Verse 19
Pro 18:19 19 A brother toward whom it has been acted perfidiously resists more than a strong tower; And contentions are like the bar of a palace.
Luther rightly regarded the word נושׁע, according to which the lxx, Vulg., and Syr. translated frater qui adjuvatur a fratre, as an incorrect reading; one would rather expect אח מושׁיע, “a brother who stands by,” as Luther earlier translated; and besides, נושׁע does not properly mean adjuvari, but salvari. His translation -Ein verletzt Bruder helt herter denn eine feste Stad,Und Zanck helt herter, denn rigel am Palast [a brother wounded resisteth more than a strong city, and strife resisteth more than bolts in the palace], is one of his most happy renderings. מקּרית־עז in itself only means ὑπὲρ πόλιν ὀχυράν (Venet.); the noun-adjective (cf. Isa 10:10) to be supplied is to be understood to עז: עז הוּא or קשׁה הוא (Kimchi). The Niph. נפשׁע occurs only here. If one reads נפשׁע, then it means one who is treated falsely = נפשׁע בּו, like the frequently occurring קמי, my rising up ones = קמים עלי, those that rise up against me; but Codd. (Also Baer's Cod. jaman.) and old editions have נפשׁע, which, as we have above translated, gives an impersonal attributive clause; the former: frater perfidiose tractatus (Fl.: mala fide offensus); the latter: perfide actum est, scil. בּו in eum = in quem perfide actum. אח is, after Pro 17:17, a friend in the highest sense of the word; פשׁע means to break off, to break free, with ב or על of him on whom the action terminates. That the פּשׁע is to be thought of as אח of the אח נפשׁע is obvious; the translation, “brothers who break with one another” (Gesen.), is incorrect: אח is not collective, and still less is נפשׁע a reciprocum. The relation of אח is the same as that of אלּוּף, Pro 16:28. The Targum (improving the Peshito) translates אחא דמת עוי מן אחוי, which does not mean: a brother who renounces (Hitzig), but who is treated wickedly on the part of, his brother. That is correct; on the contrary, Ewald's “a brother resists more than...” proceeds from a meaning of פשׁע which it has not; and Bertheau gives, with Schultens, an untenable[1] reflexive meaning to the
- ↑ Among the whole Heb. synon. for sinning, there exists no reflexive Niph.; and also the Arab. fsḳ has no ethical signification. נסכּל only, in the sense of fool, is found.
