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impress, than this. Bertheau thinks that he has discovered in certain passages a greater art in the form; and certainly there are several sections which consist of just ten verses. But this is a mere accident; for the first Mashal ode consists of groups of 1, 2, and 10 verses, the second of 8 and 6 verses, the third of 10 and 12, the fourth of 10 and 8, the fifth of 2 and 6, etc. - each group forming a complete sense. The 10 verses are met with six times, and if Pro 4:1-9 from the Peshito, and Pro 4:20-27 from the lxx, are included, eight times, without our regarding these decades as strophes, and without our being able to draw any conclusion regarding a particular author of these decade portions. In Pro 1:20-33, Bertheau finds indeed, along with the regular structure of verses, an exact artistic formation of strophes (3 times 4 verses with an echo of 2). But he counts instead of the stichs the Masoretic verses, and these are not the true formal parts of the strophe.
We now come to the second part of the collection, whose superscription משׁלי שׁלמה can in no respect be strange to us, since the collection of proverbs here commencing, compared with Pro 1:7-9, may with special right bear the name Mishle. The 375 proverbs which are classed together in this part, chap. 10-22:16, without any comprehensive plan, but only according to their more or fewer conspicuous common characteristics (Bertheau, p. xii), consist all and every one of distichs; for each Masoretic verse falls naturally into two stichs, and nowhere (not even Pro 19:19) does such a distich proverb stand in necessary connection with one that precedes or that follows; each is in itself a small perfected and finished whole. The tristich Pro 19:7 is only an apparent exception. In reality it is a distich with the disfigured remains of a distich that has been lost. The lxx has here two distichs which are wanting in our text. The second is that which is found in our text, but only in a mutilated form: ὁ πολλὰ κακοποιῶν τελεσιουργεὶ κακίαν, [He that does much harm perfects mischief,] ὅς δέ ἐρεθίζει λόγους οὐ σωθήσεται. [And he that uses provoking words shall not escape.]
Perhaps the false rendering of מרע רבים ישׁלם־רע מרדף אמרים לא ימלט׃
The friend of every one is rewarded with evil,
He who pursues after rumours does not escape.