Verse 7
Pro 19:7 7ab. We thus first confine our attention to these two lines -
All the brethren of the poor hate him;
How much more do his friends withdraw themselves from him?
Regarding אף כּי, quanto magis, vid., at Pro 11:31; Pro 15:11; Pro 17:7. In a similar connection Pro 14:20 spake of hatred, i.e., the cooling of love, and the manifesting of this coldness. The brethren who thus show themselves here, unlike the friend who has become a brother, according to Pro 17:17, are brothers-german, including kindred by blood relation. כּל has Mercha, and is thus without the Makkeph, as at Psa 35:10 (vid., the Masora in Baer's Liber Psalmorum, 1861, p. 133). Kimchi (Michlol 205a), Norzi, and others think that cāl (with קמץ רחב) is to be read as at Isa 40:12, where כּלו is a verb. But that is incorrect. The case is the same as with את, Pro 3:12; Psa 47:5; Psa 60:2. As here ě with Mercha remains, so ǒ with Mercha in that twice occurring כּלו; that which is exceptional is this, that the accentuated כל is written thus twice, not as the usual כּל, but as כּל with the Makkeph. The ground of the exception lies, as with other peculiarities, in the special character of metrical accentuation; the Mercha represents the place of the Makkeph, and ā thus remains in the unchanged force of a Kametz-Chatuph. The plur. רחקוּ does not stamp מרעהוּ as the defectively written plur.; the suffix ēhu is always sing., and the sing. is thus, like הרע, 6b, meant collectively, or better: generally (in the sense of kind), which is the linguistic usage of these two words, 1Sa 30:26; Job 42:10. But it is worthy of notice that the Masoretic form here is not מרעהוּ, but mמרעהוּ, with Sheva. The Masora adds to it the remark לית, and accordingly the word is thus written with Sheva by Kimchi (Michlol 202a and Lex. under the word רעה), in Codd., and older editions. The Venet., translating by ἀπὸ τοῦ φίλου αὐτοῦ, has not noticed that. But how? Does the punctuation מרעהו mean that the word is here to be derived from מרע, maleficus? Thus understood, it does not harmonize with the line of thought. From this it is much more seen that the punctuation of the inflected מרע, amicus, fluctuates. This word מרע is a formation so difficult of comprehension, that one might almost, with Olshausen, §210; Böttcher, §794; and Lagarde, regard the מ as the partitive מן, like the French
