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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 8:17 - 8:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The discourse of Wisdom makes a fresh departure, as at Pro 8:13 : she tells how, to those who love her, she repays this love:
17 “I love them that love me,
And they that seek me early find me.
18 Riches and honour are with me,
Durable riches and righteousness.
19 Better is my fruit than pure and fine gold,
And my revenue (better) than choice silver.
20 In the way of righteousness do I walk,
In the midst of the paths of justice.
21 To give an inheritance to them that love me
And I fill their treasuries.”
The Chethı̂b אֹהֲבֶיהָ (ego hos qui eam amant redamo), Gesenius, Lehrgeb. §196, 5, regards as a possible synallage (eam = me), but one would rather think that it ought to be read (יהוה =) 'אֹהֲבֵי ה. The ancients all have the reading אֹהֲבַי. אֵהַב (= אֶאֱהַב, with the change of the éě into ê, and the compression of the radical א; cf. אֹמַר, תֹּבֵא, Pro 1:10) is the form of the fut. Kal, which is inflected תְּאֵהֲבוּ, Pro 1:22. Regarding שִׁחַר (the Graec. Venet. well: οἱ ὀρθρίζοντές μοι), vid., Pro 1:28, where the same epenthet. fut. form is found.
Pro 8:18
In this verse part of Pro 3:16 is repeated, after which אִתִּי is meant of possession (mecum and penes me). Regarding הוֹן, vid., Pro 1:13; instead of the adjective יָקָר there, we have here עָתֵק. The verb עָתַק brev signifies promoveri, to move forwards, whence are derived the meanings old (cf. aetas provecta, advanced age), venerable for age, and noble, free (cf. עַתִּיק, Isa 28:9, and Arab. 'atyḳ, manumissus), unbound, the bold. Used of clothing, עָרִיק (Isa 23:18) expresses the idea of venerable for age. עָתֵק used of possessions and goods, like the Arab. 'âtak, denotes such goods as increase during long possession as an inheritance from father to son, and remain firm, and are not for the first time gained, but only need to be inherited, opes perennes et firmae (Schultens, Gesenius' Thesaur., Fleischer), although it may be also explained (which is, however, less probable with the form עָתֵק) of the idea of the venerable from opes superbae (Jerome), splendid opulence. צְדָקָה is here also a good which is distributed, but properly the distributing goodness itself, as the Arab. ṣadaḳat, influenced by the later use of the Hebrew צְדָקָה (δικαιοσύνη = ἐλεημοσύνη), denotes all that which God of His goodness causes to flow to men, or which men bestow upon men (Fl.). Righteousness is partly a recompensative goodness, which rewards, according to the law of requital, like with like; partly communicative, which, according to the law of love without merit, and even in opposition to it, bestows all that is good, and above all, itself; but giving itself to man, it assimilates him to itself (vid., Psa 24:7), so that he becomes צדיק, and is regarded as such before God and men, Pro 8:19.
The fruit and product of wisdom (the former a figure taken from the trees, Pro 3:18; the latter from the sowing of seed, Pro 3:9) is the gain and profit which it yields. With חָרוּץ, Pro 8:10; Pro 3:14, פָּז is here named as the place of fine gold, briefly for זָהָב מוּפָז, solid gold, gold separated from the place of ore which contains it, or generally separated gold, from פָּזַז, violently to separate metals from base mixtures; Targ. דַּהֲבָא אוֹבְרִיזִין, gold which has stood the fire-test, obrussa, of the crucible, Greek ὄβρυζον, Pers. ebrı̂z, Arab. ibrı̂z. In the last clause of this verse, as also in 10b, נִבְחָר is to be interpreted as pred. to תְבוּאָתִי, but the balance of the meaning demands as a side-piece to the מחרוץ ומפז (19a) something more than the mere כֶּסֶף. In 20f. the reciprocal love is placed as the answer of love under the point of view of the requiting righteousness. But recompensative and communicative righteousness are here combined, where therefore the subject is the requital of worthy pure love and loving conduct, like with like. Such love requires reciprocal love, not merely cordial love, but that which expresses itself outwardly.
Pro 8:20-21
In this sense, Wisdom says that she acts strictly according to justice and rectitude, and adds (21) wherein this her conduct manifests itself. The Piel הִלֵּךְ expresses firm, constant action; and בְּתוֹךְ means that she turns from this line of conduct on no side. לְהַנְחִיל is distinguished from בְּהנחיל, as ut possidendam tribuam from possidendam tribuendo; the former denotes the direction of the activity, the latter its nature and manner; both combine if we translate ita ut....
(Note: Biesenthal combines the etymologically obscure הנחיל with נָחַל: to make to flow into, so that נָחַל denotes inheritance in contradistinction to acquisition; while נָחַלָה, in contradistinction to יְרֻשָּׁה, denotes the inheritance rather of many than of the individual.)
Regarding the origin of יֵשׁ, vid., at Pro 2:7; it denotes the being founded, thus substantia, and appears here, like the word in mediaeval Latin and Romanic (Ital. sustanza, Span. substancia), and like οὐσία and ὕπαρξις (τὰ ὑπάρχοντα) in classic Greek, to denote possessions and goods. But since this use of the word does not elsewhere occur (therefore Hitzig explains ישׁ = ישׁ לי, I have it = presto est), and here, where Wisdom speaks, ישׁ connects itself in thought with תּוּשִׁיָּה, it will at least denote real possession (as we also are wont to call not every kind of property, but only landed property, real possession), such possession as has real worth, and that not according to commercial exchange and price, but according to sound judgment, which applies a higher than the common worldly standard of worth. The Pasek between אהבי and ישׁ is designed to separate the two Jods from each other, and has, as a consequence, for להנחיל אהבַי the accentuation with Tarcha and Mercha (vid., Accentssystem, vi. §4; cf. Torath Emeth, p. 17, §3). The carrying forward of the inf. with the finite, 21b, is as Pro 1:27; Pro 2:2, and quite usual.