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

Perseverance: Solomon’s Second Collection of Proverbs (126 Sayings) – Proverbs 25-29 are often called Solomon’s Second Collection of Proverbs. When we enter into chapters 25 and 29, we begin to notice a number of proverbs that deal with leaders of a nation. We now must learn that our actions ultimately affect our nation. We often find the underlying them of a section in its opening verses; and this is the case with this division in Proverbs. Pro 25:2-7 reveal how the king decrees by divine oracles (Pro 25:2-3), so that he might establish righteousness (Pro 25:4-5), so that everyone will walk humbly before the king and his decrees (Pro 25:6-7). Therefore, the proverbs in 25-29 are emphasizing how a king establishes justice in the land. Perhaps Solomon gathered this second group of proverbs separately from his first collection because he used them in specifically to establish righteousness and order in the land of Israel. This may the reason that many proverbs in this collection refer to rulers of a land (Pro 25:2-7; Pro 25:15; Pro 27:23-27; Pro 28:2; Pro 28:15-16; Pro 29:2; Pro 29:4; Pro 29:12; Pro 29:14; Pro 29:26). In fact, this collection of proverbs closes with two verses stating this very theme of how a king’s righteous judgment establishes the land (Pro 29:4; Pro 29:14).

The signposts found in the sayings of the wise (Pro 22:17 to Pro 24:34) and in Solomon’s second collection (25-29) tell us to continue in the fear of the Lord, to honor those in authority over us, and this will bring happiness into our lives as we continue on this journey. Note:

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.”

Regarding the relationship of Proverbs 25-29 to our spiritual journey, we can group these proverbs under the phase called perseverance of the saints, in which God’s children have entered their divine calling and are in the process of fulfilling it in order to reach the final stage of glorification. The theme of leadership and the establishment of justice reveal our purpose for this season in our lives. God has put us on this path in order to establish righteousness in the land.

1. Proverbs About Relationships with Others Pro 25:1 to Pro 26:28

2. Proverbs About Misc. Activities Pro 27:1 to Pro 29:27

Characteristics of the Passage – A number of the proverbs found in the Solomon’s first collection (Pro 10:1 to Pro 22:16) are repeated in this section of Solomon’s second collection (Pro 25:1 to Pro 29:27). The opening verse of this section tells us that these proverbs were copied out by Hezekiah about 250 years after Solomon wrote them. Perhaps Hezekiah’s men were unwilling to delete anything they found repeated in the second collection out of holy reverence for what they now considered divine Scriptures.

Many scholars observe differences between the characteristics and content of this second collection of proverbs and the first collection. They mention a number of examples: (1) Grammar – Some scholars suggest the first collection repeatedly uses several phrases that are not found in the second collection, such as “fountain of life (two times),” “tree of life (four times),” “snares of death (two times),” “hand in hand (two times),” and “shall not be unpunished (five times).” All agree that this does not provide a strong argument to suggest different authorships and dates between the two collections. (2) Content – Other scholars use the climate of the monarchy described within the two collections to conclude that they were written in different periods of Israel’s history. For example, during the time of Solomon, the political climate was one of peace and righteousness. Thus, we see within the first collection words that support the monarchy:

Pro 14:28, “In the multitude of people is the king’s honour: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.”

Pro 16:12, “It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness.”

Pro 16:13, “Righteous lips are the delight of kings; and they love him that speaketh right.”

Pro 16:15, “In the light of the king’s countenance is life; and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain.”

Pro 20:28, “Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy.”

A contrast can be made in the second collection, where we find descriptions of people who have been oppression by the king:

Pro 25:5, “Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.”

Pro 28:2, “For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.”

Pro 28:15, “As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.”

Pro 28:16, “The prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor: but he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days.”

Pro 29:2, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”

Pro 29:4, “The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it.”

Pro 29:12, “If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.”

Such verses about political oppression are missing in the first collection. They bring new and fresh insight into the failures of a monarchy system. Scholars suggest that this indicates a later date of writing than the first collection. However, as interesting as these suggestions appear, neither of the two gives strong enough support to conclude that there was more than one author of the first and second collections of proverbs. [132]

[132] W. J. Deane, S. T. Teylor-Taswell, and W. F. Adeney, Proverbs, in The Pulpit Commentary, e Eds.H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Excell (New York: Funk and Wagnalis Company, n.d.), x, xvi.

The Structure of the Passage – Nelson’s Teaching Outlines of the Bible groups the verses found in chapters 25-26 into subject matter related to various aspects of our relationships with people in society. [133] I have followed these sections with different titles.

[133] Nelson’s Teaching Outlines of the Bible (Thomas Nelson: Nashville: Thomas Nelson, c1986, 1997).

1. Introduction Pro 25:1

2. Wisdom in Dealing with Leaders Pro 25:2-7

3. Wisdom in Dealing with Relationships Pro 25:8-20

4. Wisdom in Dealing with Adversity Pro 25:21-24

5. Wisdom Regarding Self-Discipline Pro 25:25-28

6. Wisdom in Dealing with the Foolish Pro 26:1-12

7. Wisdom in Dealing with the Sluggard Pro 26:13-16

8. Wisdom in Dealing with the Liar Pro 26:17-28

The fact that Hezekiah grouped the proverbs in chapters 25-26 according to subject matter implies that he may have studied the proverbs of Solomon by topic as we often do today.

In addition, our relationships with those in our society help us to see the underlying theme of perseverance, knowing that the way we manage our relationships with others determines whether or not we are continuing in the path of wisdom by walking in love with others.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Pro 22:26-27 Third Saying (Tetrastitch) Pro 22:26 forms a single proverbial thought using four lines. This is called a tetrastitch.

Pro 22:26  Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.

Pro 22:27  If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?

Pro 22:28 Fourth Saying (Distitch) Comments – Pro 22:28 forms a single proverbial thought using two lines, which is called a distitch.

Pro 22:28  Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.

Pro 22:28 Comments – The Mosaic Law made provisions for preserving the ancient boundary marks set by the founding fathers of the nation of Israel (Deu 19:14; Deu 27:17). These boundary marks were originally set during the time of Joshua during the allotment of the land to the twelve tribes of Israel immediately after the conquest of the Promised Land (Jos 13:1 to Jos 21:45). During the course of the nation’s history, land was lost because of poverty, or the need to sell one’s land; it was lost by marauding groups from neighbouring countries; it was taken by corruption (Job 24:2). For example, King Ahab killed Naboth and took possession of his land (1Ki 21:1-16). Today in many countries, the office of land registry is corrupted, so that government officials change land titles through bribes, or land owners simply encroach out of their boundaries and steal portions of neighbouring land.

Deu 19:14, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.”

Deu 27:17, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.”

Job 24:2, “Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof.”

Scripture Reference – Note a similar proverb:

Pro 23:10, “Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless:”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Concerning Fools and Sluggards

v. 1. As snow in summer and as rain in harvest, either possibility being suggested as something altogether unfitting, not to be expected, so honor is not seemly for a fool, it is not proper that he should have it, he is altogether unworthy of it.

v. 2. As the bird by wandering, the sparrow flitting along, as the swallow by flying, the aimlessness of their ordinary flight being the point of comparison, so the curse causeless shall not come, that is, if it is undeserved, it will not be fulfilled, and the person against whom it is directed has no cause for worry.

v. 3. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, both being necessary in the case of irrational brutes in order to keep them under control, and a rod for the fool’s back, for only by force can he be directed in the proper way.

v. 4. Answer not a fool according to his folly, by putting oneself on a level with him in speech and actions, lest thou also be like unto him, be placed in the same class with him by decent and intelligent people.

v. 5. Answer a fool according to his folly, a sharp and decisive answer being framed to meet foolish remarks, lest he be wise in his own conceit, filled with the notion that he really possesses wisdom.

v. 6. He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool, expecting him to represent his interests in a proper manner, cutteth off the feet, he puts himself in a helpless condition, he harms his own cause, and drinketh damage, harms, or injures, himself, he is bound to suffer abuse.

v. 7. The legs of the lame are not equal, they drag or dangle, they render him helpless in his walk; so is a parable in the mouth of fools, it is altogether awkward for him to use a proverb or maxim, as he cannot apply it properly.

v. 8. As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, as we might say, as one who plays with a loaded gun, so is he that giveth honor to a fool, for no fool is more dangerous than he who finds himself in a position of honor and authority.

v. 9. As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, a branch of a thorn-bush in the hands of such a person being a dangerous weapon, since one never knows who will be injured in the inebriate’s uncertain striking, so is a parable in the mouth of fools, he works more harm than profit with his wrong applications.

v. 10. The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool and rewardeth transgressors, rather, literally, “Much produceth all, and both the reward and the rewarder of the fool pass away,” that is, diligence brings reward, but folly brings destruction.

v. 11. As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly, repeating it again and again, not aware of the loathsomeness of his action. cf Proverbs 2Pe 2:22.

v. 12. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit, in a false estimate of his knowledge and abilities? There is more hope of a fool than of him, for a person with false self-assurance is a hopeless case.

v. 13. The slothful man saith, eagerly inventing excuses to keep himself from work, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets. Pro 22:13.

v. 14. As the door turneth upon his hinges, never, however, moving from its place, so doth the slothful upon his bed, moving indeed, but not leaving his place and therefore making no progress in life.

v. 15. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom, rather, he dips it into the large bowl on the table with the intention of getting food for himself; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth, he is actually too lazy to bring it up to his mouth, 19:24.

v. 16. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit, in his own estimate of himself, than seven men that can render a reason, giving wise answers, proper information concerning questions placed before them. True humility is one of the chief Christian virtues.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Pro 26:1-12

Certain proverbs concerning the fool (kesil), with the exception, perhaps, of Pro 26:2 (see on Pro 1:22).

Pro 26:1

As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest. Snow in summer would be quite unnatural and unheard of (see on Pro 25:13). Rain falls in the usual course of things only at stated times; whence arose the phrase of “the early and of latter rains” (see on Pro 16:15). From spring to October or November was the dry season, and a storm at harvest time was regarded, not merely as destructive or inconvenient, but as portentous and even supernatural (see 1Sa 12:17, etc.). The two cases are types of all that is incongruous and unsuitable. The LXX; apparently regarding their experience in Egypt rather than the actual text, translate, “As dew in harvest, and as rain in summer.” So honour is not seemly for a fool (Pro 26:8; Pro 19:10). It is quite out of place to show respect to a stupid and ungodly man, or to raise him to a post of dignity; such conduct will only confirm him in his folly, give others a wrong impression concerning him, and afford him increased power of mischief. The Greeks had a proverb about giving honour to unsuitable objects: they called it washing an ass’s head with nitre.

Pro 26:2

As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying. “Bird” (tsippor) is the sparrow, which is found throughout Palestine; “swallow” (deror), the free flier. The Authorized Version hardly gives the sense. The line should be rendered, as the sparrow in (in respect of) its wandering, as the swallow in its flying. The point of comparison is the vagueness and aimlessness of the birds’ flight, or the uselessness of trying to catch them in their course. So the curse causeless shall not come. It shall, as it were, spend its force in the air, and fall not on the head on which it was invoked. A causeless curse is that which is uttered against one who has done nothing to deserve such denunciation. Septuagint, “As birds and sparrows fly, so a causeless () curse shall come upon no one” Bailey, ‘Festus’

“Blessings star forth forever; but a curse
Is like a cloudit passes.”

Closely connected with the superstition that dreads a curse is that which is alarmed by omens. Against this irrational fear we find some Eastern proverbs directed; e.g. “The jackal howls: will my old buffalo die?” “The dog barksstill the caravan passes: will the barking of the dog reach the skies?” (Lane). Instead of , “not,” the Keri reads , “to him.” This makes the proverb say that the unprovoked curse shall return upon him who uttered it. But this reading is not to be accepted, as it does not suit the terms of comparison, though it seems to have been used by St. Jerome, who translates, Sic maledictum frustra prolatum in quempiam superveniet. This retributive justice is often alluded to elsewhere; e.g. Pro 26:27 (where see note). So we find in various languages proverbs to the same effect. Thus in English, “Harm watch, harm catch;” Spanish, “Who sows thorns, let him not walk barefoot;” Turkish, “Curses, like chickens, always come home to roost;” Yoruba, “Ashes always fly back in the face of him that throws them” (Trench).

Pro 26:3

A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass. We should be inclined to invert the words, and say a bridle for the horse, and a whip for the ass; but it must be remembered that in early times the horse was not ridden, but only driven. The animals used in riding were the ass and mule, and sometimes the camel. The Eastern ass is really a fine animal, larger, more spirited, and more active than the poor creature which we are wont to see. Or the whip and bridle may be intended to apply to both animals, though divided between the two for rhythmical or antithetical reasons (see on Pro 10:1). A rod for the fool’s back. Sharp correction is beth useful and necessary for the fool (so Pro 10:13; Pro 19:29). Similar treatment Siracides advises to be employed in the ease of an idle servant (Ec Pro 30:24-28). Septuagint, “As a whip for a horse and a goad for an ass, so is a rod for a lawless nation.”

Pro 26:4

Answer not a fool according to his folly. Do not lower yourself to the fool’s level by answering his silly questions or arguing with him as if he were a sensible man. Lest thou also be like unto him; lest you be led to utter folly yourself or to side with him in his opinions and practices. Our blessed Saviour never responded to foolish and captious questions in the way that the questioner hoped and desired, he put them by or gave an unexpected turn to them which silenced the adversary. Instances may be seen in Mat 21:23, etc.; Mat 22:21, Mat 22:22; Luk 13:23, etc.; Joh 21:21, etc.

Pro 26:5

Answer a fool according to his folly. This maxim at first sight seems absolutely antagonistic to the purport of the preceding verse; but it is not so really. The words, “according to his folly,” in this verse mean, as his folly deserves, in so plain a way as is expose it, and shame him, and bring him to a better mind. Lest he be wise in his own conceit; thinking, it may be, that he has said something worth hearing, or put you to silence by his superior intelligence.

Pro 26:6

He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool. This clause comes in the Hebrew after the next. Cutteth off the feet, and drinketh damage. To entrust an important commission to a fool is to deprive one’s self of the means of having it properly executed, and to bring upon one’s self shame and injury. A man who is so silly as to employ such an unfit messenger, as it were, cuts off the feet which should bear him on his errand, and, instead of enjoying the satisfaction of seeing the business well performed, he will be mortified and damaged by the blunder and stupidity of his emissary. Septuagint, “He maketh for himself reproach from his own ways (,? ) who sendeth a word by a foulish messenger.” The Vulgate reads the first participle in a passive sense, claudus pedibus; but this is uneccessary. We have similar phrases to “drinketh damage” elsewhere; e.g. Job 15:16 “drinketh in iniquity;” Job 34:7, “drinketh up scorn;” and with a different word, Pro 19:28, “devoureth iniquity.”

Pro 26:7

The legs of a lame man are not equal. The first word of this verse, , has occasioned some difficulty. It is considered as an imperative from , “draw off,” “take away.” Thus the Septuagint, ; Venetian, . But the verb seems never to have this meaning; nor, if it had, would the sense be very satisfactory, for. as Delitzsch points out, lame legs are better than none, and there is a great difference between the perfectly crippled or paralytic who has to be carried, and the lame man () who can limp or get along on crutches. And when we explain the proverb in this sense (as Plumptre), “Take away the legs of the lame man and the parable from the mouth of fools,” for both alike ere useless to their possessors, and their loss would not be feltwe must recognize that the conclusion is not true. No one would think of amputating s man’s legs simply because he was lame, and such a one’s legs cannot be considered absolutely useless. Others regard the word as third plural kal, “the legs hang loose;” though the form is not sufficiently accounted for. All explanations of the word as a verbal form have such difficulties, that some take it as a noun, meaning “dancing,” which is Luther’s interpretation, “as dancing to a cripple, so it becometh a fool to talk of wisdom.” But the word could never sightly anything but “limping,” and could not express the elegant motion of dancing. The Authorized Version considers the Hebrew to mean, “are lifted up,” i.e. are unequal, one being longer or stronger than the other; but this loses the force of the comparison. There seems to be no better interpretation than that mentioned above,” The legs of the lame hang loose,” i.e. are unserviceable, however sound in appearance. St. Jerome has expressed this, though in a strange fashion, “As it is vain for a lame man to have seemly legs.” So is a parable in the mouth of a fool. “Parable” (mashal), sententious saying, the enunciation of which, as well as the recital of stories, was always a great feature in Eastern companies, and afforded a test of a man’s ability. A fool fails in the exhibition; he misses the point of the wise saying which he produces; it falls lame from his mouth, affords no instruction to others, and makes no way with its hearers. Siracides gives another reason for the incongruity, “A parable shall be rejected when it cometh out of a fool’s mouth; for he will not speak it in its season” (Ec Pro 20:20). Septuagint, “Take away the motion of legs, and transgression (,? , Lag.) from the mouth of fools.”

Pro 26:8

As he that bindeth a stone in a sling. So Septuagint, . This gives a very good sense the point being either that the stone, after being firmly fitted in its place, quickly passes away from the sling, or, if more stress is laid on the word “bindeth,” that the stone is so firmly fixed that it cannot be slung, and therefore never reaches the mark. The alternative rendering adopted by the Revised Version is this, “As a bag of gems in a heap of stones;” where the incongruity would consist either in exposing jewels on a cairn, or sepulchral monument, whence they could easily be filched, or in attracting undesirable attention. But there are grammatical and etymological reasons against this interpretation; and the Authorized Version is to be considered correct. The Vulgate is curious: Sieur qui mittit lapidem in acervum Mercurii. This rendering points to the custom, with which Jerome must have been familiar, of erecting statues of Mercury on the highways, which were thus placed under his protection. Round these statues were ranged heaps of stones, to which every wayfarer contributed by throwing a pebble as he passed. The absence of the critical faculty which discerned no absurdity in this anachronism is sufficiently remarkable. The Latin saying seems intended to denote useless labour, as we speak of “carrying coals to Newcastle.” So is he that giveth honour to a fool. You pay respect to a fool, or place him in an honourable position, but your labour is wasted; he cannot act up to his dignity, he cannot maintain the honour; it passes away like the stone from the sling, or, if it remains, it is useless to him.

Pro 26:9

As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard. There is here no idea of the drunkard’s hand being pierced with a thorn while he is insensible to the pain, but rather of his being armed with it, and ripe for mischief. So it is best to render, “A thornbush cometh into the hand of a drunkard;” he somehow gets possession of it, and in his stupid excitement is liable to become dangerous. Some understand of the growth of the thorn; thus the Septuagint, “Thorns grow in the hand of a drunkard;” Vulgate, “As if a thorn grew in the hand of a drunkard.” But one does not see the bearing of such an expression; and the translation given above is more appropriate. So is a parable, etc. (as Pro 26:7). In that passage the wise saying in a fool’s mouth was compared with something useless, here it is compared with something injurious. He employs it purposely to wound others; or by the ignorant use of some sharp-edged word he does much mischief. In this hemistich the LXX. has read with a different vocalization, and renders, “servitude () in the hand of fools.” This seems to mean that it comes natural to fools to be manacled and restrained by force.

Pro 26:10

Few passages have given greater difficulty than this verse; almost every word has been differently explained. The Authorized Version is, The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool, and re-wardeth transgressors; Revised Version, As an archer (Job 16:13) that woundeth all, so is he that hireth the fool and he that hireth thorn that pass by. At first sight one would hardly suppose that these could be versions of the same passage. To show the diversity that obtained in early times we quote the Greek and Latin versions. Septuagint, “All the flesh of fools is much distressed ( ), for their distraction () is brought to nought;” Vulgate, “Judgment decides causes, and he who imposes silence on a fool appeases wrath.” From the various interpretations of which this proverb is capable, it may be surmised that it was originally one of those hard sayings which were intended to exercise the ingenuity of auditors. It has certainly had that effect in modern times. We may at once eliminate the rendering of the Authorized Version, though the sense is good and scriptural, denoting that the great Creator recompenses the good and punishes sinners. So the medieval jingle

“Ante Dei vultum nihil unquam restat inultum.”

