(10.) If blunt (קהה——occurs Jeremiah xxxi. 29, 30, and Ezekiel xviii. 2——in the sense of ‘teeth set on edge:’ there the Masorets point as Kal, here as piel) the iron, and he (emphatic, but there is no nominative expressed to which this can refer) not the faces (usually considered to refer to the edges of the axe-head) sharpen (occurs Ezekiel xxi. 21 (26), as pilpel of קלל, which has the meaning of ‘lightness,’ ‘swiftness;’ the word occurs as an adjective, Numbers xxi. 5, in the sense of ‘light,’——our soul loatheth this light food) and strong ones will prevail (singular, If ‘strong ones’ be the nominative, this is an instance of a distributive plural——one or more of these will; the future piel has the meaning ‘strengthen,’ the Kal ‘to prevail,’ but we can only consider this as a Masoretic conjecture) and profit causing success (but the LXX. render by περισσεία, ‘advantage’——see below; but כשר occurs only Esther viii. 5, and chapter xi. 6; see however כשרון, which occurs chapter ii. 21, iv. 4, v. 10 (11), which we have seen occasion to render ‘success;’ hence the meaning, ‘the made successful is’) wisdom (not generic, i.e. a single instance of it). The general scope is quite clear; it is the superiority of wisdom to brute force, and so all commentators and versions understand it; but the exact rendering is very difficult;——all the versions are perplexed and discordant, and the copies of the LXX. have an important textual variation. We will give these at length, beginning with the LXX. as the most ancient. This reads——Ἐὰν ἐκπέσῃ τὸ σιδήριον καὶ αὐτὸς πρόσωπον ἐτάραξεν καὶ δυνάμεις δυναμώσει καὶ περισσεία τοῦ ἀνδρείου (which B. reads τῷ ἀνδρὶ οὐ, and E. X. τοῦ ἀνδρὸς) σοφία——‘If the axe-head should fall off, then the man troubles his countenance, and he must put forth more strength; and wisdom is the advantage of an energetic man.’ The Syriac version,
