cuUy in the tranelution of thie clause. The not that it is for his life; i.e. the infatuated Authorized Version, with which Delitzsch youth does not consider that his life is at virtmilly agrees, is obtained by transposition st_ake1 !hat he is bringing upon himself, by of the nouns, thia natural rendering of the his VICIOUS rashness, temporal and spiritual Hebrew being "as fetters to the correction ruin (eh. v. 11). of 11 fool." The sense thus obtained is Ver. 24.-The narrative ends here, and obvious: the youth follows the woman, as the author makes a practical exhortation de- a fool o:r a criminal is Jed unresisting to duced from it. Hearken unto me now there- confinement and degradation. Doubtless fore, 0 ye children. He began by ad,kessing there is some error in the text, as may be his words to one, "my son" (ver. 1); he seen by comparison of the versions. Septua- here turns to the young generally, knowing gint (with which the Syriac agrees), "As how necessary is his warning to all strong a dog to chains, or as a hart struck to in passion, weak in will, wanting in ex- the liver with an arrow;" Vulgate, "As a perience. The Septuagint has "my son," frisking lamb, and not knowing that as as in ver. 1. a fool he is being dragged to bondage." Ver. 25.-Let not thine heart decline to The commentators are much divided. her ways. The verb satah is used in eh. iv. Fleischer, "As if in fetters to the punish- 15 (where see note) of turning aside from ment of the fool," i.e. of himself; Ewald, evil; but here, as Delitzsch notes, it is "As when a steel trap (springs up) for the especially appropriate to the case of a faith- correction of a fool," i.e. when a hidden less wife whose transgTessioi:, or declension trap suddenly catches 11n incautious person from virtue, is described by this term (Numb. wandering where he has no business. The v. 12). Go not astray in her paths. The direct interpretation, that the youth follows LXX. (in most manuscripts) has only one the harlot, as fetters the proper punishment rendering for the two clauses : " Let not of fools, is unsatisfactory, because the paral- thine heart incline unto her ways." lelism leads us to expect a living being Ver. 26.-For she bath cast down many instead of "fetters." We are constrained to wounded. Delitzsch, "For many are the fall back on the Authorized Version e.s ex- slain whom she bath caused to fall." 'l'he hibiting the best mode of reconstructing a harlot marks her course with ruined souls, corrupt text. The youth, with his insensattl as a ruthless conqueror leaves a field of passion, is compared to the madman or idiot battle strewn with corpses. Yea, many strong who is taken away, unconscious of his fate, (atsum) men have been slain by her. One to a shameful deprivation of liberty. thinks of Samson and David and Solomon, Ver, 23.-Till a de.rt strike through his the victims of illicit love, and suffering for liver, This clause would be bettE? taken it. Vulgate, et forti.ssimi quique interfecti with the preceding verse, as in the Septua- sunt ab ea. But the Septuagint and many gint, or else placed ir, a parenthesis; then moderns take atsum in the sense of "nu- the following clause introduces a new com- merous," as Ps. xxxv. 18 ; l.11,zp/8µ11.-01, parison. The youth follows the harlot till "innumerable are her slain." The former his liver, th11 seat of the passions, is interpretation seems preferable, and avoids thoroughly inflamed, or till fatal conse- tautology. quences ensue. Theocr., ' Id.,' xi. 15- Ver. 27.-Xer house is the way to hell "Ex810-To11 lxo,11 lnro,c&.p81011 ell./Cor (sheol). A warning found in eh. ii. 18 and K.iirp,os EiC µeytf.ll.cu TO ol ~,ra.-, ira!• fJ•"-•µ11011. eh. v. 5. Viai inferi domus eju.,. The plural •:rr'! ill ,rcll expressed by Hitzig: "Her "Beneath his breast house forms a multiplicity of ways to hell.'' A hateful wound he bore by Cypris given, Manifold are the ways of destruction to Who in hfa liver fixed the fotal de.rt." which adultery leads; but they all look to Delitzsch would relegate tht1 hemistich to one 11wful end. Going down to the ohamben the end of the verse, making it denote the of death. Once en tangled in th~ toils of final result of mad and illicit love. The the temptress, the victim may pass through sense thus g11inerl is satisfactory, but the many stages, but he ends finally in the alteration ill quite arbitrary, and unsup- lowest dtlpth-destruction of body and soul. ported by ancient authority. As a bird Spiritual writers see here an adumbration of hasteth to the snare. This iB 11nother com- the seductions of false dootrine, and the parison (see eh. i, 17, the first proverb in fate to whioh it brings all who by it !ll'e led the book, ~nd note there), Ancl laloweth p,stray. 158 'l'HE PROVERDS, [C!I, VII, 1-27 •
HOMILETICS. Vers. 1-3.-Keeping the commandments. We are all familiar with the expression, •• keeping the commandments." But do we all fully comprehend what this involves? Let us consider some of the requisites. I. REMEMBER TRE COMMANDMENTS. "Lay up my commandments with thee." The !,aw was treasured i1:1 the ark. It is important that great principles should be so impressed upon our mmds as to perpetually haunt our memories, and recur to our vision in critical . moments. The school-task of committing the ten commandments to memory mll not be enough. The text does not refer to the Law of Moses, but to parental instruction. Great Christian principles are what we need to treasure up. Il._ LET ~?THING TAMPER WITH THE COMMANDMENTS. .. Keep my law as the apple of thme eye. We cannot bear the smallest speck of dust in the eye. The slightest wound is most painful. Let us beware of allowing the least injury to the healthy condition of the law within us. Moral scepticism is most dangerous. III. BRING THE COMMANDMENTS TO BEAB ON DAILY LIFE. "Bind them upon thy fingers." Thns they will be always before us, and brought into contact with practical affairs. It is useless to keep the Law only in the closet. It must be carried with us to the workshop, the market-place, the senate-house. How many people's re!icrion never reaches their fingers! Like men with feeble circulation, they have cold extr:mities. IV. CHERISH THE COMMA:NDMENTS AFFECTIONATELY. "Write them upon the table of thine heart." This means impressing them upon the whole being-understanding, memory, affection. The secret of feeble circulation at the extremities is defective action of the heart. If we are to obey the Law we must pray that God will "incline Qur hearts to keep" it.