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hope; and this translation is more probable than that on which Symm. (“who shall always continue to live?”) and Jerome (nemo est qui semper vivat et qui hujus rei habeat fiduciam) proceed: Who is he that is joined to the whole? i.e., to the absolute life; or as Hitzig: Who is he who would join himself to all the living (like the saying, “The everlasting Jew”)? The expression ישׁ בּטּ does not connect itself so easily and directly with these two latter renderings as with that we have adopted, in which, as also in the other two, a different accentuation of the half-verse is to be adopted as follows: כּי מי אשׁר יחבּר אל־כּל־החיּים ישׁ בּטּחון
The accentuation lying before us in the text, which gives a great disjunctive to יבחר as well as to הח, appears to warrant the Chethı̂b (cf. Hitzig under Eze 22:24), by which it is possible to interpret יב ... מי as in itself an interrog. clause. The Kerı̂ יח does not admit of this, for Dachselt's quis associabit se (sc.,, mortius? = nemo socius mortuorum fieri vult) is a linguistic impossibility; the reflex may be used for the pass., but not the pass. for the reflex., which is also an argument against Ewald's translation: Who is joined to the living has hope. Also the Targ. and Rashi, although explaining according to the Midrash, cannot forbear connecting אל כל־חה with יח, and thus dividing the verse at חה instead of at יח. It is not, however, to be supposed that the accentuation refers to the Chethı̂b; it proceeds on some interpretation, contrary to the connection, such as this: he who is received into God's fellowship has to hope for the full life (in eternity). The true meaning, according to the connection, is this: that whoever (quicunque) is only always joined (whether by birth or the preservation of life) to all the living, i.e., to living beings, be they who they may, has full confidence, hope, and joy; for in respect to a living dog, this is even better than a dead lion. Symmachus translates: κυνὶ ζῶντι βέλτιόν ἐστιν ἤ λέοντι τεθνηκότι, which Rosenm., Herzf., and Grätz approve of. But apart from the obliquity of the comparison, that with a living dog it is better than with a dead lion, since with the latter is neither good nor evil (vid., however, Ecc 6:5), for such a meaning the words ought to have been: chělěv hai tov lo min ha'aryēh hammeth.
As the verifying clause stands before us, it is connected not with ישׁ בּטּ, but with אל כּל־ה, of that which is to be verified; the ל gives emphatic prominence (Ewald, §310b) to the subject, to which the expression refers as at Psa 89:19; 2Ch 7:21 (cf. Jer 18:16), Isa 32:1 : A living dog is better than a dead lion, i.e., it