as little make use of an intelligent proverb, or moral maxim (dictum sententiosum), as a lame man can of his feet; the word, which in itself is full of thought, and excellent, becomes halting, lame, and loose in his mouth (Schultens: deformiter claudicat); it has, as spoken and applied by him, neither hand nor foot. Strangely, yet without missing the point, Jerome: quomodo pulcras frustra habet claudus tibias, sic indecens est in ore stultorum parabola. The lame man possibly has limbs that appear sound; but when he seeks to walk, they fail to do him service - so a bon-mot comes forth awkwardly when the fool seeks to make use of it. Hitzig's conjecture: as leaping of the legs on the part of a lame man..., Böttcher has already shown sufficient reasons for rejecting; leaping on the part of any one, for the leaping of any one, were a court style familiar to no poet.
Verse 8
This proverb presents to us a new difficulty.
As one binds a stone in a sling,
So is he who giveth honour to a fool.
This translation is warranted by tradition, and is in accordance with the actual facts. A sling is elsewhere called קלע; but that מרגּמה also in the passage before us signifies a sling (from רגם, to throw with stones = to stone or to throw stones = to sling, cf. Targ. Est 5:14 רגּם, of David's slinging stones against Goliath), is supported by the lxx, Syr., and Targ. on the one side, and the Jewish Glossists on the other (Rashi: fronde, Ital. frombola). Rightly the lxx renders כּצרור as a verb: ὡς ἀποδεσμεύει; on the contrary, the Syr. and Targ. regard it as a substantive: as a piece of stone; but צרור as a substantive does not mean a piece, as one would put into a sling to use as a weapon, but a grain, and thus a little piece, 2Sa 17:13; cf. Amo 9:9. Erroneously Ewald: “if one binds to the sling the stone which he yet seeks to throw, then all this throwing and aiming are in vain; so it is in vain to give to a fool honour which does not reach him.” If one seeks to sling a stone, he must lay the lapis missilis so in the sling that it remains firm there, and goes forth only by the strong force of the slinging; this fitting in (of the stone), so that it does not of itself fall out, is expressed by צרר בּ (cf. Pro 30:4;
