Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 7:8 - 7:8

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 7:8 - 7:8


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Now follows, whither he saw the young fop [Laffen] then go in the darkness.

8 Going up and down the street near her corner,

And he walked along the way to her house,

9 In the twilight, when the day declined,

In the midst of the night and deep darkness.

We may interpret עֹבֵר as appos.: juvenem amentem, ambulantem, or as the predicate accus.: vidi juvenem ... ambulantem; for that one may so express himself in Hebrew (cf. e.g., Isa 6:1; Dan 8:7), Hitzig unwarrantably denies. The passing over of the part. into the finite, 8b, is like Pro 2:14, Pro 2:17, and that of the inf. Pro 1:27; Pro 2:8. שׁוּק, Arab. suk (dimin. suweiḳa, to separate, from sikkat, street, alley), still means, as in former times, a broad street, a principal street, as well as an open place, a market-place where business is transacted, or according to its etymon: where cattle are driven for sale. On the street he went backwards and forwards, yet so that he kept near to her corner (i.e., of the woman whom he waited for), i.e., he never withdrew himself far from the corner of her house, and always again returned to it. The corner is named, because from that place he could always cast a look over the front of the house to see whether she whom he waited for showed herself. Regarding פִּנָּהּ for פִּנָּתָהּ, vid., at Psa 27:5 : a primary form פֵּן has never been in use; פִּנִּים, Zec 14:10, is plur. of פִּנָּהּ. אֵצֶל (from אָצַל, Arab. wasl, to bind) is, as a substantive, the side (as the place where one thing connects itself with another), and thus as a preposition it means (like juxta from jungere) beside, Ital. allato. דֶּרֶכְוְ is the object. accus., for thus are construed verbs eundi (e.g., Hab 3:12, Num. 30:17, cf. Pro 21:22).

Pro 7:9

The designations of time give the impression of progress to a climax; for Hitzig unwarrantably denies that נֶשֶׁף means the twilight; the Talmud, Berachoth 3b, correctly distinguishes תרי נשׁפי two twilights, the evening and the morning twilight. But the idea is not limited to this narrow sense, and does not need this, since the root-word נָשַׁף (vid., at Isa 40:24) permits the extension of the idea to the whole of the cool half (evening and night) of the entire day; cf. the parallel of the adulterer who veils himself by the darkness of the night and by a mask on his countenance, Job 24:15 with Jer 13:16. However, the first group of synonyms, בְּנֶשֶׁף בְּעֶרֶב יוֹם (with the Cod. Frankf. 1294, to be thus punctuated), as against the second, appears to denote an earlier period of the second half of the day; for if one reads, with Hitzig, בַּעֲרֹב יוֹם (after Jdg 19:9), the meaning remains the same as with בְּעֶרֶב יוֹם, viz., advesperascente die (Jerome), for עָרַב = Arab. gharab, means to go away, and particularly to go under, of the sun, and thus to become evening. He saw the youth in the twilight, as the day had declined (κέκλικεν, Luk 24:29), going backwards and forwards; and when the darkness of night had reached its middle, or its highest point, he was still in his lurking-place. אִישׁוֹן לַיְלָה, apple of the eye of the night, is, like the Pers. dili scheb, heart of the night, the poetic designation of the middle of the night. Gusset incorrectly: crepusculum in quo sicut in oculi pupilla est nigredo sublustris et quasi mistura lucis ac tenebrarum. אישׁון is, as elsewhere לב, particularly the middle; the application to the night was specially suitable, since the apple of the eye is the black part in the white of the eye (Hitzig). It is to be translated according to the accus., in pupilla noctis et caligine (not caliginis); and this was probably the meaning of the poet, for a ב is obviously to be supplied to וַאֲפֵלָה.