Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 25:16
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.
Hast thou found honey? – Compare Jdg 14:8; 1Sa 14:27. The precept extends to the pleasure of which honey is the symbol.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 25:16
Hast thou found honey?
eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.
Religion and pleasure
It is a mistaken notion that religion is a melancholy business, and the enemy of pleasure. Christianity is supposed to be synonymous with inanity, and to impose a weariness alike on flesh and spirit that stifles the freedom, represses the elasticity, and dulls the brightness which are the natural and precious heritage of youth. But this is as false as the devil who coined it. I stand here as the messenger of God, as the champion of pleasure, the advocate of hilarity, the apostle of enjoyment, the prophet of light-heartedness. Pleasure is a necessity of our nature. The goodness of God has made bountiful provision for full satisfaction and delight. The body is endowed with senses capable of exquisite sensations of delight. When you talk of the melancholy of religion you become the Pharisaic boaster, and not
I. You thank your God that you are not as other men. If the intellect seeks pleasure in the study of the physical universe, does the Christian philosopher discover less to charm his mind than do his scientific comrades of less assured belief? But ours is a triple manhood. There is the moral and spiritual man. Surely there is honey in doing right; there is pleasure in goodness and truth. As to the honey of life to be found in a good conscience, in doing right, in walking uprightly, according to the universally recognised laws of morality, surely the Christian has a better chance than the ordinary man. What does religion allow, or rather enjoin, in the way of pleasant recreations?
1. They must do me no harm; neither enfeeble my body, rob my brain of its vital energy, or disturb my inward sense of right.
2. They must recreate my body; brace it up, and leave me readier for after-service.
3. They must refresh my mind; not make it sluggish, heavy, depressed, and ill at ease.
4. They must cheer my heart–in their present influence, in their results, and in their memory. (J. Jackson Wray.)
The use of honey
1. The Bible does not prohibit pleasure. It does not say to the man who has found honey, Eat it not! but Eat so much as is sufficient for thee. What the Bible forbids is excess.
2. In prohibiting such pleasures, the Bible proceeds upon a principle of benevolence. Eat no more than is sufficient for thee! Why? Not because pleasure is grudged, but because pain is deprecated.
3. The principle upon which the Bible proceeds in this matter is a benevolent one, because it accords with the constitution of our nature. There is a point at which pleasure becomes pain. It is the law of our being, that if pleasure is to remain pleasure, it must be enjoyed moderately and intermittently. (Homiletic Review.)
Pleasure
I. The permission.
1. Pleasure is a necessity of our nature.
(1) A necessity of its complex constitution. We are made to enjoy. We have capacity for
(a) Animal pleasure;
(b) intellectual pleasure;
(c) moral pleasure;
(d) religious pleasure;
(e) social pleasure.
(2) A necessity of its instinctive desires. We have an intense craving for enjoyment. Who will show us any good? This yearning for enjoyment, found alike amid the refinements of civilisation as amid the rudeness of barbarism, alike in the mansion of the rich as in the cottage of the poor, alike by the learned philosopher as by the illiterate peasant.
(3) A necessity of its perfect development.
2. Pleasure is a possibility of our condition. God, the all-wise and all-kind, has not only made us for pleasure and given us a strong desire for it, but has also bountifully surrounded us with its sources.
(1) For the animal faculties. There is light for the eye, music for the ear, fragrance for the smell.
(2) For the intellectual. The universe is a problem for our study.
(3) For the moral. The true and good are around us, in the character of God, the actions of the good, etc.
(4) For the religious. God in Christ is revealed as the Object of worship.
(5) For the social. There is society, with its varied life.
3. Pleasure is an element of our religion. Christianity is not a morbid, ascetic system. Rejoice in the Lord alway.
II. The limitation: Eat so much as is sufficient for thee. Pleasure is not to be indulged indiscriminately and unlimitedly. We must indulge in such pleasures only as are–
1. Dignified in their nature. We must remember the spirituality of our nature and the immortality of our being. We are not animals. Let us not make the mistake of the rich fool. We are made in Gods image, and are capable of high and noble joys.
2. Beneficial in their influence. Pleasure must not be sought and indulged in on its own account, but as a means toward the attainment of a higher end. The objects of pleasure are–to recreate the body; to refresh the mind; to cheer the heart; to fit us for the work of life.
