Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 20:1
Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
1. a mocker ] Rather a scorner, Pro 1:22, note.
raging ] Rather, a brawler, R.V. In each case the thing is personified in its victim. The drunkard in his cups becomes impious towards God and quarrelsome towards his neighbour.
is deceived ] erreth, R.V., reeleth, R.V. marg.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wine and strong drink are personified as themselves doing what they make men do. The latter (see Lev 10:9 note) is here, probably, the palm-wine of Syria.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 20:1
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
The evil effects of drunkenness
I. It deadens every moral sensibility. And what is the evidence of the drunkard himself? On his own declaration, are the principles of virtue as vigorous in his heart now as before? Is he as sensible of delight in contemplating the morally sublime, as much shocked with the morally deformed, as much grieved and disgusted with the depraved and licentious?
II. It impairs every intellectual faculty.
III. It accelerates death.
IV. It entails misery on families.
V. It terminates in everlasting destruction (1Co 6:10). (The Weekly Christian Teacher.)
Strong drink deceptive
The characteristic of strong drink is deceitfulness,
1. A great quantity of precious food is destroyed that strong drink may be extracted from the rubbish.
2. The curative and strengthening properties of our strong drinks, which are so much vaunted, are in reality next to nothing.
3. Strong drink deceives the nation by the vast amount of revenue that it pours into the public treasury.
4. In as far as human friendship is, in any case, dependent on artificial stimulant for the degree of its fervency, it is a worthless counterfeit.
5. Its chief deception lies in the silent, stealthy advances which it makes upon the unsuspecting taster, followed, when the secret approaches have been carried to a certain point, by the sure spring and deathly grip of the raging lion. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
Mischief and folly of drunkenness
I. The mischief. To the sinner himself. It mocks him, makes a fool of him, promises him that satisfaction which it can never give him. In reflection upon it: it rages in his conscience. It is raging in the body, putting the humours into a ferment. Pretending to be a sociable thing, it renders men unfit for society, for it makes them abusive with their tongues and outrageous in their passions.
II. The folly. He that is deceived thereby, that suffers himself to be drawn into this sin, when he is so plainly warned of the consequences of it, is not wise: he shows that he has no right sense or consideration of things; and not only so, but he renders himself incapable of getting wisdom; for it is a sin that infatuates and besets men and takes away their heart. (Matthew Henry.)
Total abstinence
The following story is told of General Harrison, one of the candidates for the Presidency of the United States, in connection with a public dinner given him on one occasion: At the close of the dinner one of the gentlemen drank his health. The General pledged his toast by drinking water. Another gentleman offered a toast, and said, General, will you not favour me by taking s glass of wine? The General, in a very gentlemanly way, begged to be excused. He was again urged to join in a glass of wine. This was too much. He rose from his seat and said in the most dignified manner: Gentlemen, I have twice refused to partake of the wine-cup. I hope that will be sufficient. Though you press the matter ever so much, not a drop shall pass my lips. I made a resolve when I started in life that I would avoid strong drink. That vow I have never broken. I am one of a class of seventeen young men who graduated together. The other sixteen members of my class now fill drunkards graves, and all from the pernicious habit of wine-drinking. I owe all my health, my happiness, and prosperity to that resolution. Would you urge me to break it now?
Better sink than drink
A clergyman complained to the late Sir Andrew Clark of feeling low and depressed, unable to face his work, and tempted to rely on stimulants. Sir Andrew saw that the position was a perilous one, and that it was a crisis in the mans life. He dealt with the case, and forbade resort to stimulants, when the patient declared that he would be unequal to his work, and ready to sink. Then, said Sir Andrew, sink like a man.
Abstinence favourable to health
The working mans capital is health, not wealth. It does not consist in landed property, but in sinew and muscle; and if he persist in the use of intoxicating liquors they will strike at the very root of his capital–a sound physical constitution. After this is lost he becomes unfit for the workshop, for no master will employ a man who wants capital. He has then to repair to the poorhouse or infirmary. (J. Hunter.)
Water the best drink
The best of all drinks for the athlete, says Dr. Richardson, is pure water. The athletic lower animals–the racehorse, the hound, the lion, the leopard–thrive well on water, because their bodies, like our own, are water engines, as steam engines are, and that, too, almost as simply and purely.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XX
Against wine and strong drink. We should avoid contentions.
The sluggard. The righteous man. Weights and measures.
Tale-bearers. The wicked son. The wise king. The glory of
young men. The beauty of old men. The benefit of correction.
NOTES ON CHAP. XX
Verse 1. Wine is a mocker] It deceives by its fragrance, intoxicates by its strength, and renders the intoxicated ridiculous.
Strong drink] shechar, any strong fermented liquor, whether of the vine, date, or palm species.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Wine is a mocker; wine immoderately drunk makes men mockers or scoffers at God and men. Compare Hos 7:5.
Strong drink is raging; makes men full of rage and passion.
Is not wise; is a fool, or a madman, because he depriveth himself of the use of his reason.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. mockerscorner. Such menare made by wine.
strong drinkmade byspicing wine (compare Isa 5:11;Isa 5:22); and it may includewine.
ragingor boisterous asa drunkard.
deceivedliterally,”erring,” or reeling.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging,…. Wine deceives a man; it not only overcomes him before he is aware, but it promises him a pleasure which it does not give; but, on the contrary, excessive drinking gives him pain, and so mocks him; yea, it exposes him to reproach and disgrace, and to the mockery and derision of others; as well as it sets him to scoff at his companions, and even to mock at religion, and all that is good and serious; see Ho 7:5; and strong drink not only disturbs the brain, and puts the spirits in a ferment, so that a man rages within, but it sets him a raving and quarrelling with his company, and everybody he meets with; such generally get into broils and contentions, and get woe, sorrow, and wounds, Pr 23:29. Aben Ezra gives this as the sense of the words,
“a man of wine”
(that is, one that is given to wine, a wine bibber), so Ben Melech,
“is a mocker, and he cries out for strong drink, that it may be given him;”
which is not a bad sense of the words.
and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise; whosoever gives himself to it, is not on his guard against it, but is overcome by it, does not act a wise but an unwise part: wine besots as well as deceives men. This may be applied to the wine of fornication, or to the false doctrine and superstition of the church of Rome; with which the nations of the earth are deceived and made drunk, and which puts them upon blaspheming God, deriding his people, and using cruelty to them,
Re 17:2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This proverb warns against the debauchery with which free-thinking is intimately associated.
Wine is a mocker, mead boisterous;
And no one who is overtaken thereby is wise.
The article stands with . Ewald maintains that in 10:1-22:6 the article occurs only here and at Pro 21:31, and that it is here, as the lxx shows, not original. Both statements are incorrect. The article is found, e.g., at Pro 19:6; Pro 18:18, Pro 18:17, and here the personification of “wine” requires it; but that it is wanting to shows how little poetry delights in it; it stands once for twice. The effects of wine and mead ( from , to stop, obstruct, become stupid) are attributed to these liquors themselves as their property. Wine is a mocker, because he who is intoxicated with it readily scoffs at that which is holy; mead is boisterous (cf. , Pro 7:11), because he who is inebriated in his dissolute madness breaks through the limits of morality and propriety. He is unwise who, through wine and the like, i.e., overpowered by it (cf. 2Sa 13:28), staggers, i.e., he gives himself up to wine to such a degree that he is no longer master of himself. At Pro 5:19 we read, , of the intoxication of love; here, as at Isa 28:7, of the intoxication of wine, i.e., of the passionate slavish desire of wine or for wine. The word “ Erpicht ” [ avidissimus ], i.e., being indissolubly bound to a thing, corresponds at least in some degree to the idea. Fleischer compares the French: tre fou de quelque chose . Isa 28:7, however, shows that one has to think on actual staggering, being overtaken in wine.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Here is, 1. The mischief of drunkenness: Wine is a mocker; strong drink is raging. It is so to the sinner himself; it mocks him, makes a fool of him, promises him that satisfaction which it can never give him. It smiles upon him at first, but at the last it bites. In reflection upon it, it rages in his conscience. It is raging in the body, puts the humours into a ferment. When the wine is in the wit is out, and then the man, according as his natural temper is, either mocks like a fool or rages like a madman. Drunkenness, which pretends to be a sociable thing, renders men unfit for society, for it makes them abusive with their tongues and outrageous in their passions, ch. xxiii. 29. 2. The folly of drunkards is easily inferred thence. He that is deceived thereby, that suffers himself to be drawn into this sin when he is so plainly warned of the consequences of it, is not wise; he shows that he has no right sense or consideration of things; and not only so, but he renders himself incapable of getting wisdom; for it is a sin that infatuates and besots men, and takes away their heart. A drunkard is a fool, and a fool he is likely to be.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
EVIL OF STRONG DRINK
(Proverbs 20)
Evil of Strong Drink
Verse 1 personifies wine and strong drink in terms that describe the effect such have on users. They become mockers (scorners or scoffers as in Pro 19:29) and aggressive in conduct. Those deceived by drink are not wise, see Pro 23:29-35; Isa 28:7; Dan 5:1-5; Dan 5:30-31; Hos 4:11; Nah 1:10.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Pro. 20:1. Strong drink. The Hebrew word Shekhar includes every strong drink besides wine. Delitzsch translates it mead.
Pro. 20:2. The fear of a king, i.e., the dread which he inspires. Sinneth against his soul, or forfeits his life, so Delitzsch and Miller.
Pro. 20:3. To cease from strife. Rather, to remain far from it.
Pro. 20:4. Delitzsch translates this verse, At the beginning of the harvest the sluggard ploweth not, and so when he cometh to reaping time there is nothing.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro. 20:1
STRONG DRINK
Taking the two words here used to stand for all intoxicating drinks, we remark
I. That they are most deceptive in their operation. It is most certain that there is no person who is now an abject slave to strong drink, who would not once have indignantly repelled the insinuation that he or she would ever be a drunkard. It is taken probably for a long time without any evil effects being apparent, and the temporary stimulus is mistaken for a permanent increase of strength, until one day the unhappy victim finds himself a subject of the most tyrannical habit that enslaves fallen humanity. And strong drink may truly be said to be a mocker, when we see how men appear to struggle to escape from its deadly fascination, and how fruitless their efforts often are.
II. That they are powerful ministers to human passions. Wherever strong drink enters, every evil tendency is increased tenfold; the angry man becomes a monster of cruelty, and he who was before a comparatively harmless member of society, or even a useful one, becomes hurtful and dangerous. The restraints that are all powerful to govern a man when sober are all as utterly useless when he is under the power of strong drink, as silken cords would be to keep a wild beast within bounds.
III. It is utter folly to tamper with such a foe to human dignity and happiness. The deceptive influence of strong drink, and the miserable results of allowing it to gain the mastery over us, are all around men; none can now plead ignorance of its nature, or of its effects, for the world is full of homes ruined by it, and hearts which it has broken, and men whom it has changed into brutes. Experience sets her seal to Solomons declaration, and brands as without wisdom those who play with such a deadly and treacherous enemy.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Solomon seldom singles out a specific vice; and when he does, it is often exemplary, or to be understood of any. He does single out drunkenness, however. Strikingly enough the Apostle does so. (1Co. 6:10).Miller.
If the fruit of his own vine sometimes chastised the unwary Israelite with whips, the fiery product of our distilleries chastise the nation with scorpions. The little finger of strong drink in modern times is thicker than the loins of its father and representative in Solomons day. The deceits which our enemy practises are legion; and legion too are the unwary who are deceived thereby. I shall enumerate a few of its lying devices.
1. A great quantity of precious food is destroyed in this country that strong drink may be extracted from the rubbish. On an average of ten years, the quantity of barley converted into malt in the United Kingdom has been nearly six millions of quarters annually. When you add to this the unmalted grain consumed in the distillation of spirits in Ireland, you have an aggregate sufficient to feed between four and five millions of people throughout the year. What do we obtain in return? A large quantity of malt liquors and distilled spirits. And is the gain equivalent, or nearly equivalent to the loss?
2. The curative and strengthening properties of our strong drinks, which are so much vaunted, are in reality next to nothing. We speak of the ordinary use of these articles as beverages. If they contribute at any time to the quantity of force exerted by man, it corresponds not to the corn that you give to your horse, but to the whipping. A master who has hired you only for a day, and desires to make the most of his bargain, may possibly find it his interest to bring more out of your bones and sinews, by such a stimulus, but you certainly have no interest in lashing an additional effort out of yourself to-day, and lying in lethargy to-morrow. Liebig has a pleasant notion about balancing on the point of a pen-knife, like a pinch of snuff, all the nourishment that the most capacious German swallows with his beer in a day. And it is chemistry he is giving us, not poetry or wit.
3. Strong drink deceives the nation, by the vast amount of revenue that it pours into the public treasury. It is a true and wise economy to tax the articles heavily for behoof of the community, so far and as long as they are sold and used; but it is a false and foolish economy to encourage the consumption of the article, for the sake of the revenue it produces. Drink generates pauperism, and pauperism is costly. Drink generates crime, and crime is costly. There is a huge living creature with as many limbs as a Hindoo idol, and these limbs intertwined with each other in equally admirable confusion. The creature having life must be fed, and being large, must have a good deal of food for its sustenance. One day, having got rather short allowance, it was rolling its heavy head among its many limbs, and found something warm and fleshy. Being hungry, it made an incision with its teeth, laid its lips to the spot, and sucked. Warm blood came freely; the creature sucked its fill, and, gorged, lay down to sleep. Next day, it supplemented its short rations in the same way. Every day the creature drank from that opening, and as this rich draught made up about one third of its whole sustenance, the wonder grew, why it was becoming weaker under the process, day by day. Some one at last bethought him of turning over the animals intermingled limbs, and found that all this time it had been sucking its own blood! The discoverer proposed to bandage the spot, and not permit the continuance of the unnatural operation. The financiers cried out, A third of the animals sustenance comes from that opening; if you stop it, he will die! Behold the wise politicians who imagine that the body politic would die of inanition, if it were deprived of the revenue which it sucks from its own veins, in the shape of taxes on the consumption of intoxicating drinks!Arnot.
The thoughts in Pro. 20:2-3 are the same as that in chap. Pro. 19:12, see page 571, and chaps. Pro. 14:29 and Pro. 16:32, pages 386 and 497. The thought in the fourth verse is identical with that in chap. Pro. 10:4, although the similitude is different, see page 146.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER 20
TEXT Pro. 20:1-10
1.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler;
And whosoever erreth thereby is not wise,
2.
The terror of a king is as the roaring of a lion:
He that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own life.
3.
It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife;
But every fool will be quarrelling.
4.
The sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter;
Therefore he shall beg in harvest, and have nothing.
5.
Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water;
But a man of understanding will draw it out.
6.
Most men will proclaim every one his own kindness;
But a faithful man who can find?
7.
A righteous man that walketh in his integrity,
Blessed are his children after him.
8.
A king that sitteth on the throne of judgment
Scattereth away all evil with his eyes.
9.
Who can say, I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sin?
10.
Diverse weights, and divers measures,
Both of them alike are an abomination to Jehovah.
STUDY QUESTIONS OVER 20:1-10
1.
According to Pro. 20:1 have we as a nation been wise to legalize strong drink?
2.
Give a Bible instance of the truth of Pro. 20:2.
3.
Cite other passages besides Pro. 20:3 that teach us to avoid strife.
4.
What are other excuses besides Pro. 20:4 that sluggards might give for not doing a job?
5.
He will draw it out of his own heart or out of the heart of another (Pro. 20:5)?
6.
What is meant in Pro. 20:6 by a faithful man?
7.
Why are the children of a righteous man blessed (Pro. 20:7)?
8.
How does a king scatter away evil with his eyes (Pro. 20:8)?
9.
What is the evident answer to the questions in Pro. 20:9?
10.
According to Pro. 20:10 with what is God displeased?
PARAPHRASE OF 20:1-10
1.
Wine gives false courage; hard liquor leads to brawls; what fools men are to let it master them, making them reel drunkenly down the street!
2.
The kings fury is like that of a roaring lion; to rouse his anger is to risk your life.
3.
It is an honor for a man to stay out of a fight. Only fools insist on quarreling.
4.
If you wont plow in the cold you wont eat in the harvest.
5.
Though good advice lies deep within a counselors heart, the wise man will draw it out.
6.
Most people will tell you what loyal friends they are, but are they telling the truth?
7.
It is a wonderful heritage to have an honest father.
8.
A king sitting as judge weighs all the evidence carefully, distinguishing the true from false.
9.
Who can ever say, I have cleansed my heart; I am sinless?
10.
The Lord despises every king of cheating.
COMMENTS ON 20:1-10
Pro. 20:1. Wine as used in the Bible is not always intoxicating, but in this instance it is (note its connection with strong drink and also with what the verse says about it). It is a mocker, mocking and making a fool out of its drinker with ridiculous and senseless conduct. Strong drink is a brawler, leading to many quarrels and fights. One who drinks the stuff erreth, is making a great mistake, sins, and he is not wise. One can hardly err worse or be more unwise than to take up with strong drink. Oh, the sorrows, griefs, hardships, miseries, and you-name-it that strong drink has brought to the drinker, to his family, and to those who have been injured and killed just so that he could drink! For other passages see Gen. 9:21-22; Pro. 23:29-30; Isa. 28:7; Hos. 4:4. Strong drink is surely not for kings (Pro. 31:4-5), yet they have often been big drinkers. God was highly displeased at the drinking Belshazzar and his antics at the big party of Daniel 5. Every nation that has turned to wine has only weakened itself. A German saying: More are drowned in the wine cup than in the ocean. Note the New Testament teaching in Eph. 5:18; Rom. 14:21.
Pro. 20:2. Being a king, Solomon included numerous sayings involving kings. He especially liked those that showed the importance of having the kings favor and avoiding his disfavor (Pro. 16:16; Pro. 19:12). 1 Kings 2 shows three men encountering Solomons wrath and suffering death: Adonijah, Job, and Shemei.
Pro. 20:3. This verse shows that fools (not wise people) quarrel and engage in trouble while people of honor seek to avoid strife, Follow peace with all men (Heb. 12:14); If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men, Rom. 12:18); Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, Gen. 13:8). This does not mean we are to compromise Gods Word in order to have peace. This is an altogether different field (Luk. 14:31-33).
Pro. 20:4. The lazy, indolent person can always find an excuse for not working. It may be the cold weather (as in this verse), or it may be too hot, rainy, its too hard, I dont know how, Im not feeling good, somebody else will do it, its not important, Ill do it later, etc. This is why some people have nothing.
Pro. 20:5. Counsel in this verse stands for deep wisdom (like water of a deep well). But counsel is no good unless you can get it from its possessor. People with little to offer us are generally free with their advice, but people who really have knowledge tend to be more conservative with giving unsolicited advice. In fact, sometimes it takes just the right person who goes at the right time and approaches the subject in just the right way to get such valuable counsel. This verse shows that where theres a will, a man of understanding will find the way to get it.
Pro. 20:6. The tendency of humanity is to tell those things that are personally commendable and to forget those things that are derogatory. As such we tell only a part of the story. A faithful man (one who tells it exactly as it is concerning himself) is almost impossible to find, according to the implication of this verse. There is much food for thought here for each of us.
Pro. 20:7. Everybody is blessed when a man lives right, but especially himself and his family. Since influence and environment are such strong factors in life, those who are the closest to a righteous person are the ones who receive the greatest blessings from their influence. Integrity is honesty, uprightness. Other passages showing that ones offspring is blessed by his righteousness and because of his righteousness: Psa. 37:25-26; Psa. 112:2.
Pro. 20:8. Not just any king, for some kings (like Ahab) have been the source and the multiplication of evil. But a good king is one who rules with a righteous sceptre, and his government praises the good and punishes the evil (1Pe. 2:13-14; Rom. 13:3).
Pro. 20:9. The implied answer is nobody. We can make our hearts corrupt and our lives sinful, but we cannot dispel the guilt nor cleanse away our sin apart from Gods mercy. Let us re-say it: Man cannot direct his own way successfully (Jer. 10:23), nor can he save himself by his own righteousness (Tit. 3:5), nor can he cleanse himself from a single sin (this verse). Notice how this is brought out in song: Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress; helpless, look to Thee for grace; Foul, I to the fountain fly; Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
Pro. 20:10. Pro. 20:23 reads similarly. Man employs such means to gain personal advantage even though its disadvantage to his fellowmen equals the advantage that it is to himself. It is unscrupulous gain. It is plain and intentional dishonesty. And it is abomination to God. See Deu. 25:13-16 and Pro. 11:1 also.
TEST QUESTIONS OVER 20:1-10
1.
How do we know that wine in Pro. 20:1 is intoxicating?
2.
Comment upon erreth (Pro. 20:1).
3.
Comment upon not wise (Pro. 20:1).
4.
Name three men executed by King Solomon (Pro. 20:2).
5.
Give some Bible statements showing that God wants us to be peaceable people (Pro. 20:3).
6.
Why did the sluggard in Pro. 20:4 not want to plow?
7.
Who is more apt to be free with counsel (Pro. 20:5)? Who more conservative with it?
8.
Comment upon Pro. 20:6.
9.
Give other passages besides Pro. 20:7 that show the blessings that come to children because of righteous parents.
10.
What kind of king fulfills Pro. 20:8?
11.
If Christ had not died, would there be any fountain for our sin (Pro. 20:9)?
12.
Show from Pro. 20:10 that godliness extends to our business dealings.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XX.
(1) Wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragingi.e., producing these effects in those who subject themselves to their power.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. A mocker , ( lets.) Of this word Gesenius says, that it means a frivolous and impudent person, who sets at naught and scoffs at the most sacred precepts and duties of religion, piety, and morals.
Strong drink , ( shekhar,) Greek, sikera. Jerome says, that in Hebrew any inebriating liquor is called shekhar, whether made of grain, the juice of apples, honey, dates, or any other fruit. It is probably used here in a more generic sense than , ( yayin,) wine: meaning any kind of intoxicating drink. Of “strong drink,” is predicated , ( homeh,) turbulence: to be noisy, clamorous, boisterous; to be in a tumult or uproar. Taking the above together, they are highly descriptive of drunkenness.
Stuart says, The common idea that “ strong drink, in the Scriptures, means something stronger than wine, is destitute of any good foundation. None of the fruits yielded a juice so intoxicating as that of the grape. Wine was the strongest drink of the Hebrews, if the drinks that were drugged be excepted.” (See note on Pro 9:2.)
Inebriating liquors, whether wine or anything else, are “mockers,” deceivers. They deceive those who drink them, leading imperceptibly, in many cases, to habits of tippling and drunkenness, and make those who indulge in them setters at naught of all duties and obligations.
Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise Or, shall not become wise. “When wine is in, wit is out.” Strong drink is an enemy to wisdom even in common things; how much more in those of everlasting moment! It usually expels from the mind all reverence for God and respect for man, and causes men to throw off restraint and lose discretion.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Proverbs Of Solomon ( Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16 ).
The proverbs in this section are now introduced by the brief subheading ‘The Proverbs Of Solomon’. Contrast ‘The sayings of Solomon, the Son of David, the King of Israel’ in Pro 1:1. The details given there do not need to be repeated because this is a subheadng, not a main heading. This is in line with comparable wisdom literature going back far beyond the time of Solomon
What follows in Pro 10:1 onwards is somewhat deceptive. Without careful study it can appear to contain simply a string of proverbs with no direct connection to each other. But closer examination soon reveals otherwise. Solomon has rather taken his vast knowledge of wisdom literature, and put together a series of sayings which gel together and give consecutive teaching.
Various attempts have been made to divide up this material, but none of them have been fully successful as the basis of construction and the dividing lines are not always clear. They tend to be somewhat subjective. But that some thought has gone into the presentation of the material is apparent by the way in which topics and ideas are grouped together. Consider for example Pro 10:2-5 which are based on the idea of riches and men’s cravings, whilst Pro 10:18-21 are all based on the lips or the tongue. On the whole, however, the basis of the presentation overall is tentative, for up until Pro 22:17 we do not have any clear introductory words which can help us to divide the text up.
What is certain is that we are not simply to see this as just a number of proverbs jumbled together with no connection whatsoever. And in our view Solomon made this clear by using the well known method (previously used by Moses in Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) of dividing up the text by means of chiasms as we have illustrated. Ancient Hebrew was written in one continuing steam of letters with no gaps to distinguish words, and no punctuation. This was not quite as confusing as it sounds for words and word endings followed definite patterns which were mainly distinguishable. But the only way of dividing it up into paragraphs was either by the way of material content, or by the use of chiasms (presenting the material in an A B C D D C B A pattern). In our view this latter method was used by Solomon in this section as we hope we have demonstrated..
The proverbs which follow are designed to give a wide coverage of wisdom and instruction, and as we study them we will receive guidance in different spheres. For this is the wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and instruction that Solomon has been speaking of in the Prologue. It is a revelation of ‘the fear of YHWH and the knowledge of God’ (Pro 2:5).
It will be noted at once that Solomon immediately expects us to be able to differentiate ‘the righteous’ from the ‘unrighteous’ (or ‘wicked’), and the wise from the ‘foolish’. This confirms that the righteous and the wise are in his eyes identifiable, and in Israel that would be because they walked in accordance with the covenant, the ‘Law of Moses’, as well as in the ways of wisdom. Thus wisdom does not exclude the Law, nor does it supersede it. It embraces it, although mainly from a non-ritualistic standpoint (consider, however, Pro 3:9-10; Pro 7:14; Pro 15:8; Pro 17:1; Pro 21:3; Pro 21:27). For it sees it from a less legalistic attitude, and encourages a broad view of life.
We must, however, recognise that ‘wicked’ does not mean ‘totally evil’ and that ‘foolish’ does not mean ‘stupid’. The wicked are those who come short of righteousness (the term regularly contrasts with the righteous). Basically they live disregarding God’s requirements in some aspect of their lives. They may appear solid citizens, but in parts of their lives they pay no heed to God. This might come out in false business practises, or in deceit, or in lack of love for others, or in selfishness, as being part of their way of life. That is why we often speak of ‘the unrighteous’ rather than of ‘the wicked’.
In the same way the ‘foolish’ are called foolish because they set aside God’s ways in the way in which they live their lives. They may be astute, clever and full of common sense, but they are ‘foolish’ because they disregard YHWH. (‘The fool has said in his heart, “there is no God” (Psa 14:1) even though he might give an outward impression of being religious).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A Collection Of Solomon’s Proverbs ( Pro 10:1 to Pro 29:27 ).
Solomon’s presentation of The Book of Proverbs has followed the pattern of much Wisdom literature. This commenced with the initial heading detailing the details of the author and his purpose in writing (Pro 1:1-7), continued with a Prologue which laid the foundation for what was to follow (Pro 1:8 to Pro 9:18), and was then followed by the body of the work introduced by one or more subheadings. In Solomon’s case this main body comprises Pro 10:1 to Pro 29:27. It is usually divided up into four parts:
1) Proverbs of Solomon (Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16), introduced by a subheading ‘The Proverbs Of Solomon’. This may possibly be divided into two sections, Pro 10:1 to Pro 15:21, and Pro 15:22 to Pro 22:16.
2) Words of the Wise (Pro 22:17 to Pro 24:22), introduced by an exhortation to hear the words of the wise. This is in a form comparable with exhortations in the Prologue, but there is no subheading in the text as we have it. It may rather therefore be seen as a third section of The Proverbs of Solomon, but with unusual characteristics.
3) Further Sayings of the Wise (Pro 24:23-34), introduced by the subheading, ‘these also are of the wise’.
4) Proverbs of Solomon copied out by the ‘Men of Hezekiah, King of Judah’ (Pro 25:1 to Pro 29:27), introduced by a specific heading.
The inclusion of the words of the wise within two sets of proverbs of Solomon, the first time without a subheading, suggests that we are to see the words of the wise and the sayings of the wise as also from Solomon, but based in each case more specifically on collections of Wisdom sayings known to him, which he himself, or his Scribes, had taken and altered up in order to conform them to his requirements thus making them finally his work. That does not necessarily mean that his proverbs in section 1 (Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16) were not based on other material. He would have obtained his material from many sources. But once again we are to see them as presented after alteration by his hand.
We should note, for example, the continual references to YHWH that occur throughout the text. Whatever material Solomon may have appropriated, he refashioned it in order to make it the wisdom of the God of Israel, of YHWH their covenant God. This approach of taking what was written by others and refashioning it, while at the same time introducing further ideas of his own, may be seen as following the pattern of modern scholars, each of whom takes the works of others, and then reinterprets them in his own words, whilst adding to them on the basis of his own thinking. The final product is then seen as their own thinking, aided by others. The only difference is that Solomon would have been far more willing to copy down word for word what others had said and written without giving acknowledgement.
Having said that we must not assume that Solomon simply copied them down unthinkingly. As the Prologue has made clear, he did not see himself as presenting some general form of Wisdom teaching. He saw what he wrote down as given by YHWH, and as being in the words of YHWH (Pro 2:6). And he saw it as based on YHWH’s eternal wisdom, His wisdom which had also been involved in the creation of heaven and earth (Pro 3:19-20; Pro 8:22-31). Thus he wants us to recognise that what now follows is not a series of general wisdom statements, but is a miscellany revealing the wisdom of YHWH, the wisdom that leads men into the paths of life.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Proverbs Of Solomon Part 2 ( Pro 15:22 to Pro 22:16 ).
At this point there is a sudden switch from proverbs which contrast one thing with another, which have been predominant since Pro 10:1, to proverbs where the second clause adds something to the first. Whilst we still find some contrasting proverbs, especially at the beginning, they are not so common. This may suggest a deliberate intention by Solomon to separate his proverbs into two parts.
Furthermore such a change at this point would also be in line with seeing verse Pro 10:1 and Pro 15:20 as some kind of inclusio. The first opened the collection with ‘a wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother’ (Pro 10:1), whilst Pro 15:20 may be seen as closing it with the very similar ‘a wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man despises his mother’. Pro 15:21 may then be seen as conjoined with Pro 15:20 and as a kind of postscript summing up the fool and the wise who have been in mind throughout the proverbs up to this point.
Pro 15:22, in fact, provides a particularly suitable introduction to a new section with its emphasis on the need for a ‘multitude of counsellors’, who can partly be found in the authors of the proverbs which follow (Solomon and the wise men).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Pro 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Pro 20:1
BBE, “Wine makes men foolish , and strong drink makes men come to blows ; and whoever comes into error through these is not wise.”
Pro 20:4 The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.
Pro 20:4
Illustration – In grammar school, the class would order books from a book club periodically. It was an exciting moment for the teacher to bring in the newly arrived books and hand them out to those who bought them. I was always disappointed when no books came for me, even though I knew I had not purchased any (sowing). So, no sowing, no reaping.
Pro 20:6 Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?
Pro 20:6
Pro 20:6 “but a faithful man who can find?” – Illustrations – There are a number of illustrations of unfaithfulness in the Scriptures:
Mat 26:25, “Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.”
Act 13:13, “Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.”
2Ti 4:10, “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.”
Scripture References – Note a similar verse:
Pro 28:20, “ A faithful man shall abound with blessings : but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.”
Pro 20:8 A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes.
Pro 20:8
Pro 20:9 Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
Pro 20:9
Rom 3:9, “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;”
Rom 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
1Jn 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Pro 20:10 Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD.
Pro 20:11 Pro 20:11
Luk 2:49, “And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
Pro 20:12 The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them.
Pro 20:13 Pro 20:14 Pro 20:14
Pro 20:14 Comments – Many times people will tell how they talked a salesperson into giving them a lower price on merchandise. They complain to the salesman that the merchandise is poor, but when they come to you, they boast of how good a deal it really was.
Pro 20:15 There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.
Pro 20:16 Pro 20:16
Pro 27:13, “Take his garment that is surety for a stranger, and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.”
Pro 20:16 Illustration – In Africa, it is common for someone who is poor to ask for money. They generally make promises to pay back the loan without any real hope or ability to fulfill the promise. I made several loans, but never saw a payback. I did not really expect the money back and forgave the debt, lest I develop an unforgiving feeling towards that person. I then tried to the principle in this verse. I asked the person to give me a pledge for a loan. I found that the sincere person would give the pledge, and payback would come, and I remained friends with the person.
Therefore, taking a pledge not only ensures a payback, but it saves a friendship, which is otherwise so easily spoiled by a loan.
Pro 20:17 Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
Pro 20:17
Pro 9:17 Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
Heb 11:25, “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;”
Pro 20:18 Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.
Pro 20:19 Pro 20:19
Pro 20:20 Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.
Pro 20:21 Pro 20:21
Pro 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
Pro 20:27
[118] Kenneth Hagin, How You Can Be Led By the Spirit of God (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Faith Library Publications, c1986, 1997), 1-2.
Pro 20:28 Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy.
Pro 20:29 Pro 20:29
Illustration – Note that Paul, the apostle, gloried in the strength of his apostleship as a young missionary (See 2Co 11:5 and Galatians 1-2). However, in his later epistles, he gloried in his old age.
2Co 11:5, “For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.”
Phm 1:9, “Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Justification: Solomon’s First Collection (375 Sayings) [75] – The first nine chapters of the book of Proverbs serve as an introductory call from wisdom. In this introduction, we are exhorted to hear wisdom’s cry (chapter 1), and we are told how to find wisdom by putting it first in our lives (chapter 2). We are told of the blessings of finding wisdom (chapter 3) in contrast to the dangers of hearkening unto the call of the wicked and the harlot. We are shown how wisdom transforms our lives by learning the three paths of wisdom for the heart, mind and body of man (chapter 4). This is contrasted with three paths of destruction (chapters 5-6). We are shown the characteristics of the wicked man and the adulterous woman (chapters 6-7). Then, we are shown the excellence of wisdom and its characteristics (chapter 8). In conclusion, we have an invitation from wisdom to take food for the journey, with a choice to eat the stolen bread of the adulteress (chapter 9). The better we are able to understand the introduction of Proverbs, the better we will be able to understand its teachings in the rest of the book.
