Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1946



Verse 10
All that we have hitherto read is surpassed in obscurity by this proverb, which is here connected because of the resemblance of ושכר to שכור. We translate it thus, vocalizing differently only one word: Much bringeth forth from itself all; But the reward and the hirer of the fool pass away. The lxx translates πολλὰ χειμάζεται πᾶσα σὰρξ ἀφρόνων (all the flesh of fools suffers much), συντριβήσεται γὰρ ἧ ἔκστασις αὐτῶν, which is in Hebrew: רב מחולל כל בּשׂר כסיל ישּׁבר עברתם An unfortunate attempt so to rectify the words that some meaning might be extracted from them. The first line of this translation has been adopted by the Syr. and Targ., omitting only the כל, in which the self-condemnation of this deciphering lies (for כל בשׂר means elsewhere, humanity, not the whole body of each individual); but they translate the second line as if the words were: ישׁכּר עבר יםi.e., and the drunken man sails over the sea (עברים is separated into עבר ים, as בבקרים, Amo 6:12, is to be separated into בּבּקר ים); but what does that mean? Does it mean that to a drunkard (but שׁכּור, the drunken man, and not סבא, the drunkard, is used) nothing remains but to wander over the sea? or that the drunken man lets his imagination wander away over the sea, while he neglects the obligation that lies upon him? Symmachus and Theodotion, with the Midrash (Rashi) and Saadia (Kimchi), take שׂכר in 10b = סגר (like Isa 19:10, שׂכר = embankment, cf. סכּרין, Kelim, Pro 23:5); the former translates by καὶ ὁ φράσσων ἄφρονα ἐμφράσσει τὰς ὀργὰς αὐτοῦ, the latter by καὶ φιμῶν ἄφρονα φιμοῖ χόλους, yielding to the imagination that עברים, like עברות, may be the plur. of עברה, anger. Jerome punctuates רב as, Pro 25:8, רב, and interprets, as Symmachus and Theodotion, שׂכר both times = סגר, translating: Judicium determinat causas, et qui imponit stulto silentium iras mitigat; but רב does not mean judicium, nor מחולל determinat, nor כל causas. As Gussetius, so also Ralbag (in the first of his three explanations), Meîri, Elia