have by חוּצה and בּרחבות been here led into the error of pressing into the text the exhortation not to waste the creative power in sinful lust. The lxx translates יפצוּ by ὑπερεκχείσθω; but Origen, and also Clemens Alexandrinus, used the phrase μὴ ὑπερεκχείσθω, which is found in the Complut., Ald., and several codd., and is regarded by Lagarde, as also Cappellus, as original: the three Göttingen theologians (Ewald, Bertheau, and Elster) accordingly make the emendation אל־יפצוּ. But that μή of the lxx was not added till a later period; the original expression, which the Syro-Hexapl. authorizes, was ὑπερεκχείσθω without μή, as also in the version of Aquila, διασκορπιζέσθωσαν without μή (vid., Field). The Hebrew text also does not need אל. Clericus, and recently Hitzig, Zöckler, Kamphausen, avoid this remedy, for they understand this verse interrogatively - an expedient which is for the most part and also here unavailing; for why should not the author have written אם יפצו? Schultens rightly remarks: nec negationi nec interrogationi ullus hic locus, for (with Fleischer and von Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, ii. 2, 402) he regards Pro 5:16 as a conclusion: tunc exundabunt; so that he strengthens the summons of Pro 5:15 by the promise of numerous descendants from unviolated marriage. But to be so understood, the author ought to have written ויפצו. So, according to the text, יפצו as jussive continues the imper. שׁתה (15a), and the full meaning according to the connection is this: that within the marriage relation the generative power shall act freely and unrestrained. חוּץ and רחבות denote (Pro 1:20) the space free from houses, and the ways and places which lead towards and stretch between them; חוּץ (from חוּץ, Arab. khass, to split, seorsim ponere) is a very relative conception, according as one thinks of that which is without as the contrast of the house, the city, or the country. Here חוץ is the contrast of the person, and thus that which is anywhere without it, whereto the exercise of its manly power shall extend. The two figurative expressions are the description of the libero flumine, and the contrast, that restriction of self which the marriage relation, according to 1Co 7:3-5, condemns.
Verse 17
That such matters as there are thought of, is manifest from this verse. As זרע comprehends with the cause (sperma) the effect (posterity), so, in Pro 5:16, with the effusio roboris virilis is connected the idea of the beginnings of life. For the subjects of Pro 5:17 are the effusiones seminis named in Pro 5:16. These in their
