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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 25:27 - 25:27
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This verse, as it stands, is scarcely to be understood. The Venet. translates 27b literally: ἔρευνά τε δόξας αὐτῶν δόξα; but what is the reference of this כְּבֹדָם? Euchel and others refer it to men, for they translate: “to set a limit to the glory of man is true glory;” but the “glory of man” is denoted by the phrase כְּבֹד אָדָם, not by כְּבֹדָם; and, besides, חֵקֶר does not mean measure and limit. Oetinger explains: “To eat too much honey is not good; whereas the searching after their glory, viz., of pleasant and praiseworthy things, which are likened to honey, is glory, cannot be too much done, and is never without utility and honour;” but how can כְּבֹדָם be of the same meaning as כְּבֹד הדברים אשׁר or הנמשׁלים כַּדְּבַשׁ - such an abbreviation of the expression is impossible. Schultens, according to Rashi: vestigatio gravitatis eorum est gravitas, i.e., the searching out of their difficulty is a trouble; better Vitringa (since כבוד nowhere occurs in this sense of gravitas molesta ac pondere oppressura): investigatio praestantiae eorum est gloriosa; but Vitringa, in order to gain a connection to 27a, needs to introduce etiamsi, and in both explanations the reference of the כְּבֹדָם is imaginary, and it by no means lies near, since the Scripture uses the word כבוד of God, and His kingdom and name, but never of His law or His revelation. Thus also is an argument against Bertheau, who translates: the searching out of their glory (viz., of the divine law and revelation) is a burden, a strenuous occupation of the mind, since חקר does not in itself mean searching out, and is equivocally, even unintelligibly, expressed, since כבוד denotes, it is true, here and there, a great multitude, but never a burden (as כֹּבֶד). The thought which Jerome finds in 27b: qui scrutator est majestatis opprimetur a gloria, is judicious, and connects itself synonym. with 27a; but such a thought is unwarranted, for he disregards the suff. of כּבֹדָם, and renders כבוד in the sense of difficulty (oppression). Or should it perhaps be vocalized כְּבֹדִם (Syr., Targ., Theodotion, δεδοξασμένα = נִכְבָּדוֹת)? Thus vocalized, Umbreit renders it in the sense of honores; Elster and Zöckler in the sense of difficultates (difficilia); but this plur., neither the biblical, nor, so far as I know, the post-bibl. usage of the word has ever adopted. However, the sense of the proverb which Elster and Zöckler gain is certainly that which is aimed at. We accordingly translate:
To surfeit oneself in eating honey is not good,
But as an inquirer to enter on what is difficult is honour.
We read כְּבֵדִם instead of כְּבֹדָם. This change commends itself far more than כָּבֹד מִכָּבוֹד (וחקר), according to which Gesenius explains: nimium studium honoris est sine honore - impossible, for חֵקֶר does not signify nimium studium, in the sense of striving, but only that of inquiry: one strives after honour, but does not study it. Hitzig and Ewald, after the example of J. D. Michaelis, Arnoldi, and Ziegler, betake themselves therefore to the Arabic; Ewald explains, for he leaves the text unchanged: “To despise their honour (that is, of men) is honour (true, real honour);” Hitzig, for he changes the text like Gesenius: “To despise honour is more than honour,” with the ingenious remark: To obtain an order [insigne ordinis] is an honour, but not to wear it then for the first time is its bouquet. Nowhere any trace either in Hebrew or in Aramaic is to be found of the verb חקר, to despise (to be despised), and so it must here remain without example.
(Note: The Hebrew meaning investigare, and the equivalent Arabic ḥaḳr, contemnere (contemtui esse), are derivations from the primary meaning (R. חק): to go down from above firmly on anything, and thus to press in (to cut in), or also to press downward.)
Nor have we any need of it. The change of כְּבֹדָם into כְּבֵדִם is enough. The proverb is an antithetic distich; 27a warns against inordinate longing after enjoyments, 27b praises earnest labour. Instead of דְּבַשׁ הַרְבּוֹת, if honey in the mass were intended, the words would have been דְּבַשׁ הַרְבֵּה (Ecc 5:11; 1Ki 10:10), or at least הַרְבּוֹת דְּבַשׁ (Amo 4:9); הרבות can only be a n. actionis, and אָכֹל דְּבַשׁ its inverted object (cf. Jer 9:4), as Böttcher has discerned: to make much of the eating of honey, to do much therein is not good (cf. Pro 25:16). In 27b Luther also partly hits on the correct rendering: “and he who searches into difficult things, to him it is too difficult,” for which it ought to be said: to him it is an honour. כְּבֵדִם, viz., דברים, signifies difficult things, as רֵיקִים, Pro 12:11, vain things. The Heb. כָּבֵד, however, never means difficult to be understood or comprehended (although more modern lexicons say this),
(Note: Cf. Sir. 3:20f. with Ben-Sira's Heb. text in my Gesch. der jüd. Poesie, p. 204 (vv. 30-32); nowhere does this adj. כבד appears here in this warning against meditating over the transcendental.)
but always only burdensome and heavy, gravis, not difficilis. כבֵדם are also things of which the חֵקֶר, i.e., the fundamental searching into them (Pro 18:17; Pro 25:2.), costs an earnest effort, which perhaps, according to the first impression, appears to surpass the available strength (cf. Exo 18:18). To overdo oneself in eating honey is not good; on the contrary, the searching into difficult subjects is nothing less than an eating of honey, but an honour. There is here a paronomasia. Fleischer translates it: explorare gravia grave est; but we render grave est not in the sense of molestiam creat, but gravitatem parit (weight = respect, honour).