Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 30:15 - 30:15
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
With the characteristic of insatiableness Pro 30:11-14 closes, and there follows an apophthegma de quatuor insatiabilibus quae ideo comparantur cum sanguisuga (C. B. Michaelis). We translate the text here as it lies before us:
15 The ‛Alûka hath two daughters: Give! Give!
Three of these are never satisfied;
Four say not: Enough!
16 The under-world and the closing of the womb;
The earth is not satisfied with water;
And the fire saith not: Enough!
We begin with Masoretic externalities. The first ב in הב is Beth minusculum; probably it had accidentally this diminutive form in the original MSS, to which the Midrash (cf. Sepher Taghin ed. Bargès, 1866, p. 47) has added absurd conceits. This first הַב has Pasek after it, which in this case is servant to the Olewejored going before, according to the rule Thorath Emeth, p. 24, here, as at Psa 85:9, Mehuppach. The second הב, which of itself alone is the representative of Olewejored, has in Hutter, as in the Cod. Erfurt 2, and Cod. 2 of the Leipzig Public Library, the pausal punctuation הָב (cf. קָח, 1Sa 21:10), but which is not sufficiently attested. Instead of לֹא־אָמְרוּ, 15b, לֹא אָמְרוּ, and instead of לֹא־אָמְרָה f, 16b, לֹא אָֽמְרָה are to be written; the Zinnorith removes the Makkeph, according to Thorath Emeth, p. 9, Accentuationssystem, iv. §2. Instead of מַיִם, 16a, only Jablonski, as Mühlau remarks, has מָיִם; but incorrectly, since Athnach, after Olewejored, has no pausal force (vid., Thorath Emeth, p. 37). All that is without any weight as to the import of the words. But the punctuation affords some little service for the setting aside of a view of Rabbenu Tam (vid., Tosaphoth to Aboda zara 17a, and Erubin 19a), which has been lately advocated by Löwenstein. That view is, that ‛Alûka is the name of a wise man, not Solomon's, because the Pesikta does not reckon this among the names of Solomon, nor yet a name of hell, because it is not, in the Gemara, numbered among the names of Gehinnom. Thus לַֽעֲלוּקָה would be a superscription, like לדוד and לשׁלמה, Psa 26:1; Psa 72:1, provided with Asla Legarmeh. But this is not possible, for the Asla Legarmeh, at Psa 26:1 and Psa 72:1, is the transformation of Olewejored, inadmissible on the first word of the verse (Accentuationssystem, xix. §1); but no Olewejored can follow such an Asla Legarmeh, which has the force of an Olewejored, as after this לעלוקה, which the accentuation then does not regard as the author's name given as a superscription. עֲלוּקָה is not the name of a person, and generally not a proper name, but a generic name of certain traditional signification. “One must drink no water” - says the Gemara Aboda zara 12b - “out of a river or pond, nor (immediately) with his mouth, nor by means of his hand; he who, nevertheless, does it, his blood comes on his own head, because of the danger. What danger? סַכָּנַת עֲלוּקָה,” i.e., the danger of swallowing a leech. The Aram. also designates a leech by עֲלוּקָא (cf. e.g., Targ. Ps. 12:9: hence the godless walk about like the leech, which sucks the blood of men), and the Arab. by 'alaḳ (n. unit. 'alaḳat), as the word is also rendered here by the Aram. and Arab. translators. Accordingly, all the Greeks render it by βδέλλη; Jerome, by sanguisuga (Rashi, sangsue); also Luther's Eigel is not the Igel erinaceus [hedgehog], but the Egel, i.e., as we now designate it, the Blutegel [leech], or (less correctly) Blutigel. עֲלוּקָה is the fem. of the adj. עָלוּק, attached to, which meaning, together with the whole verbal stem, the Arab. has preserved (vid., Mühlau's Mittheilung des Art. 'aluka aus dem Kamus, p. 42).
