Job 26:8). The giving is compared to the binding, the stones to the honour, and the sling to the fool: the fool is related to the honour which one confers on him, as the stone to the sling in which one lays it - the giving of honour is a slinging of honour. Otherwise (after Kimchi) the Venet. ὡς συνδεσμὸς λίθου ἐν λιθάδι, i.e., as Fleischer translates: ut qui crumenam gemmarum plenam in acervum lapidum conjicit. Thus also Ralbag, Ahron b. Josef, and others, and lastly Zöckler. The figure is in the form of an address, and מרגּמה (from רגם, accumulare, congerere, vid., under Psa 67:1-7 :28) might certainly mean the heaping of stones. But אבן is not used in the sense of אבן יקרה (precious stone); also one does not see why one precious stone is not enough as the figure of honour, and a whole heap is named; but in the third place, כּן נותן requires for כצרור a verbal signification. Therefore Jerome translates: sicut qui mittit lapidem in acervum Mercurii; in this the echo of his Jewish teacher, for the Midrash thus explains literally: every one who gives honour to a fool is like one who throws a stone on a heap of stones consecrated to Mercury. Around the Hermes (ἑρμαὶ), i.e., pillars with the head of Mercury (statuae mercuriales or viales), were heaps of stones (ἕρμακες), to which the passer-by was wont to throw a stone; it was a mark of honour, and served at the same time to improve the way, whose patron was Mercurious (מרקולים). It is self-evident that this Graeco-Roman custom to which the Talm. makes frequent reference, cannot be supposed to have existed in the times of Solomon. Luther translates independently, and apparently rendering into German that in acervum Mercurii: that is as if one threw a precious stone on the “Rabenstein,” i.e., the heap of stones raised at the foot of the gallows. This heap of stones is more natural and suitable to the times of Solomon than the heap of stones dedicated to Mercury, if, like Gussetius, one understands מרגמה of a heap of stones, supra corpus lapidatum. But against this and similar interpretations it is enough to remark that כצרור cannot signify sicut qui mittit. Had such a meaning been intended, the word would have been כּהשׁליך or כּמשׁליך. Still different is the rendering of Joseph Kimchi, Aben Ezra, and finally Löwenstein: as when one wraps up a stone in a piece of purple stuff. But ארגּמן, purple, has nothing to do with the verb רגם;
