19 ¶ A feast is made for │ For pleasure they make bread, laughter, and wine ¹maketh │ and wine rejoices life, but merry: but money answereth all │ silver subserves with respect _things_. │ to everything. │ ¹ _Hebrew_ maketh glad the │ life. │ (19.) =To laughter= are =makings= (which the LXX. renders by ποιοῦσιν, ‘they make’) =bread and wine rejoices= (the Masorets consider this a piel and transitive) =lives, and the silver= (with the article, and therefore generic――money) =answereth with respect to all things= (both senses of יענה are given in the versions of the LXX. ἐπακούσεται, Alexandrine, ‘humbly obeys,’ and ταπεινώσει, Vatican, ‘will humble.’ The Alexandrine also reads σὺν τὰ πάντα. The Syriac reads also double, as do some copies of the LXX.――(‡ Syriac phrase)――‘and money oppresses and leads them astray in all.’ The Alexandrine reading, however, makes quite consistent sense, and squares entirely with the rest of the passage. Bread is prepared for pleasure rather than support, wine rejoices hearts already merry――its real use is to cheer those who are faint with toil or sorrow; and silver, which one can neither eat nor drink, is preferred to bread and wine and everything else). 20 ¶ Curse not the king, │ Also, even in thy conscience no not in thy ¹thought; and │ a king do not revile, and in curse not the rich in thy │ secret places of the bed-chamber bed-chamber: for a bird of the │ neither do thou revile the rich: air shall carry the voice, and │ for a bird of the heavens will that which hath wings shall │ carry out the rumour, and the tell the matter. │ swift one on wings shall tell │ the matter. ¹ _Or_, conscience. │ (20.) =Also in thy understanding= (occurs Daniel i. 4, 17; 2 Chronicles i. 10, 11, 12 only, and always with this meaning: all the ancient versions follow the idea contained in the LXX.’s συνείδησις, which would seem to give the notion that this curse was a reasonable, not a hasty one) =a king= (not the king, any king) =do not curse; and in the innermost= of =thy bed-chambers do not= either =curse the rich= person (the idea of cursing or reviling is of course here prominent), =for a bird of the heavens shall cause to convey the voice= (with את and the article, with ‘respect to that voice’ is the meaning――the rumour will get abroad in a mysterious way) =and a lord of the winged ones= (the Masorets wish to omit the article in ה֯כנפים) =shall tell the matter= (the LXX. note the emphasis given by ה and the articles by adding the pronoun σοῦ, which is simply a rendering _ad sensum_――’Treason, like murder, will out’). CHAPTER XI.