does he understand... (Job 11:8) and an adv.: how, i.e., how so little, how even not, for it is the מה of the negative question which has become in (Arab.) mâ a word of negation. The way of a man is his life's-course. This he understands in the present life only relatively, the true unravelling of it remains for the future.
Verse 25
Pro 20:25 25 It is a snare to a man to cry out hastily “holy;” And first after vows to investigate.
Two other interpretations of the first line have been proposed. The snare of a man devours, i.e., destroys the holy; but then מוקשׁ אדם must be an expression of an action, instead of an expression of an endurance, which is impossible. The same is true against the explanation: the snare of a man devours, i.e., consumes, eats up the holy, which as such is withdrawn from common use. Jerome with his devotare sanctos, and Luther with his das Heilige lestern [to calumniate the holy], give to לוּע = בּלע a meaning which loses itself in the arbitrary. Accordingly, nothing is to be done with the meaning καταπίεται (Aquila, the Venet.). But ילע will be the abbreviated fut. of לוּע (from ילוּע), or לעע (ילע), Job 6:3 = (Arab.) laghâ temere loqui (proloqui); and קדשׁ (after Hitzig: consecration, which is contrary to usage) is like κορβᾶν, Mar 7:11, the exclamation to which one suddenly gives utterance, thereby meaning that this or that among his possessions henceforth no longer belongs to him, but is consecrated to God, and thus ought to be delivered up to the temple. Such a sudden vow and halting deference to the oath that has been uttered is a snare to a man, for he comes to know that he has injured himself by the alienation of his property, which he has vowed beyond that which was due from him, or that the fulfilling of his vow is connected with difficulties, and perhaps also to others, with regard to whom its disposal was not permitted to him, is of evil consequences, or it may be he is overcome by repentance and is constrained to break his oath. The lxx hits the true meaning of the proverb with rare success: Παγὶς ἀνδρὶ ταχύ τι τῶν ἰδίων ἁγιάσαι, μετὰ δὲ τὸ εὔξασθαι μετανοεῖν γίνεται. נדרים is plur. of the category (cf. 16b Chethı̂b), and בקּר, as 2Ki 16:15, Arab. baḳr, examinare, inquirere, means to subject to investigation, viz., whether he ought to observe, and might observe, a vow such as this, or whether he