(Note: Nöldeke has remarked, with reference to Mühlau's Monographie, that ‛aluḳa, in the sense of tenacious (tenax), is also found in Syr. (Geopon. xiii. 9, xli. 26), and that generally the stem עלק, to cleave, to adhere, is more common in Aram. than one would suppose. But this, however common in Arab., is by no means so in Syr.; and one may affirm that, among other Arabisms found in the Proverbs of Agur, the word ‛Alûka has decidedly an Arab. sound.)
But if, now, the ‛Alûka is the leech,
(Note: In Sanscrit the leech is called galaukas (masc.) or galaukâ (fem.), i.e., the inhabitant of the water (from gala, water, and ôkas, dwelling). Ewald regards this as a transformation of the Semitic name.)
which are then its two daughters, to which is here given the name הב הב, and which at the same time have this cry of desire in their mouths? Grotius and others understand, by the two daughters of the leech, the two branches of its tongue; more correctly: the double-membered overlip of its sucker. C. B. Michaelis thinks that the greedy cry, “Give! Give!” is personified: voces istae concipiuntur ut hirudinis filiae, quas ex se gignat et velut mater sobolem impense diligat. But since this does not satisfy, symbolical interpretations of ‛Aluka have been resorted to. The Talmud, Aboda zara 17a, regards it as a name of hell. In this sense it is used in the language of the Pijut (synagogue poetry).
(Note: So says e.g., Salomo ha-Babli, in a Zulath of the first Chanukka-Sabbats (beginning אֵין צוּר חֵלֶף): יָֽקְדוּ כְּהַבְהֲבֵי עֶלֶק, they burn like the flames of hell.)
If ‛Alûka is hell, then fancy has the widest room for finding an answer to the question, What are the two daughters? The Talmud supposes that רשׁות (the worldly domination) and מינות (heresy) are meant. The Church-fathers also, understanding by ‛Alûka the power of the devil, expatiated in such interpretations. Of the same character are Calmet's interpretation, that sanguisuga is a figure of the mala cupiditas, and its twin-daughters are avaritia and ambitio. The truth lying in all these is this, that here there must be some kind of symbol. But if the poet meant, by the two daughters of the ‛Alûka, two beings or things which he does not name, then he kept the best of his symbol to himself. And could he use ‛Alûka, this common name for the leech, without further intimation, in any kind of symbolical sense? The most of modern interpreters do nothing to promote the understanding of the word, for they suppose that ‛Alûka, from its nearest signification, denotes a demoniacal spirit of the character of a vampire, like the Dakinî of the Indians, which nourish themselves on human flesh; the ghouls of the Arabs and Persians, which inhabit graveyards, and kill and eat men, particularly wanderers in the desert; in regard to which it is to be remarked, that (Arab.) ‛awlaḳ is indeed a name for a demon, and that al‛aluwaḳ, according to the Kamus, is used in the sense of alghwal. Thus Dathe, Döderlein, Ziegler, Umbreit; thus also Hitzig, Ewald, and others. Mühlau, while he concurs in this understanding of the word, and now throwing open the question, Which, then, are the two daughters of the demoness ‛Alûka? finds no answer to it in the proverb itself, and therefore accepts of the view of Ewald, since 15b-16, taken by themselves, form a fully completed whole, that the line 'לעלוקה וגו is the beginning of a numerical proverb, the end of which is wanting. We acknowledge, because of the obscurity - not possibly aimed at by the author himself - in which the two daughters remain, the fragmentary characters of the proverb of the ‛Alûka; Stuart also does this, for he regards it as brought out of a connection in which it was intelligible - but we believe that the line 'שׁלוֹשׁ וגו is an original formal part of this proverb. For the proverb forming, according to Mühlau's judgment, a whole rounded off:
שׁלושׁ הנה לא תשׂבענה
ארבע לא אמרו הון
שׁאול ועצר רחם
ארץ לא שׂבעה מים
ואשׁ לא אמרה הון
contains a mark which makes the original combination of these five lines improbable. Always where the third is exceeded by the fourth, the step from the third to the fourth is taken by the connecting Vav: Pro 30:18, וְארבע; Pro 30:21, וְתחת ארבע; Pro 30:29, וְארבעה. We therefore conclude that 'ארבע לא וגו is the original commencement of independent proverb. This proverb is:
Four things say not: Enough!
