The Pulpit Commentary — Proverbs — Section 26

the robbers, will not only be valuable, but dissuade youth from listening to t\Jo tempta- numerous and plentiful. tions of sinners. My son. The rcounence Ver. 14.-Cast in thy lot among UB. The of these words for the third timo in this fourth and last enticement put forward, viz. address marks tho affectionate interest, tho honourable union and frank ond open-hearted loving solicitude, in which the admonition generosity. It has distinct reference to the is addres~ed. Walk not thou. Immediate preceding verse, and shows how the prospect and entire abandonment is counselled. The of immediate wenlth is to be realized (sea warning is practically a repetition of ver. 10, Delitzsch, Wa.rdlnw). Oast in thy lot cannot and is given again in eh. iv. 14, "Enter not menn, as Mercerus, "cast in your inheritance into the path of the wicked, and go not in with us, so that we a.II may use it in common," the way of evil men." Way; ";J]'.) (derele) though S~\:. (goral)does mean "inheritance" means, figuratively, the way of living and in the sense of that which comes to any one acting (Gesenius). "Mores et oonsuetudines" by lot (Judg. i. 3) (Gesenius), since that (Bayne); cf. eh. xii. 15, "the fool's way;" would be no inducement to youth to join x.xii. 25 ; and Ps. i. I. The meaning is the robbers. Goml properly is "a little "associate not with them, have no dealings stone or pebble," Kll.'i;pos, especially such as whatever with them." Refrain thy foot from were used in casting lots, and so equivalent their path ; i.e. keep back thy foot, or make to a "lot" here-that with which the dis- not one step in compliance, resist the very tribution was made, as in Lev, xvi. S; Nch. first solicitations to evil. Compare the legal x. 34; and the custom of freebooters dividing maxim, Initiis obsta. Refrain; YlP (m'na) tbe spoil by lot is here alluded to (Holden); is from Yli.> (mana), "to keep back, restrain;' comp. Pa. u:ii. 18 in illustration of the LXX., lK1</\.avov (cf. Ps. cxix. 101, "I have practice of casting lots, " They part my refrained my feet from every evil way; " garments among them, and cast lots upon J er. xiv. 10, "Thus have they loved to my vesture." The sense is, "you shall equally wander, they have not' refrained their feet"). with the others cast lots for your share of Restraining the foot carries with it indirectly the spoil" (Zockler, Delitzsch). Lot us all the natuml inclination or propeuity of the have one purse. Purse; D'=? (his), the' heart, even of the good, towards evil (Cart- {Ja.J\.6.vnov of the LXX., the •marsupium wright). Foot 6n, regel) is, of course, of the Vulgate, is the receptacle in which used nietaphoricalij, and means less the money is placed for security. In eh. xv. 11 member of the body than the idea suggested it is used for the bag in which traders kept by it; hence the use of the singular (Gejerus, their weights, "the weights of the bag;" Delitzsch). Bayne remarks that the He- and in eh. x.riii. 31 it is translated '' cup," brews understood this passage as meaning the wine-cup. It here signifies the common "neither in public nor private life have any stock, the aggregate of the gains of the dealings with sinners." Path (:!'J'.11, nathiv) robbers 0-0ntribured to a common fund. The is a beCLten path, a pathway, a byway; booty captured by each or any is to be from the unused root :iri} (nathav), "to thrown into one common stock, to form one purse, to be divided by lot among all the tread,· trample;·" aud hence, w bile "way" members of the band. On this community may mean •the great public high-road, of goodB among robbers, compare the Hebrew "path" may stand for the bypath, •less proverb, In loculiB, m poculis, in ira. Com- frequented or public. The same distinction munity of goods among the wicked carries probably occurs in Ps. xxv. 4, '' Show me. with it community in crime, just as the thy ways, 0 Lord; and teach me thy paths." community of goods among the early Ver. 16.-For their feet run to evil, and Christiane implied community in good works make haste to shed blood. This is the first o.nd in the religious sentiments of the dissuasive urged to enforne. the warning Christian body or Church. The Rabbi against evil companionship, as showing the Salomon Isacides offers another explanatiou extremes to which entering upon the ways (which leaves the choice open to youth either of the wicked lead ultimately. At once the to share in the spoil by lot, or to live at the youth who listens will he hurried nlong expense of a 0-0mmon fund, as he may prefer): impetuously to the two c1imes of robbery "Si voles, nobiscum spolia partieris, Bi etiam and murder, which God has expressly for- magis placebit, eociali communique mareupio bidden in the eighth and aixth command- nobiscum vives°'-" If thou wilt, thou shalt ments respectively of the mowl code. Evil share with us the booty; ay, if it like thee (Y~, ra) is" wickedness," -ro Ka1<&v, generally, more, thou shalt live with us on a confederate but here more specifically highway robbery, and common purse" (see Comclius a Lapide), latrociuism (Cornelius ll. Lapide), as appears Ver. 15.-My 10n, walk not thou in the from vers. 11-13, where also murder, the way with them. The admonitory strain of laying in wait for blood, is proposed\ 'fho -;-er.10 is again resumed, and in vere. 16-19 Rabbis Salomon and Salazar· understand tl,(; tcacl,er ~tates the reasons which sh<Juld the evil to refer to tho evil or destruction OD', I, 1-33,] THE PROVERBS. 11