Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 21:17
He that loveth pleasure [shall be] a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.
17. wine and oil ] “The costly adjuncts of a princely banquet. Among these the oil, or precious unguent, was always most conspicuous (Psa 23:5; Psa 45:7, and especially Wis 2:7 ). And when we consider its price, the 300 denarii of Joh 12:5, the 300 days’ wages of a field labourer, (Mat 20:2), we can well understand how indulgence in such a luxury would become the type of all extravagance and excess.” Speaker’s Comm. ad loc.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wine and oil – i. e., The costly adjuncts of a princely banquet. The price of oil or precious unguent was about equal to the 300 days wages of a field laborer Mat 20:2. Indulgence in such a luxury would thus become the type of all extravagance and excess.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 21:17
He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man.
The love of pleasure
Here is the secret of the failure of nine-tenths of our unsuccessful young men. They loved pleasure and gave themselves up to its pursuit, and so they have never got on, and never will. When poverty comes as the result of idleness and sloth and self-indulgence, it is both a curse and a shame. Poverty is, of course, a relative term. A leading business man says that only three out of every hundred who enter upon mercantile life become ultimately successful. The failures are largely due to causes that are within the young mens own control. Some young men fail through trying to acquire money by any other means than good honest work; and when a young fellow once gets on this line of rail you may say he is done for. Some remain poor because they lack business capacity. Others fail through sheer downright laziness; others through mistaking their calling, others through instability or lack of originality and enterprise. Some through extravagant sanguineness and boastfulness. What does the wise man mean by pleasure? We are all so constituted that the love of happiness is both a necessity of our nature and a positive duty. There is no truer index of character than the kind of object or pursuit that affords us our intensest pleasure. The word pleasure is often used in the Bible in a distinctly evil sense, as denoting voluptuousness and carnality. The text reads in the margin He that loveth sport shall be a poor man. Certain forms of sport in moderation are perfectly legitimate. But incalculable mischief is being wrought amongst our young men by a too great fondness for sports and amusements. The inordinate craving for excitement has much to do with the ruin of some young men. It has been the same in every age, but we should have learned more wisdom by this time of day. (Thain Davidson, D. D.)
Self-indulgence source of poverty
Self-indulgence is prevalent amongst all classes.
I. It involves an extravagance of expenditure. Pleasure is an expensive divinity. The largest fortunes must often be laid upon its altar.
II. It involves a fostering of laziness. The self-indulgent man becomes such a lover of ease that effort of any kind becomes distasteful; the spirit of industry forsakes him. He that loveth pleasure, shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. But whilst it is true that self-indulgence leads to material poverty, it also leads to intellectual poverty. The man who would get his soul strong in holy resolves and righteous principles must agonise to enter in at the strait gate of habitual reflection, holy labour and earnest worship. This the self-indulgent man will not do. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Moderation in pleasure
Let not your recreations be lavish spenders of your time; but choose such which are healthful, short, transient, recreative, and apt to refresh you; but at no period dwell upon them, or make them your great employment; for he that spends his time in sports, and calls it recreation, is like him whose garment is all made of fringes, and his meat nothing but sauces: they are healthless, chargeable, and useless. And, therefore, avoid such games which require much time or long attendance, or which are apt to steal thy affections from more severe employments. For, to whatsoever thou hast given thy affections, thou wilt not grudge to give thy time. Natural necessity teaches us that it is lawful to relax and unbend our bow, but not to suffer it to be unready or unstrung. (Jeremy Taylor.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. He that loveth pleasure] That follows gaming, fowling, hunting, coursing, c., when he should be attending to the culture of the fields, shall be a poor man and, I may safely add, shall be so deservedly poor, as to have none to pity him.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He that loveth pleasure, that gives up himself to the pursuit and enjoyment of sensual and immoderate pleasures,
shall be a poor man; takes the ready course to poverty.
