Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1921

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occasion it, is like golden oranges which are handed round in silver salvers or on silver waiters. Such a word is, as adopting another figure we might say, like a well-executed picture, and the situation into which it appropriately fits is like its elegant frame. The comparison with fruit is, however, more significant; it designates the right word as a delightful gift, in a way which heightens its impression and its influences.

Verse 12

Another proverb continues the commendation of the effective word; for it represents, in emblem, the interchangeable relation of speaker and hearer:
A golden earring and an ornament of fine gold -
A wise preacher to an ear that heareth;i.e., as the former two ornaments form a beautiful ensemble, so the latter two, the wise preacher of morality and an attentive ear, form a harmonious whole: על, down upon, is explained by Deu 32:2. נזם, at Pro 11:12, standing along with באף, meant a ring for the nose; but here, as elsewhere, it means an earring (lxx, Jerome, Venet.), translated by the Syr. and Targ. by קדשׁא, because it serves as a talisman. A ring for the nose^[1] cannot also be here thought of, because this ornament is an emblem of the attentive ear: willingly accepted chastisement or instruction is an ear-ornament to him who hears (Stier). But the gift of the wise preacher, which consists in rightly dividing the word of truth, 2Ti 2:15, is as an ornament for the neck or the breast חלי (= Arab. khaly, fem. חליה = ḥilyt), of fine gold (כּתם, jewel, then particularly precious gold, from כּתם, Arab. katam, recondere).^[2]
The Venet. well: κόσμος ἀπυροχρύσου

↑ Vid., Gieger's Zeitschrift, 1872, pp. 45-48, where it is endeavoured to be shown that נזם, as an earring, is rejected from the later biblical literature, because it had become “an object used in the worship of idols,” and that the word was used only of a ring for the nose as a permissible ornament, while עגיל was used for the earring. But that does not apply to the Solomonic era; for that, in the passage under review, נזם signifies a ring for the nose, is only a supposition of Geiger's, because it accords with his construction of history.
↑ Hitzig compares Arab. kumêt; but this means bayard, as Lagarde remarks, the Greek κόμαιθος; and if by כתם gold foxes (gold money) are to be thought of, yet they have nothing whatever to do with bayards (red-brown horses); cf. Beohmer, de colorum nominibus equinorum, in his Roman. Stud. Heft 2, 1872, p. 285.

[1] Vid., Gieger's Zeitschrift, 1872, pp. 45-48, where it is endeavoured to be shown that נזם, as an earring, is rejected from the later biblical literature, because it had become “an object used in the worship of idols,” and that the word was used only of a ring for the nose as a permissible ornament, while עגיל was used for the earring. But that does not apply to the Solomonic era; for that, in the passage under review, נזם signifies a ring for the nose, is only a supposition of Geiger's, because it accords with his construction of history.

[2] Hitzig compares Arab. kumêt; but this means bayard, as Lagarde remarks, the Greek κόμαιθος; and if by כתם gold foxes (gold money) are to be thought of, yet they have nothing whatever to do with bayards (red-brown horses); cf. Beohmer, de colorum nominibus equinorum, in his Roman. Stud. Heft 2, 1872, p. 285.

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