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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 30:24 - 30:24
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Another proverb with the cipher 4, its first line terminating in ארץ:
24 Four are the little things of the earth,
And yet they are quick of wit - wise:
25 The ants - a people not strong,
And yet they prepare in summer their food;
26 Conies - a people not mighty,
And yet set their dwelling on the rocks;
27 No king have the locusts,
And yet they go forth in rank and file, all of them together;
28 The lizard thou canst catch with the hands,
And yet it is in the king's palaces.
By the disjunctive accent, אַרְבָּעָה, in spite of the following word toned on the beginning, retains its ultima-toning, 18a; but here, by the conjunctive accent, the tone retrogrades to the penult., which does not elsewhere occur with this word. The connection קְטַנֵּי־אָרֶץ is not superlat. (for it is impossible that the author could reckon the שׁפנים, conies, among the smallest of beasts), but, as in the expression נִכְבַּדֵּי־אָֽרֶץ, the honoured of the earth, Isa 23:8. In 24b, the lxx, Syr., Jerome, and Luther see in מ the comparative: σοφώτερα τῶν σοφῶν (מֵֽחֲכָמִים), but in this connection of words it could only be partitive (wise, reckoning among the wise); the part. Pual מְחֻכָּמִים (Theodotion, the Venet. σεσοφισμένα) was in use after Psa 88:6, and signified, like בָּשֵׁל מְבֻשָּׁל, Exo 12:9, boiled well; thus חכמים מחכמים, taught wit, wise, cunning, prudent (cf. Psa 64:7, a planned plan = a cunningly wrought out plan; Isa 28:16, and Vitringa thereto: grounded = firm, grounding), Ewald, §313c. The reckoning moves in the contrasts of littleness to power, and of greatness to prudence. The unfolding of the ארבעה [four] begins with the הַנְּמָלִים [the ants] and שְׁפַנִּים [conies], subject conceptions with apposit. joined; 26a, at least in the indetermination of the subject, cannot be a declaration. Regarding the fut. consec. as the expression, not of a causal, but of a contrasted connection, vid., Ewald, §342, 1a. The ants are called עִם, and they deserve this name, for they truly form communities with well-ordered economy; but, besides, the ancients took delight in speaking of the various classes of animals as peoples and states.
(Note: Vid., Walter von der Vogelweide, edited by Lachmann, p. 8f.)
That which is said, 25b, as also Pro 6:8, is not to be understood of stores laid up for the winter. For the ants are torpid for the most part in winter; but certainly the summer is their time for labour, when the labourers gather together food, and feed in a truly motherly way the helpless. שָׁפָן, translated arbitrarily in the Venet. by ἐχῖνοι, in the lxx by χοιρογρύλλιοι, by the Syr. and Targ. here and at Ps 104 by חֲגָס, and by Jerome by lepusculus (cf. λαγίδιον), both of which names, here to be understood after a prevailing Jewish opinion, denote the Caninichen
(Note: The kaninchen as well as the klippdachs [cliff-badgers] may be meant, Lev 11:5 (Deu 14:7); neither of these belong to the bisulca, nor yet, it is true, to the ruminants, though to the ancients (as was the case also with hares) they seemed to do. The klippdach is still, in Egypt and Syria, regarded as unclean.)
(Luther), Latin cuniculus (κόνικλος), is not the kaninchen [rabbit], nor the marmot, χοιρογρύλλιος (C. B. Michaelis, Ziegler, and others); this is called in Arab. yarbuw'; but שׁפן is the wabr, which in South Arab. is called thufun, or rather thafan, viz., the klippdachs (hyrax syriacus), like the marmot, which lives in societies and dwells in the clefts of the mountains, e.g., at the Kedron, the Dead Sea, and at Sinai (vid., Knobel on Lev 11:5; cf. Brehm's Thierleben, ii. p. 721ff., the Illustrirte Zeitung, 1868, Nr. 1290). The klippdachs are a weak little people, and yet with their weakness they unite the wisdom that they establish themselves among the rocks. The ants show their wisdom in the organization of labour, here in the arranging of inaccessible dwellings.
Pro 30:27
Thirdly, the locusts belong to the class of the wise little folk: these have no king, but notwithstanding that, there is not wanting to them guidance; by the power and foresight of one sovereign will they march out as a body, חֹצֵץ, dividing, viz., themselves, not the booty (Schultens); thus: dividing themselves into companies, ordine dispositae, from חָצַץ, to divide, to fall into two (cogn. חָצָה, e.g., Gen 32:7) or more parts; Mühlau, p. 59-64, has thoroughly investigated this whole wide range of roots. What this חֹצֵץ denotes is described in Joe 2:7 : “Like mighty men they hunt; like men of war they climb the walls; they march forward every one on his appointed way, and change not their paths.” Jerome narrates from his own observation: tanto ordine ex dispositione jubentis (lxx at this passage before us: ἀφ ̓ ἑνὸς κελεύσματος εὐτάκτως) volitant, ut instar tesserularum, quae in pavimentis artificis figuntur manu, suum locum teneant et ne puncto quidem et ut ita dicam ungue transverso declinent ad alterum. Aben Ezra and others find in חצץ the idea of gathering together in a body, and in troops, according to which also the Syr., Targ., Jerome, and Luther translate; Kimchi and Meîri gloss חצץ by חותך and כורת, and understand it of the cutting off, i.e., the eating up, of plants and trees, which the Venet. renders by ἐκτέμνουσα.
