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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 26:16 - 26:16
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16 The sluggard is wise in his own eyes,
More than seven men who give an excellent answer.
Between slothfulness and conceit there exists no inward necessary mutual relation. The proverb means that the sluggard as such regards himself as wiser than seven, who all together answer well at any examination: much labour - he thinks with himself - only injures the health, blunts men for life and its joys, leads only to over-exertion; for the most prudent is, as a general rule, crack-brained. Böttcher's “maulfaule” [slow to speak] belongs to the German style of thinking; עטל לשׁנא in Syr. is not he who is slow to speak, but he who has a faltering tongue.
(Note: The Aram. עטל is the Hebr. עצל, as עֵטָא = עֵצָה; but in Arab. corresponds not to 'atal, but to 'azal.)
Seven is the number of manifoldness in completed unfolding (Pro 9:1). Meîri thinks, after Ezr 7:14, on the council of seven of the Asiatic ruler. But seven is a round number of plurality, Pro 26:25, Pro 24:16; Pro 6:31. Regarding טַעַם, vid., at Pro 11:22.