he is going thither to be slaughtered; the LXX. ungrammatically destroying the attributive clause: ὥσπερ δὲ βοῦς ἐπὶ σφαγὴν ayeTai. The difficulties in Day (thus punctuated, after Kimchi, with a double Segol, and not Day, as is frequently the case) multiply, and it is not to be reconciled with the traditional text. The ox appears to require another beast as a side-piece; and accordingly the LXX., Syr., and Targ. find in Doy a dog (to which from

they also pick out, a stag), Jerome a lamb (et quasi agnus ), Rashi a venomous serpent (perhaps after exis?), Löwenstein and Malbim a rattlesnake ( win after Day); but all this is mere conjecture. Symmachus σκιρτῶν ἐπὶ δεσμῶν ἄφρων) is without support, and, like the favourite rendering of Schelling, et sicut saliens in vinculum cervus (x), is unsuitable on account of the unsemitic position of the words. The noun Day, plur. D'Day, signifies, Isa. iii. 18, an anklet as a female ornament (whence ver. 16 the denom. Day, to make a tinkling of the anklets). In itself the word only means the fetter, compes, from Day, Arab. ’akas, 'akash, contrahere, constringere (vid. Fleischer under Isa. lix. 5); and that it can also be used of any kind of means of checking free movement, the Arab. 'ikás, as the name of a cord with which the camel is made fast by the head and forefeet, shows. With this signification the interpretation is: et velut pedicâ (= Dayanı) implicatus ad castigationem stulti, he follows her as if (bound) with a fetter to the punishment of the fool, i.e. of himself (Michaelis, Fleischer, and others). Otherwise Luther, who first translated "in a fetter," but afterwards (supplying, not 2): "and as if to fetters, where one corrects fools." But the ellipsis is harsh, and the parallelism leads us to expect a living being in the place of Day. Now since, according to Gesenius, Day, fetter, can be equivalent to a fettered one neither at Isa. xvii. 5, xxi. 17, nor Prov. xxiii. 28 (according to which Day must at least have an active personal signification), we

he וְנֶאֱוִיל אֶל־מוּסַר עֶכֶס transpose the nouns of the clause and write

follows her as a fool (Psychol. p. 292) to correction (restraint) with fetters; or if is to be understood not so much physically as morally, and refers to self-destroying conduct (Ps. cvii. 7): as a madman, i.e. a criminal, to chains. The one figure denotes the fate into which he rushes, like a beast devoid of reason, as the loss of life; and the other denotes the fate to which he permits himself to be led by that woman, like a criminal by the officer, as the loss of freedom and of honour.

Ver. 23. The confusion into which the text has fallen is continued in this verse. For the figure of the deadly arrow connects itself neither with that of the ox which goes to the slaughter-house, nor with that of the madman who is put in chains: the former is not killed by being shot; and with the latter, the object is to render him harmless, not to put him to death. The LXX. therefore converts into bs, a stag, and connects the shooting with an arrow with this: ἢ ὡς ἔλαφος τοξεύματι πεπληγὼς εἰς τὸ ἡπαρ. But we need no encroachment on the text itself, only a correct placing of its members. The three thoughts, ver. 23, reach a right conclusion and issue, if with Mia (here Merchamahpach) a new departure is begun with a comparison: he follows her with eager desires, like as a bird hastens to the snare (vid. regarding, a snare, and pin, a noose, under Isa. viii. 15). What then follows is a continuation of 22a. The subject is again the youth, whose way is compared to that of an ox going to the slaughter, of a culprit in chains, and of a fool; and he knows not (non novit, as iv. 19, ix. 18, and according to the sense, non curat, iii. 6, v. 6) that it is done at the risk of his life (ip as 1 Kings ii. 23, Num. xvii. 3), that his life is the price with which this kind of love is bought (, neut., as not merely Eccles. ii. 1 and the like, but also e.g. Lev. x. 3, Esth. ix 1)—that does not concern

