Proverbs 1:12 - Exposition

Let us swallow them up alive as the grave. A continuation of Proverbs 1:11 , expanding the idea of bloodshed ending in murder, and showing the determination of the sinners to proceed to the most violent means to effect their covetous ends. The enticement here put before youth is the courage and boldness of their exploits (Wardlaw). The order of the words in the original is, "Let us swallow them up, as the grave, living," which sufficiently indicates the meaning of the passage. Alive ; חַיִּים ( khayyim ) , i.e. "the living," refers to the pronomiual suffix in נִבְלָעֵם ( nivelaem ) , as in the Authorized Version and Zockler (cf. Psalms 55:15 ; Psalms 124:3 ). Umbreit and Hitzig are grammatically incorrect in connecting כִּשְׁאוֹל ( kisheol ) "as the grave," with "the living," and translating "like the pit (swallows) that which lives." The כִּ ( ki ) with a substantive, as here in kisheol, is a preposition, said not a conjunction (see Gesenius, 'Lexicon'). It denotes a kind of resemblance, but does not introduce a coordinate sentence. The allusion is undoubtedly in the teacher's mind to the fate of Korah and his company ( Numbers 16:30-33 ), and as in that case "the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up" in the flush of life, so here the robbers say that they will as suddenly and effectively destroy their victims, בָּלַע ( dala ); from which niv ' laem, in a figurative sense, means "to destroy utterly" (Geseuius). The change from the singular, "the innocent" ( לְנָקִי , lenaki ) , to the plural in "let us swallow them up," is noticeable. Like the pit ( כִּשְׁאוֹל , kisheol ); literally, like Sheol, or Hades, the great subterranean cavity or world of the dead. The all-devouring and insatiable character of sheol is described in Proverbs 27:20 , where the Authorized Version translates "Hell ( sheol ) and destruction are never full," and again in Proverbs 30:15 , where it ( sheol, Authorized Version, "the grave") is classed with the four things that are never satisfied. Vulgate, infernus ; LXX ; ᾅδης . And whole, as those that go down into the pit. The parallelism of ideas requires that the word "whole" ( תְּמִימִים , temimim ) should be understood of those physically whole (see Mercerus, Delitzsch), and not in a moral sense, as the upright (Luther, Grief, Holden, Plumptre). The word is used in an ethical signification in Proverbs 2:21 . Gesenius gives it the meaning of "safe, secure." Those that go down into the pit ( יוֹרדֵי בוֹר , yorde vor ); i.e. the dead. The phrase also occurs in Psalms 28:1 ; Psalms 30:4 ; Psalms 88:4 ; Psalms 143:7 ; Isaiah 38:18 ). The pit ( בוֹר , vor ); or, the sepulchre, the receptacle of the dead, is here synonymous with sheol. The LXX . substitutes for the latter part of the verse, καὶ ἄρωμεν αὐτοῦ τὴν μνήμην ἐκ γῆς , "And let us remove his memory from the earth." The robbers, by drawing a comparison between themselves and Hades and the grave, which consign to silence all who are put therein, imply their own security against detection. They will so utterly destroy their victims that none will be left to tell the tale (see Musset, in loc. ) . This, we know, is a fancied, and at the best only a temporary, security.