of the words 7b imports that the wisdom and discipline which one obtains in the way of the fear of God is only despised by the אוילים, i.e., the hard, thick, stupid; see regarding the root-word אול, coalescere, cohaerere, incrassari, der Prophet Jesaia, p. 424, and at Psa 73:4. Schultens rightly compares παχεῖς, crassi pro stupidis.[1] בּזוּ has the tone on the penult., and thus comes from בּוּז; the 3rd pr. of בּזה would be בּזוּ or בּזיוּ. The perf. (cf. Pro 1:29) is to be interpreted after the Lat. oderunt (Ges. §126).
Verse 8
After the author has indicated the object which his Book of Proverbs is designed to subserve, and the fundamental principle on which it is based, he shows for whom he has intended it; he has particularly the rising generation in his eye: 8 Hear, my son, thy father's instruction, And refuse not the teaching of thy mother; 9 For these are a fair crown to thy head, And Jewels to thy neck. “My son,” says the teacher of wisdom to the scholar whom he has, or imagines that he has, before him, addressing him as a fatherly friend. The N.T. representation of birth into a new spiritual life, 1Co 4:15; Phm 1:10; Gal 4:19, lies outside the circle of the O.T. representation; the teacher feels himself as a father by virtue of his benevolent, guardian, tender love. Father and mother are the beloved parents of those who are addressed. When the Talmud understands אביך of God, אמּך of the people (אמּה), that is not the grammatico-historic meaning, but the practical interpretation and exposition, after the manner of the Midrash. The same admonition (with נצר, keep, instead of שׁמע, hear, and מצות, command, instead of מוּסר, instruction) is repeated in Pro 6:20, and what is said of the parents in one passage is in Pro 10:1 divided into two synonymous parallel passages. The stricter
- ↑ Malbim's explanation is singular: the sceptics, from אוּלי, perhaps! This also is Heidenheim's view.
