unconditionally to one or to a few. The proverb, it must be acknowledge, refers not to counsellors such as in Isa 3:3, but as in Isa 1:26.
Verse 15
There follow now two proverbs regarding kindness which brings injury and which brings honour:
It fares ill, nothing but ill, with one who is surety for another;
But he who hateth suretyship remaineth in quietness.
More closely to the original: It goes ill with him; for the proverb is composed as if the writer had before his eyes a definite person, whom one assails when he for whom he became security has not kept within the limits of the performance that was due. Regarding ערב with the accus. of the person: to represent one as a surety for him, and זר as denoting the other (the stranger), vid., at Pro 6:1. The meaning of רע ירוע is seen from Pro 20:16. ירוע is, like Pro 13:20, the fut. Niph. of רעע, or of רוּע = רעע, after the forms ימּול, יעור (Olsh. §265e). The added רעע has, like עריה, Hab 3:9, the same function as the inf. absol. (intensivus); but as the infin. form רע could only be inf. constru. after the form שׁך, Jer 5:26, the infinitive absol. must be רוע: Thus רע is an accus., or what is the same, an adverbial adj.: he is badly treated (maltreated) in a bad way, for one holds him to his words and, when he cannot or will not accomplish that which is due in the room of him for whom he is bail, arrests him. He, on the contrary, who hates תוקעים has good rest. The persons of such as become surety by striking the hands cannot be meant, but perhaps people thus becoming surety by a hand-stroke - such sureties, and thus such suretyship, he cannot suffer; תוקעים approaches an abstract “striking hands,” instead of “those who strike hands” in connection with this שׂנא, expressing only a strong impossibility, as חבלים, Zec 2:7, 14, means uniting together in the sense of combination.
Verse 16
Pro 11:16 16 A gracious woman retaineth honour, And strong men retain riches.
The lxx had אשׁת חן (not אשׁת חיל ton( א) in view: γυνὴ εὐχάριστος ἐγείρει ἀνδρὶ δόξαν, - this ἀνδρί is an interpolation inserted for the sake of the added line, θρόνος δὲ ἀτιμίας γυνὴ μισοῦσα δίκαια. The proverb thus expanded is on both sides true: an amiable woman (gratiosa) brings honour to her husband, gives him relief, while one who hates the right (that which is good, gentle) is a disgraceful vessel (opp. כּסּא כּבוד, Isa 22:23), which disfigures the
