Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1864

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

him and like him to outbreaks of anger, which does that which is not right before God, falls into ruinous complications.

Verses 26-27


A third distich follows: 26 Be not among those who strike hands, Among those who become surety for loans. 27 If thou hast nothing to pay, Why shall he take away thy bed from under thee?
To strike hands is equivalent to, to be responsible to any one for another, to stake one's goods and honour for him, Pro 6:1; Pro 11:15; Pro 17:18 - in a word, ערב, seq. acc., to pledge oneself for him (Gen 43:9), or for the loan received by him, משּׁאה, Deu 24:10 (from השּׁה, with ב, of the person and accus. of the thing: to lend something to one on interest). The proverb warns against being one of such sureties (write בּערבים with Cod. 1294, and old impressions such as the Venice, 1521), against acting as they do; for why wouldest thou come to this, that when thou cast not pay (שׁלּם, to render a full equivalent reckoning, and, generally, to pay, Pro 6:31),[1] he (the creditor) take away thy bed from under thee? - for, as Pro 20:16 says, thus improvident suretyships are wont to be punished.

Verse 28


A fourth proverb - a distich - beginning with the warning אל: 28 Remove not the perpetual landmark Which thy ancestors have set up. 28a = Pro 23:10. Regarding the inviolability of boundaries established by the law, vid., at Pro 15:25. גּבוּל עולם denotes “the boundary mark set up from ancient times, the removal of which were a double transgression, because it is rendered sacred by its antiquity” (Orelli, p. 76). נסג = סוּג signifies to remove back, Hiph. to shove back, to move away. אשׁר has the meaning of (ὅριον) ὅ, τι, quippe quod. Instead of עולם, the Mishna reads, Pea v. 6, עולים, which in the Jerusalem Gemara one Rabbi understands of those brought up out of Egypt, another of the

  1. After Ben-Asher, the pointing is אם־אין־לך; while, on the contrary, Ben-Naphtali prefers אם־אין לך; vid., my Genesis (1869), pp. 74 (under Gen 1:3) and 81. So, without any bearing on the sense, Ben-Asher points למּה with Tarcha, Ben-Naphtali with Mercha.