Armenia in comments -- Book: Proverbs (tProv) Առակներ
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tProv 20:4 4 At the beginning of the harvest the sluggard plougheth not;
And so when he cometh to the reaping-time there is nothing.
Many translators (Symmachus, Jerome, Luther) and interpreters (e.g., Rashi, Zckler) explain: propter frigus; but חרף is, according to its verbal import, not a synon. of קר and צנּה, but means gathering = the time of gathering (synon. אסיף), from חרף, carpere,
(Note: Vid., Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wrterbuch, i. 426.)
as harvest, the time of the καρπίζειν, the plucking off of the fruit; but the harvest is the beginning of the old Eastern agricultural year, for in Palestine and Syria the time of ploughing and sowing with the harvest or early rains (חריף = יורה, Neh 7:24; Ezr 2:18) followed the fruit harvest from October to December. The מן is thus not that of cause but of time. Thus rendered, it may mean the beginning of an event and onwards (e.g., Sa1 30:25), as well as its termination and onwards (Lev 27:17): here of the harvest and its ingathering and onwards. In 4b, the Chethı̂b and Kerı̂ vary as at Pro 18:17. The fut. ישׁאל would denote what stands before the sluggard; the perf. שׁאלו places him in the midst of this, and besides has this in its favour, that, interpreted as perf. hypotheticum, it makes the absence of an object to שׁאל more tenable. The Chethı̂b, ושׁאל, is not to be read after Psa 109:10 : he will beg in harvest - in vain (Jerome, Luther), to which Hitzig well remarks: Why in vain? Amid the joy of harvest people dispense most liberally; and the right time for begging comes later. Hitzig conjecturally arrives at the translation:
"A pannier the sluggard provideth not;
Seeketh to borrow in harvest, and nothing cometh of it."
But leaving out of view the "pannier," the meaning "to obtain something as a loan," which שׁאל from the connection may bear, is here altogether imaginary. Let one imagine to himself an indolent owner of land, who does not trouble himself about the filling and sowing of his fields at the right time and with diligence, but leaves this to his people, who do only as much as is commanded them: such an one asks, when now the harvest-time has come, about the ingathering; but he receives the answer, that the land has lain unploughed, because he had not commanded it to be ploughed. When he asks, there is nothing, he asks in vain (ואין, as at Pro 14:6; Pro 13:4). Meri rightly explains מחרף by מתחלת זמן החרישׁה, and 4b by: "so then, when he asks at harvest time, he will find nothing;" on the other hand, the lxx and Aram. think on חרף, carpere conviciis, as also in Codd. here and there is found the meaningless מחרף. Proverbs 20:5 tProv 20:11 11 Even a child maketh himself known by his conduct,
Whether his dispostion be pure and whether it be right.
If מעלל may be here understood after the use of עולל, to play, to pass the time with anything, then גּם neht refers thereto: even by his play (Ewald). But granting that מעולל [children], synon. with נער, had occasioned the choice of the word מעלל (vid., Fleischer on Isa 3:4), yet this word never means anything else than work, an undertaking of something, and accomplishing it; wherefore Bttcher proposes מעוּליו, for מעלוּל may have meant play, in contradistinction to מעלל ot noitcni. This is possible, but conjectural. Thus gam is not taken along with b'amalalav. That the child also makes himself known by his actions, is an awkward thought; for if in anything else, in these he must show what one has to expect from him. Thus gam is after the syntactical method spoken of at Pro 17:26; Pro 19:2, to be referred to נער (also the child, even the child), although in this order it is referred to the whole clause. The verb נכר is, from its fundamental thought, to perceive, observe from an ἐναντιόσημον: to know, and to know as strange, to disown (vid., under Isa 3:9); the Hithpa. elsewhere signifies, like (Arab.) tankkar, to make oneself unknowable, but here to make oneself knowable; Symmachus, ἐπιγνωρισθήσεται, Venet. γνωσθήσεται. Or does the proverb mean: even the child dissembles in his actions (Oetinger)? Certainly not, for that would be a statement which, thus generally made, is not justified by experience. We must then interpret 11b as a direct question, though it has the form of an indirect one: he gives himself to be known, viz., whether his disposition be pure and right. That one may recognise his actions in the conduct of any one, is a platitude; also that one may recognise his conduct in these, is not much better. פּעל is therefore referred by Hitzig to God as the Creator, and he interprets it in the sense of the Arab. khulk, being created = natura. We also in this way explain יצרנוּ, Psa 103:14, as referable to God the יצר; and that poal occurs, e.g., Isa 1:31, not merely in the sense of action, but also in that of performance or structure, is favourable to this interpretation. But one would think that poal, if thus used in the sense of the nature of man, would have more frequently occurred. It everywhere else means action or work. And thus it is perhaps also here used to denote action, but regarded as habitual conduct, and according to the root-meaning, moral disposition. The N.T. word ἕργον approaches this idea in such passages as Gal 6:4. It is less probable that 11b is understood with reference to the future (Luther and others); for in that case one does not see why the poet did not make use of the more intelligible phrase אם זך וישׁר יהיה פעלו. It is like our (Germ.) proverb: Was ein Haken werden will krmmt sick bald what means to become a hook bends itself early; or: Was ein Drnchen werden will spitzt sich bei Zeiten
(Note: A similar comparison from Bereschith Rabba, vid., Duke's Rabbin. Blumenlese, p. 126.)
