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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 29:1 - 29:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
A general ethical proverb here follows:
A man often corrected who hardeneth his neck,
Shall suddenly go to ruin without remedy.
Line second = Pro 6:15. The connection אִישׁ תּוֹכָחוֹת must make the nearest impression on a reader of the Book of Proverbs that they mean a censurer (reprehender), but which is set aside by what follows, for the genit. after אִישׁ is, Pro 16:29; Pro 26:21; Pro 29:10; Pro 13:20, the designation of that which proceeds from the subject treated. And since תּוֹכָחוֹת, Psa 37:15; Job 23:4, denotes counter evidence, and generally rejoinders, thus in the first line a reasoner is designated who lets nothing be said to him, and nothing be shown to him, but contradicts all and every one. Thus e.g., Fleischer: vir qui correptus contradicit et cervicem obdurat. But this interpolated correptus gives involuntary testimony of this, that the nearest lying impression of the 'אִישׁ תו suffers a change by מַקְשֶׁה עֹרֶף: if we read הקשׁה (לב) ערף with 'תו, the latter then designates the correptio, over against which is placed obstinate boldness (Syr., Targ., Jerome, Luther), and 'תו shows itself thus to be gen. objecti, and we have to compare the gen. connection of אישׁ, as at Pro 18:23; Pro 21:17, or rather at 1Ki 20:42 and Jer 15:10. But it is unnecessary, with Hitzig, to limit 'תו to divine infliction of punishment, and after Hos 5:9; Isa 37:3, to read תוכֵחות [punishment], which occurs, Psa 149:7, in the sense of punishment inflicted by man.
(Note: Vid., Zunz, “Regarding the Idea and the Use of Tokhecha,” in Steinschneider's Heb. Bibliographia, entitled המחכיר, 1871, p. 70f.)
Besides, we must think first not of actual punishment, but of chastening, reproving words; and the man to whom are spoken the reproving words is one whose conduct merits more and more severe censure, and continually receives correction from those who are concerned for his welfare. Hitzig regards the first line as a conditional clause: “Is a man of punishment stiff-necked?”.... This is syntactically impossible. Only מקשׁה ערף could have such force: a man of punishment, if he.... But why then did not the author rather write the words והוא מקשׁה ערף? Why then could not מקשׁה ערף be a co-ordinated further description of the man? Cf. e.g., Ex. 17:21. The door of penitence, to which earnest, well-meant admonition calls a man, does not always remain open. He who with stiff-necked persistence in sin and in self-delusion sets himself in opposition to all endeavours to save his soul, shall one day suddenly, and without the prospect and possibility of restoration (cf. Jer 19:11), become a wreck. Audi doctrinam si vis vitare ruinam.