Pro 30:28
In this verse the expression wavers in a way that is with difficulty determinable between שְׂמָמִית and שְׁמָמִית. The Edd. of Opitz Jablonski and Van der Hooght have 'שׂם, but the most, from the Venetian 1521 to Nissel, have 'שׁם (vid., Mühlau, p. 69). The Codd. also differ as to the reading of the word; thus the Codd. Erfurt 2 and 3 have 'שׂם, but Cod. 1294 has 'שׁם. Isaak Tschelebi and Moses Algazi, in their writings regarding words with שׁ and שׂ (Constant. 1723 and 1799), prefer 'שׂם, and so also do Mordecai Nathan in his Concordance (1563-4), David de Pomis (1587), and Norzi. An important evidence is the writing סממית, Schabbath 77b, but it is as little decisive as סַרְיוֹן [coat of mail], used by Jer 44:4, is decisive against the older expression שִׁרְיוֹן. But what kind of a beast is meant here is a question. The swallow is at once to be set aside, as the Venet. translates (χελιδών) after Kimchi, who explains after Abulwalîd, but not without including himself, that the Heb. word for (Arab.) khuttaf (which is still the name given to the swallow from its quickness of motion), according to Haja's testimony, is much rather סְנוּנִית, a name for the swallow; which also the Arab. (Freytag, ii. p. 368) and the modern Syriac confirm; besides, in old Heb. it has the name of סוּס or סִיס (from Arab. shash, to fly confusedly hither and thither). In like manner the ape (Aben Ezra, Meîri, Immanuel) is to be set aside, for this is called קוֹף (Indian kapi, kap, kamp, to move inconstantly and quickly up and down),
(Note: Vid., A Weber's Indische Studien, i. pp. 217, 343.)
and appears here admissible only on the ground that from בידים תתפשׂ they read that the beast had a resemblance to man. There remains now only the lizard (lxx, Jerome) and the spider (Luther) to be considered. The Talmud, Schabbath 77b, reckons five instances in which fear of the weaker pursues the stronger: one of these instances is אימת סנוניתעל הנשׁר, another אימת סממית על העקרב. The swallow, thus Rashi explains, creeps under the wings of the eagle and hinders it from spreading them out in its flight; and the spider (araigne) creeps into the ear of the scorpion; or also: a bruised spider applied heals the scorpion's sting. A second time the word occurs, Sanhedrin 103b, where it is said of King Amon that he burnt the Tôra, and that over the altar came a שממית (here with ש), which Rashi explains of the spider (a spider's web). But Aruch testifies that in these two places of the Talmud the explanation is divided between ragnatelo (spider) and (Ital.) lucêrta (lizard). For the latter, he refers to Lev 11:30, where לטאה (also explained by Rashi by lézard) in the Jerus. Targ. is rendered
(Note: The Samaritan has, Lev 11:30, שממית for אנקה, and the Syr. translates the latter word by אמקתא, which is used in the passage before us (cf. Geiger's Urschrift, p. 68f.) for שממית; omakto (Targ. akmetha) appears there to mean, not a spider, but a lizard.)
by שממיתא (the writing here also varies between שׁ and שׂ or ס). Accordingly, and after the lxx and Jerome, it may be regarded as a confirmed tradition that שממית means not the spider, for which the name עַכָּבִישׁ is coined, but the lizard, and particularly the stellion (spotted lizard). Thus the later language used it as a word still living (plur. סְמָמִיּוֹת, Sifre, under Deu 33:19). The Arab. also confirms this name as applicable to the lizard.
(Note: Perhaps also the modern Greek, σαμιάμινθος (σαμιάμιδος, σαμιαμίδιον), which Grotius compares.)
“To this day in Syria and in the Desert it is called samawiyyat, probably not from poison, but from samawah = שְׁמָמָה, the wilderness, because the beast is found only in the stony heaps of the Kharab” (Mühlau after Wetzstein). If this derivation is correct, then שׁממית is to be regarded as an original Heb. expression; but the lizard's name, samm, which, without doubt, designates the animal as poisonous (cf. סַם, samam, samm, vapour, poisonous breath, poison), favours Schultens' view: שממית = (Arab.) samamyyat, afflatu interficiens, or generally venenosa. In the expression בְּיָדַיִם תְּתַפֵּשׂ, Schultens, Gesenius, Ewald, Hitzig, Geier, and others, understand ידים of the two fore-feet of the lizard: “the lizard feels (or: seizes) with its two hands;” but granting that ידים is used of the fifteen feet of the stellio, or of the climbing feet of any other animal (lxx καλαβώτης = ἀσκαλαβώτης), yet it is opposed by this explanation, that in line first of this fourth distich an expression regarding the smallness of the weakness of the beast is to be expected, as at 25a, 26a, and 27a. And since, besides, תפשׂ with ביד or בכף always means “to catch” or “seize” (Eze 21:16; Eze 29:7; Jer 38:23), so the sense according to that explanation is: the lizard thou canst catch with the hand, and yet it is in kings' palaces, i.e., it is a little beast, which one can grasp with his hand, and yet it knows how to gain an entrance into palaces, by which in its nimbleness and cunning this is to be thought of, that it can scale the walls even to the summit (Aristoph. Nubes 170). To read תִּתָּפֵשׂ with Mühlau, after Böttcher, recommends itself by this, that in תְּהַפֵּשׂ one misses the suff. pointing back (תְּתַפְּשֶׂנָּה); also why the intensive of תפשׂ is used, is not rightly comprehended. Besides, the address makes the expression more animated; cf. Isa 7:25, תָבוֹא. In the lxx as it lies before us, the two explanations spoken of are mingled together: καὶ καλαβώτης (= ἀσκαλαβώτης) χερσὶν ἐπειδόμενος καὶ εὐάλωτος ὢν... This εὐάλωτος ὢν (Symmachus, χερσὶν ἐλλαμβανόμενος) hits the sense of 28a. In הֵיכְלֵי מֶלֶךְ, מלך is not the genit. of possession, as at Psa 45:9, but of description (Hitzig), as at Amo 7:13.