[what means to become a thorn sharpens itself early], and to the Aram. בוצין בוצין מקטפיה ידיע = that which will become a gourd shows itself in the bud, Berachoth 48a. Proverbs 20:12 tProv 20:20 The following group begins, for once more the aim of this older Book of Proverbs becomes prominent, with an inculcation of the fourth
(Note: i.e., The fifth according to the arrangement of the Westminster Confession.)
commandment.
20 He that curseth his father and his mother,
His light is extinguished in midnight darkness.
The divine law, Exo 21:17; Lev 20:9, condemns such an one to death. But the proverb does not mean this sentence against the criminal, which may only seldom be carried into execution, but the fearful end which, because of the righteousness of God ruling in history, terminates the life of such an unnatural son (Pro 30:17). Of the godless, it has already been said that their light is extinguished, Pro 13:9, there is suddenly an end to all that brightened, i.e., made happy and embellished their life; but he who acts wickedly (קלּל, R. קל, levem esse, synon. הקלה, Deu 27:16), even to the cursing of his father and mother, will see himself surrounded by midnight darkness (Symmachus, σκοτομήνῃ, moonless night), not: he will see himself in the greatest need, forsaken by divine protection (Fleischer), for Jansen rightly: Lux et lucerna in scripturis et vitae claritatem et posteritatem et prosperitatem significat. The apple of the eye, אישׁון, of darkness (vid., Pro 7:9), is that which forms the centre of centralization of darkness. The Syr. renders it correctly by bobtho, pupil of the eye, but the Targ. retains the אשׁוּן of the Kerı̂, and renders it in Aram. by אתוּן, which Rashi regards as an infin., Parchon as a particip. after the form ערוּך; but it may be also an infin. substantive after the form עזוּז, and is certainly nothing else than the abbreviated and vocally obscured אישׁון. For the Talm. אשׁן, to be hard, furnishes no suitable idea; and the same holds true of אשׁוּני, times, Lev 15:25 of the Jerusalem Targ.; while the same abbreviation and the same passing over of o into u represents this as the inflected אישׁון (= עת). There is also no evidence for a verb אשׁן, to be black, dark; the author of Aruch interprets אשׁונא, Bereschith Rabba, c. 33, with reference to the passage before us, of a dark bathing apartment, but only tentatively, and אישׁון is there quoted as the Targ. of צל, Gen 19:8, which the text lying before us does not ratify. Ishon means the little man (in the eye), and neither the blackness (Buxtorf and others) nor the point of strength, the central point (Levy) of the eye.
(Note: Vid., Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wrterbuch, i. 419.) Proverbs 20:21 tProv 20:21 21 An inheritance which in the beginning is obtained in haste,
Its end will not be blessed.
The partic. מבחל may, after Zac 11:8, cf. Syr. bhlaa', nauseans, mean "detested," but that affords here no sense; rather it might be interpreted after the Arab. bajila, to be avaricious, "gotten by avarice, niggardliness," with which, however, neither נחלה, inheritance, nor, since avarice is a chronic disease, בּראשׁונה agrees. On the contrary, the Kerı̂ מבהלת [hastened] perfectly agrees, both linguistically (vid., Pro 28:22; cf. Pro 13:11) and actually; for, as Hitzig remarks, the words following Pro 20:20 fully harmonize with the idea of an inheritance, into the possession of which one is put before it is rightly due to him; for a son such as that, the parents may live too long, and so he violently deprives them of the possession (cf. Pro 19:26); but on such a possession there rests no blessing. Since the Piel may mean to hasten, Est 2:9, so מבהל may mean hastened = speedy, Est 8:14, as well as made in haste. All the old interpreters adopt the Kerı̂; the Aram. render it well by מסרהבא, from מסרהב, overturned; and Luther, like Jerome, haereditas ad quam festinatur. Proverbs 20:22 tProv 20:26 26 A wise king winnoweth the godless,
And bringeth over them the wheel.
A variant to Pro 20:8, but here with the following out of the figure of the winnowing. For אופן with מזרה is, without doubt, the wheel of the threshing-cart, עגלה, Isa 28:27.; and thus with מזרה, the winnowing fork, מזרה is to be thought of; vid., a description of them along with that of the winnowing shovel, רחת, in Wetzstein's Excursus to Isa., p. 707ff. We are not to think of the punishment of the wheel, which occurs only as a terrible custom of war (e.g., Amo 1:3). It is only meant that a wise king, by sharp and vigorous procedure, separates the godless, and immediately visits them with merited punishment, as he who works with the winnowing shovel gives the chaff to the wind. Most ancient interpreters think on אופן (from אפן, vertere) in its metaphorical meaning: τρόπος (thus also Lwenstein, he deals with them according to merit), or the wheel of fortune, with reference to the constellations; thus, misfortune (Immanuel, Meri). Arama, Oetinger, and others are, however, on the right track. Proverbs 20:27