Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

"To throw stones has its time, and to gather together stones has its time; to embrace has its time, and to refrain from embracing has its time." Did the old Jewish custom exist at the time of the author, of throwing three shovelfuls of earth into the grave, and did this lead him to use the phrase השׁ אבּ? But we do not need so incidental a connection of the thought, for the first pair accords with the specific idea of life and death; by the throwing of stones a field is destroyed, Kg2 3:25, or as expressed at Kg2 3:19 is marred; and by gathering the stones together and removing them (which is called סקּל), it is brought under cultivation. Does לה, to embrace, now follow because it is done with the arms and hands? Scarcely; but the loving action of embracing stands beside the hostile, purposely injurious throwing of stones into a field, not exclusively (Kg2 4:16), but yet chiefly (as e.g., at Pro 5:20) as referring to love for women; the intensive in the second member is introduced perhaps only for the purpose of avoiding the paronomasia lirhhoq mahhavoq. The following pair of contrasts is connected with the avoiding or refraining from the embrace of love: -