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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 3:16 - 3:16
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
That wisdom is of such incomparable value is here confirmed:
16 Length of days is in her right hand;
In her left, riches and honour.
17 Her ways are pleasant ways,
And all her paths are peace.
18 A tree of life is she to those that lay hold upon her,
And he who always holdeth her fast is blessed.
As in the right hand of Jahve, according to Psa 16:11, are pleasures for evermore, so Wisdom holds in her right hand “length of days,” viz., of the days of life, thus life, the blessing of blessings; in her left, riches and honour (Pro 8:18), the two good things which, it is true, do not condition life, but, received from Wisdom, and thus wisely, elevate the happiness of life-in the right hand is the chief good, in the left the προσθήκη, Mat 6:33. Didymus: Per sapientiae dextram divinarum rerum cognitio, ex qua immortalitatis vita oritur, significatur; per sinistram autem rerum humanarum notitia, ex qua gloria opumque abundantia nascitur. The lxx, as between 15a and 15b, so also here after Pro 3:16, interpolate two lines: “From her mouth proceedeth righteousness; justice and mercy she bears upon her tongue,” - perhaps translated from the Hebr., but certainly added by a reader.
Pro 3:17
דַּרְכֵי־נֹעַם are ways on which one obtains what is agreeable to the inner and the outer man, and which it does good to enjoy. The parallel שָׁלוֹם is not a genitive to נְתִיבוֹת to be supplied; that paths of Wisdom are themselves שָׁלוֹם, for she brings well-being on all sides and deep inwards satisfaction (peace). In regard to נְתִיבָה, via eminens, elata, Schultens is right (vid., under Pro 1:15);
(Note: The root is not תב, to grope, but נת; whence Arab. natt, to bubble up, natâ, to raise oneself, to swell up, etc.)
נְתִיבוֹתֶיהָ has Munach, and instead of the Metheg, Tarcha, vid., under Pro 1:31. The figure of the tree of life the fruit of which brings immortality, is, as Pro 11:30; Pro 15:4 (cf. Pro 13:12), Rev 2:7, taken from the history of paradise in the Book of Genesis. The old ecclesiastical saying, Lignum vitae crux Christi, accommodates itself in a certain measure, through Mat 11:19; Luk 11:49, with this passage of the Book of Proverbs. הֶחֱזִיק בְ means to fasten upon anything, more fully expressed in Gen 21:18, to bind the hand firm with anything, to seize it firmly. They who give themselves to Wisdom, come to experience that she is a tree of life whose fruit contains and communicates strength of life, and whoever always keeps fast hold of Wisdom is blessed, i.e., to be pronounced happy (Psa 41:3, vid., under Psa 137:8). The predicate מְאֻשָּׁר, blessed, refers to each one of the תֹּמְכֶיהָ, those who hold her, cf. Pro 27:16; Num 24:9. It is the so-called distributive singular of the predicate, which is freely used particularly in those cases where the plur. of the subject is a participle (vid., under Pro 3:35).