16 restraining her is like restraining the wind, or like grasping oil in his right hand.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The point is the impossibility of concealment or restraint. A person cannot hide the wind, or clasp it in his hands. If he takes an unguent in his right hand, the odor betrays him, or it slips out. So, in like manner, the "contentious woman" is one whose faults it is impossible either to hide or check. The difficulty of the proverb led to a different reading, adopted by the versions, "The north wind is rough, and yet it is called propitious"; it clears off the clouds and brings fine weather.
Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind - You may as well attempt to repress the blowing of the wind, as the tongue of a scold; and to conceal this unfortunate propensity of a wife is as impossible as to hush the storm, and prevent its sound from being heard.
The ointment of his right hand - You can no more conceal such a woman's conduct, than you can the smell of the aromatic oil with which your hand has been anointed. The Hebrew is very obscure, and is variously translated. Coverdale thus: "He that refrayneth her, refrayneth the wynde; and holdith oyle fast in his honde." That is, he attempts to do what is impossible to be done.
Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind,.... Whoever attempts to stop her brawls and contentions, to repress and restrain them, and hinder her voice being heard in the streets, and endeavours to hide the shame that comes upon herself and family, attempts a thing as impossible as to hide the wind in the palm of a man's hand, or to stop it from blowing; for as that, by being restrained or pent up by any methods that can be used, makes the greater noise, so, by all the means that are used to still a contentious woman, she is but the more noisy and clamorous, and becomes more shameful and infamous;
and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself: or "will call" or "calls" (h), and says, in effect, Here am I; for the smell of it, which cannot be hid when held in a man's hand, betrays it; and the faster he holds it, and the more he presses and squeezes it, and the more it is heated hereby, the more it diffuses its savour, and is known to be where it is; and so all attempts to stop the mouth of a brawling woman does but cause her to brawl the louder.
(h) "clamabit", Pagninus, Montanus, Munster, Vatablus, Mercerus; "vocabit", Baynus; "clamat", Piscator, Michaelis; "praeconem agit", Schultens.
hideth--or, "restrains" (that is, tries to do it); is as fruitless an effort, as that of holding the wind.
the ointment of his right hand--the organ of power (Psalm 17:7; Psalm 18:35). His right hand endeavors to repress perfume, but vainly. Some prefer: "His right hand comes on oil," that is, "cannot take hold." Such a woman cannot be tamed.
This verse stands in close connection with the preceding, for it speaks of the contentious woman:
He that restraineth her restraineth the wind,
And oil meeteth his right hand.
The connection of the plur. subject צפניה = quicunque eam cohibet, with a sing. predicate, is not to be disputed (vid., Proverbs 3:18 and Proverbs 28:16, Chethı̂b); but can צפן gain from the meaning of preserving, laying up, also the meanings of keeping, of confining, and shutting up? - for these meanings we have כּלא and עצר (cf. צרר, Proverbs 30:4). In 16b it lies nearer to see in ימינו the object of the clause (oil meeteth his right hand) than the subject (his right hand meeteth oil), for the gender of ימין directs to יד (e.g., Ezekiel 15:6; cf. 6a, where נאדּרי is as to gender indifferent): it is fem., while on the contrary שׁמן is generally masc. (cf. Song 1:3). There is no reason for regarding ימינו as an adverbial accus. (he meets oil with his right hand), or, with Hitzig, as a second subject (he meets oil, his right hand); the latter, in the order of the words lying before us, is not at all possible. We suppose that יקרא, as at Genesis 49:1, is equivalent to יקרה (Ewald, 116c), for the explanation oleum dexterae ejus praeconem agit (Cocceius, Schultens) does not explain, but only darkens: and oleum dexter su legit, i.e., colligit (Fleischer), is based on an untenable use of the word. As one may say of person to person, קרך, occurrit tibi, Numbers 25:18, so also יקרא (יקרה), of a thing that meets a man or one of his members; and if we compare לקראת and קרי, then for 16b the meaning is possible: oil meets his right hand; the quarrelsome woman is like oil that cannot be held in the hand, which struggles against that which holds it, for it always glides out of the hand. Thus also Luther: "and seeks to hold oil with his hand," as if he read יקמץ. In fact, this word was more commonly used as the expression of untenableness than the colourless and singular word יקרא, which, besides, is so ambiguous, that none of the old translators has thought on any other קרא than that which signifies "to call," "to name." The Jewish interpreters also adhere to this nearest lying קרא, and, moreover, explain, as the Syr., Targ., Aquila, Symmachus, Jerome, and the Venet., שׁמן ימינו, according to the accentuation as genit. connected, e.g., Rashi: he calls for oil to his right hand, viz., as the means of purification from leprosy, Leviticus 8:14 [Leviticus 14:16]; and Aben Ezra: even when he calls for oil to his right hand, i.e., would move them to silence with the precious anointing oil. Perhaps Proverbs 27:16 was originally an independent proverb as follows:
צפני הון צפן רוח
ושמן ימינו יקרא
He who layeth up riches in store layeth up the wind,
And he nameth them the fat of his right hand;
i.e., he sees in them that which makes his right hand fat and strong (שׁמן, as at Psalm 109:24, opp. Zac 11:17; cf. בּמשׁמנּיו, Isaiah 10:16, and regarding Ἐσμούν, the Phoenician god of health, at Isaiah 59:10), and yet it is only the wind, i.e., something that is worthless and transient, which he stored up (צפן, as at Proverbs 13:22, and in מצפּניו, Obad. Obadiah 1:6). הון is used as it frequently occurs in the Book of Proverbs, e.g., Proverbs 11:4, and the whole proverb expresses by another figure the same as Proverbs 18:11. The fact that צפון (רוח), Proverbs 25:23, and as a contrast thereto in the compass ימין (the south), hovered before the poet, may not have been without its influence on the choice of the words and expression here.
Hideth - Attempts to smother her passion. Right - hand - Which being the great instrument of action, by its much stirring, diffuses the savour of it.
*More commentary available at chapter level.