Proverbs Chapter 30 verse 15 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 15, 16. - Having spoken of insatiate cupidity, the writer now introduces four things which are insatiable. The form of the apothegm is climacteric, mounting from two to three, and thence to four, like the famous passage in Amos 1:3, etc. (comp. Proverbs 6:16, though there is no special stress there laid on the last member of the climax; Job 5:19; Job 33:29; Ecclesiastes 11:2). Verse 15. - The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. The word "crying" is not in the Hebrew, which says, "The alukah hath two daughters: Give! Give!" The insatiable appetite of this creature is represented by two words, which are personified as daughters, whom the mother has produced and dearly loves. This word alukah is not found again in the Old Testament; but in later Hebrew and in Aramaic it means "leech" or "bloodsucker;" and so it is translated by the Septuagint, βδέλλα, and by St. Jerome sanguisuga. The word is derived from a root which in Arabic means "to adhere." There are several kinds of leeches common in Palestine, and their bloodthirsty nature is well known; as Horace says, 'Ars Poet.,' 476 - "Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo." It seems simple and quite satisfactory to accept the word thus, and to see in the voracity of the leech an example of the greed further developed in the following clauses; but commentators have not been contented with this explanation, and have offered various suggestions which are either unnecessary or inadmissible. Thus the Talmud considers alukah to be an appellation of hell, and the two daughters to be the Power of the world, and Heresy. Some of the Fathers regard it as a symbol of the devil and his dominion; others, as a personification of cupidity with its two offshoots avarice and ambition. Some moderns deem it to mean a vampire or blood thirsty demon, a ghoul, in accordance with Eastern myth. But, as we have said, such interpretations are unnecessary and unsupported by sufficient authority. The allusion to the tastes of the leech is found elsewhere. Thus Theocritus, 'Idyll.,' 2:55 - Αι} αι} ἔρως ἀνιαρέ τί μευ μέλαν ἐκ χροὸς αἵμαἘμφὺς ὡς λιμνᾶτις ἅπαν ἐκ βδέλλα πέπωκας And Plautus, 'Epidic.,' 2:2, 5 - "Jam ego me convortam in hirudinem atqueEorum exsugebo sanguinem,Senati qui columen cluent." Ewald and others find traces of mutilation in this proverb, and endeavour to supply what is lost in various ways; but the text as it stands is intelligible, and needs no addition. The rest of the verse is an application of the truth first stated. The type of cupidity there enunciated is instanced and exemplified in four special cases. There are three things that are never satisfied. And then a corrective climax is addressed. Yea, four things say not, It is enough. The four in the following verse are divided into two plus two. Septuagint, "The leech had three daughters dearly beloved, and these three did not satisfy her, and the fourth was not contented to say, Enough."

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(15) The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give.--The word "crying" is not in the Hebrew. The leech is here chosen as the emblem of insatiable greed; if it could speak, its "daughters," i.e., the words it would utter, would be "Give, give." So it forms an introduction to the quartette of "insatiable things" which follow.