[75] Sailhamer says that there are 375 proverbs in Solomon’s First Collection (10:1 to 22:16), which equals the numerical value of Solomon’s Hebrew name. In addition, he says there are 611 laws listed in the Pentateuch, which equals the numerical value of the Hebrew word “Torah” ( ). He adds that the laws listed in the “Covenant Codes” (Exodus 21:1-23:12) are 42 (7 x 6), which was in intentional multiple of seven. His point is that such numerical coincidences reflect deliberate composition by the ancient Jewish scribes, and concludes that the laws, as well as the statutes, were not intended to be exhaustive. See John H. Sailhamer, Introduction to Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, c1995), 257.
Once we have chosen the path of wisdom, we are ready to continue on in the book of Proverbs. The next section of this book Isa 10:1 thru Pro 22:16. This is referred to as Solomon’s First Collection. This section is characterized by the fact that each verse contains individual truths that stand alone. They are practical truths that form a couplet. In chapter 10, we are given the choice to answer wisdom’s call to follow her by either obeying her words, or by disobeying her words and becoming the fool.
We now leave our preparation, which is compared to leaving our home and our parents. We now take a path on the journey of life. However, a quick observation of the following chapters shows us a list of randomly collected proverbs, which have no apparent relationship to one another, unlike the first nine chapters. However, if we look carefully, we will see signposts along this path of life. The introduction of chapters 1-9 began and ended with signposts. These signposts are found in Pro 1:7; Pro 9:10.
Pro 1:7, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Pro 9:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”
The fear of the Lord will be our signpost throughout the book of Proverbs. The first nine chapters are an introduction, or beginning, to this path of life. This is why these first two signposts use the phrase, “beginning of knowledge and wisdom.”
If there is a beginning, then there is a journey; and if a journey, then a destination. These signposts will take us to our destination, which is to become like our Lord and Saviour, Christ Jesus, or we could say to walk in the fullness of Christ. We will liken this journey to John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress, where the character named Christian made his way to the Eternal City. [76] Just as Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegorical story of a person’s journey to Heaven, so is the book of Proverbs a proverbial journey to Heaven.
[76] George Offor, ed., The Works of John Bunyan, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Blackie and Son, 1855).
Now, let us look for other signposts as we launch out on this journey in life. Note that the phrase “the fear of the Lord” is used throughout the book of Proverbs:
Pro 10:27, “ The fear of the LORD prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.”
Pro 13:13, “Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.”
Pro 14:2, “He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD : but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him.”
Pro 14:16, “ A wise man feareth , and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.”
Pro 14:26, “In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.”
Pro 14:27, “ The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.”
Pro 15:16, “Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.”
Pro 15:33, “ The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility.”
Pro 16:6, “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.”
Pro 19:23, “ The fear of the LORD tendeth to life: and he that hath it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil.”
Pro 22:4, “By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.”
Pro 23:17, “Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long.”
Pro 24:21, “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change:”
Pro 28:14, “Happy is the man that feareth alway : but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.”
Pro 31:30, “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD , she shall be praised.”
Each of these signposts has been planted within a group of proverbs that emphasizes the subject related to that particular signpost. For example, Pro 10:27 tells us that the fear of the Lord gives us a long life. This proverb has been placed within a group of verses that largely deal with a long life (Pro 10:24 to Pro 11:22). Thus, we can ask ourselves if we are walking in these blessings of long life, or in a life of problems. If our life is blessed in this way, we are on the journey. However, if we find problems in our life that are not in God’s plan for us, then we have strayed off the path.
Pro 13:13 tells us of the rewards of fearing the Lord. This proverb is placed within a group of verses that refer to prosperity. Thus, we must check our life to see if the blessing of prosperity is operating in our life.
Pro 22:4 reminds us of the many blessings of wisdom, which are given in chapter 3. Thus, we can know while we are on the journey if we are still on the path of wisdom. We know this because the blessings of wisdom will be seen in our lives. If we find the curses in our lives, then we know that we have erred from the path of wisdom. This is how these signposts keep us on the right path.
These signposts symbolize the way in which the Lord guides our lives; for it is by the fear of the Lord that we make the decision to follow the path of wisdom. Without this fear, we may know the right decision, but as Solomon, we would err from the journey by failing to adhere to wisdom.
On a daily basis God will give us enough light for our daily needs. This can be called our “daily bread” (Mat 6:11).
Mat 6:11, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
This daily bread gives us enough light to guide our short steps. But there are certain times when the Lord will intervene in our life and show us enough light to see farther down the path. When we face major decisions or changes in our life, God will often speak to us or reveal Himself to us in a supernatural way and show us the right path. During these times, we are able to look back and look ahead and see a bigger picture of God’s plan for our lives. This is the way that God guided Jacob on special occasions, and this is the way that I have experienced the Lord’s guidance during major changes in my life. We can see this two-fold method of guidance in Psa 119:105, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” The book of Proverbs symbolizes these occasions by planting signposts along the journey.
There are also warning signs along this journey. These warning signs symbolize those times when God gives us correction and discipline in order to keep us from straying from the path of life. As on a public highway, we must learn to heed the warning signs that tell us of dangers ahead, as well as the information signs that tell us where we are located. These signposts are warnings that tell us not to seek the richest, not to pursue the honor, or to pamper the flesh. Instead, we are to pursue the virtues, and not the blessings that come from these virtues. Some examples of these warnings are:
Pro 11:28, “He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch.”
Pro 13:11, “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase.”
Pro 18:12, “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.”
Pro 23:5, “Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.”
Pro 29:23, “A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.”
Wisdom cries out in the busiest places in society. She cries out in the crowded streets. She lifts up her voice in the major places where people meet and in the gates of the city. This is because wisdom speaks through other people. It speaks through situations around you. Life itself becomes a classroom, and wisdom in the teacher. Thus, in the book of Proverbs, we are shown different types of people in order to learn divine wisdom. Listen, and you will hear.
Regarding the hundreds of individual proverbs that we encounter on this path, there appears to be no organized manner in which they are presented us. This is because in the journey of life, our encounters with the wise man and the fool appear to come in the same random order.
When we look at Pro 10:1 thru Pro 15:33, we see a similarity in all of these proverbs. They all give us a one-verse contrast between the wise man and the fool. This means that in every decision we make in life, we either make a wise decision, or a foolish one. There is no way to straddle the fence in making decisions. Then we see a signpost in Pro 15:33.
Pro 15:33, “ The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility.”
This verse says that the fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom. In Pro 1:7; Pro 9:10, we are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is because the first nine chapters are a preparation, or beginning, of the journey. But here in Pro 15:33, we are in a phase of the journey called “the instruction of wisdom”. We have been learning to identify the wise man and the fool under the instruction of these one-verse contrasts between these two people. Let me give a clear illustration. When my oldest daughter would sit on my lap, we would sometimes to Bible studies together. At the age of four, she began to ask me simple questions. “Daddy, is this person bad or good.” I would reply, “David was good, and Goliath was bad. The prophet Samuel was good, but King Saul was bad.” I would then explain, “Samuel was good because he obeyed God. Saul was bad because he tried to kill David.” This became my child’s first lesson about the wise man verses the fool. It is in this same pattern that God first teaches us how to identify the wise man and the fool as we journey through Pro 10:1 to Pro 15:33.
There are other signposts within this lengthy passage of Pro 10:1 thru Pro 15:33. One signpost is found in Pro 10:27.
Pro 10:27, “The fear of the LORD prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.”
This signpost is planted within a passage of Scriptures that deals with the longevity of the righteous verses the brevity of the wicked (Pro 10:24 thru Pro 11:22). Thus, this verse promises long life to those who fear the Lord.
A second signpost within Pro 10:1 thru Pro 15:33 is found in Pro 13:13.
Pro 13:13, “Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.”
This signpost is placed within a group of verses (Pro 13:1-25) that deal largely with the issue of financial blessings from the Lord. Thus, it promises a reward to those who fear the Lord.
In Pro 14:26-27, we see a signpost that refers to an abundant life. These two verses are placed within a group of proverbs that deal with one’s understanding of circumstances around him.
JFB notes that the parallelisms of Pro 10:1 to Pro 15:33 are mostly antithetic, that is, sayings that contrast values in life. They contrast the wise man to the fool. However, the couplets in Pro 16:1 to Pro 22:16 are synthetic. That is, these synthetic sayings in Pro 16:1 to Pro 22:16 are different in that they are one-verse proverbs that explain one another. The second part of the couplet further explains and builds its thoughts upon the first part of the couplet.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. Justification: Antithetic Proverbs Pro 10:1 to Pro 15:33
2. Indoctrination: Synthetic Proverbs Pro 16:1 to Pro 22:16
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Justification: The Journey to a Place of Rest ( Pro 10:1 to Pro 29:27 ) In Proverbs 10-29 we find a new emphasis regarding our spiritual journey in life. We have heard the call of wisdom in the first nine chapters. Now we have to make the choice to follow the path of wisdom, or the path of the fool. It is our decision to pursue wisdom that will justify us before God. Thus, the underlying theme of Proverbs 10-29 is our justification before God the Father, while the final chapter brings us to a place of rest, which is the destination for man’s spiritual journey in life.
Throughout Proverbs 10-29 we encounter hundreds of individual proverbs that appear to have no organized arrangement in which they are presented us. This is because in the journey of life, our encounters with the wise man and the fool appear to come in the same random order. However, God has placed all things in His divine order. When we read individual proverbs, they appear to be randomly assembled, but if we will step back and look at them as a whole or in groups, we can see an order. These proverbs are clearly grouped together by themes, such as a pure heart, the tongue, a long life, and wealth. In the same way, the circumstances that we face in our daily lives appear to have no particular order. We see very little of God’s hand in our lives in a single day, but when we step back and look as our lives over the months or years, we very clearly see God’s sovereign hand at working in our lives. We recognize that He is divinely orchestrating His purpose and plan for our lives. This is the way that the verses in the book of Proverbs are arranged.
We have seen that Proverbs 1-9, about one third of the book, is man’s call to follow the path of wisdom. Thus, about one third of the book of Proverbs is an introduction, or a preparation, for the rest of this book. Why is that so? We know that Solomon was chosen to be the successor to the throne at his birth. Therefore, he received many years of training under King David for this great task. Even today, we spent the first twenty years of our lives going to school and training for a profession, which is about one third of our lives. We spend the next two thirds of our lives building upon these twenty years of preparation. In our lives, we spend the first twenty years in preparation, the next twenty years sowing, and the last twenty years reaping what we have sown. This is why these years seem to be turning points in many people’s lives. This was the pattern in King Solomon’s life of preparation and growing in wisdom, and this is the pattern found in the book of Proverbs. It is important to note that a season of preparation is something that God has designed and instituted in the human life. He created every human being with the capacity to be shaped and molded through a training process. We often use the term “brainwashing” in a negative sense to refer to a person who has been programmed to think in a negative way; but proper training also reprograms the mind and prepares an individual for the tasks of life. Our human make-up of the spirit, soul, and body were designed to receive training before practical application and abundant living can be achieved.
Although we will study these proverbs, we will find ourselves falling short of fulfilling them in our everyday lives. None of us has walked flawlessly in obedience to any single proverb. Therefore, each individual proverb reveals God’s standard of righteousness, pointing us to Jesus, who alone fulfilled this divine standard in our behalf. In this sense, this collection of proverbs is a collection of redemptive proverbs, revealing our need for a Redeemer, who alone fulfilled every proverb.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. Justification: Solomon’s First Collection Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16
2. Divine Service: Sayings of the Wise Pro 22:17 to Pro 24:34
3. Perseverance: Solomon’s Second Collection by Hezekiah Pro 25:1 to Pro 29:27
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Indoctrination: Solomon’s First Collection of Proverbs (Synthetic) – On our journey in chapters 10-15, we have learned to make wise choices and to avoid foolish decisions. In chapter 16, we begin to see that God’s purpose and plan in our lives is bigger than just daily decision-making. This section of Proverbs (Pro 16:1 to Pro 22:16) reveals the divine intervention of God on this journey in life. We must now learn that God has an all-inclusive divine plan for all of his creation, for all of mankind, and a plan for you and me in particular. We must learn not only to make a wise decision, but we must evaluate this decision in light of God’s divine plan for our lives. It is only by God’s divine intervention in our daily lives that we will be able to stay on the path that leads to eternal rest. God will intervene in order to keep our life balanced so that we will not stray in any one direction to far. Therefore, the journey becomes narrower and choices must be made more carefully.
Proverbs 10-15 have given us one-verse sayings that are clearly antithetical. That is, the first part of the verse contrasts with the second part. However, beginning in Pro 16:1 to Pro 22:16, we see a different type of proverb. In this next section of the book of Proverbs the one-verse says have two parts that complement one another. That is, the second phrase amplifies, or further explains, the first phrase, rather than contrast its counterpart. This means that the training is getting a little more intensive. This new section requires more contemplation that the previous section. Rather than contrasting the difference between the wise man and the fool, we begin to learn the consequences of our decisions, whether wise or foolish. We now move from identifying the wise and the fool (Pro 10:1 thru Pro 15:33) into learning the lasting effects that wisdom and foolishness have in our lives (Pro 16:1 thru Pro 22:16). We must learn that we will always reap the consequences of our behavior. This is the process of indoctrination that is a vital part of our spiritual journey.
As we look for signposts within this passage that confirm this theme, we find them in Pro 16:6 and Pro 19:23, which tell us that the fear of the Lord brings forgiveness of our sins and it delivers us from the visitation of evil that judges the wicked.
Pro 16:6, “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.”
Pro 19:23, “ The fear of the LORD tendeth to life: and he that hath it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil.”
It is interesting to note that the opening chapter of this lengthy passage begins with the theme of the sovereignty of God. This passage is place at this place on our journey in order that we might learn that God’s ways always prevail over man’s ways and that we must always reap what we sow.
Therefore, the truths in Pro 16:1 to Pro 22:16 are a little deeper in meaning that the previous section of Pro 10:1 to Pro 15:33. On our journey in Proverbs 10-15, we have seen how a man can make choices that will identify his character. Now, beginning in chapter 16, we take a deeper lesson in life in order to see a bigger picture. Although the outcome in life rests upon our daily choices, we must learn that God intervenes in our lives in order to include us into His divine plan for all of His creation, and for all of mankind. This means that God has a plan for you and me in particular.
Then, we see a signpost at Pro 22:4 as an indication that this phase of learning is ending. Note:
Pro 22:4, “By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.”
Therefore, Pro 22:4 does not describe the beginning of wisdom (Pro 1:1 thru Pro 9:18), nor the instruction of wisdom (Pro 10:1 thru Pro 15:33), but rather the effects of applying wisdom to our lives. That is, wisdom brings to us the full rewards of riches, honour and life.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
v. 1. Wine is a mocker,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Pro 20:1
Wine is a mocker; or, scorner, the word (luts) being taken up from the last chapter. The liquor is, as it were, personified, as doing what men do under its influence. Thus inebriated persons scoff at what is holy, reject reproof, ridicule all that is serious. Septuagint, , “Wine is an undisciplined thing;” Vulgate, Luxuriosa res, vinum. Strong drink is raging; a brawler, Revised Version. Shekar, (Luk 1:15), is most frequently employed of any intoxicating drink not made from grapes, e.g. palm wine, mead, etc. The inordinate use of this renders men noisy and boisterous, no longer masters of themselves or restrained by the laws of morality or decency. Septuagint, , “Drunkenness is insolent.” Theognis has some sensible lines on this matter
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Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. No one who reels under the influence of, is overpowered by, wine is wise (Isa 28:7). Septuagint, “Every fool is involved in such.” Says a Latin adage
“Ense cadunt multi, perimit sed crapula plures.”
“More are drowned in the wine cup than in the ocean,” say the Germans (comp. Pro 23:29, etc.; Eph 5:18).
Pro 20:2
The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion (see Pro 19:12). The terror which a king causes when his anger is rising is like the roar of a lion, which betokens danger. Septuagint, “The threat of a king differeth not from the wrath of a lion.” Whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul; imperils his life, which he has no right wilfully to jeopard. ,Septuagint, “He who enrageth him ( ).” The Complutensian and some Greek versions introduce the words, , “and has intercourse with him;” i.e. he who having aroused a king’s resentment does not avoid his presence, exposes himself to certain death.
Pro 20:3
It is an honour to a man to cease from strife; or better, as Delitzsch and others, to remain far from strife. A prudent man will not only abstain from causing quarrel, but will hold himself aloof from all contention, and thus will have due care for his own honour and dignity. How different is this from the modern cede, which makes a man’s honour consist in his readiness to avenge fancied injury at the risk of his own or his neighbour’s life! Septuagint, “It is a glory to a man to hold himself aloof from revilings.” Every fool will be meddling (see on Pro 17:14; Pro 18:1). Delitzsch, “Whoever is a fool showeth his teeth,” finds pleasure in strife. Septuagint, “Every fool involves himself in such,” as in Pro 20:1.
Pro 20:4
The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold; propter frigus, Vulgate. But (choreph) denotes the time of gatheringthe autumn; so we would translate, “At the time of harvest the sluggard ploughs not”just when the ground is most easily and profitably worked. “The weakness of the coulter and other parts of the plough requires that advantage be taken, in all but the most friable soils, of the softening of the surface by the winter or spring rains; so that the peasant, if industrious, has to plough in the winter, though sluggards still shrink from its cold, and have to beg in the harvest” (Geikie, ‘Holy Land and Bible,’ 2:491). Therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. So the Vulgate, Mendicabit ergo aestate, et non dabitur illi. But this does not accurately represent the meaning of the clause. If ever the prosperous are disposed to relieve the needy, it would be at the time when they have safely garnered their produce; an appeal to their charity at such a moment would not be made in vain. Rather the sentence signifies that the lazy man, having neglected to have his land ploughed at the proper time, “when he asks (for his fruits) at harvest time, there is nothing.” He puts off tilling his fields day after day, or never looks to see if his labourers do their duty, and so his land is not cultivated, and he has no crop to reap when autumn comes. “By the street of By-and-by one arrives at the house of Never” (Spanish proverb). Taking a different interpretation of the word choreph, the LXX. renders, “Being reproached, the sluggard is not ashamed, no more than he who borrows corn in harvest.”
Pro 20:5
Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water. The thoughts and purposes of a man are hidden in his breast like deep water (Pro 18:4) in the bosom of the earth, hard to fathom, hard to get. But a man of understanding will draw it out. One who is intelligent and understands human nature penetrates the secret, and, by judicious questions and remarks, draws out the hidden thought.
Pro 20:6
Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness; chesed, “kindness,” “mercy,” “liberality,” as in Pro 19:22. So Ewald and others, Hitzig and Kamphausen translate, “Many a man one names his dear friend;” Delitzsch and Nowack prefer, “Most men meet a man who is gracious to them;” i.e. it is common enough to meet a man who seems benevolent and well disposed. Vulgate, “Many men are called merciful;” Septuagint, “Man is a great thing, and a merciful man is a precious thing.” The renderings of most modern commentators imply the statement that love and mercy are common enough, at least in outward expression. The Authorized Version pronounces that men are ready enough to parade and boast of their liberality, like the hypocrites who were said proverbially to sound a trumpet when they performed their almsdeeds (Mat 6:2). Commenting on the Greek rendering of the clause given above, St. Chrysostom observes, “This is the true character of man to be merciful; yea, rather the character of God to show mercy Those who answer not to this description, though they partake of mind, and are never so capable of knowledge, the Scripture refuses to acknowledge them as men, but calls them dogs, and horses, and serpents, and foxes, and wolves, and if there be any animals more contemptible”. The contrast between show, or promise, and performance is developed in the second clause. But a faithful man who can find? The faithfulness intended is fidelity to promises, the practical execution of the vaunted benevolence; this is rare indeed, so that a psalmist could cry, “I said in my haste, All men are liars” (Psa 116:11; comp. Rom 3:4). Lesetre refers to Massillon’s sermon, ‘Sur la Gloire Humaine,’ where we read (the preacher, of course, rests on the Latin Version), “Ces hommes vertueux dont le monde se fait tant d’honneur, n’ont au fond souvent pour eux que l’erreur publique. Amis fideles, je le veux; mais c’est le gout, la vanite ou Pin teret, qui les lie; et dans leur amis, ils n’amient qu’ eux-memes En un mot, dit l’Ecriture, on les appelle misericordieux, ils ont toutes les vertus pour le public; mais n’etant pas fideles a Dieu, ils n’en ont pas une seule pour eux-memes.”
Pro 20:7
The just man walketh in his integrity. It is better to connect the two clauses together, and not to take the first as a separate sentence, thus: “He who as a just man walketh in his integrity”Blessed are his children after him (comp. Pro 14:26). So the Septuagint and Vulgate. The man of pure life, who religiously performs his duty towards God and man, shall bring a blessing on his children who follow his good example, both during his life and after his death. The temporal promise is seen in Exo 20:6; Deu 4:40; Psa 112:2, etc. Some see here an instance of utilitarianism; but it cannot be supposed that the writer inculcates virtue for the sake of the worldly advantages connected with it; rather he speaks from experience, and from a faithful dependence on Providence, of the happy results of a holy life.
Pro 20:8
A royal and right noble maxim. A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes. The king, sitting on the tribunal and executing his judiciary office, sees through all devices and pretences which cloak evil, and scatters them to the winds, as the chaff flies before the winnowing fan. Nothing unrighteous can abide in his presence (comp. Pro 20:26; Pro 16:10, etc.). See here an adumbration of the characteristic of the Messiah, the great King whose “eyes behold, whose eyelids try, the children of men” (Psa 11:4): who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Hab 1:13); who “with righteousness shall judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall slay the wicked” (Isa 11:4; comp. Mat 3:12). Septuagint, “When the righteous king shall sit upon his throne, nothing that is evil shall offer itself before his eyes.”
Pro 20:9
Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? The question implies the answer, “No one.” This is expressed in Job 14:4, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” At the dedication of the temple, Solomon enunciates this fact of man’s corruption, “There is no man that sinneth not” (1Ki 8:46). The prophet testifies, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick: who can know it?” (Jer 17:9). And St. John warns, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1Jn 1:8). The heart is cleansed by self-examination and repentance; but it is so easy to deceive one’s self in this matter, sins may lurk undetected, motives may be overlooked, so that no one can rightly be self-righteous, or conceited, or proud of his spiritual state. The “my sin” at the end of the clause is rather possible than actual sin; and the expression means that no one can pride himself on being secure from yielding to temptation, however clean for a time his conscience may be. The verse, therefore, offers a stern corrective of two grievous spiritual errorspresumption and apathy.
Pro 20:10
Divers weights, and divers measures; literally, stone and stone, ephah and ephah. The stones were used for weighing: dishonest traders kept them of different weights, and also measures of different capacities, substituting one for the other in order to defraud unwary customers. The Septuagint makes this plain by rendering, “A weight great and small, and measures double” (see on Pro 11:1 and Pro 16:11; and comp. Pro 16:23). The ephah was a dry measure, being one-tenth of the homer, and occupying the same position in solids as the bath did in liquids. It equalled about three pecks of our measure. Both of them are alike abomination to the Lord (Pro 17:15; comp. Le 19:36; Deu 25:13, etc.); Septuagint, “Are impure before the Lord, even both of them, and he who doeth them.” Pseudo-Bernard (‘De Pass. Dom.,’ 17.), applying the passage mystically, teaches that a man may be said to keep a double measure, who, being conscious of his own evil character, endeavours to appear righteous to others; who, as he puts it, “Suo judicio terrae proximus est, et aliis cupit elevatus videri.” Others, connecting this verse in thought with the preceding, see in it a warning against judging a neighbour by a standard which we do not apply to ourselves. The Septuagint Version arranges the matter from Pro 20:10 onwards differently from the Hebrew, omitting Pro 20:14-19, and placing Pro 20:10-13 after Pro 20:22.
Pro 20:11
Even a child is known (maketh himself known) by his doings. (For “even” (gam), see on Pro 17:26.) A child is open, simple, and straightforward in his actions; he has not the reserves and concealments which men practise, so you see by his conduct what his real character and disposition are. Ewald takes in the sense of “play,” “games;” but it seems never to have this meaning, and there is no need to change the usual signification. The habits of a life are learned in early age. The boy is father of the man. Delitzsch quotes the German proverbs, “What means to become a hook bends itself early,” and “What means to become a thorn sharpens itself early;” and the Aramaean, “That which will become a gourd shows itself in the bud:” Whether his work be pure (“clean,” as Pro 17:9 and Pro 16:2), and whether it be right. His conduct will show thus much, end will help one to prognosticate the future. Septuagint (according to the Vatican), “In his pursuits () a young man will be fettered in company with a holy man, and his way will be straight,” which seems to mean that a good man will restrain the reckless doings of a giddy youth, and will lead him into better courses.
Pro 20:12
The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. This apothegm, which seems to be nothing but a trite truism, brings to notice many important consequences. First, there is the result noted in Psa 94:9, “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?” Hence we learn the sleepless providence of God. So ‘Pirke Aboth,’ “Know that which is above thee, an eye that seeth all, an ear that heareth all.” We learn also that all things are directed and overruled by God (comp. Pro 15:3; Pro 16:4). Then there is the thought that these powers of ours, being the gift of God, should be used piously and in God’s service. “Mine ears hast thou opened Lo, I come I delight to do thy will, O my God” (Psa 40:6, etc.). The eye should be blind, the ear deaf, to all that might defile or excite to evil (see Isa 33:15). But it is the Lord alone that enables the spiritual organs to receive the wondrous things of God’s Law; they must be educated by grace to enable them to perform their proper functions. “God hath given us eyes,” says St. Chrysostom, “not that we may look wantonly, but that, admiring his handiwork, we may worship the Creator. And that this is the use of our eyes is evident from the things which are seen. For the lustre of the sun and of the sky we see from an immeasurable distances, but a woman’s beauty one cannot discern so far off. Seest thou that for this end our eye was chiefly given? Again, he made the ear, that we should entertain not blasphemous words, but saving doctrines. Wherefore you see, when it receives anything dissonant, both our soul shudders and our very body also. And if we hear anything cruel or merciless, again our flesh creeps; but if anything decorous and kind, we even exult and rejoice.” “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Septuagint, “The ear heareth and the eye sooth, and both are the works of the Lord.”
Pro 20:13
Love not sleep lest thou come to poverty (see Pro 6:9, etc.). The fate of the sluggard is handled again in Pro 23:21, as often before; e.g. Pro 12:11; Pro 19:15. The LXX; taking (shenah), “sleep,” as perhaps connected with the verb (shanah), translate, “Love not to rail, that thou be not exalted ( ),“ i.e. probably, “Do not calumniate others in order to raise yourself;” others translate, “lest thou be cut off.” Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satired with bread. These words seem to connect this clause with Pro 19:12. God gives the faculty, but man must make due use thereof. The gnomist urges, “Do not slumber at your post, or sit downwardly waiting; but be up and doing, be wakeful and diligent, and then you shall prosper.”
Pro 20:14
It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer. The purchaser depreciates the goods which he wants, in order to lower the price demandeda practice as common now as in old time. “I don’t want it, I don’t want it,” says the Spanish friar; “but drop it into my hood.” The Scotch say, “He that lacks (disparages) my mare would buy my mare” (Kelly). But when he is gone his way, then he boasteth. When he has completed his purchase and obtained the goods at his own price, he boasts how he has tricked the seller. The LXX. omits Pro 20:14-19.
Pro 20:15
There is gold, and a multitude of rubies. For peninim, which is rendered “rubies,” “pearls,” or “coral,” see on Pro 3:15. There is gold which is precious, and there is abundance of pearls which are still more valuable. But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel, and worth more than all. We had the expression, “lips of knowledge,” in Pro 14:7; it means lips that utter wisdom. Keli, often translated “jewel” in the Authorized Version, also boars the meaning of “vessel,” “utensil.” So here the Vulgate, vas pretiosum; and the wise man’s lips are called a vessel because they contain and distribute the wisdom that is within. (On the excellence and value of wisdom, see Pro 3:14, etc; Pro 8:11, etc.) Connecting this with the preceding verse, we are led to the thought of buying, and the Lord’s parable of the merchant seeking goodly pearls, and bartering all his wealth to gain possession of a worthy jewel (Mat 13:45, etc.).
Pro 20:16
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger. The maxim is repeated in Pro 27:13; and warnings against suretyship are found in Pro 6:1, etc.; Pro 11:15; Pro 17:18; Pro 22:26, etc. The second portion of the clause is translated also, “For he is surety for another.” If a man is so weak and foolish as to become security for any one, and is unable to make good his engaged payment, let him lose his garment which the creditor would seize; his imprudence must bring its own punishment. And take a pledge of him for a strange woman. The Authorized Version probably adopts this rendering in conformity with Pro 27:13, where it occurs in the text, as hero in the margin (the Keri). But the Khetib has, “for strangers,” which seems to be the original reading; and the first words ought to be translated, “hold him in pledge;” i.e. seize his person for the sake of the strangers for whom he has stood security, so as not to suffer loss from them. The Law endeavoured to secure lending to needy brethren without interest (see Psa 15:5; Eze 18:8, Eze 18:13, etc.; Eze 22:12): but it allowed the creditor to secure himself by taking pledges of his debtor, while it regulated this system so as to obviate most of its severity and oppressiveness (see the restrictions in Exo 22:26, etc.; Deu 24:6, Deu 24:12, etc.). “Where the debtor possessed nothing which he could pledge, he gave the personal security of a friend. This was a very formal proceeding. The surety gave his hand both to the debtor and to the creditor before an assembly legally convened, he deposited a pledge, and, in accordance with this twofold promise, was regarded by the creditor in just the same light as the debtor himself, and treated accordingly. If the debtor, or in his place the surety, was unable to pay the debt when it fell due, he was entirely at the mercy of the creditor. The authorities troubled themselves but little about these relations, and the law, so far as it is preserved to us, gave no directions in the matter. We see, however, from many allusions and narratives, what harsh forms these relations actually took, especially in later times, when the ancient national brotherly love which the Law presupposed was more and more dying out. The creditor could not only forcibly appropriate all the movable, but also the fixed property, including the hereditary estate (this at least till its redemption in the year of jubilee), nay, he could even (if he could find nothing else of value) carry off as a prisoner the body of his debtor, or of his wife and child, to employ them in his service, though this could only he done for a definite period”.
Pro 20:17
Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; Revised Version, bread of falsehood; i.e. bread gained without labour, or by unrighteous means (comp. Pro 10:2). This is agreeable because it is easily won, and has the relish of forbidden fruit. “Wickedness is sweet in his mouth” (Job 20:12). But afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. He will find in his “bread” no nourishment, but rather discomfort and positive injury (comp. Job 20:14). The expression, “to eat gravel,” is intimated in Lam 3:16, “He hath broken my teeth with gravel stones;” it implies grievous disappointment and unprofitableness. See here a warning against evil plesaures
“Sperne voluptates: nocet empta dolore voluptas.”
Oort supposes that the gnome in the text is derived from a riddle, which asked, “What is sweet at first, but afterwards like sand in the mouth?”
Pro 20:18
Every purpose is established by counsel (comp. Pro 15:22, where see note). The Talmud says, “Even the most prudent of men needs friends’ counsels;” and none but the most conceited would deem himself superior to advice, or would fail to allow that, as the Vulgate puts it, cogitationes consillis roborantur. This is true in all relations of life, in great and small matters alike, in peace, and, as our moralist adds, in war. With good advice make war; Vulgate, Gubernaculis tractanda sunt bella; Revised Version, By wise guidance make thou war. The word here used is takebuloth, for which see note, Pro 1:5. It is a maritime metaphor, rightly retained by the Vulgate, and might be rendered “pilotings,” “steerings.” War is a necessary evil, but it must be undertaken prudently and with a due consideration of circumstances, means, etc. Our Lord illustrates the necessity of due circumspection in following him by the case of a threatened conflict between two contending kings (Luk 14:31, etc.). Grotius quotes the gnome
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“Titan strength of hands availeth counsel more.”
To which we may add
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“Good counsel is the safest thing of all.”
(Comp. Pro 24:6, where the hemistich is re-echoed.)
Pro 20:19
He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets. Almost the same proverb occurs in Pro 11:13, The gadding gossiper is sure to let out any secret entrusted to him; therefore, it is implied, be careful in what you say to him. Meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips; rather, that openeth wide his lipsthat cannot keep his mouth shut, a babbler, as Pro 13:3 (where see note). The Vulgate erroneously makes one sentence of the verse, “With him who reveals secrets, and walketh deceitfully, and openeth wide his lips, have no dealings.” Talmud, “When I utter a word, it hath dominion over me; but when I utter it not, I have dominion over it.” Says the Persian poet, “The silent man hath his shoulders covered with the garment of security.” Xenocrates used to say that he sometimes was “sorry for having spoken, never for having kept silence” (Cahen).
Pro 20:20
This is an enforcement of the fifth commandment, by denouncing the punishment which the moral government of God shall exact from the unnatural child. The legal penalty may be seen (Exo 21:17; Le Exo 20:9); but this was probably seldom or never carried into execution. His lamp shall be put out in obscure (the blackest) darkness (comp. Pro 13:9). The expression is peculiar; it is literally, according to the Khetib, In the apple of the eye of darkness, as in Pro 7:9; i.e. in the very centre of darkness; he will find himself surrounded on all sides by midnight darkness, without escape, with no hope of Divine protection. “Lamp” is a metaphor applied to the bodily and the spiritual life, to happiness and prosperity, to a man’s fame and reputation, to a man’s posterity; and all these senses may be involved in the denunciation of the disobedient and stubborn child. He shall suffer in body and soul, in character, in fortune, in his children. His fate is the exact counterpart of the blessing promised in the Law. Septuagint, “The lamp of him that revileth father and mother shall be extinguished, and the pupils of his eyes shall behold darkness.” Talmud, “Whosoever abandons his parents means his body to become the prey of scorpions.” Cato, ‘Dist.,’ 3.23
“Dilige non aegra caros pietate parentes;
Nec matrem offendas, dum vis bonus esse parenti.”
