Proverbs 4:18

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) But the path of the just . . .—The just have the Lord for their light (Psalm 27:1), on them the “Sun of righteousness” has arisen (Malachi 4:2). as “the light of the morning, even a morning without clouds” (2Samuel 23:4), and this light, that is, their knowledge of God, will become clearer and clearer till the “perfect day,” when they shall see Him as He is (1John 3:2). (Comp. Job 11:17; and Notes on Proverbs 6:23.)

MacLaren's Expositions

Proverbs

THE TWO PATHS

FROM DAWN TO NOON

Proverbs 4:18. - Matthew 13:43.

The metaphor common to both these texts is not infrequent throughout Scripture. In one of the oldest parts of the Old Testament, Deborah’s triumphal song, we find, ‘Let all them that love Thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.’ In one of the latest parts of the Old Testament, Daniel’s prophecy, we read, ‘They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.’ Then in the New Testament we have Christ’s comparison of His servants to light, and the great promise which I have read as my second text. The upshot of them all is this-the most radiant thing on earth is the character of a good man. The world calls men of genius and intellectual force its lights. The divine estimate, which is the true one, confers the name on righteousness.

But my first text follows out another analogy; not only brightness, but progressive brightness, is the characteristic of the righteous man.

We are to think of the strong Eastern sun, whose blinding light steadily increases till the noontide. ‘The perfect day’ is a somewhat unfortunate translation. What is meant is the point of time at which the day culminates, and for a moment, the sun seems to stand steady, up in those southern lands, in the very zenith, raying down ‘the arrows that fly by noonday.’ The text does not go any further, it does not talk about the sad diminution of the afternoon. The parallel does not hold; though, if we consult appearance and sense alone, it seems to hold only too well. For, sadder than the setting of the suns, which rise again to-morrow, is the sinking into darkness of death, from which there seems to be no emerging. But my second text comes in to tell us that death is but as the shadow of eclipse which passes, and with it pass obscuring clouds and envious mists, and ‘then shall the righteous blaze forth like the sun in their Heavenly Father’s kingdom.’

And so the two texts speak to us of the progressive brightness, and the ultimate, which is also the progressive, radiance of the righteous.

I. In looking at them together, then, I would notice, first, what a Christian life is meant to be.

I must not linger on the lovely thoughts that are suggested by that attractive metaphor of life. It must be enough, for our present purpose, to say that the light of the Christian life, like its type in the heavens, may be analysed into three beams-purity, knowledge, blessedness. And these three, blended together, make the pure whiteness of a Christian soul.

But what I wish rather to dwell upon is the other thought, the intention that every Christian life should be a life of increasing lustre, uninterrupted, and the natural result of increasing communion with, and conformity to, the very fountain itself of heavenly radiance.

Remember how emphatically, in all sorts of ways, progress is laid down in Scripture as the mark of a religious life. There is the emblem of my text. There is our Lord’s beautiful one of vegetable growth: ‘First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.’ There is the other metaphor of the stages of human life, ‘babes in Christ,’ young men in Him, old men and fathers. There is the metaphor of the growth of the body. There is the metaphor of the gradual building up of a structure. We are to ‘edify ourselves together,’ and to ‘build ourselves up on our most holy faith.’ There is the other emblem of a race-continual advance as the result of continual exertion, and the use of the powers bestowed upon us.

And so in all these ways, and in many others that I need not now touch upon, Scripture lays it down as a rule that life in the highest region, like life in the lowest, is marked by continual growth. It is so in regard to all other things. Continuity in any kind of practice gives increasing power in the art. The artisan, the blacksmith with his hammer, the skilled artificer at his trade, the student at his subject, the good man in his course of life, and the bad man in his, do equally show that use becomes second nature. And so, in passing, let me say what incalculable importance there is in our getting habit, with all its mystical power to mould life, on the side of righteousness, and of becoming accustomed to do good, and so being unfamiliar with evil.

Let me remind you, too, how this intention of continuous growth is marked by the gifts that are bestowed upon us in Jesus Christ. He gives us-and it is by no means the least of the gifts that He bestows-an absolutely unattainable aim as the object of our efforts. For He bids us not only be ‘perfect, as our Father in Heaven is perfect,’ but He bids us be entirely conformed to His own Self. The misery of men is that they pursue aims so narrow and so shabby that they can be attained, and are therefore left behind, to sink hull down on the backward horizon. But to have before us an aim which is absolutely unreachable, instead of being, as ignorant people say, an occasion of despair and of idleness, is, on the contrary, the very salt of life. It keeps us young, it makes hope immortal, it emancipates from lower pursuits, it diminishes the weight of sorrows, it administers an anaesthetic to every pain. If you want to keep life fresh, seek for that which you can never fully find.

