Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 14:4
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The switch and the preserving, Pro 14:3, may have given occasion to the collector, amid the store of proverbs before him, now to present the agricultural figure: Without oxen the crib is empty; But rich increase is by the strength of the plough-ox. This is a commendation of the breeding of cattle, but standing here certainly not merely as useful knowledge, but as an admonition to the treatment in a careful, gentle manner, and with thankful recompense of the ox ( Pro 12:10), which God has subjected to man to help him in his labour, and more generally, in so far as one seeks to gain an object, to the considerate adoption of the right means for gaining it. אלפים (from אלף, to cling to) are the cattle giving themselves willingly to the service of men (poet. equivalent to בּקרים). שׁור (תּור, Arab. thwr), Ved. sthûras, is the Aryan-Semitic name of the plough-ox. The noun אבוּס (= אבוּס like אטוּן, אמוּן) denotes the fodder-trough, from אבס, to feed, and thus perhaps as to its root-meaning related to φάτνη (πάτνη), and may thus also designate the receptacle for grain where the corn for the provender or feeding of the cattle is preserved - מאבוּס, Jer 50:26, at least has this wider signification of the granary; but there exists no reason to depart here from the nearest signification of the word: if a husbandman is not thoughtful about the care and support of the cattle by which he is assisted in his labour, then the crib is empty - he has nothing to heap up; he needs not only fodder, but has also nothing. בּר (in pause בּר), clean (synon. נקי, cf. at Pro 11:26), corresponds with our baar \[bare\] = bloss \[nudus\]. Its derivation is obscure. The בּ, 4b, is that of the mediating cause: by the strength of the plough-ox there is a fulness of grain gathered into the barn (תּבוּאות, from בּוא, to gather in, anything gathered in). רב־ is the inverted בּר. Striking if also accidental is the frequency of the א and ב in Pro 14:4. This is continued in Pro 14:5, where the collector gives two proverbs, the first of which commences with a word beginning with א, and the second with one beginning with ב: Proverbs 14:5
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