One of the evil generations denounced by Agur (Pro 30:11) is that which curseth parents.
Pro 20:21
An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginningor, which in the beginning, is obtained in hastebut the end thereof shall not be blessed; or, its end shall not be blessed. The Khetib gives , which (comp. Zec 11:8) may mean “detested,” but this gives no sense; it is better, with the Keri, to replace kheth with he, and read (meboheleth), “hastened,” “hastily acquired”. The maxim, taken in connection with the preceding verse, may apply to a bad son who thinks his parents live too long, and by violence robs them of their possessions; or to one who, like the prodigal in the parable, demands prematurely his portion of the paternal goods. But it may also be taken generally as denouncing the fate of those who make haste to be rich, being unscrupulous as to the means by which they gain wealth (see on Pro 23:11; Pro 28:20, Pro 28:22). A Greek gnome says roundly
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“No righteous man e’er grew rich suddenly.”
Pro 20:22
Say not thou, I will recompense evil (Pro 24:29). The jus talonis is the natural feeling of man, to do to others as they have done unto you, to requite evil with evil. But the moralist teaches a better lesson, urging men not to study revenge, and approaching nearer to Christ’s injunction, which gives the law of charity, “Whatsoever ye would ( ) that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Mat 7:12). The Christian rule is expounded fully by St. Paul (Rom 12:14, Rom 12:17, etc). It was not unknown to the Jews; for we read in Tobit 4:15, “Do that to no man which thou hatest;” and Hillel enjoins, “Do not thou that to thy neighbour which thou hatest when it is done to thee.” Even the heathens had excogitated this great principle. There is a saying of Aristotle, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, “Act towards your friends as you would wish them to act towards you.” The Chinese have a proverb, “Water does not remain on the mountain, or vengeance in a great mind.” Wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee. The pious writer urges the injured person to commit his cause to the Lord, not in the hope of seeing vengeance taken on his enemy, but in the certainty that God will help him to bear the wrong and deliver him in his own good time and way. The Christian takes St. Peter’s view, “Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?” (1Pe 3:13), knowing that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom 8:28; comp. Ecclesiasticus 2:2, 6). Septuagint, “Say not, I will avenge myself on my enemy, but wait on the Lord, that () he may help thee.” The last clause may be grammatically rendered thus, but it is more in accordance with the spirit st’ the proverb, as Delitzsch observes, to regard it as a promise. Vulgate, et liberabit te.
Pro 20:23
This is a repetition, with a slight variation, of Pro 20:10 and Pro 11:1 (where see notes). Is not good. A litotes, equivalent to “is very evil,” answering to “abomination” in the first member. Septuagint, “is not good before him” (comp. Pro 24:23).
Pro 20:24
Man’s goings are of the Lord. In the first clause the word for “man” is geber, which implies “a mighty man;” in the second clause the word is adam, “a human creature.” So the Septuagint has in one clause and in the other. The proverb says that the steps of a great and powerful man depend, as their final cause, upon the Lord; he conditions and controls results. Man has free will, and is responsible for his actions, but God foreknows them, and holds the thread that connects them together; he gives preventing grace; he gives efficient grace: and man blindly works out the designs of Omnipotence according as he obeys or resists. A similar maxim is found in Psa 37:23, “A man’s goings are established of the Lord,” but the meaning there is that it is God’s aid which enables a man to do certain actions. Here we have very much the same intimation that is found in Pro 2:6 and Pro 19:21; and see note on Pro 16:9. Hence arises the old prayer used formerly at prime, and inserted now (with some omissions) at the end of the Anglican Communion Service: “O almighty Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, our thoughts, words, and actions, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments; that through thy most mighty protection we may be preserved both here and forever.” If man cannot see all sides, as God does, cannot comprehend the beginning, middle, and end in one.view, how then can a man (a weak mortal) understand his own ways. How can he find out of himself whither he should go, or what will be the issue of his doings (comp. Pro 16:25; Jer 10:23)? St. Gregory, “It is well said by Solomon [Ecc 9:1], ‘There are righteous and wise men, and their works are in the hand of God; and yet no man knoweth whether he is deserving of love or of hatred; but all things are kept uncertain for the time to come.’ Hence it is said again by the same Solomon, ‘What man will be able to understand his own way?’ And any one doing good or evil is doubtless known by the testimony of his own conscience. But it is said that their own way is not known to men, for this reason, because, even if a man understands that he is acting rightly, yet he knows not, under the strict inquiry, whither he is going” (‘Moral.,’ 29.34).
Pro 20:25
It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy. This verse, which is plainly a warning against rash vows, has received more than one interpretation. The Vulgate has, Ruina est homini devorare sanctos, which is explained to mean that it is destruction for a man to persecute the saints of God. But the word devorare is not certain, as the manuscripts vary between this and four other readings, viz. devotares, denotare, devovere, and devocare. The Authorized Version signifies that it is a sin to take for one’s own consumption things dedicated to God, as firstfruits, the priests’ portions, etc.: or a man’s snare, i.e. his covetousness (1Ti 6:9), leads him to commit sacrilege. So Wordsworth. But it is best, with Delitzsch, to take (yala) as the abbreviated future of or , “to speak rashly;” and then kodesh, “holiness,” will be an exclamation, like korban (Mar 7:11). The clause will then run, “It is a snare to a man rashly to cry, Holiness!” equivalent to “It is holy!” i.e. to use the formula for consecrating something to holy purposes. Septuagint, “It is a snare to a man hastily to consecrate something of his own” (comp. Ecc 5:2, Ecc 5:4, etc.). And after vows to make inquiry; i.e. after he has made his vow, to begin to consider whether he can fulfil it or not. This is a snare to a man, strangles his conscience, and leads him into the grievous sins of perjury and sacrilege. Septuagint, “For after vowing ensueth repentance.”
Pro 20:26
A wise king scattereth the wicked (Pro 20:8). The verb is zarah, which means “to winnow, or sift.” The king separates the wicked and the good, as the winnowing fan or shovel divides the chaff from the wheat. The same metaphor is used of Christ (Mat 3:12), “Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (comp. Jer 15:7). Septuagint, “A winnower () of the ungodly is a wise king.” And bringeth the wheel over them. The threshing wheel is meant (see Isa 28:27; Amo 1:3). This was a wooden frame with three or four rollers under it armed with iron teeth. It was drawn by two oxen, and, aided by the weight of the driver, who had his seat upon it, it crushed out the grain, and cut up the straw into fodder. Another machine much used in Palestine was made of two thick planks fastened together side by side, and having sharp stones fixed in rows on the lower surface. It is not implied that the king employed the corn drag as an instrument of punishment, which was sometimes so used in war, as possibly may be inferred from 2Sa 12:31; 1Ch 20:3; and Amo 1:3. The idea of threshing is carried on, and the notion is rather of separation than of punishment, though the latter is not wholly excluded. The wise ruler will not only distinguish between the godless and the good, but will show his discrimination by visiting the evil with condign puuishment. Septuagint, “He will bring the wheel upon them;” the Vulgate has curiously, Incurvat super eos fornicem, “He bends an arch over them,” which Latin commentators explain as a triumphal arch, meaning that the king conquers and subdues the wicked, and celebrates his victory over them. A patent anachronism which needs no comment!
Pro 20:27
The spirit of men is the candle (lamp) of the Lord. Neshamah, “spirit,” or “breath,” is the principle of life breathed into man by God himself (Gen 2:7), distinguishing man from brutesthe conscious human soul. We may consider it as equivalent to what we Christians call conscience, with its twofold character of receiving light and illumination from God, and sitting as judge and arbiter of actions. It is named “the Lord’s lamp,” because this moral sense is a direct gift of God, and enables a man to see his real condition. Our Lord (Mat 6:23) speaks of the light that is in man, and gives a solemn warning against the danger of letting it be darkened by neglect and sin; and St. Paul (1Co 2:11) argues, “Who among men knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of the man, which is in him?” As Elihu says (Job 32:8), “There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” And Aristotle speaks of practical wisdom () combined with virtue as “the eye of the soul ( ).” Searching all the inward parts of the belly; i.e. the very depths of the soul, probing thoughts, desires, affections, will, and approving or reproving, according as they are in conformity with or opposition to God’s Law. We must remember that Eastern houses, before the introduction of glass, had very scanty openings to admit light, and lamps were necessary if for any purpose the interior had to be thoroughly illuminated. Hence the metaphor used above would strike an Oriental more forcibly than it strikes us. Septuagint, “The breath (, as Pro 11:13) of man is a light of the Lord, who searches the chambers of the belly.” St. Gregory (‘Moral.,’ 12.64), “We ought to bear in mind that in holy Writ by the title of the ‘belly,’ or the ‘womb,’ the mind is used to be understood. For the light of grace, which comes from above, affords a ‘breathway’ to man unto life, which same light is said to ‘search all the inward parts of the belly,’ in that it penetrates all the secrets of the heart, that the things which were hidden in the soul touching itself it may bring back before the eyes thereof” (Oxford transl.).
Pro 20:28
Mercy and truth preserve the king. (For “mercy and truth,” see note on Pro 3:3.) The love and faithfulness which the king displays in dealing with his subjects elicits the like virtues in them, and these are the safeguard of his throne. His throne is upholden by mercy; or, love. So the king is well called the father of his people, and in modern times the epithet “gracious” is applied to the sovereign as being the fountain of mercy and condescension. Sallust, ‘Jugurtha,’ 10, “Non exercitus neque thesauri praesidia regni sunt, verum amici, quos neque armis cogere neque auro parare queas; officio et fide pariuntur.” Septuagint, “Mercy () and truth are a guard to a king, and will surround his throne with righteousness.” “The subject’s love,” says our English maxim, “is the king’s lifeguard.”
Pro 20:29
The glory of young men is their strength. That which makes the ornament (tiphereth) of youth is unimpaired strength and vigour, which can only be attained by due exercise combined with self-control. The moralist (Ecc 11:9) bids the young man rejoice in his youth, and let his heart cheer him in those happy days, but at the same time remember that he is responsible for the use which he makes of his powers and faculties, for for all these things God will bring him to judgment. The Greek gives a needful warning
“In youth remember thou wilt soon be old.”
Septuagint, “Wisdom is an ornament to young men.” But koach is bodily, not mental, power. The beauty of old men is the grey head (Pro 16:31). That which gives an honorable look to old age is the hoary head, which suggests wisdom and experience (comp. Ecclesiasticus 25:3-6). On the other hand, the Greek gnomist warns
.
“Grey hairs not wisdom indicate, but age.”
Pro 20:30
The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil. So the Vulgate, Livor vulneris absterget mala. Chaburoth means “stripes,” and the proverb says that deep-cutting stripes are the only effectual cure of evil; i.e. severe punishment is the best healing process in cases of moral delinquency (Pro 19:29). Painful remedies, incisions, cauteries, amputations, are often necessary in the successful treatment of bodily ailments; spiritual sickness needs sterner, more piercing, remedies. So do stripes the inward parts of the belly; or better, and strokes that reach, etc. The stings of conscience, warnings and reproofs which penetrate to the inmost recesses of the heart, chastisement which affects the whole spiritual being.these are needful to the correction and purification of inveterate evil. Aben Ezra connects this verse with the preceding thus: as strength gives a glory to young men, and hoar hairs adorn an old man, so wounds and bruises, so to speak, ornament the sinner, mark him out, and at the same time heal and amend him. It may also be connected with verse 27. If a man will not use the lamp which God has given him for illumination and correction, he must expect severe chastisement and sternest discipline. Septuagint, “Bruises () and contusions befall bad men, and plagues that reach to the chambers of the belly.” St. Gregory, ‘Moral.,’ 23.40, “By the blueness of a wound he implies the discipline of blows on the body. But blows in the secret parts of the belly are the wounds of the mind within, which are inflicted by compunction. For as the belly is distended when filled with food, so is the mind puffed up when swollen with wicked thoughts. The blueness, then, of a wound, and blows in the secret parts of the belly, cleanse away evil, because both outward discipline does away with faults, and compunction pierces the distended mind with the punishment of penance. But they differ from each other in this respect, that the wounds of blows give us pain, the sorrows of compunction have good savour. The one afflict and torture, the others restore when they afflict us. Through the one there is sorrow in affliction, through the other there is joy in grief” (Oxford transl.).
HOMILETICS
Pro 20:1
Wine the mocker
Intemperance was not so common a vice in biblical times as it has become more recently, nor did the light wines of the East exercise so deleterious an effect as the strong drink that is manufactured in Europe is seen to produce. Therefore all that is said in the Bible against the evil of drunkenness applies with much-increased force to the aggravated intemperance of England today.
I. WINE IS A MOCKER BECAUSE IT ALLURES THE WEAK. It makes great promises. Strong drink is pleasant to the palate. The effect of it on the nervous system is at first agreeably stimulating. In weakness and weariness it seems to give comfortable relief. The associations connected with it are made to be most attractive. It goes with genial companionship, and it appears to favour the flow of good fellowship. In sickness it promises renewed strength; it offers consolation in sorrow; at festive seasons it pretends to heighten the joy and to take its place as a cheering friend of man. Moreover, all these attractive traits am aggravated with the weak. The need of the stimulus is more keenly felt by such persons; the early effects of it are more readily and pleasantly recognized; there is less power of will and judgment to resist its alluring influence.
II. WINE IS A MOCKER BECAUSE IT DECEIVES THE UNWARY. The danger that lurks in the cup is not seen at first, and the sparkling wine looks as innocent as a divine nectar. The evil that it produces comes on by slow and insidious stages. No one thinks of becoming a drunkard on the first day of tasting intoxicating drink. Every victim of the terrible evil of intemperance was once an innocent child, and, whether he began in youth or in later years, every one who has gone to excess commenced with moderate and apparently harmless quantities. Happily, the majority of those who take a little are wise or strong enough not to abandon themselves to the tyranny of drinking habits. But the difficulty is to determine beforehand who will be able to stand and who will not have sufficient strength. Under these circumstances, it is a daring piece of presumption for any one to be quite sure that he will always be so wary as to keep out of the snare that has been fatal to many of his brethren who once stood in exactly the same tree and healthy position in which he is at present. It is far safer not to tempt our own natures, and to guard ourselves against the mockery of wine, by keeping from all use of the strong drink itself.
III. WINE IS A MOCKER BECAUSE IT BRINGS RUIN ON ITS VICTIMS. It has no pity. It hounds its dupes on to destruction, and then it laughs at their late. When once it holds a miserable wretch it will never willingly release him. Too late, he discovers that he is a slave, deceived by what promised to be his best friend, and flung into a dungeon from which, by his unaided powers, he can never effect an escape. There is a peculiar mockery in this fate. The victim is disgraced and degraded. His very human nature is wretched, insulted, almost destroyed. His social position is lost; his business scattered to the winds; his family life broker up and made unutterably wretched; his soul destroyed. This is the work of the wine that sparkles in the cup. We should allow no quarter to so vile a deceiver.
Pro 20:3
The honour of peace
The old world looked for glory in war; the Christian idealanticipated in Old Testament teachingis to recognize honour in peace. It is better to keep peace than to be victorious in war, better to make peace than to win battles. Consider the grounds of this higher view of conflict and its issues.
I. THE HONOUR OF PEACE MAY BE SEEN IN SELF–SUPPRESSION. It is much more easy to give the reins to ill will and hasty passion. Men find it harder to fight their own temper than to do battle with alien foes. It is the same with nations when the spirit of war has maddened them. Heedless of consequences to themselves, and blind to the rights of their neighbours, they hurl themselves headlong into the horrors of battle. But if men could learn to curb their own strong feelings, they would really show more strength than by raging in unrestrained fury.
II. THE HONOUR OF PEACE MAY BE RECOGNIZED IN MAGNANIMITY. It may be that we are in the right, and our foes unquestionably in the wrong. Still, it is not essential that we should fight to the bitter end. We may forego our right. It may be a generous and noble thing to suffer wrong without resisting it. We cannot but see how much more harm is done in asserting just claims by force than would result from silent submission after a dignified protest. Often the more magnanimous conduct will result in the very end that would have been sought through violent measures. For it is possible to appeal to the generous instincts of opponents.
III. THE HONOUR OF PEACE MAY BE OBSERVED IN CHARITY. We should ever remember that even those who behave to us as enemies are still our brethren. We have their welfare to consider even while they may be plotting evil against us. Christ prayed for his persecutors (Luk 23:34). So did St. Stephen (Act 7:60). Indeed, our Lord died fur his enemies. He came to make an end of the fearful strife between man and God. But while he did so, he suffered from the fray. The Peacemaker was the victim of the passions of the rebellious. By suffering in meek dignity he made peace. If the mind that was in Christ is found in us, we shall be the earnest advocates of peace for the good of the very people who delight in war.
IV. THE HONOUR OF PEACE MAY BE RECOGNIZED IN HUMILITY. The special form in which the recommendation of peace is thrown is that of a cessation of strife. This implies a case in which there has been warfare; but one of the parties refrains from prosecuting the quarrel any further, although he has neither been worsted nor won the victory. This means a change of policy. Now, it is particularly difficult to effect such a change in the midst of a conflict. One’s motives are likely to be suspected, and what is done from love of peace is likely to be set down to cowardice. It needs humility thus to withdraw and sacrifice one’s pretensions. Having taken a certain position we are tempted to hold it at all hazards from sheer pride. This is especially true in the soul’s conflict with God. Here we are called upon to humble ourselves enough to confess ourselves entirely in the wrong. When the “fearful striving” has ceased there is honour in repentance and the new life of peace with God.
Pro 20:9
Universal sinfulness
We must distinguish between the idea of universal sinfulness and that of total depravity. We may hold that there is some gleam of goodness in a human heart without maintaining its immaculate purity. It is possible to believe that there are great varieties of character, many different degrees of sin, and yet to see that the highest saint has his faults.
I. NO ONE CAN CLEAR HIMSELF FROM THE CHARGE OF SINFULNESS. Who can say, “I have made my heart clean from all imputations of guilt”?
1. The best confess that they are sinful. Canonized by their admiring brethren, they cast themselves down in humility and shame before the holiness of God. No men have so deep a sense of the sinfulness of their own hearts as those who live most near to God.
2. The most skilful cannot excuse themselves. It is possible to formulate specious pleas that will deceive unwary men; but we have to do with the great Searcher of hearts, before whose piercing gaze all sophistries and pretences melt as the mists before the sun.
3. The deceitfulness of the heart blinds many to their own guilt. Men naturally desire to defend themselves; they are excellent advocates of themselves to themselves. The familiar sin is softened by habit. The conventional sin is condoned by custom.
4. False standards of holiness confuse men‘s estimate of their own sinfulness. Some people seem to take a feeling of placidity as an assurance of inward perfection, as though not to be conscious of strife were to be assured of peace with God. But it is possible to slumber under the influence of spiritual narcotics. A keener conscience might rouse a new, unlooked for sense of sin and shame. It is thought that there is no shortcoming simply because the surrounding mists hide the far off goal. Or it may be that negative correctness is mistaken for a satisfactory condition, while many positive active duties are left undone. Perhaps the soul that thinks its aspiration after purity satisfied is wanting in charity, or in the very act of claiming sinlessness it may be puffed up with pride. The most dangerous delusion is that which denies the ownership of guilt because sin is supposed to be relegated to bodily infirmity, while the true self is spotless. This is a most deadly snare of the devil.
II. NO ONE CAN CLEAR HIMSELF FROM THE SINS WHICH HE HAS COMMITTED. Who can say, “I have purged my own conscience, cleansed my own heart, cleared off my record of guilt?”
1. It is impossible to undo sins. Deeds are irrevocable. What has been committed is stereotyped in the awful book of the changeless past. What I have written, spoken, doneI have written, spoken, done.
2. It is impossible to compensate for past sins by future service. The future service is all owing; at our best we are “unprofitable servants”there is no margin of profitfor “we have only done that which it was our duty to do.”
3. It is impossible to atone for our sins by any sacrifice. The hardest penance can be of no value with God. Its only use could be in self-discipline. For God is not pleased with the sufferings of his children. We can offer him nothing; for “the cattle on a thousand hills” are his.
4. It is impossible to change our own inner sinfulness by ourselves. We cannot create clean hearts in our own breasts. We cannot kill our own love of sin.
5. It is only possible for sin to be cleansed in the blood of Christ. “There is a fountain opened for all uncleanness” The admission of guilt, the repentance that turns from the old sin and seeks forgiveness, the renunciation of all claims but that of the grace of God in Christ,these things open the door to the true way of making the heart clean, both in pardon and m purification.
Pro 20:11
A child and his doings
I. A PICTURE OF CHILDHOOD. First, let this picture be regarded on its own account, Childhood is worthy of study.
1. A child has his character. Very early in life varieties of disposition may be seen in the several members of a young family. One is hot-tempered, another patient; one demonstrative, another reserved; one energetic, another inactive. Moral distinctions are painfully and glaringly apparent. As childhood advances these varieties of disposition merge in deeper differences of character. Though the character is supple and mobile, it is nevertheless real. There are good and bad childrenchildren who are pure, true, honest, kind; and children who are marked with the reverse of these qualities.
2. A child is responsible for his deeds. Unless he is crushed by tyranny, within the scope of a reasonable child liberty he has room in which to play his small part on the stage of life. He must not be brought up with the notion that he is an irresponsible agent because he is young and weak. Conscience needs to be enlightened, trained, and strengthened in early days.
3. A child‘s character is revealed in his deeds. The character may be slight and feeble; and the deeds may be simple and insignificant. Yet even in the nursery cause and effect are at work; fruits reveal the nature even of saplings. Even children cannot be judged by outward appearance. With them innocent looks may cover sinful thoughts. Children also may deceive themselves, or make false pretences, though we do not see the hardened hypocrisy of the world in the simpler deception of the nursery. Still, it is to the conduct of children that we must look for indications of their true characters.
II. A LESSON FOR ALL AGES. If even a child is to be known by his doings, the inference is that much more may a man be known in a similar way.
1. Character ripens with years. If it begins to appear in childhood, it will be much more vigorous in manhood. There is something dolefully prophetic in the vices of infancy. Though often laughed at by foolish observers, these vices are the early sprouts of terrible evils that will increase with growing strength and enlarging opportunities. The more clearly we are able to detect differences of character even in childhood, the more certain is it that similar differences are aggravated in manhood.
2. Responsibility grows with opportunity. The deeds of children are to be regarded as characteristicas either culpable or praiseworthy according to their moral tone. How much more must this be the case with grown men and women, who know more, have larger powers, and suffer from fewer restrictions! If the child who has continual restraint upon him, and who lives under perpetual tutelage, yet manifests characteristic conduct, the free man cannot escape from the responsibility of his doings.
3. Conduct is always a sure sign of character. It is so even with children who know little, and who are constantly hampered by superior authority. It must be so with double certainty in the case of adults. It is vain, indeed, for men and women to pretend that the index hand does not point truly. In the freedom of adult age there is no excuse to be urged against the inference that our deeds are the fruits of our character. Therefore, if the conduct is evil, the heart needs to be renewed.
Pro 20:14
The buyer
I. THE CONDUCT OF THE BUYER CALLS FOR CONSIDERATION. It is usual to discuss questions of trade morality chiefly in regard to the conduct of the man who sells. Deception, adulteration, dishonest work, the grinding of employes, etc; are denounced by indignant onlookers. But the conduct of the customer is less severely handled. Yet there are many reasons why it should not be overlooked. All are not sellers, but everybody buys. Therefore when commercial morality is discussed in regard to buying, the subject does not only apply to traders, it concerns all people. Moreover, if men cheat and do wrong in their business when selling, though there is no fair excuse for their conduct, it may be urged that they are driven to extremes by the pressure of competition and by the difficulty of earning a livelihood. But when many people are making ordinary purchases they are not in the same position and under the same temptation. Traders, of course, are buyers in the way of business. But people of affluent circumstances are also buyers without any consideration of business exigencies, but solely for their own convenience. If such people do not behave honourably they are doubly guilty.
II. THE BUYER IS SUBJECT TO MORAL OBLIGATIONS.
1. He owes justice to the seller. He has no right to squeeze the unfortunate trader’s profit by the pressure of undue influence, threatening to withdraw his custom or to injure the connection among his friends, taking advantage of the fact that the seller is in want of money, etc. It is his duty to pay a fair price, even though by the stress of circumstances he might force a sale at a lower rate.
2. He owes truth to the seller. He may misrepresent the absolute value of his purchase, perhaps knowing more of its true worth than the seller, but trying to deceive him. Thus the skilled connoisseur may take an unfair advantage of the ignorance of the trader from whom he buys some rare article of vertu. Or a person may pretend not to want what he secretly covets most eagerly. Such a device is false and unworthy of a Christian profession.
3. He owes humanity to the seller. It is a gross abuse of trade to make it a condition of warfare. A man is not necessarily one’s enemy because one does business with him. The unfortunate person who must needs sell at a great loss rather than not sell at all, is not the legitimate prey of the first greedy customer who is able to pounce upon him. The curse of trade is hard, cruel, brutal selfishness. Christianity teaches us to regard the man with whom one does business as a brother. The buyer should learn to treat the seller as he desires to he treated in turn, and so to fulfil the law of Christ. The same principle requires kindliness of manner.
III. THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE BUYER ABE COMMONLY NEGLECTED. The causes of this negligence are manifold; e.g.:
1. Inconsiderateness. Often there is no intention of doing an injustice. The buyer simply forgets the rights of the seller. This inconsiderateness does harm in various ways. Careless customers give needless trouble to shop people. Some order for view more goods than they need to effect a purchase; some persist in shopping late in the evening, etc.
2. Selfishness. The chief cause of the evil is a sole regard for self. People who are reasonable and kind in their own homes will manifest the most tyrannical spirit, the most cynical selfishness, in their chopping. When the veneer of social habits is broken this ugly vice is more visible in the most polished society than among rougher people.
3. Sinfulness. The evil heart is seen here as elsewhere. For the buyer to force injustice and to cheat the seller is for him to reveal himself as a slave of sin as truly as if he broke out in wanton violence and open robbery.
Pro 20:22
Revenge and its antidote
I. THE SIN AND FOLLY OF REVENGE. This passion appears to spring from a natural instinct; it pretends to justify itself as the fair return for some wrong, and it offers a compensation for the Wrong suffered in the triumph which it gains over the wrong doer. But it is both culpable and foolish.
1. It is culpable. Even if revenge were desirable, we have no right to wreak it on the head of the offender. We are not his judge and executioner. God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” We have no excuse for antedating the Divine vengeance in our impatience by taking the law of retribution into our own hands. If another has hurt us, that fact is no excuse whatever for our hurting him. Two wrongs do not make one right. The spirit of vengeance in man is a spirit of hatred, and therefore one for which there is no excuse. Much as an enemy may have injured us, he is still our fellow man to whom we owe charity and forgiveness.
2. It is foolish. At best it can offer but a gloomy compensation. Unless our nature delights in malignity, there can be no real satisfaction in seeing an enemy suffer. Though a natural passion may seem to be satisfied with a gleam of fierce joy in the moment of triumph, this must be succeeded by a dismal sense of the vanity of any such feelings. The after thought of revenge must be bitter. Moreover, the exercise of vengeance will not cure enmity, but only intensify it. Therefore it may just provoke a second and greater wrong than that which it is avenging. There is no prospect before it but increasing rancour, hatred; strife, misery.
II. THE ANTIDOTE TO REVENGE. We are not to be left to suffer wrong without compensation or hope. We may find a prospect of something better than the bitter harvest of vengeance if we turn from sinful man to God. Then we shall see the true antidote.
1. It springs from faith. We have to be assured that God can and will help us. We can thus afford to ignore the wrong that has been done us, or, if that be impossible, we can learn to look above it and feel confident that. it’ God undertakes our cause, all will be well in the end. This faith will not desire the ruin of our enemy. It is not an entrusting of vengeance to God, though he must see justice done to the wrong doer. But it is a quiet confidence in God’s saving grace. It is better to be delivered from the trouble brought on us by the misconduct of others Than to remain in that trouble and see the guilty persons punished. We can afford to be magnanimous and forget the unkindness of man when we are enjoying the kindness of God.
2. It is realized through prayer, patience, and hope.
(1) Prayer. We must wait on the Lord. Vengeance is lose in prayer. We shall cease to feel the boiling of rage against our foe when on our knees before God. There we cannot but remember how utterly we depend upon mercy.
(2) Patience. Waiting on God generally implies sonic delay. We must wait for the answer. Deliverance does not come at once. Hasty revenge must be restrained by patience in prayer.
(3) Hope. God will save at last, if not immediately. The prospect of this deliverance is a pleasing substitute for the hideous vision of revenge on an enemy.
Pro 20:29
Young men and old
I. EVERY TIME OF LIFE HAS ITS OWN PECULIAR EXCELLENCE.
1. Every age of man has some excellence. Youth appears vain in the grave vision of age, and age looks gloomy to the bright eyes of youth. Yet both youth and age have their mead of praise. It is possible for a man to miss all excellence in life and to live in dishonour from youth to age. But that depends upon his own conduct, and he only will be to blame for spoiling every age of his life if he does thus live in dishonour. There are honourable and desirable conditions for life throughout its whole length.
2. The excellences of the various ages of man are different. The glory of a young man is not identical with the beauty of an old man. The common mistake is that in the narrowness of our personal experience we judge of other periods of life by the standards that only apply to those in which we are severally living. Hence either undue admiration or unreasonable disgust. It is cheering to know that a very different condition from that which floats before us as our ideal may be equally happy and honourable.
II. THE PECULIAR EXCELLENCE OF YOUTH IS FOUND IN ITS ENERGY AND THE USE IT MAKES OF IT.
1. Energy is a characteristic of youth. Then the fresh unfaded powers are just opening out to their full activity. This is the time for service. The young men go to the wars. “It is well for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.” All kinds of fresh activities spring out of the fertile soil of youth. An indolence in youth is simply disgraceful.
2. Youthful energy is admirable.
(1) Physical strength. This is a gift of God. It is a natural perfection of bodily life. It carries with it possibilities of manly work. “Muscular Christianity” may be as holy as feeble asceticism.
(2) Mental strength. The intellectual feats of brain athletics indicate noble energies and arduous industry. The mind is from God, and its ripened powers render him glory.
(3) Moral strength. Daniel was stronger than Samson. The chief glory of youthful strength is herethe power to resist temptation, to live a true life, to fight all lies and shameful thoughts and deeds, and stand up firmly for the right.
3. Youthful energy should be used in the service of Christ. Then its glory is radiant. A lower use of it dims its lustre. Degradation to purposes of sin turns its splendour into shame.
III. THE SPECIAL EXCELLENCE OF AGE IS TO BE SEES IN ITS RIPENED EXPERIENCE.
1. Experience ripens with years. The suggestion of that fact may be seen in the picture of the grey head, the beauty of which chiefly resides in the thought of the harvest of years that it represents. Strength may be lost, but experience is gained. There is an exchange, and it is not for any to say on which side the real advantage lies.
2. The experience of years has a beauty of its own. We usually associate youth and beauty, and we think of beauty declining with advancing years. Painful signs of life’s stern battle break the fair charms of youth. But old age brings a new beauty. This is often seen even in the countenance, finely chiselled with delicate lines of thought and feeling into a rare grace and dignity. But the higher beauty is that of soul, the beauty of Simeon when he held the infant Saviour in his arms. The crowning beauty of age is in a perfected saintliness. To attain to this is to go beyond the glory el youth. Yet there must accompany it a certain melancholy at the thought of the lost energy of earlier years, until the old man can look forward to the renewed youth, the eternal energy of the life beyond,
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Pro 20:1-5
Evils to be avoided
I. SOME SPECIAL EVILS AND DANGERS.
1. Drunkenness. (Pro 20:1.) The spirit or demon of wine is spoken of as a personal agent. It leads to frivolity, scoffing, profane and senseless mirth. To be drunk with wine, as St. Paul points out (Eph 5:18), is the opposite of being “filled with the Spirit” (see F.W. Robertson’s sermon on this subject).
2. The wrath of kings. (Pro 20:2) In those times of absolute rule, the king represented the uncontrollable arbitration of life and death. As in the case of Adonijah, he who provoked the king’s wrath sinned against his own soul. What, then, must the wrath of the eternal Sovereign be (Psa 90:11)? To invoke the Divine judgment is a suicidal act.
3. Contentiousness. (Pro 20:3.) Quick-flaming anger is the mark of the shallow and foolish heart. The conquest of anger by Christian meekness is one of the chiefest of Christian graces, “Let it pass for a kind of sheepishness to be meek,” says Archbishop Leighton; “it is a likeness to him that was as a sheep before his shearers.”
4. Idleness. (Pro 20:4.) The idle man is unseasonable in his repose, and equally unseasonable in his expectation. To know our time, our opportunity in worldly matters, our day of grace in the affairs of the soul, all depends on this (Rom 12:11; Eph 5:15-17).
II. THE SAFEGUARD OF PRUDENCE. (Pro 20:5.) The idea is that, though the project which a man has formed may be difficult to fathom, the prudent man will bring the secret to light. “There is nothing hidden that shall not be made known.”
1. Every department of life has its principles and laws.
2. These may be ascertained by observation and inquiry.
3. In some sense or other, all knowledge is power; and that is the best sort of knowledge which arms the mind with force against moral dangers, and places it in constant relation to good.J.
