(Joseph Kimchi) does not recommend itself on this account, that שׁחה and שׁחח mean, according to usage, to stoop or to bend down; and to interpret (Ralbag, השׁפילה) שׁחה transitively is inadmissible. For that reason Aben Ezra interprets ביתה as in apposition: to death, to its house; but then the poet in that case should say אל־שׁאול, for death is not a house. On the other hand, we cannot perceive in ביתה an accus. of the nearer definition (J. H. Michaelis, Fl.); the expression would here, as 15a, be refined without purpose. Böttcher has recognised ביתה as permutative, the personal subject: for she sinks down to death, her house, i.e., she herself, together with all that belongs to her; cf. the permutative of the subject, Job 29:3; Isa 29:23 (vid., comm. l.c.), and the more particularly statement of the object, Exo 2:6, etc. Regarding רפאים, shadows of the under-world (from רפה, synon. חלה, weakened, or to become powerless), a word common to the Solomonic writings, vid., Comment. on Isaiah, p. 206. What Pro 2:18 says of the person of the adulteress, Pro 2:19 says of those who live with her ביתה, her house-companions. בּאיה, “those entering in to her,” is equivalent to בּאים אליה; the participle of verbs eundi et veniendi takes the accusative object of the finite as gen. in st. constr., as e.g., Pro 1:12; Pro 2:7; Gen 23:18; Gen 9:10 (cf. Jer 10:20). The ישׁוּבוּן, with the tone on the ult., is a protestation: there is no return for those who practise fornication, (Note: One is here reminded of the expression in the Aeneid, vi. 127-129:Revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,Hoc opes, hoc labor est.
See also an impure but dreadful Talmudic story about a dissolute Rabbi, b. Aboda zara, 17a.) and they do not reach the paths of life from which they have so widely strayed.[1]
Verses 20-22
With למען there commences a new section, coordinating itself with the להצּילך (“to deliver thee”) of Pro 2:12, Pro 2:16, unfolding that which wisdom accomplishes as a preserver and guide: 20 So that thou walkest in the good way, And keepest the right paths. 21 For the upright shall inhabit the land, And the innocent shall remain in it. 22 But the godless are cut off out the land, And the faithless are rooted out of it.
- ↑ In correct texts ולא־ישיגו has the Makkeph. Vid., Torath Emeth, p. 41; Accentuationssystem, xx. §2.
