Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 30:10
Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.
10. Accuse not ] Lit. tongue not; i.e. use not thy tongue against. Comp. Psa 101:5, where the same Heb. word is used in the same sense.
lest he curse thee &c.] lest thy charge against him being not truth but “slander,” he imprecate upon thee a curse, which being not “causeless” (Pro 26:2) will come upon thee because thou art “held guilty.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Accuse not a servant – The prayer in Pro 30:8 does not shut out, sympathy with those who are less favored. Even the slave has a right to protection against frivolous or needless accusation. Others, however, render the words Make not a slave to accuse his master, i. e., Do not make him discontented with his lot, lest he afterward curse thee for having made it worse than it was.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 10. Accuse not a servant] Do not bring a false accusation against a servant, lest thou be found guilty of the falsehood, and he curse thee for having traduced his character, and in his turn traduce thine. In general, do not meddle with other people’s servants.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Accuse not a servant, to wit, maliciously, rashly, or without just and sufficient cause; for otherwise, in some cases, this may be not only lawful, but a duty, as when a servant lives wickedly, or robs his master, or the like,
A servant; whose condition is in itself mean and miserable, and therefore thou shouldst not make it worse without great and apparent necessity.
Curse thee; desire God to curse and punish thee, which though it may be sinful in him, yet being deserved by thee, thou hast reason to fear and expect.
Be found guilty by God, who is ready to plead the cause of the afflicted, and upon strict search shall find thee guilty, and punish thee accordingly.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. Accuse notSlander not (Ps10:7).
curse . . . guiltylest,however lowly, he be exasperated to turn on thee, and your guilt bemade to appear.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Accuse not a servant unto his master,…. Wrongly, rashly, and without any foundation, nor for any trifling thing; unless it be in a case of moment and importance, when his master’s business is sadly neglected, or he is injured in his property by him: especially care should be taken not to calumniate a servant, to abuse him with the tongue, as the word g signifies; the circumstance he is in should be considered, as a servant; and how severe masters are apt to be towards them, and therefore little matters should be hid from them; and much less should they be aggravated, and least of all should falsehoods be told of them. So Doeg the Edomite accused David to Saul, and the Pharisees accused the disciples of Christ to their Master, 1Sa 22:9; the apostle’s advice is good, and agrees with Agur’s,
Ro 14:4;
lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty; or, “and thou shouldest sin” h; that is, afterwards; and so the curse come upon thee he has wished for: or the sense is, lest he should curse thee before men, and hurt thy character and reputation; or imprecate a curse from the Lord, which he may suffer to come upon thee for sin. Aben Ezra interprets this of a servant, that flies from Heathen countries to the land of Israel, to be made a proselyte of; who should not be discovered, and returned to his old master.
g “ne crimineris lingua”, Montanus. h “et delinquas”, Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Gejerus; “q. d. peccabis”, Vatablus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
10 Calumniate not a servant with his master,
Lest he curse thee, and thou must atone for it.
Incorrectly Ewald: entice not a servant to slander against his master; and Hitzig: “Make not a servant tattle regarding his master.” It is true that the Poel (to pierce with the tongue, lingu petere ) occurs twice in the sense of to calumniate; but that means nothing else, is attested by the post-bibl. Hebrew; the proverb regarding schismatics ( ) in the Jewish Schemone-Esre (prayer of the eighteen benedictions) began with , “and to the calumniators” ( delatoribus ). Also in the Arab. alsana signifies pertulit verba alicujus ad alterum , to make a babbler, rapporteur (Fleischer). That the word also here is not to be otherwise interpreted, is to be concluded from with the causative rendering. Rightly Symmachus, ; Theodotion, ; and according to the sense also, Jerome, ne accuses ; the Venet. (give not him); on the contrary, Luther, verrate nicht [betray not], renders with the lxx, Syr. in the sense of the Aram. and the Arab. aslam ( tradere, prodere ). One should not secretly accuse (Psa 101:5) a servant with his master, and in that lies the character of slander ( ) when one puts suspicion upon him, or exaggerates the actual facts, and generally makes the person suspected – one thereby makes a man, whose lot in itself is not a happy one, at length and perhaps for ever unhappy, and thereby he brings a curse on himself. But it is no matter of indifference to be the object of the curse of a man whom one has unrighteously and unjustly overwhelmed in misery: such a curse is not without its influence, for it does not fruitlessly invoke the righteous retribution of God, and thus one has sorrowfully to atone for the wanton sins of the tongue ( veaschamta , for ve – aschamta as it is would be without pause).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Four Wicked Generations. | |
10 Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty. 11 There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother. 12 There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. 13 There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up. 14 There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
Here is, I. A caution not to abuse other people’s servants any more than our own, nor to make mischief between them and their masters, for it is an ill office, invidious, and what will make a man odious, v. 10. Consider, 1. It is an injury to the servant, whose poor condition makes him an object of pity, and therefore it is barbarous to add affliction to him that is afflicted: Hurt not a servant with thy tongue (so the margin reads it); for it argues a sordid disposition to smite any body secretly with the scourge of the tongue, especially a servant, who is not a match for us, and whom we should rather protect, if his master be severe with him, than exasperate him more. 2. “It will perhaps be an injury to thyself. If a servant be thus provoked, perhaps he will curse thee, will accuse thee and bring thee into trouble, or give thee an ill word and blemish thy reputation, or appeal to God against thee, and imprecate his wrath upon thee, who is the patron and protector of oppressed innocency.”
