But if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a
doer,
&c.] 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" F16: 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".
F16 Pirke Abot, c. 1. sect. 17.
