Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 7:16
I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved [works], with fine linen of Egypt.
16. deckt with. coverings ] Lit. covered with coverings, or cushioned with cushions, the words being two forms of the same Heb. root, which does not occur elsewhere.
bed ] or, couch: a different and more poetic word than that in Pro 7:17. It is used for a couch of moss and flowers, “also our couch is green,” Son 1:16.
with carved works &c.] Rather, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt, R.V.
If the rendering of A.V., “And king Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt and linen yarn ” (1Ki 10:28), could stand, we should have an interesting historical light thrown upon this verse. It is now, however, generally thought that the Hebrew word (lit. string) does not mean yarn, but a string, or drove of horses. “And the horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt; and the king’s merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price,” R.V. (See note there in this Series.) The historical notice, however, is still relevant, as showing the commercial relations of Palestine with Egypt in the time of Solomon.
linen ] or, yarn, R.V. The Heb. word occurs only here, and is thought by Lange and others to be akin to the Greek word , fine linen in classical Greek, but in later Greek used more widely, Act 10:11; Act 11:5. The LXX. render, (with cloths hairy or shaggy on both sides) .
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The words point to the art and commerce which flourished under Solomon.
Carved works – Most commentators take the original as meaning striped coverlets of linen of Egypt.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 7:16
I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry.
A luxurious bed
I have exhausted the toil of myself and bought the toil of others to increase the luxury of my rest. Come and see the courtly elegance with which my bed is decked. Long and weary days have I laboured at the counting-house, at the workshop, or at the desk. And now my bed is decked. Come and look. Place yourself at my chamber window and tell me what you see now and what you will see next year.
1. I see thee lying on this bed which thou hast decked, fretful, restless, and miserable. Thou hast found out too late that enjoyment is more painful than expectation.
2. I see thee dying on the same bed. May God grant thee mercy! but if He does it is in spite of the luxury with which thou art surrounded.
3. I see thee lying in another bed. It is narrow, and though well quilted and smoothed, yet it has no room for the weary body to turn, or for the feverish head to lift itself. I have decked my bed with peace. And though its coverings are but scanty, and though sorrow and desolation have taken their seats by its side, yet peace remains. And there is one like unto the Son of Man whose gracious face ever shines on me from before this, my poor resting-place, so that though deserted and wretched, His love gives me a comfort this world can neither give nor take away.
Come and see. I have come, oh, saint of God! and I see three sights.
1. Destitution and pain are indeed about thee as thou liest on that rude couch; but peace and love reign there, and who shall prevail against the Lords elect?
2. I see thee in thy dying hour. Deserted and miserable thou mayest be, but angelic forms are hovering over thee, and I hear a voice speaking as man can never speak, saying, Come, thou beloved of My Father!
3. I see thee in thy narrow bed, but I see something else behind. For I see that great city, the holy Jerusalem, having the glory of God. And I hear a voice there saying, Who is this who is arrayed in white robes? and whence came he? And I say unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And the voice says, He is one of them that came out of great tribulation, etc. (Christian Treasury.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. I have decked my bed] arsi, “my couch or sofa;” distinguished from mishcabi, “my bed,” Pr 7:17, the place to sleep on, as the other was the place to recline on at meals. The tapestry, marbaddim, mentioned here seems to refer to the covering of the sofa; exquisitely woven and figured cloth. chatuboth etun, the Targum translates painted carpets, such as were manufactured in Egypt; some kind of embroidered or embossed stuff is apparently meant.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
She designs to inflame his lust by the mention of the bed, and by its ornaments and perfumes.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16, 17. my bedor, “couch,”adorned in the costliest manner.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry,…. Made use of by the ancients o for bed clothes: beautiful ornaments, as Gersom; and precious garments, as Jarchi. She had adorned her bed with curtains and clothes, very delightful to the eye, and inviting; and had well corded it, as some interpret it, with cords of fine linen, and all to allure her lovers; she soon discovered her lustful inclinations, what her heart was upon, and says this, and more, to fire the young man’s lust, and cause him to follow her: so the church of Rome adorns her places of worship in the most pompous manner; which are the beds in which she commits adultery, Re 2:22; and also her images to strike the minds of people, and draw them into her idolatrous worship;