“God” is not in the Hebrew, and rab, “great,” is never used absolutely as equivalent to “God.” Nor is the word used elsewhere to mean “head workman;” so the Revised Version margin, “a master worker formeth all things,” is suspicious. Some translate, “A great man woundeth [equivalent to ‘punisheth’] all; he renders their due to fools and to transgressors.” One does not see why this should be attributed to the great man; it certainly is not generally true. Rosenmuller, “The mighty man causes terror; so does he who hires the fool and the transgressor;” but it is not clear why the hiring of a fool should occasion terror. The rendering in the Revised Version, or something very similar, has found favour with many modern commentators, though quite unknown to the mere ancient versions. According to this interpretation, the proverb says that a careless, random way of doing business, taking into one’s service fools, or entrusting matters of importance to any chance loiterer, is as dangerous as shooting arrows about recklessly without caring whither they flew or whom they wounded. To this view Nowack objects that it is unparalleled to present an archer as a picture of what is unusual and profitless; that it does not explain why “hireth” is twice repeated; that the connection between shooter and the hire of fool and loiterer is net obvious; and that does not mean “vagabonds” or “passers by.” None of these objections are of much importance; and this interpretation still holds its ground. There is also much to be said for the rendering of the Revised Version margin, which is virtually that of Gesenius, Fleischer, Wordsworth, Nutt, and others: A skilful man, a master workman, produces, makes, everything by his own care and superintendence; but he that hires a fool to do his work hires, as it were, any casual vagabond who may know nothing of the business. One objection to this interpretation is that the verb , does not elsewhere have the meaning here attributed to it. Considering all the above interpretations unsatisfactory, Hitzig, after Umbreit, followed herein by Delitzsch and Nowack, translates, “Much bringeth forth all,” which means that he who possesses much can do anything, or, as St. Mat 13:12, “Whosoever hath, to him shall be given” (comp. Pro 1:5). But the second hemistich comes in rather lamely, “But he who hires a fool is as one who hires a vagabond.” Hence Delitzsch reads for the first , and renders, “But the hire and the hirer of the fool pass away,” i.e. what the fool gets as wages is soon squandered, and the person who took him into his service is ruined by his incapacity. In this case the connection of the two clauses would be this: A rich man, in the nature of things, grows richer; but there are exceptions to this rule; for he who employs stupid and incapable people to do his business suffers for it in property, reputation, and probably in person also; and the incompetent person derives no benefit from the connection. It is impossible to give a decided preference to any of these expositions; and the passage must be left as a crux. It is most probable that the Hebrew text is defective. This would account for the great variations in the versions.

Pro 26:11

As the dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly; or, repeateth his folly. The fool never frees himself from the trammels of his foolishness; his deeds and words always bear the same character to the end. The same truth holds good of the sinner, especially the drunkard and the sensualist. If they feel temporary compunction, and reject their sin by partial repentance, they do not really shake it off wholly; it has become a second nature to them, and they soon relapse into it. Septuagint, “As when a dog goes to his own vomit and becomes hateful, so is a fool who returns in his wickedness to his own sin.” The LXX. adds a distich which is found in Ecclesiasticus 4:21, “There is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a shame that is glory and grace.”

Pro 26:12

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? (Pro 3:7). Nothing so shuts the door against improvement as self-conceit. “Woe unto them,” says Isaiah (Isa 5:21), “that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight.” Such persons, professing themselves wise, become fools (Rom 1:22; Rom 12:16; Rev 3:17, Rev 3:18). Touching conceit, Qui sibi sapit, summe desipit. The Oriental speaks of the fox finding his shadow very large, and of the wolf when alone thinking himself a lion. There is more hope of a fool than of him (Pro 29:20). A fool who is conscious of unwisdom may be set right; but one who fancies himself perfect, and needing no improvement, is beyond cure; his case is hopeless. So the sinner who feels and acknowledges his iniquity may be converted; but the self-righteous Pharisee, who considers himself to have no need of repentance, will never be reformed (see Matthew Luk 15:7; Luk 18:14). St. Chrysostom (Hom. in Phil.,’ 7), “Haughtiness is a great evil; it is better to be a fool than haughty; for in the one case the folly is only a perversion of intellect, but in the other ease it is still worse; for it is folly joined with madness. The fool is an evil to himself; but the haughty man is a plague to others too. One cannot be haughty-minded without being a fool The soul which is puffed up has a worse disease than dropsy, while that which is under restraint is treed from all evil” (Oxford transl.).

Pro 26:13-16

Proverbs concerning the sluggard.

Pro 26:13

This is virtually the same as Pro 22:13. The words for “lion” are different in two parts of the verse, shakhal being the lion of advanced age, ari the full-grown animal; the latter may possibly be assumed to be the more dangerous of the two, and so a climax would be denoted. There is a proverb current in Bechuana, which says, “The month of seed time is the season of headaches.”

Pro 26:14

As the door turneth upon its hinges. The door moves on its hinges and makes no progress beyond its own confined sphere of motion; so the slothful man turns himself on his bed from side to side, but never leaves it to do his. work. Other analogies have been found in this proverb. Thus: The door opens to let the diligent go forth to his daily business, while the sluggard is rolling upon his bed; the door creaks when it is moved, so the lazy man groans when he is aroused; the door now is opened, now is shut, so the sluggard at one time intends to rise, and then falls back in his bed, and returns to his sleep (comp. Pro 6:9, Pro 6:10; Pro 24:33).

Pro 26:15

Very nearly identical with Pro 19:24. It forms a climax to the two preceding verses. Wordsworth takes “the dish” as a type of sensual pleasure, which the slothful loves, while he has no liking for active work.

Pro 26:16

The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit. The sluggard is here one who is too idle to think a matter out, and considers his own cursory view as sure to be right. He is one who deems study to be an unnecessary weariness of the flesh (Ecc 12:12), and flatters himself that he is quite able without it to give a satisfactory account of any question presented to him. Than seven men that can render a reason. “Seven” is the number of completeness (comp. Pro 6:31; Pro 9:1; Pro 24:16). The idle fool sets more value by his own judgment than by the sense of any number of wise men. Revised Version margin, “that can answer discreetly,” is perhaps nearer the Hebrew, which implies the being able to return a wise and proper answer to anything asked of them. The LXX. reading a little differently, renders, “Wiser seems a sluggard to himself than one who in satiety ( ) brings back a message.” This is explained to mean that a sluggard thinks himself wise in not helping a neighbour with an errand or a message, though he would have probably been repaid with a good dinner for his kindness.

Pro 26:17-28

A series of proverbs connected more or less with peacefulness and its opposite.

Pro 26:17

He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him. “Meddleth with strife” should be “vexes, excites himself, with a quarrel.” Is like one that taketh a dog by the ears, and thus needlessly provokes him to bark and bite. Regarding the position of the two participles in this verse, without any connecting link, Delitzsch takes “passing by” as attributed to the dog, thus: “He seizes by the ears a dog passing by, who is excited by a strife that concerns him not.” The stray dog corresponds to the quarrel with which one has nothing to do. The present accentuation does not support this view; otherwise it is suitable and probable. Septuagint, “As he who lays hold of a dog’s tail, so is he who sets himself forth as champion in another’s cause.” Ecc 11:9, “Strive not in a matter that concerns thee not.” Says a Greek gnome

Our English proverb says, “He that intermeddles with all things may go shoe the goslings.” The Telugu compares such interference to a monkey holding a snake in his paw; it is hard to hold, dangerous to let go (Lane).

Pro 26:18, Pro 26:19

A tetrastich, but without parallelisms. As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death. The word rendered “madman” is an , and has been variously explained; but the Authorized Version is probably correct. “Firebrands” are darts with some blazing material attached to them. “Death “forms a climax with the other dangers mentioned, which the madman deals forth recklessly and indiscriminately. So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport? When a man has injured his neighbour by lies or malice, the plea that he was only in joke is not allowed; the injury is not less real because he excuses it by alleging it was done not seriously, but playfully; no more than the fatal effects of the use of murderous weapons are lessened by their being employed by the hands of a maniac. Practical joking is often a most serious matter. A mediaeval adage says wisely

“Cum jocus est verus, jocus est malus atque severus,”

Septuagint, “Even as those who are under medical treatment () throw words at men, and he who first meets the word will be overthrown; so are all they that lay wait for their own friends, and when they are seen, say, I did it in jest.” As insane persons who abuse and ill treat their physicians are excused by reason of their infirmity, so those who injure friends in secret try to excuse themselves when found out by alleging that they were only joking.

Pro 26:20

Some proverbs follow concerning the slanderer. Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out. Where the wood fails, and that was the only fuel then used, the fire must go out. So where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth; comes to silence (Pro 22:10). (For nirgan,” whisper,” see on Pro 16:28.) Septuagint, “With much wood fire groweth, but where there is not one discordant (), strife is at rest.”

Pro 26:21

As coals are to burning coals. As black, cold charcoal feeds glowing charcoal, as wood feeds a lighted fire, so a quarrelsome man (Pro 21:9; Pro 27:15) supports and nourishes strife. The verse is the counterpart of the preceding. Septuagint, “A hearth for coal and logs for fire, and a reviling man for tumult of strife.”

Pro 26:22

(See Pro 18:8, where the gnome occurs.) Septuagint, “The words of knaves () are soft, but they strike to the secret chambers of the bowels.”

Pro 26:23

The next proverbs are concerned with hypocrisy. The Hebrew denotes the comparison simply by position (see on Pro 25:11), thus: An earthen vessel (or, potsherd) overlaid with silver drossgrowing lips and a wicked heart. So called “silver dross” is litharge, an oxide of lead used to this day to put a glaze on pottery (comp. Ecclesiasticus 38:30). The comparatively worthless article is thus made to assume a fine appearance. Thus lips that seem to burn with affection, and give the kiss of glowing, love, may mask a heart filled with envy and hatred Judas kisses and words of friendship hide the bad feelings that lurk within. Septuagint, “Silver given with guile is to be considered as a potsherd; smooth () lips hide a grievous heart” (comp. Mat 23:27).

Pro 26:24

He that hateth dissembleth with his lips. This and the next verse form a tetrastich. St. Jerome, Labiis suis intelligitur inimicus. But the verb here used, , bears the meaning “to make one’s self unknown,” as well as “to make one’s self known,” and hence “to make one’s self unrecognizable” by dress or change of countenance (1Ki 14:5). This is much more appropriate in the present connection than the other explanation. The man cloaks his hatred with honeyed words. And layeth up deceit within him; meditating all the time treachery in his heart (Jer 9:8). Septuagint, “An enemy weeping promises all things with his lips, but in his heart he contriveth deceits.” The tears in this case are hypocritical signs of sorrow, intended to deceive the dupe.

Pro 26:25

When he speaketh fair, believe him not. When he lowers his voice to a winning, agreeable tone, put no trust in him. Septuagint, “If thine enemy entreat thee with a loud voice, be not persuaded.” For there are seven abominations in his heart. His heart is filled with a host of evil thoughts (see on Pro 26:16), as if seven devils had entered in and dwelt there. Ecc 12:10, etc. “Never trust thine enemy; for like as iron rusteth, so is his wickedness. Though he humble himself, and go crouching, yet take good heed and beware of him.” Plato’s verdict concerning hypocrisy is often quoted, “It is the very worst form of injustice to appear to be just without being so in reality”. With this Cicero agrees (‘De Offic.,’ 1.13), “Totius injustitiae nulla capitalior est quam eorum, qui tum cum maxime fallunt id agunt ut viri boni esse videantur.”

Pro 26:26

Whose hatred is covered by deceit; or, hatred may be concealed by deceit, as was said above (Pro 26:24). (But) his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. The hater’s real wickedness, at some time or other, in spite of all his efforts to hide it, will be openly displayed. He will show it before some third party and thus it will be divulged. At any rate, this will be the case at the judgment day, when he who hateth his brother shall be shown to be not only a murderer, but a hater of God also (1Jn 3:15; 1Jn 4:20). Septuagint, “He that hideth enmity prepareth deceit, but he revealeth his own sins, being well known in assemblies.”

Pro 26:27

Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein. This thought is found often elsewhere; e.g. Psa 7:16; Psa 9:16; Ecc 10:8; Ecclesiasticus 27:25, 26. The pit is such a one as was made to catch wild animals; the maker is supposed to approach incautiously one of these traps, and to tall into it. And he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. This does not refer to throwing stones into the air, which fall upon the head of the thrower, but to rolling stones up a height in order to hurl them down upon the enemy (comp. Jdg 9:53; 2Sa 11:21). Of such retributive justice we have numerous examples;e.g. Haman hung on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai (Est 7:9, etc.). So the old story tells how Perillus, the inventor of the brazen bull in which prisoners were to be burned alive, was himself made to prove the efficacy of his own invention by the tyrant Phalaris; as Ovid says

“Et Phalaris tauro violenti membra Perilli

Torruit; infelix imbuit auctor opus.”

(‘Art. Amat.,’ 1.653.)

So we have, “Damnosus aliis, damnosus est sibi;” . St. Chrysostom speaks of the blindness of malice: “Let us not plot against others, lest we injure ourselves. When we supplant the reputation of others, let us consider that we injure ourselves, it is against ourselves that we plot. For perchance with men we do him harm, if we have power, but ourselves in the sight of God, by provoking him against us. Let us not, then, injure ourselves. For as we injure ourselves when we injure our neighbours, so by benefiting them we benefit ourselves” (‘Hom. 14, in Phil.,’ Oxford transl.).

Pro 26:28

A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; or, those whom it crusheth (Pro 25:15). There is a consensus of the Vulgate, Septuagint, Syriac, and Targum to translate “truth,” thinking apparently of the Aramaean “that which is pure.” But the hemistich would thus state the baldest truism, and modern commentators unite in assigning to the word some such sense as that given above in the Authorized Version. A liar shows his want of charity by slandering his neighbour; and that men dislike those whom they have injured is a common experience. “It is a characteristic of human nature,” says Tacitus (‘Agric.,’ 42), “to hate those whom one has injured.” Seneca, ‘De Ira,’ 2.83, “Hoe habent pessimum animi magna fortuna insolentes, quos laeserunt, et oderunt.” A flattering mouth worketh ruin; brings destruction on those who succumb to its seductive words. Vulgate, Os lubricum operatur ruinas; Septuagint, “A mouth uncovered () causeth tumults.” (For “the smooth mouth,” comp. Pro 5:3; Psa 12:3; Psa 55:21; Isa 30:10.) The word for “tumults” is , which does not occur elsewhere in the Septuagint, but is common in the New Testament; e.g. Luk 21:9; 1Co 14:33.

HOMILETICS

Pro 26:2

The curse causeless

I. GOD WILL NOT HEAR A SINFUL PRAYER. A curse is a prayer. No ode has the power of inflicting direct harm upon his victim by sheer force of malignant words. Only the superstition of magic could suppose any such thing to be possible. A curse is just a prayer for evil to come on the head of the devoted person. But God will not heed such a petition if he disapproves of it. Prayer is not a force that compels God; it is but a petition that seeks his aid, and the response to it is entirely dependent on his will.

II. THERE IS A PROVIDENCE OVER LIFE. Curses cannot fly about like black-plumed birds of evil, roosting wherever their authors choose. Above the most potent and direful curse of man is the calm, fair, equable government of God. Though the whole human race combined to curse one on whom God smiled, not a shadow of real evil could light on his head. Balaam saw the uselessness of trying to curse a people whom God had blessed (Num 23:8).

III. IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO WIN THE FAVOUR OF GOD THAN TO ESCAPE FROM THE CURSES OF MAN. This conclusion must necessarily result from the previous considerations. Man cannot really curse or bless. Our whole future depends, not on man’s opinions, but on God’s treatment of us. Yet many men are in an agony of distress when they are visited with the disapproval of society, while they take no steps to secure the favour of God. This “fear of man bringeth a snare.” It is a cowardly thing, and reveals great weakness. We need a more tough moral fibre. How grand was the courage of John Bright, when, after standing on the pinnacle of popular fame in his triumph over the corn laws, he suddenly stepped down into a position of isolation and unpopularity by denouncing the Crimean War!

IV. IT IS WORSE TO DESERVE THE CURSE THAT IS NOT GIVEN THAN TO RECEIVE THE CURSE THAT IS NOT DESERVED. It may be that vile conduct is concealed or condoned by a low tone of social morality; while right conduct is misinterpreted or condemned by a false standard. Men shudder at crimes when they are guilty of more sinful vices. Nevertheless, what is evil deserves execration, and for the quick conscience ill desert is more dreadful than public disapproval.

V. NO MALIGNITY CAN ULTIMATELY FRUSTRATE THE CAUSE OF TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. The curse causeless was flung at Christ. It appeared to alight on his head and he died in gloom a shameful death. Then he rose and triumphed, and shook off the harmless curse in his joyous victory. The enemies of Christ have cursed his gospel. But they have failed to destroy it. On the contrary, it flourishes under the curses of bad men. Though Satan and all his hosts combined against it they could not stay its glorious progress.

VI. NO SATANIC CURSES CAN HURT THE TRUE DISCIPLE OF CHRIST. All the curses of hell cannot touch a hair of the head of him who is sheltered by the grace of Christ. Even the deserved curses of his sin are not to hurt the Christian, pardoned and renewed.

Pro 26:4, Pro 26:5

The wise treatment of folly

These two verses need not be taken as mutually contradictory. They balance one another.

I. IT IS DIFFICULT TO ANSWER FOLLY. Whichever way we take it, we are in danger of blundering. If we meet it on its own ground we may share its shame. If we treat it soberly we may only incur ridicule. Both courses are beset with difficulties. This is especially true of folly in the biblical sense of the word, according to which it is not so much stupidity as wilful perverseness, light-hearted but depraved. It is not easy to find any point of attachment through which to influence this condition of soul. We need great grace in endeavoring to recover the thoughtless, foolish evil-livers. The sad may be approached through their troubles, but the frivolous elude our grasp.

II. IT IS A FATAL MISTAKE TO IMITATE THE FOLLY OF THE FOOLISH. St. Paul would become all things to all men in the hope that he might by any means save some. But he would never descend to frivolity; that would have been lowering to his true dignity as a servant of Christ. It is not necessary to be always grave. We may arouse and interest thoughtless people by using methods that would not be desirable or acceptable in the case of earnest men and women. Assuredly there is no virtue in pretence, pomposity, pride, a stilted style, etc. But it can never be right nor wise to say or do anything that would lower the majesty of truth and righteousness or degrade the ideal of Christian conduct. It may be possible to “draw” crowds by such more than questionable methods, but it is certainly impossible to “raise” them by such means, and what is the use of massing people together under pretence of religious work when our course of action is not likely to inspire the reverance which is the root of religion? It would be a far more successful method, as well as a more Worthy one, to have much humbler aims in regard to numbers, but much higher ones in regard to the spiritual character of our work.

