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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 31:19 - 31:19
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19 י She putteth her hand to the rock Spinnrocken;
And her fingers lay hold on the spindle.
She applies herself to the work of spinning, and performs it with skill. The phrase שִׁלֵּחַ יָד בְּ (שָׁלַח, Job 28:9) signifies to take up an object of work, and תָּמַךְ, with obj. accus. (cf. Amo 1:5), the handling of the instrument of work necessary thereto. כַּפַּיִם denotes the hands when the subject is skilful, successful work; we accordingly say יְגִיעַ כפים, not יגיע ידים; cf. Pro 31:13 and Pro 31:16, Psa 78:72. What פֶּלֶךְ means is shown by the Arab. falakat, which, as distinguished from mighzal, i.e., fuseau (Lat. fusus), is explained by bout arrondi et conique au bas du fuseau, thus: the whorl, i.e., the ring or knob fastened on the spindle below, which gives it its necessary weight and regulates its movement, Lat. verticellus, post-bibl. פִּיקָה (which Bartenora glosses by the Ital. fusajuolo) or צִנּוֹרָה, e.g., Kelim ix. 6, כושׁ שׁבלע את הצנורה, a spindle which holds the whorl hidden (vid., Aruch under כש, iii.). But the word then also signifies per synecdochen partis pro toto, the spindle, i.e., the cylindrical wood on which the thread winds itself when spinning (cf. 2Sa 3:29, where it means the staff on which the infirm leans); Homer gives to Helen and the goddesses golden spindles (χρυσηλάκατοι). Accordingly it is not probable that כִּישׁוֹר also denotes the whorl, as Kimchi explains the word: “כישור is that which one calls by the name verteil, viz., that which one fixes on the spindle (פלך) above to regulate the spinning (מטוה),” according to which the Venet. renders כישׁור by σφόνδυλος, whorl, and פלך by ἄτρακτος, spindle. The old interpreters have not recognised that כישׁור denotes a thing belonging to the spinning apparatus; the lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Syr., and Jerome see therein an ethical idea (from כָּשֵׁר, to be capable, able); but Luther, not misled thereby, translates with unusual excellence:
She stretches her hand to the rock,
And her fingers grasp the spindle.
He has in this no predecessors, except only the Targumists, whose כוּנְשְׁרָא (vid., Levy) appears also to denote the spinning-rock. The Syriac and Talmudic כּוּשׁ, which is compared by Gesenius-Dietrich, is another word, and denotes, not the rock, but the spindle. Immanuel also, who explains פלך as the מעזל, i.e., the spindle, understands (as perhaps also Parchon) by כישׁור the rock. And why should not the rock (wocken = distaff), i.e., the stock to which the tuft of flax, hemp, or wool is fixed for the purpose of being spun, Lat. colus, not be named כִּישׁוֹר, from כשׁר, to be upright as a stick, upright in height, or perhaps more correctly as מכשׁיר, i.e., as that which prepares or makes fit the flax for spinning? Also in צִינֹק, Jer 29:26, there are united the meanings of the close and the confining dungeon, and שִׁלֹה = שִׁילוֹן signifies
(Note: Otherwise, but improbably, Schultens: colus a כשׁר = katr kathr, necti in orbem, circumnecti in globum. In פָּלַךְ, whence פֶּלֶךְ, he rightly finds the primary meaning of circumvolutio sive gyratio.)
the place which yields rest. The spinning-wheel is a German invention of the 16th century, but the rock standing on the ground, or held also in the hands, the spindle and the whorl, are more ancient.
(Note: A view of the ancient art of spinning is afforded by the figures of the 12th Dynasty (according to Lepsius, 2380-2167 b.c.) in the burial chamber of Beni Hassan (270 kilometres above Bulak, on the right bank of the Nile). M. J. Henry, in his work L'Egypte Pharaonique (Paris 1846), Bd. 2, p. 431, mentions that there are figures there which represent “toutes les opérations de la fabrication des tissus depuis le filage jusqu au tissage.” Then he continues: Lex fuseaux dont se servent les fileuses sont excatement semblables aux nôtres, et on voit même ces fileuses imprimer le mouvement de rotation à ces fuseaux, en en froissant le bout inferieur entre leur main et leur cuisse.)
With the spindle תמך stands in fit relation, for it is twirled between the fingers, as Catullus says of Fate:
Libratum tereti versabat pollice fusum.
(Note: In the “marriage of Peleus and Thetis,” Catullus describes the work of the Fates: “Their hands are ceaselessly active at their never-ending work; while the left holds the rock, surrounded with a soft fleece, the right assiduously draws the thread and forms it with raised fingers; then it swiftly turns the spindle, with the thumb stretched down, and swings it away in whirling circles.” Then follows the refrain of the song of the Fates: Currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. - (After Hertzberg's Translation.))