Show Bible Commentary For A Bible Verse

Click here to show/hide instructions.

Selected Verse: Proverbs 30:24 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Pr 30:24	King James	There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

Open All | Close All Open All | Close All

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
These verses provide two classes of apt illustrations of various aspects of the moral world, which the reader is left to apply. By the first (Pro 30:25-28), diligence and providence are commended; the success of these insignificant animals being due to their instinctive sagacity and activity, rather than strength. The other class (Pro 30:30-31) provides similes for whatever is majestic or comely, uniting efficiency with gracefulness.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

These verses provide two classes of apt illustrations of various aspects of the moral world, which the reader is left to apply. By the first (Pro 30:25-28), diligence and providence are commended; the success of these insignificant animals being due to their instinctive sagacity and activity, rather than strength. The other class (Pro 30:30-31) provides similes for whatever is majestic or comely, uniting efficiency with gracefulness.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
Exceeding wise - Some prefer the reading of the Septuagint and Vulgate: "wiser than the wise." The thought, in either case, turns upon the marvels of instinct, which, in their own province, transcend the more elaborate results of human wisdom.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
Another proverb with the cipher 4, its first line terminating in ארץ: 24 Four are the little things of the earth, And yet they are quick of wit - wise: 25 The ants - a people not strong, And yet they prepare in summer their food; 26 Conies - a people not mighty, And yet set their dwelling on the rocks; 27 No king have the locusts, And yet they go forth in rank and file, all of them together; 28 The lizard thou canst catch with the hands, And yet it is in the king's palaces. By the disjunctive accent, ארבּעה, in spite of the following word toned on the beginning, retains its ultima-toning, 18a; but here, by the conjunctive accent, the tone retrogrades to the penult., which does not elsewhere occur with this word. The connection קטנּי־ארץ is not superlat. (for it is impossible that the author could reckon the שׁפנים, conies, among the smallest of beasts), but, as in the expression נכבּדּי־ארץ, the honoured of the earth, Isa 23:8. In 24b, the lxx, Syr., Jerome, and Luther see in מ the comparative: σοφώτερα τῶν σοφῶν (מחכמים), but in this connection of words it could only be partitive (wise, reckoning among the wise); the part. Pual מחכּמים (Theodotion, the Venet. σεσοφισμένα) was in use after Psa 88:6, and signified, like בּשׁל מבשּׁל, Exo 12:9, boiled well; thus חכמים מחכמים, taught wit, wise, cunning, prudent (cf. Psa 64:7, a planned plan = a cunningly wrought out plan; Isa 28:16, and Vitringa thereto: grounded = firm, grounding), Ewald, 313c. The reckoning moves in the contrasts of littleness to power, and of greatness to prudence. The unfolding of the ארבעה [four] begins with the הנּמלים [the ants] and שׁפנּים [conies], subject conceptions with apposit. joined; 26a, at least in the indetermination of the subject, cannot be a declaration. Regarding the fut. consec. as the expression, not of a causal, but of a contrasted connection, vid., Ewald, 342, 1a. The ants are called עם, and they deserve this name, for they truly form communities with well-ordered economy; but, besides, the ancients took delight in speaking of the various classes of animals as peoples and states. (Note: Vid., Walter von der Vogelweide, edited by Lachmann, p. 8f.) That which is said, 25b, as also Pro 6:8, is not to be understood of stores laid up for the winter. For the ants are torpid for the most part in winter; but certainly the summer is their time for labour, when the labourers gather together food, and feed in a truly motherly way the helpless. שׁפן, translated arbitrarily in the Venet. by ἐχῖνοι, in the lxx by χοιρογρύλλιοι, by the Syr. and