added, beginning with כּי בעד־ (thus it is to be punctuated), there is the appositional connection אשּׁה זונה, Gesen. §113; the idea of זונה goes over into 26b. “לחם כּכּר [ = כּרכּר, R. kr, to round, vid., at Gen 49:5], properly a circle of bread, is a small round piece of bread, such as is still baked in Italy (pagnotta) and in the East (Arab. ḳurṣ), here an expression for the smallest piece” (Fl.). בּעד (constr. of בּעד), as Job 2:4; Isa 32:14, is used in the sense of ὑπέρ, pro, and with עד there is connected the idea of the coming down to this low point. Ewald, Bertheau explain after the lxx, τιμὴ γὰρ πόρνης ὅση καὶ ἑνὸς ἄρτου, γυνὴ δὲ ἀνδρῶν τιμίας ψυχὰς ἀγρεύει. But nothing is said here of price (reward); the parallelism is synonymous, not antithetic: he is doubly threatened with loss who enters upon such a course. The adulterer squanders his means (Pro 29:3) to impoverishment (vid., the mention of a loaf of bread in the description of poverty 1Sa 2:36), and a man's wife (but at the same time seeking converse with another) makes a prey of a precious soul; for whoever consents to adulterous converse with her, loses not perhaps his means, but certainly freedom, purity, dignity of soul, yea, his own person. צוּד comprehends - as צידון, fisher's town [Zidon], Arab. ṣyâd, hunter and fisher, show - all kinds of hunting, but in Hebr. is used only of the hunting of wild beasts. The root-meaning (cf. צדיּה) is to spy, to seize.
Verses 27-29
The moral necessity of ruinous consequences which the sin of adultery draws after it, is illustrated by examples of natural cause and effect necessarily connected: 27 Can one take fire in his bosom And his clothes not be burned? 28 Or can any one walk over burning coals And his feet not be burned? 29 So he that goeth to his neighbour's wife, No one remains unpunished that toucheth her.
We would say: Can any one, without being, etc.; the former is the Semitic “extended (paratactic)[1] construction.” The first אישׁ has the conjunctive Shalsheleth. חתה signifies to seize and draw forth a brand or coal with the fire-tongs or shovel (מחתּה, the instrument for this); cf. Arab. khât, according to Lane, “he seized or snatched
- ↑ The παρατακτικὸς χρόνος denotes the imperfect tense, because it is still extended to the future.
