According to this, Luther translates: like a ghost (a monster of lovelessness) is he inwardly; for, as it appears in שׂער, the goat-like spectre שׂעיר hovered before him. Schultens better, because more in conformity with the text: quemadmodum suam ipsius animam abhorret (i.e., as he does nothing to the benefit of his own appetite) sic ille (erga alios multo magis). The thought is appropriate, but forced. Hitzig for once here follows Ewald; he does not, however, translate: “like as if his soul were divided, so is it;” but: “as one who is divided in his soul, so is he;” but the verb שׁער, to divide, is inferred from שׁער, gate = division, and is as foreign to the extra-bibl. usus loq. as it is to the bibl. The verb שׁער signifies to weigh or consider, to value, to estimate. These meanings Hitzig unites together: in similitudinem arioli et conjectoris aestimat quod ignorat, perhaps meaning thereby that he conjecturally supposes that as it is with him, so it is with others: he dissembles, and thinks that others dissemble also. Thus also Jansen explains. The thought is far-fetched, and does not cover itself by the text. The translation of the Venet. also: ὡς γὰρ ἐμέτρησεν ἐν ψυχῇ οἱ οὕτως ἐστίν (perhaps: he measures to others as penuriously as to himself), does not elucidate the text, but obscures it. Most moderns (Bertheau, Zöckler, Dächsel, etc.): as he reckons in his soul, so is he (not as he seeks to appear for a moment before thee). Thus also Fleischer: quemadmodum reputat apud se, ita est (sc. non ut loquitur), with the remark that שׁער (whence שׁער, measure, market value, Arab. si'r), to measure, to tax to as to determine the price, to reckon; and then like חשׁב, in general, to think, and thus also Meîri with the neut. rendering of ita est. But why this circumlocution in the expression? The poet ought in that case just to have written כי לא למו דבּר בשׂפתיו כן הוא, for he is not as he speaks with his mouth. If one read שׁער (Symmachus, εἰκάζων), then we have the thought adapted to the portrait that is drawn; for like one calculating by himself, so is he, i.e., he is like one who estimates with himself the value of an object; for which we use the expression: he reckons the value of every piece in thy mouth. However, with this understanding the punctuation also of שׁער as finite may be retained and explained after Isa 26:18 : for as if he reckoned in his soul, so is he; but in this the perf. is
