Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/2007

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Verse 7
Pro 29:7 7 The righteous knoweth the cause of the poor,   But the godless understandeth no knowledge. The righteous knoweth and recogniseth the righteous claims of people of low estate, i.e., what is due to them as men, and in particular cases; but the godless has no knowledge from which such recognition may go forth (cf. as to the expression, Pro 19:25). The proverb begins like Pro 12:10, which commends the just man's compassion to his cattle; this commends his sympathy with those who are often treated as cattle, and worse even than cattle. The lxx translates 7b twice: the second time reading רשׁ instead of רשׁע, it makes nonsense of it.

Verse 8
Pro 29:8 8 Men of derision set the city in an uproar,   But wise men allay anger. Isa. 28 shows what we are to understand by אנשׁי לצון: men to whom nothing is holy, and who despise all authority. The Hiphil יפיחוּ does not signify irretiunt, from פּחח (Venet. παγιδιοῦσι, after Kimchi, Aben Ezra, and others), but sufflant, from פוח (Rashi: ילהיבו): they stir up or excite the city, i.e., its inhabitants, so that they begin to burn as with flames, i.e., by the dissolution of the bonds of mutual respect and of piety, by the letting loose of passion, they disturb the peace and excite the classes of the community and individuals against each other; but the wise bring it about that the breathings of anger that has broken forth, or is in the act of breaking forth, are allayed. The anger is not that of God, as it is rendered by Jerome and Luther, and as יפיחו freely translated might mean. The Aram. err in regard to יפיחו in passages such as Pro 6:19.

Verse 9
Pro 29:9 9 If a wise man has to contend with a fool,   He the fool rageth and laugheth, and hath no rest. Among the old translators, Jerome and Luther take the “wise man” as subject even of the second line, and that in all its three members: vir sapiens si cum stulto contenderit, sive irascatur sive reideat, non inveniet requiem. Thus Schultens, C. B. Michaelis, Umbreit, Ewald, Elster, and also Fleischer: “The doubled Vav is correlative, as at Exo 21:16; Lev 5:3, and expresses the perfect sameness in respect of the effect, here of the want of effect. If the wise man, when he disputes with a fool, becomes angry, or jests, he will have no rest, i.e., he will never bring it to pass that the fool shall cease to reply; he yields