Proverbs 1:11

If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Without cause.—To be taken with “lurk.” Though he has done us no harm.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:10-19 Wicked people are zealous in seducing others into the paths of the destroyer: sinners love company in sin. But they have so much the more to answer for. How cautious young people should be! Consent thou not. Do not say as they say, nor do as they do, or would have thee to do; have no fellowship with them. Who could think that it should be a pleasure to one man to destroy another! See their idea of worldly wealth; but it is neither substance, nor precious. It is the ruinous mistake of thousands, that they overvalue the wealth of this world. Men promise themselves in vain that sin will turn to their advantage. The way of sin is down-hill; men cannot stop themselves. Would young people shun temporal and eternal ruin, let them refuse to take one step in these destructive paths. Men's greediness of gain hurries them upon practices which will not suffer them or others to live out half their days. What is a man profited, though he gain the world, if he lose his life? much less if he lose his soul?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The temptation against which the teacher seeks to guard his disciple is that of joining a band of highway robbers. The "vain men" who gathered around Jephthah Judges 11:3, the lawless or discontented who came to David in Adullam 1 Samuel 22:2, the bands of robbers who infested every part of the country in the period of the New Testament, and against whom every Roman governor had to wage incessant war, show how deeply rooted the evil was in Palestine. Compare the Psalm 10:7, note; Psalm 10:10 note.

Without cause - Better, in vain; most modern commentators join the words with "innocent," and interpret them after Job 1:9. The evil-doers deride their victims as being righteous "in vain." They get nothing by it. It does them no good.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11-14. Murder and robbery are given as specific illustrations.

lay wait … lurk privily—express an effort and hope for successful concealment.

swallow … grave—utterly destroy the victim and traces of the crime (Nu 16:33; Ps 55:15). Abundant rewards of villainy are promised as the fruits of this easy and safe course.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Come with us; we are numerous, and strong, and sociable.

Let us lay wait for blood; to shed blood. He expresseth not their words, which would rather affright than inveigle a young novice; but the true nature and consequence of the action, and what lies at the bottom of their specious pretences.

Lurk privily; so we shall neither be prevented before, nor discovered and punished afterward.

The innocent; harmless travellers, who are more careless and secure, and unprovided for opposition, than such villains as themselves.

Without cause; though they have not provoked us, nor deserved this usage from us. This Solomon adds to discover their malignity and baseness, and so deter the young man from association with them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

If they say, come with us,.... Leave your father's house, and the business of life in which you are; make one of us, and become a member of our society, and go along with us upon the highway;

let us lay wait for blood; lie in ambush under some hedge or another, waiting till a rich traveller comes up and passes that way, and then rise and shed his blood in order to get his money; and the same word signifies both "blood" and "money", and wait is laid for one for the sake of the other;

let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause; or "let us hide" (q), the Vulgate Latin version adds "snares"; so Vatablus and others, as the fowler does for birds; or "let us hide ourselves" (r); in some private place, waiting "for the innocent", the harmless traveller, who has done no injury to any man's person or property; thinks himself safe, and is not aware of any design upon him; going about his lawful business, and having done nothing to provoke such miscreants to attempt his life or take away his property: and which they do "without cause" as to him; "freely" (s) as to themselves; and "with impunity" (t), as they promise themselves and one another; all which senses the word used will bear.

(q) "abscondamus", Michaelis. (r) "Abscondamus nos", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "abscondamus nosmetipsos", Baynus. (s) "gratis", Pagninus, Montanus, Michaelis, Schultens. (t) "Impune", Junius & Tremellius, Amama.

Geneva Study Bible

If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for {k} blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

(k) He speaks not only of the shedding of blood with hand, but of all crafty practises which tend to the detriment of our neighbour.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. for blood] The shameless form of the proposal shows at once the insecurity and the low moral tone of society. The language is too strong and vivid to admit of a figurative interpretation: Let us rob them violently of their bread which is their life. Compare

“The bread of the needy is the life of the poor:

He that depriveth him thereof is a man of blood.”