Christ gives us infinite powers to reach that unattainable aim, for He gives us access to all His own fullness, and there is more in His storehouses than we can ever take, not to say more than we can ever hope to exhaust. And therefore, because of the aim that is set before us, and because of the powers that are bestowed upon us to reach it, there is stamped upon every Christian life unmistakably as God’s purpose and ideal concerning it, that it should for ever and for ever be growing nearer and nearer, as some ascending spiral that ever circles closer and closer, and yet never absolutely unites with the great central Perfection which is Himself.

So, brethren, for every one of us, if we are Christian people at all, ‘this is the will of God, even your perfection.’

II. Consider the sad contrast of too many Christian lives.

I would not speak in terms that might seem to be reproach and scolding. The matter is far too serious, the disease far too widespread, to need or to warrant any exaggeration. But, dear brethren, there are many so-called and, in a fashion, really Christian people to whom Christ and His work are mainly, if not exclusively, the means of escaping the consequences of sin-a kind of ‘fire-escape.’ And to very many it comes as a new thought, in so far as their practical lives are concerned, that these ought to be lives of steadily increasing deliverance from the love and the power of sin, and steadily increasing appropriation and manifestation of Christ’s granted righteousness. There are, I think, many of us from whom the very notion of progress has faded away. I am sure there are some of us who were a great deal farther on on the path of the Christian life years ago, when we first felt that Christ was anything to us, than we are to-day. ‘When for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God.’

There is an old saying of one of the prophets that a child would die a hundred years old, which in a very sad sense is true about very many folk within the pale of the Christian Church who are seventy-year-old babes still, and will die so. Suns ‘growing brighter and brighter until the noonday!’ Ah! there are many of us who are a great deal more like those strange variable stars that sometimes burst out in the heavens into a great blaze, that brings them up to the brightness of stars of the first magnitude, for a day or two; and then they dwindle until they become little specks of light that the telescope can hardly see.

And there are hosts of us who are instances, if not of arrested, at any rate of unsymmetrical, development. The head, perhaps, is cultivated; the intellectual apprehension of Christianity increases, while the emotional, and the moral, and the practical part of it are all neglected. Or the converse may be the case; and we may be full of gush and of good emotion, and of fervour when we come to worship or to pray, and our lives may not be a hair the better for it all. Or there may be a disproportion because of an exclusive attention to conduct and the practical side of Christianity, while the rational side of it, which should be the basis of all, and the emotional side of it, which should be the driving power of all, are comparatively neglected.

So, dear brethren! what with interruptions, what with growing by fits and starts, and long, dreary winters like the Arctic winters, coming in between the two or three days of rapid, and therefore brief and unwholesome, development, we must all, I think, take to heart the condemnation suggested by this text when we compare the reality of our lives with the divine intention concerning them. Let us ask ourselves, ‘Have I more command over myself than I had twenty years ago? Do I live nearer Jesus Christ today than I did yesterday? Have I more of His Spirit in me? Am I growing? Would the people that know me best say that I am growing in the grace and knowledge of my Lord and Saviour?’ Astronomers tell us that there are dark suns, that have burnt themselves out, and are wandering unseen through the skies. I wonder if there are any extinguished suns of that sort listening to me at this moment.

III. How the divine purpose concerning us may be realised by us.

Now the Alpha and the Omega of this, the one means which includes all other, is laid down by Jesus Christ Himself in another metaphor when He said, ‘Abide in Me, and I in you; so shall ye bring forth much fruit.’ Our path will brighten, not because of any radiance in ourselves, but in proportion as we draw nearer and nearer to the Fountain of heavenly radiance.

The planets that move round the sun, further away than we are on earth, get less of its light and heat; and those that circle around it within the limits of our orbit, get proportionately more. The nearer we are to Him, the more we shall shine. The sun shines by its own light, drawn indeed from the shrinkage of its mass, so that it gives away its very life in warming and illuminating its subject-worlds. But we shine only by reflected light, and therefore the nearer we keep to Him the more shall we be radiant.