Targ. here and at Ps 104 by חגס, and by Jerome by lepusculus (cf. λαγίδιον), both of which names, here to be understood after a prevailing Jewish opinion, denote the Caninichen (Note: The kaninchen as well as the klippdachs [cliff-badgers] may be meant, Lev 11:5 (Deu 14:7); neither of these belong to the bisulca, nor yet, it is true, to the ruminants, though to the ancients (as was the case also with hares) they seemed to do. The klippdach is still, in Egypt and Syria, regarded as unclean.) (Luther), Latin cuniculus (κόνικλος), is not the kaninchen [rabbit], nor the marmot, χοιρογρύλλιος (C. B. Michaelis, Ziegler, and others); this is called in Arab. yarbuw'; but שׁפן is the wabr, which in South Arab. is called thufun, or rather thafan, viz., the klippdachs (hyrax syriacus), like the marmot, which lives in societies and dwells in the clefts of the mountains, e.g., at the Kedron, the Dead Sea, and at Sinai (vid., Knobel on Lev 11:5; cf. Brehm's Thierleben, ii. p. 721ff., the Illustrirte Zeitung, 1868, Nr. 1290). The klippdachs are a weak little people, and yet with their weakness they unite the wisdom that they establish themselves among the rocks. The ants show their wisdom in the organization of labour, here in the arranging of inaccessible dwellings. Pro 30:27 Thirdly, the locusts belong to the class of the wise little folk: these have no king, but notwithstanding that, there is not wanting to them guidance; by the power and foresight of one sovereign will they march out as a body, חצץ, dividing, viz., themselves, not the booty (Schultens); thus: dividing themselves into companies, ordine dispositae, from חצץ, to divide, to fall into two (cogn. חצה, e.g., Gen 32:7) or more parts; Mhlau, p. 59-64, has thoroughly investigated this whole wide range of roots. What this חצץ denotes is described in Joe 2:7 : "Like mighty men they hunt; like men of war they climb the walls; they march forward every one on his appointed way, and change not their paths." Jerome narrates from his own observation: tanto ordine ex dispositione jubentis (lxx at this passage before us: ἀφ ̓ ἑνὸς κελεύσματος εὐτάκτως) volitant, ut instar tesserularum, quae in pavimentis artificis figuntur manu, suum locum teneant et ne puncto quidem et ut ita dicam ungue transverso declinent ad alterum. Aben Ezra and others find in חצץ the idea of gathering together in a body, and in troops, according to which also the Syr., Targ., Jerome, and Luther translate; Kimchi and Meri gloss חצץ by חותך and כורת, and understand it of the cutting off, i.e., the eating up, of plants and trees, which the Venet. renders by ἐκτέμνουσα. Pro 30:28 In this verse the expression wavers in a way that is with difficulty determinable between שׂממית and שׁממית. The Edd. of Opitz Jablonski and Van der Hooght have 'שׂם, but the most, from the Venetian 1521 to Nissel, have 'שׁם (vid., Mhlau, p. 69). The Codd. also differ as to the reading of the word; thus the Codd. Erfurt 2 and 3 have 'שׂם, but Cod. 1294 has 'שׁם. Isaak Tschelebi and Moses Algazi, in their writings regarding words with שׁ and שׂ (Constant. 1723 and 1799), prefer 'שׂם, and so also do Mordecai Nathan in his Concordance (1563-4), David de Pomis (1587), and Norzi. An important evidence is the writing סממית, Schabbath 77b, but it is as little decisive as סריון [coat of mail], used by Jer 44:4, is decisive against the older expression שׁריון. But what kind of a beast is meant here is a question. The swallow is at once to be set aside, as the Venet. translates (χελιδών) after Kimchi, who explains after Abulwald, but not without including himself, that the Heb. word for (Arab.) khuttaf (which is still the name given to the swallow from its quickness of motion), according to Haja's testimony, is much rather סנוּנית, a name for the swallow; which also the Arab. (Freytag, ii. p. 368) and the modern Syriac confirm; besides, in old Heb. it has the name of סוּס or סיס (from Arab. shash, to fly confusedly hither and thither). In like manner the ape (Aben Ezra, Meri, Immanuel) is to be set aside, for this is called קוף (Indian kapi, kap, kamp, to move inconstantly and quickly up and down), (Note: Vid., A Weber's Indische