Armenia in comments -- Book: Proverbs (tProv) Առակներ
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tProv 19::2 Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good - Would it not be plainer, as it is more literal, to say, "Also, to be without knowledge, is not good for the soul?" The soul was made for God; and to be without his knowledge, to be unacquainted with him, is not only not good, but the greatest evil the soul can suffer, for it involves all other evils. The Chald:ee and Syriac have: "He who knows not his own soul, it is not good to him." "Where no discretion is, there the soul is not well." - Coverdale.
And he that hasteth with his feet sinneth - And this will be the case with him who is not Divinely instructed. A child does nothing cautiously, because it is uninstructed; a savage is also rash and precipitate, till experience instructs him. A man who has not the knowledge of God is incautious, rash, headstrong, and precipitate: and hence he sinneth - he is continually missing the mark, and wounding his own soul. Proverbs 19:3
tProv 19::1 The plur. רעים, Pro 18:24, is emphatic and equivalent to רעים רבּים. The group Pro 19:1-4 closes with a proverb which contains this catchword. The first proverb of the group comes by שׂפתיו into contact with Pro 18:20, the first proverb of the preceding group.
1 Better a poor man walking in his innocence,
Than one with perverse lips, and so a fool.
The contrast, Pro 28:6, is much clearer. But to correct this proverb in conformity with that, as Hitzig does, is unwarrantable. The Syr., indeed, translates here as there; but the Chald. assimilates this translation to the Heb. text, which Theodotion, and after him the Syro-Hexapl., renders by ὑπὲρ στρεβλόχειλον ἄφρονα. But does 1a form a contrast to 1b? Fleischer remarks: "From the contrast it appears that he who is designated in 1b must be thought of as עשׁיר" [rich]; and Ewald, "Thus early the ideas of a rich man and of a fool, or a despiser of God, are connected together." Saadia understands כסיל [a fool], after Job 31:24, of one who makes riches his כּסל [confidence]. Euchel accordingly translates: the false man, although he builds himself greatly up, viz., on his riches. But כסיל designates the intellectually slothful, in whom the flesh overweighs the mind. And the representation of the rich, which, for 1b certainly arises out of 1a, does not amalgamate with כסיל htiw , but with עקּשׁ שׂפתיו. Arama is on the right track, for he translates: the rich who distorts his mouth, for he gives to the poor suppliant a rude refusal. Better Zckler: a proud man of perverse lips and haughty demeanour. If one with haughty, scornful lips is opposed to the poor, then it is manifestly one not poor who thinks to raise himself above the poor, and haughtily looks down on him. And if it is said that, in spite of this proud demeanour, he is a fool, then this presents the figure of one proud of his wealth, who, in spite of his emptiness and nequitia, imagines that he possesses a greatness of knowledge, culture, and worth corresponding to the greatness of his riches. How much better is a poor man than such an one who walketh (vid., on תּם, vol. i, p. 79) in his innocence and simplicity, with his pure mind wholly devoted to God and to that which is good! - his poverty keeps him in humility which is capable of no malicious conduct; and this pious blameless life is of more worth than the pride of wisdom of the distinguished fool. There is in contrast to עקּשׁוּת a simplicity, ἁπλότης, of high moral worth; but, on the other side, there is also a simplicity which is worthless. This is the connecting thought which introduces the next verse. Proverbs 19:2