That keeping in touch with Jesus Christ is mainly to be secured by the direction of thought, and love, and trust to Him. If we follow close upon Him we shall not walk in darkness. It is to be secured and maintained very largely by what I am afraid is much neglected by Christian people of all sorts nowadays, and that is the devotional use of their Bibles. That is the food by which we grow. It is to be secured and maintained still more largely by that which I, again, am afraid is but very imperfectly attained to by Christian people now, and that is, the habit of prayer. It is to be secured and maintained, again, by the honest conforming of our lives, day by day, to the present amount of our knowledge of Him and of His will. Whosoever will make all his life the manifestation of his belief, and turn all his creed into principles of action, will grow both in the comprehensiveness, and in the depths of his Christian character. ‘Ye are the light in the Lord.’ Keep in Him, and you will become brighter and brighter. So shall we ‘go from strength to strength, till we appear before God in Zion.’

IV. Lastly, what brighter rising will follow the earthly setting?

My second text comes in here. Beauty, intellect, power, goodness; all go down into the dark. The sun sets, and there is left a sad and fading glow in the darkening pensive sky, which may recall the vanished light for a little while to a few faithful hearts, but steadily passes into the ashen grey of forgetfulness.

But ‘then shall the righteous blaze forth like the sun, in their Heavenly Father’s kingdom.’ The momentary setting is but apparent. And ere it is well accomplished, a new sun swims into the ‘ampler ether, the diviner air’ of that future life, ‘and with new spangled beams, flames in the forehead of the morning sky.’

The reason for that inherent brightness suggested in our second text is that the soul of the righteous man passes from earth into a region out of which we ‘gather all things that offend, and them that do iniquity.’ There are other reasons for it, but that is the one which our Lord dwells on. Or, to put it into modern scientific language, environment corresponds to character. So, when the clouds have rolled away, and no more mists from the undrained swamps of selfishness and sin and animal nature rise up to hide the radiance, there shall be a fuller flood of light poured from the re-created sun.

That brightness thus promised has for its highest and most blessed character that it is conformity to the Lord Himself. For, as you may remember, the last use of this emblem that we find in Scripture refers not to the servant but to the Master, whom His beloved disciple in Apocalyptic vision saw, with His ‘countenance as the sun shining in his strength.’ Thus ‘we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’ And therefore that radiance of the sainted dead is progressive, too. For it has an infinite fulness to draw upon, and the soul that is joined to Jesus Christ, and derives its lustre from Him, cannot die until it has outgrown Jesus and emptied God. The sun will one day be a dark, cold ball. We shall outlast it.

But, brethren, remember that it is only those who here on earth have progressively appropriated the brightness that Christ bestows who have a right to reckon on that better rising. It is contrary to all probability to believe that the passage from life can change the ingrained direction and set of a man’s nature. We know nothing that warrants us in affirming that death can revolutionise character. Do not trust your future to such a dim peradventure. Here is a plain truth. They who on earth are as ‘the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day,’ shall, beyond the shadow of eclipse, shine on as the sun does, behind the opaque, intervening body, all unconscious of what looks to mortal eyes on earth an eclipse, and ‘shall blaze out like the sun in their Heavenly Father’s kingdom.’ For all that we know and are taught by experience, religious and moral distinctions are eternal. ‘He that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still.’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:14-27 The way of evil men may seem pleasant, and the nearest way to compass some end; but it is an evil way, and will end ill; if thou love thy God and thy soul, avoid it. It is not said, Keep at a due distance, but at a great distance; never think you can get far enough from it. The way of the righteous is light; Christ is their Way, and he is the Light. The saints will not be perfect till they reach heaven, but there they shall shine as the sun in his strength. The way of sin is as darkness. The way of the wicked is dark, therefore dangerous; they fall into sin, but know not how to avoid it. They fall into trouble, but never seek to know wherefore God contends with them, nor what will be in the end of it. This is the way we are bid to shun. Attentive hearing the word of God, is a good sign of a work of grace begun in the heart, and a good means of carrying it on. There is in the word of God a proper remedy for all diseases of the soul. Keep thy heart with all diligence. We must set a strict guard upon our souls; keep our hearts from doing hurt, and getting hurt. A good reason is given; because out of it are the issues of life. Above all, we should seek from the Lord Jesus that living water, the sanctifying Spirit, issuing forth unto everlasting life. Thus we shall be enabled to put away a froward mouth and perverse lips; our eyes will be turned from beholding vanity, looking straight forward, and walking by the rule of God's word, treading in the steps of our Lord and Master. Lord, forgive the past, and enable us to follow thee more closely for the time to come.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Shining ... shineth - The two Hebrew words are different; the first having the sense of bright or clear. The beauty of a cloudless sunshine growing on, shining as it goes, to the full and perfect day, is chosen as the fittest figure of the ever increasing brightness of the good man's life. Compare the marginal reference.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18, 19. As shining light increases from twilight to noonday splendor, so the course of the just increases in purity, but that of the wicked is as thickest darkness, in which one knows not on what he stumbles.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The path of the just is as the shining light; the common course of their lives or actions is pure and spotless, clear and certain, safe and comfortable, as light is.

