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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 4:18 - 4:18
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The two ways that lie for his choice before the youth, are distinguished from one another as light is from darkness:
18 And the path of the just is like the brightness of the morning light,
Which shines more and more till the perfect day.
19 The way of the wicked is deep darkness,
They know not at what they stumble.
The Hebr. style is wont to conceal in its Vav (ו) diverse kinds of logical relations, but the Vav of 18a may suitably stand before 19a, where the discontinuance of this contrast of the two ways is unsuitable. The displacing of a Vav from its right position is not indeed without example (see under Psa 16:3); but since Pro 4:19 joins itself more easily than Pro 4:18 to Pro 4:17 without missing a particle, thus it is more probable that the two verses are to be transposed, than that the ו of וְאֹרַח (Pro 4:17) is to be prefixed to דֶּרֶךְ (Pro 4:18). Sinning, says Pro 4:16, has become to the godless as a second nature, so that they cannot sleep without it; they must continually be sinning, adds Pro 4:17, for thus and not otherwise do they gain for themselves their daily bread. With reference to this fearful self-perversion to which wickedness has become a necessity and a condition of life, the poet further says that the way of the godless is כָּאֲפֵלָה,
(Note: In good MSS and printed copies the כ has the Pathach, as Kimchi states the rule in Michlol 45a: כל כַּאפלה פתח, כל כַּאבנים פתח.)
as deep darkness, as the entire absence of light: it cannot be otherwise than that they fall, but they do not at all know whereat they fall, for they do not at all know wickedness as such, and have no apprehension of the punishment which from an inward necessity it brings along with it; on the contrary, the path of the just is in constantly increasing light - the light of knowledge, and the light of true happiness which is given
(Note: Hitzig inverts the order of Pro 4:18 and Pro 4:19, and connects the כִּי of 16a immediately with Pro 4:19 (for the way of the wicked...). He moreover regards Pro 4:16, Pro 4:17 as an interpolation, and explains Pro 4:16 as a gloss transforming the text of Pro 4:19. “That the wicked commit wickedness,” says Hitzig, “is indeed certain (1Sa 24:14), and the warning of Pro 4:15 ought not to derive its motive from their energy in sinning.” But the warning against the way of the wicked is founded not on their energy in sinning, but on their bondage to sin: their sleep, their food and drink - their life both when they sleep and when they wake - is conditioned by sin and is penetrated by sin. This foundation of the warning furnishes what is needed, and is in nothing open to objection. And that in Pro 4:16 and Pro 4:19 לֹא יָרֵעוּ and לֹא יָֽדְעוּ, יִכְשׁוֹלוּ and יִכָּשֵׁלוּ, נִגְזְלָה and כָּאֲפֵלָה seem to be alike, does not prove that Pro 4:16 originated as a parallel text from Pro 4:19 - in the one verse as in the other the thoughts are original.)
in and with knowledge. On בַּמֶּה vid., under Isa 2:22; it is מִכְשׁוֹל, σκάνδαλον, that is meant, stumbling against which (cf. Lev 26:37) they stumble to their fall. נֹגַהּ,
(Note: Böttcher, under 2Sa 23:4, explains נֹגַהּ of the brightness striking against, conquering (cf. נגח, נגף) the clouds; but ferire or percutere lies nearer (cf. נָגַע, Eze 17:10, נָכָה, Psa 121:6, and the Arab. darb, used of strong sensible impressions), as Silius, iv. 329, says of the light: percussit lumine campos.)
used elsewhere than in the Bible, means the morning star (Venus), (Sirach 50:4, Syr.); when used in the Bible it means the early dawn, the light of the rising sun, the morning light, 2Sa 23:4; Isa 62:1, which announces itself in the morning twilight, Dan 6:20. The light of this morning sunshine is הוֹלֵךְ וָאוֹר, going and shining, i.e., becoming ever brighter. In the connection of הוֹלֵךְ וָאוֹר it might be a question whether אוֹר is regarded as gerundive (Gen 8:3, Gen 8:5), or as participle (2Sa 16:5; Jer 41:6), or as a participial adjective (Gen 26:13; Jdg 4:24); in the connection of הָלוֹךְ וָאוֹר, on the contrary, it is unquestionably the gerundive: the partic. denoting the progress joins itself either with the partic., Jon 1:11, or with the participial adjective, 2Sa 3:1; 2Ch 17:12, or with another adjective formation, 2Sa 15:12; Est 9:4 (where וְגָדוֹל after וְגָדֵל of other places appears to be intended as an adjective, not after 2Sa 5:10 as gerundive). Thus וָאוֹר, as also וָטוֹב, 1Sa 2:26, will be participial after the form בּוֹשׁ, being ashamed (Ges. §72, 1); cf. בּוֹס, Zec 10:5, קוֹם, 2Ki 16:7. “נְכוֹן הַיּוֹם quite corresponds to the Greek τὸ σταθηρὸν τῆς ἡμέρας, ἡ σταθηρὰ μεσημβρία (as one also says τὸ σταθηρὸν τῆς νυκτός), and to the Arabic qâ'mt ‛l-nhâr and qâ'mt ‛l-dhyrt. The figure is probably derived from the balance (cf. Lucan's Pharsalia, lib. 9: quam cardine summo Stat librata dies): before and after midday the tongue on the balance of the day bends to the left and to the right, but at the point of midday it stands directly in the midst” (Fleischer). It is the midday time that is meant, when the clearness of the day has reached its fullest intensity - the point between increasing and decreasing, when, as we are wont to say, the sun stands in the zenith (= Arab. samt, the point of support, i.e., the vertex). Besides Mar 4:28, there is no biblical passage which presents like these two a figure of gradual development. The progress of blissful knowledge is compared to that of the clearness of the day till it reaches its midday height, having reached to which it becomes a knowing of all in God, Pro 28:5; 1Jo 2:20.