by placing Pro 6:2 in the antecedent, while if Pro 6:2 is regarded as the conclusion, and thus as the principal proposition, it appears in its full strength.
Verse 3
The new commencement needs no particle denoting a conclusion; the אפוא, making the summons emphatic (cf. 2Ki 10:10, frequently in interrogative clauses), connects it closely enough. זאת, neut., refers to what follows. The ו before הנּצל is explanatory, as we say in familiar language: Be so good as tell me, or do me the favour to come with me; while no Frenchman would say, Faites-moi le (ce) plaisir et venez avec moi (Fl.).[1]
The clause כּי באת[2] is not to be translated: in case thou art fallen into the hand of thy neighbour; for this is represented (Pro 6:1, Pro 6:2) as having already in fact happened. On two sides the surety is no longer sui juris: the creditor has him in his hand; for if the debtor does not pay, he holds the surety, and in this way many an honourable man has lost house and goods, Sirach 29:18, cf. 8:13; - and the debtor has him, the surety, in his hand; for the performance which is due, for which the suretyship avails, depends on his conscientiousness. The latter is here meant: thou hast made thy freedom and thy possessions dependent on the will of thy neighbour for whom thou art the surety. The clause introduced with כּי gives the reason for the call to set himself free (הנּצל from נצל, R. צל, של, to draw out or off); it is a parenthetical sentence. The meaning of התרפּס is certain. The verb רפס (רפשׂ, רפס) signifies to stamp on, calcare, conclucare; the Kamûs[3] explains rafas by rakad balarjal. The Hithpa. might, it is true, mean to conduct oneself in a trampling manner, to tread roughly, as התנבּא, and the medial Niph. נבּא, to conduct oneself speaking (in an impassioned manner); but Psa 68:31 and the analogy of התבּוסס favour the meaning to throw oneself in a stamping manner, i.e., violently, to the ground, to trample upon oneself - i.e., let oneself be trampled upon, to place oneself in the attitude of most earnest humble prayer. Thus the Graec. Venet. πατήθητι,
- ↑ For the right succession of the accents here (three serviles before the Pazer), vid., Torath Emeth, p. 30; Accentuationssystem, xii. §4. According to Gen-Naphtali, Mercha is to be given to the זאת.
- ↑ The Zinnorith before the Mahpach in these words represents at the same time the Makkeph and rejects the Zinnorith; vid., Torath Emeth, p. 16, and my Psalmencomm. Bd. ii. (1860), p. 460, note 2.
- ↑ el-Feyroozábádee's Kâmus, a native Arabic Lexicon; vid., Lane's Arab. Lex. Bk. i. pt. 1, p. xvii.
