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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 25:13 - 25:13
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The following comparative tristich refers to faithful service rendered by words:
Like the coolness of snow on a harvest day
Is a faithful messenger to them that send him:
He refresheth the soul of his master.
The coolness (צִנָּה from צָנַן, צְנַן, to be cool) of snow is not that of a fall of snow, which in the time of harvest would be a calamity, but of drink cooled with snow, which was brought from Lebanon or elsewhere, from the clefts of the rocks; the peasants of Damascus store up the winter's snow in a cleft of the mountains, and convey it in the warm months to Damascus and the coast towns. Such a refreshment is a faithful messenger (vid., regarding צִיר, Pro 13:17, here following קָצִיר as a kind of echo) to them that send him (vid., regarding this plur. at Pro 10:26, cf. Pro 22:21); he refreshes, namely (ו explicativum, as e.g., Eze 18:19, etenim filius, like the ו et quidem, Mal 1:11, different from the ו of conditional clause Pro 23:3), the soul of his master; for the answer which he brings to his master refreshes him, as does a drink of snow-cooled water on a hot harvest day.