Pro 20:6-11
The frailty of mankind
I. THE RARITY OF TRUE FRIENDSHIP. (Pro 20:6.) Many are ready to promise, few willing to perform. Many eager to say, “Lord, Lord!” comparatively few to do the will of the Father in heaven. There is no want of good notions in the world; but, according to the Italian proverb, many are so good that they are good for nothing. The spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak. Inclination to good needs to be fortified by faith in God.
II. THE JUST AND GOOD MAN. (Pro 20:7.) We cannot but feel that he is an ideal character. Poets and preachers have delighted to describe him, have surrounded him with a halo, depicted the safety and blessedness of his life. But how seldom does he appear on the actual scene! Our being is a struggle and a series of failures. The one thing needful is to have a lofty ideal before us, and never to despair of approaching a little nearer to it with every right effort.
III. THE IMPARTIAL JUDGE. (Pro 20:8.) The earthly judge upon his seat reminds us of the mixed state of human natureof the need of a process of sifting, trial, purification, ever going on. Judgment is an ever-present fact, a constant process. We are being tried, in a sense, every day, and “must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” Let us “labour that we may be accepted of him.”
IV. THE CLEAN CONSCIENCE. (Pro 20:9.) This pointed question silences our boasting, and checks the disposition to excuse ourselves. By unwise comparison with others we may seem to stand well; but in the light of his own mere standard of right and duty, who is not self-condemned? “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1Jn 1:8, 1Jn 1:9).
V. EQUITABLE CONDUCT. (Pro 20:10.) How common are the tricks and evasions of trade! And there is something more in this than mere desire for gain. The general experience of the world is so strong against dishonesty, as seen in common proverbs, as “bad policy,” that we must look to a deeper cause of its existence, viz. the perversity of man’s heart.
VI. EARLY SYMPTOMS OF CHARACTER. (Pro 20:11) Tendencies of evil and (never let us omit to acknowledge) tendencies of good are seen very early in children. The Germans have a quaint proverb, “What a thorn will become may easily be guessed.” How much depends on Christian culture; for “as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.”J.
Pro 20:12-19
Religion, industry, prudence, and honesty
I. GOD THE SOURCE OF ALL GOOD.
1. Of all bodily good. The eye, the ear, with all their wondrous mechanism, with all their rich instrumentality of enjoyment, are from him.
2. Of all spiritual faculty and endowment, the analogues of the former, and “every good and perfect gift” (Jas 1:16). The new heart, the right mind, should, above all, be recognized as his gifts.
3. In domestic and in public life. Good counsels of Divine wisdom, and willing obedience of subjects to them, are the conditions of the weal of the state; and it may be that these are designed by the preacher under the figures of the eye and the ear.
II. VIRTUES INDISPENSABLE TO HAPPINESS.
1. Laborlousness. (Pro 20:13) This is a command of God: “If any man will not work, neither let him eat;” for which the seeing eye and hearing ear are needed. Viewed in one light, of imagination, labour may appear as a curse; for it thwarts our natural indolence, our love of ease, and our sentimental views in general. But viewed in the light of actual experience, the law of labour is one of the divinest blessings of our life-constitution.
2. Honesty.
(1) Craft and trickiness exposed. (Pro 20:14, Pro 20:17.) Here the cunning tricks of trade are struck; in particular the arts of disparagement, by which the buyer unjustly cheapens the goods he desires to invest in. The peculiar manner in which trade is still conducted in the East, the absence of fixed prices, readily admits of this species of unfairness. But the rebuke is general.
(2) The deceptiveness of sinful pleasures. (Pro 20:17.) There is, no doubt, a certain pleasure in dishonesty, otherwise it would not be so commonly practised in the very teeth of self-interest. There is a peculiar delight in the exercise of skill which outwits others. But this is only while the conscience sleeps. When it awakes, unrest and trouble begin. The stolen gold burns in the pocket; the Dead Sea fruits turn to ashes on the lips.
3. Sense and prudence. (Pro 20:15, Pro 20:16, Pro 20:18.)
(1) Sense is compared to the most precious things. What in the affairs of life is comparable to judgment? Yet compared only to be contrasted. As the common saying runs, “There is nothing so uncommon as common sense.” The taste for material objects of price may be termed universal and vulgar; that for spiritual qualities is select and refined
(2) Good sense is shown caution and avoidance of undue responsibility. This has been before emphasized (Pro 6:1-5; Pro 11:15; Pro 17:18). We have enough to do to answer for ourselves.
(3) Prudence in war. There are justifiable wars; but even these may be carried on with folly, reckless disregard of human life, etc. “The beginning, middle, and end, O Lord, turn to the best account!” was the prayer of a prudent and pious general.
4. Reserve with the tongue, or caution against flatterers. (Pro 20:19.) The verse may be taken in both these senses. In all thoughtless gossip about others there is something of the malicious and slanderous spirit; there is danger in it. As to the listener, rather let him listen to those who point out his faults than to those who flatter.J.
Pro 20:20-23
Smitten sins
I. HATRED TO PARENTS. (Pro 20:20.)
1. It is unnatural beyond most vices, like hating the hand that lifts food to the mouth.
2. It is disobedience to a primary Divine command.
3. It incurs the Divine curse and the darkest doom.
II. THE VICE OF GRASPING. (Pro 20:21.) It springs from excessive, irregular, disordered desire, and generally from an ill-led life. We must wait upon God’s order; must distinguish the necessary from the superfluous and the luxurious, and seek no enterprises that lie out of our proper vocation; if we would arm ourselves against this unholy temptation, and avoid the curse which attends compliance with it. For ill-gotten wealth can never prosper.
III. THE REVENGEFUL SPIRIT. (Pro 20:22.) It costs more to avenge injuries than to endure them. “He that studieth revenge keepeth his wounds open.” Let us recall the lessons of the sermon on the mount, and if there is any one who has aroused our dislike, pray for him (not in public, but in the privacy of the heart).
IV. IN EQUITY, WHETHER IN COMMERCE OR IN GENERAL RELATIONS. (Pro 20:23; see Pro 20:10.) What is shameful when detected is no less hideous in the sight of Gun, though concealed from men.J.
Pro 20:24-30
The truth of life in diverse aspects
We may divide the matter as follows.
I. DIVINE PROVIDENCE. (Pro 20:24.) It is needful, for human wisdom is shortsighted, and human direction inadequate. It is a gracious fact, and, if acknowledged, brings blessing to the trustful mind and heart. Each man has a life vocation. God appoints it, and will reveal the means for the attainment of it. We cannot enter the kingdom except through the guidance of Christ.
II. HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. (Pro 20:27.) There is a light within us, or conscience in the most comprehensive sense. By the help of reason we may judge other men; by that of conscience, ourselves. It is in another statement the power of reflection, the inner mirror of the soul.
III. GENERAL RELATED TRUTHS.
1. The necessity of pondering well our wishes. (Pro 20:25.) We should think thrice before we act once. To act first and reflect afterwards is foolish and helpless; thus we reap the good of neither thought nor action.
2. The necessity of discrimination in rulers. (Pro 20:26.) The figure is borrowed from agriculture, from the process of sifting and threshingthe latter in a penal sense (2Sa 12:31; 1Ch 20:3; Amo 1:3). It is carried into the gospel. The Divine Judge’s “fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor.” We must submit to law or be crushed by its penal action.
3. The necessity of love and faithfulness in government. (Pro 20:28.) For human government, to be sound, stable, and. respected, must be a reflection of the Divine government. And the eternal features of the latter are love and faithfulness. Clemency and severity are but two sides of the one living and eternal love which rules men only for their salvation.
4. The beauty of piety in youth and age. (Pro 20:29.) Let the young man in Christ approve his strength by manful self-conquest, and the old man by riper wisdom and blameless conversation (1Jn 2:13, 1Jn 2:14).
5. The necessity of inward purification. (Pro 20:30.) And to this end the necessity of chastisement. In bodily disease we recognize the struggle of life against that which is inimical to it; and in the afflictions of the soul the struggle of the God-awakened soul against its evils. Luther says, “Evil is cured, not by words, but by blows; suffering is as necessary as eating and drinking.”J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Pro 20:1
Strong drink: four delusions
That may be said to mock us which first professes to benefit us, and then proceeds to injure and even to destroy us. This is what is done by strong drink. First it cheers and brightens, puts a song into our mouth, makes life seem enviable; then it weakens, obfuscates, deadens, ruins. How many of the children of men has it deceived and betrayed! how many has it robbed of their virtue, their beauty, their strength, their resources, their peace, their reputation, their life, their hope! There are
I. FOUR DELUSIONS IN WHICH MEN INDULGE REGARDING IT.
1. That it is necessary to health. In ordinary conditions it has been proved to be wholly needless, if not positively injurious.
2. That it is reliable as a source of pleasure. It is a fact that the craving for intoxicants and anodynes continually increases, while the pleasure derived therefrom continually declines.
3. That it renders service in the time of heavy trial. Woe be unto him who tries to drown his sorrow in the intoxicating cup! He is giving up the true for the false, the elevating for the degrading, the life-bestowing for the death-dealing consolation.
4. That it is a feeble enemy that may be safely disregarded. Very many men and women come into the world with a constitution which makes any intoxicant a source of extreme peril to them; and many more find it to be a foe whose subtlety and strength require all their wisdom and power to master. An underestimate of the force of this temptation accounts for many a buried reputation, for many a lost spirit.
II. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WISE.
1. To avoid the use of it altogether, if possible; and thus to be quite safe from its sting.
2. To use it, when necessary, with the most rigorous carefulness (Pro 31:6; 1Ti 5:23).
3. To discourage those social usages in which much danger lies.
4. To act on the principle of Christian generosity (Rom 14:21).C.
Pro 20:3
(See homily on Pro 29:11.)C.
Pro 20:6, Pro 20:7
The blessings of goodness
Here are brought out again, in proverbial brevity, the blessings which belong to moral worth.
I. THE DOUBTFUL VALUE OF SELF–PRAISE. “Most men will proclaim,” etc.
1. On the one hand, nothing is better than the approval of a man’s own conscience. “Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo,” says the Roman writer. Let a man have the commendation of his own conscience, and he can hear the hisses of the people with very little concern. It has been in this spirit that the very noblest things have been done by honourable and even heroic men.
2. On the other hand, there is a vast amount of self-congratulation amongst men which is nothing more or better than mere complacency. It is self-flattery, and that is not beautiful, but ugly; it is not true, but false. And such is the tendency in man to assure himself that he is right, even when he is thoroughly and lamentably wrong, that we have to wait and to inquire before we take men’s word about themselves. Between the heroic spirit of a Luther, or a Columbus, or a Galileo, and the miserable self-satisfaction of some petty tyrant gloating over his tyranny, there is the entire breadth of the moral world. It is well for us all to be able to do without the honour that cometh from man only; it is well for us also to recognize the truth that our own commendation, so far teem being the voice of God within us, may be nothing but the very unsightly crust of a dangerous and even deadly complacency.
II. THE EXCELLENCY OF FAITHFULNESS. Solomon seemed to find fidelity a rare thing. “Who can find it?” he asked. With Christian truth sown in so many hearts, we do not feel the lack of it as he did. We thank God that in the home and the school, in the shop and the factory, in the pulpit and the press, in all spheres of honourable activity, we find instances of a solid and sound fidelitymen and women occupying their post and doing their work with a loyalty to those whom they serve, which is fair indeed in the sight both of heaven and of earth. There is abundance of unfaithfulness also, it has to be owned and lamented; and this is sometimes found where it is simply disgracefulamong those who wear the name of that Master and Exemplar who was “faithful in all his house.” It is required of us, who are all stewards, that we be found faithful (1Co 4:2); and we must not only expect to give account to our brother here, but to the Divine Judge hereafter.
III. THE WORTH OF GUIDING PRINCIPLES. “A just man walketh in his integrity.” What fairer sight is there beneath the sun? A just or upright man, a man who is
(1) yielding to God that which is due to his Creator and his Redeemer, viz. his heart and his life; who is
(2) giving to his neighbours what is due to them; and who is
(3) honouring himself as is his due;this man is “walking” along the path of life in his integrity, every step directed by righteous principles and prompted by honourable impulses; his way is never crooked, but lies straight on; it is continuously upward, and moves to noble heights of virtue and wisdom and piety. Who would not be such as he isa man God owns as his son, and the angels of God as their brother, and all his fellow men as their helper and their friend?
IV. THE CROWN OF HUMAN BLESSEDNESS. “His children are blessed after him.” Then is a good man crowned with an honour and a joy which no diadem, nor rank, nor office, nor emolument, can confer, when his children are found “walking in the truth” of God, their affections centred in that Divine Friend who will lead them in the path of heavenly wisdom, their life governed by holy principles, themselves enriched and encircled by a holy and beautiful character, their influence felt on every hand for good”a seed which the Lord hath blessed.”C.
Pro 20:9
Purity of heart
A subject that stretches back and looks onward as far as the limits of human history. But Jesus Christ has introduced into the world a power for purity which is peculiar to his gospel.
I. THE UTTER UGLINESS OF IMPURITY. To the eye of holy men there is an unspeakable offensiveness in any form of impurityselfishness, worldliness, covetousness, sensuality, whatever it may be. And how much more hideous and intolerable must it be in the eyes of the Holy One himself (Hab 1:13; Psa 5:5)! This is one explanation of choosing leprosy as a type and picture of sin, viz, its fearful loathsomeness in the sight of God.
II. ITS EXCLUSION FROM THE PRESENCE AND KINGDOM OF GOD. (See Psa 50:16; Psa 66:18; Pro 15:29; Pro 28:9; Isa 1:10-17; Mat 5:8; Heb 12:14)
III. THE ONE WAY OF RETURN. When the heart sees, and is ashamed of, its corruption, and returns in simple penitence to God, then there is mercy and admission. But sincere repentance is the only gateway by which impurity can find its way to the favour and the kingdom of God.
IV. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF INWARD PURITY. When the heart, conscious of guilt, has sought and found mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and is “cleansed of its iniquity,” so that there is “a clean heart and a right spirit” before God, all is not yet done that has to be accomplished. What Christian man can say, “I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin”? “If we [who are in Christ Jesus] say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1Jn 1:8). “In many things we offend all” (Jas 3:2). We are washed, but we “need to wash our feet” (Joh 13:10). There yet lingers within the heart of the humble and the pure that which needs purification before they will be “holy as he [the Lord] is holy.” What are these cleansing forces which will best do this much needed and most desirable work? Are they not:
1. The avoidance of that which defiles; the deliberate turning away of the eyes of the soul (so far as duty to others will allow) from all that stains and soils?
2. Much fellowship with Jesus Christ the Holy One, and much intercourse with his true friends and followers?
3. The earnest, determined pursuit of that which is noblest in man, especially by the study of the worthiest lives?
4. Prayer lop the cleansing influences which come direct from the Holy Spirit of God (Psa 51:10; Psa 139:23, Psa 139:24; 2Th 2:17; Heb 13:20, Heb 13:21)?C.
Pro 20:10
(See homily on Pro 16:11.)C.
Pro 20:11
Childhood: a transparency, a prophecy, a study
It is not apparent why Solomon says, “Even a child is known.” It is a familiar fact, at which we may glance, and which seems to be the main thought of the text.
I. THE TRANSPARENCY OF CHILDHOOD. Some men are full of guile and of hypocrisy; they have acquired the power of concealing their real thought and feeling beneath their exterior, and you are never quite sure what they mean. You dare not trust them; for their words, or their demeanour, or their present action may entirely belie them. Not so the child. He means what he says. If he does not love you, he will not affect any liking for you. You will soon find from his behaviour what he thinks about men and things, about the studies in which he is occupied, about the service in which you want him to engage. And whether he is living a pure and faithful life, whether he is obedient and studious, or whether he is obstinate and idle, you will very soon discover if you try. It requires but very little penetration to read a child’s spirit, to know a child’s character. but the truth which is not so much on the surface respecting the knowledge we have of or from the child relates to
II. THE PROPHECY OF CHILDHOOD. “Even a child” will give some idea of the man into whom he will one day grow. “The child is father to the man.” In him are the germs of the nobility or the meanness, the courage or the cowardice, the generosity or the selfishness, the studiousness or the carelessness, the power or the weakness, that is to be witnessed later on. He that has eyes to see may read in the child before him the futurephysical, mental, moralthat will be silently but certainly developed. Hence we may regard
III. CHILDHOOD AS A STUDY. If men have found an insect, or a flower, or a seed, or a strum well worth their study, how much more is the little child! For, on the one hand, ignorant assumption may spoil a life. To conclude hastily, and therefore falsely, respecting the temper, the tastes, the capacities, the inclinations, the responsibilities, the cull)ability or praiseworthiness of the child, and to act accordingly, may lead down into error and unbelief and despair the spirit that might, by other means, have been led into the light of truth and the love of God. And, on the other hand, a conscientious and just conclusion on these most important characteristics of childhood may make a life, may save unimaginable misery, may result in an early, instead of a late, unfolding of power and beauty, may make all the difference in the history of a human soul. And only the Father of spirits can tell what that difference is.C.
Pro 20:12
God our Maker
Truly we are “wonderfully made;” and “the hand that made us is Divine.” The human ear and eye are
I. INSTANCES OF DIVINE SKILL AND POWER. That we should be able, by means of this small apparatus included in “the ear,” to detect such a variety of notes, to distinguish sounds from one another so readily, through so many years, to perceive the faintest whisper in the trees, and to enjoy the roll of the reverberating thunder; that we should be able, by means of two small globes in our face, to see things as minute as a bad or a dewdrop and as mighty as a mountain or as the “great wide sea,” to detect that which is dangerous and to gaze with delight and even rapture on the beauties and glories of the world;this is a very striking instance of the wonderful skill and power of our Creator.
II. EVIDENCES OF DIVINE GOODNESS. For what sources of knowledge, of power, of pure gladness of heart, of mental and moral cultivation and growth, has not God given to us in sculpturing for us “the hearing ear,” in fashioning for us “the seeing eye “?
III. SUGGESTIVE OF THE DIVINE KNOWLEDGE. “He that planted the ear, shall he Dot hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?” (Psa 94:9). The wonderful Worker who has supplied us, his finite and feeble creatures, with such power of hearing and of vision, with such sources of knowledge,how great, how perfect, how boundless, must be his own Divine perception! How certainly must he hear the whisper we would fain make inaudible to him! how inevitably must he see the action we would gladly hide from his searching sight! How absolute must God’s knowledge be, both of our outward life and of the inner workings of our soul!
IV. OPPORTUNITY FOR DIVINE SERVICE. For here are the means we want of learning of God, of knowing, that we may do, his holy will. Our eye not only conveys to us the sight of the beautiful, the richly stored, the glorious world that God has made for us, but it enables us to rend “the book he has written for our learning,” wherein we can find all that we need to know of his nature, his character, and his will. And our ear not only conveys to us the melodies of the outer world, but it places within the reach of our spirit the Divine truths which are uttered in our presence. These, as they come from the lips of parent, or teacher, or pastor, can “make us wise unto salvation,” can fill our hearts with holy purpose, with true and pure emotion, with abiding peace. And we may add that the speaking lips are also that which “the Lord hath made;” and what an opportunity these give us of uttering his truth, of helping his children, of furthering his cause and kingdom! Such excellent service can our bodily organs render to our immortal spirit; and so may they be impressed into the holier service of their Divine Author.C.
Pro 20:17
(See homily on Pro 21:6-8.)C.
Pro 20:22
(Pro 24:29)
Resentment and forgiveness
The Christian doctrine of forgiveness finds here a distinct anticipation; but that doctrine was not found in the highway, but rather in the byway of pre-Christian morals. It made no mark. It did not find its way into the thought and the feeling of the people.
I. WE MUST EXPECT TO BE WRONGED, OR TO BELIEVE OURSELVES WRONGED, AS WE GO ON OUR WAY. So conflicting are our interests, so various our views, so many are the occasions when an event or a remark will wear an entirely different aspect according to the point of view from which it is regarded, that it is utterly unlikely, morally impossible, that we should not be often placed in a position in which we seem to he wronged. It may be some sentence spoken, or some action taken, or some purpose settled upon, slight or serious, incidental or malevolent, but we may take it that it is one part of the portion and burden of our life.
II. BITTER RESENTMENT IS DISTINCTLY DISALLOWED. It is natural, it is human enough. As man has become under the reign of sin, it finds a place in his heart if not in his creed, everywhere. It seems to be right. It has one element that is rightthe element of indignation. But this is only one part of the feeling, and by no means the chief part. A bitter animosity, engendered by the thought that something has been done against us, is the main ingredient. And this is positively disallowed. “Shy not, I will recompense evil;” “It hath been said, hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies do good to them that hate you; .Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath;” “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger be put away from you, with all malice” (Mat 5:43, Mat 5:44; Rom 12:19; Eph 4:31).
III. WE HAVE AN ADMIRABLE ALTERNATIVE. We can “wait on the Lord,” and he will “save us.” We can:
1. Go to God in prayer; take our wounded spirit to him; cast our burden upon him; seek and find a holy calm in communion with him.
2. Commit our cause unto him; be like unto our Leader, “who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1Pe 2:23). We shall thus ask God to save us from ourselves, from indulging thoughts and feelings toward our neighbour winch shame rather than honour us, which separate us in spirit from our great Exemplar (1Pe 2:21); and to save us from those who would injure us, working for us, in his own way and time, our deliverance and recovery.
IV. WE WIN THE TRUE VICTORY. To be avenged on our enemy is a victory of a certain kind; the moment of success is a moment of triumph, of exultation. But:
1. That is a victory which is greatly and sadly qualified. When we regard the matter disinterestedly and dispassionately, can we really envy such triumph? Should we like to have in our heart the feelings which are surging and swelling in the breast of the victorfeelings of bitter hatred, and of positive delight in a brother’s humiliation, or suffering, or loss?
2. The victory of forgiveness is pre-eminently Christian. It places us by the side of our gracious Lord himself (Luk 23:34), and of the best and worthiest of his disciples (Act 7:60; 2Ti 4:16).
3. It gives to us a distinct spiritual resemblance to our heavenly Father himself. (Mat 5:45.)C.
Pro 20:23
(See homily on Pro 16:11.)C.
Pro 20:27
The inward light
Man may be said to be governed from above, from without, and also from within; by the power which is from heaven, by human society, and also by the forces which are resident in his own spiritual nature.
I. OUR SPIRITUAL NATURE. God created man in his own image; i.e. he created him a spirit. God is a spirit; so also is man, his offspring, his human child. Our spiritual nature is endowed with the faculties of perception, of memory, of imagination, of reason. These includesome would say that to these there has to be addedthe power which is usually called conscience, the exercise of our spiritual faculties directed to all questions of morality. This moral judgment, or conscience, of ours:
1. Distinguishes between right and wrong. Decides what is good and what evil, what is just and what unjust, what is pure and what impure, what is true and what false, what is kind and what cruel, it is an inward light; it is” the candle of the Lord,” etc.
2. Approves of the one and disapproves of the other.
3. Acts with such force that, on the one hand, there is a distinct satisfaction, and even joy; that, on the other hand, there is distinct dissatisfaction, and even pain, sometimes amounting to an intolerable agony. There is hardly any delight we can experience which is so worthy of ourselves as the children of God, as is that which fills our heart when we know that, regardless of our own interests and prospects, we have done the right thing; there is no wretchedness so unbearable as remorse, the stinging and smarting of soul when our conscience rebukes us for some sad transgression.
4. Is a profoundly penetrating power. It “searches all the inward parts” of the soul; it considers not only what is on the surface, but what is far beneath. It deals with thoughts, with feelings, with purposes and desires, with the motives which move us, and with the spirit that animates us.
II. THE INJURY OUR NATURE SUFFERS FROM OUR SIN. He that sinneth against Divine wisdom, and therefore against the Divine One, does indeed “wrong his own soul.” Every wrong action tends to weaken the authority of conscience, and, after a while, it disturbs its judgment, so that its decision is not as true and straight as it was. This is the saddest aspect of the consequence of sin. When the inward light, the candle of the Lord, begins to grow dim, and ultimately becomes darkened, then the soul is confused and the path of life is lost. If our eye is evil, our whole body is full of darkness; if the light that is in us be darkness, how great must the darkness be (Mat 6:23)! When that which should be directing us into the truth and wisdom of heaven is misleading us, and is positively directing us to folly and wrong, we are far on the road to spiritual rain. We have to mourn the fact that this is no rare occurrence; that sin does so confuse and blind our souls that men do very frequently fall into the moral condition in which they “call evil good, and good evil.” The light that is in them is darkness.
III. OUR RESTORATION THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD. Jesus Christ offers himself to us as the Divine Physician; he says to us, “Wilt thou be made whole?” And he who so graciously and mightily healed the bodies heals also the souls of men. He does so by recalling our affection to God our Father, by setting our heart right. Then loving him, we love his Word, his truth; we study and we copy the life of our Lord. And as the heart is renewed and the life is changed, the judgment also is restored; we see all things in another light; we “see light in God’s light.” The candle of the Lord is rekindled, the lamp is trimmed; it gives a new light to all that are in the houseto all the faculties that are in the house of our nature. Let us yield ourselves to Christ our Lord, let us study his truth and his life, and our conscience will become more and more true in its decisions, and in its peaceful light we shall walk “all the day long,” truly happy in heart, enjoying the constant favour of “the Father of lights.”C.
Pro 20:28
(See homily on Pro 16:12.)C.
Pro 20:29
The glory of young manhood
A weak young man is not a sight that we like to see. Between young manhood and weakness there is no natural agreement; the two things do not accord with one another. In young men we look for strength, and delight to see it there. Moreover, youth itself is proud of the strength of which it is conscious, and “glories” in it. We look at
I. THAT WHEREON WE CONGRATULATE IT. We look with satisfaction, and perhaps with pride, upon the young man who possesses:
1. Physical strength. Well-developed muscular power and skill, the attainment of the largest possible share of bodily vigour and capacity, this is one element of manliness, ands although it is not the highest, it is good in itself, and so far as it goes.
2. Intellectual power. The possession of knowledge, of mental vigour and grasp, of reasoning faculty, of business shrewdness and capacity, of imaginative power, of strength of will; but especially:
3. Moral and spiritual strength. Power to resist the evil forces which are around us; to put aside, without hesitation, the solicitations to unholy pleasure or unlawful gain; to decline the fellowship and friendship which might be pecuniarily or socially advantageous, but which would be morally and spiritually injurious; to move onward in the way of duty, unscathed by the darts and arrows of evil which are in the air; to undertake and to execute beneficent work; to range one’s self with the honourable and holy few against the unworthy multitude; to bear a brave witness on behalf of truth, purity, sobriety, righteousness, whatever the forces that are in league against it;this is the noblest element of strength, and this is pre-eminently the glory of young manhood.
II. ITS PECULIAR TEMPTATION. The temptation of the strong is to disregard and even to despise the weak, to look down with a proud sense of superiority on those who are less capable than themselves. This is both foolish and sinful. For comparative weakness is that from which the strong have themselves come up, and into which they will themselves go down. It is a question of time, or, if not of time, of privilege and bestowment (see infra), and a proud contempt is quite misplaced. The young should clearly understand that strength, when it is modest, is a beautiful thing, but when haughty and disdainful, is offensive in the sight both of God and man.
III. ITS CLEAR OBLIGATION. The first thing that human strength should do is to recognize the source whence it came, and to let its recognition find expression in devout and reverent action. “Thy God hath commanded thy strength.” As, ultimately, all strength of every kind proceeds from God; and as he constantly sustains in power, and the strong as much as the weak are dependent on his fatherly kindness; and as the strong owe more to his goodness than the weak (inasmuch as they have received more at his hand);the first thing they should ask themselves isWhat can we render unto the Lord? And they will find that to devote their strength to the service of their Saviour and of their kind is to find a source of blessedness immeasurably higher, as well as far more lasting, than that which comes from the sense of power. It is not what we have, but what we give, that fills the soul with pure and abiding joy.C.
Pro 20:29
(latter clause).(See homily on Pro 16:31.)C.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Pro 20:1. Strong drink is raging The first precept in this chapter is against drunkenness, as an enemy to wisdom even in common things, much more in those of everlasting concernment; for that commonly expels out of men’s minds all reverence both to God and to others; inclining them to say or do any thing without restraint or discretion. And what unruly passions it excites when the brain is disturbed with it, is universally known. The word homeh, here translated raging, includes them all: it signifies that discomposed, unquiet, and restless state of mind, which expresses itself in wild and tumultuous motions. See Bishop Patrick and Schultens.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
) Admonition to avoid drunkenness, sloth, a contentious spirit, etc
Chap. 20
1Wine is a mocker, strong drink boisterous,
whosoever is led astray thereby is not wise.
2As the roaring of a lion is the dread of the king;
he that provoketh him sinneth against his own soul.
3It is an honor to a man to dwell far from strife,
but every fool breaketh forth.
4The sluggard plougheth not because of the cold;
he seeketh in harvest and hath nothing.
5Counsel in the heart of a man is as deep waters,
but a wise man draweth it out.
6Many proclaim each his own grace;
but a faithful man who can find?
7He who in his innocence walketh uprightly,
blessed are his children after him!
8A king sitting on his throne,
searcheth out all evil with his eyes.
9Who can say, I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sin?
10Divers weights and divers measures,
an abomination to Jehovah are they both.
11Even a child maketh himself known in his deeds,
whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.
12The ear that heareth, and the eye that seeth
Jehovah hath created them both.
13Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty;
open thine eyes, and be satisfied with thy bread.
14It is bad, it is bad! saith the buyer,
but when he is gone his way then he boasteth.
15There is gold, and a multitude of pearls;
but a precious vase are lips of knowledge.
16Take his garment that is surety for a stranger,
and for strangers make him a bondsman.
17Bread of deceit is sweet to a man,
but afterward his mouth is filled with gravel.
18Plans are established by counsel,
and with good advice make war.
19He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets;
with him that openeth wide his lips have nothing to do.
20He that curseth father and mother,
his light goeth out in utter darkness.
21An inheritance that is hastily gained in the beginning,
its end will not be blessed.
22Say not: Let me avenge the evil!
wait on Jehovah; he will help thee.
23An abomination to Jehovah are diverse weights,
and a deceitful balance is not good.
24Mans steps are of Jehovah;
manhow shall he understand his way?
25It is a snare to a man that he hath vowed hastily,
and after vows to inquire.
26A wise king sifteth the wicked,
and bringeth the (threshing) wheel over them.
27The spirit of man is a candle of Jehovah,
searching all the chambers of the body.
28Grace and truth preserve the king,
and he upholdeth his throne by mercy.
29The glory of young men is their strength,
and the honor of old men is the grey head.
30Wounding stripes are a correction of evil,
and strokes in the inner chambers of the body.
GRAMMATICAL AND CRITICAL
Pro 20:2. is either to be pointed with Hitzig (partic. with suffix from a denominative verb of Aramaic form to throw into a passion, to excite wrath [] or, which is probably simpler, with Ewald, Bertheau [Fuerst], etc., to conceive of it as a Hithp. participle, whose ordinary meaning, to become excited against any one, (comp. Pro 26:17) here passes over into the transitive idea, to excite some one against ones self, to call some one forth against ones self. Altogether too artificial, and in conflict with the old versions (LXX: ; Vulg.: qui provocat eum) is Umbreits explanation: he that arouseth himself (riseth up) against him [the king]. [E. V., H., B., M., etc., agree with our author; De W. and Noyes, with Umbreit].
Pro 20:3. is according to the Masoretic punctuation the Infinitive of [as in Isa 30:7] and not, as most of the recent interpreters [among them Umbreit, Ewald, Hitzig, [Fuerst, M., etc.]], regard it, a substantive from the root , for which derivation certainly no other support could be adduced than Exo 21:19.
Pro 20:4. The Kri is doubtless preferable to the Kthibh (Psa 109:10), for to beg in harvest would give a meaning too intense. [Song of Solomon 2, S., etc.].Hitzig changes into , which, according to Arabic analogies, should mean a fruit basket; he then reads he demands, desires, and obtains the meaning:
A pannier [?] the sluggard doth not provide [?],
trieth to borrow [?] in harvest, and nothing cometh of it [?],
Pro 20:9. [, cited by Btt. 948, c, as one of the examples of the stative perfect, used to describe spiritual states. , one of his examples of the Fiens licitum the Imperf. used to express what can be: who can say; 950, .A.]
Pro 20:16. [ standing emphatically at the beginning of a verse, one of the few instances of the full Imperative form; Btt. 1101, 2A.].
Pro 20:18. Ewald proposes instead of to read the Infin. , as in Pro 21:3; but the Imperative seems more appropriate, and gives to the expression greater vivacity.
Pro 20:22. [ , one of the few examples of double accent, the penultimate accent marking the rhythm, that on the ultima sustaining its vowel; Btt. 482, e.g.The Jussive form with consec. is used to assert a sure result; Btt. affirmativ consecutiv.A.]
Pro 20:25. , essentially identical with , signifies, according to the Arabic, to speak inconsiderately, to promise thoughtlessly; is here not a substantive, but an Infinitive continuing the finite verb. According to this simple explanation, which is lexically well justified, Ewalds conception of as a substantive, which should be pointed. , and translated, hasty vow, may be dismissed as superfluous; and also the derivation preferred by Jerome, Luther and others of the older expositors, from the root to swallow [Vulgate: devorare sanctos; Luther: das Heilips Histern]. [Gesen and Fuerst are authorities for the view adopted by our author, while Btt., with great positiveness [ 964, 5 and n. 7] pronounces the form a Jussive form with a permissive meaning, from or ; let him only, i.e. if he only hurry or hasten too much.A.]
Pro 20:29. [, young men, juvenes, as distinguished from , youth, juvenias; comp. Btt., 408, .A.]