3. Christian in their sanction.
4. Proportionate in their degree. Pleasure must not be the end of life. It must not be pastime. Time is too valuable to be frittered away. (Thomas Baron.)
The worlds honey
I. The world has its honey.
1. It has a gastric honey. What pleasures can be derived from a participation in the precious fruits of the earth!
2. It has a gregarious honey. How great the pleasure men have in mingling with their kind, merely as social animals; the pleasure of mates, parents, children.
3. It has a secular honey. Pursuit, accumulation, and use of wealth.
4. It has aesthetic honey. The beautiful in nature, art, music.
5. It has intellectual honey. Inquiry into, and discovery of, the Divine ideas that underlie all the forms, and ring through all the sounds of nature.
II. The worlds honey may be abused.
1. Some eat too much of the gastric honey, and become gourmands, epicures, voluptuaries.
2. Some eat too much of the gregarious honey, and become profligate debauchees, bloated animals.
3. Some eat too much of the secular honey, and become wretched misers, haunted with a thousand suspicions.
4. Some eat too much of the aesthetic honey, and grow indifferent to everything but what they consider the beautiful and harmonious.
5. Some eat too much of the intellectual honey, and they have no life but in that of observatories, laboratories, and libraries.
III. The worlds honey abused produces nausea. Over-indulgence in any worldly pleasure issues in a moral sickness and disgust. There is what the French call the ennui that comes out of it–that awful yawn, says Byron, which sleep cannot abate. The intemperate use of this honey often makes life an intolerable burden. Conclusion: Take care how you use the world. You may have too much of a good thing. There is a honey, thank God! of which you cannot take too much, which will never surfeit or sicken–that is, the honey of spiritual enjoyment; the enjoyment of studying, imitating, worshipping Him in whose presence there is fulness of joy, etc. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. Hast thou found honey?] Make a moderate use of all thy enjoyments. “Let thy moderation be known unto all, and appear in all things.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Honey in those parts was oft found in woods or fields, as Jdg 14:8, &c.; 1Sa 14:25. By honey he understands, not only all delicious meats, but all present and worldly delights, which we are here taught to use with moderation. Honey excessively taken disposeth a man to vomiting.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16, 17. A comparison, as asurfeit of honey produces physical disgust, so your company, howeveragreeable in moderation, may, if excessive, lead your friend to hateyou.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Hast thou found honey?…. Of which there was great plenty in Judea; and was to be found in fields and woods, 1Sa 14:25;
eat so much as is sufficient for thee; to satisfy appetite, without overcharging the stomach; what may be conducive to health, and no more;
lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it; that is, overfilled; filled to a loathing of it, so as to cause a casting of it up this is not merely to be understood in a literal sense; something more is intended, as in Pr 24:13; and according to the sense there, that which Maimonides l gives of this seems agreeable; that it respects the getting of wisdom and knowledge, which, like honey, is sweet and desirable, and excellent, and nourishing, moderately used: but then persons should take care to keep within due bounds, and not seek to be too wise; or to exercise themselves in things too high for them, and aim at that which is above their capacity; but should content themselves with what is within their reach and compass: and so Gersom understands it. Some think that moderation in the use of worldly things and lawful pleasures is here recommended: and others that the words refer to what follow; that when a man has got a pleasant and delightful friend, he should not visit him too often; lest, too much familiarity bringing contempt, he should lose his friend: so Jarchi connects the words,
l Moreh. Nevochim, par. 1. c. 32, p. 41.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Another way of showing self-control:
Hast thou found honey? eat thy enough,
Lest thou be surfeited with it, and vomit it up.
Honey is pleasant, salutary, and thus to be eaten sparingly, Pro 24:13, but ne quid nimis . Too much is unwholesome, 27a: , i.e., even honey enjoyed immoderately is as bitter as gall; or, as Freidank says: des honges seze erdruizet s mans ze viel geniuzet [the sweetness of honey offends when one partakes too much of it]. Eat if thou hast found any in the forest or the mountains, , thy enough (lxx ; the Venet. ), i.e., as much as appeases thine appetite, that thou mayest not become surfeited and vomit it out ( with Tsere, and quiesc., as at 2Sa 14:10; vid., Michlol 116a, and Parchon under ). Fleischer, Ewald, Hitzig, and others, place Pro 25:16 and Pro 25:17 together, so as to form an emblematic tetrastich; but he who is surfeited is certainly, in Pro 25:16, he who willingly enjoys, and in 17, he to whom it is given to enjoy without his will; and is not, then, Pro 25:16 a sentence complete in itself in meaning? That it is not to be understood in a purely dietetic sense (although thus interpreted it is a rule not to be despised), is self-evident. As one can suffer injury from the noblest of food if he overload his stomach therewith, so in the sphere of science, instruction, edification, there is an injurious overloading of the mind; we ought to measure what we receive by our spiritual want, the right distribution of enjoyment and labour, and the degree of our ability to change it in succum et sanguinem , – else it at last awakens in us dislike, and becomes an evil to us.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
16 Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.