Studien, i. pp. 217, 343.) and appears here admissible only on the ground that from בידים תתפשׂ they read that the beast had a resemblance to man. There remains now only the lizard (lxx, Jerome) and the spider (Luther) to be considered. The Talmud, Schabbath 77b, reckons five instances in which fear of the weaker pursues the stronger: one of these instances is אימת סנוניתעל הנשׁר, another אימת סממית על העקרב. The swallow, thus Rashi explains, creeps under the wings of the eagle and hinders it from spreading them out in its flight; and the spider (araigne) creeps into the ear of the scorpion; or also: a bruised spider applied heals the scorpion's sting. A second time the word occurs, Sanhedrin 103b, where it is said of King Amon that he burnt the Tôra, and that over the altar came a שממית (here with ש), which Rashi explains of the spider (a spider's web). But Aruch testifies that in these two places of the Talmud the explanation is divided between ragnatelo (spider) and (Ital.) lucrta (lizard). For the latter, he refers to Lev 11:30, where לטאה (also explained by Rashi by lzard) in the Jerus. Targ. is rendered (Note: The Samaritan has, Lev 11:30, שממית for אנקה, and the Syr. translates the latter word by אמקתא, which is used in the passage before us (cf. Geiger's Urschrift, p. 68f.) for שממית; omakto (Targ. akmetha) appears there to mean, not a spider, but a lizard.) by שממיתא (the writing here also varies between שׁ and שׂ or ס). Accordingly, and after the lxx and Jerome, it may be regarded as a confirmed tradition that שממית means not the spider, for which the name עכּבישׁ is coined, but the lizard, and particularly the stellion (spotted lizard). Thus the later language used it as a word still living (plur. סממיּות, Sifre, under Deu 33:19). The Arab. also confirms this name as applicable to the lizard. (Note: Perhaps also the modern Greek, σαμιάμινθος (σαμιάμιδος, σαμιαμίδιον), which Grotius compares.) "To this day in Syria and in the Desert it is called samawiyyat, probably not from poison, but from samawah = שׁממה, the wilderness, because the beast is found only in the stony heaps of the Kharab" (Mhlau after Wetzstein). If this derivation is correct, then שׁממית is to be regarded as an original Heb. expression; but the lizard's name, samm, which, without doubt, designates the animal as poisonous (cf. סם, samam, samm, vapour, poisonous breath, poison), favours Schultens' view: שממית = (Arab.) samamyyat, afflatu interficiens, or generally venenosa. In the expression בּידים תּתפּשׂ, Schultens, Gesenius, Ewald, Hitzig, Geier, and others, understand ידים of the two fore-feet of the lizard: "the lizard feels (or: seizes) with its two hands;" but granting that ידים is used of the fifteen feet of the stellio, or of the climbing feet of any other animal (lxx καλαβώτης = ἀσκαλαβώτης), yet it is opposed by this explanation, that in line first of this fourth distich an expression regarding the smallness of the weakness of the beast is to be expected, as at 25a, 26a, and 27a. And since, besides, תפשׂ with ביד or בכף always means "to catch" or "seize" (Eze 21:16; Eze 29:7; Jer 38:23), so the sense according to that explanation is: the lizard thou canst catch with the hand, and yet it is in kings' palaces, i.e., it is a little beast, which one can grasp with his hand, and yet it knows how to gain an entrance into palaces, by which in its nimbleness and cunning this is to be thought of, that it can scale the walls even to the summit (Aristoph. Nubes 170). To read תּתּפשׂ with Mhlau, after Bttcher, recommends itself by this, that in תּהפּשׂ one misses the suff. pointing back (תּתפּשׂנּה); also why the intensive of תפשׂ is used, is not rightly comprehended. Besides, the address makes the expression more animated; cf. Isa 7:25, תבוא. In the lxx as it lies before us, the two explanations spoken of are mingled together: καὶ καλαβώτης (= ἀσκαλαβώτης) χερσὶν ἐπειδόμενος καὶ εὐάλωτος ὢν... This εὐάλωτος ὢν (Symmachus, χερσὶν ἐλλαμβανόμενος) hits the sense of 28a. In היכלי מלך, מלך is not the genit. of possession, as at Psa 45:9, but of description (Hitzig), as at Amo 7:13.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

