to be silent, or, which we prefer: so that what he says stands; on the contrary, he who testifies mere fictions, i.e., avers that they are truth, is destroyed (28a = Pro 19:9, cf. 5): he himself comes to nothing, since his testimonies are referred to their groundlessness and falsity; for שׁקר אין לו רגלים, the lie has no feet on which it can stand, it comes to nothing sooner or later.
Verse 29
Another proverb with אישׁ: -
A godless man showeth boldness in his mien;
But one that is upright-he proveth his way.
The Chethı̂b has יכין; but that the upright directeth, dirigit, his way, i.e., gives to it the right direction (cf. 2Ch 27:6), is not a good contrast to the boldness of the godless; the Kerı̂, הבין דּרכּו, deserves the preference. Aquila, Symmachus, the Syr., Targ., and Venet. adhere to the Chethı̂b, which would be suitable if it could be translated, with Jerome, by corrigit; Luther also reads the verb with כ, but as if it were יכּון (whoever is pious, his way will stand) - only the lxx render the Kerı̂ (συνιεῖ); as for the rest, the ancients waver between the Chethı̂b דּרכיו and the Kerı̂ דּרכּו: the former refers to manner of life in general; the latter (as at Pro 3:31 and elsewhere) to the conduct in separate cases; thus the one is just as appropriate as the other. In the circumstantial designation אישׁ רשׁע (cf. Pro 11:7) we have the stamp of the distinction of different classes of men peculiar to the Book of Proverbs. העז (to make firm, defiant) had, Pro 7:13, פנים as accus.; the בּ here is not that used in metaphoristic expressions instead of the accus. obj., which we have spoken of at Pro 15:4; Pro 20:30, but that of the means; for the face is thought of, not as the object of the action, but, after Gesen. §138, 1, as the means of its accomplishment: the godless makes (shows) firmness, i.e., defiance, accessibility to no admonition, which is countenance; but the upright considers, i.e., proves (Pro 14:8), his way. בּין (הבין) means a perceiving of the object in its specific peculiarity, an understanding of its constituent parts and essential marks; it denotes knowing an event analytically, as השׂכּיל, as well as synthetically (cf. Arab. shakl), and is thus used as the expression of a perception, which apprehends the object not merely immediately, but closely examines into its circumstances.
