Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 8:23 - 8:23

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 8:23 - 8:23


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

A designation of the When? expressed first by מֵאָז (Isa 48:8, cf. Isa 40:21), is further unfolded:

“From everlasting was I set up,

From the beginning, from the foundations of the earth.”

That נִסַּכְתִּי cannot be translated: I was anointed = consecrated, vid., at Psa 2:6. But the translation also: I was woven = wrought (Hitzig, Ewald, and previously one of the Greeks, ἐδιάσθην), does not commend itself, for רֻקַּם (Psa 139:15), used of the embryo, lies far from the metaphorical sense in which נָסַךְ = Arab. nasaj, texere, would here be translated of the origin of a person, and even of such a spiritual being as Wisdom; נֹסַדְתִּי, as the lxx reads (ἐθεμελιωσέ με), is not once used of such. Rightly Aquila, κατεστάθην; Symmachus, προκεχείρισμαι; Jerome, ordinata sum. Literally, but unintelligibly, the Gr. Venet. κέχυμαι, according to which (cf. Sir. 1:10) Böttcher: I was poured forth = formed, but himself acknowledging that this figure is not suitable to personification; nor is it at all likely that the author applied the word, used in this sense of idols, to the origin of Wisdom. The fact is, that נָסַךְ, used as seldom of the anointing or consecration of kings, as סוּךְ, passes over, like יָצַק (הִצִּיק), צוּק (מָצוּק, a pillar), and יָצַג (הִצִּיג), from the meaning of pouring out to that of placing and appointing; the mediating idea appears to be that of the pouring forth of the metal, since נסיך, Dan 11:8, like נֵסֶךְ, signifies a molten image. The Jewish interpreters quite correctly remark, in comparing it with the princely name נָסִיךְ [cf. Psa 83:12] (although without etymological insight), that a placing in princely dignity is meant. Of the three synonyms of aeternitas a parte ante, מֵעוֹלָם points backwards into the infinite distance, מֵרֹאשׁ into the beginning of the world, מִקַּדְמֵי־אָרֶץ not into the times which precede the origin of the earth, but into the oldest times of its gradual arising; this קדמי it is impossible to render, in conformity with the Hebr. use of language: it is an extensive plur. of time, Böttcher, §697. The מִן repeated does not mean that the origin and greatness of Wisdom are contemporaneous with the foundation of the world; but that when the world was founded, she was already an actual existence.