The under-world and the closing of the womb [i.e., unfruitful womb] -
The earth is not satisfied with water,
And the fire says not: Enough!
a tetrastich more acceptable and appropriate than the Arab. proverb (Freytag, Provv. iii. p. 61, No. 347): “three things are not satisfied by three: the womb, and wood by fire, and the earth by rain;” and, on the other hand, it is remarkable to find it thus clothed in the Indian language,
(Note: That not only natural productions, but also ideas and literary productions (words, proverbs, knowledge), were conveyed from the Indians to the Semites, and from the Semites to the Indians, on the great highways by sea and land, is a fact abundantly verified. There is not in this, however, any means of determining the situation of Massa.)
as given in the Hitopadesa (p. 67 of Lassen's ed.), and in Pantschatantra, i. 153 (ed. of Kosegarten):
nâgnis tṛpjati kâshṭhânân nâpagânân mahôdadhih
nântakah sarvabhûtânân na punsân vâmalocanâh.
Fire is not sated with wood, nor the ocean with the streams,
Nor death with all the living, nor the beautiful-eyed with men.
As in the proverb of Agur the 4 falls into 2 + 2, so also in this Indian sloka. In both, fire and the realm of death (ântaka is death as the personified “end-maker”) correspond; and as there the womb and the earth, so here feminarium cupiditas and the ocean. The parallelizing of ארץ and רחם is after passages such as Psa 139:15; Job 1:21 (cf. also Pro 5:16; Num 24:7; Isa 48:1); that of שׁאול and אשׁ is to be judged of
(Note: The parallelizing of רחם and שׁאול, Berachoth 15b, is not directly aimed at by the poet.)
after passages such as Deu 32:22, Isa 56:1-12 :24. That לא אמרו הון repeats itself in לא אמרה הון is now, as we render the proverb independently, much more satisfactory than if it began with 'שׁלושׁ וגו: it rounds itself off, for the end returns into the beginning. Regarding הוֹן, vid., Pro 1:13. From הוּן, to be light, it signifies living lightly; ease, superabundance, in that which renders life light or easy. “Used accusatively, and as an exclamation, it is equivalent to plenty! enough! It is used in the same sense in the North African Arab. brrakat (spreading out, fulness). Wetzstein remarks that in Damascus lahôn i.e., hitherto, is used in the sense of ḥajah, enough; and that, accordingly, we may attempt to explain הון of our Heb. language in the sense of (Arab.) hawn haddah, i.e., here the end of it!” (Mühlau).
But what do we now make of the two remaining lines of the proverb of the ‛Alûka? The proverb also in this division of two lines is a fragment. Ewald completes it, for to the one line, of which, according to his view, the fragment consists, he adds two:
The bloodsucker has two daughters, “Hither! hither!”
Three saying, “Hither, hither, hither the blood,
The blood of the wicked child.”
A proverb of this kind may stand in the O.T. alone: it sounds as if quoted from Grimm's Mährchen, and is a side-piece to Zappert's altdeutsch. Schlummerliede. Cannot the mutilation of the proverb be rectified in a less violent way without any self-made addition? If this is the case, that in Pro 30:15 and Pro 30:16, which now form one proverb, there are two melted together, only the first of which lies before us in a confused form, then this phenomenon is explained by supposing that the proverb of the ‛Alûka originally stood in this form:
The ‛Alûka has two daughters: Give! give! -
The under-world and the closing of the womb;
There are three that are never satisfied.