Sir 34:21.

without cause] So A.V. and R.V., i.e. though (the reflection being that of the author, not of the speaker) he has done them no harm, given them no cause to injure him. So LXX. ἀδίκως. Others, less probably, take the adverb with the word “innocent”: for them who are innocent in vain (who serve God for nought, Job 1:9, where the Heb. word is the same as here), because, as we will soon shew, his innocency will profit him nothing. “Contra insontem frustra,” Vulg. “Pio nullum pietatis præmium habituro,” Maur.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood. The teacher here puts into the mouth of the sinners, for the sake of vivid representation, the first inducement with which they seek to allure youth from the paths of rectitude, viz. privacy and concealment (Cartwright, Wardlaw). Both the verbs אָרַב (arav) and צָפַן, (tzaphan) mean "to lay in wait" (Zockler). The radical meaning of arav, from which נֶאֶרְבָה (neer'vah), "let us lay in wait" (Authorized Version) is taken, is "to knot, to weave, to intertwine." Verbs of this class are often applied to snares and craftiness (cf. the Greek δόλον ὑδαίνειν, and the Latin insidias nectere, "to weave plots, or lay snares"). Generally, arav is equivalent to "to watch in ambush" (Gesenius); cf. the Vulgate, insidiemur sanguini; i.e. "let us lay wait for blood." The LXX. paraphrases the expression, κοινώνησον αἵματος, i.e. "let us share in blood." On the other hand, צָפַן (tzaphan), from which נִצְפְנָה (nitz'p'nah), translated in the Authorized Version, "let us lurk privily," is "to hide or conceal," and intrans. "to hide one's self," or ellipt., "to hide nets, snares" (Gesenius, Holden). This sense agrees with the Vulgate abscondamus tendiculas; i.e. "let us conceal snares." Delitzsch, however, holds that no word is to be understood with this verb, and traces the radical meaning to that of restraining one's self, watching, lurking. in the sense of speculari, "to watch for," insidiari, "to lay wait for." The two verbs combine what may be termed the apparatus, the arrangement of the plot and their lurking in ambush, by which they will await their victims. For blood (לְדָם, l'dam). The context (see vers. 12 and 16), bearing as it does upon bloodshed accompanying robbery, requires that the Hebrew לְדָם (l'dam) should be understood here, as Fleischer remarks, either elliptically, for "the blood of men," as the Jewish interpreters explain, or synedochically, for the person, with especial reference to his blood being shed, as in Psalm 94:21. Vatablus, Cornelius a Lapide. and Gesenius support the latter view (cf. Micah 7:2, "They all lie in wait for blood," i.e. for bloodshed, or murder. דָם (dam) may be also taken for life in the sense that "the blood is the life" (Deuteronomy 12:23). Let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause. The relation of the phrase. "without cause" (חִנָּם, khinnam), in this sentence is a matter of lnueh dispute. It may be taken either with

(1) the verb (as in the Authorized Version, Wordsworth, Luther, Van Ess, Noyes, Zockler, Delitzsch, Hatzig, LXX., Syriac, Rashi, Ralbac), and then "lurk privily without cause" is equivalent to

(a) without having any reason for revenge and enmity (Zockler), i.e. though they have not provoked us, nor done us any injury, yet let us hurt them, in the sense of absque causa (Munsterus, Paganini Version, Piscatoris Version, Mercerus), ἀδικῶς (LXX.), inique (Arabic);

(b) with impunity, since none will avenge them in the sense of Job 9:12 (this is the view of Lowestein, but it is rejected by Delitzsch); or