EXEGETICAL
1. Pro 20:1-5. Various precepts of prudence and integrity, (especially directed against drunkenness, a contentious spirit and indolence).Wine is a mocker. The spirit of wine, and in like manner that of mead or strong drink (, , Luk 1:15),1 a frequent accompaniment or substitute of wine (comp. Lev 10:9; Num 6:3; Jdg 13:4 sq.; Isa 5:11; Isa 28:7, etc.), appears here personified, or represented as in a sense an evil demon, which excites to frivolous wantonness, to wild and boisterous action, and by the confusion of the senses into which it plunges man, robs him of all clear self-possession (Elster).Whosoever is led astray thereby is not wise. With this phrase to stagger, or reel because of or under something comp. Pro 5:19. For the general meaning, Isa 28:7.
Pro 20:2. With clause a compare Pro 19:12 (which is literally identical with the clause before us, except that this has , dread [terrible word, an utterance that spreads terror] instead of ).He that provoketh him sinneth against his own soul. For the first phrase see Critical Notes.Sinneth against his own soul (, an accusative of respect); comp. kindred although not identical expressions in Pro 8:36; Pro 6:32.
Pro 20:3. It is an honor to a man to dwell far from strife. See Critical Notes. To dwell far from strife is an apt expression to describe the quiet, peaceable demeanor of the wise man, in contrast with the passionate activity of the contentious multitude. For the meaning and use of the verb of clause b, , comp. Pro 17:14; Pro 18:1; with the meaning of the whole expression comp. Pro 19:11.
Pro 20:4. The sluggard plougheth not because of the cold, that is, because the season in which his field should be cared for is too disagreeably rough and cold for him. [For illustration see Thomsons Land and Book, I., 207]. In consequence of this indolent procedure he seeketh in harvestfor fruits of his fieldand there is nothing. See Critical Notes. [Rueetschi, ubi supra, p. 149, retaining the general meaning, objects that the term here used is not the one that of itself describes the cold and stormy harvest time; he therefore retains the temporal meaning of the preposition, and renders, from the time of the (fruit) harvest onward, etc., this being the proper time for the ploughing and sowing, a time which none can suffer to pass by.A.]
Pro 20:5. Counsel in the heart of man is as deep waters, etc.; i.e. the purpose that one has formed may be difficult to fathom (see the same figure, Pro 18:4); a wise man nevertheless draws him out, elicits from him his secret, and brings it to light. means to draw water with a bucket (, Isa 40:15), to bring it up laboriously from a deep place (Exo 2:16; Exo 2:19)a metaphor suggested by the figure in clause a, and evidently very expressive.
2. Pro 20:6-11. On the general sinfulness of men.Many proclaim each his own grace (or love). The verb which is originally to call is here to proclaim, to boast of, prdicare. , each individual of the many a man, the mass or majority of men.But a faithful man who can find? For the phrase a man of fidelity, comp. Pro 13:17; Pro 14:5; for the general meaning, Psa 116:11; Rom 3:4.
Pro 20:7. He who in his innocence walketh upright. Thus, taking attributively, as an adjective subordinated to the participle, the LXX, Vulg., Syr., had already treated the construction, and later Ewald and Hitzig [and Kamph.]; while recent expositors generally render, is a righteous man [H. and N.], or in other instances treat the righteous as the subject (Umbreit, Elster, etc.), [S. and M., E. V., and De W.].With this benediction upon the descendants of the righteous in clause b comp. Pro 14:26; with the after him, i.e. after his death, Gen 24:67; Job 21:21.
Pro 20:8. A king searcheth out all evil with his eyes. The natural reference is to the king as he corresponds with his ideal, that he be the representative on earth of God, the supreme Judge. Comp. Pro 16:10; also Isa 11:4, where similar attributes to these are ascribed to the Messiah, as the ideal typically perfect king. With this use of the verb to sift or winnow, to separate, comp. Pro 20:26.
Pro 20:9. Who can say: I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? The question naturally conveys a decided negative by implication: No one can say, etc.; comp. Pro 20:6 b, and Pro 20:24 b. It is not a permanent purity, a having kept ones self pure (from birth onward) that is the subject of the emphatic denial in this proverb (in opposition to Bertheaus view), but a having attained to moral perfection, the having really conquered all the sins that were in existence before, that is denied. We should therefore bring into comparison not passages like Job 14:4; Job 15:14; Psa 51:5 (7), but such as 1Ki 8:46; Ecc 7:20; 1Jn 1:8; Jam 3:2, etc. With this expression, I have made my heart clean, comp. Psa 73:13.
Pro 20:10 draws attention to deception in business intercourse as a peculiar and prominent form of that universal sinfulness which has just been spoken of as having no exceptions. Comp. Pro 11:1, and Pro 20:23 below. With the language in clause b compare Pro 17:15 b.
Pro 20:11. Even a child maketh himself known in his deeds. With regard to the , even, which does not belong to the word next following, but to the , child (as Geier, Umbreit, Elster, Hitzig rightly interpret), comp. remarks on Pro 19:2.His deeds Ewald and Umbreit are inclined to render by plays, sports, in disregard of the uniform meaning of the word, and in opposition to the only correct construction of the even. is rather the works, the actions, the individual results of the childs self-determination, from which it may even now be with confidence inferred of what sort his work is, i.e. the entire inner tendency of his life, his character (if one prefers the notion), the nature of his spirit (Hitzig).That this thought also stands related to the fact of universal sinfulness needs no fuller demonstration. Comp. the familiar German proverb, Was ein Drnchen werden will spilzt sich bei Zeiten [what means to become a thorn is early sharpening].
3. Pro 20:12-19. Admonitions to confidence in God, to industry, prudence and integrity.The ear that heareth, and the eye that seethJehovah hath created them both. An allusion, plainly, not to the adaptation, the divine purpose and direction in the functions of hearing and seeing (Hitzig), but to Gods omniscience as a powerful motive to the fear of God and confidence in Him; comp. Pro 15:3, and especially Psa 94:9.
Pro 20:13. With a compare Pro 6:9-10.Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread. The imperative clause, be satisfied with bread, has here the meaning of a consecutive clause, as in Pro 3:4, [This illustrates what Btt., 957, 6, calls the desponsive use of the Imperative, conveying sure promises]. With this language compare Pro 12:11. To open the eyes is naturally the opposite of sleep and drowsiness, and therefore the description of wakeful, vigorous, active conduct.
Pro 20:14. It is bad, it is bad! saith the buyer, but when he is gone his way ( , for which we should perhaps with Hitzig read , corresponds with the German, und trollt er sich [when he takes himself off], when he has gone his way) then he boasteth, i.e. of the good bargain that he has made. The verse therefore censures the well-known craft, the deceitful misrepresentation, with which business men seek to buy their wares as cheap as possible, below their real value if they can. In opposition to the true meaning of , as well as inconsistently with the idea of boasting in the second clause, Schultens and Elster (and Luther likewise) render: It is bad, it is bad! saith the owner (?) of his possession; but when it is gone(?) then he boasteth of it (?).
Pro 20:15. There is indeed gold and a multitude of pearls, etc. As these precious things are compared in Pro 3:14-15; Pro 8:11, with intelligent, wise dispositions and discourse, so are they here compared with wise lips, that is, with the organ of wise discourse. In this connection we should doubtless notice the difference between gold and pearls as valuable native material, not yet wrought into articles of ornament, and on the other hand, the lips as an artistic vase or other vessel (that has come forth from the hand of the divine artificer, and is adorned and embellished by mans wise use of it).
Pro 20:16. Comp. Pro 6:1-5; Pro 11:15; Pro 17:18. Instead of the warnings that are there found against foolish suretyship, we have here in a livelier style a demand to give over at once, without hesitation as bondsman any such inconsiderate surety.And for strangers make him a surety. Instead of the Kri for a strange woman, i. e., an adulteress, we should unquestionably retain here the Kthibh, for strangers, unknown people; while in the corresponding passage, Pro 27:13, the strange woman is undoubtedly the correct reading.
Pro 20:17. Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, i.e., enjoyments and possessions secured by means of deceit; comp. Pro 23:3; Pro 9:17.For this use of sand, gravel, (an appropriate emblem to describe a thing not to be enjoyed) comp. Lam 3:16.
Pro 20:18. Plans are established by counsel. here equivalent to , counsel which one takes with another,comp. Pro 15:22.And with good advice make war. The advice or management (comp. Pro 1:5) is plainly contemplated as the result of the counsel that has been taken; comp. Pro 24:6.
Pro 20:19. With clause a compare Pro 11:13; with b, Pro 13:3.
4. Pro 20:20-23. Against hatred of parents, legacy-hunting, revenge, deceit.He that curseth father and mother, and so in the boldest way transgresses the fifth commandment of the law, (Exo 20:12, comp. Exo 21:17; Lev 20:9).His light goeth out in utter darkness. The same figure is used also in Pro 13:9, here as there serving to illustrate the hopeless destruction of life and prosperity.In regard to , the pupil of the eye, blackness, midnightfor which the Kri unnecessarily demands the Aramaic comp. notes on Pro 7:9.
Pro 20:21. An inheritance that hath been hastily gained in the beginning. In favor of the Kri , hurried, hastened (comp. Est 8:14, and also remarks above on Pro 13:11), we have the testimony of the ancient versions, the parallel in Pro 28:20; Pro 28:22, and besides the position of this verse after verse 20. For it is precisely the wayward son, who despises and curses his parents, that will be very readily disposed to seize upon his inheritance before the time against their will (comp. Luk 15:12), and possibly even to drive his parents violently out of their possession (comp. Pro 19:26). That no blessing can rest upon such possessions, that as they were unrighteously acquired at first so they must in the end be wasted and come to nought, is a truth which clause b in a simple way brings to view. The Kthibh would either signify cursed, in accordance with Zec 11:8 (so Elster, e.g., regards it), or in accordance with the Arabic, acquired by avarice (so Umbreit). [H., N., W., S., M., Bertheau, Kamph, etc., agree in supporting the exposition adopted by our author].
Pro 20:22. Say not: let me avenge the evil; i.e., do not desire to requite evil with evil, do not avenge thyself for offences that have been done thee; comp. Pro 24:29; Deu 32:35; Rom 12:17; 1Pe 3:9.The second member of clause b is evidently a consecutive clause, as the Jussive frequently is after the Imperative; comp. Isa 8:10; 2Ki 5:10. The Vulgate correctly renders el liberabit te, while the LXX, Rosenmueller, Ewald, etc., treat the words as a final clause; that he may keep thee.
Pro 20:23. Comp. Pro 20:10. A deceitful balance is not good; (Z., is shameful, lit. is not good, is no good, as in Pro 17:26; Pro 18:5); a litotes, expressing the idea of that which is very base.
6. Pro 20:24-30. Miscellaneous admonitions to the fear of God and integrity.From Jehovah are mans steps; comp. Pro 16:9; Psa 37:23. The steps are naturally not acts in their subjective ethical aspect, but these acts according to their result, their several issues in a parallel series of experiences,and therefore those events depending on the action of man which make up its external counterpart (Hitzig).In regard to the emphatic negative import of the question in clause b, compare remarks on Pro 20:9.
Pro 20:25. Before the [he hath vowed hastily] there should be supplied the conjunction , if; therefore render literally it is a snare to a man, vows he hastily, i.e., if he in a hasty manner promises to devote a thing to God as sacred (as , Mar 7:11). See Critical notes.Furthermore hasty consecrations, and in like manner, according to clause b the hasty assumption of vows, are here called a snare (, comp. remarks on Pro 18:7), because he who makes the rash vow afterward easily repents of it, and falls under the temptation sinfully to break or to recall his vow (comp. Num 30:3; Ecc 5:3).
Pro 20:26. A wise king sifteth the wicked. To sift or winnow expresses here, just as it does in Pro 20:8, a discriminating separation of the chaff from the grain; comp. for this familiar and pertinent figure Psa 1:4; Isa 17:13; Amo 9:9.And bringeth the wheel over them, i.e., the wheel of the threshing cart (Isa 28:27 sq.), which however is contemplated here not so much as an instrument of harvesting, as rather in the light of a means and emblem of the severe punishment of captive enemies (in accordance with 2Sa 12:31; 1Ch 20:3; Amo 1:3). There is therefore no offence to be taken in view of the fact that in the operation of threshing the crushing with the wheel preceded the winnowing or sifting, while here it is not mentioned until after it (in reply to Bertheau).
Pro 20:27. The spirit of man is a candle of Jehovah; lit., mans breath, for this is the first meaning of the Hebrew term (Gen 2:7); yet it is not the soul which pervades and animates all the members of the body (as Hiteig renders), according to the view of many of the elder expositors, as also Starke, Von Gerlach, etc., but the spirit, as the higher manifestation of soul-life, or if any one prefers, the reason, self-consciousness (Umbreit, Elster) that is intended by the expression. For all analogies are wanting, at least within the range of the Bible, for a comparison of the soul with a light (the Arabic maxim in Kazwini Cosmog. I. 355, in which the soul, Nephesch, is designated the light of the body, plainly has no bearing on our present object). On the contrary the inner light or eye, ( ) of which the Lord speaks in Mat 6:22-23, is unquestionably an organ or factor of the higher spiritual soul, more precisely designated as the or the reason. In support of the idea that in the passage before us signifies essentially this and nothing else, there may be adduced the identity of with as indicated by a comparison of Gen 6:17 with Gen 2:7. The expression candle of Jehovah moreover seems o point rather to the spirit as that factor in human personality which proceeds immediately from God, than to the soul which inheres in the physical life, and does not rise essentially above it.2[Wordsw. and some other English expositors understand the allusion to be specifically to the conscience; the majority are content with the more comprehensive term spirit, including intellectual and moral factors.A.].Searching all the chambers of the body, i.e., looking through its whole interior,which clearly suggests the ruling relation of this searcher to the body, the sphere of its activity, and so is very pertinent with respect to the spirit, but not to the soul. In regard to the chambers of the body comp. Proverbs 20:36 and Pro 18:8.
Pro 20:28. Grace and truth preserve the king. Mercy and truth, or love and truth, not quite in the sense of Pro 3:3; the attributes of a king are intended by the terms, which should rather be rendered grace and truth. With this idea of preserving comp. Psa 25:21; with that of upholding in clause b, Isa 9:6.
Pro 20:29. Comp. Pro 16:31; Pro 17:6.
Pro 20:30. Wounding stripes are a correction of evil and strokes (that reach) to the chambers of the body; i.e., stripes or blows that cause wounds, such as one administers to his son under severe discipline (comp. Pro 19:18), have this beneficial effect, that they intend a salutary infliction or correction on the evil in this son, as a scouring of the rust which has gathered on a metal cleanses and brightens the metal. And not merely does such an external chastening as this accomplish the sharp correction of the son: it penetrates deep into the inmost parts of the body (comp. remarks on Pro 20:27), i.e., to the innermost foundations of his personal life and consciousness, and so exerts a reforming influence on him. Thus Ewald and Elster correctly render, and substantially Umbreit also (comp. Luthers version, which expresses the true meaning at least in general), while Bertheau regards , remedial application, as the subject, and (after the analogy of Est 2:3; Est 2:9; Est 2:12) understands it to refer to the application of ointments and perfumes for beautifying (! ?); Hitzig, however, naturally emends again, and by changing to obtains the meaning: Wounding stripes drop (?) into the cup of the wicked (?) and strokes into the chambers of the body.[Our English version is defective from its obscurity: The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil. Recent expositors are clearer in their renderings, and differ but slightly in their choice of terms. Stuart; Wounding stripes (H.; the bruises of a wound) are the remedy for the base (H.; are a cleanser in a wicked man); N. and M.; The scars (stripes) of a wound are a cleansing from evil; Wordsw., paraphrasing somewhat more: The stripes of a wound are the (only) wiping away of (certain cases of) evil.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
It is evidently impossible to derive the many maxims of the chapter from a single primary and fundamental thought. The warning against drunkenness or the passion of the intemperate, which introduces the diversified series, has in the further progress of the discourse no successor whatsoever of similar form, and could be retained as the theme or the germinal thought for the whole only by the most artificial operations, such as Stcker, e.g., and others of former times undertook (comp. the introductory paragraph to the Homiletic hints). Much more readily might a contentious and revengeful spirit be regarded as the chief object of the admonitory representations and suggestions of this section (see Pro 20:2-3; Pro 20:6; Pro 20:14; Pro 20:19; Pro 20:22). But a space at least equally large is given to the dissuasions from indolence and deceit (Pro 20:4; Pro 20:10; Pro 20:13-14; Pro 20:17; Pro 20:23), and again to the commendations, somewhat more general in their form, of wise and upright conduct (Pro 20:7; Pro 20:9; Pro 20:11; Pro 20:15; Pro 20:18; Pro 20:24-26; Pro 20:29). Only a single group of proverbs in this chap. stands out from the mass of diverse and isolated maxims and aphorisms, as contemplating one object with considerable compactness and unity of view. This is the division which relates to the general sinfulness of men (Pro 20:6-11). And this in fact presents also the richest and most important doctrinal material which the chapter anywhere contains. Starting with the fact, alas! too palpable, that really faithful men, i.e., men who are on all sides reliable, free from all falsehood and untruth, are to be found nowhere on the earth (Pro 20:6; chap. Joh 8:46, and the passages cited above in notes to Pro 20:6), the representation brings into the foreground the ideal of moral innocence, uprightness, and the practical prosperity which belongs to it, as this ought actually to be realized by humanity (Pro 20:7). It then at once suggests the crying contrast which exists between the real moral condition of humanity and the ethical aim of its perfect state, pointing to the manifold and numberless forms of evil in conflict with which, in judicial exposures and punishments of which, earthly kings even now are engaged (Pro 20:8). It next gives an outright expression to the universal need of purification and improvement (Pro 20:9), and then brings forward a special and conspicuous examample of the deceitful acts and endeavors of all men, so odious to God (Pro 20:10). It concludes at length with a hint of that corruption in the devices and impulses of the human heart which appears even in the earliest periods of youth (Pro 20:11; Gen 8:21). The most important of these utterances, which are perhaps intentionally arranged as they are with reference to the very line of thought that has been indicated, is at all events the testimony given in Pro 20:9 to the impossibility of ever attaining in this present human life to a complete moral purity and perfection. We have here a proverb which, in addition to the universality, guiltiness and penal desert, of the original corruption of human nature, attests very distinctly also its permanent character, i.e., its continued obstinate and ineradicable inherence in the soul and body of man, its tenacitas, sive pertinax inhsio, by virtue of which a certain spark of evil (or tinder for evil), a concealed germ and root of sinful lust (fomes peccati s. concupiscentia) remains in all men, even the most sanctified and morally elevated, until their very death. This proverb is also especially noteworthy, because in contrast with the style of conception which is elsewhere predominant in the proverbs, according to which the imperfection of all human piety is but slightly emphasized, and he who is relatively pious is allowed to pass as righteous, it gives expression to the unsatisfying nature of all moral endeavors, as never conducting to the full extirpation of the sense of guilt, and a perfect feeling of peace with God; it accordingly suggests the need of a higher revelation, in which the sense of guilt, and of an ever imperfect fulfilment of duty shall finally be wholly overcome (Elster).
Memorable doctrinal and ethical truths are furthermore contained, particularly in ver.1, with its significant personification of the demon of mockery, and wild, boisterous recklessness, which as it were lurks concealed in wine and other intoxicating drinks;in Pro 20:12; Pro 20:24, with their allusion to the mightily pervading influence of God, the Omniscient, overall the acts and fates of men;in Pro 20:22, with its dissuasion from avenging ones self, and the spirit of retaliation, so suggestive of the New Testament command of love to enemies;in Pro 20:25, with its warning against the hasty assumption of religious vows;in Pro 20:27, with its beautiful illustration of the all-embracing authority, and the moulding influence which mans spirit, as his inward divine light, must exercise over his entire physical and spiritual life (and in the normal self-determination does actually exercise);and finally, in Pro 20:28, with its admirable exaltation of the loving, faithful, upright disposition of kings as the firmest prop to their thrones. Compare above, the Exegetical explanations of all these passages.
[Lawson (on Pro 20:7): The integrity of the just man is not like the pretended integrity of the moralist, for it includes piety, justice, sobriety, and a conscientious regard to every precept of God, without excluding those that appear to vain men to be of small importance, or those that most directly oppose the prevailing disposition of the mind.Chalmers (on Pro 20:27): In order to salvation, the Spirit must deal with the subjective mind, and illuminate the ruling faculty there, as well as set the objective word before us, which is of His own inspiration. A more vivid conscience will give us a livelier sense of Gods law; a more discerning consciousness, reaching to all the thoughts and tendencies of the inner man, will give us a more convincing view of our sad and manifold deficiencies from that law.]
HOMILETIC AND PRACTICAL
Homily on the chapter as a whole: The general sinfulness and need of salvation on the part of all men, demonstrated 1) from the magnitude and variety of the vices that prevail in humanity; 2) from the rareness of a sincere striving after virtue; 3) from the absolute impossibility of finding complete purity and holiness except in Christ.Stcker (less in harmony with the proper and chief contents of the chapter; comp. what has been said above): Of intemperance in drinking, and its evil consequences: 1) Delineation of the vini; 2) Reference to the incommoda (the inconveniences), and 3) to the remedia ebrietatis (the remedies of drunkenness).In like manner Wohlfarth, Calwer Handb., etc.; against the intemperance and the wildness of the scoffer.
Pro 20:1-5. Starke (on Pro 20:1): He who is inclined to physical drunkenness will not be vigorous spiritually; Eph 5:18 (comp. Von Gerlach: A wild, unconscious excitement is far from a holy wisdom).Geier (on Pro 20:2): The wrath of an earthly king is intolerable; how much more the infinite eternal wrath of the King of all kings against persistent sinners at the judgment![Lawson (on Pro 20:3): A fool is so self-conceited that he can bear no contradiction; so impertinent that he will have a hand in every other mans business; so proud that he cannot bear to be found in the wrong; and so stubborn that he will have the last word, although his lips should prove his destruction].Zeltner (on Pro 20:4); On observing times (Rom 12:11;. Eph 5:18) everything depends in physical as well as spiritual things.J. Lange (on Pro 20:5); For the testing, searching, and discriminating between spirits, there should be a man who is furnished with the spirit of Christ.
Pro 20:6-11. Zeltner (on Pro 20:6): It is far better to show ones self in fact pious, benevolent, true and upright, than merely to be so regarded and proclaimed.[Trapp (on Pro 20:7): Personal goodness is profitable to posterity; yet not of merit, but of free grace, and for the promise sake].Starke (on Pro 20:8): When Christ, the Lord and King of the whole world, shall at length sit in judgment, then will all evil be driven away by His all holy eyes, brought to an end and punished.(On verse 9): The justified have and keep sins within them even to their death; but they do not let these rule in them, Rom 6:11. He betrays his spiritual pride and his entanglement in gross error, who imagines, and, it may be, also maintains, that he has within himself no more sins, 1Jn 1:8-9.(On Pro 20:11): He that has charge of the training of children, benefits not them only, but the whole of human society, when he incites flexible, well-disposed spirits to good, and seeks to draw away the vile from evil with care and strictness.
Pro 20:12-19. Melanchthon (on Pro 20:12): To the successful conduct of a state two things are always needful: 1) good counsels of the rulers, and 2) willing obedience of the subjects. Both Solomon declares to be gifts of God, when he describes Him as the Creator both of the hearing ear and of the seeing eye.Geier (on Pro 20:12): It is God from whom we possess all good as well in temporal as in spiritual things (Jam 1:16): as He has given us eyes and ears, so will He also give us a new heart (Eze 11:19).Zeltner (on Pro 20:14): Acknowledge with thanks Gods present bounties, as long as thou hast them, and employ them aright, that God may not suddenly take them from thee, and thou then for the first time become aware what thou hast lost.Egard (on Pro 20:17): It is the way of sin and fleshly lust that it at first seems attractive to man, but afterward, when conscience wakes, causes great disquiet and anguish.[Lord Bacon (on Pro 20:18): The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel Things will have their first or second agitation; if they be not tossed upon the waves of counsel, they will be tossed upon the waves of fortune, and be full of inconstancy, doing and undoing, like the reeling of a drunken man.]Tbingen Bible (on Pro 20:18): To wage war is allowed, for there are righteous wars; but they must be conducted with reason and reflection (compare General Yorks prayer and motto at the beginning of every battle: The beginning, middle, end, O Lord, direct for the best!).J. Lange (on Pro 20:19): Rather hear him much who reveals to thee what harms thee, than him who flatters thee.Von Gerlach (same verse): In all inconsiderate talking about others there is always some delight in evil or slander running along through it; just as also all tattling and idle gossip of this kind always has something exceedingly dangerous in it.
Pro 20:20-23. Melanchthon (on Pro 20:21): It is of moment always to wait for Gods ordinary call, to distinguish the necessary from the unnecessary, and to attempt nothing outside of our lawful calling.Lange (same verse): That for which one strives with inconsiderate craving in unlawful ways turns not into blessing, but to a curse.Zeltner (on Pro 20:22): To withstand passion, to wait in patience for the Lords help, and to plead for the welfare of the evil doer is the beat revenge on an enemy.Berleburg Bible (same verse): Revenge always springs from pride; thou wouldst willingly be like God, and be thine own helper, avenger and judge; this pride then kindles thine anger within thee, so that thou for heat and violence canst not wait until God disposes of the matter for thee.[Lawson: By indulging your revengeful spirit, you do yourself a greater hurt than your greatest enemy can do you, for you gratify his ill nature when you suffer it to make a deep impression on your spirit, without which it could do you little or no hurt; but by committing your cause to God, you turn his ill-will to your great advantages making it an occasion for the exercise of the noblest graces, which are attended with the sweetest fruits, and with the rich blessing of God.]
Pro 20:24-30. Geier (on Pro 20:24): No one can rightly begin and walk in the way to the kingdom of heaven, who would enter without Christ; Joh 14:6; Joh 15:5.[Chalmers (on Pro 20:24): Man can no more comprehend the whole meaning of his own history, than he can comprehend the whole mind of that God who is the Sovereign Lord and Ordainer of all things.]Berleburg Bible (on Pro 20:25): In vows it is important to reflect with the utmost circumspection, before one forms a definite purpose. But what one has once vowed, against it he should seek no pretext of any kind to annul it.Starke (on Pro 20:25): The outward service of God without real devotion becomes a snare to many, by which they deceive their souls and plunge into ruin.(On Pro 20:27): Know the nobility of the human soul, this candle of the Lord! Beware therefore of all conceit of wisdom and contempt of others about thee. Give rather to the illumination of Divine grace its influence on all the powers of thy soul, that when thine understanding is sufficiently enlightened thy will also may be reformed.[Stoddard: The Spirit does not work by giving a testimony, but by assisting natural conscience to do its work. Natural conscience is the instrument in the hand of God to accuse, condemn, terrify, and to urge to duty.]A. Schrder (on Pro 20:28in the Sonntagsfeier, 1840): How the relation of the king to his people and of the people to their king can be a blessed one solely through the purity and sincerity of both).Rust (same versesame source, issue for 1834); Of the exalted blessing which a living Christianity ensures to all the relations of the State.Lange (on Pro 20:29): Art thou still a youth in Christian relations; prove thy strength by conquest over thyself; art thou become grey and experienced in them, prove thy wisdom by love and a blameless life; 1Jn 2:13-14.(On Pro 20:30): There is much evil about and within us from which we must be cleansed and purified; God uses to this end the inward and outward trials of this life.Comp. Luthers marginal comment on Pro 20:30 : Mali non verbis sed verberibus emendantur; pain is as needful as eating and drinking.
Footnotes:
[1]For a full and valuable discussion of the meaning of these and kindred terms, see an article by Dr. Laurie in the Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1869.A.
[2] Von Rudloff, Lehre vom Menschen, 2d Ed., p. 48, also takes a correct view of the passage.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul. It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling. The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he begin harvest, and have nothing. Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. Most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?
When the question is asked, where a faithful man is to be found, the answer is direct. There is a friend that loveth at all times, and a brother born for adversity. Pro 17:17 . Precious Jesus! thou art indeed a friend, for thou hast shewn thyself most friendly.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Sluggard in Harvest
Pro 20:4
I. First, let us try to bring out the principles which are crystallized in this picturesque saying.
1. The first thought evidently is: present conduct determines future conditions. Life is a series of epochs, each of which has its destined work, and that being done, all is well; and that being left undone, all is ill. The mystic significance of the trivialities of life is that in them we largely make destiny, and in them we wholly make character.
2. The easy road is generally the wrong one. Never allow yourselves to be guided in your choice of a road by the consideration that the turf is smooth, and the flowers by the side of it sweet. Remember the sluggard would have been warmer, with a wholesome warmth, at the plough-tail than cowering in the chimney-corner. Fix it in your minds that nothing worth doing is done but at the cost of difficulty and toil.
3. The season let slip is gone for ever. Opportunity is bald behind, and must be grasped by the forelock. Life is full of tragic might-have-beens. The student who has spent the term in indolence, perhaps dissipation, has no time to get up his subject when he is in the examination room, with the paper before him. And life, and nature, and God’s law, which is the Christian expression for the godless word nature, are stern taskmasters, and demand that the duty shall be done in its season or left undone for ever.
II. In the second place let me say a word 1. About the lowest sphere to which my text applies. This proverb is simply an inculcation of the duty of honest work, and of the necessity of being wide awake to opportunities in our daily work.
2. Let me apply the text in a somewhat higher direction. Carry these principles with you in the cultivation of that important part of yourself your intellects. I should like all of you to make a conscience of making the best of your brains, as God has given them to you in trust. ‘The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold.’ The dawdler will read no books that tax his intellect, therefore shall he beg in harvest and have nothing.
3. Again I may apply these principles to a higher work still that of the formation of character. Nothing will come to you noble, great, or elevating in that direction unless it is sought, and sought with toil. In the making of character we have to work as a painter in fresco does, with a swift brush on the plaster while it is wet It sets and hardens in an hour. And men drift into habits which become tyrannies and dominant, before they know where they are. Do not let yourselves be shaped by accident, by circumstance.
4. Let these principles be applied to religion, and teach us the wisdom and necessity of beginning the Christian life at the earliest moment
5. But there is a more solemn thought still. This life as a whole is to the future life as the ploughing time is to the harvest, and there are awful words in Scripture, which seem to point in the same direction in reference to the irrevocable and irreversible issue of neglected opportunities on earth, as this proverb does in regard to the ploughing and harvests of this life.
A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, p. 137.
References. XX. 4. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlviii. No. 2766. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, p. 409. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Esther, Job, Proverbs, etc., p. 226. XX. 5, 6. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, p. 413. XX. 11. S. Martin, Rain Upon the Mown Grass, p. 395. XX. 12. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, p. 417. XX. 14. W. Baird, Sermons, p. 13. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, p. 126. XX. 17. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Esther, Job, Proverbs, etc., p. 236. XX. 18. F. J. Jayne, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. 1899, p. 225. XX. 29. D. Watson, ibid. vol. xlvi. 1894, p. 166. J. Vickery, Ideals of Life, p. 31. XXII. 1. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, p. 431. XXII. 2. Ibid. p. 434. J. M. Neale, Sermons for Some Feast Days in the Christian Year, p. 402. C. A. Salmond, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. 1895, p. 100. R. R. Dolling, ibid. vol. lxi. 1902, p. 136. J. A. Alexander, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 159. XXII. 3. T. Barker, Plain Sermons, p. 40. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, p. 438. XXII. 6. Ibid. p. 441. A. Murray, The Children for Christ, p. 170. E. W. Attwood, Sermons for Clergy and Laity, p. 388. XXII. 7. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, p. 452.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
The Folly of Strife, Etc.
Pro 20
“Meddling” is a word which might be rendered “showing his teeth”; then the text would read Every fool would be showing his teeth, snarling, threatening to bark and to bite, as if his dignity were threatened. The subject is strife, and the wise man is teaching that he who ceases from strife gets to himself a distinguished honour; he sees through the folly of striving and through its uselessness, and he perceives that life can only be wisely and beneficently conducted by a policy of conciliation and sympathy: on the other hand, the fool does not take this view; he proves his folly by showing his teeth, by asserting his dignity, by insisting upon his rights, by declaring that he will never have anything settled until he has it settled his own way. The Bible never hesitates to call such a man a fool. We have come to regard the word “fool” as a vulgarism, and we hesitate to use it; but in the Old Testament it is used with great freedom, and always in relation to moral shortcoming and perverseness. To call a man a fool in a vindictive spirit, or merely to accomplish his humiliation in the eyes of others, is wholly anti-Christian and positively wicked; but to describe a man as a fool who is always standing upon his rights and asserting his dignity is but to adopt the very spirit of the Bible. The great man will show his greatness by his love of peace: the fool will show his littleness by his love of controversy. In a life like ours it is impossible for every man to have his own way, or for each one to see as every other man sees; society is so constructed as to require the inspiration of mutual regard and mutual deference; otherwise society would fall to pieces. It is easy to get up a controversy; easy to show the teeth; easy to insist upon punctilious rights; easy to turn ceremony into a moral ordinance; but all this is opposed to the spirit of the revelation which we believe to be divine. It is indeed humbling to human pride to have to retire from some controversies; on the other hand it is a mortal insult to moral dignity to have to continue certain contentions. We may obtain our little and temporary rights, but in obtaining them we sacrifice the eternal right of love, conciliation, and peace. Never give away the greater for the sake of the less: never surrender the substance in order merely to seize the shadow.
“The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing” ( Pro 20:4 ).
