married woman. It is the passage in Proverbs only which requires a more minute examination, as the opponents have given up all the other passages, and seek in it alone a support for their assertion that עלמה may be used of a married woman also. The passage in its connection runs as follows: Ver. 18. "There be three things which are too wonderful for me, and four which I know not. Ver. 19. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon the rock, the way of a ship in the heart of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid. Ver. 20. This is the way of an adulterous woman; she [Pg 46] eateth, and wipeth her mouth and saith: I have done no wickedness." According to _De Wette_, _Bertheau_, and others, the _tertium comparationis_ for every thing is to lie in this only, that the ways do not leave any trace that could be recognized. But the traceless disappearing is altogether without foundation; there is not one word to indicate it; and it is quite impossible that that on which every thing depends should have been left to conjecture. Farther,--instead of the eagle, every other bird might have been mentioned, and the words "in the air" would be without meaning, as well as the words "in the heart of the sea" mentioned in reference to the ship. But the real point of view is expressly stated in ver. 18. It is the _incomprehensible_. It is thus only that ver. 20, for which the other verses prepare the way, falls in with the tendency of the whole. In the way of the adulteress, that which is pointed out is not that it cannot be known, but the moral incomprehensibility that she, practising great wickedness which is worthy of death, and will unavoidably bring destruction upon her, behaves as if there were nothing wrong, as if a permitted enjoyment were the point in question, that she eats the poisoned bread of unchaste enjoyment as if it were ordinary bread; comp. ix. 17, xx. 17; Ps. xiv. 4. Four incomprehensible things in the natural territory are made use of to illustrate an incomprehensible thing in the ethical territory. The whole purpose is _to point out the mystery of sin_. In the case of the _eagle_, it is the boldness of his flight in which the miraculous consists. The speed and boldness of his flight is elsewhere also very commonly mentioned as the characteristic of the eagle; it is just that which makes him the king of birds. In the case of the _serpent_, the wonder is that, although wanting feet, it yet moves over the smooth rock which is inaccessible to the proud horse; comp. Amos vi. 12: "Do horses run upon the rock." In the _ship_, it is the circumstance that she safely passes over the abyss which, as it would appear, could not fail to swallow her up. _The way of a man with a maid_ occupies the last place in order to intimate that דרך, as in the case of the adulteress, denotes the _spiritual_ way. What is here meant is the relation of the man to the virgin, _generally_, for if any _particular_ aspect had been regarded, _e.