24:34 there is a repetition of Pro 6:9-10. Thus, as Pro 24:33 expresses, the sluggard speaks to whom the neglected piece of ground belongs, and Pro 24:34 places before him the result. Instead of כִמְהַלֵּךְ of the original passage [Pro 6:9-10], here מִתְהַלֵךְ, of the coming of poverty like an avenging Nemesis; and instead of וּמַחְסֹרְךָ, here וּמַחְסֹרֶיךָ (the Cod. Jaman. has it without the י), which might be the plene written pausal form of the sing. (vid., at Pro 6:3, cf. Pro 6:11), but is more surely regarded as the plur.: thy deficits, or wants; for to thee at one time this, and at another time that, and finally all things will be wanting. Regarding the variants רֵאשֶׁךָ and רֵישֶׁךָ (with א in the original passage, here in the borrowed passage with י), vid., at Pro 10:4. כְּאִישׁ מָגֵן is translated in the lxx by ὥσπερ ἀγαθὸς δρομεύς (vid., at Pro 6:11); the Syr. and Targ. make from it a גַּבְרָא טַבְלָרָא, tabellarius, a letter-carrier, coming with the speed of a courier.