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property of his restitution, i.e., property that is to be restored (Schlottm.), or the property of another (Hahn). Apart from the unsuitableness of the expression to the meaning found in it, it is contrary to the relative independence of the separate lines of the verse, which our poet almost always preserves, and is also opposed by the interposing of ולא יבלע. The explanation chosen by Schult., Oet., Umbr., Hirz., Renan, and others, after the Targ., is utterly impossible: as his possession, so his exchange (which is intended to mean: restitution, giving up); this, instead of כּחיל, must have been not merely כּחיל, but כּחילו. The designed relation of the members of the sentence is, without doubt, that כחיל תמורתו is a nearer defining of ולא יעלס, after the manner of an antecedent clause, and from which, that it may be emphatically introduced, it begins by means of Waw apod. (to which Schult. not unsuitably compares Jer 6:19; 1Ki 15:13). The following explanation is very suitable: according to the power, i.e., entire fulness of his exchange, but not in the sense of “to the full amount of its value” (Carey, as Rosenm.), connected with משׁיב, but connected with what follows: “how great soever his exchange (gain), still he does not rejoice” (Ew.). But it is not probable that חיל here signifies power = a great quantity, where property and possessions are spoken of. The most natural rendering appears to me to be this: according to the relation of the property of his exchange (תמורה from מור, Syr. directly emere, cogn. מהר, מחר, and perhaps also מכר, here of exchange, barter, or even acquisition, as Job 15:31; comp. Job 28:17, of the means of exchange), i.e., of the property exchanged, bartered, gained by barter by him, he is not to enjoy, i.e., the rejoicing which might have been expected in connection with the greatness of the wealth he has amassed, departs from him.
Jerome is not the only expositor who (as though the Hebrew tenses were subject to no rule, and might mean