Here, 1. We are allowed a sober and moderate use of the delights of sense: Hast thou found honey? It is not forbidden fruit to thee, as it was to Jonathan; thou mayest eat of it with thanksgiving to God, who, having created things grateful to our senses, has given us leave to make use of them. Eat as much as is sufficient, and no more. Enough is as good as a feast. 2. We are cautioned to take heed of excess. We must use all pleasures as we do honey, with a check upon our appetite, lest we take more than does us good and make ourselves sick with it. We are most in danger of surfeiting upon that which is most sweet, and therefore those that fare sumptuously every day have need to watch over themselves, lest their hearts be at any time overcharged. The pleasures of sense lose their sweetness by the excessive use of them and become nauseous, as honey, which turns sour in the stomach; it is therefore our interest, as well as our duty, to use them with sobriety.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Beware of Excess
Verse 16 teaches, that permitted pleasures, even the eating of honey are to be indulged only insofar as is sufficient. Excess is forbidden because it is harmful physically and spiritually. To eat too much sickens the body. To sleep too much prevents work that should be done. Jesus warned against the hindrance of hearts overcharged with surfeiting, Pro 25:27; Luk 21:34-36.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Pro. 25:16. Filled. Rather Surfeited.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro. 25:16
USE AND ABUSE
I. The good gifts of God are to be enjoyed by men. Every creature of God is good, says the apostle, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving (1Ti. 4:4). God has filled the world with gifts to minister pleasure to the bodily senses as well as to the spiritual aspirations, and the first are given to us richly to enjoy (1Ti. 6:17), as much as the last. Our Great and Beneficent Father, has not omitted to provide even for the gratification of our palate, but has furnished us with an almost infinite variety of natural productions, pleasant to the taste. His kindness in this matter is not to be overlooked, and these good gifts are not to be treated as though they were beneath our grateful appreciation. The asceticism which refuses to partake of them is not in accordance with the spirit of either the Old or New Testament.
II. There is no material and temporal good which cannot be misused by man. Honey may here stand for any or all the lower sweets of lifefor every blessing which is not of a purely spiritual natureand the greatest temptation to misuse of these lies in the direction of over-useof indulging in them to the neglect of other and more precious good, and so to the injury of the higher nature. Honey is a delicious article of food, and wholesome and nutritious to a certain extent, but if a man attempted to live upon it to the exclusion of plainer fare he would find that his bodily health would suffer. In like manner is there danger to spiritual health from an undue indulgence of even the gifts of God, which minister only or chiefly to the senses, or which belong to this life alone.
III. The misuse of what is good in itself puts an end to all real enjoyment of it. If a man eats immoderately of honey it soon ceases to be pleasant to his taste, and the very sweetness that at first attracted him produces loathing. The same nausea of spirit follows immoderate indulgence in any merely temporal or material goodthat which, used lawfully, would always afford true and real enjoyment, cloys upon the man who abuses it by over-use.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The figure varies. In a former sentence we are commanded to eat honey because it is good (chap. Pro. 24:13), and that was very carefully explained. It meant that piety was itself good, and we were to taste and see (Psa. 34:8) that before we could be Christians. But now the figure varies. There is a sweetness of eternal hope, even when we have not got down to the sweetness of a saving piety. We are to put on the helmet of hope. So the Apostle tells us (1Th. 5:8). But Solomon cautions us that we are to put on no more than is sufficient. We are eating more than enough honey when we have no right to eat any, and so we may be eating too much when we ought to be getting more. There is such a thing as having more hope than evidence. And if a man has too much confident hope of heaven for the amount he has of piety, there certainly is a case of eating more than is sufficient. Blessed is the man that has found honey. Let him eat so much as is sufficient for him in this dismal pilgrimage. But, when he is once refreshed like Jonathan, let him sound for an advance.Miller.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(16) Hast thou found honey?A common occurrence in Palestine, where swarms of wild bees abounded in the woods. (Comp. Jdg. 14:8; 1Sa. 14:27.) Hence came the expression of a land flowing with (milk and) honey.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. Hast found honey Which in the East is frequently found in large quantities in the cavities of trees, rocks, and the like.