II. An account, upon occasion of this caution, of some wicked generations of men, that are justly abominable to all that are virtuous and good. 1. Such as are abusive to their parents, give them bad language and wish them ill, call them bad names and actually injure them. There is a generation of such; young men of that black character commonly herd together, and irritate one another against their parents. A generation of vipers those are who curse their natural parents, or their magistrates, or their ministers, because they cannot endure the yoke; and those are near of kin to them who, though they have not yet arrived at such a pitch of wickedness as to curse their parents, yet do not bless them, cannot give them a good word, and will not pray for them. 2. Such as are conceited of themselves, and, under a show and pretence of sanctity, hide from others, and perhaps from themselves too, abundance of reigning wickedness in secret (v. 12); they are pure in their own eyes, as if they were in all respects such as they should be. They have a very good opinion of themselves and their own character, that they are not only righteous, but rich and increased with goods (Rev. iii. 17), and yet are not cleansed from their filthiness, the filthiness of their hearts, which they pretend to be the best part of them. They are, it may be, swept and garnished, but they are not washed, nor sanctified; as the Pharisees that within were full of all uncleanness,Mat 23:25; Mat 23:26. 3. Such as are haughty and scornful to those about them, v. 13. He speaks of them with amazement at their intolerable pride and insolence: “Oh how lofty are their eyes! With what disdain do they look upon their neighbours, as not worthy to be set with the dogs of their flock! What a distance do they expect every body should keep; and, when they look upon themselves, how do they strut and vaunt like the peacock, thinking they make themselves illustrious when really they make themselves ridiculous!” There is a generation of such, on whom he that resists the proud will pour contempt. 4. Such as are cruel to the poor and barbarous to all that lie at their mercy (v. 14); their teeth are iron and steel, swords and knives, instruments of cruelty, with which they devour the poor with the greatest pleasure imaginable, and as greedily as hungry men cut their meat and eat it. God has so ordered it that the poor we shall always have with us, that they shall never cease out of the land; but there are those who, because they hate to relieve them, would, if they could, abolish them from the earth, from among men, especially God’s poor. Some understand it of those who wound and ruin others by slanders and false accusations, and severe censures of their everlasting state; their tongues, and their teeth too (which are likewise organs of speech), are as swords and knives, Ps. lvii. 4.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Slander of the Underprivileged
Verse 10 warns against slander or accusations which arouse an employer’s suspicions of a servant or employee. An accusation not known to be true can cause great harm, for which the accuser is responsible.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(10) Accuse not a servanti.e., a slave, thus making his already hard life still more intolerable.
And thou be found guilty before God of having wronged him, and so have to bear the punishment.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. Accuse not a servant master It is not entirely certain that our Authorized Version gives the sense here. Stuart, Zockler, and others render: “Thou shalt not cause a servant to slander his master, lest he should curse thee,” etc. Literally rendered, the first clause might read, Do not incite a servant to tongue (be-tongue or tongue-lash) his master.
Lest he It cannot be determined from the construction whether this refers to the servant or to the master. Conant translates “Slander not a servant to his master,” and refers the latter clause to the master. Miller: “Give not tongue service, as a servant to his master;” giving it, of course, a spiritual sense, as does also Ewald. The word translated accuse is found only once elsewhere, Psa 101:5, and is there read slandereth. The Septuagint has, “Deliver not a servant to his master, lest,” etc.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Man’s Wickedness Compared to God’s Holiness – In Pro 30:10-14 Agur sees how wicked and proud the heart of man really is in comparison to God’s holiness.
