3b would mediate the transition to Pro 31:4; and that the mother refers to the immorality, the unseemliness, and the dangers of a large harem, only in one brief word (3a), cannot seem strange, much rather it may be regarded as a sign of delicacy. But so much the more badly does וּדרכיך accord with למחות. Certainly one goes to a banquet, for one finds leisure for it; but of one who himself is a king, it is not said that he should not direct his ways to a king's dainties. But if למחות refers to the whole conduct of the king, the warning is, that he should not regulate his conduct in dependence on the love and the government of women. But whoever will place himself amid the revelry of lust, is wont to intoxicate himself with ardent spirits; and he who is thus intoxicated, is in danger of giving reins to the beast within him.
Verses 4-5
Hence there now follows a warning against drunkenness, not unmediated by the reading למחות: 4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, Not for kings to drink wine, Not for rulers to ask for intoxicating drink; 5 Lest he drink, and forget what is prescribed, And pervert the right of all the children of want.
The usual translation of 4a is: non decet reges... (as e.g., also Mühlau); but in this אל is not rightly rendered, which indeed is at times only an οὐ, spoken with close interest, but yet first of all, especially in such paraenetic connection as here, it is a dissuasive μή. But now לא למלכים שׁתות or לא למלכים לשׁתּות, after 2Ch 26:18; Mic 3:1, signifies: it is not the part of kings, it does not become them to drink, which may also be turned into a dissuasive form: let it not be the part of kings to drink, let them not have any business therewith, as if it belonged to their calling; according to which Fleischer renders: Absit a regibus, Lemuel, absit a regibus potare vinum. The clearer expression למואל, instead of למוּאל, is, after Böttcher, occasioned by this, that the name is here in the vocative; perhaps rather by this, that the meaning of the name: consecrated to God, belonging to God, must be placed in contrast to the descending to low, sensual lust. Both times we write אל לּמלכים with the orthophonic Dagesh[1] in the ל following ל, and without
- ↑ Vid., Luth. Zeitschrift, 1863, p. 413. It is the rule, according to which, with Ben-Asher, it is to be written בּן־נּוּן.