That shineth more and more unto the perfect day; just men do daily more and more grow in knowledge, and grace, and consolation, until all be perfected and swallowed up in glory.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But the path of the just is as the shining light,.... The "just" man is one that is made righteous through the righteousness of Christ imputed to him; and who is created anew in Christ, in righteousness and true holiness; and, under the influence of divine grace, lives soberly, righteously, and godly: the "path" he is directed to walk in, and does, is Christ himself, the way, the truth, and the life; through whose blood, righteousness, and sacrifice, he goes to God for grace and mercy, for peace, pardon, and acceptance, for fresh supplies of grace, and in order to enjoy communion with him; and who also is the way of salvation, and to eternal life and happiness: and, besides this grand and principal path, there are the paths of truth, righteousness, and holiness; the path of duty and obedience; the way of the commandments of God, and ordinances of Christ: and this path he walks in, whether of grace or duty, is "as the shining light"; or of the morning, when the day first dawns, or at least when the sun rises. Such is the light beamed in at first conversion, which directs men to walk in the above mentioned paths; it is a light after a night of darkness, as such is the state of unregeneracy; which, though at first is but glimmering, yet afterwards is clear and shining; especially when Christ the sun of righteousness appears, or is revealed, as the hope of glory. The first grace in conversion is a "true light that shines", 1 John 2:8, by which a soul sees its own vileness and filthiness, the insufficiency of its own righteousness; and the fulness, suitableness, and ability Christ as a Saviour, and has some discerning of Gospel truths;

that shineth more and more unto the perfect day; or "going and shining" (z), or "enlightening": it shines clearer and clearer, so does true grace; it grows and increases more and more, every grace does, faith, hope, love, patience, humility, &c. the light of the knowledge of Christ the way, though it is imperfect, yet capable of being increased, and is increased by means of the ministry of the word and ordinances; which increase God has promised, saints pursue after, and attain unto. Light into the Gospel, and the doctrines of it, increases yet more and more; whereby a soul walks pleasantly, comfortably, and safely, in right path, "until the perfect day" of glory comes, a day without clouds; when there will be nothing to interpose between God and them; when there will be no more clouds of darkness, unbelief, doubts, and fears; when the sun will always be seen, no more withdrawn, eclipsed, or set; even Christ, the sun of righteousness, whose glory will always be beheld by the righteous to all eternity: when there will be no more night of affliction, desertion, and death; when the light of knowledge will be clear and perfect, and saints shall see face to face, and know as they are known; and when not only the light of the righteous shall be so clear, distinct, and perfect, but they themselves shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of God. The words may be rendered, "the prepared day" (a); appointed in the decrees of God, and firmly established by them: the invisible glories of the heavenly state, which make this everlasting day, are things which God has prepared for his people; the kingdom and glory itself, the inheritance of the saints in light, is prepared for them from the foundation of the world. And, since such is the path of the just, who would walk in the ways of the wicked? which are the reverse of this, as the following words show.

(z) "vadens et illuminans", Montanus; "ambulans et lucens", Gejerus; "pergens et lucens", Michaelis; "procedens et lucens", Schultens. (a) "usque ad paratum diem", Pagninus, Montanus.