(2) it may be taken with the adjective "innocent," in which case it means him that is innocent in vain; i.e. the man whose innocence will in vain protect (Zockler, Holden), who gets nothing by it (Plumptre), or, innocent in vain, since God does not vindicate hint (Cornelius a Lapide). On the analogy of 1 Samuel 19:5; 1 Samuel 25:31; Psalm 35:19; Psalm 69:4; Lamentations 3:52, it seems preferable to adopt the first connection, and to take the adverb with the verb. In the whole of the passage there is an evident allusion to an evil prevalent in the age of Solomon, viz. the presence of bands of robbers, or banditti, who disturbed the security and internal peace of the country. In the New Testament the same state of things continued, and is alluded to by our Lord in the parable of the man who fell among thieves. Proverbs 1:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Of the number of wicked men who gain associates to their palliation and strengthening, they are adduced as an example whom covetousness leads to murder.

11 If they say, "Go with us, we will lurk for blood,

     Lie in wait for the innocent without cause;

12 Like the pit we will swallow them alive

     And in perfect soundness like them that go down to the grave.

13 We find all manner of precious treasure,

     Fill our houses with spoil.

14 Thou shalt cast thy lot amongst us,

     We all have only one purse."

Proverbs 1:11

The verb ארב signifies nectere, to bind fast (from רב, close, compact), (see under Isaiah 25:11), and particularly (but so that it bears in itself its object without ellipse) insidias nectere equals insidiari. Regarding לדם Fleischer remarks: "Either elliptically for לשׁפּך־דּם (Jewish interp.), or, as the parallelism and the usage of the language of this book rather recommend, per synecd. for: for a man, with particular reference to his blood to be poured out (cf. our saying 'ein junges Blut,' a young blood equals a youth, with the underlying conception of the blood giving colour to the body as shining through it, or giving to it life and strength), as Psalm 94:21." As in post-biblical Heb. בּשׂר ודם (or inverted, αἱμα καὶ σάρξ, Hebrews 2:14), used of men as such, is not so used in the O.T., yet דּם, like נפשׁ, is sometimes used synecdochically for the person, but never with reference to the blood as an essentially constituent part of corporealness, but always with reference to violent putting to death, which separates the blood from the body (cf. my System der bibl. Psychologie, p. 242). Here לדם is explained by לדמים, with which it is interchanged, Micah 7:2 : let us lurk for blood (to be poured out). The verb צפן is never, like טמן (to conceal), connected with חבלים, מוקשׁים ,ח, פּח, רשׁת - thus none of these words is here to be supplied; the idea of gaining over one expressed in the organic root צף (whence צפּה, diducendo obducere) has passed over into that of restraining oneself, watching, lurking, hence צפן (cog. Aram. כּמן) in the sense of speculari, insidiari, interchanges with צפה (to spy), (cf. Psalm 10:8; Psalm 56:7 with Psalm 37:32). The adv. חנּם (an old accus. from חן) properly means in a gracious manner, as a free gift (δωρεάν, gratis equals gratiis), and accordingly, without reward, also without cause, which frequently equals without guilt; but it never signifies sine effectu qui noceat, i.e., with impunity (Lwenst.). We have thus either to connect together נקי חנּם "innocent in vain" (as איבי חנּם, my enemies without a cause, Lamentations 3:52): his innocence helps him nothing whom God protects not against us notwithstanding his innocence (Schultens, Bertheau, Elster, and others); or connect חנם with the verb (lie in wait for), for which Hitzig, after the lxx, Syr., Rashi,

(Note: Rashi, i.e., Rabbi Salomo Isaaki, of Troyes, died a.d. 1105. Ralbag, i.e., Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, usually referred to by Christian writers as Master Leo de Bannolis, or Gersonides, a native of Banolas near Gerona, died about 1342.)

Ralbag, Immanuel, rightly decides in view of 1 Samuel 19:5; 1 Samuel 25:31; cf. also Job 9:17, where the succession of the accents is the same (Tarcha transmuted from Mugrash). Frequently there are combined together in his חנם (cf. Isaiah 28:14.), that which the author thinks, and that which those whom he introduces as speaking think.