Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 27:3
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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 second pair of proverbs designates two kinds of violent passion as unbearable: 3 The heaviness of a stone, the weight of sand - A fool's wrath is heavier than both. We do not translate: Gravis est petra et onerosa arena, so that the substantives stand for strengthening the idea, instead of the corresponding adjective (Fleischer, as the lxx, Jerome, Syr., Targum); the two pairs of words stand, as 4a, in genit. relation (cf. on the contrary, Pro 31:30), and it is as if the poet said: represent to thyself the heaviness of a stone and the weight of sand, and thou shalt find that the wrath of a fool compared thereto is still heavier, viz., for him who has to bear it; thus heavier, not for the fool himself (Hitzig, Zckler, Dchsel), but for others against whom his anger goes forth. A Jewish proverb (vid., Tendlau, No. 901) says, that one knows a man by his wine-glass (כוס), his purse (כיס), and his anger (כעס), viz., how he deports himself in the tumult; and another says that one reads what is in a man ביום כעסו, when he is in an ill-humour. Thus also כעס is to be here understood: the fool in a state of angry, wrathful excitement is so far not master of himself that the worst is to be feared; he sulks and shows hatred, and rages without being appeased; no one can calculate what he may attempt, his behaviour is unendurable. Sand, חול, (Note: Sand is called by the name חוּל (חיל), to change, whirl, particularly to form sand-wreaths, whence (Arab.) al-Habil, the region of moving sand; vid., Wetzstein's Nord-arabien, p. 56.) as it appears, as to the number of its grains innumerable, so as to its mass (in weight) immeasurable, Job 6:3; Sir. 22:13. נטל the Venet. translates, with strict regard to the etymology, by ἅρμα. Proverbs 27:4
How to use this source
This excerpt is attributed to its named commentary. It is included as a historical study resource and should be evaluated in light of Scripture and other relevant evidence.