Another proverb with the cipher 4, its first line terminating in ארץ:

24 Four are the little things of the earth,

And yet they are quick of wit - wise:

25 The ants - a people not strong,

And yet they prepare in summer their food;

26 Conies - a people not mighty,

And yet set their dwelling on the rocks;

27 No king have the locusts,

And yet they go forth in rank and file, all of them together;

28 The lizard thou canst catch with the hands,

And yet it is in the king's palaces.

By the disjunctive accent, ארבּעה, in spite of the following word toned on the beginning, retains its ultima-toning, 18a; but here, by the conjunctive accent, the tone retrogrades to the penult., which does not elsewhere occur with this word. The connection קטנּי־ארץ is not superlat. (for it is impossible that the author could reckon the שׁפנים, conies, among the smallest of beasts), but, as in the expression נכבּדּי־ארץ, the honoured of the earth, Isa 23:8. In 24b, the lxx, Syr., Jerome, and Luther see in מ the comparative: σοφώτερα τῶν σοφῶν (מחכמים), but in this connection of words it could only be partitive (wise, reckoning among the wise); the part. Pual מחכּמים (Theodotion, the Venet. σεσοφισμένα) was in use after Psa 88:6, and signified, like בּשׁל מבשּׁל, Exo 12:9, boiled well; thus חכמים מחכמים, taught wit, wise, cunning, prudent (cf. Psa 64:7, a planned plan = a cunningly wrought out plan; Isa 28:16, and Vitringa thereto: grounded = firm, grounding), Ewald, 313c. The reckoning moves in the contrasts of littleness to power, and of greatness to prudence. The unfolding of the ארבעה [four] begins with the הנּמלים [the ants] and שׁפנּים [conies], subject conceptions with apposit. joined; 26a, at least in the indetermination of the subject, cannot be a declaration. Regarding the fut. consec. as the expression, not of a causal, but of a contrasted connection, vid., Ewald, 342, 1a. The ants are called עם, and they deserve this name, for they truly form communities with well-ordered economy; but, besides, the ancients took delight in speaking of the various classes of animals as peoples and states.

(Note: Vid., Walter von der Vogelweide, edited by Lachmann, p. 8f.)

That which is said, 25b, as also Pro 6:8, is not to be understood of stores laid up for the winter. For the ants are torpid for the most part in winter; but certainly the summer is their time for labour, when the labourers gather together food, and feed in a truly motherly way the helpless. שׁפן, translated arbitrarily in the Venet. by ἐχῖνοι, in the lxx by χοιρογρύλλιοι, by the Syr. and Targ. here and at Ps 104 by חגס, and by Jerome by lepusculus (cf. λαγίδιον), both of which names, here to be understood after a prevailing Jewish opinion, denote the Caninichen

(Note: The kaninchen as well as the klippdachs [cliff-badgers] may be meant, Lev 11:5 (Deu 14:7); neither of these belong to the bisulca, nor yet, it is true, to the ruminants, though to the ancients (as was the case also with hares) they seemed to do. The klippdach is still, in Egypt and Syria, regarded as unclean.)

(Luther), Latin cuniculus (κόνικλος), is not the kaninchen [rabbit], nor the marmot, χοιρογρύλλιος (C. B. Michaelis, Ziegler, and others); this is called in Arab. yarbuw'; but שׁפן is the wabr, which in South Arab. is called thufun, or rather thafan, viz., the klippdachs (hyrax syriacus), like the marmot, which lives in societies and dwells in the clefts of the mountains, e.g., at the Kedron, the Dead Sea, and at Sinai (vid., Knobel on Lev 11:5; cf. Brehm's Thierleben, ii. p. 721ff., the Illustrirte Zeitung, 1868, Nr. 1290). The klippdachs are a weak little people, and yet with their weakness they unite the wisdom that they establish themselves among the rocks. The ants show their wisdom in the organization of labour, here in the arranging of inaccessible dwellings.

