Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

29 Judgments are prepared for scorners, And stripes for the backs of fools. שׁפמים never means punishment which a court of justice inflicts, but is always used of the judgments of God, even although they are inflicted by human instrumentality (vid., Ch2 24:24); the singular, which nowhere occurs, is the segolate n. act. שׁפט = שׁפוט, Ch2 20:9, plur. שׁפוּטים. Hitzig's remark: "the judgment may, after Pro 19:25, consist in stripes," is misleading; the stroke, הכּות, there is such as when, e.g., a stroke on the ear is applied to one who despises that which is holy, which, under the circumstances, may be salutary; but it does not fall under the category of shephuthim, nor properly under that of מהלמות. The former are providential chastisements with which history itself, or God in history, visits the despiser of religion; the latter are strokes which are laid on the backs of fools by one who is instructing them, in order, if possible, to bring them to thought and understanding. נכון, here inflected as Niph., is used, as Job 15:23, as meaning to be placed in readiness, and thus to be surely imminent. Regarding mahalǔmoth, vid., at Pro 18:6.