Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 4:1 - 4:1

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 4:1 - 4:1


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

He now confirms and explains the command to duty which he has placed at the beginning of the whole (Pro 1:8). This he does by his own example, for he relates from the history of his own youth, to the circle of disciples by whom he sees himself surrounded, what good doctrine his parents had taught him regarding the way of life:

1 Hear, ye sons, the instruction of a father,

And attend that ye may gain understanding;

2 For I give to you good doctrine,

Forsake not my direction!

3 For I was a son to my father,

A tender and only (son) in the sight of my mother.

4 And he instructed me, and said to me:

“Let thine heart hold fast my words:

Observe my commandments and live!”

That בָּנִים in the address comes here into the place of בְּנִי, hitherto used, externally denotes that בני in the progress of these discourses finds another application: the poet himself is so addressed by his father. Intentionally he does not say אֲבִיכֶם (cf. Pro 1:8): he does not mean the father of each individual among those addressed, but himself, who is a father in his relation to them as his disciples; and as he manifests towards them fatherly love, so also he can lay claim to paternal authority over them. לָדַעַת is rightly vocalized, not לְדַעַת. The words do not give the object of attention, but the design, the aim. The combination of ideas in דַּעַת בִּינָה (cf. Pro 1:2), which appears to us singular, loses its strangeness when we remember that דעת means, according to its etymon, deposition or reception into the conscience and life. Regarding לֶקַח, apprehension, reception, lesson = doctrine, vid., Pro 1:5. נָתַתִּי is the perf., which denotes as fixed and finished what is just now being done, Gesenius, §126, 4. עָזַב is here synonym of נָטַשׁ, Pro 1:8, and the contrary of שָׁמַר, Pro 28:4. The relative factum in the perfect, designating the circumstances under which the event happened, regularly precedes the chief factum וַיֹּרֵנִי; see under Gen 1:2. Superficially understood, the expression 3a would be a platitude; the author means that the natural legal relation was also confirming itself as a moral one. It was a relation of many-sided love, according to 3a: he was esteemed of his mother - לִפְנֵי, used of the reflex in the judgment, Gen 10:9, and of loving care, Gen 17:18, means this - as a tender child, and therefore tenderly to be protected (רַךְ as Gen 33:13), and as an only child, whether he were so in reality, or was only loved as if he were so. יָחִיד (Aq., Sym., Theod., μονογενής) may with reference to number also mean unice dilectus (lxx ἀγαπώμενος); cf. Gen 22:2, יְחִידְךָ (where the lxx translate τὸν ἀγαπητόν, without therefore having יְדִידְךָ before them). לפני is maintained by all the versions; לִבְנֵי is not a variant.

(Note: In some editions לִבְנֵי is noted as Kerı̂ to לפני, but erroneously and contrary to the express evidence of the Masora, which affirms that there are two passages in which we ought to read not לפני, but לבני, viz., Psa 80:3 and Pro 4:3.)

The instruction of the father begins with the jussive, which is pointed יִתְמָךְ־

(Note: The writing of -יִֽתְמָךְ with the grave Metheg (Gaja) and Kametz-Chatuph (ǒ) is that of Ben Asher; on the other hand, יִתְמֹֽךְ־ with Cholem (ō) and the permanent Metheg is that of Ben Naphtali; vid., Michlol 21a [under the verbal form 25], §30.)

to distinguish it from יִתְמֹֽךְ־ on account of the ǒ. The lxx has incorrectly ἐρειδέτω, as if the word were יסמך; Symmachus has correctly κατεχέτω. The imper. וֶחְיֵה is, as Pro 7:2; Gen 20:7, more than וְתִחְיֶה; the teacher seeks, along with the means, at the same time their object: Observe my commandments, and so become a partaker of life! The Syriac, however, adds תּוֹרָתִיוְ כְּאִישׁוֹן עֵינֶיךָ and my instruction as the apple of thine eye, a clause borrowed from Pro 7:2.