Another proverb with the cipher 4, its first line terminating in ארץ:

24 Four are the little things of the earth,

     And yet they are quick of wit - wise:

25 The ants - a people not strong,

     And yet they prepare in summer their food;

26 Conies - a people not mighty,

     And yet set their dwelling on the rocks;

27 No king have the locusts,

     And yet they go forth in rank and file, all of them together;

28 The lizard thou canst catch with the hands,

     And yet it is in the king's palaces.

By the disjunctive accent, ארבּעה, in spite of the following word toned on the beginning, retains its ultima-toning, 18a; but here, by the conjunctive accent, the tone retrogrades to the penult., which does not elsewhere occur with this word. The connection קטנּי־ארץ is not superlat. (for it is impossible that the author could reckon the שׁפנים, conies, among the smallest of beasts), but, as in the expression נכבּדּי־ארץ, the honoured of the earth, Isaiah 23:8. In 24b, the lxx, Syr., Jerome, and Luther see in מ the comparative: σοφώτερα τῶν σοφῶν (מחכמים), but in this connection of words it could only be partitive (wise, reckoning among the wise); the part. Pual מחכּמים (Theodotion, the Venet. σεσοφισμένα) was in use after Psalm 88:6, and signified, like בּשׁל מבשּׁל, Exodus 12:9, boiled well; thus חכמים מחכמים, taught wit, wise, cunning, prudent (cf. Psalm 64:7, a planned plan equals a cunningly wrought out plan; Isaiah 28:16, and Vitringa thereto: grounded equals firm, grounding), Ewald, 313c. The reckoning moves in the contrasts of littleness to power, and of greatness to prudence. The unfolding of the ארבעה [four] begins with the הנּמלים [the ants] and שׁפנּים [conies], subject conceptions with apposit. joined; 26a, at least in the indetermination of the subject, cannot be a declaration. Regarding the fut. consec. as the expression, not of a causal, but of a contrasted connection, vid., Ewald, 342, 1a. The ants are called עם, and they deserve this name, for they truly form communities with well-ordered economy; but, besides, the ancients took delight in speaking of the various classes of animals as peoples and states.

(Note: Vid., Walter von der Vogelweide, edited by Lachmann, p. 8f.)

That which is said, 25b, as also Proverbs 6:8, is not to be understood of stores laid up for the winter. For the ants are torpid for the most part in winter; but certainly the summer is their time for labour, when the labourers gather together food, and feed in a truly motherly way the helpless. שׁפן, translated arbitrarily in the Venet. by ἐχῖνοι, in the lxx by χοιρογρύλλιοι, by the Syr. and Targ. here and at Psalm 104 by חגס, and by Jerome by lepusculus (cf. λαγίδιον), both of which names, here to be understood after a prevailing Jewish opinion, denote the Caninichen

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Proverbs 30:31 Parallel Commentaries

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