Geneva Study Bible

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that {h} shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

(h) Signifying that the godly increase daily in knowledge and perfection, till they come to full persecution, which is when the are joined to their head in the heavens.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. the shining light] Some would render, the light of dawn, with R.V. marg., but this is rather implied in the figure than expressed in the words.

the perfect day] Lit. the standing firm of the day. ἕως κατορθώσῃ ἡ ἡμέρα, LXX. As the sun climbs the heavens, shining brighter and brighter, from the first faint glimmer of dawn till he reaches his meridian height and appears to stand there firm and motionless; so is the path of the righteous. His sun standeth still at last in the heavens, and hasteth not to go down for the whole everlasting day.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - A contrast is drawn in this and the following verse between the path of the just and the way of the wicked. The former is, by an extremely beautiful image, likened to the light at dawn, which goes on increasing in brightness and intensity as the day advances, until at length it reaches its meridian splendour and glory. An exactly similar figure is found in David's last words (2 Samuel 23:4). The path of the just; i.e. their moral course. As the shining light (k'or nogah); i.e. as the light of dawn. The word nogah, from nagah, "to shine," is a noun, and properly signifies "brightness," "shining." "splendour." It is used also to designate the dawn, the light of the sun when it first mounts the horizon, and sheds its beams over the landscape, as in Isaiah 9:3, "Kings (shall come) to the brightness (nogah) of thy rising;" and Isaiah 62:1, "Until the righteousness thereof go forth as the brightness (nogah)" (cf. 2 Samuel 23:4, where the same word also occurs). Michaelis and Schultens refer nogah to "the path," and render, "The path of the just is splendid as the light." So Dathe and others; and in this sense it was understood by the LXX., "The path of the just shall shine as the light shines." The Vulgate renders, quasi lux splendens. That shineth more and more (holek vaor); literally, going and shining - a common Hebrew idiom denoting progression or increase. The construction of the participle holek, from halak, "to go," with the participle of another verb, is found in 1 Samuel 17:41, "The Philistine came nearer and nearer (holek v'karev);" 1 Samuel 2:26. "The child Samuel grew on more and more (holek v'hadel)" (cf. 2 Chronicles 17:12; Jonah 1:11). Unto the perfect day (ad-n'kon hayyom); Vulgate, usque ad perfectam diem. The Hebrew, n'kon hayyom, corresponds to the Greek, ἡ σταθερὰ, equivalent to "the high noon," when the sun seems to stand still in the heavens. The figure, as Fleiseher remarks, is probably derived from the balance, the tongue of the balance of day, which before or after is inclined either to the right or the left, being at midday perfectly upright, and as it were firm. So kun, the unused kal, from which n'kon, the niph. participle, is derived, is "to stand upright," and in hiph. "to be set," "to stand firm," "to be established," and hence the expression might be rendered, "until the steady, or established day," which, however, refers to the midday, or noon, and not to that point when day succeeds dawn, as Rosenmuller and Schultens on Hosea 6:3 maintain. The comparison is not extended beyond the midday, because the wish of the father was to indicate the full knowledge which the just attain in God, and which can knew of no decline. A similar figure of gradual development is found in our Lord's parable of the seed growing secretly (Mark 4:28), and is visible in Psalm 84:7, "They grow from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." The verse illustrates the gradual growth and increase of the righteous in knowledge, holiness, and joy, all of which are inseparably connected in the career of such. Proverbs 4:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The two ways that lie for his choice before the youth, are distinguished from one another as light is from darkness:

18 And the path of the just is like the brightness of the morning light,

     Which shines more and more till the perfect day.

19 The way of the wicked is deep darkness,

     They know not at what they stumble.

The Hebr. style is wont to conceal in its Vav (ו) diverse kinds of logical relations, but the Vav of 18a may suitably stand before 19a, where the discontinuance of this contrast of the two ways is unsuitable. The displacing of a Vav from its right position is not indeed without example (see under Psalm 16:3); but since Proverbs 4:19 joins itself more easily than Proverbs 4:18 to Proverbs 4:17 without missing a particle, thus it is more probable that the two verses are to be transposed, than that the ו of וארח (Proverbs 4:17) is to be prefixed to דּרך (Proverbs 4:18). Sinning, says Proverbs 4:16, has become to the godless as a second nature, so that they cannot sleep without it; they must continually be sinning, adds Proverbs 4:17, for thus and not otherwise do they gain for themselves their daily bread. With reference to this fearful self-perversion to which wickedness has become a necessity and a condition of life, the poet further says that the way of the godless is כּאפלה,

(Note: In good MSS and printed copies the כ has the Pathach, as Kimchi states the rule in Michlol 45a: כל כּאפלה פתח, כל כּאבנים פתח.)

