Proverbs 27:15

A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) A continual dropping in a very rainy day.—See above on Proverbs 19:13.

Benson Commentary

Proverbs 27:15-16. A continual dropping, &c., and a contentious woman are alike — Are equally troublesome; the first not suffering a man to go abroad with comfort; the latter not permitting him to stay at home with quietness. Whosoever hideth her — That is, attempts to smother her passion, that it may not break forth to her shame, and to her husband’s discomfort and reproach; hideth the wind — Undertakes that which is impossible; and the ointment of his right hand — Which, being the great instrument of action, by its much stirring diffuseth the savour of it. Houbigant renders it, He who will confine her at home may confine the wind, for whatsoever he shall seal with his hand, that is, whatsoever her husband would wish to keep secret, she will bewray or divulge. The Hebrew is very obscure, but the meaning of the verse evidently is, “To attempt to keep such a woman in the house, is to attempt to restrain the wind: and as one cannot touch perfumed oil with the hand but the odour will discover itself, so is it fruitless to endeavour to conceal the bad qualities of a quarrelsome woman; in spite of all endeavours she will discover herself.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

27:15,16. The contentions of a neighbour may be like a sharp shower, troublesome for a time; the contentions of a wife are like constant rain. 17. We are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with. And directed to have in view, in conversation, to make one another wiser and better. 18. Though a calling be laborious and despised, yet those who keep to it, will find there is something to be got by it. God is a Master who has engaged to honour those who serve him faithfully. 19. One corrupt heart is like another; so are sanctified hearts: the former bear the same image of the earthly, the latter the same image of the heavenly. Let us carefully watch our own hearts, comparing them with the word of God. 20. Two things are here said to be never satisfied, death and sin. The appetites of the carnal mind for profit or pleasure are always desiring more. Those whose eyes are ever toward the Lord, are satisfied in him, and shall for ever be so. 21. Silver and gold are tried by putting them into the furnace and fining-pot; so is a man tried by praising him. 22. Some are so bad, that even severe methods do not answer the end; what remains but that they should be rejected? The new-creating power of God's grace alone is able to make a change. 23-27. We ought to have some business to do in this world, and not to live in idleness, and not to meddle with what we do not understand. We must be diligent and take pains. Let us do what we can, still the world cannot be secured to us, therefore we must choose a more lasting portion; but by the blessing of God upon our honest labours, we may expect to enjoy as much of earthly blessings as is good for us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Continual dropping - Here, as in the marginal reference, the flat, earthen roof of Eastern houses, always liable to cracks and leakage, supplies the groundwork of the similitude.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. (Compare Pr 19:13).

very … day—literally, "a day of showers."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Are equally troublesome, the first not suffering a man to go abroad with comfort, the latter not permitting him to stay at home with quietness.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

A continual dropping in a very rainy day,.... That is, through the roof of a house which is not well covered, or which lets in rain by one means or another; so that in a thorough rainy day it keeps continually dropping, to the great annoyance of those within, and which is very uncomfortable to them: it is observed (g) that rain is called by the name in the text, because a man is shut up under a roof falls; and continuing long he is shut up within doors and cannot come out;

and a contentious woman are alike; troublesome and uncomfortable; as in a rainy day, a man cannot go abroad with any pleasure, and if the rain is continually dropping upon him in his house he cannot sit there with any comfort; and so a contentious woman, that is always scolding and brawling, a man has no comfort at home; and if he goes abroad he is jeered and laughed at on her account by others; and perhaps she the more severely falls upon him when he returns for having been abroad; see Proverbs 19:13.

(g) David de Pomis, Lexic. fol. 107. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. See Proverbs 19:13.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - The single line of the second clause of Proverbs 19:13 is here formed into a distich. A continual dropping in a very rainy day. "A day of violent rain," סַגְרִיר (sagrir), which word occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. And a contentious woman are alike. The word rendered "are alike" (נִשְׁתָּוָה) is usually taken to be the third perf. nithp. from שׁיה; but the best established reading, according to Hitzig, Delitzsch, and Nowack, is נִשְׁתָּוָה, which is regarded as a niph. with a transposition of consonants for נְשְׁוָתָה. Septuagint, "Drops of rain drive a man out of his house on a stormy day." The ill-constructed roofs of Eastern houses were very subject to leakage, being flat and formed of porous material. Proverbs 27:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This proverb passes from the complimentarius to its opposite, a shrewish wife:

A continual dropping in a rainy day

And a contentious woman are alike.

Thus we have already translated (vol. i. p. 9), where, when treating of the manifold forms of parabolic proverbs, we began with this least poetic, but at the same time remarked that Proverbs 27:15 and Proverbs 27:16 are connected, forming a tetrastich, which is certainly the case according to the text here lying before us. In Proverbs 27:15, Proverbs 19:13 is expanded into a distich, and made a complete verse. Regarding דּלף טורד, vid., the explanation there given. The noun סגריר, which the Syr. translates by magyaa', but the Targumist retains, because it is in common use in the post-bibl. Heb. (Bereschith rabba, c. 1) and the Jewish Aramaic, signifies violent rain, after the Jewish interpreters, because then the people remain shut up in their houses; more correctly, perhaps, from the unbroken continuousness and thickness (cf. the Arab. insajara, to go behind each other in close column) with which the rain pours down. Regarding מדונים, Kerı̂ מדינים, vid., Proverbs 6:14; the genit. connection of 'אושׁת מ we have already at Proverbs 21:9. The form נשׁתּוה is doubtful. If accented, with Lwenstein and others, as Milra, then we would have a Nithkatal before us, as at Numbers 1:47, or a Hothkatal - a passive form of the Kal, the existence of which, however, is not fully established. Rather this word is to be regarded as נשׁתּוּה (Nithpa. as Deuteronomy 21:8; Ezekiel 23:48) without the dagesh, and lengthened; the form of the word נשׁתּוה, as found in the Cod. Jaman., aims at this. But the form נשׁתּוה is better established, e.g., by Cod. 1294, as Milel. Kimchi, Michlol 131a (cf. Ewald, 132c), regards it as a form without the dagesh, made up the Niph. and Hithpa., leaving the penultima toning unexplained. Bertheau regards it as a voluntative: let us compare (as נשׁתּעה, Isaiah 41:23); but as he himself says, the reflexive form does not accord with this sense. Hitzig has adopted the right explanation (cf. Olshausen, 275, and Bttcher, 1072, who, however, registers it at random as an Ephraimitism). נשׁתּוה is a Niphal, with a transposition of consonants for נשׁותה, since נשׁותה passes over into נשׁתּוה. Such is now the genus in the arrangement; the Milra form would be as masc. syntactically inaccurate. "The finite following the subjects is regulated by the gender and number of that which is next before it, as at 2 Samuel 3:22; 2 Samuel 20:20; Psalm 55:6; Job 19:15" (Hitzig).