The sluggard has his reason for not acting, and he thinks that reason of sufficient consequence to justify his abstention. He says it is cold, and he will wait until the sun shines. He forgets that the Very act of ploughing overcomes the inconvenience of cold, that if he would exercise himself he would soon be warm, and that it is within the power of man to do without the sun for a certain period and for certain purposes. The sluggard insists upon being warmed from the outside, and not from the inside; he will have his skin warmed by the sun, he will not warm his own blood by exercise. What is the consequence? He will not know the full issue of his conduct until harvest comes, and he finds in desolate fields the rebuke of his indolence and the condemnation of his neglect. Whatever we obtain in this life should be the result of labour: that labour may be of the mind or of the hand, but it must in some way be true labour; otherwise whatever is obtained will bring with it little of sanction and little of blessing. What applies to the sluggard in the culture of a field applies to the sluggard in all the relations and bearings of life. The student who will not study shall beg in examination and have nothing to show as the result of the expenditure which his schooling has occasioned. The man who will not think shall beg in the time of action, and shall have nothing; because his mind was neglected his hands shall be empty. This is the great rule which binds society in happy consolidation. In all labour there is profit, and the profit is oftentimes as surely in the labour itself as in the substantial advantages which it brings. The huntsman declares that it is not for the sake of the prey but for the sake of the exercise that he pursues his sport. Virtue is said to be its own reward; so is study, so is all painstaking, so is all real devotion of heart. If we could apply this doctrine in all its fulness we should destroy a good deal of religious selfishness. Sometimes men are good merely that they may obtain heaven. Where that is the motive goodness is impossible. We are to find heaven in the goodness itself, in the exercise of prayer, in the service of charity, in the cultivation of all virtue. There are many sluggards who are not known by that contemptuous term. He who does not give to philanthropic appeals is a sluggard. He who does not religiously watch the evolution of providence and apply its solemn lessons is a sluggard. He who does not spend the strength which is renewed in sleep in doing good to others is a sluggard. In all cases the issue is the same: the harvest will be a desolation, and in the end there will be emptiness, disappointment, and grievous shame.
“Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?” ( Pro 20:6 ).
The “faithful man” is one who carries out what he has promised to do. If he has sworn to his hurt he will still fulfil his vow. He has determined not to preach his goodness, but to realise it, to embody it, to make it the principal fact of his life. Most men will claim theoretical goodness, or acknowledge some philosophy of virtue, or prate about the shortcomings of other men, and thus indirectly magnify and glorify themselves: many men can talk about religion, can enter into controversy respecting its doctrines, and display great zeal and eloquence respecting its dogmas; all this amounts to nothing unless it be followed by that faithfulness which realises, executes, embodies the goodness that is talked about. The wise man in his day found it difficult to discover a faithful man. The question which he asks is proposed in a tone that is deeply pathetic. Who can find a faithful man? Where is the man whose action is equal to his word? whose heroism is equal to his theory? whose self-abnegation is equal to his professions of obedience? Although the wise man asks the question and leaves it without reply, we are not to suppose that it is incapable of being answered. Truly it cannot be answered unless there be a motive higher than any known within the limits of human nature: there must be inspiration from on high: direct action of the Holy Spirit upon the human mind and heart: this is the miracle of Jesus Christ, and it can only be wrought within the shadow of the Cross. It is time men had done talking about goodness. One action is better than a thousand theories. To lead the blind by a way that they know not, to be a helper of the helpless, to give shelter to those who are houseless, is better than to talk fluently and copiously about theories of virtue, philosophies of goodness, and airy schemes of impracticable reformation. One act of charity will outweigh ten thousand romantic dreams of amelioration.
“Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord” ( Pro 20:10 ).
Not here only, but elsewhere, is this doctrine laid down in the Bible. It is indeed laid down in this very chapter, in the 23rd verse, wherein we read, “Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord; and a false balance is not good.” The meaning of this declaration is evident: it cannot be right to have one weight for the rich and another weight for the poor, one weight for those who can test our honesty, and another weight for those who must take our honesty on credit. Men must not tamper with the standard weights and measures of the country. Such standards are not human and social only, they have a direct religious significance, as we infer from the fact that any violation of them is an abomination to the Lord. We need not limit the doctrine actually to weights and measures of a commercial kind; there are weights and measures in speech, in criticism, in moral judgments, in rewards and penalties, and indeed in all the economy of social life. In society we must have certain standards common to the whole body, otherwise disorder will ensue, and misunderstanding may lead to war. Take the doctrine, for example, in the matter of language: there is a national language with which no man may tamper; we must not have words used in other than patent and well-established senses; otherwise we shall have a system of criticism which may lead to endless confusion and practical difficulty of every kind. The English language must be interpreted by the English lexicon. It will not do for moralists to employ common language in uncommon senses, otherwise the populace will be unable to follow their teaching or to determine their meaning. As a man must not interfere with the metallic currency of his country, so he must not interfere with its verbal currency. We can have no mental reservations, no reading between the lines, no saying one thing and meaning another; private glossaries must not be allowed; our Yea must be yea, and our Nay, nay. To this frankness and simplicity and reality of life will the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ conduct us. Many a man who would shrink from the idea of giving short weight in a mercantile sense may be guilty of giving short weight in a moral sense or in a verbal sense. He will so curtail his speech, or reserve himself in the declaration of his vow, or avail himself of recondite criticism in the construction of his utterances, as to destroy their meaning, and turn them in a direction precisely opposite to that in which they are accepted by the common mind. Words are given to us that we may speak the truth, not that we may conceal it or serve a lie.
“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them” ( Pro 20:12 ).
The meaning would be, that therefore he who made the ear can hear, he who made the eye can see. Our faculties are all numbered, and their force is precisely determined by the Judge of all the earth. He knows how much we can hear, how much we can see, how much we can do, and when the evening comes and the hour of reckoning strikes he will only expect little from those to whom little has been given, and much will be expected from those to whom great gifts have been entrusted. It is curious to observe how continually the Bible refers to the fact that the ear and the eye are of God’s making. There is a great moral conveyed by this fact, namely, the moral just stated, that he who made our faculties understands them, controls them, and exercises them himself on an infinite scale. If we could once realise the idea that God hears every word we utter and every breath we draw, the whole spirit of our life would instantly change. It is because we befool ourselves in these matters, imagining that the Lord can neither see nor hear, that we do the things which are roots of evil and occasions of burning shame. The true man always lives under the distinct conviction that his life is daily judged by heaven. “Thou God seest me” is the motto of the wise man. But even this motto may be perverted, for we may endeavour to serve God with eye-service, and so escape the discipline of the heart, the inner service, the deeper obedience, which can only spring from divine inspiration. We are to do good as certainly and as copiously as if the Lord paid no heed to us. We are to be as careful about our words, whether uttered to ourselves or to others, as if the Lord did not hear our speech. Seeing, however, that we are but of the dust and that our poor life is marked most conspicuously by frailty, it is needful that we should view every motive and impulse of a concrete kind, that we may be lifted out of our moral sluggishness, and become animated by a spirit of hopefulness, a hopefulness which leads us to desire that at the end the Master may say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” It is noticeable, however, that even in that judgment it was the servant who had to return the record of his life. There are two distinct methods pursued in the awarding of honour and shame: in the first instance the servants come forward and tell the Lord what they have done with the talents with which they have been entrusted, and upon their own statement they are appointed to wider rulership: in the other set of cases the Lord himself states the record, points out the good that had been done and the good that had been neglected, and upon his own statement he awards honour and dishonour. That we are under the continual criticism of heaven is an encouragement to us when we are trying to do good, but is a fearful and appalling reflection, if we are endeavouring to deceive the eyes of Omniscience and to find a place where the presence of God is not realised.
“He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips” ( Pro 20:19 ).
What relation is there between a flatterer and a talebearer? There may be a subtle flattery in the suggestion that the man is fascinating the attention of the hearer and probably making some inroad upon his confidence. It happens, however, that there is no reference to what is commonly understood as flattery: but the text should be read, He that is open with his lips: meddle not with a man who cannot keep his lips closed. There are men who are dying of a flux of words. They run themselves out in endless streams of vapid talk; they multiply words to no purpose; what is lacking in moral emphasis they seek to make up by a multiplicity of words or an aggravation of noise, as we speak loudly to those who do not understand our language, thinking that by heightening the voice we are elucidating our meaning. Have nothing to do with wordy men, would seem to be the injunction of the text. Society could not live if it were not for the sacred principle of secrecy, which may be called honour or confidence or trustworthiness; at the same time, there remains the fact that man must be upon confidential terms with man, otherwise business would become an impossibility, and friendship would soon degenerate into hypocrisy. The good man prays every day that God would keep the door of his mouth and watch over the entrance of his lips, that he sin not with his tongue. Here again we come upon the necessity for religious culture, as distinguished from merely artistic stipulation or Spartan discipline. Unless the heart be under the control of the highest religious motives, the tongue will reveal every secret and the lips will stand open like a door continually ajar.
“It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy, and after vows to make inquiry” ( Pro 20:25 ).
This is a peculiar expression, greatly in need of simplification. The idea is that a man gets himself into trouble when he rashly says concerning anything, “it is holy”: having thus put himself into a thoughtless relation to his property, he afterwards vows to inquire whether he can keep his word: he plays fast and loose with religious principles and obligations. In order to escape a duty he pleads that he has nothing wherewith to respond to the appeal of charity or the claim of righteousness, because he says that all he is possessed of is “holy,” that is to say, dedicated to religious uses. When the appellant has gone away and left the man in the possession of his gain, the man begins to enquire whether after all his property is really dedicated; then he begins to shuffle, to change his ground, to trifle with principles, and to proceed to a selfish use of that which he had declared to be sanctified. So the man gets wrong through a profession of over-religiousness. He is a hypocrite. He assumes a most pious air in the presence of men who seek his assistance, and no sooner are they gone than he recalls his vow and declares that he has a right to do what he will with his own. Is it not true that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? Is not piety sometimes put on as the protection of selfishness? Is it not needful for us to place ourselves constantly under the scrutiny and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, lest we tell lies to ourselves and to God?
“A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them” ( Pro 20:26 ).
A passage of this kind may easily be perverted by being used for the purpose of supporting a doctrine of persecution. To bring the wheel over a man seems to be a figurative expression for the very direst cruelty. If a man is wicked, crush him with the wheel, tear him limb from limb, decapitate him, in some way show that there is a power that can terminate not only his enjoyment and his liberty, but his life. That, however, is not the meaning of the text We are not urged by these words to persecute those who differ from us, or who are even desperately wicked. Always distinguish between persecution and righteous penalty: between mere oppression and the assertion of that righteousness which is essential to the consolidation of society. When the stacks of corn were spread upon the threshing-floor the grain was separated from the husk by a sort of sledge or cart which was driven over them. The process was for the purpose of separating the chaff from the wheat; the process therefore was purely beneficent: so with the wise king; he winnows out evil persons, he signalises them, he gives them all the definiteness of a separate position, and by bringing them into startling contrast with persons of sound and honest heart he seeks to put an end to their mischievous power. Indiscrimination is the ruin of goodness. We have only to bring evil men into the conspicuousness of their real character that is, to show others what they really are in order to terminate their corrupting influence. Whilst the tares and the wheat are both to grow together until the harvest the tares are never mistaken for the wheat; it is not so in moral relations; sometimes there may be such an association of the evil with the good as to demand prompt and vital separation the one from the other. Men are separated by different ways, not by imprisonment, not by merely personal penalty, not by stigma and brand of an offensive character; they are separated by contrariety of taste, aspiration, feeling, sympathy; in proportion as the good are earnest do they classify themselves, bringing themselves into sacred association with one another, and by sensitiveness of moral touch they feel the evil and avoid it; they know the evil person at a distance and are careful to put themselves out of his way and reach. What is represented as being done by the wise king is done by the cultivation of high principle and Christian honour.
Note
“If instead of the miserable platitudes, or good-for-nothing gossip, which now does so much to kill our time and enervate the intellect, some really refreshing interchange of thought could be effected, how much more we should act like human and immortal beings! And yet, so vitiated is the social taste, that any attempt to realise this, by the use of wise and well-chosen language, would most likely secure contempt, and the intruder would probably be the object of derision.
“But ponder a few sentences which good English writers have left on this subject: ‘The first ingredient in conversation is truth; the next, good sense.’ ‘He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites of man.’ ‘The secret of tiring is to say everything that can be said on the subject.’ ‘Speak little and well, if you wish to be considered as possessing merit.’ ‘When I meet with any that write obscurely, or speak confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things: first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and, secondly, that they are not worth being understood by others.’ ‘Eschew fine words as you would rouge; love simple ones as you would native roses on your cheeks. Act as you might be disposed to do on your estate; employ such words as have the largest families; keep clear of foundlings, and of those of which nobody can tell whence they come, unless he happens to be a scholar.’…
“Make Christ the theme of your converse, and take him as your pattern. ‘In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ ‘And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.’ Trace the records of his ministry with respect to conversation. He condemned the trifler and the jester, as much as the cynic and the hypocrite. No light and wanton words came from his lips, but words of purity and truth. Let us imitate our glorious Pattern, and by a sensible, earnest, and spiritual conversation, ‘seek to minister grace unto the hearers.'”
Gervase Smith, D.D.
Prayer
Almighty God, we praise thee with a loud voice and a cheerful heart, because thy gifts are many, thy love is constant, thy mercy is very tender. We are often walking in the cloud, yet even in the cloud we hear a voice saying, This is my Son, hear ye him! and when the cloud has dissolved we see no man save Jesus only. We are often in mystery and pain and agony, and we say in the morning, Oh that it were night! and at night, Oh that it were morning! for we are tossed to and fro, and made weary with many a vexation, and behold our souls are fretted in anxiety and care. Yet then thou dost come to us with healing. Thou art the God of all comfort; thou hast innumerable solaces, so that we say, There is balm in Gilead; there is no sorrow which our Saviour cannot understand and sanctify. Then we glory in tribulations also, not for their own sake, but because thou hast so ordained that tribulation shall work experience, and experience hope, and thus out of the darkness we shall get our light, and out of the sorrows of life we shall gather our harvest of joy. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. We count our griefs as treasures, we count our losses as gains, and we reckon up all our chastisement as part of our education. Continue to handle our poor little life as thou wilt: we can make nothing of it; we cannot direct it, we cannot see to-morrow, but thou knowest all that is meant by life, its possible immortality in heaven, and thou hast so set before us thy truth and thy kingdom and thy promise that we shall know what thou wouldst have us be and do. We are redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ; we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we are daily meetened for some higher school and nobler society: may we not be fools wasting our hours, but wise men buying up the opportunity, redeeming the time, and making it large and rich with usefulness. Save us from the laughter of the fool, from the joys that are like foam dying as it rises; save us from all mean, corrupting, and debasing society; may we never condescend to drink at the troughs of time when we may slake our thirst at the fountains of eternity; from all that is low, and mean, and worldly, and selfish, Lord, deliver us by thine almighty grace. Help us to spend our little life-day well, wisely: may we sprinkle it with tears as with dew; may we work in it as a garden of the Lord which the Lord himself will one day visit to look at the fruits and the flowers which we have grown; may we try to be better and to do better every day; may we be gentle, sympathetic, condescending, kind, courteous, loving where love is possible, and saving men where thy grace will reach them. Make our homes castles of security, defences against all that is unruly, confused, and tumultuous; may our houses be temples of the divers estates of body, soul, and mind, let thy blessing rest upon each of us according to the speciality of our need; let it come first upon the great mountains of prosperity, health, strength, confidence in the goodness of God, so that they who have no pain and no weakness may receive according to their present happy condition an increase of the benediction of God. May all the mountain of their strength be offered to thee on the altar as a tribute of thankfulness and obligation to thy beneficence. Then regard those who are in great fear and distress because of the plague of sin, the torment of remorse, the bitterness of memories which they seem to be unable to quench and to destroy pursued by ghosts of evil days, tormenting spirits, and affrighting recollections of things that have been done; that shall burn as an eternal shame, and to such do thou speak the great gospel of forgiveness of sins and the total oblivion of iniquity on thy part, seeing that thou dost cast it behind thee like a stone into the depths of the sea. Regard any upon whom sudden calamity may have fallen, unexpected bereavement, great, solemn, startling sorrow, whose houses have been suddenly darkened, and the light of whose eyes has been suddenly quenched. Thou alone canst help the heart in such agony; we do, therefore, lovingly commend to thy tender care, to thy merciful regard, and thy healing benediction, those upon whom the strokes have fallen, that stagger and shake the very life of man. Give such a vision of thy providence that shall be itself a new redemption from fear. Enable them to take wide views, to form just estimates of thy way, lest, being suddenly overbalanced, they may yield to the human distress in forgetfulness of the divine grace. Look upon those who are honestly and honourably endeavouring to live the life of earth in the sight of men, and who yet have to contend with much difficulty, whose days are periods of contention and fierce struggling; help us in every honest purpose and in every just design, and in thine own time send such success as shall save the mind from despair and create in the heart a flame of praise. Regard our country, defend our shores, save Her Majesty the Queen, and add many to the days of her reign; establish her throne in righteousness, and let her house be favoured of God. Guide us in all times of peril, in all crises; in all national emergencies and dangers help us to be simple, sincere, just, and honourable. Save us from all foolish panic and unreasonable alarm; enable us to walk in paths of wisdom and of honour, and to delight above all things in discovering and doing thy holy will. The Lord now come to us during this day; may it be a day of spring in our hearts, when buds shall open in widening blossoms, when that which has hitherto been apparently unfruitful shall bring forth according to the bounty of the divine purpose. May we all be clothed with some vernal grace, some spring beauty, so that we may give, each of us, a new tribute to the Lord who made the seasons, and causes them to pass in perpetual procession. Dry our tears, lift our burdens from our shoulders, and if they must needs be imposed again, we shall at least be stronger for the rest, and better able for the remaining difficulties and dangers that are before us. So let thy blessing come upon every one of us, that out of each heart there may go a song of his own, of tender, grateful recollection, of childlike and loving trust. May our whole life be set to the music of thy will and to the purpose of thy government. Lead us into all truth; save us in the time of trial and temptation; as gold is tried in the fire, so may we be tried in the furnace of thy providence, and after thou hast wrought thy will in us and upon us, through a manifold and often inscrutable discipline, bring us from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, a redeemed household, a holy family, a noble priesthood, a royal generation, to inhabit the courts of the upper sanctuary, to abide in the abiding Zion. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXII
MISCELLANEOUS PROVERBS
Pro 10:1-22:16
Solomon is the author of Pro 10:1-22:16 , and the character of this section is noticeable in the change from the direct and continuous appeal of the opening chapters of the book to the short and, for the most part, disconnected maxims, each of them contained, as a rule, in a couplet, or district, formed strictly on the model of Hebrew parallelism.
The one exception to the rule of the couplet is found in Pro 19:7 were there is a tristich, or stanza of three lines) which is explained by assuming that the last clause of this verse properly belongs to another proverb, of which one member has fallen out of our present text. This conclusion is in some measure confirmed by the appearance in the Septuagint of two complete distichs, though it does not help toward the restoration of the original Hebrew text.
Maurer calls this section, “Golden saying not unworthy of Solomon, fitted to form and fashion the whole life.” There are 376 proverbs in this collection and the parallelism is generally antithetic. A profitable study it would be to take this great section and classify each proverb in it as to the Hebrew parallelism found in it, and then paraphrase it so as to show its application to modern life, but such a plan would require more space than can be given to this discussion. An example of such paraphrase is found in W. J. Bryan’s paraphrase of Pro 22:3 , thus: A wise man sees the danger and gets out of the way, But the fool rushes on and gets it in the neck.
I give here several proverbs selected from those made by members of the author’s class in the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, as illustrations of the various kinds of parallelism found in the book of proverbs. Many of them are antithetic, like most of the proverbs found in the great section discussed so briefly in this chapter. The kind of parallelism found in each proverb is indicated by the word following it.
A wise man is as springtime to his neighbor, But the foolish are as the death of winter. Antithetic
A son that honors his father shall be honored in old age, But he that dishonors his parents shall suffer at the last. Antithetic
A wise man chooses his path, But they who Jack wisdom stumble on through life. Antithetic
In the house of the wicked strife prevails, But in the chambers of the righteous peace dwells. Antithetic
Christ is the foundation of religion, And religion is the foundation of the world. Synthetic
Heaven is a place of happiness But hell is a place of torment. Antithetic
What you were will not avail, It’s what you are that counts. Synthetic
Every proverb has encased a jewel, And wisdom is the key to unlock it. Climactic
Teachers impart knowledge, But pupils straightway forget it. Antithetic
Any fool can find fault, But the wise in heart will bridle the tongue. Antithetic
If people would be loved, They must first love others. Progressive
Love getteth to itself friends; While hatred maketh enemies. Antithetic
Duty calls ever and anon, Happy the man who heeds her call. Climactic
If you pay as you go, Your going will be good. Progressive
The bold eat the sweet morsel of victory, But the fearful are put to shame. Antithetic
The rebuke of a friend Is better than the compliment of an enemy. Progressive
As the rudder is to the ship, So is character to the life. Parabolic
A little schooling is a fooling with the looks, But true learning is a discerning of the books. Antithetic
The wicked rejoiceth in health, But calleth on the Lord in distress. Antithetic
The man who has an axe to grind Meets you with a smiling face. Progressive
Tis only noble thoughts Can make a noble man. Progressive
The wheels of time move slowly But they move surely. Climactic
The wicked purpose evil and are brought low, But the righteous purpose good and are exalted. Antithetic
The man who seeks to know the right shall find light. But he who seeks the lusts of the flesh shall find darkness. Antithetic
The going of the wicked is exceedingly crooked, But the path of the righteous is in the straight and narrow way. Antithetic
As a roaring lion in chains by the way, So is the adversary to the heavenly pilgrim. Parabolic
They who take part in others’ troubles Are apt to get into trouble, too. Progressive
QUESTIONS
1. Who is the author of Pro 10:1-22:16 and what is the character of this section?
2. What is exception to the rule that these Proverbs are expressed in couplets and how may this exception be explained?
3. What says Maurer of this section?
4. How many proverbs are in this section and what kind of parallelism is most common?
5. What is the suggestion by the author for a profitable study of this section?
6. Select ten of the most striking proverbs in this section and paraphrase them so as to show the application of them.
7. Now try your hand at making proverbs of every kind of Hebrew parallelism and indicate the kind of parallelism in each.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Pro 20:1 Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Ver. 1. Wine is a mocker, &c. ] For, first, it mocks a the drunkard, and makes a fool of him, promising him pleasure, but paying him with the stinging of an adder, and biting of a cockatrice, Pro 23:32 . See Trapp on “ Pro 23:32 “ Wine is a comfortable creature, Jdg 9:12 one of the chief lenitives b of human miseries, as Plato calls it; but “excess of wine” 1Pe 4:3 c is, as one well saith, Blandus daemon, dulce venenum, suave Teccatum; quam qui in se habet, se non habet; quam qui facit, non facit peccatum, sed totus est peccatum. That is, a fair spoken devil, a sweet poison, a sin which he that hath in him, hath not himself, and which he that runs into, runs not into a single sin, but is wholly turned into sin. Secondly, It renders a man a mocker, even one of those scorners, for whom judgments are prepared, as Solomon had said in the foregoing verse. See Hos 7:5 Isa 28:1 1Sa 25:36-38 Abigail would not tell Nabal of his danger till he had slept out his drunkenness, lest she should have met with a mock, if not with a knock.
Strong drink is raging.
And whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
a Decepit ebrietas Lotum quem Sodoma non decepit.
b .
c .
d Lib. xiv., cap. ult.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Proverbs Chapter 20
Here are brought together the great danger of certain follies on the one hand, and the value of wisdom and fidelity on the other.
“Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler; and whoso erreth thereby is not wise.
“The terror of a king is as a lion’s roaring; he that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul.
“It is for a man’s honour to keep aloof from strife; but every fool will rush in.
“The slothful will not plow by reason of the winter: in harvest shall he beg and have nothing.
“Counsel in man’s heart [is] deep water; and a man of understanding draweth it out.
“Most men will proclaim every one his own kindness; but a faithful man who can find?
“A righteous one walketh in his integrity: blessed [are] his children after him.” vv. 1-7.
There is no creature of God which has not an important place if used aright. But men blind to His will seek their pleasure heedlessly, and are thus enticed to open sin and grievous hurt. This is eminently the case with wine and strong drink; the one deceives, the other maddens. The warnings are so many and evident on every side, that such as err thereby have only to blame their own folly and self-will.
Rulers are not a terror to good work but to the evil. Nor does the king bear the sword in vain. He is ordained as God’s servant, an avenger for wrath to him that does evil. The terror he inspires is therefore as a lion’s roar. To provoke his anger is to sin against one’s own soul. That again is sheer folly and wrong. Would you then have no fear of an authority so able to punish? Do that which is good, and you shall have praise from it.
Nor is there a more common snare than meddling where we have no business or duty. To this the self-sufficient are prone. Their vanity leads them to accredit others with failure, and themselves with wisdom. They are the men of common sense and of righteousness, if others are more brilliant. Hence in their folly they rush into that strife from which the right-minded hold aloof to their honour.
But there is also danger from one’s own slothfulness, which is exemplified in its paralyzing the ordinary call to labour. It is ordered of God as the rule that plowing time should not be when things grow, and still less when they ripen. But a sluggard finds an excuse for putting off his duty in the cold weather which invites him to strenuous industry. Does he plead the winter against plowing? Then shall he beg in harvest and have nothing.
If there be thus from laziness danger of neglect in the proper season, and from officious vanity whenever a thorny question arises, it all goes to show the worth of intelligence, and the need of taking pains in order to arrive at it. For the truly wise are not superficial; but counsel in their heart is “deep water,” instead of bubbling over on every occasion, however slight. And few things mark a man of understanding more than discerning ability to draw it out.
It is the common failing of men to affect a world-wide benevolence, and to cheat themselves into the belief that their talk and tears over the widow and the orphan are real kindness of no ordinary sort. Let us beware of walking in so vain a show, and remember that the Word of God raises the question whether the reality is in deed and truth. “A faithful man who shall find?”
Such souls however there are in a world where faith is rare, and most love glory from men rather than glory from God, though the one be as evanescent as it is vain, and the other as everlasting as it is substantial. “The righteous walketh in his integrity: blessed [are] his children after him.” God is a rewarder of them that seek Him out; nor is it only the blessing of a good conscience in his walk; but God does not forget his children after him. So even King David could not but feel toward Chimham, if Barzillai sought nothing for himself.
In verses 8-14 we have maxims laid down from the king on his throne down to the commonest trickery of life in everyday transactions, with moral cautions salutary to all.
“A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes.
“Who can say, I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin?
“Divers weights (a stone and a stone), divers measures (an ephah and an ephah), both of them [are] alike abomination to Jehovah.
“Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work [be] pure, and whether right.
“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, Jehovah made even both of them.
“Love not sleep lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes – thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
“Naught, naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.” vv. 8-14.
If ever there was a king sitting on the throne, whose eyes in large measure scattered away all evil, it was he who wrote these words in the Spirit. Yet we have the sad tale of failure, so characteristic of man, and his eyes at length sanctioning evil most dishonouring to Jehovah and destructive to Israel. But He that inspired Solomon has ever a greater in view. “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.” The time hastens.
Righteous souls may and do meanwhile groan; but they murmur not, still less resist the power, which is God’s ordinance, nor plead conscience to evade law, but contrariwise are willing to suffer in obeying God. They know what man’s state is, and that none can truly say, I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin. Their boast is in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom they now received the reconciliation.
But there is no excuse for cheating; against which high and low, poor and rich, yea, and dishonest no less than honest, exclaim loudly. What is more than all, such deliberate roguery is an abomination to Jehovah, who is infinitely removed from all selfish feeling.
Evil may for a time be hidden under many a plea or cloak. But good needs no commendation. Even a child is known by his doings; a pure or a right work is plain.
The hearing ear is a wonderfully beneficent mechanism, the seeing eye of still wider scope for the race in matters of this life. How humbling is the unbelief of the would-be wise who try to persuade themselves and others that Jehovah made neither! Even a heathen like Galen felt and confessed that the hand which made them was divine. If Gnosticism is impious pride, Agnosticism is man sinking to the brute, yet boastful withal.
If man has no heart to thank God for his rest by night, and to seek His guidance and blessing by day, the very sun that performs His bidding calls man to go forth to his work till the evening, as much as he chases the beasts of the forest into their dens. To be an idler, a sleeper, during the hours of light, is to court poverty. To open one’s eyes fittingly; that is, for work, is to be satisfied with bread. None needs to beg if in earnest.
How low is the effort to deceive the seller by depreciation! How false to boast of the mean advantage, if it succeed (v. 14)! But such are the ways of covetousness, as common a snare as can be found for the heart of man, and most hateful to the God of all grace.
In verses 16-23 we are shown what is of real value, far beyond gold, the object of most men, and rubies, the desired prize of rich folk.
“There is gold, and a multitude of rubies; but the lips of knowledge [are] a precious jewel.
“Take his garment that is become surety [for] another, and hold him in pledge for a strange woman.
“Bread of falsehood [is] sweet to man, but afterward his mouth shall be filled with gravel.
“Purpose is established by counsel, and with wise guidance make war.
“He that goeth about tale-bearing revealeth secrets: therefore meddle not with him that openeth (enticeth with) his lips.
“Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in the blackest darkness.
“An inheritance hastily gotten at the beginning will not be blessed at the end.
“Say not, I will recompense evil: wait on Jehovah, and he will save thee.
“Divers weights [are] an abomination to Jehovah; and a false balance [is] not good.”
Never was there a day in the world’s annals when men might more easily possess themselves of gold than when Solomon reigned, never one when precious stones so freely poured than then into Jerusalem. But knowledge duly expressed was far rarer and yet more valuable; and so it is still.
Inconsiderateness is a direct road to ruin, even if one listens to spendthrifts of one’s family. But what happens when a man is so weak as to become surety for a stranger? Yet worse is it, when he listens to a strange woman. You may relieve him of his raiment at once.
Again, if one eat the bread of deceit, and instead of trembling at the sin, find it sweet, what will the end be? Surely to fill the mouth with gravel; God is not mocked.
Counsel is requisite to form and execute a purpose, and especially if one go to war. But if one needs wise guidance, what more dangerous than to listen to an active talebearer, unless it be to a flatterer?
To honour one’s parents was the first commandment with promise; what can be the issue but deepest darkness to him that curses either?
So too the hastily gotten inheritance is apt to slip soon, having no blessing from God.
But it is a dangerous thing to keep a grudge, and hope to repay it. God is jealous, but withal gracious. On Him let one wait and prove His saving mercy, as David did.
Cheating is His abomination, and a balance of deceit is not good, but for destruction.
It is very certain that dependence on God alone secures a clean or righteous walk. So it was of old; so it is now. Man needs direction from above, and grace too, that in this world of pitfalls and confusion his ways may please the Lord. This is most impressively pointed out in verses 24-30.
“The steps of a man [are] from Jehovah; and how can a man understand his own way?
“[It is] a snare to a man rashly to say, [It is] holy, and after vows to make inquiry.
“A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them.
“Man’s spirit [is] Jehovah’s lamp, searching all the chambers of the belly.
“Mercy and truth preserve the king, and his throne is upholden by mercy.
“The glory of young men [is] their strength; and the beauty of old men the hoary head.
“Wounding stripes purge away evil, and strokes [purge] the chambers of the belly.”
It is not a weak one’s goings but a strong man’s which are here said to be from Jehovah; how blessed, as well as necessary to know Him who knows the end from the beginning to whom the night shines as the day, and the darkness is as the light! Him faith can count on to direct the steps.
Jephthah was rash in the vow he made, but he stood to it and bore the consequence. Not so Ananias and Sapphira; but their deception did not shield them from death. We are bound to weigh seriously what we say before God, and not to retract for selfish reasons.
A wise ruler is not one who is too amiable to punish the wicked. The very aim and reason of his office is to be God’s minister in externals, and a terror not to a good work, but to an evil one. It is the more imperative, if men conspire, to scatter them and crush their power fearlessly.
Man’s spirit is Jehovah’s lamp, and so, far beyond that of a beast that goes downward. But it is going beyond Scripture to boast of the great soul of man, and against Scripture to say that it is the light which lighteth every man. For this is Christ alone; and the real meaning of Joh 1:9 is, that the True Light is that which, coming into the world, lightens, or sheds light on, every man. It had been another state before He came thus. The Incarnate Word so deals with every man, high or low, Jew or Gentile. Conscience is a solemn inward monitor for God against sin. Christ when He came did incomparably more – made every one and thing manifest in due character. Divines for ages are apt to talk like the Friends or the heathen; how little they have learned Christ!
Here again we learn that the king is preserved, not by inflexible firmness against the wicked, but by “mercy and truth.” Negative qualities fail to sustain. “His throne is upholden by mercy” – a godlike prerogative. He needs love as well as fear, not only for the people’s happiness, but for the stability of his rule.
It is folly and blindness to set young against old, instead of helping them to profit by an experience of great value which they lack. Let the old admire the energy of the young, and the young fail not to own the beauty of the grey head.
Stripes that wound, we all need from time to time, for nothing less probes and cleanses the hidden evil that is at work. The deeper the mischief, the more painful the corrective that must pierce to its core. Such a chastening is not pleasant, but causes grief. Afterward it yields peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised thereby.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Proverbs
A STRING OF PEARLS
Pro 20:1 – Pro 20:7
The connection between the verses of this passage is only in their common purpose to set forth some details of a righteous life, and to brand the opposite vices. A slight affinity may be doubtfully traced in one or two adjacent proverbs, but that is all.
