be as mutually helpful to one another, according to the principle τὰ τῶν φίλων κοινά (amicorum omnia communia), as if they had only one purse? The meaning is perfectly simple. The oneness of the purse consists in this, that the booty which each of them gets, belongs not wholly or chiefly to him, but to the whole together, and is disposed of by lot; so that, as far as possible, he who participated not at all in the affair in obtaining it, may yet draw the greatest prize. This view harmonizes the relation between 14b and 14a. The common Semitic כּים is even used at the present day in Syria and elsewhere as the name of the Exchange (“Börse”) (plur. akjâs); here it is the purse (“Kasse”) (χρημάτων δοχεῖον, Procop.), which is made up of the profits of the business. This profit consists not merely in gold, but is here thought of in regard to its worth in gold. The apparent contradiction between distributing by lot and having a common purse disappears when the distribution by lot of the common property is so made, that the retaining of a stock-capital, or reserve fund, is not excluded.
Verse 15
After the men are described against whose enticements a warning is given forth, the warning is emphatically repeated, and is confirmed by a threefold reason:
My son! go not in the way with them.
Keep back thy foot from their path.
If בּדרך (in the way), taken alone, cannot be equivalent to בדרך אחד (in one way), so is אתּם (with them) to be regarded as its determination.[1]
Foot (not feet), as eye, hand, etc., is used where the members come less under consideration than what they unitedly bring about (Pro 4:26.). נתיבה, from נתב, signifies properly that which is raised, especially the (raised) footstep.
Verse 16
The first argument to enforce the warning:
For their feet run to the evil,
And hasten to shed blood.
That this is their object they make no secret (Pro 1:11.); but why is it that such an object as this should furnish no ground of warning against them, especially as on this beginning the stamp of that which is morally blamable is here impressed with לרע?
- ↑ The Arab. grammarians regard this as half determination, and call it takhsys; that אתּם has with them the force of a virtually coordinated attributive; while, according to the Arab. gram., it is also possible that בּדרך, “in one way,” is equivalent to on the common way, for in the indetermination sometimes there lies the conception not merely of âhad, but of weahad.