So much That is, only so much as shall satisfy. The proverb inculcates temperance and moderation in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. “Let your moderation be known unto all men.” Php 4:5. For examples of honey-finding, comp. Jdg 14:8, et seq.; 1Sa 14:26.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Pro 25:16. Hast thou found honey? See the 27th verse which may be rendered, “As it is not good or sweet to eat much honey; so neither to hunt for glory is glory to those who hunt after it.” The meaning of the verse is this, “Moderation is good in all things, especially in those which are most pleasing to us: as honey, moderately taken, strengthens the body and prolongs life but too much of it disturbs the stomach, and turns the pleasure into pain.” Horace has a sentence much to the same purpose:
Sperne voluptates; nocet empta dolore voluptas.
Spurn pleasures; dear is pleasure bought with pain.
After all, the genuine christian knows, by happy experience, that there is no true pleasure except in the enjoyment of God. There are some commentators who connect this verse with the next, which they think explanatory of it.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
The Law Concerning Excess, Etc.
Pro 25:16-28
“Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it” ( Pro 25:16 ).
There is no denying that there are many sweet things in the world which may be partaken of to a limited extent. Properly used, they are agreeable to the palate, and men have a right to use them and to be thankful for them. All excess is an abomination. All excess brings its own punishment with it. We lose the very things we have gained when we indulge in exaggeration. We are not permitted to retain so much of the honey as was good for us after we have eaten to excess, for then we actually vomit all that we have appropriated. This law of excess has a bearing upon all the relations of life. If we express ourselves in terms of exaggeration we deplete the original compliment of its value. If we set too high a price upon any article we have to sell, we prevent ourselves doing a legitimate business. We are, therefore, to be wise in our use of words, reasonable in our determination of values, and considerate in the institution of claims. We are prone to think that if we ask much we may get less, but still may get more than if we had asked little. Thus words are used for gambling purposes, as mere tests and experiments, instead of being used as instruments for the clear and definite expression of thought and desire. Who can cleanse the tongue until the heart be made clean? Who can teach a man the right use of words to his fellow-man until he has been taught the right use of words to God? When a man can ask petitions at the throne of grace with moderation and reasonableness he will be able to turn round and speak to society in terms that are unmarred by excess or exaggeration. Say to the young: Certainly there is pleasure in many a worldly enjoyment; certainly there is enjoyment to be found in many things that are not usually brought within Christian definition as belonging to the higher manhood: but a man may eat too much bread, he may drink too much water, he may surfeit himself with honey; he may go too far even in legitimate directions; and having gone thus far, he has gained no advantage, but has actually lost the advantage with which he started. Moderation is enjoyment: temperance is the true delight: self-control is real power. Nothing is done by violence, overreaching, exaggeration: everything that is worth accomplishing can be accomplished by moderation of desire and by moderation of action.
“Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour’s house; lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee” ( Pro 25:17 ).
A maxim that is not properly understood and applied. This maxim is founded upon a deep philosophy. Even man may know too much of his fellow-man, and thus may fail in knowing him as he ought to be known. Men should only see each other occasionally. This is true of friend and friend, pastor and people, doctor and patient; in fact, it is true all through and through the relations of life. Intermissions of fellowship prepare for the keener enjoyment of society. Without solitude or opportunity of retirement life would become intolerable. It is the holiday that makes work pleasant. After men have retired from work for a while they resume it with renewed zest; when a friend has been absent from our side he returns with the greater interest to report what he has seen and heard and felt. Thus by separation is union established: thus by abstention from intercourse is conversation stimulated and enriched. There is only one house which we cannot too frequently attend; there is only one Friend from whom we need never withdraw; there is only one exercise that never palls upon the man who enjoys it: let us come boldly to the throne of grace, let us pray without ceasing, let us walk with God, let us never withdraw from the light of his countenance. Who can exhaust the Infinite? Who can remain too long with the Eternal? Here we have room for completest fellowship, here we have opportunity for the satisfaction of our highest desires. The human is limited, the social is bounded on every side, but the religious recedes like the horizon and heightens like the summer heavens.
