17 The highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He who keeps his way preserves his soul.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The highway of the upright - The upright man is ever departing from evil; this is his common road: and by keeping on in this way, his soul is preserved.
The highway of the upright is to depart from evil,.... Upright persons, such who are upright in heart, and walk uprightly; these walk in the highway of holiness, in which men, though fools, shall not err; in the King's highway, the highway of the King of kings; in the plain beaten path of God's commandments; and so shun the bypaths of sin, and abstain from all appearance of it: this is their common constant course of life; they are studiously concerned to walk herein, and take delight in so doing; whereby they escape many evils others fall into;
he that keepeth his way preserveth his soul, that keeps on in his way, the way in which the upright walk; whose eyes look right on, and his eyelids straight before him; who ponders the path of his feet, and turns neither to the right hand nor the left; who walks circumspectly and carefully; observes the road he is in, to keep in it, and not go out of it; such a man preserves his soul from many snares and temptations, troubles, dangers, and evils, which he would be otherwise liable to. Here the Masorites put the word signifying that this is the half or middle of the book.
A sincerely religious man keeps at a distance from every appearance of evil. Happy is the man that walks in Christ, and is led by the Spirit of Christ.
The highway--A common, plain road represents the habitual course of the righteous in departing from evil.
keepeth--observes.
17 The path of the righteous is the avoiding of evil,
And he preserveth his soul who giveth heed to his way.
The meaning of מסלּה, occurring only here in the Proverbs, is to be learned from Proverbs 15:19. The attribution denotes that wherein the way they take consists, or by which it is formed; it is one, a straight and an open way, i.e., unimpeded, leading them on, because they avoid the evil which entices them aside to the right and the left. Whoever then gives heed to his way, preserveth his soul (שׁמר נפשׁו, as Proverbs 13:3, on the contrary Proverbs 25:5, subj.), that it suffer not injury and fall under death, for סוּר מרע and סור ממוקשׁי מות, Proverbs 14:27, are essentially the same. Instead of this distich, the lxx has three distichs; the thoughts presented in the four superfluous lines are all already expressed in one distich. Ewald and Hitzig find in this addition of the lxx a component part of the original text.
The high - way - Their common road, in which they walk, tho' through frailty or temptation they slip into the bypath of sin. From evil - From the evil of sin, and consequently from the evil of punishment. Keepeth - That takes heed to walk in that high - way.
*More commentary available at chapter level.