Wine and oil are put for all delicious fare and luxurious feasting; for wine and oil were much used in feasts in those parts.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. Costly luxuries impoverish.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He that loveth pleasure [shall be] a poor man,…. Or “sport” c and pastime, music and dancing, cards and dice, hunting and hawking, and other sensual gratifications; a man that indulges himself in these things, and spends his time and his money in such a way, is very likely to be a poor man, and generally is so in the issue;
he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich; that is, that loves them immoderately; otherwise in moderation they may be both loved and used; “wine” and “oil” are put for high living, luxurious feasts, costly entertainments; which being so, and continually made, will not suffer a man to be rich. The sense is, that an epicure, one that makes a god of his belly, that is both a winebibber and a glutton, that indulges to rich eating and drinking, in course lessens his substance, and leaves little for his heir: and this holds good with respect to spiritual as to temporal things; such persons are poor, and not rich in spiritual things, that indulge to carnal pleasure, and the gratification of their sensual appetite.
c “laetitiam”, Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus, Cocceius, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
17 He who loveth pleasure becometh a man of want;
He who loveth wine and oil doth not become rich.
In Arab. samh denotes the joyful action of the “cheerful giver,” 2Co 9:7; in Heb. the joyful affection; here, like farah , pleasure, delight, festival of joy. Jerome: qui diligit epulas . For feasting is specially thought of, where wine was drunk, and oil and other fragrant essences were poured (cf. Pro 27:9; Amo 6:6) on the head and the clothes. He who loves such festivals, and is commonly found there, becomes a man of want, or suffers want (cf. Jdg 12:2, , a man of strife); such an one does not become rich ( , like Pro 10:4, = , Jer 17:11); he does not advance, and thus goes backwards.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
17 He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.
Here is an argument against a voluptuous luxurious life, taken from the ruin it brings upon men’s temporal interests. Here is 1. The description of an epicure: He loves pleasure. God allows us to use the delights of sense soberly and temperately, wine to make glad the heart and put vigour into the spirits, and oil to make the face to shine and beautify the countenance; but he that loves these, that sets his heart upon them, covets them earnestly, is solicitous to have all the delights of sense wound up to the height of pleasurableness, is impatient of every thing that crosses him in his pleasures, relishes these as the best pleasures, and has his mouth by them put out of taste for spiritual delights, he is an epicure, 2 Tim. iii. 4. 2. The punishment of an epicure in this world: He shall be a poor man; for the lusts of sensuality are not maintained but at great expense, and there are instances of those who want necessaries, and live upon alms, who once could not live without dainties and varieties. Many a beau becomes a beggar.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
The High Cost of Vain Pleasure
Verse 17 declares that he who loves and seeks pleasure in feasting, wine drinking, and the use of fragrant oil as a perfume, indulges in an extravagance which leads to poverty, Pro 23:20-21; Pro 27:9. The ointment Mary used to anoint the feet of Jesus had a value equal to the pay of a laborer for 300 days, Joh 12:3-5; Mat 20:2.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Pro. 21:5. Thoughts, rather the counsels, the calculatings.
Pro. 21:6. Vanity tossed to and fro. Rather a fleeting breath. The Hebrew word hebel, here translated vanity, means rapour.
Pro. 21:7. Robbery, or violence, rapacity.
Pro. 21:8. Zckler translates the first clause of this verse, Crooked is the way of the guilty man. Fausset remarks that the Hebrew word ish (man) expresses a man once good; froward implies his perversity, by having left the good way. Right, i.e., direct, straightforward.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro. 21:5; Pro. 21:7; Pro. 21:17
