Proverbs 21:28 - Exposition

(For the first hemistich, see Proverbs 6:19 ; Proverbs 19:5 , Proverbs 19:9 .) Shall perish. His testimony is worthless, and both he and it come to nothing. The man that heareth speaketh constantly; Vulgate, vir obediens ; Septuagint, ἀνὴρ ὑπήκοος φυλασσόμενος λαλήσει , "An obedient man will speak guardedly." "The man that heareth" is one who is attentive, who listens before he speaks, and reports only what he has heard. Such a one will speak "for continuance," so that what he says is never falsified, or silenced, or refuted. Vulgate, loquetur victoriam. And so Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, εἰς νίκος . Revised Version, unchallenged. The expression thus rendered is lanetsach, which means, in Hebrew at any rate, in perpetuum, "for continuance." But St. Jerome's rendering has been much used by the Fathers, who have drawn therefrom lessons of obedience. Thus St. Augustine, 'In Psalm.,' 70; "Sola obedientia tenet palmam, sola inobedientia invenit poenam.' St. Gregory, ' Moral,' 35.28, "An obedient man in truth speaketh of victories, because, when we humbly submit ourselves to the voice of another, we overcome ourselves in our heart" (Oxford transl.). See a long dissertation on obedience in the note of Corn. a Lapide on this passage of Proverbs.