Clarke's Bible Commentary - Proverbs 9:18
Verse 18. But he knoweth not that the dead are there ] See on chap. ii. 18. He does not know that it was in this way the first apostates from God and truth walked. µyapr rephaim; gigantev, the GIANTS. - Septuagint. The sons of men, the earth-born, to distinguish them from the sons of God, those who were born from above. See the notes on Gen. vi. 1, &c.
Her guests are in the depths of hell. - Those who have been drawn out of the way of understanding by profligacy have in general lost their lives, if not their souls, by their folly. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic make a long addition to this verse: "But draw thou back, that thou mayest not die in this place; neither fix thy eyes upon her; so shalt thou pass by those strange waters. But abstain thou from strange waters, and drink not of another's fountain, that thou mayest live a long time, and that years may be added to thy life." Of this addition there is nothing in the Hebrew, the Chaldee, or the Vulgate, as now printed: but in the editio princeps are the following words:Qui enim applicabitur illi descendet ad inferos; nam qui abscesserit ab ea salvabitur. These words were in the copy from which my old MS. Bible has been made, as the following version proves: "Who forsoth schal ben joyned to hir, schal falle doun on to hell: for whi he that goth awai fro hir, schal be saved. Three of my own MSS. have the same reading.