TWO ROADS TO WEALTH
I. The most likely road to lead to wealth.
1. Thoughtful diligence as opposed to thoughtless haste. We have before considered the necessity of thought before action (see on chap. Pro. 20:18), and the same idea is conveyed in the use of the first noun here (see Critical Notes). But although it is wise and necessary to think before we act, thinking must only be preparatory to action, and must not take its place. It is good for a man to make a good plan of his house before he begins to build; but a house on paper only will not shelter him from the winter storms. It is advisable for the captain to study his chart well before he embarks upon his voyage, but if he does no more he will never reach the desired port. So it is good for a man to take counsel with himself and others before he sets out upon the voyage of commercial lifebefore he begins to build for a competency or a fortune; but after the thought and with the thought there must be action, and there must be painstaking and persevering action. He must not be all eagerness to-day and indifference to-morrowhe must not work hard this week and neglect his business next week;such a man may get rich by a mere chance speculation or by a dishonest act, but, apart from all higher considerations, it is not the best road, because it is not the most likely road. No doubt there are men who have made their fortunes by short cutsby what is called luck, or by craft and robberybut these are the exceptions, and the way of diligent perseverance is the one by which riches are generally gotten.
2. Self-denial as opposed to self-indulgence. He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich (Pro. 21:17). He who spends in self-indulgence as fast as he earns will be always poor. The lover of pleasure and luxury will not be a lover of hard work, and as we have just seen, it is that alone by which most men grow rich. And the extravagant and idle man will not be very likely to keep within his means, and to confine himself to honest ways of making money. And both these roads are roads which lead in the end to ruin. It is not likely that Solomon here refers to any poverty except material poverty. But it is also true that no man whose heart is set upon the gratification of his own selfish desireswhose life is one of self-indulgent easecan ever be rich in the only true and lasting riches. He must always be in poverty as to character, as to intellectual wealth, and as to the gratitude and respect of those whom he might bless with his riches. If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another mans (or anothers), who shall give you that which is your own? Luk. 16:11-12). He is a poor man who has nothing but what he must leave behind him when he leaves the world. The greatest millionaire has nothing he can call his own if he has not a godly character.
II. The only blessed road to wealth, viz., the way of truth as opposed to lying, the way of honesty as opposed to dishonesty. We need not consider these sins separately, for they are inseparable in human character and conduct. The liar is a thief, for by his tongue he cheats men of their rights, and the thief lies in action as well as in word. Solomon does not say that thieves and liars shall not grow rich. As a matter of fact they often do, and leave far behind them in their race those who are plodding slowly on in the path of honest diligence. But he looks to the end of such a way of making money, and of those who so make it. It often vanishes like a vapour (see Critical Notes), while the man who made it still lives. One falsehood leads to another, and a little dishonesty bringing success leads to another and another, each one on a larger scale, until the bubble becomes too thin, and it bursts and all is gone. But if the rogue keeps his fortune till the lastif he meets death a rich man, and is buried with all the pomp of wealth,retribution awaits him before the tribunal of a righteous God. He sought death and destruction while he lived, and he found it even here;destruction of character and spiritual death, and he who here refused to do judgment goes to meet his judge a morally self-ruined manone whose spiritual deathblow has been dealt by his own hand. (On this subject see also Homiletics on chap. Pro. 13:11, page 306.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pro. 21:5. Haste may have much of diligence in the temperament. But as indolence is its defect, this is its excess, its undisciplined impulse. The hand too often goes before, and acts without the judgment. Hence our English philosopher wisely counsels usnot to measure dispatch by the times of sitting, but by the advancement of the business. A wise man had it for a bye-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusionStay a little that we may make an end the sooner. To choose time is to save time, and an unreasonable motion is but beating the air. The heavenly race is not to be run by so many heats, but by a steady course. Run, not with haste or speed, but with patience the race set before us. (Heb. 12:1.) The seed springing up in haste withered. (Mat. 13:20-21.)Bridges.
Pro. 21:6. They seek death because they not only walk in the way to it, but run and fly with post haste as if they were afraid they should come too late or that hell would be full before they got thither. Thus Balaams ass never carries him fast enough after the wages of wickedness. Set but a wedge of gold before Achan, and Joshua that could stop the sun in his course, cannot stay him from fingering of it. Judas, in selling his Master, what he doth, doth quickly.Trapp.
