Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

Now begins the discourse. The exordium summons general attention to it with the emphasis of its absolute truth: 4 "To you, ye men, is my discourse addressed, And my call is to the children of men! 5 Apprehend, O ye simple ones, what wisdom is; And, ye fools what understanding is. 6 Hear, for I will speak princely things, And the opening of my lips is upright. 7 For my mouth uttereth truth, And a wicked thing is an abomination to my lips. 8 The utterances of my mouth are in rectitude, There is nothing crooked or perverse in them. 9 To the men of understanding they are all to the point, And plain to those who have attained knowledge." Hitzig rejects this section, Pro 8:4-12, as he does several others in chap. 8 and 9, as spurious. But if this preamble, which reminds us of Elihu, is not according to every one's taste, yet in respect of the circle of conception and thought, as well as of the varying development of certain fundamental thoughts, it is altogether after the manner of the poet. The terminology is one that is strange to us; the translation of it is therefore difficult; that which is given above strives at least not to be so bad as to bring discredit on the poet. The tautology and flatness of Pro 8:4 disappears when one understands אישׁים and בּני אדם like the Attic ἄνδρες and ἄνθρωποι; vid., under Isa 2:9; Isa 53:3 (where אישׁים, as here and Psa 141:4, is equivalent to בּני אישׁ, Psa 49:3; Psa 4:3). Wisdom turns herself with her discourses to high and low, to persons of standing and to the proletariat. The verbal clause 4a interchanges with a noun clause 4b, as frequently a preposition with its noun (e.g., Pro 8:8) completes the whole predicate of a semistich (Fl.). Pro 8:5 Regarding ארמה, calliditas, in a good sense, vid., at Pro 1:4; regarding פּתאים, those who are easily susceptible of good or bad, according to the influence that is brought to bear upon them, vid., also Pro 1:4; and regarding כּסילים, the intellectually heavy, dull persons in whom the flesh burdens the mind, vid., at Pro 1:22. לב is parallel with ערמה, for the heart (according to its Semitic etymon, that which remains fast, like a kernel, the central-point) is used for the understanding of which it is the seat (Psychol. p. 249), or heartedness = intelligence (cf. חסר־לב, Pro 6:32 = ἄνους or ἄλογος). We take ערמה and לב as objective, as we have translated: that which is in both, and in which they consist. Thus הבּין, which is a favourite word with this author, has both times the simple transitive meaning of the gain of understanding into the nature and worth of both; and we neither need to interpret the second הבינוּ in the double transitive meaning, "to bring to understanding," nor, with Hitzig, to change in into הכינוּ (Note: Vid., the Hebr. Zeitschrift, החלוץ, 1856, p. 112.) direct, i.e., applicate. Pro 8:6 That to which Wisdom invites, her discourse makes practicable, for she speaks of נגידים. Hitzig interprets this word by conspicua, manifest truths, which the Graec. Venet. understands to be ἐναντία, after Kimchi's interpretation: truths which one makes an aim and object (נגד) on account of their worth. Frst, however, says that נגיד, from נגד, Arab. najad, means to be elevated, exalted, and thereby visible (whence also הגּיד, to bring to light, to bring forward); and that by נגידים, as the plur. of this נגיד, is to be understood princeps in the sense of principalia, or πραεσταντια (lxx σεμνά; Theodot. ἡγεμονικά; Jerome, de rebus magnis) (cf. νόμος βασιλικός of the law of love, which surpasses the other laws, as kings do their subjects), which is supported by the similar expression, Pro 22:20. But that we do not need to interpret נגידים as abstr., like מישׁרים, and as the acc. adverb.: in noble ways, because in that case it ought to be נגידות (Berth.), is shown by Pro 22:20, and also Pro 16:13; cf. on this neuter use of the masc., Ewald, 172a. "The opening of my lips (i.e., this, that they open themselves, not: that which they disclose, lay open) is upright" is to be regarded as metonymia antecedentis pro conseq.: that which I announce is...; or also as a poetic attribution, which attributes to a subject that which is produced by it (cf. Pro 3:17): my discourse bearing itself right, brings to light (Fl.). Pro 23:16, cf. 31, is parallel both in the words and the subject; מישׁרים, that which is in accordance with fact and with rectitude, uprightness (vid., at Pro 1:3), is a word common to the introduction (chap. 1-9), and to the first appendix to the first series of Solomonic Proverbs (Prov 22:17-24:22), with the Canticles. In Sol 5:16, also, as where (cf. Pro 5:3; Job 6:30), the word palate [Gaumen] is used as the organ of speech. Pro 8:7 כּי continues the reason (begun in Pro 8:6) for the Hearken! (cf. Pro 1:15-17; Pro 4:16.); so that this second reason is co-ordinated with the first (Fl.). Regarding אמת, vid., at Pro 3:3; הגה, here of the palate (cf. Psa 37:30), as in Pro 15:28 of the heart, has not hitherto occurred. It signifies quiet inward meditation, as well as also (but only poetically) discourses going forth from it (vid., at Psa 1:2). The contrary of truth, i.e., moral truth, is רשׁע, wickedness in words and principles - a segolate, which retains its Segol also in pausa, with the single exception of Ecc 3:16. Pro 8:8-9 The בּ of בּצדק is that of the close connection of a quality with an action or matter, which forms with a substantive adverbia as well as virtual adjectiva, as here: cum rectitudine (conjuncta i. e. vera) sunt omnia dicta oris mei (Fl.); it is the ב of the distinctive attribute (Hitzig), certainly related to the ב essentiae (Pro 3:26, according to which Schultens and Bertheau explain), which is connected with the abstract conception (e.g., Psa 33:4), but also admits the article designating the gender (vid., at Psa 29:4). The opposite of צדק (here in the sense of veracitas, which it means in Arab.) is נפתּל ועקּשׁ, dolosum ac perversum. עקּשׁ (cf. Gesen. 84, 9) is that which is violently bent and twisted, i.e., estranged from the truth, which is, so to speak, parodied or caricatured. Related to it in meaning, but proceeding from a somewhat different idea, is נפתל. פּתל, used primarily of threads, cords, ropes, and the like, means to twist them, to twine them over and into one another, whence פּתיל, a line or string made of several intertwisted threads (cf. Arab. ftı̂lt, a wick of a candle or lamp); Niph., to be twisted, specifically luctari, of the twisting of the limbs, and figuratively to bend and twist oneself, like the crafty (versutus) liars and deceivers, of words and thoughts which do not directly go forth, but by the crafty twistings of truth and rectitude, opp. ישׁר, נכון (Fl.). There is nothing of deception of error in the utterances of wisdom; much rather they are all נכצים, straight out from her (cf. Isa 57:2), going directly out, and without circumlocution directed to the right end for the intelligent, the knowing (cf. Neh 10:29); and ישׁרים, straight or even, giving no occasion to stumble, removing the danger of erring for those who have obtained knowledge, i.e., of good and evil, and thus the ability of distinguishing between them (Gesen. 134, 1) - briefly, for those who know how to estimate them.