The last argument is the mental anguish which ensues when health is ruined and wealth is squandered. And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed. The Hebrew v'nahamta' is rather "and thou groan."
It is not the plaintive wailing or the subdued grief of heart which is signified, but the loud wail of lamentation, the groaning indicative of intense mental suffering called forth by the remembrance of past folly, and which sees no remedy in the future.
The verb naham occurs again in Proverbs 28:15, where it is used of the roaring of the lion, and the cognate noun naham is met with in Proverbs 19:12 and Proverbs 20:2 in the same sense. By Ezekiel it is used of the groaning of the people of Jerusalem when they shall see their sanctuary profaned, their sons and their daughters fall by the sword, and their city destroyed (Ezekiel 24:23).
Isaiah (Isaiah 5:29, Isaiah 5:30) applies it to the roaring of the sea. The Vulgate reproduces the idea in gemas, equivalent to "and thou groan." The LXX. rendering, καὶ μεταμεληθήσῃ, "and thou shelf repent," arising from the adoption of a different pointing, nikhamta, from the niph.
nikham, "to repent," for nahamta, to some extent expresses the sense. At the last; literally, at thine end; i.e. when thou art ruined, or, as the teacher explains, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.
The expression, "thy flesh and thy body," here stands for the whole body, the body in its totality, not the body and the soul, which would be different. Of these two words "the flesh" (basar) rather denotes the flesh in its strict sense as such (cf.
Job 31:31; Job 33:21), while "body" (sh'er) is the flesh adhering to the bones. Gesenlus regards them as synonymous terms, stating, however, that sh'er is the more poetical as to use. The word basar is used to denote the whole body in Isaiah 14:30.
It is clear that, by the use of these two terms here, the teacher is following a peculiarity observable elsewhere in the Proverbs, of combining two terms to express, and so to give force to, one idea.
The expression describes "the utter destruction of the libertine" (Umbreit). This destruction, as further involving the ruin of the soul, is described in Proverbs 6:32, "Whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding; he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul (nephesh)" (cf.