Treasures; literally stores; from a root to shut up. Tongue; standing for all instruments of labour (see comment on chap. Pro. 12:6). Lying; not telling lies in the worldly sense, for, so put, decent sinners would miss the signification, but lying in that high sense in which the most honest worldling may fill the portrait. Tongue; just coincident with fact, is of the haste of the last verse; that untrue uttering of thought against conviction in ones self, and, therefore, hardly to be dreamed of as spared by the Most High. Stores got by this lying career of business may seem solid, because they may be whole blocks of granite in some fire-proof square mile of street; and yet as to their possession the wise man employs a singularly intensive figure. They are driven breath! Surely he will pause at that! But no! They are driven breath as of men chasing after death! The meaning is, that the hot breath of a man rushing to his doom is like the money made by the deceived impenitent. First, it is utterly perishable; second, it betokens the speed; and third, the voluntary rush to get himself to ruin.Miller.
And forget not what the lying tongue includesthat he is chargeable with the evil who pretends, in any way, to be what he is not, to have what he has not, not to have what he has, to have said what he has not said, or to have done what he has not done, or not to have said and done what he has said and done; who tries to gain an end by any word, or act, or look, or even by silence and concealment designed to convey a false impressionby any means whatever not in harmony with honest truthwith simplicity and godly sincerity. This, says Solomon, is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death. It is a vanity; inasmuch as it involves both folly and sinthe folly being made evident in ultimate detection, exposure, shame, and lossloss of character, loss of confidence, and many a time loss of even what the falsehood had acquired. It is tossed to and fro. Men learn it from one another. The man who has been imposed upon retaliateshe has no satisfaction until he has succeeded in duping him by whom he has himself been taken in, in practising on him an equal or a better trick. It is practised with little thoughtwith the vanity of a light and inconsiderate mindand laughed at, in many instances, when it proves successful, instead of engendering remorse. Success produces a hundred imitators: and the cheats and the dupes are successively reversed, the dupe becoming in his turn the cheat, and the cheat the dupe.Wardlaw.
Pro. 21:17. Self-indulgence is not human happiness; it is a delirium, not a delight. It is a mere titillation of the dying nerves, not a Divine thrill of our imperishable sensibilities and powers. Its music is the notes of a maniac, not the strains of a seraph.David Thomas.
He may be rich secularly. For here is a proverb that on earth has but a partial verity. But now, spiritually it is as settled as the heavens. He that loveth his life shall lose it (Joh. 12:25). A man cannot scale heaven for its wine. Unless a man gets higher objects than himself, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And, therefore, it is literally true that the wealth that the soul attains is never made by the very most feverish desire to escape, or by the very most impassioned thirst for the mere joy of heaven. Man; the higher name for man. He may be ever so skilful. Loving; not, if it loves, but because it loves. It is no harm to love happiness; but it cannot be in loving it, or because we love it, that we can create everlasting riches.Miller.
Strange as it may seem, the way to enjoy pleasure is not to love it; to live above it; to rejoice as though we rejoiced not; to use the world, as not abusing it (1Co. 7:30-31); never pursuing it as our portion, or as making the happiness of an immortal being. The man who gives his whole heart and time to the love of pleasure, and sacrifices to it all his prudence and foresight, is surely on the highroad to poverty. On the same road is he that loveth wine, under the power of a mocking delusion. He that loveth oilone of the most precious fruits of Canaanmay find, that those who could not live without dainties came to want necessaries.Bridges.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(17) Wine and oil.The accompaniments of a feast. The oil, or precious unguents, were poured over the head (comp. Psa. 23:5). It was the excessive love and gratitude of the two Marys (Luk. 7:38; Joh. 12:3) which prompted them to anoint the Lords feet. These perfumes were sometimes of great value, the pound of ointment of spikenard (Joh. 12:3) was worth more than three hundred pence (10 12s. 6d.), the wages of a day labourer (Mat. 20:2) for nearly a year.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
17. He that loveth pleasure “Pastime,” (Geneva,) enjoyment, particularly of the appetite.
A poor man Literally, a man of want, a needy man.