as deep darkness, as the entire absence of light: it cannot be otherwise than that they fall, but they do not at all know whereat they fall, for they do not at all know wickedness as such, and have no apprehension of the punishment which from an inward necessity it brings along with it; on the contrary, the path of the just is in constantly increasing light - the light of knowledge, and the light of true happiness which is given

(Note: Hitzig inverts the order of Proverbs 4:18 and Proverbs 4:19, and connects the כּי of 16a immediately with Proverbs 4:19 (for the way of the wicked...). He moreover regards Proverbs 4:16, Proverbs 4:17 as an interpolation, and explains Proverbs 4:16 as a gloss transforming the text of Proverbs 4:19. "That the wicked commit wickedness," says Hitzig, "is indeed certain (1 Samuel 24:14), and the warning of Proverbs 4:15 ought not to derive its motive from their energy in sinning." But the warning against the way of the wicked is founded not on their energy in sinning, but on their bondage to sin: their sleep, their food and drink - their life both when they sleep and when they wake - is conditioned by sin and is penetrated by sin. This foundation of the warning furnishes what is needed, and is in nothing open to objection. And that in Proverbs 4:16 and Proverbs 4:19 לא ירעוּ and לא ידעוּ, יכשׁולוּ and יכּשׁלוּ, נגזלה and כּאפלה seem to be alike, does not prove that Proverbs 4:16 originated as a parallel text from Proverbs 4:19 - in the one verse as in the other the thoughts are original.)

in and with knowledge. On בּמּה vid., under Isaiah 2:22; it is מכשׁול, σκάνδαλον, that is meant, stumbling against which (cf. Leviticus 26:37) they stumble to their fall. נגהּ,

(Note: Bttcher, under 2 Samuel 23:4, explains נגהּ of the brightness striking against, conquering (cf. נגח, נגף) the clouds; but ferire or percutere lies nearer (cf. נגע, Ezekiel 17:10, נכה, Psalm 121:6, and the Arab. darb, used of strong sensible impressions), as Silius, iv. 329, says of the light: percussit lumine campos.)

used elsewhere than in the Bible, means the morning star (Venus), (Sirach 50:4, Syr.); when used in the Bible it means the early dawn, the light of the rising sun, the morning light, 2 Samuel 23:4; Isaiah 62:1, which announces itself in the morning twilight, Daniel 6:20. The light of this morning sunshine is הולך ואור, going and shining, i.e., becoming ever brighter. In the connection of הולך ואור it might be a question whether אור is regarded as gerundive (Genesis 8:3, Genesis 8:5), or as participle (2 Samuel 16:5; Jeremiah 41:6), or as a participial adjective (Genesis 26:13; Judges 4:24); in the connection of הלוך ואור, on the contrary, it is unquestionably the gerundive: the partic. denoting the progress joins itself either with the partic., Jonah 1:11, or with the participial adjective, 2 Samuel 3:1; 2 Chronicles 17:12, or with another adjective formation, 2 Samuel 15:12; Esther 9:4 (where וגדול after וגדל of other places appears to be intended as an adjective, not after 2 Samuel 5:10 as gerundive). Thus ואור, as also וטוב, 1 Samuel 2:26, will be participial after the form בּושׁ, being ashamed (Ges. 72, 1); cf. בּוס, Zechariah 10:5, קום, 2 Kings 16:7. "נכון היּום quite corresponds to the Greek τὸ σταθηρὸν τῆς ἡμέρας, ἡ σταθηρὰ μεσημβρία (as one also says τὸ σταθηρὸν τῆς νυκτός), and to the Arabic qâ'mt ‛l-nhâr and qâ'mt ‛l-dhyrt. The figure is probably derived from the balance (cf. Lucan's Pharsalia, lib. 9: quam cardine summo Stat librata dies): before and after midday the tongue on the balance of the day bends to the left and to the right, but at the point of midday it stands directly in the midst" (Fleischer). It is the midday time that is meant, when the clearness of the day has reached its fullest intensity - the point between increasing and decreasing, when, as we are wont to say, the sun stands in the zenith ( equals Arab. samt, the point of support, i.e., the vertex). Besides Mark 4:28, there is no biblical passage which presents like these two a figure of gradual development. The progress of blissful knowledge is compared to that of the clearness of the day till it reaches its midday height, having reached to which it becomes a knowing of all in God, Proverbs 28:5; 1 John 2:20.