with carved [works]; perhaps the bed’s head, tester, and posts, were all carved, and cut out of cedar wood and others, as Gersom observes; though some think: this refers to the variety of work in tapestry, which look like incisions and carvings, or the network, and agnet holes made therein: this may be very well applied to the carved work, and carved images, set up in the Romish churches;
with fine linen of Egypt; the sheets, pillows, and bolsters, made thereof, and so soft to lie upon; which was reckoned the best and finest, though not the strongest. Pliny says p, of the linen of Egypt, that it had less strength and firmness in it (it being so fine); but bore the best price, and was the most gainful and profitable. The word used is not what is elsewhere met with, even when the linen of Egypt is mentioned, and indeed is nowhere else used: the Targum renders it, an Egyptian covering; and so most of the Oriental versions interpret it of bed coverings of tapestry painted, brought out of Egypt. The word is used in the Chaldee language for cords; and may here signify threads of linen twisted together, or linen cords, with which the harlot’s bed was corded, and looked beautiful. Pliny q says, there were four sorts of linen in Egypt; Tanitic, Pelusiac, Butic, and Tenterytic; so called from the names and provinces where they were cultivated; and perhaps the Etun of Egypt may be the Tanitic: the fine linen, called “byssus”, was brought out of India into Egypt; and is said to grow upon a tree as high as the poplar, and its leaves like a willow r. Egypt is very properly made mention of in this account; it being one of the names of the city of Rome, of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, and equal to both for lust and luxury, Re 11:8.
o Vid. Homer. Odyss. 4. c. 299. & Odyss. 7. prope finem. p Nat. Hist. l. 19. c. 1. q Ibid. r Philostrat. Vit. Apollen. l. 2. c. 9.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Thus she found him, and described to him the enjoyment which awaited him in eating and drinking, then in the pleasures of love.
16 “My bed have I spread with cushions,
Variegated coverlets, Egyptian linen;
17 I have sprinkled my couch
With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come then, we will intoxicate ourselves with love till the morning,
And will satisfy ourselves in love.”
The noun , from , = Arab. ‘arash , aedificare, fabricari , signifies generally the wooden frame; thus not so much the bed within as the erected bed-place (cf. Arab. ‘arsh , throne, and ‘arysh , arbour). This bedstead she had richly and beautifully cushioned, that it might be soft and agreeable. , from , signifies to lay on or apply closely, thus either vincire (whence the name of the necklace, Gen 41:42) or sternere (different from , Job 17:13, which acquires the meaning sternere from the root-meaning to raise up from under, sublevare ), whence , cushions, pillows, stragulae . Bttcher punctuates incorrectly; the remains aspirated, and the connection of the syllables is looser than in , Ewald, 88d. The beginning the second half-verse is in no case an adjective to , in every case only appos., probably an independent conception; not derived from (cogn. ), to hew wood (whence Arab. hatab , fire-wood), according to which Kimchi, and with him the Graec. Venet. ( ), understands it of the carefully polished bed-poles or bed-boards, but from = Arab. khateba , to be streaked, of diverse colours ( vid., under Psa 144:12), whence the Syriac machtabto , a figured (striped, checkered) garment. Hitzig finds the idea of coloured or variegated here unsuitable, but without justice; for the pleasantness of a bed is augmented not only by its softness, but also by the impression which its costliness makes on the eye. The following stands in an appositional relation to , as when one says in Arabic taub – un dbag ‘- un , a garment brocade = of brocade. (after the Syr. for , as ) signifies in the Targum the cord ( e.g., Jer 38:6), like the Arab. tunub , Syr. ( e.g., Isa 54:2) tunob ; the root is , not in the sense of to bind, to wind (Deitr.), but in the sense of to stretch; the thread or cord is named from the extension in regard to length, and is thus thread-work, whether in weaving or spinning.
(Note: Hence perhaps the Greek , which Fick in his Vergl. Wrterbuch connects with the Arab. verb-root vadh , to bind, wind, clothe, but not without making thereto interrogation marks.)
The fame of Egyptian manufactures is still expressed in the Spanish aclabtea , fine linen cloth, which is equivalent to the modern Arabic el – kobtje ( kibtije ); they had there particularly also an intimate acquaintance with the dye stuffs found in the plants and fossils of the country (Klemm’s Culturgeschichte, v. 308-310).
