The following group begins, for once more the aim of this older Book of Proverbs becomes prominent, with an inculcation of the fourth

(Note: i.e., The fifth according to the arrangement of the Westminster Confession.)

commandment.

20 He that curseth his father and his mother,

     His light is extinguished in midnight darkness.

The divine law, Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20:9, condemns such an one to death. But the proverb does not mean this sentence against the criminal, which may only seldom be carried into execution, but the fearful end which, because of the righteousness of God ruling in history, terminates the life of such an unnatural son (Proverbs 30:17). Of the godless, it has already been said that their light is extinguished, Proverbs 13:9, there is suddenly an end to all that brightened, i.e., made happy and embellished their life; but he who acts wickedly (קלּל, R. קל, levem esse, synon. הקלה, Deuteronomy 27:16), even to the cursing of his father and mother, will see himself surrounded by midnight darkness (Symmachus, σκοτομήνῃ, moonless night), not: he will see himself in the greatest need, forsaken by divine protection (Fleischer), for Jansen rightly: Lux et lucerna in scripturis et vitae claritatem et posteritatem et prosperitatem significat. The apple of the eye, אישׁון, of darkness (vid., Proverbs 7:9), is that which forms the centre of centralization of darkness. The Syr. renders it correctly by bobtho, pupil of the eye, but the Targ. retains the אשׁוּן of the Kerı̂, and renders it in Aram. by אתוּן, which Rashi regards as an infin., Parchon as a particip. after the form ערוּך; but it may be also an infin. substantive after the form עזוּז, and is certainly nothing else than the abbreviated and vocally obscured אישׁון. For the Talm. אשׁן, to be hard, furnishes no suitable idea; and the same holds true of אשׁוּני, times, Leviticus 15:25 of the Jerusalem Targ.; while the same abbreviation and the same passing over of o into u represents this as the inflected אישׁון ( equals עת). There is also no evidence for a verb אשׁן, to be black, dark; the author of Aruch interprets אשׁונא, Bereschith Rabba, c. 33, with reference to the passage before us, of a dark bathing apartment, but only tentatively, and אישׁון is there quoted as the Targ. of צל, Genesis 19:8, which the text lying before us does not ratify. Ishon means the little man (in the eye), and neither the blackness (Buxtorf and others) nor the point of strength, the central point (Levy) of the eye.

(Note: Vid., Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wrterbuch, i. 419.)

Proverbs 20:26 Parallel Commentaries

wise

Proverbs 20:8 A king that sits in the throne of judgment scatters away all evil with his eyes.

2 Samuel 4:9-12 And David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, As the LORD lives...

Psalm 101:5-8 Whoever privately slanders his neighbor, him will I cut off: him that has an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer...

bringeth

2 Samuel 12:31 And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron...

Isaiah 28:27,28 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about on the cummin...