III. IT IS NECESSARY TO TREAT THE FOOLISH IN REGARD TO THEIR FOLLY. We are not to give back foolish answers to foolish questions, nor to attempt to attract the frivolous by frivolous methods. But, on the other hand, it is not wise, nor is it right, to treat foolish people as though they were serious and thoughtful. Thus, if questions are raised in mockery, it is our duty to treat them accordingly, and therefore to refuse to answer them. If it is evident that an inquirer is not in earnest it is not for his good nor for the honour of truth to meet him with the language which would be suitable for an honest truth seeker. To do so would be to cast pearls before swine. It may be well to meet folly with gravity and to rebuke frivolity. This is answering a fool according to his folly, in the right way; for it is taking note of his folly and directing attention to it. Mockery should not go unchastised. Insincerity ought to be exposed. Pompous folly is sometimes best met by ridicule. Thus Erasmus castigated hypocritical pretences to piety with the keen rapier of his wit. It is wise to prick a windbag.

Pro 26:12

Self-conceit

I. ITS CHARACTER. Self-conceit is just the cherishing of an undue opinion of one’s own worth, powers, character, or attainments. This is not pride, because pride need not make special pretences, so long as it asserts itself with dignity, while self-conceit is concerned with the actual contents of the mental life. This is not vanity, for it is not merely a desire to be admired; it may, arid probably will, stimulate this desire; but possibly it will be too proud to cherish it. Self-conceit is absorbed with an inordinate conception of its possessor’s own inner wealth, it makes a weak man believe that he can carry the gates of Gaza like a second Samson, and a foolish man think that he can solve the riddle of the Sphinx. It is profoundly honest in this. No Don Quixote could be more grave in the service of an illusion than the self-conceited man in pursuit of his hopeless aims.

II. ITS MISCHIEF.

1. It blinds to self-knowledge. It stands between a man and a true vision of his condition and character. It substitutes its own inventions for the facts of his inner life. Instead of seeing himself as he is, the conceited man only sees himself as he is painted by his besetting weakness. He mistakes the flattering picture for a photographic likeness.

2. It shuts the door on true knowledge. The conceited man will not learn, for he will not believe in his own ignorance. He starts with a consciousness of omniscience.

3. It refuses to follow guidance. In his exalted opinion of himself the poor deluded self-worshipper declines to be guided by those who are far more capable than he is. The captain dispenses with the pilot, the patient doctors himself, the suitor conducts his own case; in religious matters the self-conceited man prefers his own notions to the teachings of prophets and apostles. His “views” outweigh Bible truths.

III. ITS CAUSES.

1. It springs from self-love. Dwelling much on one’s own excellences generates an inordinate conception of them. Love is a flatterer, and self-love flatters sell

2. It is nourished in ignorance. It is usually through a lack of perception of the narrowness of the horizon that the self-conceited man believes so much in himself. His village is the world. In looking at a panorama the picture seems to retreat into a great distance, whereas it is but a few feet from the observer.

3. It is sheltered by indolence. The conceited man will not rouse himself to inquire.

IV. ITS REMEDIES. These must follow the diagnosis of the disease and its causes.

1. Enlarged knowledge. As knowledge grows, the consciousness of ignorance increases.

2. Failure. Give it time, and self-conceit will work its own cure, through humiliating disasters.

3. Grace. A vision of the truth and righteousness of God and an endowment of the grace of Divine wisdom and goodness will humble a man into shame at his own previous self-conceit. So Nicodemus was humbled when Christ sent him back to his cradle.

Pro 26:13

A lion in the way.

I. INDOLENCE CREATES DIFFICULTIES. The hindrance is not real; it is purely imaginary. The lion is not in the way, but in the fancy of the slothful man. If a man is not in earnest in undertaking any work, he is certain to picture to himself insuperable obstacles. Thus missionary enterprises are discouraged by those who have no missionary zeal. The call of Christ to service and sacrifice is shirked by men whose inventive ingenuity has manufactured unsound excuses. The course of the Christian life is forsaken by some who see it beset with dangers that only spring out of their own reluctance to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Christ. Often when the slothful man cries, “There is a lion in the way,” it is a lie; there is no lion.

II. INDOLENCE IS COWARDLY. It is possible that the indolent person really believes that the beast of the forest has actually invaded the city, is indeed prowling about its streets. He shrinks from a danger that he truly fears. Perhaps there is real danger. We do meet with difficulties and dangers in life. Threatening lions roar on the devoted servant of Christ. But then the true-hearted man will be brave to face difficulty, and only the coward will shrink and fail.

III. DANGER IS NO EXCUSE FOR INDOLENCE. If there be a lion in the street it may be all the more incumbent on a true man to go out of his house. For the lion has no right to be in the city. He should be slain forthwith. To leave him there at large is to yield to him. Are the streets to be given up to the daring intruder because no one is bold enough to face him? Meanwhile he may work fearful havoc. There may be children in the street. While the idle coward bolts and bars his doors and sits shivering in his house, the helpless little ones are left unprotected, a sure prey for the fierce brute. To shrink from the task of expelling the lion is to be guilty of shameful negligence. Because of the hindrances and difficulties of Christ’s work cowardly and idle people permit the souls of their fellow men and the poor ignorant children of miserable degraded families to be destroyed.

IV. DANGER IS OVERCOME BY BEING FACED. Perhaps the lion’s roar is worse than his bite. Who can tell but that he is a coward and will turn tail directly he is faced? Possibly, like Bunyan’s lions, he is chained. But we shall never know till we go boldly up to him. Many apparent dangers are but empty threats. There are difficulties that need only to be confronted to vanish. The valiant Christian soldier will find that his enemies will give way before the “sword of the Spirit.”

V. FOR THE INDOLENT MAN THERE IS A LION IN THE HOUSE. While he shrinks with terror from venturing forth there is greater danger at home. The hypochondriacal patient who dreads meeting the chili of fresh air for fear or’ catching cold becomes a martyr to dyspepsia at home. The idle man is slain by his own indolence. Satan, who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, is kept out by no locks and finds his victims in their most private retreats.

Pro 26:20

The fuel of strife

I. STRIFE WILL DIE OUT IF IT BE NOT SUPPLIED WITH FRESH FUEL. The fire will not burn after the stock of wood is all exhausted. The quarrel will not continue if the angry feelings that rage in it are not fed by fresh provocations. The unhappy experience of most quarrels is that these provocations are too readily supplied. But if one party to a quarrel really wishes for peace, he can often obtain it by simply abstaining from maintaining his contention. His opponent will tire of a one-sided war. Patience, meekness, and quiet endurance will thus make peace in the end. This was Christ’s method. He brought peace by peaccably submitting to wrong.

II. STRIFE IS TOO OFTEN MAINTAINED WITH THE FRESH FUEL ADDED BY STRANGERS. If the two principals in a quarrel were left to themselves, they might tire of perpetual disputes. But a third party interferes, not as a peacemaker, but to take one side; or to meddle in pure mischief making, delighting to stir up the embers of strife; or to show his own power and importance. This conduct is the opposite of that of one who serves the Prince of Peace.

III. TALE BEARING ADDS FUEL TO STRIFE.

1. It may be true. We may hear something of one party in a quarrel which we know to be correct, and report it to the other, though it was never intended to be repeated. This rouses angry passions and renews the old battle. Immense harm is done by merely inconsiderate gossip. When an element of spite is added and there is a deliberate attempt to aggravate a quarrel, the conduct of the tale bearer is simply diabolical.

2. It is likely to be exaggerated. Most tales, like snowballs, grow as they proceed. Passing from one to another, they are unintentionally exaggerated. Surmise and inference are mixed up with the original narrative as part of the story. Rhetorical point is gained at the expense of accuracy.

IV. IT IS THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN TO ALLAY STRIFE. His should be the blessedness of the peacemaker (Mat 5:9). If we have Christian love we shall desire to do this, for chanty covers a multitude of sins (1Pe 4:8). Immense harm would he prevented by the merely negative course of refraining from repeating all words that have the slightest tendency to provoke ill will between other people. There is virtue in reticence. Silence here is indeed golden. But sometimes we should go further, and endeavour to make the best of people to one another, and so to heal quarrels.

V. NO TALE BEARER CAN REVIVE THE STRIFE BETWEEN THE SOUL AND GOD. If there be no more fuel, this will vanish. God desires to be reconciled with his children. If they will but lay down their arms, the old quarrel will cease at once.

1. God knows the worst of us. He knows all. Therefore he never makes discoveries that will rouse his wrath against our pardoned past.

2. He cannot be misled by deceivers. Tale bearers may malign our character before men, never before God.

3. The only thing to continue our strife with God is to continue our rebellious lives. While we seek peace, peace is secure.

Pro 26:27

Caught in one’s own snare

One man may be supposed to have dug a pit in some dark place in the road, or to have concealed it by covering it with boughs and earthlike an Indian tiger trapso that he may catch some wild animal, or perhaps make a prisoner or a victim of his enemy. Then, not heeding its whereabouts, he fails into his own snare. Another may be rolling a stone against his enemy, when it falls back and crushes the author of the mischief. Consider first some cases in which these things might happen, and then the principle that underlies them.

I. INSTANCES.

1. The deceiver. The pit is a snare. It is meant to deceive. Those who deceive others are likely to be deceived. They brand and blind the faculty of truth. They acclimatize themselves in a zone of falsehood. In the very belief that they think this well for them, they prove themselves deluded.

2. The swindler. This man may entrap unwary folk who trust his offers, and at first he may thrive and fatten on his ill-gotten gains; but his success is almost sure to be short-lived. Swindlers rarely prosper till old ago.

3. The tempter. One who imitates the work of the devil may have the devil’s wicked triumph over weakness and ignorance. He may succeed in luring his victims to shame and ruin, and he may find a hellish glee in the awful ease with which he overcomes their virtue. But he is a short-sighted self-deceiver. There is a pit prepared for the devil and his angels, and the tempter is one of the latter. Satan makes hell, and every tempter prepares his own pit of destruction.

4. The opponent of Christ. The Jews rejected their Lord and laid snares for catching him. He was keen to reply, and turned the shame on the head of each party in successionPharisee, Sadducee, Herodian. In the end they accomplished his death. But they were punished in the frightful overthrow of their city. The world’s rejection of Christ would mean the world’s ruin. Every soul that plots against the kingdom of heaven unwarily plots for its own undoing.

II. THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE. This principle is that sin brings its own retribution. There is no need lot the conception of a Deus ex machina. No heralds of justice are wanted to proclaim the guilt of the offender; no heavenly executioners with flaming swords are required to bring swift vengeance on the guilty. If only the foolish sinner is left to himself, he will certainly reap the fatal consequences of his wickedness. Sin is naturally fatal. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.” The vile harvest of death grows in the soil of the man’s own life. He is his own executioner. No doubt this terrible tact is based on a Divine decree that lies deeply embedded in the very constitution of the universe. Therefore, as the forest traveller unconsciously makes a circuit and returns to his old camp fire, so the sinner comes back to his own evil deeds, but to find them now as snares to entrap him and stones to crush him.

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Pro 26:1-3

Sayings against folly

I. THE INAPTNESS OF HONOURS TO THE FOOLISH MAN. (Pro 26:1.) According to Jerome, it is something unheard of or impossible to experience, rain in the harvest time (see 1Sa 12:17, sqq.). The advancement of the fool appears to all men unseasonable, even shocking. High place reveals the more clearly the smallness of small souls. Honour is the just reward of virtue and ability. Let men be virtuous and wise, that they may be honoured, and that external distinctions may not rather invite the contempt of observers.

II. THE HARMLESSNESS OF UNMERITED CURSES. (Pro 26:2.) Aimless as the wayward flight of sparrow or swallow, they fail to strike their object (see that in 2Sa 16:5, sqq.; 1Ki 2:8). “I would not hesitate to say,” observes Trench, “that the great glory of proverbs in their highest aspect, and that which makes them so full of blessing to those who cordially accept them, is the conviction, of which they are full, that, despite all appearances to the contrary, this world is God’s world, and not the world of the devil or of those wicked men who may be prospering for the hour. A lie has no legs.” Truth may be temporarily depressed, but cannot fall to the ground (Psa 94:15; 2Co 4:9). But as for the lie; its priests may set it on its feet again after it has once fallen before the presence of the truth, yet this will all be labour in vain; it will only be, like Dagon, again to fall.

III. FOLLY INVITES ITS OWN CHASTISEMENT. (Pro 26:3.) The instincts of flesh and blood show like untamed and unbroken-in animals, especially in idleness, and demand the like severe treatment. “Our flesh and sense must be subdued,” not flattered and fed. If we do not practise self-control, God will administer his chastisements.J.

Pro 26:4-12

Discussion of folly and its treatment

I. How we ANSWER THE FOOL. (Pro 26:4, Pro 26:5.)

1. Not according to his folly; i.e. so chiming in with his nonsense that yon become as he is. Do not descend into the arena with a fool. Preserve self-respect, and observe the conduct of the Saviour when to folly he “answered not again.”

2. According to his folly; that is, with the sharp and cutting reply his folly invites and deserves. We have also examples of this in the conduct of our Lord; e.g. in reference to the inquiry of the Jews concerning the purging of the temple, which he answered by a reference to John’s baptism (Mat 21:25, etc.). The twofold treatment of the fool reminds that the spirit and motive must determine the act, and that opposite methods may be equally good at different times.

II. THE FOOL IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED. (Pro 26:6-7.)

1. With messages and commissions. (Pro 26:6.) He who does so is like one who amputates his own limbs, deprives himself of the means of gaining his object, or who voluntarily drinks of an evil brewage.

2. His words are not to be trusted. (Pro 26:7.) Sayings in the mouth of the fool are purposeless and pointless, when they even do no harm. Fools will not be prudent, says Luther, and yet would ever play the part of wise men. “A wise saying doth as ill become a fool as dancing does a cripple.” The wise and weighty saying becomes in his mouth a jest. He who would instruct others in Divine wisdom must first have embraced it himself. Solemnity may be a cover for a sot; and the greatest folly is to impose on one’s self.

III. THE FOOL IS NOT TO BE HONOURED. (Pro 26:8.) To lift him out of his place by compliments or honours is as inapt as to lay a jewel upon a common heap of stones. The sling makes the stone bound in it an implement of death; and to flatter the undeserving brings disgrace upon one’s self. It is like putting sword or pistol into a madman’s hand. But the other interpretation is better. Pro 26:9 shows how mischievous are even good things in the lips and hands of those who only abuse them. Luther quaintly says, “If a drunkard sports with a briar, he scratches more with it than he allows to smell the roses on it; so does a fool often work more mischief with the Scripture than good.”

IV. THE FOOL IS INCORRIGIBLE. (Pro 26:11-12; see 2Pe 2:22.) He returns to his exploded nonsense, his often-repeated fallacies; and to his exposed errors of conduct (Mat 12:45; Joh 5:14; Heb 6:4-8). Relapses into sin, as into sickness, are dangerous and deadly. “A raw sin is like a blow to a broken leg, a burden to a crushed arm.” The cause of these relapses and this incorrigibility is pointed outdeep-rooted self-conceit. This is the fruitful mother of follies. Let none deem himself perfect, but let every one cultivate humility as his dearest possession. God giveth grace to the lowly, but resisteth the proud and them that are wise in their own conceits.J.

Pro 26:13-16

The vice of idleness

I. IT IS FULL OF EXCUSES. (Pro 26:13.) There is always some pretext for evading duty, however frivolous and absurd, with the idle man. Idleness is the parent of almost every sin; here of cowardice, he who excuses, accuses himself. Every manly act of exertion is imagined to be full of danger by the lazy mind. The sluggard does not see what danger of another and deadlier kind there is in stagnation. Danger is the brave man’s opportunity, difficulty the lion in the way, by victory over which he may earn the laurel of victory and gain the joy of new conscious power.

II. IT LOVES REPOSE AND SELF–INDULGENCE. (Pro 26:14.) As the door swings perpetually upon its hinges, without moving a step from its fixed position, so with the sluggard. He “turns round and round, with dull stupidity, like the dyer’s horse in the ring” (Pro 19:24). How often the cannot of the slave of vice or evil habit only disguises the will not of the sloth-eaten heart! To make mere rest our life-object is to contend against the order of God.

III. IT HATES EXERTION. (Pro 26:15.) Even the most necessary exertion may become by habit distasteful. To take his hand from his bosom, even merely to reach after the bread of life, is too much labour for him. And thus his life, instead of being a continual feast, sinks into spiritual indigence and starvation.

“The idle soul shall suffer hunger.”

IV. IT BREEDS CONCEIT AND FOLLY. (Pro 26:16.) This is the strange irony of the vice, that the empty hand shall fancy itself full of wisdom. But such fancies are the very growth of the soil of indolence. It is impossible to make such a one understand his ignorance, for it requires knowledge to perceive it; and he who can perceive it has it not (Jeremy Taylor). The evil may creep into the Church. One may fall into an idle and passive piety, content with sitting still, hearing, praying, singing, from one end of the year to the other, without advancing one step in the practical Christian life (1Th 5:6).J.

Pro 26:17-19

Wanton petulance

I. MEDDLING IN OTHERS‘ QUARRELS. (Pro 26:17.) By a very homely image the folly of this is marked. To interfere in disputes which do not concern one is to get hurt one’s self. No doubt the proverb admits of a very selfish application. We may excuse indifference to right on such a plea. But a true instinct of Christian justice and love will find a middle course. We should be sure of our call to act before we meddle in others’ affairs. It is rare that it can be our duty to volunteer the office of judge. Benevolent neutrality is generally our most helpful attitude.

II. MAKING SPORT OF MISCHIEF. (Pro 26:18, Pro 26:19.) There is an ape-like line of mischief in human nature that needs to be watched. Amusing in trifling matters, it may, if encouraged, fly at high game. He that purposely deceives his neighbour under colour of a jest is no less prejudicial to him than a lunatic that cloth wrong out of frenzy and distraction (Bishop Hall). The habit of teasing should be corrected in children. What seems comparatively harmless in itself at first may readily become a habit and harden into a vice. It is in the little delicacies of daily life, no less than in the greatest matters, that we are called to practise the golden rule. We must consider the effect, as well as the intention, of our actions; for, as in the old fable, what is sport to us may be grievous hurt to another.J.

Pro 26:20-28

Spite, cunning, and deceit

I. THE TALE BEARER AND MISCHIEF MAKER. (Pro 26:20-22.)

1. His inflammatory character. (Pro 26:20, Pro 26:21.) He keeps alive quarrels which, but for his vice, would die down for want of fuel. It is easy to fire the imagination with tales of evil, not so easy to quench the flames thus kindled. If the character is odious, let us beware of countenancing it by opening our ears to scandal. Personal gossip has in our day become an offence in the public press. But were there no receivers, there would be no thieves. If we cannot stop the scandalmonger’s month, we can stop our own ears; and “let him see in our face that he has no room in our heart.”

2. The pain he causes. (Pro 26:22.) Slander is deadlyit “outvenoms all the worms of Nile.” “A whispered word may stab a gentle heart.” “What weapon can be nearer to nothing than the sting of a wasp? yet what a painful wound may it give! The scarce-visible point how it envenoms and rankles and swells up the flesh! The tenderness of the part adds much to the grief.” If God has given us a sting, or turn for satire, may we use it for its proper workto cover evil with contempt, and folly with ridicule, and not at the devilish instigation of envy and spite. Let us dread and discourage the character of the amusing social slanderer.

II. THE BAD HEART. (Pro 26:23-25.)

1. It may be varnished over, but is still the bad heart. It is like the common sherd covered with impure silver, the common wood with veneer. The burning lips seem here to mean glowing professions of friendship. like the kiss of Judas.

2. Duplicity is the sign of the bad heart. The dissembler smiles, and murders while he smiles. The fair face hides what the false heart doth know.

“Neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone.

Oft, though wisdom wakes, suspicion sleeps

At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems.”

