Proverbs 3:26

For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:21-26 Let us not suffer Christ's words to depart from us, but keep sound wisdom and discretion; then shall we walk safely in his ways. The natural life, and all that belongs to it, shall be under the protection of God's providence; the spiritual life, and all its interests, under the protection of his grace, so that we shall be kept from falling into sin or trouble.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Under the form of this strong prohibition there is an equally strong promise. So safe will all thy ways be that to fear will be a sin.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

26. The reason; such as are objects of God's favor.

be thy confidence—literally, "in thy confidence," in the source of thy strength (compare Na 3:9, for the same construction, Hebrew).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thy confidence; a sufficient and sure ground of confidence to thee.

From being taken, in the snares either of sin or of mischief.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the Lord shall be thy confidence,.... The object of it, in whom thou shall put thy confidence, and be safe and secure from all fear and danger: or "the Lord shall be in thy confidence" (g); shall support thee in it, and maintain that, so that thou shalt not cast it away; the word used has sometimes the notion off oily in it, and Jarchi, from the Jerusalem Talmud, produces a sense agreeable to it;

"the Lord shall be in things in which thou art foolish;''

which, how absurd it may seem to be, will admit of a good interpretation; that the Lord will be with Wisdom's followers in things which may seem foolishness to the world; as Christ, the things of Christ, and the things of the Spirit of Christ, the Gospel, and the doctrines of it, are. The Targum is,

"the Lord shall be thine help,''

in all times of distress, difficulty, and danger;

and shall keep thy foot from being taken; in the snares of sin, temptation, and mischief; in those which Satan and the world lay for God's people; from these the Lord preserves them; wherefore happy are those that have an interest in Christ, who find and enjoy him.

(g) So Montanus, Vatablus, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 26. - Thy confidence (v'kis'leka); literally, as thy confidence. Kesel, primarily "loin" or "flank," as in Leviticus 3:14; Leviticus 10:15; Job 15:27, is apparently used here in its secondary meaning of "confidence," "hope," as in Job 8:14; Job 31:24; Psalm 78:7. The בְ (v') prefixed is what is usually termed the בְ essentiae, or בְ pleonasticum (equivalent to the Latin tanquam, "as"), and serves to emphasize the connection between the predicate "thy confidence" and the subject "Jehovah" (cf. Exodus 18:4; see Ewaht, 'Lehrb.,' 217, f.; and Gesenius, 'Gram.,' § 154). Jehovah shall be in the highest sense your ground and object of confidence. Delitzsch describes kesel as confidence in the presence of evil: Jehovah in the presence of the "sudden fear," and of "the desolation of the wicked," the evils and calamities which overwhelm the wicked, shall be thy confidence. The sense of his all-encircling protection will render you undismayed. The meaning given to kesel as "foolhardiness" (Psalm 49:14) and "folly" (Ecclesiastes 7:25). and the connection of kesel with k'silim in Proverbs 1:22, comes from the root idea kasal, "to be fleshly, or fat," the signification of which branches out on the one side into strength and boldness, and on the other into languor and inertness, and so folly or confidence in self (Schultens, i.e.). The Talmudic rendering of the Rabbi Salomon approximates to this meaning, "and the things in which you seemed to be foolish (desipere videbaris) he will be at once present with you." Others, as Ziegler, Muentinghe, gave kesel its primary meaning, and translate, "Jehovah shall be as thy loins," the loins being regarded as the emblem of strength. Jehovah shall be your strength. But kesel does not appear to have this local application here. Wherever it is used in this sense, as in Job and Leviticus cited above, there is something in the context to point it out as a part of the body. Compare, however, the Vulgate. in latere suo, "in thy side or flank." The LXX. renders, ἐπὶ πασῶν ὁδῶν σου, "over all thy ways." From being taken (millaked); Vulgate, ne capiaris, "lest thou be taken." The meaning is, Jehovah will be your protection against all the snares and traps which the impious lay for you. Leked, "a being taken," is from lakad, "to take or catch animals" in a net or in snares. It only occurs here in the Proverbs. Its unusual appearance, together with other reasons, not tenable, however, has led Hitzig to reject vers. 22-26 as an interpolation. The LXX. reads, πτόησιν, pavorem. Πτόησις, in Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch, is used subjectively, and means "any vehement emotion." The word only occurs once in the New Testament in 1 Peter 3:6, μὴ φοβούμενη μηδεμίαν πτόησιν, where it is evidently quoted from the passage before us, in an objective sense, and designates some external cause of terror (cf. Authorized Version, "and be not afraid with any amazement;" see also Book of Common Prayer: 'Solemnization of Matrimony,' ad fin). Proverbs 3:26

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

But more than this, wisdom makes its possessor in all situations of life confident in God:

23 Then shalt thou go thy way with confidence,

     And thy foot shall not stumble.

24 When thou liest down, thou are not afraid,

     But thou layest thyself down and hast sweet sleep.

25 Thou needest not be afraid of sudden alarm,

     Nor for the storm of the wicked when it breaketh forth.

26 For Jahve will be thy confidence

     And keep thy foot from the snare.

