spiritually understood, signifies the acquiring of a kennens [knowledge] or könnens [knowledge = ability]: he has not brought it out from the deep point of his condition of knowledge to make wisdom his own, so that he cannot adjudge to himself knowledge of the all-holy God (for this knowledge is the kernel and the star of true wisdom). If we read 3b לא אדע, this would be synchronistic, nesciebam, with למדתי standing on the same line. On the contrary, the positive אדע subordinates itself to ולא־למדתי, as the Arab. fâa' lama, in the sense of (ita) ut scirem scientiam Sanctissimi, thus of a conclusion, like Lam 1:19, a clause expressive of the intention, Ewald, §347a. קדשׁים is, as at Pro 9:10, the name of God in a superlative sense, like the Arab. el-kuddûs.
Verse 4
Pro 30:4 4 Who hath ascended to the heavens and descended? Who hath grasped the wind in his fists? Who hath bound up the waters in a garment? Who hath set right all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what his son's name, if thou knowest?
The first question here, 'מי וגו, is limited by Pazer; עלה־שׁמים has Metheg in the third syllable before the tone. The second question is at least shut off by Pazer, but, contrary to the rule, that Pazer does not repeat itself in a verse; Cod. Erfurt. 2, and several older editions, have for בחפניו more correctly בחפניו with Rebia. So much for the interpunction. חפנים are properly not the two fists, for the fist - that is, the hand gathered into a ball, pugnus - is called אגרף; while, on the contrary, חפן (in all the three dialects) denotes the palm of the hand, vola (vid., Lev 16:12); yet here the hands are represented after they have seized the thing as shut, and thus certainly as fists. The dual points to the dualism of the streams of air produced by the disturbance of the equilibrium; he who rules this movement has, as it were, the north or east wind in one first, and the south or west wind in the other, to let it forth according to his pleasure from this prison (Isa 24:22). The third question is explained by Job 26:8; the שׂמלה (from שׂמל, comprehendere) is a figure of the clouds which contain the upper waters, as Job 38:37, the bottles of heaven. “All the ends of the earth” are as at five other places, e.g., Psa 22:28, the most distant, most remote parts of the earth; the setting up of all
