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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 26:24 - 26:24
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Pro 26:24 and Pro 26:25 form a tetrastich.
24 With his lips the hater dissembleth,
And in his heart he museth deceit.
25 If he maketh his voice agreeable, believe him not,
For seven abominations are in his heart.
All the old translators (also the Venet. and Luther) give to יִגָּכֵר the meaning, to become known; but the Niph. as well as the Hithpa. (vid., at Pro 20:11; Gen 47:17) unites with this meaning also the meaning to make oneself known: to make oneself unknown, unrecognisable = (Arab.) tanakkr, e.g., by means of clothing, or by a changed expression of countenance.
(Note: Vid., de Goeje's Fragmenta Hist. Arab. ii. (1871), p. 94. The verb נכר, primarily to fix one's attention, sharply to contemplate anything, whence is derived the meanings of knowing and of not knowing, disowning. The account of the origin of these contrasted meanings, in Gesenius-Dietrich's Lexicon, is essentially correct; but the Arab. nakar there referred to means, not sharpness of mind, from nakar = הִכִּיר, but from the negative signification prevailing in the Arab. alone, a property by which one makes himself worthy of being disowned: craftiness, cunning, and then also in bonam partem: sagacity.)
The contrast demands here this latter signification: labiis suis alium se simulat osor, intus in pectore autem reconditum habet dolum (Fleischer). This rendering of יָשִׁית מִרְמָה is more correct than Hitzig's (“in his breast) he prepares treachery;” for שׁית מרמה is to be rendered after שׁית עֵצוֹת, Psa 13:3 (vid., Hupfeld's and also our comm. on this passage), not after Jer 9:7; for one says שׁית מוֹקְשִׁים, to place snares, שׁית אֹרֶב, to lay an ambush, and the like, but not to place or to lay deceit. If such a dissembler makes his voice agreeable (Piel of חָנַן only here, for the form Psa 9:14 is, as it is punctuated, Kal), trust not thyself to him (הֶֽאֱמִין, with ב: to put firm trust in anything, vid., Genesis, p. 312)
(Note: The fundamental idea of firmness in האמין is always in the subject, not the object. The Arabic interpreters remark that âman with ב expresses recognition, and with ל submission (vid., Lane's Lexicon under âman); but in Hebr. האמין with ב fiducia fidei, with ל assensus fidei; the relation is thus not altogether the same.)
for seven abominations, i.e., a whole host of abominable thoughts and designs, are in his heart; he is, if one may express it, after Mat 12:45, possessed inwardly of seven devils. The lxx makes a history of 24a: an enemy who, under complaints, makes all possible allowances, but in his heart τεκταίνεται δόλους. The history is only too true, but it has no place in the text.