else than to vindicate the injured truths by means of the private justice of corporal punishment. Such words, if spoken to the right man, in the right spirit, at the right time, may affect him with wholesome terrors; but even though he is not made better thereby, yet the simple, who listens to the mockeries of such not without injury, will thereby become prudent (gain הערים = ערמה, prudence, as at Pro 15:5), i.e., either arrive at the knowledge that the mockery of religion is wicked, or guard himself against incurring the same repressive measures. In 25b והוכח is neither inf. (Umbreit), which after Pro 21:11 must be וּבהוכח, nor impr. (Targ., Ewald), which according to rule is הוכח, but the hypothetic perf. (Syr.) with the most general subject (Merc., Hitzig): if one impart instruction to the (dat. obj. as Pro 9:7; Pro 15:2) man of understanding (vid., Pro 16:21), then he acquires knowledge, i.e., gains an insight into the nature and value of that which one wishes to bring him to the knowledge of (הבין דּעת, as Pro 29:7; cf. Pro 8:5). That which the deterring lesson of exemplary punishment approximately effects with the wavering, is, in the case of the man of understanding, perfectly attained by an instructive word.
We have now reached the close of the third chief section of the older Book of Proverbs. All the three sections begin with בּן חכם, Pro 10:1; Pro 13:1; Pro 15:20. The Introduction, chap. 1-9, dedicates this collection of Solomonic proverbs to youth, and the three beginnings accordingly relate to the relative duties of a son to his father and mother. We are now no longer far from the end, for Pro 22:17 resumes the tone of the Introduction. The third principal part would be disproportionately large if it extended from Pro 15:1 to Pro 22:15. But there does not again occur a proverb beginning with the words “son of man.” We can therefore scarcely go wrong if we take Pro 19:26 as the commencement of a fourth principal part. The Masora divides the whole Mishle into eight sedarim, which exhibit so little knowledge of the true division, that the parashas (sections) Pro 10:1; Pro 22:17 do not at all find their right place.[1]
The MSS, however,
Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1797
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