the arrow breaks or pierces through (עד כי or עד אשר = עַד) him till

(as Job. xvi. 13) his liver, i.e. till he receives the death-wound, from which, if not immediately, yet at length he certainly dies. Elsewhere the part of the body struck with a deadly wound is called the reins or loins (Job, etc.), or the gall-bladder (Job xx. 25); here the liver, which is called 779, Arab. kebid, perhaps as the organ in which sorrowful and painful affections make themselves felt (cf. Æschylus, Agam. 801: δῆγμα λύπης ἐφ ̓ ἧπαρ προσικveîτai), especially the latter, because the passion of sensual love, according to the idea of the ancients, reflected itself in the liver. He who is love-sick has jecur ulcerosum (Horace, Od. i. 25. 15); he is diseased in his liver (Psychol. p. 268). But the arrow is not here the arrow of love which makes love-sick, but the arrow of death, which slays him who is ensnared in sinful love. The befooled youth continues the disreputable relation into which he has entered till it terminates in adultery and in lingering disease upon his body, remorse in his soul, and dishonour to his name, speedily ending in inevitable ruin both spiritually and temporally.

Vers. 24, 25. With nay, as at v. 7, the author now brings his narrative to a close, adding the exhortation deduced from it:

The verb

24 And now, ye children, give ear unto me,
And observe the words of my mouth!
25 Let not thine heart incline to her ways,
And stray not in her paths.

(whence jēst, like jēt, iv. 15, with long ẽ from ¿) the author uses also of departure from a wicked way (iv. 15); but here, where the portraiture of a faithless wife (a niD) is presented, the word used in the law of jealousy, Num. v., for the trespass of an

תָּעָה w is interchanged withטה .is specially appropriate אשת איש

(cf. Gen. xxi. 14): wander not on her paths, which would be the consequence of straying on them. Theodotion: kai μn πλavη¤Ĥs καὶ μὴ πλανηθῇς ¿v åτρaπoîs avτĥs, with κal, as also Syr., Targ., and Jerome. The Masora reckons this verse to the 25 which have at the beginning and at the middle of each clause (vid. Baer in the Luth. Zeitschrift, 1865, p. 587); the text of Norzi has therefore correctly, which is found also in good Mss. (e.g. the Erfurt, 2 and 3).

Vers. 26, 27. The admonition, having its motive in that which goes before, is now founded on the emphatic finale:

26 For many are the slain whom she hath caused to fall,

And many are her slain.

27 A multiplicity of ways to hell is her house,
Going down to the chambers of death.

The translation "for many slain has she laid low" (Syr., Targ., Jerome, Luther) is also syntactically possible; for '? can be placed before its substantive after the manner of the demonstratives and numerals (e.g. Neh. ix. 28, cf. 7, Cant. iv. 9), and the accentuation which requires two servants (the usual two Munachs) to the Athnach appears indeed thus to construe it. It is otherwise if ' here meant magni (thus e.g. Ralbag, and recently Bertheau), and not multi; but D and Dy stand elsewhere in connection with each other in the signification many and numerous, Ps. xxxv. 18, Joel ii. 2, Mic. iv. 3. "Her slain" are those slain by her; the part. pass. is connected with the genitive of the actor, e.g. ix. 18; cf. (Arab.) katyl álmḥabbt, of one whom love kills (Fl.). With ver. 27 cf. ii. 18, ix. 18. In 27a, na is not equivalent to

; דרכי ביתה after viii. 2, also not elliptical and equivalent to בביתה

the former is unnecessary, the latter is in no case established by Ps.

