Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

This her existence before the world began is now set forth in yet more explicit statements: 24 "When there were as yet no floods was I brought forth, When as yet there were not fountains which abounded with water; 25 For before the mountains were settled, Before the hills was I brought forth, 26 While as yet He had not made land and plains, And the sum of the dust of the earth." The description is poetical, and affords some room for imagination. By תּהומות are not intended the unrestrained primeval waters, but, as also Pro 3:20, the inner waters, treasures of the earth; and consequently by מעינות, not the fountains of the sea on this earth (Ewald, after Job 38:16), but he springs or places of springs (for מעין is n. loci to עין, a well as an eye of the earth; vid., Gen 16:7), by means of which the internal waters of the earth communicate themselves to the earth above (cf. Gen 7:11 with Gen 49:25). נכבּדּי־מים(abounding with water) is a descriptive epitheton to מעינות, which, notwithstanding its fem. plur., is construed as masc. (cf. Pro 5:16). The Masora does not distinguish the thrice-occurring נכבדי according to its form as written (Isa 23:8-9). The form נכבּדּי (which, like בּתּים, would demand Metheg) is to be rejected; it is everywhere to be written נכבּדּי nettirw (Ewald, 214b) with Pathach, with Dagesh following; vid., Kimchi, Michlol 61b. Kimchi adds the gloss מעיני מים רבים, which the Gr. Venet., in accordance with the meaning of נכבד elsewhere, renders by πηγαῖς δεδοξασμένων ὑδάτων (as also Bttcher: the most honoured = the most lordly); but Meri, Immanuel, and others rightly judge that the adjective is here to be understood after Gen 13:2; Job 14:21 (but in this latter passage כבד does not mean "to be numerous"): loaded = endowed in rich measure. Pro 8:25 Instead of בּאין, in (yet) non-existence (24), we have here טרם, a subst. which signifies cutting off from that which already exists (vid., at Gen 2:5), and then as a particle nondum or antequam, with בּ always antequam, and in Pro 8:26 עד־לא, so long not yet (this also originally a substantive from עדה, in the sense of progress). With הטבּעוּ (were settled) (as Job 38:6, from טבע, to impress into or upon anything, imprimere, infigere) the question is asked: wherein? Not indeed: in the depths of the earth, but as the Caraite Ahron b. Joseph answers, אל קרקע הים, in the bottom of the sea; for out of the waters they rise up, Psa 104:8 (cf. at Gen 1:9). Pro 8:26 ארץ וחוּצות is either, connecting the whole with its part: terra cum campis, or ארץ gains by this connection the meaning of land covered with buildings, while חוצות the expanse of unoccupied land, or the free field outside the towns and villages (cf. בּר, Arab. barrytt) (Fl.), vid., Job 5:10; Job 18:17 (where we have translated "in the steppe far and wide"); and regarding the fundamental idea, vid., above at Pro 5:16. Synonymous with ארץ, as contrast to חוצות, is תּבל, which like יבוּל (produce, wealth) comes from יבל, and thus denotes the earth as fruit-bearing (as אדמה properly denotes the humus as the covering of earth). Accordingly, with Ewald, we may understand by ראשׁ עפרות, "the heaps of the many clods of the fertile arable land lying as if scattered on the plains." Hitzig also translates: "the first clods of the earth." We do not deny that עפרות may mean clods of earth, i.e., pieces of earth gathered together, as Job 28:6, עפרת זהב, gold ore, i.e., pieces of earth or ore containing gold. But for clods of earth the Heb. language has the nouns רגב and מגרפה; and if we read together עפרות, plur. of the collective עפר (dust as a mass), which comes as from a n. unitatis עפרה, and ראשׁ, which, among its meanings in poetry as well as in prose, has also that of the sum, i.e., the chief amount or the total amount (cf. the Arab. râs âlmâl, the capital, τὸ κεφάλαιον), then the two words in their mutual relation yield the sense of the sum of the several parts of the dust, as of the atoms of dust (Cocceius; Schultens, summam pluverum orbis habitabilis); and Fleischer rightly remarks that other interpretations, as ab initio pulveris orbis, praecipus quaeque orbis terrarum, caput orbis terrarum (i.e., according to Rashi, the first man; according to Umbreit, man generally), leave the choice of the plur. עפרות unintelligible. Before these creatures originated, Wisdom was, as she herself says, and emphatically repeats, already born; חוללתּי is the passive of the Pilel חולל, which means to whirl, to twist oneself, to bring forth with sorrow (Aquila, Theodotion, ὠδινήθην; Graec. Venet. 24a, πέπλασμαι, 25b, ὠδίνημαι), then but poet. generally to beget, to bring forth (Pro 25:23; Pro 26:10).