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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 7:16 - 7:16
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Thus she found him, and described to him the enjoyment which awaited him in eating and drinking, then in the pleasures of love.
16 “My bed have I spread with cushions,
Variegated coverlets, Egyptian linen;
17 I have sprinkled my couch
With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come then, we will intoxicate ourselves with love till the morning,
And will satisfy ourselves in love.”
The noun עֶרֶשׂ, from עָרַשׂ, = Arab. 'arash, aedificare, fabricari, signifies generally the wooden frame; thus not so much the bed within as the erected bed-place (cf. Arab. 'arsh, throne, and 'arysh, arbour). This bedstead she had richly and beautifully cushioned, that it might be soft and agreeable. רָבַד, from רב, signifies to lay on or apply closely, thus either vincire (whence the name of the necklace, Gen 41:42) or sternere (different from רָפַד, Job 17:13, which acquires the meaning sternere from the root-meaning to raise up from under, sublevare), whence מַרְבַדִּים, cushions, pillows, stragulae. Böttcher punctuates מַרְבַדִּים incorrectly; the ב remains aspirated, and the connection of the syllables is looser than in מַרְבֶּה, Ewald, §88d. The צֲטֻבוֹת beginning the second half-verse is in no case an adjective to מרבדים, in every case only appos., probably an independent conception; not derived from חָטַב (cogn. חָצַב), to hew wood (whence Arab. ḥaṭab, fire-wood), according to which Kimchi, and with him the Graec. Venet. (περιξύστοις), understands it of the carefully polished bed-poles or bed-boards, but from חָטַב = Arab. khaṭeba, to be streaked, of diverse colours (vid., under Psa 144:12), whence the Syriac machṭabto, a figured (striped, checkered) garment. Hitzig finds the idea of coloured or variegated here unsuitable, but without justice; for the pleasantness of a bed is augmented not only by its softness, but also by the impression which its costliness makes on the eye. The following אֵטוּן מִצְרַיִם stands in an appositional relation to חטבות, as when one says in Arabic taub-un dı̂bâg'-un, a garment brocade = of brocade. אֵטוּן (after the Syr. for אֱטוּן, as אֵמוּן) signifies in the Targum the cord (e.g., Jer 38:6), like the Arab. ṭunub, Syr. (e.g., Isa 54:2) tûnob; the root is טן, not in the sense of to bind, to wind (Deitr.), but in the sense of to stretch; the thread or cord is named from the extension in regard to length, and אטון is thus thread-work, whether in weaving or spinning.
(Note: Hence perhaps the Greek ὀθόνη, which Fick in his Vergl. Wörterbuch connects with the Arab. verb-root vadh, to bind, wind, clothe, but not without making thereto interrogation marks.)
The fame of Egyptian manufactures is still expressed in the Spanish aclabtea, fine linen cloth, which is equivalent to the modern Arabic el-ḳobṭı̂je (ḳibṭije); they had there particularly also an intimate acquaintance with the dye stuffs found in the plants and fossils of the country (Klemm's Culturgeschichte, v. 308-310).
Pro 7:17-18
These verses remind us of expressions in the Canticles. There, at Pro 4:14, are found the three names for spicery as here, and one sees that מר אהלים are not to be connected genitively: there are three things, accented as in the title-verse Pro 1:3. The myrrh, מֹר (Balsamodendron myrrha), belongs, like the frankincense, to the species of the Amyris, which is an exotic in Palestine not less than with us; the aromatic quality in them does not arise from the flowers or leaves, so that Son 1:13 leads us to think of a bunch of myrrh, but from the resin oozing through the bark (Gummi myrrhae or merely myrrha), consisting of bright glossy red or golden-yellow grains more or less transparent. אֲהָלִים (used by Balaam, Num 24:6) is the Semitic Old-Indian name of the aloë, agaru or aguru; the aromatic quality is in the wood of the Aquilaria agallocha, especially its root (agallochum or lignum aloes) dried in the earth - in more modern use and commerce the inspissated juice of its leaves. קִנָּמוֹן is κιννάμωμον (like מֹר, a Semitic word
(Note: Myrrh has its name מֹר from the bitterness of its taste, and קָנַם appears to be a secondary formation from קָנָה, whence קָנֶה, reed; cf. the names of the cinnamon, cannella, Fr. cannelle. Cinnamum (κίνναμον) is only a shorter form for cinnamomum. Pliny, Hist. Nat. xii. 19 (42), uses both forms indiscriminately.)
that had come to the Greeks through the Phoenicians), the cinnamon, i.e., the inner rind of the Laurus cinnamomum. The myrrh is native to Arabia; the aloë, as its name denotes, is Indian; the cinnamon in like manner came through Indian travellers from the east coast of Africa and Ceylon (Taprobane). All these three spices are drugs, i.e., are dry apothecaries' wares; but we are not on that account to conclude that she perfumed (Hitzig) her bed with spices, viz., burnt in a censer, an operation which, according to Son 3:6, would rather be designated קִטַּרְתִּי. The verb נוּף (only here as Kal) signifies to lift oneself up (vid., under Psa 48:13), and transitively to raise and swing hither and thither (= חֵנִיף); here with a double accusative, to besprinkle anything out of a vessel moved hither and thither. According to this sense, we must think of the three aromas as essences in the state of solution; cf. Exo 30:22-33; Est 2:12. Hitzig's question, “Who would sprinkle bed-sheets with perfumed and thus impure water?” betrays little knowledge of the means by which even at the present day clean linen is made fragrant. The expression רָוָה דּוֹדִים sounds like שָׁכַר דודים, Son 5:1, although there דודים is probably the voc., and not, as here, the accus.; רָוָה is the Kal of רִוָּה, Pro 5:19, and signifies to drink something copiously in full draughts. The verbal form עָלַס for עָלַץ is found besides only in Job 20:18; Job 39:13; the Hithpa. signifies to enjoy oneself greatly, perhaps (since the Hithpa. is sometimes used reciprocally, vid., under Gen 2:25) with the idea of reciprocity (Targ. חַר לְצַד). We read boohabim with Chateph-Kametz after Ben-Asher (vid., Kimchi's Lex.); the punctuation בָּאֲהָבִים is that of Ben-Naphtali.