son of Jakeh, of (the country of) Massa,' reading either mimmassā (or, as Delitzsch proposes, mimmēshā) or hammassā'ī[1]); and in the other, 'The words of Lemuel the king of Massa.' Mühlau in his monograph on 'Agur' and 'Lemuel' thinks that both the contents and the language of the sayings of Agur 'almost necessarily point to a region bordering on the Syro-Arabian wastes, but his theory of an Israelitish colony in a certain Massa in the Hauran (comp. 1 Chr. v. 10), like a somewhat similar theory of Hitzig's (he places 'Massa' in N. Arabia, comparing 1 Chr. iv. 42, 43, where the Simeonites are said to have settled in Mount Seir, and Isa. xxi. 11, 12[2]), is too conjectural to be readily accepted. There is however much force in a part of the arguments of Mühlau, especially in his first and second (referring to xxxi. 1), 'The word melek in apposition to Lemuel cannot go without the article,'[3] and 'Massā "utterance" is never used elsewhere except of (prophetic) oracles.' If any one therefore likes to adopt the above renderings, taking Massa as the name of a country (comp. Gen. xxv. 14, 1 Chr. i. 30), I have no strong objection. Ziegler's view cited by Mühlau,[4] that Lemuel was an Emeer of an Arabian tribe in the east of Jordan, and that an Israelitish wise man translated the Emeer's sayings into Hebrew, is perhaps not as untenable as Mühlau thinks, provided that 'translation' be taken to include recasting in accordance with the spirit of the Old Testament religion. For my own part, however, I prefer the(Jakeh the Massaite). Delitzsch's view, given above, is taken from his art. on 'Proverbs' in Herzog-Plitt's Encyclopædia; he refers to Friedrich Delitzsch's Paradies, p. 303; comp. 243.]
- ↑ In the version known as the Græcus Venetus (14th or 15th cent.) xxx. 1a runs thus, [Greek: Logoi agourou hyieôs iakeôs tou masaou
- ↑ On Isa. xxi. 11, 12, see The Prophecies of Isaiah, i. 129, ii. 152. Hitzig's theory, originally stated in Zeller's Theol. Jahrbücher, 1844, pp. 269-305, will be found in the well-known short commentary (Kurzgefasstes exeg. Handbuch, 1847) by Bertheau, who substantially accepts it.
- ↑ This is a little too strong. We should certainly have expected melek Lemuel (or Lemoel) rather than Lemuel melek, on the analogy of melek Yārēb, Hos. v. 13, x. 6. As it stands in the text, melek (after Lemuel, and without the article) can only be a definition of class. The Lemuel spoken of was quite unknown to the reader, and therefore the editor appends the descriptive title 'king.' Comp. Ex. xxxii. 11, where Joshua, son of Nun, being introduced for the first time, is described as na'ar 'a squire.'
- ↑ Referring to Neue Uebersetzung der Denksprüche Salomo's, 1791, p. 29.
