Verse 5
The fool foldeth his hands together ,.... In order to get more sleep, or as unwilling to work; so the Targum adds,
"he folds his hands in summer, and will not labour;'
see Proverbs 6:10 . Some persons, to escape the envy which diligence and industry bring on men, will not work at all, or do any right work, and think to sleep in a whole skin; this is great folly and madness indeed:
and eateth his own flesh ; such a man is starved and famished for want of food, so that his flesh is wasted away; or he is so hungry bitten, that he is ready to eat his own flesh; or he hereby brings to ruin his family, his wife, and children, which are his own flesh, Isaiah 58:7 . The Targum is,
"in winter he eats all he has, even the covering of the skin of his flesh.'
Some understand this of the envious man, who is a fool, traduces the diligent and industrious, and will not work himself; and not only whose idleness brings want and poverty on him as an armed man, but whose envy eats up his spirit, and is rottenness in his bones, Proverbs 6:11 . Jarchi, out of a book of theirs called Siphri, interprets this of a wicked man in hell, when he sees the righteous in glory, and he himself judged and condemned.
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