[899] Omitted from the above is the strange clause from Shittim to Gilgal, which appears to be a gloss.
[900] See the passages on the subject in Professor Harper's work on Deuteronomy in this series.
[902] See above, p. [370], on the futility of the argument which because of this line would put the whole passage in Manasseh's reign.
[903] This word הצנע is only once used again, in Prov. xi. 2, in another grammatical form, where also it might mean humbly. But the root-meaning is evidently in secret, or secretly (cf. the Aram. צנע, to be hidden; צניע, one who lives noiselessly, humble, pious; in the feminine of a bride who is modest); and it is uncertain whether we should not take that sense here.
[904] See above, pp. [370] ff.
[905] Probably a later parenthesis. The word תושׁיה is one which, unusual in the prophets, the Wisdom literature has made its own Prov. ii. 7, xviii. 1; Job v. 12, etc. For Thy LXX. read His.
[906] Translation of LXX. emended by Wellhausen so as to read מועד העיר, the עיר being obtained by taking and transferring the עוד of the next verse, and relieving that verse of an unusual formation, viz. עוד before the interrogative האש. But for an instance of עוד preceding an interrogative see Gen. xix. 12.
[907] The text of the two preceding verses, which is acknowledged to be corrupt, must be corrected by the undoubted 3rd feminine suffix in this one—"her rich men." Throughout the reference must be to the city. We ought therefore to change האזכה of ver. 11 into התזכה, which agrees with the LXX. δικαιωθήσεται. Ver. 10 is more uncertain, but for the same reason that "the city" is referred to throughout vv. 9-12, it is possible that it is the nominative to זעומה; translate "cursed with the short measure." Again for אצרות LXX. read אוֹצֶרֶת אֹצְרוֹת, to which also the city would be nominative. And this suggests the query whether in the letters האש בית, that make little sense as they stand in the Massoretic Text, there was not originally another feminine participle. The recommendation of a transformation of this kind is that it removes the abruptness of the appearance of the 3rd feminine suffix in ver. 12.
[908] The word is found only here. The stem יחשׁ is no doubt the same as the Arabic verb waḥash, which in Form V. means "Inami ventre fuit præ fame; vacuum reliquit stomachum" (Freytag). In modern colloquial Arabic waḥsha means a "longing for an absent friend."