Proverbs 8:26

26. The fields חוצות , ( hhutsoth,) the exterior surface, or ostensible part.

Nor the highest part of the dust of the world ראשׁ עפרות תבל , ( rosh ‘ haphroth tebhel,) the first dust of the world the primeval atoms, seemingly opposed to the hhutsoth the observable part. “World,” ( tebhel,) a poetic word from בלל , ( balal,) one of the meanings of which is to mix, mingle the compounded mass of the earth. The sense of the whole, throwing off the poetic garb, and carrying forward the verb from the preceding verse, appears to be: I was produced while yet he had not made the land, neither the observable exterior nor the interior atoms of the complex globe. Some expositors fancy that the highest part of the dust of the earth means man himself, originally formed of the dust of the earth.

The drift of the thought in Proverbs 8:23-27, is seemingly this: We have, first, the proposition, (Proverbs 8:23,) I existed before the earth (as a whole) existed. This is amplified in sundry particulars, first, (Proverbs 8:24,) before the fluid parts, the oceans and streams; second, (Proverbs 8:25,) before the solid parts, especially the more prominent and observable, as the mountains and hills; third, (ver.

26,) an amplification of this again, descending to other particulars the surface of the land and its internal components the original atoms or particles of the same. Wisdom was before all these.