(11.) Which (standing at the beginning of a period is emphatic, and thus the subject of the whole. ‘It amounts to this’ would render it well) there is nothing done as a sentence (occurs Esther i. 20) of doing the evil speedily, therefore full is the heart of the sons of man in them to the doing of an evil (that is, ‘It amounts to this, there is nothing inflicted as a penalty of doing the evil [i.e. evil generally] speedily; on that account filled is the heart of men within them in order to do that evil, the word evil being repeated’).
12 ¶ Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:
which, however, is a wicked mistake merely because there is time and a prolongation of impunity; for I am perfectly assured that it must be well with those who fear the Almighty,
(12.) Which (repeated at the beginning of a clause, equivalent therefore to ‘And it also amounts to this’) a sinning (חטא, which the Masorets point as a participle, and the LXX. confirm, rendering by a verb) doing an evil a hundred (so stands the text at present, but it clearly was not so in the text which the ancient versions used, all of which read differently, except the Syriac, which follows the Hebrew. The LXX. read either מאן or מעת. Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion read מות. Jerome remarks the difficulty; and the Syriac Hexapla shows that the text needed emendation at an early time. We believe the LXX. have preserved the right reading; moreover, that they took אריך as a noun in the sense of ‘prolongation,’ like אסיר, ‘a prisoner,’ Genesis xxxix. 20, 22; זעיר, ‘a little,’ Job xxxvi. 2, Isaiah xxviii. 10 and 13; for ומאריך is not a participle hiphil, but is really the substantive אריך with מ. When, however, this word was taken as a hiphil, מעת became unintelligible, and was altered by conjecture to מאת, or מות; hence the meaning is not) caused to be prolonged (as it stands in the text, but rather ‘and from the prolongation’) to him: (emphatic, hence the sense of the passage is, noticing the repetition of the מ, and the fact that אשר also stands at the head of the verse, ‘And it amounts to this as well: a wickedly mistaking one does evil from the time and from the prolongation of it to HIM,’ i.e. ‘to the other above cited;’ and hence the LXX. render αὐτῶν, also referring us back to the hypocritical sinners spoken of above. Then follows a reason introduced with) for in addition (besides its being a wicked mistake, a sin which it is always folly to commit) knowing am I (i.e. ‘I do know, notwithstanding appearances’) this also, it will be a good to the fearers of God who (but full relative repeated, and so with the meaning ‘because they are those who’) fear (emphatic, with double jud) before him.
13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.
just because they do fear before Him; and that it cannot be good to the impious man, and he will not prolong his days, even like a shadow, because he is not one who fears before God.