Pro 30:27

Thirdly, the locusts belong to the class of the wise little folk: these have no king, but notwithstanding that, there is not wanting to them guidance; by the power and foresight of one sovereign will they march out as a body, חצץ, dividing, viz., themselves, not the booty (Schultens); thus: dividing themselves into companies, ordine dispositae, from חצץ, to divide, to fall into two (cogn. חצה, e.g., Gen 32:7) or more parts; Mhlau, p. 59-64, has thoroughly investigated this whole wide range of roots. What this חצץ denotes is described in Joe 2:7 : "Like mighty men they hunt; like men of war they climb the walls; they march forward every one on his appointed way, and change not their paths." Jerome narrates from his own observation: tanto ordine ex dispositione jubentis (lxx at this passage before us: ἀφ ̓ ἑνὸς κελεύσματος εὐτάκτως) volitant, ut instar tesserularum, quae in pavimentis artificis figuntur manu, suum locum teneant et ne puncto quidem et ut ita dicam ungue transverso declinent ad alterum. Aben Ezra and others find in חצץ the idea of gathering together in a body, and in troops, according to which also the Syr., Targ., Jerome, and Luther translate; Kimchi and Meri gloss חצץ by חותך and כורת, and understand it of the cutting off, i.e., the eating up, of plants and trees, which the Venet. renders by ἐκτέμνουσα.

Pro 30:28

In this verse the expression wavers in a way that is with difficulty determinable between שׂממית and שׁממית. The Edd. of Opitz Jablonski and Van der Hooght have 'שׂם, but the most, from the Venetian 1521 to Nissel, have 'שׁם (vid., Mhlau, p. 69). The Codd. also differ as to the reading of the word; thus the Codd. Erfurt 2 and 3 have 'שׂם, but Cod. 1294 has 'שׁם. Isaak Tschelebi and Moses Algazi, in their writings regarding words with שׁ and שׂ (Constant. 1723 and 1799), prefer 'שׂם, and so also do Mordecai Nathan in his Concordance (1563-4), David de Pomis (1587), and Norzi. An important evidence is the writing סממית, Schabbath 77b, but it is as little decisive as סריון [coat of mail], used by Jer 44:4, is decisive against the older expression שׁריון. But what kind of a beast is meant here is a question. The swallow is at once to be set aside, as the Venet. translates (χελιδών) after Kimchi, who explains after Abulwald, but not without including himself, that the Heb. word for (Arab.) khuttaf (which is still the name given to the swallow from its quickness of motion), according to Haja's testimony, is much rather סנוּנית, a name for the swallow; which also the Arab. (Freytag, ii. p. 368) and the modern Syriac confirm; besides, in old Heb. it has the name of סוּס or סיס (from Arab. shash, to fly confusedly hither and thither). In like manner the ape (Aben Ezra, Meri, Immanuel) is to be set aside, for this is called קוף (Indian kapi, kap, kamp, to move inconstantly and quickly up and down),

(Note: Vid., A Weber's Indische Studien, i. pp. 217, 343.)

and appears here admissible only on the ground that from בידים תתפשׂ they read that the beast had a resemblance to man. There remains now only the lizard (lxx, Jerome) and the spider (Luther) to be considered. The Talmud, Schabbath 77b, reckons five instances in which fear of the weaker pursues the stronger: one of these instances is אימת סנוניתעל הנשׁר, another אימת סממית על העקרב. The swallow, thus Rashi explains, creeps under the wings of the eagle and hinders it from spreading them out in its flight; and the spider (araigne) creeps into the ear of the scorpion; or also: a bruised spider applied heals the scorpion's sting. A second time the word occurs, Sanhedrin 103b, where it is said of King Amon that he burnt the Tôra, and that over the altar came a שממית (here with ש), which Rashi explains of the spider (a spider's web). But Aruch testifies that in these two places of the Talmud the explanation is divided between ragnatelo (spider) and (Ital.) lucrta (lizard). For the latter, he refers to Lev 11:30, where לטאה (also explained by Rashi by lzard) in the Jerus. Targ. is rendered

(Note: The Samaritan has, Lev 11:30, שממית for אנקה, and the Syr. translates the latter word by אמקתא, which is used in the passage before us (cf. Geiger's Urschrift, p. 68f.) for שממית; omakto (Targ. akmetha) appears there to mean, not a spider, but a lizard.)

by שממיתא (the writing here also varies between שׁ and שׂ or ס). Accordingly, and after the lxx and Jerome, it may be regarded as a confirmed tradition that שממית means not the spider, for which the name עכּבישׁ is coined, but the lizard, and particularly the stellion (spotted lizard). Thus the later language used it as a word still living (plur. סממיּות, Sifre, under Deu 33:19). The Arab. also confirms this name as applicable to the lizard.

