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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 29:18 - 29:18
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18 Without a revelation a people becomes ungovernable;
But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Regarding the importance of this proverb for estimating the relation of the Chokma to prophecy, vid., vol. i. p. 41. חָזוֹן is, according to the sense, equivalent to נְבוּאָה, the prophetic revelation in itself, and as the contents of that which is proclaimed. Without spiritual preaching, proceeding from spiritual experience, a people is unrestrained (יִפָּרַע, vid., regarding the punctuation at Pro 28:25, and regarding the fundamental meaning, at Pro 1:25); it becomes פָּרֻעַ, disorderly, Exo 32:25; wild und wüst, as Luther translates. But in the second line, according to the unity of the antithesis, the words are spoken of the people, not of individuals. It is therefore not to be explained, with Hitzig: but whoever, in such a time, nevertheless holds to the law, it is well with him! Without doubt this proverb was coined at a time when the preaching of the prophets was in vogue; and therefore this, “but whoever, notwithstanding,” is untenable; such a thought at that time could not at all arise; and besides this, תורה is in the Book of Proverbs a moveable conception, which is covered at least by the law in contradistinction to prophecy. Tôra denotes divine teaching, the word of God; whether that of the Sinaitic or that of the prophetic law (2Ch 15:3, cf. e.g., Isa 1:10). While, on the one hand, a people is in a dissolute condition when the voice of the preacher, speaking from divine revelation, and enlightening their actions and sufferings by God's word, is silent amongst them (Psa 74:9, cf. Amo 8:12); on the other hand, that same people are to be praised as happy when they show due reverence and fidelity to the word of God, both as written and as preached. That the word of God is preached among a people belongs to their condition of life; and they are only truly happy when they earnestly and willingly subordinate themselves to the word of God which they possess and have the opportunity of hearing. אַשְׁרֵהוּ (defective for אַשְׁרִיהוּ) is the older, and here the poetic kindred form to אַשְׁרָיו, Pro 14:21; Pro 16:20.