“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee” ( Pro 25:21-22 ).
Once more we come upon the gospel before the time. This is the very last result of Christian teaching and spiritual refinement. “Thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head”: that is to say, thou shalt make him burn with self-reproach, when he thinks of the wrong which he has done thee in the days that are gone. Resentment only feeds resentment. He who is skilful in retaliation is skilful in awakening the mind of others to retaliation of a still keener sort. We are to kill our enemies with kindness; we are to perform the miracle of meeting hostility with complacency, injustice with forbearance; being smitten on the one cheek we are to turn the other also. It is true that these are mere ideals, simply because we ourselves have not attained them; we may have made them ideals only by not attempting to realise them. The religion of Jesus Christ is full of ideals which are impossible of realisation, still they are evermore appealing to us, calling us upward, and bidding us welcome to loftier regions. We can never overtake our own prayers; if we could do so we should have no need to pray. When we prayed last we but prepared the pedestal on which we are to stand the next time we pray, so that we may reach to some higher height, and ask more boldly for greater things. The text brings before us the operation of practical Christianity. It may be said there is no evangelical doctrine in this text; this is a doctrine of works, this is a doctrine of legality; nothing; is said about the Holy Spirit, nothing is said about the work of Christ, nothing is said about justification by faith; all that is literally true, but is spiritually and substantially false, for no man can work the miracle of this text except God be with him. It is the operation of the Holy Spirit alone that can make this state of things possible: it is through the Cross of Christ alone that a man can be so crucified as to put himself in this relation to his enemy. Let those who will be theoretical Christians, wordy and controversial theologians; but he who would be a real Christian, and who would properly represent Christ to the world, will humbly and continually endeavour by his power to manifest these supreme graces, these glorious attributes of character. To actions like these there is no argumentative reply. The mere word-splitter is left behind in conscious dumbness when he beholds a meekness so sublime, a beneficence so unselfish, a self-control so perfect; he can answer arguments, he can bandy words, he is skilled in retort and defence; but he cannot answer an attitude of prayer, an attitude of heroic suffering, a temper of charity; he has no reply to the generous hand that is stretched out in gifts to the enemy. Here the humblest Christian wins the proudest triumphs; here the child of God shows that the age of miracles is not gone, but is only beginning.
“A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring” ( Pro 25:26 ).
In the tenth chapter the mouth of the righteous was described as “a well of life,” whence issued living streams for the guidance and encouragement of souls; in this text it is supposed that a righteous man may yield to the pressure put upon him by the wickedness of his age, and through fear or hope of favour he may permit himself to be corrupted thereby: in the latter case, instead of being a well of life or a fountain of delight, he would become as a stagnant pool charged with poison, no longer affording refreshment to pilgrims, but shedding an evil influence, and bringing destruction upon those who stoop down to quench their thirst by the use of such waters. The possible deprivation of character is the subject of this reference. We are not to suppose that it is impossible for the righteous to be tempted successfully. Everywhere are we cautioned against this delusion. In the New Testament we have the exhortation, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” No man out of heaven is perfectly secured against subtle and energetic temptations. When a man is threatened by poverty, by loss of position, by forfeiture of all those luxuries which constitute civilised life in its most tempting aspects, it is not easy for him to resist certain temptations; but it is in such hours that character is really tested; it is in such crises that men show of what quality they are. It is nothing to resist temptations which do not appeal to our intensest passions; it is not to the credit of water that it does not take fire when a torch is thrown upon it; to some men temptation is as a spark of fire thrown upon a magazine of powder. There is nothing so corrupt as corrupted goodness; in such an instance we have not simply corruption, but we have purity itself dissolved and dissipated in all manner of iniquity: if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! When wisdom is turned into the servant of folly, how profound and revolting is the servility! Even so, when the righteous yield to the allurements of the wicked and become the children of disobedience, the very excellence of their former character adds aggravation to their present evil-mindedness.
“He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls” ( Pro 25:28 ).
