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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 27:19 - 27:19
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19 As it is with water, face correspondeth to face,
So also the heart of man to man.
Thus the traditional text is to be translated; for on the supposition that כַּמַּיִם must be used for כְּבַמַּיִם, yet it might not be translated: as in waters face corresponds to face (Jerome: quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus respicientium), because כְּ (instar) is always only a prep. and never conj. subordinating to itself a whole sentence (vid., under Psa 38:14). But whether כַּמַּיִם, “like water,” may be an abridgment of a sentence: “like as it is with water,” is a question, and the translation of the lxx (Syr., Targ., Arab.), ὥσπερ οὐχ ὅμοια πρόσωπα προσώποις, κ.τ.λ., appears, according to Böttcher's ingenious conjecture, to have supposed כאשר במים, from which the lxx derived כְּאֵין דֹּמִים, sicut non pares. The thought is beautiful: as in the water-mirror each one beholds his own face (Luther: der Scheme = the shadow), so out of the heart of another each sees his own heart, i.e., he finds in another the dispositions and feelings of his own heart (Fleischer) - the face finds in water its reflection, and the heart of a man finds in man its echo; men are ὁμοιοπαθεῖς, and it is a fortunate thing that their heart is capable of the same sympathetic feelings, so that one can pour into the heart of another that which fills and moves his own heart, and can there find agreement with it, and a re-echo. The expression with לְ is extensive: one corresponds to another, one belongs to another, is adapted to the other, turns to the other, so that the thought may be rendered in manifold ways: the divinely-ordained mutual relationship is always the ground-thought. This is wholly obliterated by Hitzig's conjecture כְּמוּם, “what a mole on the face is to the face, that is man's heart to man,” i.e., the heart is the dark spot in man, his partie honteuse. But the Scripture nowhere speaks of the human heart after this manner, at least the Book of Proverbs, in which לב frequently means directly the understanding. Far more intelligible and consistent is the conjecture of Mendel Stern, to which Abrahamsohn drew my attention: כַּמַּיִם הַפֹּנִים לְפָנִים, like water (viz., flowing water), which directs its course always forward, thus (is turned) the heart of man to man. This conjecture removes the syntactic harshness of the first member without changing the letters, and illustrates by a beautiful and excellent figure the natural impulse moving man to man. It appears, however, to us, in view of the lxx, more probable that כַּמַּיִם is abbreviated from the original כאשׁר במים (cf. Pro 24:29).