[51] It is good to feel that, whatever the Christian centuries have not yet achieved for the regeneration of society, the “poor man’s neighbour” has redeemed his reputation from this terrible charge.
[52] Cp. Matt. 611, Give us this day our daily bread.
[53] Lyman Abbott, Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 278.
[54] i.e., his slanders, which scorch his victims.
[55] Compare the unintentionally funny passage in E. 3112ff}. If thou sittest at a great man’s table, be not greedy at it, nor say, “What a lot of things are on it!”... Stretch not your hand wheresoe’er your glance wanders, nor thrust yourself forward into the dish. Eat like a man [i.e., do not gnaw or gobble as an animal would do] what is set before thee, and do not bolt your food, lest you be loathed. Be first to leave off for the sake of good manners, and be not insatiate lest you offend. Cp. E. 8 which also treats of “How to behave.”
[56] The Hebrew text of the first two lines is uncertain.
[57] Theophrastus, Characters (Jebb’s translation), pp. 82, 83.
[58] In Hebrew, Pethāīm.
[59] Hebrew, Lētsīm.
[60] Sometimes the whole point of a saying lies in the use of different terms. Thus Pr. 1721 seems merely redundant in the R.V., “He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow; and the father of a fool hath no joy.” But the “fool” of the first clause is in the Hebrew Kesīl, a coarse fool, and the “fool” of the second is Nabal; i.e., to have the first as a son will involve some regrets, but the second robs his father of all joy.