But if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer,.... The Arabic version here again reads, "a hearer of the law", and so some copies; not hearing, but practice, is the main thing; not theory, but action: hence, says R.
Simeon, not the word, or the searching into it, and the explanation of it, is the root, or principal thing, hvemh ala, "but the work" : and if a man is only a preacher, or a hearer, and not a doer,he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; or, "the face of his generation"; the face with which he was born; his true, genuine, native face; in distinction from any counterfeit one, or from the face of his mind: it means his own corporeal face.
The Ethiopic version renders it, "the lineaments of his face". Pirke Abot, c. 1. sect.