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Selected Verse: Proverbs 5:12 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Pr 5:12 |
King James |
And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
The ruined sinner vainly laments his neglect of warning and his sad fate in being brought to public disgrace. |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
More bitter than slavery, poverty, disease, will be the bitterness of self-reproach, the hopeless remorse that worketh death. |
Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
The poet now tells those whom he warns to hear how the voluptuary, looking back on his life-course, passes sentence against himself.
12 And thou sayest, "Why have I then hated correction,
And my heart despised instruction!
13 And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers,
Nor lent mine ear to my instructors?
14 I had almost fallen into every vice
In the midst of the assembly and the congregation!"
The question 12a (here more an exclamation than a question) is the combination of two: How has it become possible for me? How could it ever come to it that.... Thus also one says in Arab.: Kyf f'alat hadhâ (Fl.). The regimen of איך in 12b is becoming faint, and in 13b has disappeared. The Kal נאץ (as Pro 1:30; Pro 15:5) signifies to despise; the Piel intensively, to contemn and reject (R. נץ, pungere).
Pro 5:13
שׁמע בּ signifies to cleave to anything in hearing, as ראה ב is to do so in seeing; שׁמע ל yet more closely corresponds with the classic ἐπακούειν, obedire, e.g., Psa 81:9; שׁמע בּקול is the usual phrase for "hearken!"
Pro 5:14
כּמעט with the perf. following is equivalent to: it wanted but a little that this or that should happen, e.g., Gen 26:10. It is now for the most part thus explained: it wanted but a little, and led astray by that wicked companionship I would have been drawn away into crime, for which I would then have been subjected to open punishment (Fl.). Ewald understands רע directly of punishment in its extreme form, stoning; and Hitzig explains כל־רע by "the totality of evil," in so far as the disgraceful death of the criminal comprehends in it all other evils that are less. But בּכל־רע means, either, into every evil, misfortune, or into every wickedness; and since רע, in contradistinction to לב (Hitzig compares Eze 36:5), is a conception of a species, then the meaning is equivalent to in omni genere mali. The reference to the death-punishment of the adulteress is excluded thereby, though it cannot be denied that it might be thought of at the same time, if he who too late comes to consider his ways were distinctly designated in the preceding statements as an adulterer. But it is on the whole a question whether בכל־רע is meant of the evil which follows sin as its consequence. The usage of the language permits this, cf. Sa2 16:8; Exo 5:19; Ch1 7:23; Psa 10:6, but no less the reference to that which is morally bad, cf. Exo 32:22 (where Keil rightly compares with Jo1 5:19); and הייתי (for which in the first case one expected נפלתּי, I fell into, vid., Pro 13:17; Pro 17:20; Pro 28:14) is even more favourable to the latter reference. Also בּתוך קהל ועדה (cf. on the heaping together of synonyms under 11b), this paraphrase of the palam ac publice, with its בּתוך (cf. Psa 111:1; Ch2 20:14), looks rather to a heightening of the moral self-accusation. He found himself in all wickedness, living and moving therein in the midst of the congregation, and thereby giving offence to it, for he took part in the external worship and in the practices of the congregation, branding himself thereby as a hypocrite. That by the one name the congregation is meant in its civil aspect, and by the other in its ecclesiastical aspect, is not to be supposed: in the congregation of the people of the revealed law, the political and the religious sides are not so distinguished. It is called without distinction קהל and עדה (from יעד). Rather we would say that קהל is the whole ecclesia, and עדה the whole of its representatives; but also the great general council bears sometimes the one name (Exo 12:3, cf. 21) and sometimes the other (Deu 31:30, cf. 28) - the placing of them together serves thus only to strengthen the conception. |
30 And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.
3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:
14 Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the LORD in the midst of the congregation;
1 Praise ye the LORD. I will praise the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.
14 Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.
20 He that hath a froward heart findeth no good: and he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief.
17 A wicked messenger falleth into mischief: but a faithful ambassador is health.
19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.
6 He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.
23 And when he went in to his wife, she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house.
19 And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task.
8 The LORD hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the LORD hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.
5 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey.
10 And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us.
14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
9 There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.
13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
5 A fool despiseth his father's instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.
30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.