C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Proverbs 17:21

Pro 17:21

The first three parts of the old Solomonic Book of Proverbs ((1) Prov 10-12; (2) 13:1-15:19; (3) 15:20-17:20) are now followed by the fourth part. We recognise it as striking the same keynote as Pro 10:1. In Pro 17:21 it resounds once more, here commencing a part; there, Pro 10:1, beginning the second group of proverbs. The first closes, as it begins, with a proverb of the fool. 21 He that begetteth a fool, it is to his sorrow;      And the father of a fool hath no joy.

It is admissible to supply ילדו, developing itself from ילד, before לתוּגה לו (vid., regarding this passive formation, at Pro 10:1, cf. Pro 14:13), as at Isa 66:3, מעלה (Fl.: in maerorem sibi genuit h. e. ideo videtur genuisse ut sibi maerorem crearet); but not less admissible is it to interpret לתוגה לו as a noun-clause corresponding to the ולא־ישׂמח (thus to be written with Makkeph): it brings grief to him. According as one understands this as an expectation, or as a consequence, ילד, as at Pro 23:24, is rendered either qui gignit or qui genuit. With נבל, seldom occurring in the Book of Proverbs (only here and at Pro 17:7), כּסיל, occurring not unfrequently, is interchanged. Schultens rightly defines the latter etymologically: marcidus h. e. qui ad virtutem, pietatem, vigorem omnem vitae spiritualis medullitus emarcuit; and the former: elumbis et mollitie segnitieve fractus, the intellectually heavy and sluggish (cf. Arab. kasal, laziness; kaslân, the lazy).Nöldeke’s assertion (Art. Orion in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexicon) that the Arab. kasal corresponds to the Hebr. כּשׁל proceeds from the twofold supposition, that the meaning to be lazy underlies the meaning to totter (vid., also Dietrich in Gesenius’ Heb. Wörterbuch), and that the Hebr. ס must correspond with the Arab. š. The former supposition is untenable, the latter is far removed (cf. e.g., כּסּא and kursı̂, ספר and sifr, מסכּן and miskı̂n). The verb כּשׁל, Aram. תּקל, is unknown in the Arab.