Thus completed, this tristich presents itself as the original side-piece of the lost tetrastich, beginning with ארבע. One might suppose that if שׁאול and עצר רחם have to be regarded as the daughters of the ‛Alûka, which Hitzig and also Zöckler have recognised, then there exists no reason for dividing the one proverb into two. Yet the taking of them as separate is necessary, for this reason, because in the fourth, into which it expands, the ‛Alûka is altogether left out of account. But in the above tristich it is taken into account, as was to be expected, as the mother with her children. This, that sheol (שְׁאוֹל is for the most part fem.), and the womb (רַחַם = רֶחֶם, which is fem., Jer 20:17) to which conception is denied, are called, on account of their greediness, the daughters of the ‛Alûka, is to be understood in the same way as when a mountain height is called, Isa 5:1, a horn of the son of oil. In the Arab., which is inexhaustibly rich in such figurative names, a man is called “a son of the clay (limi);” a thief, “a son of the night;” a nettle, “the daughter of fire.” The under-world and a closed womb have the ‛Alûka nature; they are insatiable, like the leech. It is unnecessary to interpret, as Zöckler at last does, ‛Alûka as the name of a female demon, and the לִילִית, “daughters,” as her companions. It may be adduced in favour of this view that לַֽעֲלוּקָה is without the article, after the manner of a proper name. But is it really without the article? Such a doubtful case we had before us at Pro 27:23. As yet only Böttcher, §394, has entered on this difficulty of punctuation. We compare Gen 29:27, בַּֽעֲבֹדָה; 1Ki 12:32, לַֽעֲגָלִים; 1Ch 13:7, בַּֽעֲגָלָה; and consequently also Psa 146:7, לַֽעֲשׁוּקִים; thus the assimilating force of the Chateph appears here to have changed the syntactically required לָֽ and בָּֽ into לַֽ and בַּֽ. But also supposing that עֲלוּקָה in לַֽעֲלוּקָה is treated as a proper name, this is explained from the circumstance that the leech is not meant here in the natural history sense of the word, but as embodied greediness, and is made a person, one individual being. Also the symbol of the two daughters is opposed to the mythological character of the ‛Alûka. The imper. הַב, from יהב, occurs only here and at Dan 7:17 (= תֵּן), and in the bibl. Heb. only with the intentional āh, and in inflection forms. The insatiableness of sheol (Pro 27:20) is described by Isa; Isa 5:14; and Rachel, Gen 30:1, with her “Give me children,” is an example of the greediness of the “closed-up womb” (Gen 20:18). The womb of a childless wife is meant, which, because she would have children, the nuptiae never satisfy; or also of one who, because she does not fear to become pregnant, invites to her many men, and always burns anew with lust. “In Arab. 'aluwaḳ means not only one fast bound to her husband, but, according to Wetzstein, in the whole of Syria and Palestine, the prostitute, as well as the κίναιδοι, are called 'ulak (plur. 'alwak), because they obtrude themselves and hold fast to their victim” (Mühlau). In the third line, the three: the leech, hell, and the shut womb, are summarized: tira sunt quae non satiantur. Thus it is to be translated with Fleischer, not with Mühlau and others, tira haec non satiantur. “These three” is expressed in Heb. by שְׁלָשׁ־אֵלֶּה, Exo 21:11, or אֵלֶּה(הָ) שְׁלשֶׁת, 2Sa 21:22; הֵנָּה (which, besides, does not signify haec, but illa) is here, taken correctly, the pred., and represents in general the verb of being (Isa 51:19), vid., at Pro 6:16. Zöckler finds the point of the proverb in the greediness of the unfruitful womb, and is of opinion that the poet purposely somewhat concealed this point, and gave to his proverb thereby the enhanced attraction of the ingenious. But the tetrastich 'אברע וגו shows that hell, which is compared to fire, and the unfruitful womb, to which the parched and thirsty earth is compared, were placed by the poet on one and the same line; it is otherwise with Pro 30:18-20, but where that point is nothing less than concealed.