The Pulpit Commentary — Proverbs — Section 138

enough to deny the accuracy of Solomon's gat" (Michaelis, 'Notm Uberiorea'). Muf• etatement" (' Nat. Hist. of the Bible,' p. fet, in loc., keeping to the figure, however, 320). The Miehne., eection 'Zeraim,' also explaine differently, "Poverty shall over- containe a curious piece of legielation which take thee, as a swift traveller does one who bee.I's testiwony to the storing properties of walks slowly." The Authorized Version, the ant. "as one that travelleth," correctly repre- Ver. 9.-Vers. 9-11 contain a call to the sents the original kim'hii/lek. There is no sluggard to rouse himself from his lethargy, gronnd whatever, from the use of the verb, and the warning of the evil consequences for rendering the pie! participle m'hiillek if he remains heedless of the reproof. How as "a robber." The verb haliik invariably long wilt thou sleep, 0 sluggard l It is the means "to go, or walk," and the pie! or ea.me as if it were said, " Whe.t infatuation intensive form of the verb means "to walk is this which makee you lie and sleep as if vigorously, or quickly." The participle you haµ nothing else to do?" The double can only mean this in the two other pas- question etigmatizes the sluggard's utter sages where it occura-Ps. civ. 3 a.n<l Eccles. indolence, and suggests the picture of his iv. H. The substantive helik in 2 Sam. prolonging his stay in bed long after every xii. 4 also signifi~a "a traveller." So the one else is abroad and abont his business. Vulga.te here, quasi t-iator. The other view, How long (Hebrew, iid-mathii; Vulge.te, it is stated, is required by the parallel usquequo); literally, till when? When; expression in the second hemistich, '' as an Hebrew, mathii; Vulgate, quando. The armed man," and receives some support ea.me words are used in the same order in from the LXX. reading, t:unr,p KaKb< 060,- introducing a question in Neh. ii. 6, "For 1r&po<, "aa an evil traveller,'' which may how long will the journey be? and when mean either II traveller bringing evil news, wilt thou return?" Wilt thou . . . sleep. or one who wanders about with an evil The Hebrew tish'kti.r is literally "wilt thou intention and purpose, in the sense of the lie,'' but the verb easily passes to the Latin grassator, "a highwayman." In this secondary meaning of "to sleep." The castl the meaning would be that poverty delineation of the eluggnrd is again drawn shall come upon the alnggard as he is in- in eh. xxiv. 30-34 in almost identical lan- dulging in his sloth, and leave him destitute guage, but with some additions. as if stripped by a robber. But the destitu- Ver. 10.-Yet II little sleep, etc. Is this tion of the sluggard will not only be certain the answer of· the sluggard which the and swift, it will be also irresistible. His teacher takes up and repeats ironically, and want shall come upon him as an armed man in a tone of contempt? oris it the teacher's (k'ish ma.gen); literally, ae a man of a shield; own language describing how the sluggard Vulgate, quasi vir armatus; i.e. like one fully· elides on insensibly to ruin? The Vulgate equipped,and who attacks his foe with aucb. fovoure the latter view, "Thou shalt sleep onset and force that against him resistance a little, thou ahalt slumber a little, thou is useless. As the unarmed, unprepared she.It fold thy hands to sleep, and t!ien,'' etc. man succumbs to such an opponent, so shall Habits, as Al'istotle in his 'Ethios' has the sluggard fall before want. The expres- shown, are the resultant of repeated a.ots, sions," thy poverty" and "thy wnnt,'' repre• and habits entail consequences. So here sent the destitution of the sluggard as the inspired teacher would have it learnt, flowing directly from his own habit of self- from the example of the sluggard, that the indulgence. It is his in a apecinl manner, self-indulgence which he craves leads on to and he, not others, is alone responsible for o. confirmed indolence, which in the end it. Compare, beside the parallel passage leaves him powerless. "Yet a little" is eh. xxiv. 33, the similar teaching in eh. x. the phrase ou the lips of every one who 4; xiii. 4; xx. 4. The Vulgate, LXX., makes but a feeble resistance, and yicldl:I and Arabic Versions at the close of this supinely to his darling vice. verse add, "But if thou art diligent, the Ver. 11.-So shall thy poverty come as harvest shall come as a fountain, ,wd w,mt one that travelleth, and thy want as an shall flee far from thee;" the LXX. mak- armed man. The inevitable consequences ing a further addition, "as a bad runner of sloth-poverty and want, two terms con- (lfur1r,p KaKb< 5poµ.,v,)." It is observable, in veying the idea of utter destitution-are comparing this section with the preceding, described under a twofold aepect: firot, as that the teacher pursues the subject of the certain; second, as irresistible. Poverty sluggard to its close, while he leaves the end will advance upon the sluggard with the of the surety undetermined. 'rhe exple.na.- unerring precision and swiftness with whioh tion may be in the difference in character a traveller tends towards the end of his of the two. The surety may escape the journey, or, as Michaelis puts it, "quasi consequences of his act, but there is no such vintor qui impigre pergit ao proprius venit relief for the elugge.rd. His slothfulness doneo propoaitum itineris soopum contin• beoome~ ll habit, whioh increases the more 128 THE PROVERBS. [CH, VI, 1-35,