Proverbs 8:26 - Exposition

The earth, nor the fields . The distinction intended is land as cultivated and occupied by buildings, etc; and waste uncultivated land outside towns. Septuagint, "The Lord made countries and uninhabited places ( ἀοικήτους );" Vulgate, Adhuc terram non fecerat, et flumina. Hebrew, chutsoth ; things without, abroad, hence open country. The Vulgate rendering, and that of Aquila and Symmaehus, ἐξόδους , are plainly erroneous, as waters have already been mentioned ( Proverbs 8:24 ). The highest part of the dust of the world; literally, the head of the dusts of the world. Some have interpreted this expression of "man," the chief of those creatures which are made of the dust of the ground ( Genesis 3:19 ; Ecclesiastes 3:20 ). But the idea comes in awkwardly here; it is not natural to introduce man amid the inanimate works of nature, or to use such an enigmatical designation for him. St. Jerome has, cardines orbis terrarum, "the world's hinges;" Septuagint, "the inhabited summits of the earth beneath the heavens; according to St. Hilary ('De Trinit.,' 12), " cacumina quae habitantur sub coelo ." Others take the term to signify the capes or promontories ot the world, the peaks and elevations; others, the clods of dry, amble land, in contrast to the untilled waste of waters; others, the chief elements, the matter of which the earth is composed. This last interpretation would lead us back to a period which has already been passed. Amid the many possible explanations, it is perhaps best (with Delitzsch, Nowack, etc.) to take rosh, "head" as equivalent to "sum," "mass," as in Psalms 139:17 . "How great is the sum ( rosh ) of them!" Then the expression comprehensively means all the mass of earth's dust.