Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 29:6 - 29:6

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 29:6 - 29:6


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

6 In the transgression of the wicked man lies a snare;

But the righteous rejoiceth jubelt and is glad.

Thus the first line is to be translated according to the sequence of the accents, Mahpach, Munach, Munach, Athnach, for the second Munach is the transformation of Dechi; אִישׁ רָע thus, like אַנְשֵׁי־רָע, Pro 28:5, go together, although the connection is not, like this, genitival, but adjectival. But there is also this sequence of the accents, Munach, Dechi, Munach, Athnach, which separates רָע and אִישׁ. According to this, Ewald translates: “in the transgression of one lies an evil snare;” but in that case the word ought to have been מוקשׁ רע, as at Pro 12:13; for although the numeral רבים sometimes precedes its substantive, yet no other adjective ever does; passages such as Isa 28:21 and Isa 10:30 do not show the possibility of this position of the words. In this sequence of accents the explanation must be: in the wickedness of a man is the evil of a snare, i.e., evil is the snare laid therein (Böttcher); but a reason why the author did not write מוקשׁ רע would also not be seen there, and thus we must abide by the accentuation אישׁ רע. The righteous also may fall, yet he is again raised by means of repentance and pardon; but in the wickedness of a bad man lies a snare into which having once fallen, he cannot again release himself from it, Pro 24:16. In the second line, the form יָרוּן, for יָרֹן, is defended by the same metaplastic forms as יָשׁוּד, Psa 91:6; יָרוּץ, Isa 42:4; and also that the order of the words is not יִשְׂמַח וְרִנֵּן (lxx ἐν χαρᾷ καὶ ἐν εὐθροσύνῃ; Luther: frewet sich und hat wonne [rejoices and has pleasure]), is supported by the same sequence of ideas, Zec 2:1-13 :14, cf. Jer 31:7 : the Jubeln is the momentary outburst of gladness; the Freude gladness, however, is a continuous feeling of happiness. To the question as to what the righteous rejoiceth over [jubelt] and is glad [greuet] because of, the answer is not: because of his happy release from danger (Zöckler), but: because of the prosperity which his virtue procures for him (Fleischer). But the contrast between the first and second lines is not clear and strong. One misses the expression of the object or ground of the joy. Cocceius introduces into the second line a si lapsus fuerit. Schultens translates, justus vel succumbens triumphabit, after the Arab. rân f. o., which, however, does not mean succumbere, but subigere (vid., under Psa 78:65). Hitzig compares Arab. raym f. i., discedere, relinquere, and translates: “but the righteous passeth through and rejoiceth.” Böttcher is inclined to read יִרְאֶה ושׂמח, he sees it (what?) and rejoiceth. All these devices, however, stand in the background compared with Pinsker's proposal (Babylon.-Heb. Punktationssystem, p. 156):

“On the footsteps of the wicked man lie snares,

But the righteous runneth and is glad,”

i.e., he runneth joyfully (like the sun, Psa 19:6) on the divinely-appointed way (Psa 119:132), on which he knows himself threatened by no danger. The change of בפשׁע into בפשׂע has Pro 12:13 against it; but ירוץ may be regarded, after Pro 4:12, cf. Pro 18:10, as the original from which ירון is corrupted.