Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 8:13 - 8:13

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 8:13 - 8:13


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Far remote is the idea that 13a is dependent on אֶמְצָא (I acquire) (Löwenstein, Bertheau). With this verse begins a new series of thoughts raising themselves on the basis of the fundamental clause 13a. Wisdom says what she hates, and why she hates it:

13 “The fear of Jahve is to hate evil;

Pride and arrogancy, and an evil way

And a deceitful mouth, do I hate.”

If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Pro 9:10; Pro 1:7), then wisdom, personally considered, stands before all else that is to be said of her in a relation of homage or reverence toward God corresponding to the fear of God on the part of man; and if, as the premiss 13a shows, the fear of God has as its reverse side the hatred of evil, then there arises what Wisdom says in שַׂנֵאתִי (I hate) of herself. Instead of the n. actionis שְׂנֹאת (hatred), formed in the same way with יִרְאַת, which, admitting the article, becomes a substantive, the author uses, in order that he might designate the predicate as such (Hitzig), rather the n. actionis שְׂנֹאת as מְלֹאת, Jer 29:10. קְרֹאת, Jdg 8:1, is equivalent to שְׂנֹאֶת like יְבֹּשֶׁת, the becoming dry, יְכֹלֶת, the being able; cf. (Arab.) shanat, hating, malât, well-being, ḳarât, reading (Fl.). The evil which Wisdom hates is now particularized as, Pro 6:16-19, the evil which Jahve hates. The virtue of all virtues is humility; therefore Wisdom hates, above all, self-exaltation in all its forms. The paronomasia גֵּאָה וְגָאוןֹ (pride and haughtiness) expresses the idea in the whole of its contents and compass (cf. Isa 15:6; Isa 3:1, and above at Pro 1:27). גֵּאָה (from גֵּאֶה, the nominal form), that which is lofty = pride, stands with גָּאוֹן, as Job 4:10, גָבֹהּ, that which is high = arrogance. There follows the viam mali, representing the sins of walk, i.e., of conduct, and os fullax (vid., at Pro 2:12), the sins of the mouth. Hitzig rightly rejects the interpunctuation רָע, and prefers רָע. In consequence of this Dechî (Tiphcha init.), וּפִי תַהְפֻּכֹת have in Codd. and good editions the servants Asla and Illuj (vid., Baer's Torath Emeth, p. 11); Aben-Ezra and Moses Kimchi consider the Asla erroneously as disjunctive, and explain וּפִי by et os = axioma meum, but Asla is conjunctive, and has after it the ת raphatum.