3. The need of prudence and reserve. “Trust not him that seems to be a saint.” Indeed, it is an error to place perfect trust in anything human or finite. But the special warning here is against suffering flattery to blind us to the real character of one who has once been revealed in his true colours.

III. THE EXPOSURE OF WICKEDNESS. (Pro 26:26, Pro 26:27.) Vain is the attempt of men to conceal for any length of time their real character. What they say and what they do not say, do and do not do, reveals them sooner or later. And the revelation brings its retribution. The intriguer falls into his own pit, is crushed beneath the stone he set in motion. Curses come home to roost; the biter is bitten; and the villain suffers from the recoil of his own weapon. This appears also to be the sense of Pro 26:28. Though a lie has no legs, it has wings, and may fly far and wide, but it “hates its own master” (according to one rendering), and flies back to perch on his shoulder and betray him to his ruin.J.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON

Pro 26:1, Pro 26:6, Pro 26:9

Honouring the unworthy

There are different ways in which we may honour men, whether the wise or the unwise. We may

(1) put them in positions of rank and dignity, in which men bow (or fall) before them (Pro 25:26); or

(2) entrust to them offices of importance and responsibility (Pro 26:6); or

(3) allow them to undertake the work of public instruction (Pro 26:7, Pro 26:9). It is only the wise and good that we should honour in these ways. Unfortunately, in the confusion and perversity which sin has wrought in the world, it often happens that it is not the wise man but the fool who is chosen for the post or the task. How foolish it is to honour the unworthy is seen if we consider

I. ITS PAINFUL INCONGRUITY. “As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool.” To hear a fool attempting lamely to discourse wisdom is suggestive of the motion of a man whose “legs are not equal.” For the post of honour to be occupied by one who has disgraced himself by guilty foolishness, or who has neglected his opportunities, and is empty-minded and incapable, this is something which is manifestly unfitting; it offends our sense of the appropriate and the becoming. Shamelessness and honour, stupidity and responsibility, have no sort of agreement; they are miserably and painfully ill-mated.

II. ITS POSITIVE REVERSAL OF THE TRUE ORDER OF THINGS. The fool ought to be positively dishonoured. He need not be actually despised. There is too much of capacity, of indefinitely great possibility in every human spirit to make it right for us to despise our brethren. We are to “honour all men” because they are men, because they are, with us, the offspring of God, and may be his children in the highest and deepest sense (1Pe 2:17). Yet is it our clear duty to see that folly is dishonored, that it is made to take the lowest place, that the man who does shameful things is put to shame before his fellows. Let those who dishonour God, disregard their fellows, and disgrace themselves, feel the edge of holy indignation; they should be smitten in faithfulness that they may be healed in mercy.

III. ITS INJURIOUSNESS. To honour the fool by giving him rank, or responsibility, or the opportunity of speech, is:

1. To injure him. For it is to make him “think himself to be something [or, ‘somebody’] when he is nothing [or, ‘nobody’].” It is to fasten him in his present position of unworthiness, and thus to do him the most serious harm we can inflict upon him. The flatterer of the fool is his deadliest enemy.

2. To injure the community. It is “to drink damage,” to bind a stone in a sling that is most likely to hit and hurt our neighbour, to smart with a wound from some sharp thorn. The foolish, the guilty, the wrong in heart and mind, do serious harm when they hold the reins of office or sit in the seat of honour. Their very elevation is itself an encouragement to folly and vice, and a discouragement to wisdom and virtue. They administer injustice instead of justice. They let all things down instead of raising them up. They advance those who are like-minded with themselves, and neglect those who deserve honour and promotion. Speaking from “the chair,” they make falsity and foolishness to appear to be truth and wisdom, and so they mislead the minds and darken the lives and betray the souls of men.C.

Pro 26:2, Pro 26:3

What to fear

Fear enters largely into human experience. It is an emotion which is sometimes stamped upon the countenance so that it is legible to all who look upon it. Under its baleful shadow some men have spent a large part of their life. We may well ask what to fear and how to be delivered from its evil There are some

I. THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN, BUT NEED NOT HAVE BEEN, FEARED.

1. Men and women have dreaded “the evil eye” of their fellow men. They have been alarmed by evil omens, by signs and portents that have boded misfortune or calamity, by presentiments of approaching death, etc. All these things have been purely imaginary, and they have added largely and lamentably to the burdens and sorrows of existence. It is painful to think how many thousands, how many millions of mankind have had their hearts troubled and their lives darkened, or even blighted, by fears that have been wholly needlessfears of some evil which has never been more or nearer to them in fact than the shadow of the bird’s wing as it circles in the air or flies away into the forest.

2. Of these imaginary evils that which is conspicuous among others is the curse of the wicked“the curse that is causeless.” The bitter imprecation of the heart that is full of unholy hatred may make the spirit quiver at the moment, but its effect should be momentary. Let reason do its rightful work and the anxiety will disappear. What possible harm can come of the bad man’s curse? He has no power to bring about its fulfilment. Not in his hand are the laws of nature, the issues of events, the future of the holy. Let the feeling of apprehension pass away with a reflection that all these things are in the hand of the Supreme. Let it be as the wing of the flitting bird, out of sight in a moment. Let it be “as the idle wind which we regard not.”

II. THINGS THAT MUST SOMETIMES BE BRAVED. Although we may entirely disregard the malediction of the guilty and the godless, we are obliged to attach some importance to their active opposition. When implication passes into determined hostility, we have then to lay our account with it. We have then to consider what we must do to meet it. But if we are obviously and consciously in the right, we can afford to brave and breast it. We are not alone. God is with us. Almighty power, irresistible wisdom, Divine sympathy, are with us; we may go on our way, doing our duty and bearing our testimony, fearless of our foes and of all their machinations. There is, however

III. ONE THING FROM WHICH IT IS NATURAL TO SHRINK; the enmity of a bureau begirt. We may make light of the weapons of our adversaries; we may be fearless of their designs and their doings; but from the feeling of hatred in their hearts we do welt to shrink. It is far from being nothing that human hearts are actually hating us, malevolently wishing us evil, prepared to rejoice in our sorrow, in our downfall. We should not surely be entirely unaffected by the thought. It is a consideration that should move us to pity and to prayer. We should have a sorrowful feeling that ends in prayer that God would turn their heart, that leads also to the first available opportunity of winning them to a bettor mind. And there are those who should cherish

IV. ONE SALUTARY FEAR. (Pro 26:3.) Those who are wrong in heart and life may dread the coming down upon them of that rod of correction which is found to be the only weapon that will avail.C.

Pro 26:4, Pro 26:5

The two ways of meeting folly

They are these

I. THE CAREFUL AVOIDANCE OF REPEATING IT. (Pro 26:4.) Only too often men allow the foolish to draw them into a repetition of their folly, so that one fool makes another. Folly is contagious, and we are all in some danger of catching it. This is the case with us when:

1. We let the word of anger provoke us to a responsive bitterness; then we are “overcome of evil” instead of “overcoming evil with good” (Rom 12:21).

2. We allow one exaggeration to lead us into another. When two men are in conversation, one is often tempted to lead the other into statements that exceed the truth; and exaggeration is only another name for falsehood.

3. We accept a foolish challenge. The young, more particularly, are fond of exciting one another to deeds of folly, and it often requires courage, steadfastness, even nobility of spirit, to refuse to follow the leading of unwisdom.

4. We indulge in idle gossip; letting the first statement about our neighbour, which is unfounded and slanderous, conduct us to idle and mischievous talk in the same foolish strain.

5. We permit ourselves to follow the lead of the man whose thoughts and words are in the direction of a doubtful, or a dishonourable, or a defiling region. In all these cases it behoves us “not to answer a fool according to his folly,” to be silent altogether; or else to break away into another and worthier strain; or even to “take up our parable” against that which has been said in our hearing. But here we reach the other method, viz.

If. THE WISE CONDEMNATION OF IT. Folly is sometimes to be rebuked (Pro 26:5). Silence on our part would be mistaken and abused; it would be regarded as acquiescence or as incapacity to meet what has been said, and folly would go on its way, its empty head held higher than before. We must use discretion here; must understand “when only silence suiteth best,” and also when silence would be a mistake and even a sin. The times to answer a fool according to his folly, i.e. in the way which is demanded by his folly, are surely these:

1. When ignorance needs to be exposed.

2. When pretentiousness and presumptuousness want to be put down.

3. When irreverence or actual profanity requires to be rebuked and silenced.

4. When vice or cruelty deserves to be smitten and abashed. Then let the true and brave man speak; let the name and the honour of his holy Saviour, let the cause of truth and righteousness, let the interests of the young and the poor and the weak unloose his tongue, and let him pour forth his indignation. In so doing he will be following in the footsteps of the Lord of truth and love, and of the noblest and worthiest of his followers.C.

Pro 26:13

(See homily on Pro 22:13.)C.

Pro 26:18, Pro 26:19

The condemnation of sin

We have here, in a few strong sentences, a most forcible presentation of the evil and the guiltiness of wrong doing. We see

I. ITS UGLIEST FEATUREDECEPTION. “The man that deceiveth his neighbour” is not here simply the man who overreaches his customer or who introduces a low cunning into his business; he is rather the man who deliberately misleads his acquaintance, his “friend,” and induces him to do that which is unwise and unworthy. He is the man who knows better himself, but who indoctrinates the inexperienced and the unwary with the principles, or rather the vain imaginations, of folly. He stoops so low that he does not hesitate:

1. To recommend forbidden pleasure as an object worthy of pursuit, though he knows well (or ought to know, if he can learn from experience) that guilty gratification is the very costliest thing that any man can buy.

2. To persuade men that an unprincipled life is a profitable life, as if “a man’s life consisted in the abundance of the things which he possessed;” as if a life without integrity were not the most utter add miserable failure.

3. To recommend selfishness and indulgence as a condition of liberty, when in fact it is the beginning and is sure to end in the most humiliating bondage.

4. To represent the service of God and of man as a drudgery and a dreariness, when in truth it is the height of human nobility and the very essence of enjoyment.

5. To prevail upon the young to snatch at honour arid success instead of honestly labouring and patiently waiting for it. There is no more painful and repulsive thing under heaven than the sight of experience and maturity breathing its fallacies, its sophisms, its delusions, into the ear of inexperience and innocency.

II. ITS BITTER FRUIT. What do these delusions bring forth? The deceiver is a man who “scatters firebrands, arrows, and death.” The ultimate consequences of the “deceitfulness of sin” are sad indeed; they are:

1. Impoverishment in circumstance.

2. The loss of the love and the honour of the wise and good.

3. Remorse of soul and, frequently, if not usually, the departure of self-respect.

4. Hopelessness and death.

5. The extension of the evil which has been imbibed to those around; becoming a source of poisonous error, a fountain of evil and wrong and misery.

III. ITS PRACTICAL INSANITY. The fool who does wantonly scatter the seeds of deadly delusions in the minds of men is “as a madman.” There is no small measure of insanity in sin. Sin is a spiritual disease; it is our spiritual nature in a state of complete derangement, our mind filled with false ideas, our heart affected with delusive hopes and fears. There is no soundness, no wholeness or health about us, so far as we are under the dominion of sin. We do things which we could not possibly have done if only reason and rectitude held sway within us.

IV. ITS POOR AND PITIFUL APOLOGY. “He saith, Am not I in sport?” When a man deludes and betrays, when he wrongs and ruins a human soul, and then makes a joke of it, he only adds meanness to his transgression. Who, outside the bottomless pit, can see any fun in a blighted life, in a wounded and bleeding spirit, in a soiled and stained soul, in the ruin of reputation, in the blasting of a noble hope, in the shadow of spiritual death? Human life and character and destiny are infinitely serious things; they are not to be the butt of fools.C.

Pro 26:22

(See homily on Pro 17:9.)C.

Pro 26:23-28

On guard

Unfortunately, we have to treat men as we find them, not as we wish that they were and as their Creator meant them to be. We are compelled to learn caution as we pass on our way.

I. OUR FIRST DUTY AND ITS NATURAL REWARD. Our first duty, natural to the young and the unsophisticated, is to be frank, open-minded, sincere, trustful; to say all that is in our heart, and to expect others to do the same; to believe that men mean what they say and say what they mean. And the reward of this simplicity and truthfulness on our part is an ingenuous, an unsuspicious spirit, a spirit as far removed as possible from that of cunning, of artifice, of worldliness.

II. THE CORRECTION OF EXPERIENCE. All too soon we discover that we cannot act on this theory without being wounded and hurt. We find that what looks like pure silver may be nothing better than “earthenware of the coarsest kind lacquered over with silver dross.” Behind the lips that burn and breathe affection for us and interest in us is a wicked heart in which are “seven abominations,” in which dwells every evil imagination. We find that those who affect to be our friends when they stand in our presence are in fact our bitterest and most active enemies. We discover that our words, spoken in good faith and purity of heart, are misrepresented, and are made a sword to smite us. Experience compels caution, reticence, sometimes absolute silence.

III. THE TWO MAIN EVILS AGAINST WHICH TO GUARD. These are:

1. Fair speaking which is false. The false words that are ostensibly spoken in our interest, by one that means us harm; words which would lead to trust and expectation when we should be alive with solicitude and alert to avoid the danger which impends. By these our treasure, our position, our friendship, our reputation, our happiness, may he seriously endangered.

2. Flattery. The invention and utterance of that which is not felt at all, or the careless and perhaps well-meant exaggeration of a feeling which is entertained in, the heart. Few things are more potent for harm than flattery.

(1) It is readily received.

(2) It is carefully treasured; men’s self-love prompts them to accept and to retain that which, if it were of an opposite character, they would reject.

(3) It is harmful in three different directions:

(a) It gives a wrong impression of our estate, and may lead to financial “ruin” (Pro 26:28).

(b) It encourages an over-estimate of our capacity, and may lead to our undertaking that for which we are incompetent, and thus to an humiliating and distressing failure.

(c) It engenders a false idea of our persona! worth, and may lead to spiritual infatuation, and thus to the ruin of ourselves.

IV. THE DUTY AND THE WISDOM OF WARINESS. As these things are so, as human society does hold a large number of dissemblers (Pro 26:24), as it is possible that the next acquaintance we make may be an illustration of this sad fact, it follows that absolute trustfulness is a serious mistake. We must be on our guard. We must not open our hearts too freely. We must know men before we trust them. We must cultivate the art of penetration, of reading character. To be able to distinguish between the true and the false in this great sphere is a very large part of wisdom. Next to knowing God, and to acquainting ourselves with our own hearts, is the duty of studying men and discerning between the lacquered potsherd and the pure silver.

V. THE DOOM OF DECEIT. To be rigorously exposed, to be unsparingly denounced, to be utterly ashamed (Pro 26:26, Pro 26:27).C.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

2. Various Warnings, viz.:

a) Against dishonorable conduct,

(especially folly, sloth and malice)

Chap. 26

1As snow in summer and rain in harvest,

so honor befitteth not the fool.

2As the sparrow flitting, as the swallow flying,

so the curse undeserved: it cometh not.

3A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass,

and a rod for the fools back.

4Answer not a fool according to his folly,

lest thou be like him.

5Answer a fool according to his folly,

lest he become wise in his own eyes.

6He cutteth off the feet, he drinketh damage,

who sendeth a message by a fool.

7Take away the legs of the lame,

and the proverb in the mouth of a fool.

8As a bag of jewels on a heap of stones,

so is he that giveth honor to a fool.

9As a thorny staff that riseth up in the hand of a drunkard,

so is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.

10An archer that woundeth everything,

and he that hireth a fool, and hireth vagrants (are alike).

11As a dog that returneth to his vomit,

so the fool (ever) repeateth his folly.

12Seest thou a man wise in his own eyes,

there is more hope of a fool than of him.

13The slothful saith: There is a lion in the way,

a lion in the midst of the streets.

14The door turneth on its hinges,

and the slothful on his bed.

15The slothful thrusteth his hand in the dish;

he is too sluggish to bring it to his mouth again.

16The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes,

than seven (men) who give wise judgment.

17He layeth hold on the ears of a dog

who passing by is excited by strife that is not his.

18As a madman who casteth fiery darts,

arrows and death,

19so is the man that deceiveth his neighbor,

and saith: Am I not in sport?

20Where the wood faileth the fire goeth out,

and where there is no talebearer the strife ceaseth.

21Coal to burning coals and wood to fire;

so is a contentious man to kindle strife.

22The words of the talebearer are as sportive (words),

but they go down to the innermost part of the breast.

23Silver dross spread over a potsherd,

(so are) glowing lips and a wicked heart.

24With his lips the hater dissembleth,

and within him he layeth up deceit.

25When he speaketh fair believe him not;

for seven abominations are in his heart.

26Hatred is covered by deceit,

(yet) his wickedness shall be exposed in the assembly.

27He that diggeth a pit falleth into it,

and he that rolleth a stone, upon himself shall it return.

28The lying tongue hateth those that are wounded by it,

and a flattering mouth will cause offence.

GRAMMATICAL AND CRITICAL

Pro 26:3. [The form (comp. Pro 10:13; Pro 19:29) is ordinarily explained as derived from the more common (Lex., ) as from ; Btt. ( 498, 17) suggests that the form is used, as in numerous similar cases the forms with weaker, flatter vowels are employed, to convey in their very sound the idea of the weak, the suffering, the miserable; then, in every instance except perhaps one, is used to describe a back that is beaten or threatened., a form with the article, as is indicated not by the vocalization alone, but by the parallel ; Btt. I., p. 403, n. 1.A.].

Pro 26:6. [ a Piel part., therefore active in its meaning, and not to be rendered by a passive, nor need it be exchanged for the Pual (pass.) part, as Ewald proposes. The emendations of in clause a which have been proposed by recent expositors are unnecessary; e.g., Ewalds reading is deprived of his feet, etc. Hitzig would read immediately connecting the following words; from the end of the feet he swallows injury (? !) who sends messages by a fool.A.].

Pro 26:7. is taken most simply as Imper. Piel from , to lift out, draw out (Psa 30:2). [So Fuerst; Green, 141, 1; Nordh. 452. Btt. 1123, 4, and 300 b, makes it from . This resolution of and substitution of for the second Btt. regards as a probable sign and characteristic of the Ephraimite dialect which he is inclined to find in this section of the Book of Proverbs. Gesen., Thes., was at first disposed to take it from , but in the supplement brought out by Rdiger appears to have changed his view, taking it as a fuller form of . The rendering of Btt., etc., would be the legs of the lame hang useless.A.].

Pro 26:14. [, illustrates Bttchers Fiens solitum, is wont to turn, and in Pro 26:20 and his Fiens debitum: must go out, must cease. See Lehrb. 950, 6, and c, .A.].

Pro 26:18. from or perhaps from a root still preserved in the Arabic.

Pro 26:26. [; the of the Hithp. prefix is elsewhere not assimilated.A.].

Pro 26:28. [ as here use Btt. regards as one of the traces of an Ephraimite dialect, the noun with this meaning being otherwise feminine. Gesen. derives from in the active sense the form being plural with suff. and the construction acc. as object. Fuerst makes it a peculiar derivative (without suffix) from in the sense of bowed down, humble, pious. Btt. pointing as the Kthibh, makes it from with the suffix of the singular. See Exegetical notes for the various interpretations.A.].

