Rashi (“humble thyself like to the threshold which is trampled and trode upon”), Aben-Ezra, Immanuel (“humble thyself under the soles of his feet”); so Cocceius, J. H. Michaelis, and others: conculcandum te praebe. וּרהב is more controverted. The Talmudic-Midrash explanation (b. Joma, 87a; Bathra, 173b, and elsewhere): take with thee in great numbers thy friends (רהב = הרבּה), is discredited by this, that it has along with it the explanation of התרפס by (יד) פּס חתּר, solve palmam (manus), i.e., pay what thou canst. Also with the meaning to rule (Parchon, Immanuel), which רהב besides has not, nothing is to be done. The right meaning of רהב בּ is to rush upon one boisterously, Isa 3:5. רהב means in general to be violently excited (Arab. rahiba, to be afraid), and thus to meet one, here with the accusative: assail impetuously thy neighbour (viz., that he fulfil his engagement). Accordingly, with a choice of words more or less suitable, the lxx translates by παρόξυνε, Symm., Theodotion by παρόρμησον, the Graec. Venet. by ἐνίσχυσον, the Syr. (which the Targumist copies) by גרג (solicita), and Kimchi glosses by: lay an arrest upon him with pacifying words. The Talmud explains רעיך as plur.;[1] but the plur., which was permissible in Pro 3:28, is here wholly inadmissible: it is thus the plena scriptio for רעך with the retaining of the third radical of the ground-form of the root-word (רעי = רעה), or with י as mater lectionis, to distinguish the pausal-form from that which is without the pause; cf. Pro 24:34. lxx, Syr., Jerome, etc., rightly translate it in the sing. The immediateness lying in לך (cf. ὕπαγε, Mat 5:24) is now expressed as a duty, Pro 6:4. One must not sleep and slumber (an expression quite like Psa 132:4), not give himself quietness and rest, till the other has released him from his bail by the performance of that for which he is surety. One must set himself free as a gazelle or as a bird, being caught, seeks to disentangle itself by calling forth all its strength and art.
Verse 5
The naked מיּד is not to be translated “immediately;” for in this sense the word is rabbinical, not biblical. The versions (with exception of Jerome and the Graec. Venet.) translate as if the word were מפּח [out of the snare]. Bertheau prefers this reading, and Böttcher holds חיּד [a hunter] to have fallen out after מיד. It is not a parallelism with reservation; for a bird-catcher is not at
- ↑ There is here no distinction between the Kethîb and the Kerı̂. The Masora remarks, “This is the only passage in the Book of Proverbs where the word is written with Yod (י);” it thus recognises only the undisputed רעיך.
