2 It isn't good to have zeal without knowledge; nor being hasty with one's feet and missing the way.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good - Would it not be plainer, as it is more literal, to say, "Also, to be without knowledge, is not good for the soul?" The soul was made for God; and to be without his knowledge, to be unacquainted with him, is not only not good, but the greatest evil the soul can suffer, for it involves all other evils. The Chaldee and Syriac have: "He who knows not his own soul, it is not good to him." "Where no discretion is, there the soul is not well." - Coverdale.
And he that hasteth with his feet sinneth - And this will be the case with him who is not Divinely instructed. A child does nothing cautiously, because it is uninstructed; a savage is also rash and precipitate, till experience instructs him. A man who has not the knowledge of God is incautious, rash, headstrong, and precipitate: and hence he sinneth - he is continually missing the mark, and wounding his own soul.
Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good,.... Without knowledge of things natural and civil, especially without the knowledge of God and Christ, and divine and spiritual things; to be without this is not good, yea, very bad; for men without such knowledge and understanding are, like the beasts that perish, and for lack of it do. Jarchi interprets it, without the law. Or, "to be without the knowledge of the soul is not good" (e); so the Targum, Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions,
"he that knoweth not his soul, it is not good for him;''
that does not know he has a soul, or however takes no more care of it than if he had none; who knows not the worth and value of it, its state and condition, and the danger it is in, and the only way of attaining the salvation of it;
and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth; who engages in anything ignorantly and rashly, he misses the mark, and fails in the performance of it, for want of due consideration and care. The Targum is,
"he that is swift with his feet to evil is a sinner;''
whose feet run to evil, to commit robbery, as Aben Ezra; or to shed blood; see Proverbs 1:16.
(e) So Vatablus; or "without care of it", Schultcns.
What good can the soul do, if without knowledge? And he sins who will not take time to ponder the path of his feet.
The last illustrates the first clause. Rashness, the result of ignorance, brings trouble.
2 The not-knowing of the soul is also not good,
And he who hasteneth with the legs after it goeth astray.
Fleischer renders נפשׁ as the subj. and לא־טוב as neut. pred.: in and of itself sensual desire is not good, but yet more so if it is without foresight and reflection. With this explanation the words must be otherwise accentuated. Hitzig, in conformity with the accentuation, before us: if desire is without reflection, it is also without success. But where נפשׁ denotes desire or sensuality, it is always shown by the connection, as e.g., Proverbs 23:2; here דּעת, referring to the soul as knowing (cf. Psalm 139:14), excludes this meaning. But נפשׁ is certainly gen. subjecti; Luzzatto's "self-knowledge" is untenable, for this would require דעת נפשׁו; Meri rightly glosses נפשׁ דעת by שׂכל. After this Zckler puts Hitzig's translation right in the following manner: where there is no consideration of the soul, there is no prosperity. But that also is incorrect, for it would require אין־טוב; לא־טוב is always pred., not a substantival clause. Thus the proverb states that בלא־דעת נפשׁ is not good, and that is equivalent to היות בלא־דעת נפשׁ (for the subject to לא־טוב is frequently, as e.g., Proverbs 17:26; Proverbs 18:5, an infinitive); or also: בלא־דעת נפשׁ is a virtual noun in the sense of the not-knowing of the soul; for to say לא־דעת was syntactically inadmissible, but the expression is בלא־דעת, not בּלי דעת (בּבלי), because this is used in the sense unintentionally or unexpectedly. The גּם which begins the proverb is difficult. If we lay the principal accent in the translation given above on "not good," then the placing of גם first is a hyperbaton similar to that in Proverbs 17:26; Proverbs 20:11; cf. אך, Proverbs 17:11; רק, Proverbs 13:10, as if the words were: if the soul is without knowledge, then also (eo ipso) it is destitute of anything good. But if we lay the principal accent on the "also," then the meaning of the poet is, that ignorance of the soul is, like many other things, not good; or (which we prefer without on that account maintaining
(Note: The old interpreters and also the best Jewish interpreters mar the understanding and interpretation of the text, on the one side, by distinguishing between a nearest and a deeper meaning of Scripture (דרך נגלה and דרך נסתר); on the other by this, that they suppose an inward connection of all the proverbs, and expend useless ingenuity in searching after the connection. The former is the method especially adopted by Immanuel and Meri, the latter has most of all been used by Arama.)
the original connection of Proverbs 19:1 and Proverbs 19:2), that as on the one side the pride of wisdom, so on the other ignorance is not good. In this case גם belongs more to the subject than to the predicate, but in reality to the whole sentence at the beginning of which it stands. To hasten with the legs (אץ, as Proverbs 28:20) means now in this connection to set the body in violent agitation, without direction and guidance proceeding from the knowledge possessed by the soul. He who thus hastens after it without being intellectually or morally clear as to the goal and the way, makes a false step, goes astray, fails (vid., Proverbs 8:36, where חטאי is the contrast to מצאי).
Hasteth - That rashly and headily rushes into actions.
*More commentary available at chapter level.