Pro 7:17-18 These verses remind us of expressions in the Canticles. There, at Pro 4:14, are found the three names for spicery as here, and one sees that are not to be connected genitively: there are three things, accented as in the title-verse Pro 1:3. The myrrh, ( Balsamodendron myrrha ), belongs, like the frankincense, to the species of the Amyris , which is an exotic in Palestine not less than with us; the aromatic quality in them does not arise from the flowers or leaves, so that Son 1:13 leads us to think of a bunch of myrrh, but from the resin oozing through the bark ( Gummi myrrhae or merely myrrha ), consisting of bright glossy red or golden-yellow grains more or less transparent. (used by Balaam, Num 24:6) is the Semitic Old-Indian name of the alo, agaru or aguru; the aromatic quality is in the wood of the Aquilaria agallocha , especially its root ( agallochum or lignum aloes ) dried in the earth – in more modern use and commerce the inspissated juice of its leaves. is (like , a Semitic word
(Note: Myrrh has its name from the bitterness of its taste, and appears to be a secondary formation from , whence , reed; cf. the names of the cinnamon, cannella , Fr. cannelle . Cinnamum ( ) is only a shorter form for cinnamomum . Pliny, Hist. Nat. xii. 19 (42), uses both forms indiscriminately.)
that had come to the Greeks through the Phoenicians), the cinnamon, i.e., the inner rind of the Laurus cinnamomum . The myrrh is native to Arabia; the alo, as its name denotes, is Indian; the cinnamon in like manner came through Indian travellers from the east coast of Africa and Ceylon (Taprobane). All these three spices are drugs, i.e., are dry apothecaries’ wares; but we are not on that account to conclude that she perfumed (Hitzig) her bed with spices, viz., burnt in a censer, an operation which, according to Son 3:6, would rather be designated . The verb (only here as Kal) signifies to lift oneself up ( vid., under Psa 48:13), and transitively to raise and swing hither and thither (= ); here with a double accusative, to besprinkle anything out of a vessel moved hither and thither. According to this sense, we must think of the three aromas as essences in the state of solution; cf. Exo 30:22-33; Est 2:12. Hitzig’s question, “Who would sprinkle bed-sheets with perfumed and thus impure water?” betrays little knowledge of the means by which even at the present day clean linen is made fragrant. The expression sounds like , Son 5:1, although there is probably the voc., and not, as here, the accus.; is the Kal of , Pro 5:19, and signifies to drink something copiously in full draughts. The verbal form for is found besides only in Job 20:18; Job 39:13; the Hithpa. signifies to enjoy oneself greatly, perhaps (since the Hithpa. is sometimes used reciprocally, vid., under Gen 2:25) with the idea of reciprocity (Targ. ). We read bo o habim with Chateph – Kametz after Ben-Asher ( vid., Kimchi’s Lex.); the punctuation is that of Ben-Naphtali.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(16) Carved works.Rather, with coloured or striped coverlets. For another notice of the extravagance of the women of Jerusalem, see Isaiah 3, and for a description of the trade of Tyre, the great supplier of foreign luxuries, see Ezek. xxvii Myrrh is said to be a natural product of Arabia, aloes and cinnamon of the east coast of Africa and Ceylon.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. I have decked my bed Stuart renders, “With coverlets have I strewed my couch; with tapestry of Egyptian thread.” Zockler, “Tapestry have I spread upon my couch; variegated coverlets of Egyptian linen.” Miller, “Striped with the yarn of Egypt.”
Tapestry Some kind of embroidered cloth, parti-coloured or figured. Egypt was famous for its fine linen, thread, and yarns. The meaning is, that she had ornamented her couch or sofa with the very best and most costly of coverings.
Carved works Most commentators take these words to mean striped or embroidered coverlets. It is probable that the couch here means the sofa or mattress on which they reclined at meals.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Pro 7:16 I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved [works], with fine linen of Egypt.
Ver. 16. I have decked my bed. ] Lest haply by being abroad so late he should question where to have a bed, she assures him of a dainty one, with curious curtains.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
decked, &c. These words in verses: Pro 7:16, Pro 7:17, are rare words appropriately put into the lips of a foreigner.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
decked: Son 1:16, Son 3:7-10, Rev 2:22
fine: 1Ki 10:28, Isa 19:9, Eze 27:7
Reciprocal: Pro 31:22 – coverings Eze 23:41 – stately