ABSTRACT

As can be seen, the fourth colon begins zeqeneka weyo'meru. This form is suspect on two grounds. Firstly, it introduces an additional entity, the old men of the community, who cannot seriously be taken as the parallel b term to 'abika as the a term in the preceding colon. Secondly, the "father" of v. 7 is more likely to be identical with the father of v. 6b than the equivalent of the old men of v. 7. The author wants to look briefly at v. 7, and to suggest that it should be emended slightly, in a way supported by the above interpretation. He also examines the problem of the interpretation of Deuteronomy 32:8–9. A piece of circumstantial evidence which favours the former option is the reading of Proverbs 23:22, where there is also a potential problem with the text and sense.