men meet one who shows himself to them (to this or that man) as אישׁ חסד, a man well-affectioned and benevolent; but it is rare to find one who in his affection and its fruits proves himself to be true, and actually performs that which was hoped for from him. Luther translates, with the Syr. and Targ. after Jerome: Viel Menschen werden From gerhümbt [many men are reputed pious]; but if יקרא were equivalent to יקּרא, then אישׁ חסד ought to have been used instead of אישׁ חסדו. The lxx read רב אדם יקר אישׁ חסד, man is something great, and a compassionate man is something precious; but it costs trouble to find out a true man. The fundamental thought remains almost the same in all these interpretations and readings: love is plentiful; fidelity, rare; therefore חסד, of the right kind, after the image of God, is joined to אמת.
Verse 7
Pro 20:7 7 He who in his innocence walketh as one upright, Blessed are his children after him!
We may not take the first line as a separate clause with צדּיק, as subject (Van Dyk, Elster) or predicate (Targ.); for, thus rendered, it does not appropriately fall in as parallel to the second line, because containing nothing of promise, and the second line would then strike in at least not so unconnectedly (cf. on the contrary, Pro 10:9; Pro 14:25). We have before us a substantival clause, of which the first line is the complex subject. But Jerome, the Venet., and Luther erroneously: the just man walking in his innocence; this placing first of the adj. is in opposition to the Hebr. syntax. We must, if the whole is to be interpreted as nom., regard צדיק as permutative: one walking in his innocence, a righteous one. But, without doubt, tsedek is the accus. of the manner; in the manner of one righteous, or in apposition: as one righteous; cf. Job 31:26 with Mic 2:7. Thus Hitzig rightly also refers to these two passages, and Ewald also refers to Pro 22:11; Pro 24:15. To walk in his innocence as a righteous man, is equivalent to always to do that which is right, without laying claim to any distinction or making any boast on that account; for thereby one only follows the impulse and the direction of his heart, which shows itself and can show itself not otherwise than in unreserved devotion to God and to that which is good. The children after him are not the children after his death (Gen 24:67); but, according to Deu 4:40,
