of God created He man,” Gen 9:6. The subject is to be taken from the genitive, as is marked by the accentuation, for it gives Mugrash to the וּבהוּת, as if it were the principal form, for וּבהוּה.
Verse 7
Three proverbs regarding destruction and salvation: 7 When a godless man dies, his hope cometh to nought, And the expectation of those who stand in fulness of strength is destroyed.
We have already remarked in the Introduction that אדם is a favourite word of the Chokma, and the terminological distinction of different classes and properties of men (vid., pp. 40, 42); we read, Pro 6:12, אדם בּליּעל, and here, as also Job 20:29; Job 27:13, אדם רשׁע, cf. Pro 21:29, אישׁ רשׁע, but generally only רשׁע is used. A godless man, to whom earthly possessions and pleasure and honour are the highest good, and to whom no means are too base, in order that he may appease this his threefold passion, rocks himself in unbounded and measureless hopes; but with his death, his hope, i.e., all that he hoped for, comes to nought. The lxx translate τελευτήσαντος ἀνδρὸς δικαίου οὐκ ὄλλυται ἐλπίς, which is the converse of that which is here said, 7a: the hope of the righteous expects its fulfilment beyond the grave. The lxx further translate, τὸ δὲ καύχημα (וּתהלּת) τῶν ἀσεβῶν ὄλλυται; but the distich in the Hebr. text is not an antithetic one, and whether אונים may signify the wicked (thus also the Syr., Targ., Venet., and Luther), if we regard it as a brachyology for אנשׁי אונים, or as the plur. of an adj. און, after the form טוב (Elazar b. Jacob in Kimchi), or wickedness (Zöckler, with Hitzig, “the wicked expectation”), is very questionable. Yet more improbable is Malbim's (with Rashi's) rendering of this אונים, after Gen 49:3; Psa 78:51, and the Targ. on Job 18:12, of the children of the deceased; children gignuntur ex robore virili, but are not themselves the robur virile. But while אונים is nowhere the plur. of און fo . in its ethical signification, it certainly means in Psa 78:51, as the plur. of און, manly strength, and in Isa 40:26, Isa 40:29 the fulness of strength generally, and once, in Hos 9:4, as plur. of און in its physical signification, derived from its root-meaning anhelitus (Gen 35:18, cf. Hab 3:7), deep sorrow (a heightening of the און, Deu 26:14). This latter signification has also been adopted: Jerome, expectatio solicitorum; Bertheau, “the expectation of the sorrowing;” Ewald, ”continuance of sorrow;” but the meaning of this