Wine and oil Olive and other oils were used as articles of diet, and also prepared with spices and perfumed as an unguent; hence, wine and oil became emblems of luxury and delicacy. The structure of the original might lead us to read it thus: “The needy man, who is fond of enjoyment, who loves wine and oil, (luxurious and expensive living,) shall not become rich” shall not lay up wealth. On the use of oil as an unguent, compare Psa 23:5; Psa 45:7; Deu 28:40; Rth 3:3; Mat 6:17; Mar 14:3; Luk 7:46, etc.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
v. 17. He that loveth pleasure,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Pro 21:17. He that loveth wine and oil Dr. Pococke, in describing his journey to Jerusalem, after his landing at Joppa, tells us, that he was conveyed to an encampment of Arabs, who entertained him as well as they could, making him cakes, and bringing him fine oil, in which they usually dip their bread. When he says usually, he means, I presume, when they are more elegantly regaled; for the eastern people often make use of bread with nothing more than salt, or some such trifling addition, such as summer savory, dried and powdered, which, mixed with salt, is eaten by many of the people of Aleppo as a seasoning to their bread, according to the account of Dr. Russell. The Septuagint translation of Job 6:6 seems to refer to the same practice, when it renders the first part of that verse, Will bread be eaten without salt? It is to the same sort of frugality also, I suppose, that Solomon refers, when he says in the present verse, He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. One would have thought the oil with their bread, which answers to our bread and butter, should not have been thought extravagant; but the account given by Dr. Russell shews that it is a piece of delicacy in the east, the expence of which they frequently avoid. See Observations, p. 128.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Pro 21:17 He that loveth pleasure [shall be] a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.
Ver. 17. He that loveth pleasure, &c. ] Luxury is attended by beggary. Pleasure may be had, but not loved. Isaac loved venison a little better haply than he should; Esau loved hunting, hence he grew profane, and though not a beggar, yet worse. The prodigal in the gospel “spent his substance with riotous living”; Luk 15:13 so did Apicius the Roman, who, hearing that there were seven hundred crowns only remaining of a vast estate that his father had left him, feared want, and hanged himself. a Marcus Livius, another goods waster, boasted when he died that he had left nothing for his heir, praeter coelum et caenum, more than air and mire. b Roger Ascham, schoolmaster to Queen Elizabeth, and her secretary for the Latin tongue, being too much addicted to dicing and cock fighting, lived and died a poor man. c
a Seneca.
b Valer.
c Camden’s Elizab.
poor = destitute. Heb heser. See note on Pro 6:11.
wine. Hebrew. yayin. App-27.
Pro 21:17
Pro 21:17
“He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.”
“The pleasure-lover strikes out for joy, but finds only poverty; but Pro 21:16 has just sounded the warning that more than pleasure is at stake. The stakes in the game of life on earth are very high indeed: Eternal Life or Eternal Death.
Pro 21:17. Another parallelism: loveth pleasure and loveth wine and oil mean the same as do shall be a poor man and shall not be rich. To have a good time the worlds way has always involved a constant expenditure of money (one cause of becoming poor), and such life also diverts one from his work and business interests (another cause). Oh, the multitude of pleasures for people today to get involved in and sidetracked by!
loveth: Pro 21:20, Pro 5:10, Pro 5:11, Pro 23:21, Luk 15:13-16, Luk 16:24, Luk 16:25, 1Ti 5:6, 2Ti 3:4
pleasure: Heb. sport
Reciprocal: Pro 29:3 – he
Pro 21:17. He that loveth pleasure That gives himself up to the pursuit and enjoyment of sensual pleasure; shall be a poor man Takes the ready course to poverty. He that loveth wine and oil Which were much used in feasts in those parts; that is, he that loves to feast and live delicately; shall not be rich For the lusts of sensuality are not maintained but at a great expense.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments