before all we are led to think of פתה [to open], Pro 20:19; Ps. 73:36. But we stumble at the interrog. ה, which nowhere else appears connected with ו. Ewald therefore purposes to read והפתּית [and will open wide] (lxx μηδὲ πλατύνου): “that thou usest treachery with thy lips;” but from הפתה, to make wide open, Gen 9:27, “to use treachery” is, only for the flight of imagination, not too wide a distance. On וה, et num, one need not stumble; והלוא, 2Sa 15:35, shows that the connection of a question by means of ו is not inadmissible; Ewald himself takes notice that in the Arab. the connection of the interrogatives 'a and hal with w and f is quite common;[1] and thus he reaches the explanation: wilt thou befool then by thy lips, i.e., pollute by deceit, by inconsiderate, wanton testimony against others? This is the right explanation, which Ewald hesitates about only from the fact that the interrog. ה comes in between the ו consec. and its perf., a thing which is elsewhere unheard of. But this difficulty is removed by the syntactic observation, that the perf. after interrogatives has often the modal colouring of a conj. or optative, e.g., after the interrog. pronoun, Gen 21:7, quis dixerit, and after the interrogative particle, as here and at 2Ki 20:9, iveritne, where it is to be supplied (vid., at Isa 38:8). Thus: et num persuaseris (deceperis) labiis tuis, and shouldest thou practise slander with thy lips, for thou bringest thy neighbour, without need, by thy uncalled for rashness, into disrepute? “It is a question, âl'nakar (cf. Pro 23:5), for which 'a (not hal), in the usual Arab. interrogative: how, thou wouldest? one then permits the inquirer to draw the negative answer: “No, I will not do it” (Fleischer).
Verse 29
The following proverb is connected as to its subject with the foregoing: one ought not to do evil to his neighbour without necessity; even evil which has been done to one must not be requited with evil:
Say not, “As he hath done to me, so I do to him:
I requite the man according to his conduct.”
- ↑ We use the forms âwa, âba, âthûmm, for we suppose the interrogative to the copula; we also say fahad, vid., Mufaṣsal, p. 941.
