Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Monday 19 May 2003 13:04, Jim West wrote:
> Hello all.  The second half of the verse is what interests me here.  To
> wit, is it referring to the death of the wicked man- hence relieving the
> righteous of his troubler; or is it (and this is far fetched to me) a
> reference to the righteous man's finding refuge in his own death?
>
> What say ye?

Jim,
My late professor Robert L. Alden in his commentary on Proverbs points out 
that the LXX reads hOSIOTHTI, = Hebrew TM, for the Hebrew MT.  In this 
context he says "If 'integrity' [TM] is correct, a nice antithetic parallel 
exists between six key words in the verse: wicket versus righteous, downfall 
vs. refuge, and evil vs. integrity.  If 'death,' on the other hand, is used, 
then the possessive pronouns attached to it must refer to the wicked.  The 
verse would thus read: 'But good people trust or hope for their (i.e. the 
wicked's) death.'  Either the righteous anticipate deliverance from evil when 
wicked men die, or death is the righteous man's escape from a wicked world.  
Verse 32 is another expression of the teaching that a man reaps what he 
sows."  (p. 116)

Considering the parallelism he points out when going with the LXX reading, I 
would lean toward that.  However, if we go with MT, it seems to me that the 
pronominal suffix has to refer back to the wicked, since the subject 
"righteous" comes after the pronoun in the second clause.  That is, CDYQ is 
not there to serve as an antecedent when the -W suffix appears on BMWTW.

My two pistoozas' worth.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur