The poet now brings before us another figure, for he personifies Folly working in opposition to Wisdom, and gives her a feminine name, as the contrast to Wisdom required, and thereby to indicate that the seduction, as the 13th proverbial discourse (chap. 7) has shown, appears especially in the form of degraded womanhood:

13 The woman Folly [Frau Thorheit] conducts herself boisterously,

     Wantonness, and not knowing anything at all;

14 And hath seated herself at the door of her house,

     On a seat high up in the city,

15 To call to those who walk in the way,

     Who go straight on their path.

The connection of אשת כּסילוּת is genitival, and the genitive is not, as in אשׁת רע, Proverbs 6:24, specifying, but appositional, as in בת־ציון (vid., under Isaiah 1:8). הומיּה [boisterous] is pred., as Proverbs 7:11 : her object is sensual, and therefore her appearance excites passionately, overcoming the resistance of the mind by boisterousness. In 13b it is further said who and how she is. פּתיּוּת she is called as wantonness personified. This abstract פּתיּוּת, derived from פּתי, must be vocalized as אכזריּוּת; Hitzig thinks it is written with a on account of the following u sound, but this formation always ends in ijjûth, not ajjûth. But as from חזה as well חזּיון equals חזיון as חזון is formed, so from פּתה as well פּתוּת like חזוּת or פּתוּת like לזוּת, רעוּת, as פּתיוּת (instead of which פּתיּוּת is preferred) can be formed; Kimchi rightly (Michlol 181a) presents the word under the form פּעלוּת. With וּבל (Proverbs 14:7) poetic, and stronger than לאו, the designation of the subject is continued; the words וּבל־ידעה מּה (thus with Mercha and without Makkeph following, ידעה is to be written, after Codd. and old editions) have the value of an adjective: and not knowing anything at all (מה equals τὶ, as Numbers 23:3; Job 13:13, and here in the negative clause, as in prose מאוּמה), i.e., devoid of all knowledge. The Targ. translates explanatorily: not recognising טבתּא, the good; and the lxx substitutes: she knows not shame, which, according to Hitzig, supposes the word כּלמּה, approved of by him; but כלמה means always pudefactio, not pudor. To know no כלמה would be equivalent to, to let no shaming from without influence one; for shamelessness the poet would have made use of the expression ובל־ידעה בּשׁת. In וישׁבה the declaration regarding the subject beginning with הומיה is continued: Folly also has a house in which works of folly are carried one, and has set herself down by the door (לפּתח as לפי, Proverbs 8:3) of this house; she sits there על־כּסּא. Most interpreters here think on a throne (lxx ἐπὶ δίφρου, used especially of the sella curulis); and Zckler, as Umbreit, Hitzig, and others, connecting genitiv. therewith מרמי קרת, changes in 14b the scene, for he removes the "high throne of the city" from the door of the house to some place elsewhere. But the sitting is in contrast to the standing and going on the part of Wisdom on the streets preaching (Evagrius well renders: in molli ignavaque sella); and if כסא and house-door are named along with each other, the former is a seat before the latter, and the accentuation rightly separates by Mugrash כסא from מרמי קרת. "According to the accents and the meaning, מרמי קרת is the acc. loci: on the high places of the city, as Proverbs 8:2." (Fl.). They are the high points of the city, to which, as Wisdom, Proverbs 9:3, Proverbs 8:2, so also Folly, her rival (wherefore Ecclesiastes 10:6 does not appertain to this place), invites followers to herself. She sits before her door to call לעברי דרך (with Munach, as in Cod. 1294 and old editions, without the Makkeph), those who go along the way (genitive connection with the supposition of the accusative construction, transire viam, as Proverbs 2:7), to call (invite) המישּׁרים (to be pointed with מ raphatum and Gaja going before, according to Ben-Asher's rule; vid., Methegsetz. 20), those who make straight their path, i.e., who go straight on, directly before them (cf. Isaiah 57:2). The participial construction (the schemes amans Dei and amans Deum), as well as that of the verb קרא (first with the dat. and then with the accus.), interchange.

Proverbs 10:3 Parallel Commentaries

will

Job 5:20 In famine he shall redeem you from death: and in war from the power of the sword.

Psalm 10:14 You have seen it; for you behold mischief and spite, to requite it with your hand: the poor commits himself to you...

Psalm 33:19 To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.

Psalm 34:9,10 O fear the LORD, you his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him...

Psalm 37:3,19,25 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and truly you shall be fed...

Isaiah 33:16 He shall dwell on high: his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.

Matthew 6:30-33 Why, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you...

Luke 12:22-24,31 And he said to his disciples, Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat; neither for the body...

Hebrews 13:5,6 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for he has said, I will never leave you...

but

Job 20:5-8,20-22,28 That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment...

Habakkuk 2:6-8 Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say...

Zephaniah 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD's wrath...

the substance of the wicked

Proverbs 14:32 The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous has hope in his death.