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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 7:26 - 7:26
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The admonition, having its motive in that which goes before, is now founded on the emphatic finale:
26 For many are the slain whom she hath caused to fall,
And many are her slain.
27 A multiplicity of ways to help is her house,
Going down to the chambers of death.
The translation “for many slain has she laid low” (Syr., Targ., Jerome, Luther) is also syntactically possible; for רַבִּים can be placed before its substantive after the manner of the demonstratives and numerals (e.g., Neh 9:28, cf. אחד, Son 4:9), and the accentuation which requires two servants (the usual two Munachs) to the Athnach appears indeed thus to construe it. It is otherwise if רבים here meant magni (thus e.g., Ralbag, and recently Bertheau), and not multi; but רבים and עֲצֻמִים stand elsewhere in connection with each other in the signification many and numerous, Psa 35:18; Joe 2:2; Mic 4:3. “Her slain” are those slain by her; the part. pass. is connected with the genitive of the actor, e.g., Pro 9:18; cf. (Arab.) ḳatyl âlmḥabbt, of one whom love kills (Fl.). With Pro 7:27 cf. Pro 2:18; Pro 9:18. In 27a, בֵּיתָהּ is not equivalent to בביתה after Pro 8:2, also not elliptical and equivalent to דרכי ביתה; the former is unnecessary, the latter is in no case established by Psa 45:7; Ezr 10:13, nor by Deu 8:15; 2Ki 23:17 (see, on the other hand, Philippi's Status Constructus, pp. 87-93). Rightly Hitzig has: her house forms a multiplicity of ways to hell, in so far as adultery leads by a diversity of ways to hell. Similarly the subject and the predicate vary in number, Pro 16:25; Psa 110:3; Job 26:13; Dan 9:23, and frequently. If one is once in her house, he may go in this or in that way, but surely his path is to destruction: it consists of many steps to hell, such as lead down (דרך, fem. Isa 37:34, masc. Isa 30:21) to the extreme depths of death (cf. Job 9:9, “chambers of the south” = its remotest regions veiling themselves in the invisible); for חֶדֶר (Arab. khiddr) is the part of the tent or the house removed farthest back, and the most private (Fl.). These חַדְרֵי־מָוֶת, cf. עִמְקֵי שְׁאוֹל, Pro 9:18, approach to the conception of גֵּיהִנֹּם, which is afterwards distinguished from שאול.