Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 9:13
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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 poet now brings before us another figure, for he personifies Folly working in opposition to Wisdom, and gives her a feminine name, as the contrast to Wisdom required, and thereby to indicate that the seduction, as the 13th proverbial discourse (chap. 7) has shown, appears especially in the form of degraded womanhood: 13 The woman Folly \[Frau Thorheit\] conducts herself boisterously, Wantonness, and not knowing anything at all; 14 And hath seated herself at the door of her house, On a seat high up in the city, 15 To call to those who walk in the way, Who go straight on their path. The connection of אשת כּסילוּת is genitival, and the genitive is not, as in אשׁת רע, Pro 6:24, specifying, but appositional, as in בת־ציון (vid., under Isa 1:8). הומיּה \[boisterous\] is pred., as Pro 7:11 : her object is sensual, and therefore her appearance excites passionately, overcoming the resistance of the mind by boisterousness. In 13b it is further said who and how she is. פּתיּוּת she is called as wantonness personified. This abstract פּתיּוּת, derived from פּתי, must be vocalized as אכזריּוּת; Hitzig thinks it is written with a on account of the following u sound, but this formation always ends in ijjûth, not ajjûth. But as from חזה as well חזּיון = חזיון as חזון is formed, so from פּתה as well פּתוּת like חזוּת or פּתוּת like לזוּת, רעוּת, as פּתיוּת (instead of which פּתיּוּת is preferred) can be formed; Kimchi rightly (Michlol 181a) presents the word under the form פּעלוּת. With וּבל ( Pro 14:7) poetic, and stronger than לאו, the designation of the subject is continued; the words וּבל־ידעה מּה (thus with Mercha and without Makkeph following, ידעה is to be written, after Codd. and old editions) have the value of an adjective: and not knowing anything at all (מה = τὶ, as Num 23:3; Job 13:13, and here in the negative clause, as in prose מאוּמה), i.e., devoid of all knowledge. The Targ. translates explanatorily: not recognising טבתּא, the good; and the lxx substitutes: she knows not shame, which, according to Hitzig, supposes the word כּלמּה, approved of by him; but כלמה means always pudefactio, not pudor. To know no כלמה would be equivalent to, to let no shaming from without influence one; for shamelessness the poet would have made use of the expression ובל־ידעה בּשׁת. In וישׁבה the declaration regarding the subject beginning with הומיה is continued: Folly also has a house in which works of folly are carried one, and has set herself down by the door (לפּתח as לפי, Pro 8:3) of this house; she sits there על־כּסּא. Most interpreters here think on a throne (lxx ἐπὶ δίφρου, used especially of the sella curulis); and Zckler, as Umbreit, Hitzig, and others, connecting genitiv. therewith מרמי קרת, changes in 14b the scene, for he removes the "high throne of the city" from the door of the house to some place elsewhere. But the sitting is in contrast to the standing and going on the part of Wisdom on the streets preaching (Evagrius well renders: in molli ignavaque sella); and if כסא and house-door are named along with each other, the former is a seat before the latter, and the accentuation rightly separates by Mugrash כסא from מרמי קרת. "According to the accents and the meaning, מרמי קרת is the acc. loci: on the high places of the city, as Pro 8:2." (Fl.). They are the high points of the city, to which, as Wisdom, Pro 9:3, Pro 8:2, so also Folly, her rival (wherefore Ecc 10:6 does not appertain to this place), invites followers to herself. She si…
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