An inheritance [may be] gotten hastily at the
beginning
Of a man's setting out in the world in trade and business; and
which sometimes is got lawfully, and this must be excepted from
this proverb; but generally what is got hastily and in a short
time is got unlawfully, and so does not prosper. Some Jewish
interpreters, as Gersom, understand it of an inheritance which
comes to persons from their friends, without any labour or
industry of theirs; and which they are not careful to keep, but,
as it lightly comes, it lightly goes: here is a various reading;
our version follows the marginal reading, and which is followed
by the Targum, Jarchi, and Gersom, and by the Septuagint, Syriac,
and Vulgate Latin versions; but the written text is, "an
inheritance loathsome" or "abominable"; an ill gotten one, so the
word is used in ( Zechariah
11:8 ) . Schultens, from the use of the word in the Arabic
language, which signifies to be covetous, renders it "covetously
got" or "possessed" F9; and so the Arabic version is, "an
inheritance greedily desired", obtained through covetousness and
illicit practices; but in his late commentary on this book he
renders the passage, by the help of Arabism, "an inheritance
smitten with the curse of sordidness", as being sordidly got and
enjoyed; but the end thereof shall not be
blessed;
it will not continue, it will be taken away from them, and put
into some other hands. Jarchi illustrates it by the tribes of Gad
and Reuben making haste to take their part on the other side
Jordan before their brethren, and were the first that were
carried captive.