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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 31:3 - 31:3
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The first admonition is a warning against effeminating sensuality:
Give not thy strength to women,
Nor thy ways to them that destroy kings.
The punctuation לַמְחוֹת sees in this form a syncopated inf. Hiph. = לְהַמְחוֹת (vid., at Pro 24:17), according to which we are to translate: viasque tuas ad perdendos reges (ne dirige), by which, as Fleischer formulates the twofold possibility, it may either be said: direct not thy effort to this result, to destroy neighbouring kings - viz. by wars of invasion (properly, to wipe them away from the table of existence, as the Arabs say) - or: do not that by which kings are overthrown; i.e., with special reference to Lemuel, act not so that thou thyself must thereby be brought to ruin. But the warning against vengeful, rapacious, and covetous propensity to war (thus Jerome, so that Venet. after Kimchi: ἀπομάττειν βασιλέας, C. B. Michaelis, and earlier, Gesenius) does not stand well as parallel with the warning against giving his bodily and mental strength to women, i.e., expending it on them. But another explanation: direct not thy ways to the destruction of kings, i.e., toward that which destroys kings (Elster); or, as Luther translates: go not in the way wherein kings destroy themselves - puts into the words a sense which the author cannot have had in view; for the individualizing expression would then be generalized in the most ambiguous way. Thus למחות מלכין will be a name for women, parallel to לַנָּשִׁים. So far the translation of the Targum: לִבְנָת מַלְכִין, filiabus (לְאַמְהֹת?) regum, lies under a right supposition. But the designation is not thus general. Schultens explains catapultis regum after Eze 26:9; but, inasmuch as he takes this as a figure of those who lay siege to the hearts of men, he translates: expugnatricibus regum, for he regards מחות as the plur. of מָחֶה, a particip. noun, which he translates by deletor. The connecting form of the fem. plur. of this מָחֶה might certainly be מְחוֹת (cf. מְזֵי, from מָזֶה), but לַמְחות מלכין ought to be changed into 'וגו 'לִםְ; for one will not appeal to anomalies, such as 'לַם, Pro 16:4; 'כַּג, Isa 24:2; 'לַם, Lam 1:19; or 'וגו 'הַת, 1Ki 14:24, to save the Pathach of לַמְחות, which, as we saw, proceeds from an altogether different understanding of the word. But if 'לַם is to be changed into 'לִםְ, then one must go further, since for מָחֶה not an active but a conditional meaning is to be assumed, and we must write לְמֹחוֹת, in favour of which Fleischer as well as Gesenius decides: et ne committe consilia factaque tua iis quae reges perdunt, regum pestibus. Ewald also favours the change לְמֹחוֹת, for he renders מָחָה as a denom. of מֹחַ, marrow: those who enfeeble kings, in which Kamphausen follows him. Mühlau goes further; he gives the privative signification, to enfeeble, to the Piel מִחָה = makhakha (cf. Herzog's Real-Wörterb. xiv. 712), which is much more probable, and proposes לַֽמְמַחוֹת: iis quae vires enervant regum. But we can appropriately, with Nöldeke, adhere to לְמֹחוֹת, deletricibus (perditricibus), for by this change the parallelism is satisfied; and that מָחָה may be used, with immediate reference to men, of entire and total destruction, is sufficiently established by such passages as Gen 6:7; Jdg 21:17, if any proof is at all needed for it. Regarding the lxx and those misled by it, who, by מלכין and מלכים, 4a, think on the Aram. מִלְכִּין, βουλαί, vid., Mühlau, p. 53.
(Note: Also Hitzig's Blinzlerinnen [women who ogle or leer = seductive courtesans] and Böttcher's Streichlerinnen [caressers, viz., of kings] are there rejected, as they deserve to be.)
But the Syr. has an idea worthy of the discourse, who translates epulis regum without our needing, with Mühlau, to charge him with dreaming of לֶחֶם in למחות. Perhaps that is true; but perhaps by למחות he thought of לְמֵחוֹת (from מֵהַ, the particip. adj. of מָחַח): do not direct thy ways to rich food (morsels), such as kings love and can have. By this reading, 3b would mediate the transition to Pro 31:4; and that the mother refers to the immorality, the unseemliness, and the dangers of a large harem, only in one brief word (3a), cannot seem strange, much rather it may be regarded as a sign of delicacy. But so much the more badly does וּדְרָכֶיךָ accord with לְמֵחוֹת. Certainly one goes to a banquet, for one finds leisure for it; but of one who himself is a king, it is not said that he should not direct his ways to a king's dainties. But if לְמֹחוֹת refers to the whole conduct of the king, the warning is, that he should not regulate his conduct in dependence on the love and the government of women. But whoever will place himself amid the revelry of lust, is wont to intoxicate himself with ardent spirits; and he who is thus intoxicated, is in danger of giving reins to the beast within him.