Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1356

 because גּו cannot signify vagina. Kimchi and most Jewish expositors interpret מגּוה by מגּוּף; the lxx also translates it σῶμα. To understand it according to גּו (back), of the hinder part of the body, gives no suitable sense, since the evil-doer is imagined as hit in the back, the arrow consequently passing out at the front; after the loss of his wife: - "My grief for her is the brief of him whose horse is dashed in pieces in the desert. The way is wild, and there is no help from the travellers who have hurried on before. My groaning is like the groaning of one who, mortally wounded between the shoulders, Will flee, and trails after him the lance that is fastened in him.” - Wetzst.) whereas the signification body is suitable, and is also made sufficiently certain by the cognate form גּויּה. The verb שׁלף, however, is used as in Jdg 3:22 : he who is hit drawn the arrow out, then it comes out of his body, into which it is driven deep; and the glance, i.e., the metal head of the arrow (like להב, Jdg 3:22, the point in distinction from the shaft), out of his gall (מררה = מררה, Job 16:13, so called from its bitterness, as χολή, χόλος, comp. χλόος, χλωρός, from the green-yellow colour), since, as the Syriac version freely translates, his gall-bladder is burst. Is יהלך, as a parallel word to ויּצא, to be connected with ממררתו, or with what follows? The accentuation varies. The ordinary interpunction is וברק with Dechî, ממררתו Mercha, or more correctly Mercha-Zinnorith, יהלך Rebia mugrasch (according to which, Ew., Umbr., Vaih., Welte, Hahn, Schlottm., and Olsh. divide); ממררתו is, however, also found with Athnach. Although the latter mode of accentuation is only feebly supported, we nevertheless consider it as the more correct, for עליו אמים, in the mind of the poet, can hardly have formed