Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 30:5 - 30:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5 Every word of Eloah is pure;
A shield is He for those who hide themselves in Him.
6 Add thou not to His words,
Lest He convict thee and thou becomest a liar.
Although the tetrastich is an independent proverb, yet it is connected to the foregoing Neûm [utterance, Pro 30:1]. The more limited a man is in his knowledge of God - viz. in that which presents itself to him lumine naturae, - so much the more thankful must he be that God has revealed Himself in history, and so much the more firmly has he to hold fast by the pure word of the divine revelation. In the dependent relation of Pro 30:5 to Psa 18:31 (2Sa 22:31), and of Pro 30:6 to Deu 4:2, there is no doubt the self-testimony of God given to Israel, and recorded in the book of the Tôra, is here meant. כָּל־אִמְרַת is to be judged after πᾶσα γραφή, 2Ti 3:16, not: every declaration of God, wherever promulgated, but: every declaration within the revelation lying before us. The primary passage Psa 18:31 has not כל here, but, instead of it, לְכֹל הַחֹסִים, and instead of אמרת אֱלוֹהַּ it has יהוה 'אם; his change of the name of Jahve is also not favourable to the opinion that Pro 30:5. is a part of the Neûm, viz., that it is the answer thereto. The proverb in this contains traces of the Book of Job, with which in many respects that Neûm harmonizes; in the Book of Job, אֱלוֹהַּ (with שַׁדַּי) is the prevailing name of God; whereas in the Book of Proverbs it occurs only in the passage before us. Mühlau, p. 41, notes it as an Arabism. צָרַף (Arab. ṣaraf, to turn, to change) is the usual word for the changing process of smelting; צָרוּף signifies solid, pure, i.e., purified by separating: God's word is, without exception, like pure, massive gold. Regarding חָסָה, to hide oneself, vid., under Psa 2:12;: God is a shield for those who make Him, as revealed in His word, their refuge. The part. חֹסֶה occurs, according to the Masora, three times written defectively, - Pro 14:32; 2Sa 22:31; Neh 1:7; in the passage before us it is to be written לַחוֹסִים; the proverbs of Agur and Lemuel have frequently the plena scriptio of the part. act. Kal, as well as of the fut. Kal, common to the Book of Job (vid., Mühlau, p. 65).
In 6a, after Aben Ezra's Moznajim 2b (11b of Heidenheim's edition), and Zachoth 53a (cf. Lipmann's ed.), and other witnesses (vid., Norzi), t sp (the ף with dagesh) is to be written, - the Cod. Jaman. and others defect. without ו, - not tôsf; for, since תּוֹסֶף (Exo 10:28) is yet further abbreviated in this way, it necessarily loses
(Note: That both Shevas in tôsp are quiesc., vid., Kimchi, Michlol 155 a b, who is finally decided as to this. That the word should be read tôspe'al is the opinion of Chagûg in הנוח 'ס (regarding the quiesc. letters), p. 6 of the Ed. by Dukes-Ewald.)
the aspiration of the tenuis, as in יֹלִדְתְּ (= יֹלֶדֶת). The words of God are the announcements of His holy will, measured by His wisdom; they are then to be accepted as they are, and to be recognised and obeyed. He who adds anything to them, either by an overstraining of them or by repressing them, will not escape the righteous judgment of God: God will convict him of falsifying His word (הוֹכִיחַ, Psa 50:21; only here with ב of the obj.), and expose him as a liar - viz. by the dispensations which unmask the falsifier as such, and make manifest the falsehood of his doctrines as dangerous to souls and destructive to society. An example of this is found in the kingdom of Israel, in the destruction of which the curse of the human institution of its state religion, set up by Jeroboam, had no little share. Also the Jewish traditional law, although in itself necessary for the carrying over of the law into the praxis of private and public life, falls under the Deuteron. prohibition - which the poet here repeats - so far as it claimed for itself the same divine authority as that of the written law, and so far as it hindered obedience to the law - by the straining-at-a-gnat policy - and was hostile to piety. Or, to adduce an example of an addition more dogmatic than legal, what a fearful impulse was given to fleshly security by that overstraining of the promises in Gen 17, which were connected with circumcision by the tradition, “the circumcised come not into hell,” or by the overstraining of the prerogative attributed by Paul, Rom 9:4., to his people according to the Scriptures, in the principle, “All Israelites have a part in the future world!” Regarding the accentuation of the perf. consec. after פֶּן, vid., at Psa 28:1. The penultima accent is always in pausa (cf. Pro 30:9 and Pro 30:10).