16 To gain wisdom, how much better is it than gold; And to attain understanding to be preferred to silver.
Commendation of the striving after wisdom (understanding) with which all wisdom begins, for one gains an intellectual possession not by inheritance, but by acquisition, Pro 4:7. A similar “parallel-comparative clause” (Fl.), with the interchange of טוב and נבחר, is Pro 22:1, but yet more so is Pro 21:3, where נבחר, as here, is neut. pred. (not, as at Pro 8:10 and elsewhere, adj.), and עשׂה, such an anomalous form of the inf. constr. as here קנה, Gesen. §§75, Anm. 2; in both instances it could also be regarded as the inf. absol. (cf. Pro 25:27) (Lehrgebäude, §109, Anm. 2); yet the language uses, as in the case before us, the form גּלה only with the force of an abl. of the gerund, as עשׂו occurs Gen 31:38; the inf. of verbs 'ה'ל as nom. (as here), genit. (Gen 50:20), and accus. (Psa 101:3), is always either גּלות or גּלה. The meaning is not that to gain wisdom is more valuable than gold, but that the gaining of wisdom exceeds the gaining of gold and silver, the common comparatio decurtata (cf. Job 28:18). Regarding חרוּץ, vid., at Pro 3:14.
Verse 17
Pro 16:17 17 The path of the righteous is the avoiding of evil, And he preserveth his soul who giveth heed to his way.
The meaning of מסלּה, occurring only here in the Proverbs, is to be learned from Pro 15:19. The attribution denotes that wherein the way they take consists, or by which it is formed; it is one, a straight and an open way, i.e., unimpeded, leading them on, because they avoid the evil which entices them aside to the right and the left. Whoever then gives heed to his way, preserveth his soul (שׁמר נפשׁו, as Pro 13:3, on the contrary Pro 25:5, subj.), that it suffer not injury and fall under death, for סוּר מרע and סור ממוקשׁי מות, Pro 14:27, are essentially the same. Instead of this distich, the lxx has three distichs; the thoughts presented in the four superfluous lines are all already expressed in one distich. Ewald and Hitzig find in this addition of the lxx a component part of the original text.
Verse 18
Pro 16:18 18 Pride goeth before destruction, And haughtiness cometh before a fall.
The contrast is לפני כבוד ענוה, Pro 15:33, according to which the “haughtiness comes before a fall” in Pro 18:22 is expanded into the antithetic distich. שׁבר means the fracture of the limbs, destruction of the person. A Latin proverb says, “Magna cadunt, inflata crepant,
