Pro 19:24 24 The slothful hath thrust his hand into the dish; He bringeth it not again to his mouth.
This proverb is repeated in a different form, Pro 26:15. The figure appears, thus understood, an hyperbole, on which account the lxx understand by צלחת the bosom or lap, κόλπον; Aquila and Symmachus understand by it the arm-pit, μασχάλην or μάλην; and the Jewish interpreters gloss it by חיק (Kimchi) or קרע החלוק, the slit (Ita. fenditura) of the shirt. But the domestic figure, 2Ki 21:13, places before us a dish which, when it is empty, is wiped and turned upside down; and that the slothful when he eats appears too slothful to bring his hand, e.g., with the rice or the piece of bread he has taken out of the dish, again to his mouth, is true to nature: we say of such a man that he almost sleeps when he eats. The fut. after the perf. here denotes that which is not done after the former thing, i.e., that which is scarcely and only with difficulty done; לּו ... גּם may have the meaning of “yet not,” as at Psa 129:2; but the sense of “not once” = ne ... quidem, lies here nearer Deu 23:3.