xlv. 7, Ezra x. 13, nor by Deut. viii. 15, 2 Kings xxiii. 17 (see, on the other hand, Philippi's Status Constructus, pp. 87-93). Rightly Hitzig has her house forms a multiplicity of ways to hell, in so far as adultery leads by a diversity of ways to hell. Similarly the subject and the predicate vary in number, xvi. 25, Ps. cx. 3, Job xxvi. 13, Dan. ix. 23, and frequently. If one is once in her house, he may go in this or in that way, but surely his path is to destruction it consists of many steps to hell, such as lead down (777, fem. Isa. xxxvii. 34, masc. Isa. xxx. 21) to the extreme depths of death (cf. Job ix. 9, "chambers of the south" its remotest regions veiling themselves in the invisible); for 77 (Arab. khiddr) is the part of the tent or the house removed farthest back, and the most private (Fl.). These 7, cf. Sippy, ix. 18, approach to the conception of D, which is afterwards distinguished from

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.שאול

FOURTEENTH INTRODUCTORY MASHAL DISCOURSE, VIII.

A DISCOURSE OF WISDOM CONCERNING HER EXCELLENCE AND HER GIFTS.

The author has now almost exhausted the ethical material; for in this introduction to the Solomonic Book of Proverbs he works it into a memorial for youth, so that it is time to think of concluding the circle by bending back the end to the beginning. For as in the beginning, i. 20 ff., so also here in the end, he introduces Wisdom herself as speaking. There, her own testimony is delivered in contrast to the alluring voice of the deceiver; here, the daughter of Heaven in the highways inviting to come to her, is the contrast to the adulteress lurking in the streets, who is indeed not a personification, but a woman of flesh and blood, but yet at the same time as the incarnate åπárη of worldly lust. He places opposite to her Wisdom, whose person is indeed not so sensibly perceptible, but who is nevertheless as real, coming near to men in a human way, and seeking to win them by her gifts.

1 Doth not Wisdom discourse,

And Understanding cause her voice to be heard? 2 On the top of the high places in the way,

In the midst of the way, she has placed herself.

8 By the side of the gates, at the exit of the city,
At the entrance to the doors, she calleth aloud.

As points to that which is matter of fact, so 5 calls to a consideration of it (cf. xiv. 22); the question before the reader is doubly justified with reference to i. 20 ff. With an, an is interchanged, as e.g. ii. 1-6; such names of wisdom are related to

In יהוה and the like, to ,עליון אלהים its principal name almost as

describing the scene, the author, as usual, heaps up synonyms which touch one another without coming together.

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Ver. 2. By pi Hitzig understands the summit of a mountain, and therefore regards this verse as an interpolation; but the "high places" are to be understood of the high-lying parts of the city. There, on the way which leads up and down, she takes her stand. bye, old and poetic for by, signifies here "hard by, close to," properly, so that something stands forward over the edge of a thing, or, as it were, passes over its borders (Fl.). The n'a, Hitzig, as Bertheau, with LXX., Targ., Jerome, interpret prepositionally as a strengthening of '? (in the midst); but where it once, Ezek. i. 27, occurs in this sense, it is fully written. Here it is the accus. loci of the substantive; "house of the ascent" (Syr. bêth urchotho) is the place where several ways meet, the uniting point, as 7777 □ (Ezek. xxi. 26), the point of departure, exit; the former the crossway, as the latter the separating way. Thus Immanuel: the place of the frequented streets; Meîri: the place of the ramification (more correctly, the concentration) of the ways. signifies (she goes thither); it

more than (she raises herself) and means that she plants herself there.

Ver. 3. In this verse Bertheau finds, not inappropriately, the designations of place: on this side, on that side, and within the gate., at the hand, is equivalent to at the side, as Ps. cxl. 6.

, of the town, is the same as , ix. 14, of the house: at the mouth, i.e. at the entrance of the city, thus where they go out and in. There are several of these ways for leaving and entering a city, and on this account 'n si are connected: generally where one goes out and in through one of the gates (doors). i, fully represented by the French avenue, the space or way which leads to anything (Fl.). There she raises her voice, which sounds out far and wide; vid. concerning (Græc. Venet. incorrectly, after Rashi, ȧλaλáçovoı), at i. 20.