EXEGETICAL

1. Pro 26:1-3. Three proverbs against folly, symmetrical in their structure (in each case bringing two related ideas into comparison).As snow in summer and rain in harvest. According to Jerome, Comm. in Amo 4:7, rain in harvest time is in Palestine a thing not heard of, and even impossible. Comp. 1Sa 12:17 sq., where a sudden thunderstorm at this season appears as a miracle from God, and also the confirmatory statements of modern observers, like Robinson, Pal. II. Pro 307: In ordinary years no rain at all falls from the end of the spring-showers till October or November, and the sky is almost always clear, etc.Comp. furthermore the remarks above on Pro 25:13, as well as, for clause b, Pro 19:10; and also Pro 26:8 below.

Pro 26:2.As the sparrow flitting, as the swallow flying: lit. as the sparrow for fleeing or wandering, as the swallow flying, viz. is fitted. Comp. the similar construction in Pro 25:3, and also the similar comparison in Pro 27:8. [The Inf. with may be rendered by the abl. as readily as by the dative of the gerund or verbal noun; by or in respect to flying, etc.]So the curse (that is) undeserved: it cometh not. A curse that is in vain, that has been uttered without just ground, that is unmerited, like that, e.g., in 2Sa 16:5 sq., or that in 1Ki 2:8. For the in vain comp. Pro 24:28 and the remarks on the passage.Instead of Kri calls for to him, to the fool who utters it, will it return, it will find its fulfilment in his own case (thus the Vulg. and Jarchi). But the verbal expression agrees poorly enough with this rendering, and moreover the two comparisons in a plainly favor rather the idea expressed by the Kthibh. [Such a curse is then fugitive, transient as a bird; it does not come to stay. The E. V. suggests the idea very blindly. Trapp explains: As these may fly where they will, and nobody cares or is the worse; so here. He would carry the comparison farther: as birds after their aimless flight return to their nest, so the causeless curse returns to the authors. Cursing men are cursed men. A.].

Pro 26:3. Comp. Pro 10:13; Pro 26:29; Sir 30:25-25.The assertion of J. D. Michaelis that the ideas whip and bridle in clause a are not rightly distributed between the horse and the ass, is refuted by Nah 3:2; Eze 41:9, where express mention is made of riding whips in connection with horses, as well as by Psa 32:9, where with horses mules are also mentioned as bridled animals. [Gesen. Thes., s. v., abundantly illustrates the nobler nature of the Eastern ass, and the higher estimate put upon it. See also Houghtons article in Smiths Dictionary of the Bible, I., 182, Am. Ed. A.]

2. Pro 26:4-12. Eight additional proverbs directed against the folly of fools (among them one consisting of two verses, Pro 26:4-5).Answer not a fool according to his folly, i.e., speak not with him in accordance with his folly, conforming thyself to it, imitating it, and thereby becoming thyself a fool. On the other hand, Pro 26:5 : Answer a fool according to his folly, i.e., serve him in his senseless babbling with an appropriate, sharply decisive retort, use with the coarse block (blockhead) the heavy wedge that belongs to it. The proverb in Pro 26:5 does not then stand as a restriction on the meaning of Pro 26:4 (as Ewald holds), but yet adjusting it, and guarding against what might be misunderstood in the former language. [Says Andrew Fuller: The terms in the first instance mean in a foolish manner, as is manifest from the reason given. In the second instance they mean in the manner which his folly requires. This is also plain from the reason given. A foolish speech is not a rule for our imitation; nevertheless our answer must be so framed by it as to meet and repel it. This knot will be easily loosed, says Muffet, if it be observed that there are two sorts of answers, the one in folly, the other unto folly. A.]

Pro 26:6. He cutteth off the feet, he drinketh damage, who sendeth a message by a fool. Comp. the two figurative expressions in clause a, the first ( he cutteth off the feet, i.e., his own feet, amputat sibi pedesMichaelis, Schelling, Bertheau, Elster, Stier, [Kamph. Wordsw.] etc.,) means: he deprives himself of the means of attaining the end, he puts himself into a helpless condition; [and the idea is better expressed in this way than if we adopt the explanation of H., N., S., M.; he acts as though he cut off the feet of his messenger who chooses a fool for the errand. N. errs in completing a proposition in clause a: he that has his feet cut off drinks damage. A.] The second phrase he drinketh injury or wrong, according to Job 21:20; Job 34:7, is equivalent to he suffers abuses, he experiences in the largest measure an injury self-devised. For similar use of the term words in the sense of commands, directions, a message, comp. Exo 4:13; 2Sa 15:36. For the general meaning compare like complaints of bad and foolish messengers in Pro 10:26; Pro 25:13.

Pro 26:7. Take away the legs from the lame. The verb appears to be used here with the meaning, which it is true is not to be discovered elsewhere, of tollere, to take away. For the meaning of the comparison, according to b, seems to be this: Always take from the lame his legs, (i.e., his lame legs), for they are really useless to him, just as the proverb, (i.e., the maxim of wisdom, the Maschal) in the mouth of the fool is useless, something that might without loss be never there; for the fool is and continues still a fool (Pro 26:9; Pro 12:16; Pro 14:24, etc.). Thus Umbreit, Bertheau, Stier [Stuart, Kamph.] correctly explain, while the rest take some one and some another way to explain the peculiarly obscure and difficult . So Luther takes the phrase altogether arbitrarily in the sense of to dance (as dancing to a cripple, so does it befit a fool to speak of wisdom); in like manner Jarchi and Levi ben Gerson (his legs are too long for the lame, being taken as equivalent to ), and also Geier, Rosenm, J. H. Michaelis, Schelling, etc., who take as a substantive equivalent to in the sense of elevatio. [The E. V. renders the legs of the lame are not equal]. Ewald and Elster read , the legs of the lame are too loose (Aben Ezra had already given a similar rendering) [Gesen., hang down, so De W., N., Wordsw.; are weak, H. M.]. Hitzig finally gives the Inf. abs. : leaping of the legs on the part of a lame manso is a proverb in the mouth of a fool, (the same meaning, therefore, substantially as in Luthers conception.)

Pro 26:8. As a bag of jewels on a heap of stones, so is he that giveth honor to a fool. If the noun which occurs only here expresses the idea heap of stones, acervus lapidum, which is altogether probable from its derivation from , to stone, to heap up stones, then the must be a parcel not of common, but of precious stones (comp. Exo 28:9; Exo 35:27, where alone stands for lapis pretiosior), and this all the more since the 2d clause makes this rendering peculiarly natural. So R. Levi ben Gerson, then Luther, Geier, Schultens, Gesenius, Umbreit, Stier, Elster, [E. V. in mar-gin, De W., N., W.],of whom Luther, Geier, Schultens, Stier [Wordsw.] think particularly of a heap of stones raised by the stoning of a malefactor, a tumulus aggestus supra corpus lapida-tum, which is certainly more natural than with Jerome, (Vulg., acervus Mercurii), several of the early Rabbis, Jarchi, V. E. Lscher (in the Unschuldigen Nachrichten, Vol. 13, p. 496), and Oetinger, to think of a Hermes, a heap of stones dedicated to Mercury ( , statua mercurialis). Others (Bertheau, Ewald [Fuerst, Kamph., E. V., in text, H., S., M.] etc.,)following the LXX and Chald, take in the sense of sling, and regard as an Infin.; as the binding a stone fast to the sling;but against this may be maintained the inappositeness of the figure as compared with the idea in clause b, and the fact that such a meaning cannot be proved to belong to the noun, and the circumstance that the sling is elsewhere always called .Hitzig: as a little stone on the beam of a balance, etc.,for he says the noun means, according to the Arabic, the beam of a balance, and signifies a bit or kernel of stone, a little stone serving to bind the balance (?).

Pro 26:9. A thorny staff that riseth up in the hand of a drunkard, (so is) a (wise) proverb in the mouth of a fool. If in Pro 26:7 a Maschal, a maxim of wisdom, taken into the mouth of a fool was represented as something useless, destitute of all aim and effect, it here appears rather as something working absolute harm, wounding, injuring like thorns, and in particular like an instrument of correction heedlessly carried, striking in the wrong place, and so grossly misused. Comp. Luthers marginal note, which in the main point certainly interprets correctly: when a drunkard carries and brandishes in his hand a sweet briar, he scratches more with it than he allows the roses to be smelled; so a fool with the Scriptures or a judicial maxim oft causes more harm than profit.Hitzig following the LXX, reads in clause b instead of , and furthermore takes the verb of clause a in the sense of to shoot up, and therefore renders: Thorns shoot up by (under) the hand of the hireling (?) and tyranny by the mouth of fools. But we do not need to give to the verb here even as a secondary meaning the sense of growing up (as Ewald, Umbreit, Stier propose), as the simple original meaning of rising up; raising itself gives a meaning in every way satisfactory. [The rendering of the E. V., H., W., as a thorn goeth up into the hand, etc., wounding unconsciously, is less forcible every way than that of the author, with whom De W., K., Bertheau, N., S., M., etc., agree. A.]

Pro 26:10. An archer that woundeth everything (for this meaning comp. , an archer or dartsman, comp. Jer. 1:29; Job 16:43; for the verb in this sense, Isa 11:9), and he that hireth a fool, and he that hireth vagrants (passers by, i.e., therefore untried, unreliable persons, who soon run away again)are alike; one of the three is as foolish as another. This interpretation, which is followed by Schelling, Ewald, Bertheau, Stier, [De W., Kamph., and virtually S. and M.], involves it is true a certain hardness, especially in the relation of the figure in a to the two ideas in b; it corresponds best, however, with the simple literal meaning of the passage. Luther, Geier, See. Sciimid, [N., Wordsw.] render: A master formeth all aright, magister format omnia recte; in a similar way Elster: An able man formeth all himself (in contrast with the fool, who seeks to hire others, and even incompetent persons of all sorts, stragglers and vagrants, etc., to transact his business). [The E. V., which is followed against his will by Holden, interprets the master as God: the great God, etc.]. Umbreit and Hitzig [with another common meaning of ]: Much produceth all, as though the meaning were similar to that in the , Mat 13:11; Mat 25:20. Others read instead of e.g., the Vulg., judicium determinat causas, and of recent expositors Ziegler, etc.

Pro 26:11. As a dog that returneth to his vomit (comp. the New Testament citation of this passage in 2Pe 2:22) so the fool (ever) repeateth his folly; lit., so comes the fool for the second time again with his folly, comp. Pro 17:9. Here is plainly meant not merely a constantly renewed return to foolish assertions in spite of all the rational grounds adduced against them, but a falling again into foolish courses of action after brief endeavors or beginnings at improvement (comp. Mat 12:46; Joh 5:14; Heb 6:4-8.)

Pro 26:12. Seest thou a man wise in his own eyes, i.e., who holds himself as wise, and by this very blind over-estimate of himself thoroughly and forever bars for himself the way to true wisdom (comp. Pro 30:12), like the Pharisees mentioned in Joh 9:41, who gave it out that they saw, but were in truth stone-blind.With b compare Pro 31:20, where this 2d clause recurs literally.

3. Pro 26:13-16. Pour proverbs against sloth.

Pro 26:13. Comp. the almost identical proverb inProverbs Pro 22:13.A lion is in the way. a synonym of designates the lion as a roaring animal, as rugiens sive rugitor; it does not contrast the male lion with the lioness (Vulg.), or again the young lion with the full grown, (Luther),

Pro 26:14. Comp. Pro 6:10; Pro 24:33. With this figure of the door ever turning on its hinges but never moving from its place comp. the well-known words of Schiller drcht sick trg und dumm wie des Frbers Gaul im Ring herum [turns lazy and stupid like the dyers nag round in its circle.]

Pro 26:15. Comp. the almost identical proverb, Pro 21:24.

Pro 26:16.The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes (comp. Pro 26:12) than seven men who give a wise answer. The number seven stands here not because it is the sacred number, but to express the idea of plurality in a concrete and popular way. Comp. Pro 26:25; also Pro 6:31; Pro 24:16; Jer 15:9; 1Sa 2:5; Sir 37:14.With this use of taste in the sense of understanding, judgment, comp. 1 Sam. 21:14; 23:33; Psa 119:66; Job 12:20; also remarks above on Pro 11:22, where is denoted in addition a quality of the moral life. To give back understanding is naturally equivalent to giving an intelligent, wise answer, as a sign of an intelligent disposition; comp. Pro 17:18.

4. Pro 26:17-19. Against delight in strife and wilful provocation.He layeth hold on the ears of a dog (and so provokes the animal outright to harking and biting) who passing by is excited by strife that is not his, lit.,. over a dispute not for him (comp. Hab 2:6). For the use of this verb to provoke or excite ones self, comp. the remark on Pro 20:2. This with the Part. forms an alliteration or polyptoton which (with Stier) may be substantially reproduced in German: wer vorbergehend sich bergehen (sich die Oalle berlaufen) lsst, etc. There is no occasion for Hitzigs assumption, that instead of there stood originally in the text the which is expressed by the Syriac and Vulg.; he who meddleth in strife, etc. [The E. V. has taken this doubtless under the influence of those early versions.]

Pro 26:18-19. As a madman who casteth fiery darts, arrows and death. The which occurs only here, signifies, according to Symmachus, the Vers. Venet., and Aben Ezra, one beside himself or insane (, ). For the combination of the three ideas, fiery darts, arrows and death (i.e., deadly missiles), comp. the similar grouping in Pro 25:18 a.So the man that deceiveth his neighbor. is to deceive, to deal craftily, not to afflict (Umbreit), or overthrow (Van Ess).And (then) saith: Am I not in sport? The meaning of the simple and saith the Vulgate paraphrases correctly when it renders: et cum deprehensus fuerit, dicit, etc. [ Quipping and flouting, says Muffet, is counted the flower and grace of mens speech, and especially of table talk; but the hurt that cometh by this flower is as bitter as wormwood, and the disgrace which this grace casteth upon men is fouler than any dirt of the street.A.]

5. Pro 26:20-28. Nine proverbs against malice and deceit.Where the wood faileth the fire goeth out, etc. Comp. the Arabic proverb expressing the same idea, aimed at slander (in Scheid, Selecta, p. 18): He who layeth no wood on the fire keeps it from burning. For this description of. the slanderer comp. Pro 16:28.

Pro 26:21. The direct opposite to the contents of the preceding verse.Coals to burning coals; lit., black coals to burning coals. For the man of contentions in clause b comp. Pro 21:9; Pro 27:15.

With Pro 26:22 compare the literally identical proverb Pro 18:8.

Pro 26:23. Silver dross spread over a potsherd. Silver of dross is impure silver not yet properly freed from the dross, and therefore partly spurious (Vulg., argentum sordidum), and not some such thing as a glazing with the glitter of silver made of plumbago (Lithargyrus), and so imitation of silver, as many think, and as Luther seems to have expressed in his Silber-schaum. , potsherd (Isa 16:11), seems to be used intentionally instead of an earthen vessel, to strengthen the impression of the worthlessness of the object named.(So are) burning lips, i.e. fiery protestations of friendship, or it may be warm kisses (which Bertheau understands to be the specific meaning), which in connection with a genuinely good heart on the part of the giver are a sign of true love, but with a wicked heart are on the contrary repulsive demonstrations of hypocrisy, without any moral worth (comp. the kiss of Judas, Mat 26:48 sq.). It is unnecessary to read with Hitzig , smooth lips, instead of , burning lips.

Pro 26:24-25. With his lips the hater dissembleth. For the verb which may not here, as in Pro 20:11, be translated is recognized (so Luther, following the Chald. and Vulg.), comp. the Hithp. of , which elsewhere expresses the idea of dissembling, e.g., Gen 13:7; 1Ki 16:5-6.And within he prepareth deceit. Comp. Jer 9:7, and with to set, contrive, prepare deceit, compare the setting or preparing snares, Psa 140:6.For seven abominations are in his heart. See remarks above, on Pro 26:16, and comp. the seven devils of Mat 12:45, which represent an intensified power in present moral deformity. That there is a specific reference to the six or seven abominations mentioned in Pro 6:16-19, is an arbitrary conjecture of Aben Ezra.

Pro 26:26. Hatred is covered by deceit. from , to deceive, is doubtless correctly understood by the LXX, when they express the idea by (comp. also the fraudulenter of the Vulg.); here it designates specifically hypocrisy, the deception of friendly language used to ones face (Umbreit). The suffix in refers then by an obvious construclio ad sensum to him who conceals his hatred in this hypocritical way. The second clause gives assurance then of the certain occurrence of an exposure of this flatterer in the assembly, i.e. before the congregation of his people assembled for judgment, who perhaps through some judicial process that ends unfortunately for him come to the knowledge of his villanies. Hitzig partially following the LXX ( ), renders: He who concealeth hatred, devising mischief (?), his vileness is exposed in the assembly.

Pro 26:27. He that diggeth a pit falleth into it. Comp. Ecc 10:8; Sir 27:26; Psa 9:16, and with respect to the falling back of the stone that has been (wickedly) rolled in clause b, comp. Psa 7:17; Mat 21:44.

Pro 26:28. The lying tongue hateth those that are wounded by it. If the reading is correct this may be the rendering, and the crushed (plural of [E. V. the oppressed], Ps. 9:10; 10:18; 27:21), i.e. the bruised (or oppressed or woundedsee Umbreit and Stier on this passage) of the lying tongue, are then those whom this tongue has bruised or wounded, the victims of its wickednessand not those possibly whom it proposes to wound or oppress (Umbreit, De W., Van Ess), or again those who wound, i.e. punish, it (conterentessive castigantes ipsamLuther, Geier, Gesenius). Inasmuch, however, as the proposition is by no means universally and in every case true, that the lying tongue, or that detraction hates its own victims, and since besides the second clause seems to demand another sense, it might be justifiable to read with Ewald and Hitzig ; accordingly the lying tongue hates its own master, i.e. it hurls him into calamity, brings him to ruina meaning which also corresponds admirably with Pro 26:27. [See Critical notes for the three chief explanations of the form and derivation of the word. The passive rendering has this advantage, that it makes the fourth instance correspond with the other three in which the word is used; this presumption must be- decidedly overthrown. This we do not think is done; so the E. V., H., N., S., M., W., Kamph., etc.A.] For the noun rendered offence, in clause b, comp., moreover, the cognate verb in clause a of Pro 16:32.

DOCTRINAL, ETHICAL, HOMILETIC AND PRACTICAL

It is mainly three forms of dishonorably and morally contemptible conduct, against which the condemning language of the proverbs in this section is directed; foolishness or folly in the narrower sense (Pro 26:1-12😉 sloth (Pro 26:13-16); and a wicked maliciousness (Pro 26:17-28), which displays itself at one time as a wilful contentiousness and disposition to annoy (1719), and at another as an artful calumniation and hypocritical slandering (2028). Original ethical truths, such as have not appeared in previous chapters, are expressed only to a limited extent in the proverbs which relate to these vices. The novelty is found more in the peculiarly pointed and figurative form which distinguishes in an extraordinary degree the maxims of this chapter above others. Yet there are now and then essentially new ideas; what is said in Pro 26:2 of the futility of curses that are groundless; in Pro 26:4-5 of uttering the truth staunchly to fools without becoming foolish ones self; in Pro 26:7; Pro 26:9 of the senselessness and even harmfulness of proverbs of wisdom in the mouth of a fool; in Pro 26:12 of the incapability of improvement in conceited fools who deem themselves wise; and finally in Pro 26:27-28 of the self-destroying reflex power of malicious counsels formed against ones neighbor.

Homily on the chapter as a whole.Of three kinds of vices which the truly wise man must avoid: 1) folly; 2) sloth; 3) wicked artifice.Stcker: What kinds of people are worthy of no honor: 1) fools; 2) sluggards or idlers; 3) lovers of contention and brawling.Starke: A (warning) lesson on folly, sloth and deceitfulness.