Pro 30:10 Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.
Pro 30:10
Rev 12:10, “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.”
Pro 30:14 There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
Pro 30:10. Accuse not a servant unto his master Do not abuse any poor slave, whose condition is wretched enough; and therefore rather excuse than aggravate his fault to his master, who perhaps is too rigorous; and be sure never to load him with unjust accusations, lest, being wronged by thee, and not knowing how to right himself, he appeal to the Lord, and pray him to punish thee; and thou, being found guilty, feel the heavy effects of his vengeance. See Bishop Patrick.
Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty. There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
All the several generations here spoken of are to be accounted for the same way. Every unawakened sinner is sleeping in the security of self-confidence, and his eyes have never been opened to see the spots of his own soul. And how then shall he be washed from his filthiness who denieth, because he knoweth not his own uncleanness. How sweet that prayer of David: Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Psa 19:12 . And how becoming that prayer of the leper: Lord! if thou wilt thou canst make me clean. Mat 8:2 . Reader! can you adopt the language of both? If so, surely you are not of the generation Agur speaks of.
Pro 30:10 Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.
Ver. 10. Accuse not a servant unto his master. ] Unless it be in an ordinance, for the benefit of both. Much less may we falsely accuse wives to their husbands – as Stephen Gardiner and other courtparasites did King Henry VIII his wives to him of adultery, heresy, conspiracy, &c.; children to their parents – as the Jesuits, the Pope’s bloodhounds, did Charles, eldest son of Philip, King of Spain, for suspicion of heresy, whereupon he was murdered by the cruel Inquisition; one friend to another; a sin that David could not endure; Psa 101:5 and Christ, the Son of David, as deeply disliked it in the Pharisees, those mischief makers, that by accusing his disciples to him one while, and him to his disciples another while, sought to make a breach in his family, by setting off the one from the other.
Lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty. “Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.”
He that speaketh what he should not, shall hear of what he would not. Put them in mind to speak evil of no man falsely and rashly, without cause and necessity. And why? “For we ourselves also” – even I Paul, and thou Titus – “were sometimes foolish, disobedient,” &c., Tit 3:1-3 and may haply hear of it to our shame and sorrow, if we irritate others thereunto by way of recrimination.
Pro 30:10
Pro 30:10
AN ISOLATED MAXIM
“Slander not a servant with his master, Lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.”
A slander, of course, is an evil, untruthful saying against someone. Clarke noted that, “The proverb warns against bringing a false accusation against a servant, lest thou be found guilty of the falsehood, and the servant curse thee for traducing his character, and in his turn, traduce thine. A general rule also appears here, `Do not meddle with other people’s servants.’
Pro 30:10. Slander is not good: Rom 3:8; Psa 101:5; Psa 50:19-20; I. Tim. Pro 3:11. Lest he curse thee-who is the he? More likely the servant than the master-the one slandered rather than the one who hears the slander. Since the slanderer would be guilty, the curse would be effective.
Accuse not: Heb. Hurt not with thy tongue, Pro 24:23, Deu 23:15, 1Sa 22:9, 1Sa 22:10, 1Sa 24:9, 1Sa 26:19, 1Sa 30:15, 2Sa 16:1-4, 2Sa 19:26, 2Sa 19:27, Dan 3:8-18, Dan 6:13, Dan 6:24, Rom 14:4
lest: Pro 11:26, Pro 24:24, Pro 28:27, Deu 15:9, 2Ch 24:22-24
Pro 30:10. Accuse not a servant unto his master Without sufficient cause, for otherwise, in some cases, this may be a duty. As if he had said, A servants condition is in itself mean and miserable, and therefore thou shouldest not make it worse without great and apparent necessity. Lest he curse thee Desire God to punish thee, which, though it might be sinful in him, yet, being deserved by thee, thou wouldst have reason to fear and expect; and thou be found guilty By God, who is always ready to plead the cause of the afflicted.
30:10 Accuse not a servant to his master, lest he curse thee, {g} and thou be found guilty.
(g) In accusing him without cause.
C. Wisdom about life 30:10-33
Though his view of and awareness of God are very much behind what Agur said in the rest of this chapter, his counsel deals primarily with practical prudence from this point on.
It is unwise to meddle in the domestic affairs of other people. The case in point in this couplet is falsely accusing a slave to his master. Probably "he" (Pro 30:10 b) refers to the master. The slave might never discover that someone had slandered him, but it is more likely that the master would investigate the charge and discover it false.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)