Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

This verse stands in close connection with the preceding, for it speaks of the contentious woman: He that restraineth her restraineth the wind, And oil meeteth his right hand. The connection of the plur. subject צפניה = quicunque eam cohibet, with a sing. predicate, is not to be disputed (vid., Pro 3:18 and Pro 28:16, Chethı̂b); but can צפן gain from the meaning of preserving, laying up, also the meanings of keeping, of confining, and shutting up? - for these meanings we have כּלא and עצר (cf. צרר, Pro 30:4). In 16b it lies nearer to see in ימינו the object of the clause (oil meeteth his right hand) than the subject (his right hand meeteth oil), for the gender of ימין directs to יד (e.g., Eze 15:6; cf. 6a, where נאדּרי is as to gender indifferent): it is fem., while on the contrary שׁמן is generally masc. (cf. Sol 1:3). There is no reason for regarding ימינו as an adverbial accus. (he meets oil with his right hand), or, with Hitzig, as a second subject (he meets oil, his right hand); the latter, in the order of the words lying before us, is not at all possible. We suppose that יקרא, as at Gen 49:1, is equivalent to יקרה (Ewald, 116c), for the explanation oleum dexterae ejus praeconem agit (Cocceius, Schultens) does not explain, but only darkens: and oleum dexter su legit, i.e., colligit (Fleischer), is based on an untenable use of the word. As one may say of person to person, קרך, occurrit tibi, Num 25:18, so also יקרא (יקרה), of a thing that meets a man or one of his members; and if we compare לקראת and קרי, then for 16b the meaning is possible: oil meets his right hand; the quarrelsome woman is like oil that cannot be held in the hand, which struggles against that which holds it, for it always glides out of the hand. Thus also Luther: "and seeks to hold oil with his hand," as if he read יקמץ. In fact, this word was more commonly used as the expression of untenableness than the colourless and singular word יקרא, which, besides, is so ambiguous, that none of the old translators has thought on any other קרא than that which signifies "to call," "to name." The Jewish interpreters also adhere to this nearest lying קרא, and, moreover, explain, as the Syr., Targ., Aquila, Symmachus, Jerome, and the Venet., שׁמן ימינו, according to the accentuation as genit. connected, e.g., Rashi: he calls for oil to his right hand, viz., as the means of purification from leprosy, Lev 8:14 [Lev 14:16]; and Aben Ezra: even when he calls for oil to his right hand, i.e., would move them to silence with the precious anointing oil. Perhaps Pro 27:16 was originally an independent proverb as follows: צפני הון צפן רוח ושמן ימינו יקרא He who layeth up riches in store layeth up the wind, And he nameth them the fat of his right hand; i.e., he sees in them that which makes his right hand fat and strong (שׁמן, as at Psa 109:24, opp. Zac 11:17; cf. בּמשׁמנּיו, Isa 10:16, and regarding Ἐσμούν, the Phoenician god of health, at Isa 59:10), and yet it is only the wind, i.e., something that is worthless and transient, which he stored up (צפן, as at Pro 13:22, and in מצפּניו, Obad. Oba 1:6). הון is used as it frequently occurs in the Book of Proverbs, e.g., Pro 11:4, and the whole proverb expresses by another figure the same as Pro 18:11. The fact that צפון (רוח), Pro 25:23, and as a contrast thereto in the compass ימין (the south), hovered before the poet, may not have been without its influence on the choice of the words and expression here.