Pro 26:1-6. Wrtemberg Bible (on Pro 26:1):Honor is a reward of virtue and ability; wilt thou be honored, then first become virtuous and wise!Melanchthon (on Pro 26:2): As a consolation against all calumnies and unjust detraction the assurance of the divine word serves us,that false (groundless) curses, though they momentarily harm and wound, yet in the end appear in their nothingness, and are cast aside, in accordance with the saying: truth may indeed be repressed for a time, but not perish (Psa 94:15; 2Co 4:9). [Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; the eternal years of God are hers.Lawson: The curses of such men instead of being prejudicial, will be very useful to us, if we are wise enough to imitate the conduct of David, whose meekness was approved, his prayers kindled into a flame of desires, and his hopes invigorated by them].Geier (on Pro 26:3): One may not flatter his own unruly flesh and blood, but must seek to keep it properly in check.Starke (on Pro 26:4-5): Great wisdom is needful to meet the different classes of our adversaries in an appropriate way.(On Pro 26:6): Important concerns one should commit to skilful and able servants.

Pro 26:7-12. Luther. (Marginal comment on Pro 26:7): Fools ought not to be wise and yet will be always affecting wisdom.[Trapp: If thy tongue speak by the talent, but thine hands scarce work by the ounce, thou shalt pass for a Pharisee (Mat 23:3). They spake like angels, lived like devils; had heaven commonly at their tongue ends, but the world continually at their finger ends].Starke (on Pro 26:7; Pro 26:9): He who will teach others in divine wisdom, must first have mastered it himself (Sir 18:19); then he will not only teach with profit, but also have honor from it.(On Pro 26:9): He who misuses Gods word does himself thereby the greatest injury.(On Pro 26:8): Beware of all flattering of the ungodly; for one prepares himself thereby but a poor reward.(On Pro 26:10): As is the master so is the servant. Bad masters like bad servants.(On Pro 26:11): If all relapses in sickness are dangerous, so much more relapses into old sins.(On Pro 26:12): Self-pleasing and self-relaxation is the prolific mother of many other follies.Wohlfarth (on Pro 26:12): Let no one esteem himself perfect, but let every one strive for humility and cherish it as his most sacred possession.[Lawson (on Pro 26:8): But does not God Himself often give honor to fools ? Yes. He is the judge of nations who has a right to punish men by subjecting them to the power of fools. We are to regulate our conduct not by His secret but His revealed will.Arnot (on Pro 26:11): When the unrenewed heart and the pollutions of the world are, after a temporary separation, brought together again, the two in their unholy wedlock become one flesh. Mans true needGods sufficient cure is Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.J. Edwards (on Pro 26:12): Those who are wise in their own eyes are some of the least likely to get good of any in the world.Bridges: The natural fool has only one hinderancehis own ignorance. The conceited fool has twoignorance and self-delusion].

Pro 26:13-16. Lange: That the weeds of sin are ever getting the upper hand as well in hearts as in the Church, comes from this, that men do not enough watch and pray, but only lounge, are idle and sleepy: 1Th 5:6.Berlebury Bible: The sluggard remains year in year out sitting on the heap of his Self-chosen convenient Christianity, reads, hears, prays, sings in the Church year after year, and makes no progress, never cornea to an inner complete knowledge of truth; just as the door always remains in one place, although it turns this way and that the whole year through, and swings on its hinges. This slothfulness is the mother of all the doctrines which encourage the old Adam, and in the matter of sanctification throw out the cannot, where it is a will not that hides behind.Wohlfarth: The sluggards wisdom. Rest is to him the sole end of life; only in indolence does he feel happy, etc.

Pro 26:17-19. Starke (on Pro 26:17): To mix ones self in strange matters from forwardnesss and with no call, has usually a bad issue.Osiander (on Pro 26:18-19): In the sight of God the wantonness and wickedness of the heart are not hid; moreover He does not let them go unpunished.Zeltner: Crafty friends are much more dangerous and injurious than open enemies.Lange: It testifies of no small wickedness when one alleges quite innocent intentions in injuring another, and yet with all is only watching an opportunity to give him a blow.

Pro 26:20-28. Hasius (on Pro 26:20 sq.): There would not be so much dispute and strife among men if there were not so many base spirits who nourish and promote it in every way.Starke: Slanders and contentions are to be regarded as a flame to which one should not supply wood, but rather water to quench them.[Trapp (on Pro 26:23): Counterfeit friends are nought on both sides].Von Gerlach (on Pro 26:20): Though a deceitful man may succeed in cheating individuals, yet this is not possible before the whole Church (Act 5:1-11).(On Pro 26:27): A hypocritical tongue if it has injured any one follows him still further with lies to defend itself, and so it causes universal confusion.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS.

Under various similitudes, the Proverbs are continued to shew the wisdom of the wise, and the sad conduct of foolish men.

Pro 26:1-9 As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool. As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet, and drinketh damage. The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools. As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that giveth honour to a fool. As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools.

Every one of these parables, no doubt, hath a very significant and pointed meaning, But, so very different is the plan and stile of the oriental method of writing, compared to ours, that it is not very easy to discover the exact reference. One elucidation may, however, serve to throw a light upon many. The inequality of the legs of the lame should seem to imply, how unsuited mingled things in religion are in general; and especially in things which have reference to divine truths. Thus, for example, if the preachers of the gospel mingle things of human merit with divine excellency, and join creature-works with Christ’s salvation; here is a vast disproportion, a lameness from in equality. And by a parity of reasoning, the same may be spiritually applied to the other proverbs.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Pro 26:7

‘The legs of the lame are not equal:’ so, says the wise man, ‘is a parable in the mouth of fools’. That is to say, the parable in the mouth of fools is not equal; it fails of an all-round interpretation which will carry conviction concerning the truth which it seeks to emphasize and enforce.

I. Some very good people pride themselves on the open mind. They look upon any one who may, upon any subject, arrive at any definite conclusion, which will commit them to any definite opinion, as narrow minded. They are broad enough to receive anything. These people look upon this open mind as a virtue; consequently they have no settled conviction, they walk as a lame man. Their legs are not equal. Their actions are uneven and unstable.

This type of mind which, like the fool’s parable is loose, disjointed, and unequal, should not be confounded with that willingness to entertain truth, come it from whatever source it may be, an essential of the healthy and growing mind.

II. As far as the Gospel is concerned, there is absolutely no need for a lame leg. Granted, as the book does, ‘In the beginning God,’ and the whole plan of salvation, the whole doctrine of the atonement with all that that doctrine involves, is so clear and demonstrable that the lame leg, the uneven foot, the undecided step, is surely inexcusable. If God is, then Sinai and Calvary are as natural as the daylight, and as orderly as the sun rising.

Consider the character which this Gospel has produced, and let the fruit bear witness of the life within. But first of all what is this Gospel? It is the proclaiming of a character. The Gospel is the glad news concerning Jesus Christ. We cannot say the Gospel produced the character of Jesus Christ; but we can most truly affirm that His character produced the Gospel. And what a character it was, so strong, so decisive. He certainly knew how to obtain a determination. There was no suggestion of a limp in His walk, no evidence of looseness in His parable.

III. But this Gospel does produce a character. It is the character of Jesus Christ which is produced in those who believe on His name. Christ is begotten in the heart of the believer. And when that is done the lame leg disappears, the loose, ill-considered, disjointed parable vanishes. There is obtained that determination, ‘the first requisite and indication of a rationally decisive character’.

Look at this indispensable fact in the lives of some of that mighty host who have followed Him. Take the first disciples. They furnish a striking and remarkable contrast before and after the resurrection of Christ.

J. Gay, Common Truths from Queer Texts, p. 5.

References. XXVI. 11. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven far Life on Earth, p. 523. XXVI. 13. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii. No. 1670. XXVI. 23. F. B. Cowl, Straight Tracks, p. 88.

John Bunyan’s Application of an Old Testament Text

Pro 26:25

I. What were the ‘Seven Abominations’ John Bunyan discovered in his heart?

The fatal list is before us in Grace Abounding.

1. ‘Inclinings to unbelief.’ Whether we define ‘unbelief as failure to subscribe to a body of truth or as lack of personal trustfulness it is yet an ‘abomination,’ and ‘inclinings’ to one or other form of unbelief are an ‘abomination’ unfashionable though it be to avow it in these days.

2. ‘Suddenly to forget the love and mercy that Christ manifesteth.’ Bunyan accurately depicts spiritual experience when he describes this process of forgetfulness as setting in ‘suddenly’. In a trice we fall into this error. Or ever we were aware we forgot Christ’s ‘love and mercy’. Beware of despondency which springs from lapse of memory! Despondency is a murderer of souls.

3. ‘A leaning to the works of the law.’ Bunyan refers in this phrase to a disposition to trust in his own good deeds as the ground of acceptance with God. We must all lean to ‘the works of the Law’ as moral directions, but never as the condition of eternal salvation.

4. ‘Wanderings and coldness in prayer.’ ‘Wanderings.’ The heart plays truant whilst the body is being schooled to prayer. Memory is a traitor despite the loyalty of the lips. How prayer loses its potency by being degraded into a formality! ‘Coldness’ perhaps even oftener curses our devotions. There is no glow in the petition because there is no glow in the petitioner.

5. ‘To forget to watch for that I pray for.’ ‘Watching thereunto’ is one of Paul’s great maxims of prayer. Yet it is a maxim often practically ignored. It shows a fearful lack of belief in prayer.

6. ‘Apt to murmur because I have no more, and yet ready to abuse what I have.’ What an affront this is upon the wisdom and love of our God. As if He did not know best what is ‘convenient’ for us. I murmur that I have not more light, yet I do not put to best use the light I have. I murmur that I have not more leisure, and yet I abuse the leisure I possess. I murmur that I have no more wealth, yet I often abuse the money I have.

7. ‘I can do none of those things which God commands me, but my corruptions will thrust in themselves. When I would do good, evil is present with me.’ ‘Corruptions’ is a technical term of Biblical and Puritan theology. It indicates the sins and sinful tendencies of human nature.

II. What was the Sevenfold Sanctification these Abominations wrought in John Bunyan?

1. ‘They make me abhor myself.’ Then by so much they were ordered for his good. All of the Pharisee must die out of us, and with the self-deprecatory publican we must range ourselves for all time. Repentance is a continual need of Christians.

2. ‘They keep me from trusting my heart.’ ‘He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool,’ and to that folly we are fearfully prone. But realize the innumerable evils of your heart and how can you trust it?

3. ‘They convince me of the insufficiency of all inherent righteousness.’ Inherent righteousness, or natural righteousness, can never meet the demands of the righteous and holy Lord. Seeing my abominations drive me to the ineffable and vicarious righteousness of Christ they abduce an immortal good.

4. ‘They show me the necessity of fleeing to Jesus.’ Only Jesus can deliver us from the guilt and dominion of our abominations. When I see my hurt I know my Physician.

5. ‘They press me to pray unto God.’ This has constantly been a fact of Christian experience. Our sinfulness drives us to God in prayer.

6. ‘They show me the need I have to watch and be sober.’ What provokes vigilance and gravity is a blessing in its result, however evil it may be in itself.

7. ‘And provoke me to look to God, through Christ, to help me, and cany me through this world.’ If John Bunyan found that his various forms of indwelling sin provoked him to cast himself entirely upon God, through Christ, for help and guidance all his life long, then God had verily turned the curse into a blessing unto Him.

Dinsdale T. Young, The Enthusiasm, of God, p. 174.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Observations About Fools, Etc.

Pro 26

Small birds, such as sparrows, are made for wandering, and the swallow is formed for flying, going where it pleases, and yet in both instances the flying amounting to little or nothing: so the curse causeless that is to say, a curse spoken without reason shall not come to any deadly effect; that is to say, it shall not reach the object towards which it was directed, it shall be but as a passing shadow and not as a crushing burden. Seed thrown upon stones does not come to fruition; so the curse that is misspent, or misdirected, or that is not deserved, shall come to nothing in the latter end, it shall simply wither away, or prove its own worthlessness and emptiness. Contempt often fails of reaching its mark. When contempt is directed against a holy man it does that man no harm, but it does harm to its own author. We thus see how strong a man may be in character, and how impregnable is the fortress of integrity. Men are really not injured from the outside by the bolts of vengeance, by the shafts of satire, by the sneers of contempt, or by the detractions of envy; men are only injured by themselves, by their own want of faithfulness, by their inconstancy, by their hypocrisy, by their disregard of spiritual culture. The curse causeless shall never reach its destination; it may seem to be well-directed and to fly with terrific energy, but it shall never smite the target of an upright and honourable heart Thus is God the confidence of his people: thus is truth its own castle of defence, its own inviolable sanctuary, placed upon the mountains which never can be climbed by evil men, and settled upon rocks which never can yield to the poor assaults of malignant enmity. Be strong in yourselves, and then you will be strong in society. If your own heart condemn you not, no external condemnation can ever really hinder you.

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit” ( Pro 26:4-5 ).

Do not descend to the level of the fool by disputing or arguing with him as if upon equal terms. Both the directions are thoroughly consistent one with the other. We must discriminate even amongst fools. Some fools are to be answered sharply, cuttingly, in their own language, or in language they can understand, lest they grow in impertinence and become strong in self-assertion or self-applause. On the other hand, the answer is to be given from a high level, so that it shall fall upon the fool, and not be spoken to him as if the interlocutors were standing upon common ground. Fools must be made to feel their folly, either by significant silence on the part of the wise, or by such a use of contempt as shall humble where it cannot instruct. Here, however, we are dealing with edged instruments, and therefore should use them with the greatest care. Unquestionably, there is a strong temptation to wither the fool, to crush him with a retort, to overwhelm him with a humiliation, and to extract a kind of victory from an encounter with his weakness. Sometimes, however, it is better to be silent than to be eloquent; to be forbearing than to be resentful; every man must consider the particular circumstances and direct his policy accordingly. We are never to lose dignity in our intercourse with men. We may be humble without being servile; we may condescend without prostration; we may teach others the truth as if we were representing not ourselves but the very God of truth. It is impossible to limit the action of the fool. The worst fools are they who may be strong in intellect, but who are wanting in the finer sensitiveness, in the keener sympathy, in the cultured taste, which distinguishes with an exact discrimination the difference between one act and another, where indeed there may seem to be but little difference. We have seen that a word spoken in season is precious as a gospel, and now we are to learn that a word spoken out of season, or spoken under the wrong impulse, may be an insult to the very faculty and genius of speech, as well as a degradation of the spirit of morality.

“The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools” ( Pro 26:7 ).

The legs of the lame hang loosely, and so are useless. The legs themselves are there, but being poorly hung they cannot be turned to use. Read: The legs hang down from a lame man; or, The legs of a lame man are loose, and therefore are of no service to him: so is a parable in the mouth of fools. It is a beautiful parable, well conceived, well expressed, wanting in nothing that can give literary dignity or moral pertinence, and yet as used by a fool it becomes worthless, it is without point, without effect, without real benefit or service. What is true of the private fool is true also of the public fool; that is to say, of the man who preaches a grand gospel but does so without himself having any vital relation to it, without having turned that gospel into experience and illustrated it by example. Such a man has no right to have the parable of the gospel entrusted to him, and certainly he has no right to entrust it to himself. There is always to be a distinct relation between the speaker and the speech, between the faculty and the use to which it is put. When things are out of place they may become not only worthless but mischievous. Seed is to be sown in the ground; it is not to be thrown into the air, or to be laid upon marble slabs, or to be cast into iron furnaces; in all these instances it would be thrown away. Right words, wise parables, eternal gospels, are not to be entrusted to loose lips, to misdirected faculties, to foolish expositors: great gospels are to be entrusted to great hearts, and it is evermore to be felt that the speaker of the gospel is a man who has himself realised the gospel; where there is this harmony between the speaker and the speech the words will be simple, clear, and mighty.

“As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that giveth honour to a fool” ( Pro 26:8 ).

The idea is that the stone is soon gone from the sling, is thrown away, and is seen no more, and is perhaps lost for ever: “so is he that giveth honour to a fool;” the fool cannot retain the honour, or he throws it away, or it becomes useless to him; it is as a jewel mislaid, or as gold misspent: give honour only to those who can use it and turn it to greater honour. Do not give even one talent to a man who will fold it in a napkin and lay it aside. Give to him that hath, and he will increase more and more, by reason of industry, and the wise application of his faculties. You cannot make a fool a wise man by any external gift The crown does not make the king. The hat of Aristotle would not make a fool into a philosopher. We are only made great and rich by that which is internal, that which is part of ourselves, part of the very substance of the soul. So true education is an interior work, and culture wrought by the Divine Spirit, an estate of mind and feeling brought about by continual communion with heaven. By “a fool” we are hot always to understand a man of poor intellect, a man of mean mind, or a man who has not had external advantages of an intellectual kind: we are often to understand the withered heart, the moral fool, the depraved nature, the man who mistakes moral distinctions and confounds right and wrong, up and down, true and false, always making mistakes as to which is which, and never acting with that moral certainty which comes of identification with the spirit of truth.

“As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools. The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors. As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him” ( Pro 26:9-12 ).

Thus the “fool” has no friend in the Book of Proverbs. Everywhere he is kicked from one position to another; being welcome nowhere, being despised everywhere. A master produces everything by his own care and oversight that is to say, he himself sees that it is properly done; but the fool hires others to do his work, he hires passers-by that is to say, he will accept the help of any person that comes casually in his way, without inquiring whether that person is skilled or not, and so the work is badly done. The fool is indolent; he does not form the right conception of work; he looks upon work as drudgery, and as involving the degradation of the worker; he does not see that work is a divine vocation, and that the very meanest form of work may become religious and sacramental when handled in the right spirit. Fools return to their folly, though they know it to be folly; yea, seven times will the fool go back again upon ways which he knows will lead to destruction. The fool thus contracts and establishes what may be termed a second nature, and as the leopard cannot change his spots, neither can the fool change his life; yea, even if for a while he seems to have become a better man, yet as a dog returneth to his vomit a fool returneth to his folly. Yet there is a man who is even more contemptible than the fool, and that is the man who is wise in his own conceit: the Wise Man does not fear to say that there is more hope of a fool than of him. The Pharisees had conceit of themselves; they called themselves righteous, and prided themselves upon being the very elect of heaven; others prided themselves upon being the children of Abraham, or of having Abraham to their father; but the publicans and the harlots returned to God, whilst the self-righteous were excluded from the opening kingdom of heaven; Pharisees and lawyers and mighty men of learning, who imagined themselves to be the favourites of God, actually rejected the counsel of God against themselves, supposing that by reason of their intellectual strength and their historical fame they had no need of an enlarged revelation. We are only right so long as we are truly humble. Progress is impossible where docility of spirit has ceased. Except we be converted and become as little children docile, simple, obedient, trustful we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.

“The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason” ( Pro 26:13-16 ).

As the fool has no friends in the Book of Proverbs, so the sluggard or the slothful man is everywhere encountered with contempt and disgust. Creation has no room for sluggards. The whole economy of life is constructed, as we know it, for the proper exercise of our faculties, for the development of industry, for the completion of beneficent service. Every man should be up early in the morning and take advantage of the dawn; every man should have a distinct plan in life, and should patiently and gratefully realise that plan, line by line; to be without a policy of life is to be without sufficient inspiration and impulse, is to be the sport of every chance, and is to be the prey of every temptation. Sluggishness increases in a man. The spirit of slothfulness is to be fought against as men would fight against a beast of prey: it lulls the senses: it takes away the very strength which it professedly conserves; it destroys the man whom it appears to bless. We are only safe in being faithful, active, devoted to some worthy cause. Every day should have its own plan, every morning should come as a bright opportunity, and every night should find us once more at the altar of praise, thanking God for a day’s work well done. It will be difficult for a slothful man to become energetic in middle life. Slothfulness should be early extinguished. We do not act kindly to a child by doing everything for him; on the contrary, we act foolishly and cruelly towards the child himself. Self-help should be one of the earliest lessons taught to children. Every child should be his own servant; every life should learn the great rule of obedience, that it may come gradually and sensibly into the great blessing of rulership. He who cannot serve cannot rule. “The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason;” the word “seven” is to be regarded here as expressive of a round number or a perfect number: the sluggard multiplies his own minority into an overwhelming majority: he says, Do I not know my own nature best? do I not understand my own constitution better than any other man can understand it? do I not know how much sleep I require? ought not I to be the best judge of when I should lie down and when I should rise again? who are they that oppose their judgment to my consciousness? Thus the proud fool talks to his own destruction, and apparently argues his way down into worthlessness and oblivion.