(Note: Perhaps also the modern Greek, σαμιάμινθος (σαμιάμιδος, σαμιαμίδιον), which Grotius compares.)

"To this day in Syria and in the Desert it is called samawiyyat, probably not from poison, but from samawah = שׁממה, the wilderness, because the beast is found only in the stony heaps of the Kharab" (Mhlau after Wetzstein). If this derivation is correct, then שׁממית is to be regarded as an original Heb. expression; but the lizard's name, samm, which, without doubt, designates the animal as poisonous (cf. סם, samam, samm, vapour, poisonous breath, poison), favours Schultens' view: שממית = (Arab.) samamyyat, afflatu interficiens, or generally venenosa. In the expression בּידים תּתפּשׂ, Schultens, Gesenius, Ewald, Hitzig, Geier, and others, understand ידים of the two fore-feet of the lizard: "the lizard feels (or: seizes) with its two hands;" but granting that ידים is used of the fifteen feet of the stellio, or of the climbing feet of any other animal (lxx καλαβώτης = ἀσκαλαβώτης), yet it is opposed by this explanation, that in line first of this fourth distich an expression regarding the smallness of the weakness of the beast is to be expected, as at 25a, 26a, and 27a. And since, besides, תפשׂ with ביד or בכף always means "to catch" or "seize" (Eze 21:16; Eze 29:7; Jer 38:23), so the sense according to that explanation is: the lizard thou canst catch with the hand, and yet it is in kings' palaces, i.e., it is a little beast, which one can grasp with his hand, and yet it knows how to gain an entrance into palaces, by which in its nimbleness and cunning this is to be thought of, that it can scale the walls even to the summit (Aristoph. Nubes 170). To read תּתּפשׂ with Mhlau, after Bttcher, recommends itself by this, that in תּהפּשׂ one misses the suff. pointing back (תּתפּשׂנּה); also why the intensive of תפשׂ is used, is not rightly comprehended. Besides, the address makes the expression more animated; cf. Isa 7:25, תבוא. In the lxx as it lies before us, the two explanations spoken of are mingled together: καὶ καλαβώτης (= ἀσκαλαβώτης) χερσὶν ἐπειδόμενος καὶ εὐάλωτος ὢν... This εὐάλωτος ὢν (Symmachus, χερσὶν ἐλλαμβανόμενος) hits the sense of 28a. In היכלי מלך, מלך is not the genit. of possession, as at Psa 45:9, but of description (Hitzig), as at Amo 7:13.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
There be four things - Of which it is said, they are very little but very wise. 1. The ants. 2. The rabbits. 3. The locusts. 4. The spider. 1. The ants show their wisdom by preparing their meat in the summer, seeking for it and storing it when it may be had; not for winter consumption, for they sleep all that time; but for autumn and spring. See the note on Pro 6:6 (note). The ants are a people; they have their houses, towns, cities, public roads, etc. I have seen several of these, both of the brown and large black ant. 2. The rabbits act curiously enough in the construction of their burrows; but the word שפן shaphan probably does not here mean the animal we call coney or rabbit. It is most likely that this is what Dr. Shaw calls the Daman - Israel; a creature very like a rabbit, but never burrowing in the ground, but dwelling in clefts and holes of rocks. 3. The locusts. These surprising animals we have already met with and described. Though they have no leader, yet they go forth by troops, some miles in circumference, when they take wing. 4. The spider. This is a singularly curious animal, both in the manner of constructing her house, her nets, and taking her prey. But the habits, etc., of these and such like must be sought in works on natural history.

Top

³⁰ A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any;
³¹ A greyhound; an he goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up.

²⁵ The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;
²⁶ The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;
²⁷ The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;
²⁸ The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.

¹³ But prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court.

⁹ Kings' daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.

²⁵ And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

²³ So they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire.

⁷ When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.

¹⁶ Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set.

¹⁹ They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.

³⁰ And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.

⁴ Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.

²⁸ The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.

⁷ They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks:

⁷ Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands;

²⁷ The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;

⁵ And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

⁷ Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you.

⁵ And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

⁸ Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

¹⁶ Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

⁷ But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.

⁹ Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.

⁶ Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

⁸ Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth?

⁶ Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: