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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 6:16 - 6:16
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What now follows is not a separate section (Hitzig), but the corroborative continuation of that which precedes. The last word (מדנים, strife) before the threatening of punishment, 14b, is also here the last. The thought that no vice is a greater abomination to God than the (in fact satanical) striving to set men at variance who love one another, clothes itself in the form of the numerical proverb which we have already considered, pp. 12, 13. From that place we transfer the translation of this example of a Midda: -
16 There are six things which Jahve hateth,
And seven are an abhorrence to His soul:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood;
18 An heart that deviseth the thoughts of evil,
Feet that hastily run to wickedness,
19 One that uttereth lies as a false witness,
And he who soweth strife between brethren.
The sense is not, that the six things are hateful to God, and the seventh an abomination to Him besides (Löwenstein); the Midda-form in Amos 1:3-2:6, and in the proverb in Job 5:19, shows that the seven are to be numbered separately, and the seventh is the non plus ultra of all that is hated by God. We are not to translate: sex haecce odit, for הֵמָּה, הֵנָּה, (הֵם, הֵן) points backwards and hitherwards, but not, as אֵלֶּה, forwards to that immediately following; in that case the words would be שׁשׁ אלה, or more correctly האלה שׁשׁ. But also Hitzig's explanation, “These six things (viz., Pro 6:12-15) Jahve hateth,” is impossible; for (which is also against that haecce) the substantive pronoun המה nuonorp , הנה (הָהמה, הָהנה) is never, like the Chald. הִמּוֹן (הִמּוֹ), employed as an accus. in the sense of אֶתְהֶם, אֶתְהֶן, it is always (except where it is the virtual gen. connected with a preposition) only the nom., whether of the subject or of the predicate; and where it is the nom. of the predicate, as Deu 20:15; Isa 51:19, substantival clauses precede in which הנה (המה) represents the substantive verb, or, more correctly, in which the logical copula resulting from the connection of the clause itself remains unexpressed. Accordingly, 'שָׂנֵא ה is a relative clause, and is therefore so accentuated here, as at Pro 30:15 and elsewhere: sex (sunt) ea quae Deus odit, et septem (sunt) abominatio animae ejus. Regarding the statement that the soul of God hates anything, vid., at Isa 1:14. תועבות, an error in the writing occasioned by the numeral (vid., Pro 26:25), is properly corrected by the Kerı̂; the poet had certainly the singular in view, as Pro 3:32; Pro 11:1, when he wrote תועבת. The first three characteristics are related to each other as mental, verbal, actual, denoted by the members of the body by means of which these characteristics come to light. The virtues are taken all together as a body (organism), and meekness is its head. Therefore there stands above all, as the sin of sins, the mentis elatae tumor, which expresses itself in elatum (grande) supercilium: עֵינַיִם רָמוֹת, the feature of the רָם, haughty (cf. Psa 18:28 with 2Sa 22:28), is the opposite of the feature of the שַׁח עינים, Job 22:29; עַיִן is in the O.T. almost always (vid., Son 4:9) fem., and adjectives of course form no dual. The second of these characteristics is the lying tongue, and the third the murderous hands. דָּם־נָקִי is innocent blood as distinguished from דַּם הַנָּקִי, the blood of the innocent, Deu 19:13.
(Note: The writing דָּם follows the Masoretic rule, vid., Kimchi, Michlol 205b, and Heidenheim under Deu 19:10, where in printed editions of the text (also in Norzi's) the irregular form דַּם נקי is found. Besides, the Metheg is to be given to דָּם־, so that one may not read it dom, as e.g., שֵׁשׁ־מאות, Gen 7:11, that one may not read it שֶׁשׁ־.)
Pro 6:18
The fourth characteristic is a deceitful heart. On חֹרֵשׁ, vid., Pro 6:14, Pro 3:29, and on אָיֶן, Pro 6:12. The fifth: feet running with haste to evil; לָרָעָה as לָרָע in Isa 59:7, echoing the distich Pro 1:16, as here, 17b and 18b. The connection מִהַר לָרוּץ, propere cucurrit (contrast אֵחַר לְ), is equivalent to רָץ מַהֵר.
Pro 6:19
The sixth: “A speaker of lies, a tongue of falsehood,” is hateful to God. It is one subject which is thus doubly characterized. כְּזָבִים are fictions, and שֶׁקֶר is the disfiguring (deformatio) of the actual facts. They are purposely placed together in this connection. The derivations of these synonyms are obscure; Fürst gives to the former the root-idea of spinning (properly knotting together), and to the latter that of painting. כזבים is introduced to support שׁקר.
(Note: Isaak Albo thus distinguishes these synonyms in his dogmatic, bearing the title ספר עקרים, ii. 27.)
It would also be verbally permissible to interpret עֵד שֶׁקֶר in the sense of עֵדוּת שׁקר, like Pro 25:18, as in apposition to כזבים; but in the nearest parallel, Pro 14:15, the idea is personal, for it is said of the עד שׁקר that he breathes out lies. In that place there can be no doubt that the clause is a verbal one, and יָפִיחַ finitum, viz., Hiph. of פּוּחַ. This Hiph. signifies elsewhere also sufflare, Pro 20:8, afflare, Psa 10:5; Eze 21:26, perflare, Son 4:16, anhelare (desiderare), Psa 12:6; Hab 2:3, but with כזבים, efflare, a synonym to דִּבֶּר, as הִבִּיעַ and הִטִּיף, which has (cf. Pro 12:17) no secondary meaning in use, but is mostly connected with כזבים, not without reference to the fact that that which is false is without reality and is nothing more than הבל ורוח. But what kind of a form is יפיח, where it is not, as Pro 14:5, the predicate of a verbal clause, but in connection with כזבים, as here and at Pro 14:25; Pro 19:5, Pro 19:9 (once with אמונה, Pro 12:17), is the subject of a substantival clause? That which lies nearest is to regard it as a noun formed from the fut. Hiph. Such formations we indeed meet only among proper names, such as יָאִיר, יָכִין, יָקִים; however, at least the one n. appell. יָרִיב (an adversary) is found, which may be formed from the Hiph. as well as from the Kal. But should not the constr. of יפיח after the form יריב be יְפִיחַ? One does not escape from this consideration by deriving יפיח, after the forms יָגִיעַ, יָחִיל, יָדִיד, יָשִׁישׁ, and the like, from a secondary verb יָפַח, the existence of which is confirmed by Jer 4:31, and from which also יָפֵחַ, Psa 27:12, appears to be derived, although it may be reduced also, after the form יָרֵב (with יָרִיב), to הֵפִיחַ. But in this case also one expects as a connecting form יְפִיחַ like יְדִיד, as in reality יְפֵחַ from יָפֵחַ (cf. אֲבֵל, שְׂמֵהֵי, from אָבֵל, שָׂמֵחַ). Shall it now be assumed that the Kametz is treated as fixed? This were contrary to rule, since it is not naturally long. Thus the connection is not that of the genitive. But if יפיח were a substantive formed with the preformative of the second modus like יַלְקוּט 1Sa 17:40, or were it a participial intensive form of active signification such as נָבִיא, then the verbal force remaining in it is opposed to the usage of the language. There remains nothing further, therefore, than to regard יָפִיחַ as an attributive put in the place of a noun: one who breathes out; and there is a homogeneous example of this, for in any other way we cannot explain יוֹסִיף, Ecc 1:18. In 19b the numeral proverb reaches its point. The chief of all that God hates is he who takes a fiendish delight in setting at variance men who stand nearly related. Thus this brief proverbial discourse rounds itself off, coming again to 14b as a refrain.