Proverbs 23:35
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick,.... Or "grieved not" {x}; or was not wounded or skin broken {y}; see Jeremiah 5:3. The drunken man is here represented as saying, that though his companions, with whom he quarrelled and fought in his drunken frolics, beat him very much, yet he was not sensible of the pain and smart; and it had left no sickness nor disorder upon him; he did not find himself much the worse for it;
They have beaten me; as with hammers {z}; battered and bruised him terribly, laying very hard and heavy strokes upon him;
and I felt it not; or "knew it not" {a}; did not perceive it, was not sensible of it, when the blows were given, or who gave them; and thus feeling no more, and coming off so well, as he thinks, he is so far from being reclaimed from this vice, that he is more strengthened in it, and desirous of it;
when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again: that is, the wine and his boon companions, though he has been so used. So the Vulgate Latin version, "when shall I awake, and again find wines?" being heavy with sleep through intemperance, and yet thirsty, is desirous of shaking off his sleep, that he may get to drinking again, and "add drunkenness to thirst", Deuteronomy 29:19; so the Septuagint version,
"when will it be morning, that going I may seek with whom I may meet?''
{x} ytylx lb "non dolui", Tigurine version, Michaelis.
{y} Schultens Orig. Heb. l. 1. c. 9. s. 20.
{z} ynwmlh "contuderunt me, velut malleis", Michaelis; so Grotius.
{a} ytedy lb "non cognovi", Pagninus, Montanus; "non novi", Cocceius.