First comes temperance, enforced by the picture of a drunkard. Wine and strong drink are, as it were, personified, and their effects on men are painted as their own characters. And an ugly picture it is, which should hang in the gallery of every young man and woman. ‘Wine is a mocker.’ Intemperance delights in scoffing at all pure, lofty, sacred things. It is the ally of wild profanity, which sends up its tipsy and clumsy ridicule against Heaven itself. If a man wants to lose his sense of reverence, his susceptibility for what is noble, let him take to drink, and the thing is done. If he would fain keep these fresh and quick, let him eschew what is sure to deaden them. Of course there are other roads to the same end, but there is no other end to this road. Nobody ever knew a drunkard who did not scoff at things that should be reverenced, and that because he knew that he was acting in defiance of them.
‘A brawler,’ or, as Delitzsch renders it, ‘boisterous’-look into a liquor-store if you want to verify that, or listen to a drunken party coming back from an excursion and making night hideous with their bellowings, or go to any police court on a Monday morning. We in England are familiar with the combination on police charge-sheets, ‘drunk and disorderly.’ So does the old proverb-maker seem to have been. Drink takes off the brake, and every impulse has its own way, and makes as much noise as it can.
The word rendered in Authorised Version ‘is deceived,’ and in Revised Version ‘erreth,’ is literally ‘staggers’ or ‘reels,’ and it is more graphic to keep that meaning. There is a world of quiet irony in the unexpectedly gentle close of the sentence, ‘is not wise.’ How much stronger the assertion might have been! Look at the drunkard as he staggers along, scoffing at everything purer and higher than himself, and ready to fight with his own shadow, and incapable of self-control. He has made himself the ugly spectacle you see. Will anybody call him wise?
The next proverb applies directly to a state of things which most nations have outgrown. Kings who can give full scope to their anger, and who inspire mainly terror, are anomalies in civilised countries now. The proverb warns that it is no trifle to rouse the lion from his lair, and that when he begins to growl there is danger. The man who stirs him ‘forfeits his own life,’ or, at all events, imperils it.
The word rendered ‘sins’ has for its original meaning ‘misses,’ and seems to be so used here, as also in Pro 8:36 . ‘Against’ is a supplement. The maxim inculcates the wisdom of avoiding conduct which might rouse an anger so sure to destroy its object. And that is a good maxim for ordinary times in all lands, monarchies or republics. For there is in constitutional kingdoms and in republics an uncrowned monarch, to the full as irresponsible, as easily provoked, and as relentless in hunting its opponents to destruction, as any old-world tyrant. Its name is Public Opinion. It is not well to provoke it. If a man does, let him well understand that he takes his life, or what is sometimes dearer than life, in his hand. Not only self-preservation, which the proverb and Scripture recognise as a legitimate motive, but higher considerations, dictate compliance with the ruling forces of our times, as far as may be. Conscience only has the right to limit this precept, and to say, ‘Let the brute roar, and never mind if you do forfeit your life. It is your duty to say “No,” though all the world should be saying “Yes.”‘
A slight thread of connection may be established between the second and third proverbs. The latter, like the former, commends peacefulness and condemns pugnacity. Men talk of ‘glory’ as the warrior’s meed, and the so-called Christian world has not got beyond the semi-barbarous stage which regards ‘honour’ as mainly secured by fighting. But this ancient proverb-maker had learned a better conception of what ‘honour’ or ‘glory’ was, and where it grew.
‘Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war,’
Pro 20:4 is a parable as well as a proverb. If a man sits by the fireside because the north wind is blowing, when he ought to be out in the field holding the plough with frost-nipped fingers, he will beg or, perhaps, seek for a crop in harvest, and will find nothing, when others are rejoicing in the slow result of winter showers and of their toilsome hours. So, in all life, if the fitting moments for preparation are neglected, late repentance avails nothing. The student who dawdles when he should be working, will be sure to fail when the examination comes on. It is useless to begin ploughing when your neighbours are driving their reaping machines into the fields. ‘There is a time to sow, and a time to reap.’ The law is inexorable for this life, and not less certainly so for the life to come. The virgins who cried in vain, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ and were answered, ‘Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now!’ are sisters of the man who was hindered from ploughing because it was cold, and asked in vain for bread when harvest time had come. ‘To-day, if ye will to hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’
The next proverb is a piece of shrewd common sense. It sets before us two men, one reticent, and the other skilful in worming out designs which he wishes to penetrate. The former is like a deep draw-well; the latter is like a man who lets down a bucket into it, and winds it up full. ‘Still waters are deep.’ The faculty of reading men may be abused to bad ends, but is worth cultivating, and may be allied to high aims, and serve to help in accomplishing these. It may aid good men in detecting evil, in knowing how to present God’s truth to hearts that need it, in pouring comfort into closely shut spirits. Not only astute business men or politicians need it, but all who would help their fellows to love God and serve Him-preachers, teachers, and the like. And there would be more happy homes if parents and children tried to understand one another. We seldom dislike a man when we come to know him thoroughly. We cannot help him till we do.
The proverb in Pro 20:6 is susceptible of different renderings in the first clause. Delitzsch and others would translate, ‘Almost every man meets a man who is gracious to him.’ The contrast will then be between partial ‘grace’ or kindness, and thoroughgoing reliableness or trustworthiness. The rendering of the Authorised and Revised Versions, on the other hand, makes the contrast between talk and reality, professions of goodwill and acts which come up to these. In either case, the saying is the bitter fruit of experience. Even charity, which ‘believeth all things,’ cannot but admit that soft words are more abundant than deeds which verify them. It is no breach of the law of love to open one’s eyes to facts, and so to save oneself from taking paper money for gold, except at a heavy discount. Perhaps the reticence, noted in the previous proverb, led to the thought of a loose-tongued profession of kindliness as a contrast. Neither the one nor the other is admirable. The practical conclusion from the facts in this proverb is double-do not take much heed of men’s eulogiums on their own benevolence; do not trumpet your own praises. Caution and modesty are parts of Christian perfection.
The last saying points to the hereditary goodness which sometimes, for our comfort, we do see, as well as to the halo from a saintly parent which often surrounds his children. Note that there may be more than mere succession in time conveyed by the expression ‘after him.’ It may mean following in his footsteps. Such children are blessed, both in men’s benedictions and in their own peaceful hearts. Weighty responsibilities lie upon the children of parents who have transmitted to them a revered name. A Christian’s children are doubly bound to continue the parental tradition, and are doubly criminal if they depart from it. There is no sadder sight than that of a godly father wailing over an ungodly son, unless it be that of the ungodly son who makes him wail. Absalom hanging by his curls in the oak-tree, and David groaning, ‘My son, my son!’ touch all hearts. Alas that the tragedy should be so often repeated in our homes to-day!
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Wine. Hebrew. yayin. See App-27.
is. Figure of speech Metaphor. App-6.
mocker = scoffer.
strong drink. Hebrew. shekar. App-27. IV
raging = a brawler.
is deceived = erreth. Hebrew. shagah = to go astray. See note on Pro 11:18. Not the same word as in Pro 20:17.
is not wise. Illustrations: Noah (Gen 7:1. Compare Pro 9:20, Pro 9:21); Nabal (1Sa 25:36); Elah (1Ki 16:8-10); Ben-hadad (1Ki 20:16-21); Ephraim (Isa 28:7); Belshazzar, &c. (Dan 5. Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57); Nineveh (Nah 1:10); and probably Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:8, Lev 10:9),
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 20
Into chapter 20.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise ( Pro 20:1 ).
He will have more to say about wine as we move along in our study next week, chapter 23. “Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has babblings? Who has wounds without cause? Who has red eyes? They that tarry long at wine; and those that go to seek mixed wine,” and so foRuth ( Pro 23:29-30 ). It talks about them in chapter 23. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging. Whoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”
In the New Testament we are told that in choosing those as overseers in the church, they are not to be given to wine. In the Old Testament, there were two sons of Aaron who, when they had built the altar and were ready to offer sacrifices, the fire of God came down and kindled the altar and Aaron’s two sons grabbed their little incense burners and put coals in them and started in to offer incense before the Lord, and the fire of God came from the altar and consumed the two sons of Aaron. And when this happened, the Lord said unto Moses, “Speak unto Aaron and his sons and tell them that they are not to be drinking wine when they come in to offer sacrifices before Me.” For God does not want service from any kind of a false stimulation.
So there are people today that feel a freedom and a liberty to drink wine, and again, it’s a thing where you say, “Well, Jesus turned the water,” and all this kind of stuff, and you can rationalize and all. But yet, “Wine is a mocker.” Better that you didn’t. The thing is, again, not is it right, is it wrong? Is it pleasing? Is this what God wants? “Strong drink is raging. Whoever is deceived by them is not wise.”
Paul said, “All things are lawful for me.” So you can prove that it’s lawful. But he said, “I will not be brought under the power of any” ( 1Co 6:12 ). Does it affect my judgment at all? Does it affect my attitudes? Then I’m being brought under its power.
The fear of the king is as a roaring of a lion: whoso provokes him to anger sins against his own soul ( Pro 20:2 ).
You provoke a king, provoke a lion, you’re in trouble.
It is an honor for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will just keep on meddling ( Pro 20:3 ).
You know there are some times you just don’t want to get into trouble. You don’t want to get in a brawl, but the guy just keeps needling. Just keeps going and going and going. The fool will just keep on meddling.
We used to have a great big old English setter, Duke. And he’s the kind of dog every boy should have to grow up with. Of course, we didn’t have leash laws in those days, and everywhere I went Duke was with me. Ride my bike; he would be alongside. Go to school; create worst havoc in school. Through the hallways looking for me and all. And he was big. He could jump up and his feet would be on my shoulders, he could lick my face. And he was just a boy’s dog. Great dog. Those English setters are very independent dogs, and they’re sort of a one-owner type of a dog. In other words, you call them, you try and pet them and they’re very independent. Have nothing to do with you. But their master, you know, they’re just devoted. And Duke was just devoted to me. I was his master and just, you know, I could whistle anything else, and man, he would come charging. He was just my dog.
We went up to Bass Lake one summer and took Duke with us. And he created quite a bit of havoc there at Bass Lake. One evening we were sitting down to eat dinner, and of course, campfire and so forth. Cooked the food and fixing dinner. And he looked sort of longingly at our food. And then he went over and began to dig in the dirt and pulled up a whole string of sausages that he had ripped off from some camp somewhere. And there was this little Terrier dog that was in a camp next to us, and here Duke, big old thing, and this little Terrier was always yipping. And whenever Duke would go running along the lake, this little dog would be nipping at him and yipping, and he just ignored him. You know, just like a little mouse, and you know, “Go away you little runt, you know, you’re… and just leave me alone.” But this little dog kept persisting, and one day Duke was running along the lake and this little dog was along, yipping and nipping, and evidently clipped him and made him mad. And he turned around and picked up this little dog in his mouth and just flung him on out into the lake. But it reminded me of this proverb. “It is an honor for a man to cease from strife, but the fool will just keep on meddling.” Until he’s into trouble, you know.
Now we deal with the sluggard or the slothful, the lazy man again.
The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold ( Pro 20:4 );
Oh, it’s too cold to go out and plow today.
therefore he’ll be begging in the time of harvest, and have nothing. Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water ( Pro 20:4-5 );
This is beautiful.
but a man of understanding will draw it out ( Pro 20:5 ).
Now a really good counselor will be able to draw you out. Deep within you know the answer; you know what’s right. You know what you should be doing. And a counselor really isn’t there to tell you what to do. He’s there to help you understand yourself. Now it’s like a well of deep waters. Down inside you know basically what you should be doing. And a man of understanding, a good counselor, can draw it out of you. And that’s what wise counseling really is. It’s drawing out the answers within the person. I’m not a good counselor so don’t come to me. But I would just know what they should be doing.
Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness ( Pro 20:6 ):
Ain’t that the truth?
but a faithful man who can find? The just man walks in his integrity: his children are blessed after him. A king that sits in the throne of judgment scatters away all of the evil with his eyes ( Pro 20:6-8 ).
He looks around.
Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? ( Pro 20:9 )
Can any of you say that? I’ve made my… I’m pure. Who can say it?
Now here’s the thing again on the balances, the weights.
Divers weights, and divers measures ( Pro 20:10 ),
This is, you know, as I said, one to buy them, one to sell.
both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD ( Pro 20:10 ).
If you have different sizes of cups, different weights, they’re an abomination to God.
Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right ( Pro 20:11 ).
You begin to see that even in the child.
The hearing ear, the seeing eye, the LORD hath made both of them. Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread ( Pro 20:12-13 ).
Get up. Now this one is so typical.
It is nothing, it is nothing, says the buyer: but when he is gone his way, he boasts ( Pro 20:14 ).
“Man, what a deal I got,” you know. Yet when you’re looking at it, “Oh, it’s an old dog. It’s not worth anything. It’s nothing.”
There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: but the lips of knowledge are like a precious jewel. Take his garment that is a surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman. The bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth will be filled with gravel ( Pro 20:15-17 ).
Deceitfulness. You may think it’s smart, but man, you’re going to grind.
Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war. He that goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets: and therefore meddle not with him that is flattering with his lips. Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in obscure darkness. An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed. Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee ( Pro 20:18-22 ).
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” ( Rom 12:19 ). And so don’t you go around saying, “I’m going to get even. I’ll recompense him or get even for his evil.” Just give it to the Lord.
Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good. Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way? ( Pro 20:23-24 )
Isn’t that interesting? Man’s goings are of the Lord. God guides my path. How then can I understand my own way?
It is a snare to a man who devours that which is holy, and after vows to make an inquiry ( Pro 20:25 ).
In other words, if you make a vow to God then don’t modify it, just keep it.
A wise king scatters the wicked, and brings the wheel over them. The spirit of a man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of his life ( Pro 20:26-27 ).
Spirit of man. God’s candle searching within.
Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upheld by mercy. And the glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is their gray head ( Pro 20:28-29 ).
I don’t know where that leaves me.
The blueness of a wound cleanses away evil: so do stripes in the inward parts of the life ( Pro 20:30 ).
Proverbs, interesting little bits of instruction and wisdom. A wise man will take heed to them and will gain in knowledge.
Father, we thank You for the instructions in the way of righteousness and truth. That which is good. That which is wholesome. That which is honest. Help us, Lord, to take to heart these words of instruction. Help us, Lord, to walk in righteousness before Thee. Help us to seek peace and to pursue it. Oh God, keep us from the wicked way. From the false lips. From the talebearing. May we in love relate to each other. Committing, Lord, ourselves, the issues of our lives unto Thee. Knowing, Lord, that You are the judge who will make the final disposition of all things. And thus, may we rest in Thy justice and in Thy truth. In Jesus’ name. Amen. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Pro 20:1
Pro 20:1
“Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler; And whosoever erreth thereby is not wise.”
Alcoholic beverages are today ruining America. It is not only unwise to err in the use of them, but it is sinful also. Yes, Jesus used wine. It had a 4 percent alcoholic content, and even then was, in all probability diluted. See pp. 102,103 in my commentary on Proverbs. The high-powered wine marketed today has up to 18 percent alcoholic content. Nothing is any more misleading than the allegation (true enough) that Jesus made eighty gallons of wine at the wedding in Cana; because that stuff which Gallo makes today is nearly five times as powerful.
Oh, but how about beer? The Anchor Bible renders this verse as: “Wine makes men insolent; beer makes them boisterous; no one who staggers drunkenly is wise. The myth that the government cannot limit the use of this poison as a beverage is, of course, false. The Arabian countries can and do prohibit it.
The silliest thing that this writer has witnessed in his eighty-eight years of life is the hysterical efforts of the government to prohibit smoking, while at the same time actually encouraging the consumption of alcohol, which is a hundred times more dangerous. Yes, if a man smokes a pack of cigarettes every day for twenty years, he may get lung cancer; but, not long ago, in Houston, Texas, a teen-aged driver had a few beers at a party, loaded his car up with friends, hit a bridge column and killed five of them, not in twenty-years, but in one afternoon! Fifty thousand funerals a year, besides billions of dollars in damage, is too high a price to pay for the palaces of the liquor barons. God help America to wake up!
Let it be noted here that nothing is said about “excess drinking.” It is drinking which is condemned. The very nature of alcohol is such that any consumption of it almost invariably leads to excess. Paul’s instructions to Timothy to, “Drink no longer water, but a little wine for thy stomach’s sake” (1Ti 5:23) did not mean that Timothy would never drink any more water, but that he would stop being a teetotaler. And regardless of what some social-drinking Christians think about it, the true and holy standard of Christian living is simply: “Don’t touch alcoholic beverages, except as a medicinal requirement.” The apostle to the Gentiles made this perfectly clear.
Pro 20:1. Wine as used in the Bible is not always intoxicating, but in this instance it is (note its connection with strong drink and also with what the verse says about it). It is a mocker, mocking and making a fool out of its drinker with ridiculous and senseless conduct. Strong drink is a brawler, leading to many quarrels and fights. One who drinks the stuff erreth, is making a great mistake, sins, and he is not wise. One can hardly err worse or be more unwise than to take up with strong drink. Oh, the sorrows, griefs, hardships, miseries, and you-name-it that strong drink has brought to the drinker, to his family, and to those who have been injured and killed just so that he could drink! For other passages see Gen 9:21-22; Pro 23:29-30; Isa 28:7; Hos 4:4. Strong drink is surely not for kings (Pro 31:4-5), yet they have often been big drinkers. God was highly displeased at the drinking Belshazzar and his antics at the big party of Daniel 5. Every nation that has turned to wine has only weakened itself. A German saying: More are drowned in the wine cup than in the ocean. Note the New Testament teaching in Eph 5:18; Rom 14:21.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Verse Pro 20:9. This is the eternal challenge which has but one answer. When a man recognizes this he begins to inquire for a Saviour.
Verse Pro 20:14. “It is bad, it is bad,” is the description which the buyer gives of the article of which he wishes to possess himself. The words used today are not identical, but the same buyer is in the markets.
Verse Pro 20:21. Another of the ancient proverbs to which men need to attend today. It would be well to have this plainly engraved before the eyes of all young men as they enter commercial pursuits.
Verse Pro 20:25. A sane warning against adding sins to those which are certainly such in the economy of righteousness. There is a widespread tendency today to take vows of abstention, or to make promises without careful inquiry.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Sobriety; Industry; Honesty
Pro 20:1-15
Strong drink is the greatest of all foes to human happiness. It gains an influence over men by fair promises, but when once it is entrenched, it mocks at the misery of its abject slave. It promises strength for the arm, joy for the heart, brilliance for the mind; but those fair promises are not kept, and the end is impotence, misery, and imbecility. Let each reader of these words henceforth utterly abjure it!
The sluggard is depicted throughout this book to stir us to diligent industry. After all, it is not by great gifts but by patient persistence that men succeed. Indeed, the highest genius is left behind by the careful plodder, if the one lacks and the other possesses this invaluable quality. Diligent in business, serving the Lord.
All our life lies open to the eye of God. He is closely acquainted with the transactions of the bank, the office, the ledger, and the weights in the store. No lapse from perfect honesty escapes his notice; and for every act of deception there is an inevitable Nemesis.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Proverbs 20
Who can tell the agonies, the broken hearts, the blasted lives, the lost souls, that have been the result of failure to heed the warning of the opening verse of Proverbs 20? No other vice has so cursed the world and caused such awful misery and suffering as intemperance. Those who laugh at jokes about drunkenness should go out after nightfall through the dark streets of our large cities to see the disastrous results of this vice. The wretched victims of alcohol have been numbered in hundreds of millions; yet Satan has no difficulty in persuading thousands of reckless youths to start on the same fearful road that has lured many to their ruin.
20:1
Wine has its place. Scripture recognizes its medicinal virtue and a lawful use of it when needed (1Ti 5:23). But how easily it becomes a snare that destroys the will and wrecks the life.
Wine is a mocker, tempting the youth to his undoing and deceiving him who rashly supposes he can indulge as he pleases, and then set it aside when he desires. Even godly men have been deluded in this way to their shame and grief. See Noah and Lot (Gen 9:20-21; 19:30-36). Consult notes on Pro 23:29-35.
20:2
See note on 19:12. The powers that be are ordained of God (Rom 13:1). Therefore we must recognize their authority and submit to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake. To resist the power is to resist Him who appointed it and thereby to sin against ones own soul. Challenging the kings authority will provoke him to anger and his wrath will be poured out on the rebellious.
We may apply this proverb to the King of kings. Who can measure the power of Christs wrath when all His grace has been despised and He sits on His royal throne to execute judgment?
Hanun experienced the wrath of king David when he refused his kindness (2 Samuel 10).
20:3
See note on Pro 17:14. How strange the pride that makes a man dread to admit he has been wrong or unwilling to back down graciously for the sake of peace, even though he may feel he is in the right-providing no divine principle is at stake. Let your [yieldingness] be known unto all men (Php 4:5) is an important verse. A man of God will be ready to give up his so-called rights rather than to prolong a disagreement. But a fool will persist in contention and meddle with matters in which he should have no part. Even so devoted a man as Josiah failed for lack of having learned this lesson (2Ch 35:20-24).
20:4
Ready with any excuse to abandon his labor, the sluggard neglects the cultivation of his fields when others are at work. Therefore when harvest-time arrives, his fields are bare, and he is found begging from (as he would put it) his more fortunate neighbors. The fact is, fortune has nothing to do with it. Their diligence has brought its own reward, and his slothfulness its natural consequences. Compare this verse with Pro 19:15, 24.
20:5
See note on 18:4. We have already been reminded more than once that it is only the fool who blatantly pours out a stream of words on every occasion (see 17:27-28 and 18:7). With the prudent man it is quite otherwise. His words are few, and only spoken when there is occasion for them. This is not because of his lack of sound knowledge and the ability to instruct; but he prefers to bide his time. Deep in his heart, as in a well, he hides counsel and wisdom. His quiet composure may cause foolish people to think he is inferior to themselves; but a man of understanding will be able to draw out what will be profitable at the appropriate time. See Joseph and Pharaoh (Genesis 41).
20:6-12
There is a moral connection between each proverb in this section, all dealing to some degree with the question and the test of purity. Most men are ready to justify their own uprightness and kindness, as was Job before he saw the Lord (Job 29-31). But faithful men who will vindicate God thereby proving all others to be liars are few indeed. In Elihu we see such a one as he speaks on Gods behalf (Job 32-37).
The man who is really just (made such by grace) demonstrates it by his lifestyle, not simply by the declarations of his lips. The children of such a man are blessed by his godly life. Abraham is a shining example of this (Gen 17:1-9).
If any are righteous, it should surely be the king who sits on the throne of judgment and scatters away evil with his eyes. But even among such (or among men at large) who is there who will dare to say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
Many testify to their lack of integrity by using unequal measures. All such are evil in the eyes of the Lord (see 16:11, and note verse 23 below).
Even a childs actions speak of his character, as in the instance of little Samuel in the tabernacle (1Sa 3:18-21). What should be said of the actions of those older in years, with added responsibilities?
Clearly, then, no man is pure in himself. But Jehovah gives the seeing eye and the hearing ear to those who wait on Him, that they may behold and do His will and hear His voice. When all pretense to purity in oneself is given up, it is found in Christ by those who receive Him.
20:13
See verse 4 of this chapter, and note Pro 6:9-11; 24:33-34. The warnings against slothfulness and self-indulgence are abundant. Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags (23:21). The active and diligent are rewarded for their toil. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light (Eph 5:14). Such are the stirring words addressed by the Holy Ghost to sleeping Christians in a world where all should be aroused to the value of time so rapidly passing away. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Eph 5:15-16).
David fell into his grievous sin by taking his ease (2Sa 11:1).
20:14
How common is the deceit mentioned in this verse! It is the characteristic falsehood of the bargainer. He depreciates the article his heart desires in order to procure favorable terms. When at last his price is agreed on, he goes his way, rejoicing in his shrewdness and boasting of his ability to get a bargain. But a holier eye than that of man was looking on, noting every action, word, and thought; and the day of accounting draws rapidly nearer. See Ephraim (Hos 12:7-8).
20:15
Gold and gems are of no value compared with the lips that speak wisdom. No price can be set on the precious truth of God, the wisdom that comes from above. See Pro 2:1-5, and consider Psa 119:72.
20:16
See notes on Pro 6:1-5; 11:15. Ruin and disaster dog the steps of him who unwisely promises security for another or who has any dealings with a strange woman. The only path of safety is to keep clear of both. When one weakens in his principles he generally invites defeat. Only the man who can say no and stand by it when tempted to compromise is secure. He who will not heed must learn for himself in bitterness of soul. See the example of Judah (Genesis 38).
20:17
It is only for the passing moment that deceit seems to prosper and to promise well. The full result is far otherwise. In place of a sweet and delectable morsel, deceit fills the mouth with hard and disappointing gravel. Compare 9:17-18, and see Mat 26:14-16 and 27:3-5.
20:18
Rash and unthinking actions are to be deplored. Before beginning a project that may not easily be ended, one should count the cost and counsel with those who are known to be wise and prudent. Our Lord expanded and amplified this proverb when He said, What king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace (Luk 14:31-32). Read of the actions of Rehoboam and Shemaiah (2Ch 11:1-4).
20:19
See notes on Pro 11:13,18:8, and 25:23. He who flatters someone to his face will as readily slander him behind his back. By soft, devious words and ways he will gain the confidence of his victim. Appealing to his pride and desire for approval, he loosens his tongue until the unsuspecting person relates things far better left unsaid. When he has thus lured him on to unlocking his heart, he will go to others and pour into their ears what he has just learned. He flatters them in the same way, leading them to believe that they alone are the recipients of his favor. No character is more detestable. Utterly lacking in moral principle and destitute of godliness, such a person can do untold mischief among a Christian assembly. The safe plan is to refuse altogether to listen to him that flattereth with his lips. By so doing, much sorrow may be averted. The one who praises his listener while he backbites another, deserves to be treated in the spirit that David displayed toward the Amalekite who brought him news of Sauls death (2Sa 1:1-16).
20:20
See note on Pro 19:26. No parents are perfect in all their ways, but, like civil authorities, they are to be honored because of their position. They stand as Gods ordained authority over their children. To honor the father and mother is to honor Him who has created us and established the home, setting the individual in families. Therefore he who reviles his parents will find his light put out and he will be left in darkness. Even though a father or mother fail grievously, a son whose spirit pleases God will seek to cover and hide their shame. Only an ungrateful and foolish child will spread it abroad. This was the error of Ham (Gen 9:22).
20:21
See Pro 21:6 and 28:20. Treasure rapidly accumulated at the expense of conscience and honor will yield little comfort. Pro 10:22 defines the source of true wealth: The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool (Jer 17:11). They who set out with the determination to gather wealth at all cost will learn the bitter lesson that they have missed the true and lasting treasure which would have given heart-satisfaction and joy in its possession. See Gods word to the rich who have gained their fortunes by oppression of the poor (Jam 5:1-6).
20:22
No lesson is harder for some of us to learn than that of confiding all our affairs to the hands of the Lord, especially when we feel we have been wronged and mistreated. Yet it is plain from Scripture that the saint can make no greater mistake than to take charge of his own affairs in such a case. Nothing could be clearer than the injunction, Recompense to no man evil for evil Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord (Rom 12:17-19). To determine to take revenge in the face of Gods command is to act in direct disobedience to God; we need not be surprised when all our efforts fail. The person who admits that the Lord has allowed all circumstances for his good, then bows his head and bends before the blast, will find God ever ready to intervene at the needed moment. To look beyond the human instrument of our grief, however vindictive he may be, and to see all the purposes of our Father working out, gives rest and comfort to the sorely-tried soul. This sustained David when Shimei cursed and stoned him. The whole passage is so tender and striking, I feel it must be presented here in full:
And when king David came to Bahurim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera: he came forth, and cursed still as he came. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of king David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial: The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. Then said Abishai the son of Zeruiah unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head. And the king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? so let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so? And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more now may this Benjamite do it? let him alone, and let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction, and that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day (2Sa 16:5-12).
It is doubtful if, in all Davids spiritual history, he ever reached a higher height of holy confidence in God than at this time of deep, deep trial. Shimeis spiteful cursing in so public a manner and at so sorrowful a time must have deeply lacerated his already wounded spirit. But he bowed his head in submission instead of executing vengeance on Shimei. He did not seek self-vindication from the charges made, but held on in submissive confidence saying, Let him curse, and taking all from the Lord Himself.
Shimei was but an instrument, inspired by Satan, yet really permitted of the Lord, for Davids chastening and discipline. David views him as such and looks not at second causes, but at the great first cause Himself. This is most blessed! Would that every tested saint could follow his example!
The day came that Shimei was a cringing suppliant at the feet of the man he had cursed; publicly admitting that he had acted perversely he confessed thy servant doth know that I have sinned (2Sa 19:16-23). Davids royal clemency was extended in forgiveness-a far greater victory than vengeance would have been. During the reign of Solomon, in Gods righteous government, Shimei was put to death for the treachery that ever characterized him. He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons (Col 3:25). I am not to interfere with judgment. Be it mine to bow in submission to all Gods ways, acknowledging His hand in everything that would otherwise disturb me.
20:23
See verse 10 of this chapter. This verse comments on the dangers of judging people by various standards, according as they relate to oneself or not. A Christian should be characterized by one true, honest standard of righteousness. Frequently in estimating the conduct of certain people we use a variety of principles. We excuse in one, particularly in ourselves, what we judge severely in another. But in the scales of the sanctuary both are tested by the same weights. God would have our balances patterned after His. Unequal weights are an abomination in His sight. See the half shekel (Exo 30:15).
20:24
The prophet Jeremiah stated the same solemn truth as this proverb. O Lord, he said, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. So he added, O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing (Jer 10:23-24). Concerning every one of us it can be said, Ye have not passed this way heretofore (Jos 3:4). This is true of every step of our journey through this world. Each day we enter on new scenes and new experiences; therefore it is folly to depend on our poor, finite wisdom in order to understand our way. Only God knows the end from the beginning. With Him, all is one eternal Now. Who else but He can direct our steps? Happy the soul who can commit all his ways unto Him and sing with confidence and holy restfulness, My times are in thy hand (Psa 31:15). To such He has said, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye (Psa 32:8). But this daily guidance is only for the submissive, obedient believer. Others must experience the bit-and-bridle direction of circumstances and tribulations. See Israel at the Jordan (Jos 3:4).
20:25
Two closely connected things seem to be referred to here, with a keen, underlying touch of irony that is meant to prick our conscience. It is foolish and dangerous to rashly call anything holy or to make a vow before fully investigating the situation; these could both result in much sorrow and trouble. Elsewhere Solomon speaks of making this mistake.
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands? (Ecc 5:4-6)
The practice of making vows seems to be clearly contrary to the spirit of the Christian dispensation, in which grace is reigning. Under the old dispensation of the law, when God requested something of man, it was quite in keeping to make such particular pledges. Pauls vow was evidently that of a Nazarite, taken prior to his conversion (Act 18:18). It would therefore be vital to make sure that such a promise was according to the mind of God before making it. See Jephthahs rash vow and its terrible consequences (Jdg 11:30-40).
20:26
No government is established in peace when lawlessness and violence are rampant among the people. It is necessary for the preservation of society, the peace of the righteous, and the stability of government, that those who oppose law and order be destroyed. So, before the millennial kingdom is set up, the wicked will be rooted out of the earth. See Isaiah 63 and Revelation 19.
20:27
The spirit of man is not mere breath or some impersonal idea. God formeth the spirit of man within him (Zec 12:1). The spirit enables man to think and plan, to weigh evidences, and to discern between things that are material, moral, and spiritual. What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? (1Co 2:11) In this verse it is evident that the spirit is the seat of intelligence. How would it sound to substitute the word breath for spirit in either of these scriptures? This would make them declare God formed mans breath as an entity within him, and that by his breath he understands the things that concern him. In spite of all that deluded equivocators may allege to the contrary, the Bible clearly teaches the true individuality of the spirit.
In several versions of Scripture the word lamp is used in this proverb; the spirit is called the lamp of the Lord. Notice, it is not the light of Jehovah. The lamp is the vessel that holds the light, which itself is divine, proceeding from God. But mans spirit can be a light-receiver and light-retainer, illuminating every part of his moral being. This gives him preeminence over all the lower creation. What an immeasurable gulf there is between the lowest type of man, with all his capabilities of divine enlightenment, and the highest type of animal, who is forever insensible to spiritual instruction.
The Scriptures declare that there is none that seeketh after God (Rom 3:11). The savage gropes after Him because of his fear and desires to appease Gods supposed anger and hatred. He has no desire to love and serve Him because of who He is and what He has done. Even so, the most degraded savage gropes after God for his spirit is the lamp of Jehovah, dimly though the light may shine. But train an animal to the highest point of brute-intelligence, and he shows no recognition of responsibility to a creator, no sense of spiritual conceptions. This fact alone is enough to forever destroy the agnostic theory of evolution as taught by Darwin and Huxley; even though it is eagerly received by so many who are ever ready to run after what seems to be new and novel, particularly if it appears to eliminate God from His own universe.
Through the spirit, God communicates to man and pours His light into every chamber of his being. This is what produces a sense of need, a yearning after Himself. For in his natural state there is none that seeketh after God. When His testimony is received and the soul bows before Him in repentance, His Holy Spirit, through the Scriptures of truth, witnesses with our spirits that we are His children. See Elijah and the still small voice (1Ki 19:11-13).
20:28
In Pro 20:26 we saw that it was the kings wisdom to execute judgment on his foes. Here we are reminded of the other side of his character. His throne rests on righteousness, but it is upheld by lovingkindness. The two are essential-lovingkindness and truth. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (Joh 1:17). When He reigns, both will be displayed in perfection (Isaiah 32).
20:29
See note on Pro 16:31. In the economy of nature, as of grace, there is a time and season for all things. Youth delights in deeds of prowess and glories in physical strength. Age is the time for meditation and self-control; the gray head is a reminder of this, beautiful indeed in its place. In his first Epistle, the apostle John declared the same thoughts in a spiritual sense. The young men are those who are strong in the faith, in whom the Word of God abides, and who have overcome the wicked one (1Jn 2:14). To the fathers, he simply writes, Ye have known him that is from the beginning. It is that experiential knowledge of Christ which is enlarged and deepened by the passing of the years (1Jn 2:13-14).
