Pro 17:21
The first three parts of the old Solomonic Book of Proverbs ((1) Prov 10-12; (2) 13:1-15:19; (3) 15:20-17:20) are now followed by the fourth part. We recognise it as striking the same keynote as Pro 10:1. In Pro 17:21 it resounds once more, here commencing a part; there, Pro 10:1, beginning the second group of proverbs. The first closes, as it begins, with a proverb of the fool. 21 He that begetteth a fool, it is to his sorrow; And the father of a fool hath no joy.
It is admissible to supply ילדו, developing itself from ילד, before לתוּגה לו (vid., regarding this passive formation, at Pro 10:1, cf. Pro 14:13), as at Isa 66:3, מעלה (Fl.: in maerorem sibi genuit h. e. ideo videtur genuisse ut sibi maerorem crearet); but not less admissible is it to interpret לתוגה לו as a noun-clause corresponding to the ולא־ישׂמח (thus to be written with Makkeph): it brings grief to him. According as one understands this as an expectation, or as a consequence, ילד, as at Pro 23:24, is rendered either qui gignit or qui genuit. With נבל, seldom occurring in the Book of Proverbs (only here and at Pro 17:7), כּסיל, occurring not unfrequently, is interchanged. Schultens rightly defines the latter etymologically: marcidus h. e. qui ad virtutem, pietatem, vigorem omnem vitae spiritualis medullitus emarcuit; and the former: elumbis et mollitie segnitieve fractus, the intellectually heavy and sluggish (cf. Arab. kasal, laziness; kaslân, the lazy).