the word were written וּלזרע; the Syr. and Targ. also, as if אמתּו שׂכרו (his fidelity is his reward). But according to the text as it stands, עשׂה extends its regimen to both parts of the verse; to make is here equivalent to, to work out, to acquire, περιποιεῖσθαι, as Gen 31:1; Jer 17:1, etc. The labour of the godless has selfishness as its motive, and what he acquires by his labour is therefore “delusive gain,” - it is no blessing, it profits him not (Pro 10:2), and it brings him no advantage (Pro 10:16). He, on the contrary, acquires truth, i.e., a truly profitable and enduring reward, who sows right-doing, or better: good-doing, by which we also, as the biblical moral in צדקה, think principally of well-doing, unselfish activity and self-sacrificing love. Hos 10:12 speaks of sowing which has only צדקה as the norm; and how צדקה is understood is seen from the parallel use of חסד [piety]. The “true reward” is just the harvest by which the sowing of the good seed of noble benevolent actions is rewarded.
Verse 19
Pro 11:19 19 Genuine righteousness reaches to life, And he who pursues evil does it to his death.
The lxx translate υἱὸς δίκαιος, and the Syrian follows this unwarrantable quid pro quo; the Bible uses the phrase בן־עולה and the like, but not בן־צדקה. The Graec. Venet. (translating οὕτω) deprives the distich of its supposed independence. The Targ. renders כּן with the following ו as correlates, sic ... uti; but כן in comparative proverbs stands naturally in the second, and not in the first place (vid., p. 10). Without doubt כן is here a noun. It appears to have a personal sense, according to the parallel וּמרדּף, on which account Elster explains it: he who is firm, stedfast in righteousness, and Zöckler: he who holds fast to righteousness; but כן cannot mean “holding fast,” nor does מכונן; - “fast” does not at all agree with the meaning of the word, it means upright, and in the ethical sense genuine; thus Ewald better: “he who is of genuine righteousness,” but “genuine in (of) righteousness” is a tautological connection of ideas. Therefore we must regard כן as a substantival neuter, but neither the rectum of Cocceius nor the firmum of Schultens furnishes a naturally expressed suitable thought. Or is כּן a substantive in the sense of 2 Kings 7:31? The word denotes the pedestal, the pillar, the standing-place; but what can the basis refer to here (Euchel)? Rather read “aim” (Oetinger) or “direction” (Löwenstein); but כן does not take its meaning from the Hiph. הכין. One might almost