20:30
A skillful surgeon is not always concerned to immediately heal a wound because added suffering may be required to purge the system of poisonous matter. There is often a probing and consequent inflammation that is very painful but good in its final result. So it is with Gods dealings when sin has been tolerated by His children. Stripes and sorrows may be laid on them, but only that the inner parts of the being may be purged of all hidden evil by self-judgment and full confession in His presence. The psalmist is not the only one who could say, Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word (Psa 119:67). It would be unwise for a patient to object to the pain caused by the surgeon while he endeavored to free the wound from impurities that might hinder healing and, if unremoved, poison the whole system. So is the saint foolish indeed who complains under a Fathers chastening hand and seeks to free himself from the stripes rather than to hear the rod, and [Him] who hath appointed it (Mic 6:9)
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Pro 20:9
This is a Gospel question before the time of the Gospel. All the great conditions of the human mind you find as distinctly in the Old Testament as in the New; all the questions that sharpen themselves into fierce agonies are in the nature of man, and part of his constitution. The inquiry comes to each of us; if any man can answer the question in the affirmative let him do so.
I. The pure man ought to be lifted above fear; the clean soul ought to have a peculiar, a shadowless joy. Have you that gladness? Then why those nightmares of the soul, why those sudden fears, why those peculiar distresses, why those doubts and scepticisms and questionings, why a thousand indications of unrest and tumult? This ought to suggest that you have not completed the task which you suppose yourself to have accomplished in the heart.
II. There is a tremendous responsibility in returning an affirmative answer to the inquiry of the text. If a man were to say, “Yes, I have made my heart clean and am pure from my sin,” he would (1) contradict the whole testimony of Scripture; (2) supersede the work of Christ; (3) withdraw himself from all the cleansing, purifying agencies which constitute the redeeming ministry of the universe. There is no heaven along the line of self-hope; there is no pardon in the direction of self-trust.
Parker, Fountain, August 1st, 1878.
References: Pro 20:9.-H. Hayman, Rugby Sermons, p. 50. Pro 20:10-14.-R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. ii., p. 338.
Pro 20:11
I. The actions of children become, in process of time, their own doings. Children move before they act, and they live as mere animals before they act spiritually and morally. But in process of time the child acts. All its movements become conduct, the result of a determination to behave itself in a particular way. This is what is meant by “his doings.”
II. When the actions of children become their doings, the children are recognised as accountable. (1) God recognises the child as the author of its own actions; He sees the doings of the child spring from a motive and principle within. (2) The god of evil knows, by the doings of children, with whom and with what he has to do. (3) The angelic inhabitants of heaven recognise children in their ministrations. (4) Children are recognised as accountable by their fellow human beings.
III. From these facts we draw the following inferences:-(1) If a child be known by his doings, the evils of sin are not escaped by the childhood of the sinner. (2) If a child be known by his doings, he is, as a child, exerting influence for good or for evil. (3) If a child be known by his doings, all the differences of human character are not traceable to education. (4) If a child be known by his doings, the character of the future man is often indicated by the character of the present child. (5) If a child be known by his doings, God does not treat a generation of children en masse, but individually. (6) If a child be known by his doings, one test of character is universally applied by the Judge of all.
S. Martin, Rain Upon the Mown Grass, p. 460.
Reference: Pro 20:11.- New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 115.
Pro 20:12
I. How the eye tells the brain of the picture which is drawn upon the back of the eye; how the brain calls up that picture when it likes-these are two mysteries beyond all man’s wisdom to explain. These are two proofs of the wisdom and the power of God which ought to sink deeper into our hearts than all signs and wonders; greater proofs of God’s power and wisdom than if yon fir-trees burst into flame of themselves, or yon ground opened and a fountain of water sprang out. The commonest things are as wonderful, more wonderful, than the uncommon; and yet people will hanker after the uncommon, as if they belonged to God more immediately than the commonest matters. That is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and rare; but this is faith, to see God in what is most common and simple; to know God’s greatness, not so much from disorder as from order; not so much from those strange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as from those common ones in which He fulfils His laws.
II. When a man sees that, there will arise within his soul a clear light, and an awful joy, and an abiding peace, and a sure hope, and a faith as of a little child. Then will that man crave no more for signs and wonders; but all his cry will be to the Lord of order, to make him orderly; to the Lord of law, to make him loyal; to the Lord in whom is nothing arbitrary, to take out of him all that is unreasonable and self-willed; and make him content, like his Master Christ before him, to do the will of his Father in heaven, who has sent him into this noble world.
C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 224.
References: Pro 20:12.-W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 175. Pro 20:14.-W. Baird, The Hallowing of our Common Life, p. 13; T. Binney, King’s Weighhouse Chapel Sermons, 1st series, p. 384; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 187. Pro 20:15-21.-R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. ii., p. 350.
Pro 20:17
There are instances in which a very little practice in evil will make real wickedness seem to one harmless, to another necessary, to another almost satisfactory. This is what the wise prince meant by saying the bread of deceit was sweet. “Yes, it is,” says Solomon-and afterwards? How may we be certain of the afterwards of deceit? How may we be certain that it will infinitely outweigh the present sweetness?
I. All things that are done by God’s creatures are subject to God’s judgment. If God approves of a thing, the things that follow from it are sure to be good and happy things. If He condemns it they are sure to be good in one sense, but they are absolutely sure to be destructive of that which is causing evil, and they would not be good unless they were so destructive and baneful and withering to what is evil.
II. The deceiver is especially a person who, by his own act and deed, resolutely and on purpose appeals from this life to the next. He says, “I will not be judged here. I will not now bear the consequences of what I have done.” Who can aid him? How can his best lover and friend protect him? Is it wonderful that Solomon and St. John alike, in speaking of the deceiver, say that his time comes afterwards?
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 132.
Reference: Pro 20:22-30.-R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. ii., p. 362.
Pro 20:27
God is the fire of this world, its vital principle, a warm pervading presence everywhere. Of this fire the spirit of man is the candle. What does that mean? If, because man is of a nature which corresponds to the nature of God, and just so far as man is obedient to God, the life of God which is spread throughout the universe gathers itself into utterance; and men, aye and all other beings, if such beings there are, capable of watching our humanity, see what God is in gazing at the man whom He has kindled-then, is not the figure plain? It is a wondrous thought, but it is clear enough. Here is the universe, full of the diffused fire of divinity. Men feel it in the air, as they feel an intense heat which has not broken into a blaze. Now in the midst of this solemn burdened world there stands up a man, pure, Godlike, and perfectly obedient to God. In an instant it is as if the heated room had found some sensitive inflammable point where it could kindle to a blaze. The fitfulness of the impression of divinity is steadied into permanence. The fire of the Lord has found the candle of the Lord, and burns clear and steady, guiding and cheering instead of bewildering and frightening us, just so soon as a man who is obedient to God has begun to catch and manifest His nature.
I. Man’s utterance of God is purely an utterance of quality. It can tell me nothing of the quantities which make up His perfect life. Whoever has in him the human quality, whoever really has the spirit of man, may be a candle of the Lord. A poor, meagre, starved, bruised life, if only it keeps the true human quality, and does not become inhuman; and if it is obedient to God in its blind, dull, half-conscious way; becomes a light. There is no life so meagre that the greatest and wisest of us can afford to despise it. We cannot know at all at what sudden moment it may flash forth with the life of God.
II. In this truth of ours we have certainly the key to another mystery which sometimes puzzles us. What shall we make of some man rich in attainments and in generous desires, well-educated, well-behaved, who has trained himself to be a light and help to other men, and who, now that his training is complete, stands in the midst of his fellow-men completely dark and helpless? Such men are unlighted candles; they are the spirit of man elaborated, cultivated, finished, to its very finest, but lacking the last touch of God.
III. There is a multitude of men whose lamps are certainly not dark, and yet who certainly are not the candles of the Lord. A nature richly furnished to the very brim, and yet profane, impure, worldly, and scattering scepticism of all good and truth about him wherever he may go. If it be possible for the human candle, instead of being lifted up to heaven and kindled at the pure being of Him who is eternally and absolutely good, to be plunged down into hell, and lighted at the yellow flames that burn out of the dreadful brimstone of the pit, then we can understand the sight of a man, who is rich in every brilliant human quality, cursing the world with the continual exhibition of the devilish instead of the godlike in his life.
IV. There is still another way in which the spirit of man may fail of its completest function as the candle of the Lord. The lamp may be lighted, and the fire at which it is lighted may be indeed the fire of God, and yet it may not be God alone who shines forth upon the world. Such men cannot get rid of themselves. They are mixed with the God they show. This is the secret of all pious bigotry, of all holy prejudice. It is the candle, putting its own colour into the flame which it has borrowed from the fire of God.
V. Jesus is the true spiritual man who is the candle of the Lord, the light that lighteth every man.
Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord, p. 1.
Pro 20:29
I. The glory of young men is their physical strength. In the great battle against the kingdom of darkness we want, not only a consecrated soul, but a strong arm, stout lungs, and vigorous muscle.
II. The glory of young men is their intellectual strength. A man with any nobleness of character will take a legitimate pride in the possession of a sound reason, a calm judgment, a vigorous brain. The Gospel does not enslave the reason, it sets it free. God requires of you that you think for yourselves. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”
III. The glory of young men is their moral strength. It is a grand thing for a man to have a delicate moral sensitiveness, and a strong moral determination. By the former he will scent vice afar off”; and by the latter he will keep out of the way of the tempter, and resist to the death when he is tempted. The very badge of true manliness is self-control.
IV. The glory of young men is their spiritual strength. I speak now of the strength of religious faith. Only a believer can say, with David, “He strengthened me with strength in my soul.” Far, far below his true dignity must man remain, until he knows the God that made him.
J. Thain Davidson, Talks with Young Men, p. 3.
References: Pro 21:1-8.- R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. ii., p. 379. Pro 21:2.- Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 178. Pro 21:9-13.- R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. ii., p. 390. Pro 21:10.- Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 268. Pro 22:1.- W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 195. Pro 22:1-6. – R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. iii., p. 25.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 20 Proverbs as to Personal Conduct
Proverbs of warning and instructions as to personal conduct are found mostly in this chapter; a number of them are of special interest if applied to Solomon. The first one is concerning wine and strong drink. As the use of wine among the people of Israel was legitimate the warning is against intemperance Deu 14:26). The Bible gives many illustrations of the truth of this proverb-warning. We may think of Noah, Lot, Nabal, Ben-hadad, Belshazzar and others.
From all the good things we select the following. In Pro 20:3 is instruction which makes for peace. It is the fool who meddles and thus produces strife, but it is an honor for man to cease from strife. In Pro 20:13 we find a warning against self-indulgence. In Pro 20:19 the talebearer and flatterer is mentioned. The sin of flattery should be avoided by all the godly for it nourisheth pride and works nothing but evil.
Many great and noble men have been ruined by admiration and popularity, who might have thriven, growing greater and nobler, in the fiercest and most relentless criticism. Donatello, the great Florentine sculptor, went at one time of his life to Padua, where he was received with the utmost enthusiasm, and loaded with approbation and honors. But soon he declared his intention of returning to Florence, on the ground that the sharp assaults and the cutting criticisms which always assailed him in his native city were much more favorable to his art than the atmosphere of admiration and eulogy. In this way he thought that he would be stimulated to greater efforts, and ultimately attain to a surer reputation.
Pro 20:22 gives another beautiful instruction. Say not, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and He shall save thee. To put everything in the hands of the Lord, to trust Him and wait for His own time, that is true wisdom. But it is a lesson hard to learn. The twelfth chapter of Romans gives the same instruction. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Also 1Th 5:15 : See that none render evil for evil; and 1Pe 3:9; Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing. How blessed it is to wait on the Lord, to bide His own time, and in waiting to know that He does all things well. Thrice in this chapter the king is mentioned: in Pro 20:2, Pro 20:26 and Pro 20:28. These verses may be applied to Him, who is greater than Solomon, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. When He comes again He will deal with the lawless and with His enemies, but His throne is not only a judgment throne, but it is also upheld by mercy.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Pro 23:29-35, Pro 31:4, Gen 9:21-23, Gen 19:31-36, 1Sa 25:36-38, 2Sa 11:13, 2Sa 13:28, 1Ki 20:16-21, Isa 28:7, Hos 4:11, Hos 7:5, Hab 2:15, Hab 2:16, 1Co 6:10, Gal 5:21, Eph 5:18
Reciprocal: Gen 19:33 – drink Deu 21:20 – he is a glutton Est 1:10 – the heart Psa 94:9 – He that planted Pro 23:20 – not Pro 23:30 – tarry Ecc 2:3 – yet Ecc 10:16 – and Isa 5:11 – inflame Hab 2:5 – he transgresseth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Pro 20:1. Wine is a mocker Wine immoderately drank makes men mockers or scoffers at God and men: see Hos 7:5. Or, is a mocker to the sinner himself, makes a mock of him, deprives him of his understanding, and causes him to speak and act like a fool, and thereby renders him ridiculous, and exposes him to shame, contempt, and insult. Strong drink is raging Excites unruly passions in mens minds, and makes them full of rage and fury. When wine is in, says one, wit is out, and then the man, according as his natural temper is, either mocks like a fool, or rages like a madman. The word , here rendered raging, says Bishop Patrick, signifies that discomposed, unquiet, and restless state of mind which expresses itself in wild and tumultuous motions. Whosoever is deceived thereby Namely, by wine or strong drink; is not wise Is a fool or a madman, because he deprives himself of the use of his reason. Thus, the first precept in this chapter is against drunkenness, as an enemy to wisdom, even in common things; much more in those of everlasting consequence: for it commonly expels out of mens minds all reverence, both to God and others, inclining them to take the license to say or do any thing without restraint or discretion. Therefore, though it pretends to be a sociable thing, it renders men unfit for society, making them abusive with their tongues, and outrageous in their passions.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Pro 20:1. Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging. In the book of Ecclesiasticus intoxication is connected with poverty, with harlots, with destruction: chap. Pro 19:1-2. Cyrus, after noticing great disorder in the court of Persia, is reported by Xenophon as saying, oh Darius, we were all kings last night. Darius, his ministers, and his cup-bearers all asleep on the carpets together.
Pro 20:2. The fear of a king. See on Pro 19:12. Many proverbs in this chapter occur in other places, to which the reader is referred.
Pro 20:5. Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water. Men of wisdom and prudence are slow to advise others; but a man of understanding will resort to such characters, as to deep wells. He will not listen to the ready, but shallow, advice of fools.
Pro 20:9. Who can say, I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin? The phrase, my sin, designates personal transgression. The various answers given to these enquiries show that some difficulty exists in the sense. Commentators seem agreed here to leave us all in our sins. But Augustine, Enchrid. cap. 64, asserit vitam justorum esse posse sine crimine, et non sine peccato, affirms, that the life of the just may be without crime, but not without sin. This farther makes a distinction here between known and wilful sins, and the infirmities inoperable from our nature. Well, be the opinions of the doctors what they may, this grand truth remains as a rock, that there is a state on earth in which the Father, Son, and Comforter will come and make His abode with faithful men. Joh 14:23. Oh my soul, look for that state above all other favours, and aim at all the mind that was in Christ.
Pro 20:17. Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, as property obtained by fraud, which presently will grind his teeth. He who overreaches his neighbour will shortly overreach himself. See on Pro 9:17.
Pro 20:20. Whoso curseth his father. See Exo 21:17. Lev 20:9. His lamp shall be put out. See on Pro 13:9.
Pro 20:21. An inheritance gotten hastilyshall not be blessed. No wealth will ultimately benefit a man or his family, that is not acquired by fair labour and industry. A man should give value to the community for all that he receives out of it. Hence all speculations which exceed the ordinary risks of trade; all undertakings which involve a credit to which the means or capital of the individual does not entitle him, and especially all jobbing and speculation in the funds, where one must lose what another gains; and all forestalling and unjust monopoly, shall not profit in the end. Many, who call themselves religious people, have need to take heed to this saying.
Pro 20:25. It is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy. When a man has vowed to give a lamb, for instance, to the Lord, if he be poor, and eat the lamb as a peace-offering instead of burning it on the altar for his sin, or for some deliverance, it is a snare of condemnation to his conscience. He should have considered before he vowed. Alas, alas, how ill soever our vows of piety be paid, they are real vows, recorded in the book of God. Psa 76:11.
Pro 20:26. And bringeth the wheel over them. An allusion to the ancient method of threshing corn by a wheel: the wicked shall be as the corn under the threshing wheel.
Pro 20:30. The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil. This proverb instructs us that a wound in the body corresponds with grief of mind. The wound must be washed, the heart must be searched. Grief is then the medicine of grief, as well for the body as the soul.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Proverbs 20. We have still further traces in Pro 20:9; Pro 20:24 of the sceptical spirit and the obstinate questionings of self characteristic of the later Greek period of Jewish thought.
Pro 20:6 a. RV is strained and the Heb. is difficult. Read (cf. Syr. and Lat.) Many a man is called kind.
Pro 20:8. winnoweth (mg.) is more literal than RV, and conveys better the idea of personal scrutiny (cf. the ideal king in Psalms 72 and Isaiah 11).
Pro 20:9. For the growing sense of personal sin as distinct from national responsibility and guilt cf. Job 14:4; Job 15:14; Psa 51:5.
Pro 20:10 f. The LXX places Pro 20:10 after Pro 20:22; this makes it possible that even in Pro 20:11 is a continuation of Pro 20:9. The repetition of pure supports this.
Pro 20:12. cf. Exo 4:11.
Pro 20:14. It is naught: lit. bad, bad, the buyers depreciation of the object he is bargaining for.
Pro 20:15. Probably the three forms of precious possessions mentioned are all to be taken in apposition to lips of wisdom.
Pro 20:17 b. cf. Lam 3:16.
Pro 20:20. blackest darkness: lit. the pupil (of the eye) of darkness, so in Pro 7:9. For the thought cf. Pro 30:17. The reference is probably not to the legal penalty of the early codes (Exo 21:17).
Pro 20:22. cf. Pro 24:29. The Jewish quietist attitude of non-resistance reflected in our Lords saying in Mat 5:39, grew up in the Hasid movement (Psa 4:3*) in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Pro 20:24. cf. Jer 10:23. The passage seems rather to reflect the growing sense of the antinomy between the belief in predestination and freewill.
Pro 20:25. Very doubtful; rashly to say and to make inquiry are both uncertain. The former may be supported from Job 6:3. The LXX probably conveys the general sense: It is a snare for a man hastily to consecrate any of his property, for after vowing comes repentance (cf. Deu 23:21-23, Ecc 5:4-6).
Pro 20:26. cf. Pro 20:8 and Isa 28:27 f., where the processes of threshing are described.
Pro 20:27 stands alone in the OT in its expression of the Divine element in man as conscience.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
20:1 {a} Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging: and whoever is deceived by it is not wise.
(a) By wine here is meant him that is given to wine, and so by strong drink.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
CHAPTER 21
IDLENESS
“After the autumn gathering the slothful does not plough; he asks in the harvest, and there is nothing.”- Pro 20:4
WE have already in the sixth lecture caught a glimpse of the sluggard; and in the ninth we have seen in passing that diligence in work is enjoined by the teacher; but we must give a more concentrated attention to this subject if we would realize the stress which this book of Wisdom lays on work as the grand condition of life in this earnest world. They who will not work have no place in an order of things which is maintained by work, and in which the toil itself is the great discipline of character and the preparation of joy: It is no churlish or envious spirit which pronounces a doom on the idle, but it is the very necessity of the case; that idleness which in moments of excessive strain we so eagerly covet is, if it is accepted as the regular and continuous state of the soul, a more ruinous and miserable curse than the hardest labor. By a law which we all break at our peril, we are required to have an honest end and a strenuous occupation in our life; and we are further required to labor diligently for the end, and to spare no pains to achieve it. We have many faculties lying dormant, and we must wake them into activity; we have many gifts half used or not used at all; we must turn them all to account, if we would be wholesome, happy, and in the true sense successful.
First of all, let us look at the portrait of the sluggard as it is delineated in some of these proverbial sayings. We see him in bed, at the board, in the house, out of doors. He will not get up in the morning; he turns from side to side, just like a door which swings backwards and forwards on its hinges, but of course never gets any further. {Pro 26:14} “Yet a little sleep,” he says, “a little slumber, a little folding of the hands in sleep.” {Pro 24:34} Or when at last he has brought himself to get up and to sit down to table, he is too lethargic even to eat: “He buries his hand in the dish, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again”; {Pro 19:24} or if he raises the morsel to his lips, he does it with an air of indescribable languor and weariness. {Pro 26:15} Then the time comes for him to go out to his daily duties. But he has a number of ingenious, though utterly absurd, excuses why he should not leave the house: “There is a lion in the streets,” he says, “a lion in the way”; {Pro 26:13} “There is a lion without; I shall be murdered in the streets.” {Pro 22:13} When he is told that this is a delusion, he is prepared to argue the matter, and to show that his fear is well grounded; he is quite scornful of all the people who assure him to the contrary, because they have been out and seen for themselves: “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men that can render a reason.” {Pro 26:16} And when at length he is launched on the business of the day, arriving late, his wits gone wool-gathering, his will as inactive as his mind is inattentive, he drags through every duty with the air of one who is walking “through a hedge of thorns.” {Pro 15:19} Where another person would proceed with easy alacrity, he seems held back by invisible obstacles; his garments are always getting caught in the briars; there is not impetus enough to carry him over the slightest difficulty; and after frequent and somnolent pauses, the end of the day finds him more weary than the busiest, though he has nothing to show but futile efforts and abortive results.
That is a complete picture of the sluggard. We do not of course see him fully developed very often; but we recognize at once the several tendencies in our own characters-the slothfulness, the listlessness, the idle procrastination, the inertia-which may, if unresisted and unconquered, gradually bring us nearer to this finished portrait.
The result of this sluggishness must now be sketched. “Love not sleep,” we are told, “lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.” {Pro 20:13} The means of subsistence in this world are the result of labor; toilers win them from the reluctant earth and sea; the only condition on which we can partake in them is that we should toil, either directly in producing the means of subsistence, or indirectly in doing for the producers helpful service for which they are willing to exchange the fruits of their labor. One who sleeps away the golden hours of work, cast by slothfulness into a deep sleep, has no claim whatever on the earth or the community for daily food; he shall suffer hunger. {Pro 19:15} And if by craft or chance he is able to get his bread without any service rendered to the workers, he shall suffer from a soul-hunger more terrible than starvation-the unutterable ennui, weariness, disgust, and self-loathing which an idle and useless life inevitably produces.
As the text reminds us, there is an alternation of seasons. There is a time to plough, when the earth has yielded her full autumn fruits; there is a time to sow; there is a harvest. If a man is too lazy to plough at the right time and to sow at the right time, his fields will of course give him no crops: Slothfulness catcheth not his prey.” {Pro 12:27} Nor must we think that God in any grudging spirit has ordered this law of the seasons. The appetite which forces us to labor, because “our mouth craves it of us,” {Pro 16:26} the apparent rigor with which nature requires us to be up betimes and not to let the opportunity slip, and the threat of poverty which hangs over our heads if we neglect her requirements, are all parts of a beneficent law, -the law that by work itself our life is sweetened and our spirit is developed. They are not to be congratulated who, escaping the spur of appetite, and liberated” by the toil of others from the rigorous edicts of nature which require the laborious ploughing and sowing, are enabled to eat the bread of idleness. The hardest worker, worn to the bone and ill-remunerated, is really more enviable than they. The abundance of food is a poor equivalent for the loss of discipline which the desire of food was designed to exact through honest and earnest work. Men come to us and say in effect, “Behold after the autumn gathering we did not plough, and we asked in harvest, and got all that our hearts desired,” and we are constrained to pity rather than to congratulate them. It is not good for men to slip through the laws of God and nature thus, for their chastisement is heavier in the end than in the beginning.
The truth of this appears when we remember that a worse result of slothfulness than poverty is the spiritual rust, decay, and degradation which slothfulness itself implies: “The desire of the slothful killeth him, for his hands refuse to labor”; {Pro 21:25} “He also that is slack in his work is brother to him that is a destroyer.” {Pro 18:9} It is indeed a strange illusion which makes man desire idleness. Idleness is ruin; the soul rusts away like the sword in Hudibras, which-
” ate into itself, for lack of something else to hew and hack.”
It is death, it is deadly; the idle soul slowly dies, and spreads destruction around it. It is the same with a country. Idleness is its ruin: whether it be that the generosity of nature removes the necessity of work, as in the South Seas, where the missionaries find one of their chief difficulties in the absolute laziness resulting from the softness of the climate and the fertility of the soil; or that the vast accumulations of wealth procure idleness for its possessors, and enforce idleness on thousands of the unfortunate unemployed, the melancholy result ensues in the enervation of manhood and the corruption of womanhood. On the other hand, as Thucydides observed in the case of Attica, a rigorous climate and a niggardly soil, eliciting all the energies of the people in order to improve their condition or even to live, have been found favorable to the development of a noble nationality. Slackness of work, from whatever cause it may arise, brings its victims into this sorrowful kinship with the destroyer.
It may be noted that the idle, whether they be rich or poor, are denominated “vain persons,” and sensible people are cautioned solemnly to avoid their society, as their emptiness is contagious, and the habits which are quickly acquired in their company lead straight to ruin: “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread, but he that followeth after vain persons is void of understanding”; {Pro 12:11} “He that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” {Pro 28:19}
The truth which is here enforced receives ample illustration in our own society. Two centuries ago Daniel Defoe defined the English as the “most lazy diligent nation” in the world. Hard work is common; idleness is equally common. Our people are on the whole highly gifted, and produce rapidly when they give their attention to their work; but we seem to have a strange vein of dissoluteness and laziness running through us, and consequently the worst and most shameful idleness is often found amongst the best workmen, who through their own bad habits have missed their opportunities, and become a burden to themselves and to the community. In no country is the leisured class, of those who do nothing at all, or pass their aimless days in a round of engagements which are only strenuous idleness, so large; in no country is the unemployed or the pauper class so ruinously great in proportion to the population. Hence this curious paradox: the foreigner hears that England is the richest and the most industrious country in the world; he comes to our shores expecting to see cities of gold and fields teeming with produce. On his arrival he becomes aware of a degrading poverty such as cannot be matched in the poorest country on earth; he finds a vast population of the unemployed rich lounging in the streets and the parks, and of the unemployed poor hanging about the doors of the innumerable drink-shops, and infesting every highway and byway of the country. He finds the land of the agricultural districts often lying idle and unproductive; those who till it untaught, ill-fed, and discontented; those who possess it discontented, though well fed and instructed. Our subject does not lead us to inquire into the deeper causes of these anomalies, but it leads us to this observation: we are a “lazy diligent nation” because we have not yet learned, or have forgotten, that the thing most to be dreaded is not poverty, but idleness; and the thing most to be desired is not wealth, but strenuous, earnest, and useful toil.
Our desperate and eager work is not for the works sake, but in order to get rich; our ambition is to be idle rather than to be employed, to be raised above the necessity of labor which is our health by the possession of wealth which is our ruin. We have cherished the fatal and foolish error that work was degrading, and have ranked those highest who did the least. “Where no oxen are,” we have said in our fastidious way, “the crib is clean,” forgetting the other side of the matter, that “much increase is by the strength of the ox.” {Pro 14:4} Thus we have ignorantly despised the workers who make us rich, looking down upon trade, upon business, and more than all upon manual labor; and have with strange fatuity admired most those who were most useless, whose peculiar boast would be that they never did a days work in their lives.
Happily now there are signs of a revolution in our thought. We are beginning to see that work is good, not for what it earns, but for the occupation and the training which it gives to the body and the mind; and that idleness is an evil, not only where work is a necessity, and the appetite craves it of us, but everywhere and under all circumstances. In useful employment we find our life; in the sluggards life we see our death.
We must observe then the good effects which result from honest and earnest toil. But, first, we cannot help noticing what an important place is here given to agriculture. This is not accidental to the time in which the book was written. It is an eternal principle. Out of the soil comes our wealth; by the soil therefore we live; and accordingly God has ordained that in the tilling of the ground man shall find his wholesomest, sweetest, and most strengthening employment that no community shall inwardly flourish when its agricultural life declines; and that therefore the happiest and soundest society will be that in which the largest proportional number are engaged in producing the fruits of the earth, and are directly and vitally attached to their mother soil. “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread.” {Pro 28:19} When a nation is in the case of the sluggard, when you pass by its fields and its vineyards and see them grown over with thorns and nettles and its stone walls broken down, you will find pauperism coming as a robber, and want, gaunt and hideous, stalking through the land like an armed man. {Pro 24:30-34} “Be thou diligent,” therefore we are told, “to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds”-(take care that no foolish pride or negligence prevent you from seeing that the agricultural life is properly maintained, for it is the only sure basis of prosperity); “riches are not forever, and even the government of kings does not endure to all generations.” But in the sweet ordinances of nature the great Giver provides His unfailing wealth: “The hay is carried, and immediately the tender grass begins to grow again, and even the barren mountains yield their herbs for ingathering. The lambs appear every spring with their wool for our clothing, and the field will maintain goats equal in value to its own price. And from these miraculous sources of eternal reproduction our food and our maintenance are to be drawn.” {Pro 27:23-27}
Thus at the foundation of all industries is the agricultural industry. At the root of all social and economical questions is the land question. When you wish to commend diligence and to discourage idleness in a nation that is “lazy diligent,” the first thing is to inquire into the condition or the use of the land. The land is Gods gift to a people. English land is Gods gift to the English people. If it is misapplied, ill-used, neglected; if it does not produce its full tale of wealth; if it does not support its full burden of living creatures, and give employment to its full number of hands, we are flying in the face of Gods ordinances; we must not expect to prosper; His gracious will is frustrated, and we must have the shame and sorrow of seeing our million of paupers, and our second million of enforced idlers, and our myriads of lazy cumberers of the ground, and our whole population disorganized and unsettled, torn with the frenzy of insane work, or gangrened with the corruption of destroying idleness. For the gifts of God are without repentance, and the abuse of His gifts is without remedy.
But turning now to the good effects which result from honest and earnest toil, we are taught to distinguish three more particularly-plenty, power, and personal worth.
First, Plenty. “The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” {Pro 13:4} Nor must we think that diligence is only manual; it is also mental. It implies thought, forethought, planning, arranging. We have a contrast drawn between the really diligent man, whose prudence foresees, and whose reflection orders his work for the best ends, and the fussy, unreflecting activity of one who is always busy, but never accomplishes anything. It is only the diligence of the first kind that leads to the desired end; the diligence of mere restlessness is not much better than idleness. We learn that “the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but every one that is hasty hasteth only to want.” {Pro 21:5} Effectual labor implies thought; only a wise man, with all his faculties brought into full and harmonious play, can work with any good result, or can thriftily use the fruits of his labor; a foolish, thoughtless, witless person may work hard and earn a good deal of money, but it is gone even faster than it came. Thus “there is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man swalloweth it.” {Pro 21:20} There are exceptions, no doubt; but the general rule is borne out by experience, that they who honestly and earnestly use the gifts of mind and body which God has given them, obtain the things which are needful in this life, if not to overflowing, yet in sufficiency; and where means fail we generally have to admit that our own industry or prudence was at fault.
Then, secondly, it is industry rather than genius which commends us to our fellow-men, and leads us to positions of influence and power: “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men”; {Pro 21:29} “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be put under task-work.” {Pro 12:24} It is this golden faculty of persistence, concentration, diligence, which makes every great ruler and leader of men, and raises even the very ordinary person out of the drudgery of mere task-work into the dignity of large and noble and delightful toil.
For, thirdly, it is diligence, the capacity of taking pains, that gives to a man his actual worth, making him compact and strong and serviceable: “The precious substance of men is to be diligent.” {Pro 12:27} It is the quality itself which is all-important. The greatest gifts are of little worth, unless there is this guarantee of the conscientious and intelligent employment of them. While if the gifts with which God has endowed us are of the simplest order, if we can only use a spade or a saw or a broom effectively, that faculty diligently exercised is our value to the world; and a great value it is-greater than the value of high genius which is erratic, unbridled. undirected, and uncertain. Of every man or woman in this world the highest praise which can be uttered is that which underlies the commendation of the good wife: “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” {Pro 31:27} There is the epitome of all trustworthy and honorable character.
We have been dwelling all this time on a simple virtue of a very mundane type. But all that has been said may be immediately raised to a higher plane by one observation. Our Lord and Master was diligent about His Fathers business, and has left on record this saying: “I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is called today; for the night cometh, in which no one can work.” As each one of us comes under his influence and passes into His faith and obedience, the joyful seriousness of our life-work deepens; it is lit by the rich glow of a sunset glory. We want to do diligently what our hand finds to do-to do it earnestly as unto the Lord. By patient and industrious exercise of every faculty which He has given us, we wish to be prepared for any task which He may appoint here or hereafter. Some of us He only apprentices in this world; and according to the faithfulness with which we discharge our humble and unnoticed duties will be the service to which He will one day appoint us. Others are called out of apprenticeship into the rough and eager work of the journeyman, and His eye is always upon us as He tries us to find whether we may ever be appointed over one, or five, or ten cities. A few supreme souls have been called even on earth to shape, to create, to control; a Paul, an Augustine, a Luther, can work with an emancipated hand. But the law is one all through the workshops, the fields, the vineyards of our Lord. The diligent shall stand before Him, and the slothful shall be shamed. He that does not plough will not reap. Wasted opportunities vanish forever, and leave only their doleful record in the emasculated and nerveless soul.