1 He who is often rebuked and stiffens his neck will be destroyed suddenly, with no remedy.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Shall be destroyed - literally, "shall be broken" Proverbs 6:15. Stress is laid on the suddenness in such a case of the long-delayed retribution.
Hardeneth his neck - Becomes stubborn and obstinate.
He that being often reported hardeneth his neck,.... Or "a man of reproofs" (d); either a man that takes upon him to be a censurer and reprover of others, and is often at that work, and yet does those things himself which he censures and reproves in others; and therefore must have an impudent face and a hard heart a seared conscience and a stiff neck; his neck must be an iron sinew and his brow brass: or rather a man that is often reproved by others by parents by ministers of the Gospel, by the Lord himself, by the admonitions of his word and Spirit and by the correcting dispensations of his providence; and yet despises and rejects all counsel and admonition, instruction and reproofs of every kind, and hardens himself against them and shows no manner of regard unto them. The metaphor is taken from oxen, which kick and toss about and will not suffer the yoke to be put upon their necks. Such an one
shall suddenly be destroyed; or "broken" (e); as a potter's vessel is broken to pieces with an iron rod, and can never he put together again; so such persons shall be punished with everlasting destruction, which shall come upon them suddenly, when they are crying Peace to themselves notwithstanding the reproofs of God and men;
and that without remedy; or, "and there is no healing" (f); no cure of their disease, which is obstinate; no pardon of their sins; no recovery of them out of their miserable and undone state and condition; they are irretrievably lost; there is no help for them, having despised advice and instruction; see Proverbs 5:12.
(d) "vir increpationum", Vatablus, Montanus, Mercerus, Gejerus; "vir correptionum", Piscator, Michaelis; "vir redargutionum", Schultens. (e) "conteretur", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, &c. "confringetur", Schultens; so Baynus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius. (f) "et non (erit) sanitas", Pagninus, Montanus, Baynus; "non sit curatio", Junius & Tremellius; "medicina", Piscator.
If God wounds, who can heal? The word of God warns all to flee from the wrath to come, to the hope set before us in Jesus Christ.
(Proverbs. 29:1-27)
hardeneth . . . neck--obstinately refuses counsel (2-Kings 17:14; Nehemiah 9:16).
destroyed--literally, "shivered" or "utterly broken to pieces."
without remedy--literally, "without healing" or repairing.
A general ethical proverb here follows:
A man often corrected who hardeneth his neck,
Shall suddenly go to ruin without remedy.
Line second = Proverbs 6:15. The connection אישׁ תּוכחות must make the nearest impression on a reader of the Book of Proverbs that they mean a censurer (reprehender), but which is set aside by what follows, for the genit. after אישׁ is, Proverbs 16:29; Proverbs 26:21; Proverbs 29:10; Proverbs 13:20, the designation of that which proceeds from the subject treated. And since תּוכחות, Psalm 37:15; Job 23:4, denotes counter evidence, and generally rejoinders, thus in the first line a reasoner is designated who lets nothing be said to him, and nothing be shown to him, but contradicts all and every one. Thus e.g., Fleischer: vir qui correptus contradicit et cervicem obdurat. But this interpolated correptus gives involuntary testimony of this, that the nearest lying impression of the 'אישׁ תו suffers a change by מקשׁה ערף: if we read הקשׁה (לב) ערף with 'תו, the latter then designates the correptio, over against which is placed obstinate boldness (Syr., Targ., Jerome, Luther), and 'תו shows itself thus to be gen. objecti, and we have to compare the gen. connection of אישׁ, as at Proverbs 18:23; Proverbs 21:17, or rather at 1-Kings 20:42 and Jeremiah 15:10. But it is unnecessary, with Hitzig, to limit 'תו to divine infliction of punishment, and after Hosea 5:9; Isaiah 37:3, to read תוכחות [punishment], which occurs, Psalm 149:7, in the sense of punishment inflicted by man.
(Note: Vid., Zunz, "Regarding the Idea and the Use of Tokhecha," in Steinschneider's Hebrews. Bibliographia, entitled המחכיר, 1871, p. 70f.)
Besides, we must think first not of actual punishment, but of chastening, reproving words; and the man to whom are spoken the reproving words is one whose conduct merits more and more severe censure, and continually receives correction from those who are concerned for his welfare. Hitzig regards the first line as a conditional clause: "Is a man of punishment stiff-necked?".... This is syntactically impossible. Only מקשׁה ערף could have such force: a man of punishment, if he.... But why then did not the author rather write the words והוא מקשׁה ערף? Why then could not מקשׁה ערף be a co-ordinated further description of the man? Cf. e.g., Ex. 17:21. The door of penitence, to which earnest, well-meant admonition calls a man, does not always remain open. He who with stiff-necked persistence in sin and in self-delusion sets himself in opposition to all endeavours to save his soul, shall one day suddenly, and without the prospect and possibility of restoration (cf. Jeremiah 19:11), become a wreck. Audi doctrinam si vis vitare ruinam.
*More commentary available at chapter level.