Self-control is one of the last results of true education. Silence may be mightier than passion. Looking upon the meek and forbearing man, we might, from a superficial view, accuse him of timidity; whereas in reality his forbearance is a proof of his strength. When a city is broken down and without walls, it is exposed to the attacks of the enemy from every quarter: it is without defence and without: security; it offers an easy prey even to the feeblest assailants. Precisely so is it with him who hath no rule over his own spirit: he is excited by the smallest consequences; he is drawn away by the meanest allurements; he takes fire on the smallest provocation; he is the victim of his own passionateness; losing self-control, he loses what little wisdom he has gathered from experience, and so he becomes a prey of the enemy, and is brought into complete destruction. No man can control his own spirit as a mere act of discipline. Up to a given point this may be possible, and no doubt great success of a limited kind has been thus attained; but by control we must understand complete sovereignty, so that the man shall in all his passions and impulses be the willing servant of his own reason and conscience. Such a miracle can only be wrought in the human heart by the Holy Spirit; this is in very deed a conquest of grace: and this is the Very seal of Heaven, attesting the reality of our divine sonship. How easy it is to return evil for evil, to indulge the spirit of retort and resentment; to yield to the poor philosophy of “giving as good as is sent,” of returning a Roland for an Oliver, and of standing upon the perilous ground of “dignity”! On the other hand, how poor and feeble a thing it seems to be to hear without speaking, to receive indignities without vengeance, to suffer wrong without inflicting reprisals! Yet this is the very acme and crown of Christian discipline, the very perfectness of character as formed by fellowship with Christ When men have no control over their own spirit, they prove that their passion is stronger than their reason, that their self-love overmasters their understanding, and that their so-called sensitiveness, which is but a longer word for vanity, is of more consequence to them than is the proof of the indwelling and all-ruling spirit of justice and gentleness.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Pro 25:16 Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.
Ver. 16. Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient, ] i.e., Be moderate in the use of all lawful comforts and contentments. A , saith the orator, a for there is a satiety of all things, and by excess the sweetest comforts will be dissweetened, as Epictetus also observed. It is therefore excellent counsel that the holy apostle giveth, that “those that have wives be as if they had none,” &c.; 1Co 7:29 that we hang loose to all creature comforts, and be weanedly affected towards them, considering that licitis perimus omnes. We generally most of all overshoot ourselves in the use of things lawful, as those recusant guests did, Mat 22:2-7 and the old world. Luk 17:26-27
a Isoc.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Pro 25:16-17
Pro 25:16-17
“Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, Lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. Let thy foot be seldom in thy neighbor’s house, Lest he be weary of thee, and hate thee.”
We might entitle these verses as, “Too much of a good thing is more than enough”! Even eating too much honey can lead to the body’s rejection of it; and too much intimate association with friends can break up the friendship. All of us have known people who were what was called “too thick” with their friends and then saw the “break-up” that always ensued.
Pro 25:16. Among the many spiritual and moral instructions we have in the Bible, there is an occasional instruction with reference to the physical or health-side of mankind. Such is this verse. Honey is good, actually great, for health (Pro 24:13), but one should not eat so much of it that he gets turned against it permanently and thereafter wants none of it. Pro 25:27 warns, It is not good to eat much honey. We should do that which is wise even in the physical realm of our being.
Pro 25:17. Our common expressions, Dont wear your welcome out and Familiarity breeds contempt, carry the same message. People have work to be done and business to be seen about. One who has nothing to do and keeps running over to the house of those who do soon makes his/her appearance an unwelcome sight. It is better to have the others say, Come over, than to have them think, I wish they would leave. The marginal reading is interesting: Lest he be full of thee.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Hast: Pro 24:13, Pro 24:14, Jdg 14:8, Jdg 14:9, 1Sa 14:25-27, Isa 7:15, Isa 7:22
lest: Pro 25:27, Pro 23:8, Luk 21:34, Eph 5:18
Reciprocal: Lev 2:11 – honey 1Sa 14:44 – thou shalt Ecc 7:16 – Be not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Pro 25:16. Hast thou found honey? Which, in those parts, was often found in woods or fields. By honey, he understands not only all delicious meats, but all present and worldly delights, which we are here taught to use with moderation: for as honey, moderately taken, strengthens the body and prolongs life, but, if taken to excess, disturbs the stomach, and turns the pleasure into pain; so it is with earthly satisfactions and pursuits. Moderately used they are refreshing and useful; immoderately, they produce disgust, or are accompanied with guilt and followed by trouble.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
25:16 Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is {n} sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled with it, and vomit it.
(n) Use moderately the pleasures of this world.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Anything overindulged, even the most desirable of things, can become distasteful and repulsive.
"Since Eden, man has wanted the last ounce out of life, as though beyond God’s ’enough’ lay ecstasy, not nausea." [Note: Kidner, p. 159.]