“He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears. As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport? Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer the strife ceaseth. As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife” ( Pro 26:17-21 ).

The fate of the fool and of the sluggard is carried still further, and is made to include all meddlers, all madmen, all deceivers, and all talebearers. Men are thus classified in order that their several infirmities and criminalities may be the more clearly discriminated. But in reality they all belong to one class: as before God, they are fools, mentally and morally; they will wither away under the operation of Divine law. We are not to be excited with strife: that is the true rendering of “meddling” with it; we are not to undertake quarrelling or to take revenge on our own account, nor are we to mix up ourselves in the disputes of other persons, especially where those disputes are beyond our comprehension as to their origin and purpose. By this exhortation we are not to understand that we are to let iniquity go without condemnation, or wrong to pass by as if it had our approval; on the contrary, every weak man belongs to every strong man; every child has a right to look to every older man as to a father in the time of persecution, unjust suffering, or any manner of neglect that can be avoided, or under any condition that may be ameliorated. We are not to see a strong man oppressing a weak man, and to pass by, saying that the strife does not belong to us. The reference is not to those strifes which involve solemn moral issues, but to those excitements and contentions which are of a purely personal kind, and which cannot be settled by external interference. But when external interference is called for it must be impartial, it must be directed by a spirit of fair play to both parties: we must not take up casually with one cause as against another, but must always be identified with the cause which we have carefully and thoroughly proved to be true and righteous. Mad men cast about firebrands, arrows, and death; and often excuse themselves by the frivolous inquiry, “Am not I in sport?” We answer, No; there can be no sport in the use of such weapons or implements. We must fix definite limits to the exercise even of personal rights. No man has a right to throw his lighted torch upon his neighbour’s wood house; no man has a right to send a letter, “private and confidential,” in which he confesses murder or reveals the possible perpetration of a desperate plot. There is always a higher law to be consulted in such matters. Our conventional regulations and customs are permissible within strictly defined limits; but we must not subordinate the higher law to the lower. Where one of the laws must give way it is the smaller that must yield, and not the greater. How easy it is to utter censorious criticism; how easy to excite a suspicion; how easy to rouse a spirit of jealousy! Then, when we see the evil results which our folly has wrought, we fall back upon the frivolous inquiry, “Am not I in sport?” Again and again we must answer: No; there is no sport in attacking character, in ruining reputation, in undermining social standing: there is a limit to sport, and the wise man will know it and observe it; as for the fool, he should not be believed even when he is speaking the truth; the truth may be believed, but the fool himself may be rejected and discredited.

This chapter ends with a very solemn warning, to which all men would do well to take heed “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.” We are fond of digging pits for other men; we lay snares for their feet: we say we will test their honesty, we will test their strength of character, we will see what their pledges are worth; so we put temptations in their way, and behold, we who set the snare fall into it, and we who dig the pit are engulfed in its depths. We are not called upon thus to test one another merely for the sake of testing. Where there is any just suspicion, or where there is any rational doubt of the integrity of a man, it may be well to test our feeling without bringing the man himself under immediate accusation. But work of this kind should be done with infinite delicacy. God is watching us. We think we will surprise our foe, or even our suspected friend; and behold, we ourselves become the victims of our own cleverness. Be frank, be upright, be just, and then be fearless. If thou hast aught against thy brother, go and tell him between thee and him alone. Truly “honesty is the best policy,” not in the mean sense of being the wisest calculation, but in the sense of being akin to the method of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the way in which the affairs of the universe are administered. Suspicious men often imagine themselves to be clever men; they fail to draw a proper distinction between prudence and suspicion: prudence in the case of such men becomes narrowness of mind, and not philosophy of conception; it is a little, nibbling, frivolous, pedantic prudence: it is a self-defeating calculation of events, because it is uninspired by the spirit of benevolence and hopefulness. God is against thee, thou poor withered heart, man of suspicions and jealousies, man in whom there is no holy, burning, purifying love. He that seeketh his life shall lose it: he that loseth his life for Christ’s sake shall find it. It is better to trust and to be deceived than to be suspicious and to be narrowly and temporarily successful. Let us proceed upon the conviction that “men would be better if we better deemed them,” and if, alas! we are disappointed in this conviction, then let us betake ourselves to such remedies as may be available. Meanwhile Jesus Christ evermore stands before us as our example, our inspiration, and our authority. Blessed are they who accustom themselves to his yoke, and who carry his burden as a delight.

Note

“It 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 ). “The precept here has the special interest of having been reproduced by St Paul ( Rom 12:20 ). But it has also a special difficulty. While the first clause rises to the level of the teaching which bids us love our enemies and do good to them that hate us,” the second seems at first sight to suggest a motive incompatible with a true charity. We are told to feed our enemy when he is hungry, because in so doing we shall ‘heap coals of fire on his head,’ i.e. in order to inflict on him the sharpest pain, or even draw down on him the divine judgment (comp. ‘coals of fire’ in Psa 140:10 ). Benevolence in such a case seems only a far-sighted calculating malignity. The explanation given by many commentators, and in part adopted by Augustine (‘De Doctr. Christ.’ Pro 3:16 ), that the sense of shame will make the recipient of undeserved and unexpected bounty glow with blushes till his face is like the red-hot charcoal, and his heart is hot as with the burning and passionate complaints of penitence, though it avoids the ethical difficulty, is hardly satisfactory. The use made of the words ‘coals of fire’ in Lev 16:12 , seems to the present writer to suggest a better interpretation. The high-priest on the day of atonement was to take his censer, to fill it with ‘coals of fire,’ and then to put the incense thereon for a sweet-smelling savour. So it is here. The first emotion caused by the good we do may be one of burning shame, but the shame will do its work and the heart also will burn, and prayer and confession and thanksgiving will rise as incense to the throne of God. Thus, as in the words which St Paul adds to the proverb, ‘we shall overcome evil with good.'” The Speaker’s Commentary.

Prayer

Almighty God, do thou grant unto us the hearing ear and the understanding heart, that not one word of all thy law may be lost upon us. Open thou our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of thy law; open our understanding that we may understand the Scriptures; may the Holy Spirit who inspired the writers inspire the: readers also, that they may know the meaning of God’s law and God’s love. May thy Book be no dead-letter to us, may it reveal the living spirit, and bring us into harmony with all thy purposes. To this end we pray thee for a double portion of the Holy Spirit. Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. May we lose nothing of the music of thy voice, may every tone find the heart; may every appeal draw forth our strength, and constrain our loving obedience; then shall our life be bright, the days shall come laden with blessings from on high, and the night shall breathe a benediction upon the toil of the day. We would live and move and have our being in God; we would test everything by the scales of the sanctuary: we would try the spirits whether they be of God, we would know whether we are honest by the spirit of the Cross. We would be crucified with Christ that we may be buried with him and raised with him in his resurrection; and we would show that we are risen with Christ by setting our affections on things above, by always seeking the higher life, the wider liberty, the deeper, purer love. May our whole life testify to our heart’s sincerity and to the desire of our spirit for the very perfectness of God. We put ourselves into thy hand: lead us, and we shall not stumble; direct us, and we shall not miss the end, but shall find ourselves at last in the city of God. Help us to carry our load bravely, in the very strength of Christ, and by the energy of the Holy Ghost; may we not quail or tremble or show that we have lost our eternal hope, but steadfastly, bravely, lovingly may we carry on the struggle and bear the burden, and may we accept our destiny, believing that God is working in all things, and that his whole purpose is love. Deliver us from evil, establish us in all goodness and in the love of truth; and do this in the power of Christ and for the sake of Christ He died for us; his Cross is our answer, our surety, our refuge. At that Cross we desire to leave every prayer. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXIV

OTHER PROVERBS OF SOLOMON AND THE APPENDICES

Pro 25:1-31:31 .

The title of the section, Pro 25:1-29:27 , is found in Pro 25:1 : “These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out.” Perowne says,

This title is interesting as affording a proof that revival of literary activity accompanied the revival of religion and of national prosperity which marked the reign of Hezekiah. Hezekiah himself was a poet of no mean order (Isa 38:9-12 ); and “the men of Hezekiah” were doubtless a body of scribes engaged under the direction of the king in literary labors. But beside this, this brief title is one of those “fragments of history,” which, as Professor Sayce has shown, “have been illuminated by the progress of oriental research,” and “the importance and true significance of which can now be realized for the first time.” This title points, he thinks, to the existence of a royal library in Jerusalem, into which these proverbs, never before edited, were now gathered and “copied out” and similar to the libraries which are now known to have existed in the cities of Babylonia and Assyria. The vassalage of Judah to the king of Assyria in the reign of Ahaz had necessarily led to the introduction of Assyrian culture into Jerusalem. Ahaz himself had led the way. In the court of the palace he had erected a sundial, a copy of the gnomons which had been used for centuries in the civilized kingdoms of the Euphrates and the Tigris. But the erection of the sundial was not the only sign of Assyrian influence. The most striking feature of Assyrian and Babylonian culture was the libraries, where scribes were kept constantly employed, not only in writing and compiling new books, but in copying and re-editing older ones. The “men of Hezekiah” who “copied out” the proverbs of Solomon performed duties exactly similar to the royal scribes in Nineveh.

It would be a profitable exercise to note all the varieties of stanza, and to select a number of the most beautiful proverbs found in this section, and then compare Pro 25:7 with Luk 14:8-10 as an example of the New Testament elaboration of a proverb, but these matters must be left to the Bible student to be worked out for himself. The author recommends an earnest reading and careful study of this wonderful section of the proverbs of Solomon.

The collection of proverbs in Pro 30 is ascribed to a philosopher, or teacher, named Agur, the son of Jakeh, and is addressed by him to Ithiel and Ucal, presumably his scholars or disciples. The name Ithiel occurs again as that of a Benjamite in Neh 11:7 . Ucal as a proper name is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament. Horton says, Whoever Agur was, he had a certain marked individuality; he combined meditation on lofty questions of theology with a sound theory of practical life. He was able to give valuable admonitions about conduct. But his characteristic delight was to group together in quatrains visible illustrations of selected qualities or ideas.

The following is a brief analysis of Pro 30 :

The chapter, which is highly interesting and in some respects unique, on which account it may have been selected out of other similar literature for publication as an Appendix to this book, consists of a Title, or note of authorship (Pro 30:1 ), followed by a prologue, in which in a spirit of deep abasement, which is the spirit of true wisdom, the author confesses his own utter ignorance in view of the great questions which offer themselves for solution. The study of nature makes it clear that there is a God; but who can tell Who and What He is (Pro 30:2-4 )? Only by revelation can He be known; and in that revelation, held sacred from all admixture, man finds Him and is safe (Pro 30:5-6 ). To the God thus found and trusted the writer turns with a two-fold prayer that he may be in himself a real and true man; a prayer that in his earthly lot he may have the happy mean, removed from the temptations which belong to the extremes of poverty and riches (Pro 30:7-9 ). Then, after an isolated proverb of the familiar type (Pro 30:10 ), another peculiarity of this Collection, which may have been a further reason for its being appended to the Book of Proverbs, is introduced. A series of five “numerical proverbs,” or “quatrains,” as they have been called, groups of “four things,” with a single proverb inserted between the second and third groups (Pro 30:17 ), brings the Collection to a close with the exception of one final proverb at the end of the chapter (Pro 30:32-33 ). CAMBRIDGE BIBLE

It is very interesting to note in this chapter Agur’s prayer (Pro 30:7-9 ), the four insatiable things (Pro 30:15-16 ), the four inscrutable things (Pro 30:18-20 ), the four intolerable things (Pro 30:21-23 ), the four wise little things (Pro 30:24-28 ) and the four stately things (Pro 30:29-31 ), all of which have their lessons for us. There are several fine isolated proverbs here (Pro 30:10-11 ; Pro 30:14 ; Pro 30:17 ; Pro 30:32-33 ), each with its own lessons.

Pro 31:1-9 has King Lemuel for its author. This is just another name for Solomon. Taking the chapter as a whole, the following is a good, brief analysis:

1. Salutation (Pro 31:1 )

2. Maternal admonitions (Pro 31:2-9 ).

3. Characteristics of a worthy woman (Pro 31:10-31 ).

From the salutation we learn that King Lemuel was the author of Pro 31:1-9 which is the oracle taught him by his mother. This is a fine example of maternal influence. There can be no finer compliment to a good mother than the effect of her life and teaching finding expression in the conduct and writings of her children.

The maternal admonitions in Pro 31:2-9 are expressions of the desire of a true mother’s heart for her children. The warning here concerning strong drink with its results in the lives of kings and princes might be good advice for kings, princes, governors, and others in high positions today. It will be noted that the admonition here relative to strong drink is immediately connected with the admonition concerning women and it does not require an extensive observation now to see the pertinency of these warnings. These are twin evils and wherever you find one of them you find the other also. It is not to be understood that there is sanction here of strong drink as a beverage, but rather the medicinal use of it as in the case of Paul’s advice to Timothy to take a little wine for the stomach’s sake. It may also be noted here that righteous judgment is unjoined and this, too, is always in danger at the hands of those who indulge in strong drink.

The passage, Pro 31:10-31 , is an acrostic, or alphabetical poem, and a gem of literature. This passage is the picture of a worthy woman. In the Cambridge Bible we have this fine comment:

The picture here drawn of woman in her proper sphere of home, as a wife and a mother and the mistress of a household, stands out in bright relief against the dark sketches of woman degraded by impurity, or marred, by imperfections, which are to be found in earlier chapters of this Book (Pro 2:16-20 ; Pro 5:1-23 ; Pro 5:7 ; Pro 22:14 ; Pro 23:27-28 , and Pro 11:22 ; Pro 19:13 ; Pro 21:19 Corruptio optimi pessima. We have here woman occupying and adorning her rightful place, elevated by anticipation to the high estate to which the Gospel of Christ has restored her. It is an expansion of the earlier proverbs: “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord” (Pro 18:22 ). The ideal here set forth for the woman is fine and represents her at her best and most influential business, viz: that of making a home.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the title of the section, Proverbs 25:1-29:28, and of what is it a proof?

2. What are the varieties of stanza found in this section?

3. What kinds of parallelism are found in this passage?

4. Give ten of the most beautiful proverbs found in this section, showing their application.

5. What proverbs in this section are elaborated in a New Testament parable?

6. Who were Agur, Ithiel, and Ucal and what may be remarked especially of Agur?

7. Give a brief analysis of Pro 30 .

8. What is Agur’s prayer?

9. What are the four insatiable things according to Agur?

10. What are the four inscrutable things?

11. What are the four intolerable things?

12. What are the four wise little things?

13. What are the four stately things?

14. Who was King Lemuel?

15. Give a brief analysis of Pro 31 .

16. What do we learn from the salutation?

17. What are the maternal admonitions in Pro 31:2-9 and what do you think of them?

18. What can you say of the passage, Pro 31:10-31 ?

19. According to this passage what is the picture here of a worthy woman?

20. What do you think of the ideal here set forth for the woman?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Pro 26:1 As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool.

Ver. 1. So honour is not seemly for a fool. ] Honour is the reward of virtue; dignity should wait upon desert. Sed dignitas in indigno est ornamentum in luto, as Salvian. Honour is as fit for a fool as a gold ring for a swine’s snout. Sedes prima et vita ima, will never suit. The order of nature is inverted when the vilest men are exalted; Psa 12:8 it is a foul incongruity, and of very evil consequence. For thereby themselves will be hardened, and others heartened to the like prosperous folly, felix enim scelus virtus vocatur, saith Cicero. a The study of virtue also will be neglected when fools are preferred, and God’s heavy wrath poured out in full measure upon these uncircumcised vice-gods – as I may in the worst sense best term them – who misrepresent him to the world by their ungodly practices, as a wicked, crooked, unrighteous Judge.

a Cicer., De Divinat., lib. ii.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Proverbs Chapter 26

“The fool” has an unenviably large place in the first part of this chapter; that such as are not unwise may take warning, steer clear of thoughtlessness, and know how to act toward such a one.

“As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool.

“As the sparrow in wandering, as the swallow in flying, so a curse causeless cometh not.

“A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the back of fools.

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like him.

“Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

“He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off [his own] feet [and] drinketh damage.

“The legs of the lame hang loose: so [is] a proverb in the mouth of fools.” vv. 1-7.

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, says the royal preacher (Ecc 10:6 , Ecc 10:7 ), as an error that proceedeth from a ruler; folly is set in great dignities, but the rich sit in a low place. I have seen bondmen upon horses, and princes walking as bondmen upon the earth. But both sights are unseemly, as anomalous as snow in summer or rain in harvest.

Next, the figure is taken from the restless change of the sparrow, and the seemingly aimless flights of the swallow, to express the emptiness of the folly that indulges in undeserved curse.

Again, the horse and the ass which need the whip and the bridle are taken to show that a rod is no less requisite to chastise fools if nothing less can restrain them.

But verses 4 and 5 are strikingly instructive save for those who know not to look for a guidance which is. above appearances, and guides according to the realities in eyes that see where man cannot. To man’s mind it is a contradiction; and no wonder, for he eschews a divine Master, who owns one that may be called to act rightly but provides a standard like Himself, and deals with the senseless in apparent inconsistency. In one case he leaves folly without notice, as it deserves; in another he exposes it, if he may convince even a foal of his folly, or caution another too easily imposed on, a thing not uncommon in this world.

Even to send a message through a foolish person is to incur such certainty of error that it is nothing short of cutting off one’s own feet, which had better have undertaken the trouble – and well if it be not also to drink damage. It risks harm as well as total failure.

A parable is a wise saying, but it demands wisdom in its application. In the mouth of a fool, it is as incongruous as a cripple’s legs which hang about or do not match.

Admonition is continued, how to deal with the senseless; and it is the more needed as such men abound, and wisdom from above is requisite to deal with them for good. Nor are sluggards left unnoticed.

“As a bag of gems in a stone-heap, so is he that giveth honour to a fool.

“A thorn that goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a proverb in the mouth of fools.

“An archer that woundeth all, so is he that hireth the fool, and he that hireth them that pass by.*

“As a dog that returneth to his vomit, a fool returneth to his folly.

“Hast thou seen a man wise in his own eyes? More hope of a fool than of him.

“The sluggard saith, A lion in the way; a lion in the streets!

“The door turneth on its hinges, so the sluggard on his bed.

“The sluggard burieth his hand in [a] dish; it wearieth him to bring it again to his mouth.

“The sluggard [is] wiser in his own eyes than seven that answer discreetly.” vv. 8-16.

*This verse is by others rendered, “A master roughly worketh every one; he both hireth the fool and hireth passers-by.” Nor are these the only varieties.

As one devoid of sense is unfit for trust and incapable, so is he unworthy of honour, and as much out of place as a bag of gems in a heap of stones – or, as the A.V. renders it, a stone bound up in a sling, a danger to those at hand.

