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and omits (as also the Syr., but not the Syro-Hexap.) the last line as now superfluous; but that the maids attending to the cattle - by whom we particularly think of milkers - are especially mentioned, intentionally presents the figure of a well-ordered household, full of varied life and activity (Job 40:29).

Chap. 28


Verse 1

Pro 28:1 1 The godless flee without any one pursuing them; But the righteous are bold like a lion.
We would misinterpret the sequence of the accents if we supposed that it denoted רשׁע as obj.; it by no means takes ואין־רדף as a parenthesis. רשׁע belongs thus to נסוּ as collective sing. (cf. e.g., Isa 16:4);[1] in 1b, יבטח, as comprehensive or distributive (individualizing) singular, follows the plur. subject. One cannot, because the word is vocalized כּכפיר and not כּכּפיר, regard יבטח as an attributive clause thereto (Ewald, like Jerome, quasi leo confidens); but the article, denoting the idea of kind, does not certainly always follow כ. We say, indifferently, כּארי or כּארי, כּלּביא or כּלביא, and always כּאריה, not כּאריה. In itself, indeed, יבטח may be used absolutely: he is confident, undismayed, of the lion as well as of the leviathan, Job 40:23. But

  1. The Targum of Pro 28:1 is, in Bereschith rabba, c. 84, ערק רשּׁיעא ולא רריפין להּ; that lying before us is formed after the Peshito.