The לבטח (cf. our "bei guter Laune" equals in good cheer), with ל of the condition, is of the same meaning as the conditional adverbial accusative בּטח, Proverbs 10:9; Proverbs 1:33. Proverbs 3:23 the lxx translate ὁ δὲ πούς σου οὐ μὴ προσκόψῃ, while, on the contrary, at Psalm 91:12 they make the person the subject (μήποτε προσκόψῃς τὸν κ.τ.λ.); here also we retain more surely the subject from 23a, especially since for the intrans. of נגף (to smite, to push) a Hithpa. התנגּף is used Jeremiah 13:16. In Proverbs 3:24 there is the echo of Job 11:18, and in Proverbs 3:25 of Job 5:21. Proverbs 3:24 is altogether the same as Job 5:24 : et decumbes et suavis erit somnus tuus equals si decubueris, suavis erit. The hypothetic perf., according to the sense, is both there and at Job 11:18 (cf. Jeremiah 20:9) oxytoned as perf. consec. Similar examples are Proverbs 6:22; Genesis 33:13; 1 Samuel 25:31, cf. Ewald, 357a. ערבה (of sleep as Jeremiah 31:26) is from ערב, which in Hebr. is used of pleasing impressions, as the Arab. ‛ariba of a lively, free disposition. שׁנה, somnus (nom. actionis from ישׁן, with the ground-form sina preserved in the Arab. lidat, vid., Job, p. 284, note), agrees in inflexion with שׁנה, annus. אל, Proverbs 3:25, denies, like Psalm 121:3, with emphasis: be afraid only not equals thou hast altogether nothing to fear. Schultens rightly says: Subest species prohibitionis et tanquam abominationis, ne tale quicquam vel in suspicionem veniat in mentemve cogitando admittatur. פּחד here means terror, as Proverbs 1:26., the terrific object; פּתאם (with the accus. om) is the virtual genitive, as Proverbs 26:2 חנּם (with accus. am). Regarding שׁאה, see under Proverbs 1:27. The genitive רשׁעים may be, after Psalm 37:18, the genit. subjecti, but still it lies nearer to say that he who chooses the wisdom of God as his guiding star has no ground to fear punishment as transgressors have reason to fear it; the שׁאה is meant which wisdom threatens against transgressors, Proverbs 1:27. He needs have no fear of it, for wisdom is a gift of God, and binds him who receives it to the giver: Jahve becomes and is henceforth his confidence. Regarding ב essentiae, which expresses the closest connection of the subject with the predicate which it introduces, see under Psalm 35:2. As here, so also at Exodus 18:4; Psalm 118:7; Psalm 146:6, the predicate is a noun with a pronominal suffix. כּסל is, as at Psalm 78:7; Job 31:24, cognate to מבטה and מקוה,

(Note: According to Malbim, תּקוה is the expectation of good, and כּסל, confidence in the presence of evil.)

the object and ground of confidence. That the word in other connections may mean also fool-hardiness, Psalm 49:14, and folly, Ecclesiastes 7:25 (cf. regarding כּסיל, which in Arab. as belı̂d denotes the dull, in Hebr. fools, see under Proverbs 1:22), it follows that it proceeds from the fundamental conception of fulness of flesh and of fat, whence arise the conceptions of dulness and slothfulness, as well as of confidence, whether confidence in self or in God (see Schultens l.c., and Wnsche's Hosea, p. 207f.). לכד is taking, catching, as in a net or trap or pit, from לכד, to catch (cf. Arab. lakida, to fasten, III, IV to hold fast); another root-meaning, in which Arab. lak connects itself with nak, nk, to strike, to assail (whence al-lakdat, the assault against the enemy, Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitsch. xxii. 140), is foreign to the Hebr. Regarding the מן of מלכד, Fleischer remarks: "The מן after the verbs of guarding, preserving, like שׁמר and נצר, properly expresses that one by those means holds or seeks to hold a person or thing back from something, like the Lat. defendere, tueri aliquem ab hostibus, a perculo."

(Note: Hitzig rejects Proverbs 3:22-26 as a later interpolation. And why? Because chap. 3, which he regards as a complete discourse, consists of twice ten verses beginning with בּני. In addition to this symmetry other reasons easily reveal themselves to his penetration. But the discourses contained in chap. 1-9 do not all begin with בני (vid., Proverbs 1:20); and when it stands in the beginning of the discourse, it is not always the first word (vid., Proverbs 1:8); and when it occurs as the first word or in the first line, it does not always commence a new discourse (vid., Proverbs 1:15 in the middle of the first, Proverbs 3:11 in the middle of the fourth); and, moreover, the Hebr. poetry and oratory does not reckon according to verses terminated by Soph Pasuk, which are always accented distichs, but they in reality frequently consist of three or more lines. The rejected verses are in nothing unlike those that remain, and which are undisputed; they show the same structure of stichs, consisting for the most part of three, but sometimes also only of two words (cf. Proverbs 3:22 with Proverbs 1:9, Proverbs 1:10), the same breadth in the course of the thoughts, and the same accord with Job and Deuteronomy.)