Again, a pointedly wise saying, a proverb in the mouth of the senseless, is as a thorn going up into a drunkard’s hand. Instead of instructing others, it torments himself to no profit.

So also he that hires the fool or untried casual, is as an archer that wounds everyone, instead of hitting the mark. He is a source of hurt and danger to all.

Nor is there any hope of better things, unless the fool repent and learn wisdom from above. Left to himself, he is as a dog that returns to his vomit, so he to his folly.

The wise are lowly and dependent on the only wise God. The foolish man is wise in his own eyes; he who only adds conceit to folly is the most hopeless of men.

But slothfulness is an evil to be dreaded, even if a man be far from a fool. And it is no uncommon thing for one in other respects wise to be apprehending a peril where there is none. It is because he is a sluggard, and because he shirks a duty to be done; he sees imminent danger, and cries, A lion in the way! a lion in the streets!

And what more graphic of the sluggard on his bed of ease than the door turning on his hinges! The believer has his new nature of Him, apart from whom no sparrow falls, and who counts the very hairs of his own head. The sluggard yields to the nothingarianism of self-pleasing in its lowest form.

Another vivid likeness is of the sluggard when he rises to take his meals. In his listlessness he buries his hand, not in his bosom but in a dish; and he is weary of so much as lifting it to his mouth. From such a one, who could look for gratitude to God or kindness to a suffering fellow man?

And the sluggard, like the fool, does not fail to be wise in his own eyes, yea, to count himself wiser than seven men that answer with discretion. He is so satisfied with himself that he avoids any diligence to learn, which is all well for men, but needless for him! He is a genius, and can afford to take his unfailing siesta. So it is that self-conceit flatters those who dislike work and are ambitious of a position only due to those who do not shirk labour, which is a wholesome discipline for man as he is; but it generally ends in their own ruin and the trial of those related to them.

Sluggishness is not the only fault to be shunned. There may be activity to dread of a still more mischievous sort, and it is graphically set out in verses 17-22. We have to beware of being meddlesome, or in sympathy with such ways.

“He that passingly vexes himself with strife not [belonging] to him is one that taketh a dog by the ears.

“As a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows and death;

“So the man [that] deceiveth his neighbour and saith, Am I not in sport?

“Where no wood is, the fire goeth out, and where no whisperer, the strife ceaseth.

“[As] coals to hot embers, and wood to fire, so a contentious man to kindle strife.

“A whisperer’s words [are] as dainty morsels, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.”

The New Testament reveals Christ for the lost soul’s salvation by faith, for the heavenly privileges of the Christian and for the communion with God and His Son that we are called to, as well as the walk on earth befitting those who are so blessed. But there is the utmost care to urge vigilance against busybodiness, that working quietly we may eat our own bread. and be diligent too so as to help others also. But to trouble ourselves with other people’s quarrels where no duty of ours lies, is like taking a dog by the ears, which either threatens a bite when he is loosed, or keeps us indefinitely to avoid it. And who is to blame?

Such uncalled-for activity grows the more it is indulged in, and is likely to end in playing the madman casting combustibles and causes of wound and even death, while he deceives his neighbour by the pretence that he meant no more than jest.

But there is a very insidious form of evil, and if possible more mischievous still, where the harm is done slyly by evilly affecting others. What worse than the whisperer or talebearer here compared to the wood that acts as fuel to the fire? So we are told, where no wood is, the fire goes out; and where is no whisperer, strife ceaseth.

On the other hand, coals to hot embers, and wood to fire, is a contentious man to inflame strife. How often have we not known it to our pain! Happy is he who hates it so as to shun its beginning by dwelling in love!

For such is the flesh even in believers, as to make the whisperer’s insinuations too easy and welcome; and once received, instead of being rejected, they go down and take possession of our souls to the innermost. It is a grievous danger when the guard sleeps at wisdom’s gate; and our very simplicity exposes us to be misled cruelly.

To the end of the chapter are denunciations of like mischief under the guise of fair speech and flattery. It is deceit in various forms, against which we are energetically put on our guard – a needful caution in this evil age, especially for the Christian who walks in grace and refuses to avenge himself

“Ardent lips, and a wicked heart fare] an earthen vessel overlaid with silver dross.

“He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, but he layeth up deceit within him:

“When his voice is gracious, believe him not, for [there are] seven abominations in his heart.

“Though hatred is covered by dissimulation, his wickedness shall be made manifest in the congregation.

“Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein; and he that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him.

“A lying tongue hateth the injured by it, and a flattering mouth worketh ruin.” vv. 23-28.

There is no real difficulty, no sufficient reason to doubt the force of the opening words of verse 23. They do not in the least imply in this connection the heat of wrath, which might well go with “a wicked heart” ordinarily; but here is meant the extraordinary combination of expressing ardent affection with the desire to do evil. This, not that, is fitly compared to an earthen vessel overlaid not with silver, but its “dross.”

So the hatred (v. 24) which is eminently dangerous is not what explodes in violent words, but would work out unawares, and therefore dissembles with the lips. The benevolent words only conceal the deceit within the man.

Therefore (v. 25), when such a one’s voice is gracious, there is the strongest reason not to believe; for there is no sure faith, save in a testimony altogether reliable. Hence the blessedness to a Christian, that his faith and hope too are in the God who cannot lie, who has spoken to us in His Son, come in love as sure as the truth. But as to fallen man, how different! “for there are seven abominations in his heart.” It is filled with every evil of corruption no less than violence, as the Saviour testified. Jehovah did not fail to make hidden evil manifest in the most public way.

“Dissimulations” (v. 26) may succeed among men for a season; but even before the kingdom of God appears in displayed power. He knows how to check Satan and expose malicious craft during the evil day. Thus from time to time is the covering stripped from hatred, and “wickedness made manifest in the congregation.”

Again, when mischievous man (v. 27) digs a pit for others, therein he is caused to fall; and where he rolls a stone for the head of his neighbour, it recoils on himself. Even the heathen expressed their sense of such retribution here below, though they knew not God.

The last verse tells us of the extreme wickedness of fallen man, that is not content with deceiving; “a lying tongue hateth those injured by it”; and “a flattering mouth worketh ruin” for subject as well as object. “Let the righteous smite me, it is a kindness; and let him reprove me, it is an excellent oil which my head shall not refuse.” This is to humble oneself under God’s mighty hand and be exalted in due time.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

snow in summer . . . rain. These are as rare and as exceptional as honour is to a fool.

a fool. Hebrew. kesil. See note on Pro 1:7.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Shall we turn now to Pro 26:1-28 to begin our study this evening.

The first twelve verses of Pro 26:1-28 we trust doesn’t apply to any of you tonight, because it’s sort of addressed towards fools.

As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool ( Pro 26:1 ).

The thing about snow in summer and rain in harvest is that they are just out of place. So honor is out of place for a fool. So it’s just something that is out of place.

As the bird by wandering, and as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come ( Pro 26:2 ).

The swallow’s flight seems to be quite erratic. The word translated bird is the word for sparrow, and the idea is that if a person tries to curse you without a cause, don’t worry about it. It’s not going to be fulfilled or come to pass anyhow. A lot of people are worried because someone’s threatened to put a curse on them or this kind of thing. You don’t have to worry about that. A curse causeless will not come. Now that doesn’t say anything about if you deserve one. But a curse causeless shall not come.

A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back ( Pro 26:3 ).

So he didn’t have much regard for the fool.

The next two seem to be inconsistent.

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him ( Pro 26:4 ).

In other words, don’t really engage in an argument with a fool. It’s a waste of time. There are some people you just should never argue with. So don’t answer the fool according to his folly. They make some fool remark and if you make some fool remark back, you’re answering the fool according to his folly and he begins to classify you in his category.

The next one, as I say, it seems to be saying the opposite thing, but in reality it doesn’t.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit ( Pro 26:5 ).

In other words, if you answer a fool, answer him according to the folly that he has declared, putting down the statement that he has made. Lest he thinks, “Oh, I’m very wise,” and he’s wise in his own conceit. So if you answer the fool, answer him according to the folly that he has declared. In other words, correcting the folly that he has declared, lest he think himself wise.

He that sends a message by the hand of a fool cuts off the feet, and drinks damage ( Pro 26:6 ).

In other words, you’re just… what value is it?

The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools. As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that gives honor to the fool ( Pro 26:7-8 ).

Now, it would be stupid to bind the stone in a sling. You know, you put your stone in there and then if you wrap it all up and tie the stone in there. You could swing that thing forever and the stone’s not going to let go. So it would be a very ridiculous thing to do is to bind the stone in your sling. But it is also ridiculous to give honor to a fool.

As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is the parable in the mouth of fools ( Pro 26:9 ).

Now it is thought that this, “As a thorn goeth up in the hand of the drunkard” doesn’t mean that a drunkard is pierced by a thorn and doesn’t realize it, but a drunkard with a thorn or something in his hand could be a very dangerous person, because he’s not really responsible for his actions. He’s got a thorn in his hand. It makes him a dangerous person. So that a parable in the mouth of a fool can be a very dangerous thing.

The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors ( Pro 26:10 ).

In other words, they will get their just dues in time.

As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly ( Pro 26:11 ).

Peter seems to make reference to this particular verse in Job 2:22 .

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? ( Pro 26:12 )

Now we said all these things about fools. But there’s only one who’s worse off than a fool: a man who is wise in his own conceit. “See thou a man who is wise in his own conceit?”

there is more hope for a fool than of him ( Pro 26:12 ).

So you think that maybe these first eleven verses were sort of the buildup for verse Pro 26:12 . In other words, by the time you get to verse Pro 26:11 and all of the things for which a fool is of no value and all, then you get to the verse Pro 26:12 and there’s one thing worse and that’s a man wise in his own conceit.

Now he turns from the fool to the slothful man. And as you have noticed through the Proverbs, we’ve had a lot to say about fools, a lot to say about the slothful, the lazy person.

The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets ( Pro 26:13 ).

We had one similar to that in our considerations last week. In other words, any excuse to keep from going to work. “Oh, there’s a lion out there. He might eat me if I try to go to work today.”

I think that the next one is a very picturesque, very picturesque.

As the door turns upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed ( Pro 26:14 ).

Rolling over and taking a few more. And this is the height of laziness. I mean, you can’t get any…when you get this bad, you’re soon gone.

The slothful hides his hand in his bosom; it grieves him to bring it again to his mouth ( Pro 26:15 ).

Man, you’re so lazy you can’t even get your hand to your mouth anymore; you’ve about had it. Your laziness has about done you in.

The sixteenth verse:

The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can give you a reason ( Pro 26:16 ).

In other words, how blind is a person wise in his own conceit. He thinks himself actually wiser than seven men who can render a reason.

Verse Pro 26:17 :

He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife that he has no business in, is like one who will take a dog by the ears ( Pro 26:17 ).

I mean, you’re going to get into trouble.

As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceives his neighbor, and says, Hey, aren’t I a sport? ( Pro 26:18-19 )

As a madman who just shoots fire darts, arrows, and death, he’s like a man deceives his neighbor and then says, “Hey, what a sport.”

Where no wood is, the fire goes out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceases ( Pro 26:20 ).

Proverbs has a lot to say against bearing tales.

As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife ( Pro 26:21 ).

Now, if you want to light coals, one of the best ways to light coals is to set it beside the burning coals. Coals are sort of hard to ignite unless you set them by burning coals. If you add wood to a fire that is going, it is easily kindled. And this is the idea. “As coals to burning coals, wood to fire; so is a contentious man.” He just adds to the strife. He kindles the strife.

The words of a talebearer are as wounds, they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross ( Pro 26:22-23 ).

Now the silver dross was a leaden substance that they would put over their claypots to give them a glaze, a shininess. And it looks better than it really is. It looks like it’s really valuable, but it’s nothing but a claypot that is covered with this lead oxide or lead silver dross. It’s a leaden kind of a material. So burning lips, a wicked heart.

He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, and lays up deceit within him; When he speaks fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart. Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation ( Pro 26:24-26 ).

So the dissembler. The hater who with his lips dissembles. Lays up deceit.

Whoso digs a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolls a stone, it will return upon him ( Pro 26:27 ).

Your sins will come back to you. Be sure your sins will find you out.

A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth worketh ruin ( Pro 26:28 ).

How many people have been ruined by the flattering mouth.

“

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Pro 26:1

Pro 26:1

“As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, So honor is not seemly for a fool.”

In Pro 25:13, the cold of snow during harvest time was mentioned as a welcome blessing; but here snow in summer is considered as undesirable. Why? The cold of snow in Pro 25:13 was from snow stored up from the previous winter; here the reference is to a snowfall in summer. See comment under Pro 25:13.

Pro 26:1. A fool receives no honor nor does he have a sense of honor. The two go together as poorly as snow and summer and as rain and harvest. How many times a fool shows that he is a fool with poor rearing or a poor set of values by not joining in with giving honor to those to whom honor is due. Such a one is a poor one to marry, for neither will he bestow honor on his wife as 1Pe 3:7 and Pro 31:28-29 teach.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Verse Pro 26:2. Therefore, if the heart knows that a curse is unjust it may rest in the certainty that it cannot harm.

Verses Pro 26:3-12. In this group of proverbs the fool is the subject. The true method of dealing with him is that of chastisement. Caution is needed in answering him lest his folly be shared; and, on the other hand, lest he be not reproved. The fool is not to be trusted. A parable of a fool is useless. Give a fool honor, and it is to offer it where it is useless. The parable of a fool pierces himself. To hire a fool is to ensure the ruin of work. A fool is preeminently a fool because he relishes his folly. The greatest fool is the fool who does not know he is a fool.

Verses Pro 26:13-16. Four proverbs dealing with the slothful. He is a coward. He is the slave of habit. He is incapable of supporting himself. He is preeminently conceited.

Verses Pro 26:17-23. Here are proverbs describing the evil practices and pernicious effects of the meddlesome man.

Verses Pro 26:24-28. These proverbs describe the method and punishment of the loveless.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Proverbs 26

The fool, so frequently mentioned in Proverbs, is the subject of the first twelve verses of chapter 26. It should be born in mind that the term as used here has no reference to one mentally weak or incapable through simplicity. Fool and folly are almost synonymous with sinner and sinfulness, though the added thought of willfulness is needed to fully understand many of the warnings and threatenings. Fools are those who make a mock at sin, rejoicing in iniquity and refusing to heed the voice of wisdom.

26:1

Both weather conditions described in this verse are out of place and may cause serious inconvenience. Snow in summer is injurious because it retards growth. Rain during harvest greatly interrupts the reaper and may even ruin the crop. So a fool in the place of honor is unsuitable and may cause much damage. He does not know how to conduct himself and he fulfills the passage, Man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish (Psa 49:12). Read of Nebuchadnezzars attitude before his repentance (Daniel 4).

26:2

Fools are ever ready to curse someone, often to the great anxiety of ignorant and timid souls who fear the fulfillment of their maledictions. But as the sparrow and swallow fly through the air and pass quickly from view, so it will be with a curse uttered without cause.

A second interpretation suggested by some is that no curse will come on anyone unless there is reason for it, but this idea is also suggested in the first interpretation given. Compare this verse with Goliaths curse (1Sa 17:43).

26:3

See notes on Pro 10:13 and 19:29. The order here will seem strange to some. We think of the horse as requiring the bridle to control it and the donkey needing the whip to spur it on. But in Syria it is just the opposite. Horses are not used frequently and are often exceedingly stubborn; the donkey is apt to be too ready and needs to be held in by bit and bridle to keep it at a proper gait. The fool is likely to err on either side and therefore the rod is necessary to correct his willfulness. The psalmist warns against failing to obey Gods instruction and therefore requiring bit and bridle guidance (Psa 32:9).

26:4-5

Though these verses seem to give opposite directions, they are too closely connected to allow fault-finders to raise the charge that they are contradictory. When you are conversing with a fool you need to consider the time and manner in which you answer him. To answer him in the same scoffing and egotistical spirit that he exhibits, would be to sink to his level. But on the other hand to allow foolish, unlearned statements to go unchallenged without rebuttal will only reinforce his self-assurance and conceit. To expose his shallowness and reply convincingly to his foolishness may at least humble him and cause him to feel the need to investigate more fully. When the men of Hezekiah did not answer the vapid blasphemies of Rab-shakeh they obeyed the first of these instructions (2Ki 18:36). When Nehemiah replied so brusquely to the wretched pretensions of Sanballat he acted according to the second (Neh 6:8).

26:6-9

These couplets allude to the same general subject as the previous verses. To entrust a fool with an important message is like cutting off the feet or drinking something harmful. The purpose will be thwarted, for a foolish messenger cannot be depended on. His feet might as well be amputated, so far as his carrying the word correctly is concerned. Or it may be that we are to think of the sender rather than the one sent. In that case it would be as sensible to cut off his own feet or to drink what is injurious as to entrust his message to a fool. Looked at from either standpoint, it conveys the thought of vexation and delay. Jonah played the part of such an envoy before he was brought to see his sin (Jonah 1).

The lame walk with a halting, uncertain gait because of their unequal legs. When he who is not himself wise attempts to use wise speech, he too stumbles and by his uncertain words and ways makes known his folly. Such was Saul among the prophets (1Sa 19:24).

The first part of Pro 26:8 is somewhat ambiguous and has been translated in various ways. Some have rendered it: As he that putteth a precious stone into a heap of stones. This implies that to honor a fool is like casting a costly jewel among the common stones by the wayside-the honor is worthless. Others read putting into a purse a stone of the heap. That is, as it would be foolish to put a useless bit of stone carefully into ones purse, it is equally foolish to bestow honor on one who does not deserve it.

Both the above would be true enough; but many scholars do not think that either of them is intended or implied here. The common version would seem to mean that it is as senseless to honor a fool as to tie a stone in a sling and then try to throw it. This interpretation seems well-supported and appears to be correct. See Herods experience (Act 12:20-23).

A thorn-branch in the hand of a drunkard is almost certain to prove harmful to himself and others. The same is true when a fool attempts to teach. He will destroy himself and those who listen to him. Consider what God has said as to Shemaiah the Nehelamite (Jer 29:30-32).

26:10

Scholars are very far from agreement among themselves as to the exact meaning of the Hebrew in this text. For lack of better authority we keep to the King James version, which at least expresses a solemn truth that is consistant with the Word of God. Judgment, though it seems delayed, is sure for all fools and transgressors. Nothing can change this truth. God will render to every man according to his deeds.

Stuart and Muenscher read As an arrow that woundeth every one, so is he that hireth a fool, and he who hireth wayfarers. That is, to hire wicked or unknown persons is to invite disaster. The rendering of the Revised Version is practically the same as this: As an archer that woundeth all, so is he that hireth a fool and he that hireth them that pass by.

J. N. Darby reads, A master roughly worketh every one: he both hireth the fool and hireth passers by. He admits in a note that it is a difficult verse. His rendering is ambiguous, but seems to convey the thought that a master does not care whom he hires, so long as he gets the work accomplished.

26:11

The horrible habit of the dog that eats again the filthy food it has ejected from its stomach is an appropriate picture of him who leaves his foolishness for a time, only to return to it with eagerness and zest later.

The apostle Peter applies the proverb to those who, having professed to know the saving grace of Christianity, go on for a time in an upright way. But when exposed to their old temptations, they turn back to their former sins with intensity and delight demonstrating that their hearts had not really been renewed. Such persons are often supposed to have been children of God; now they are considered to have lost the salvation they once enjoyed and to have become again children of wrath. Such teaching as this is unscriptural. All who come to Christ receive eternal life and will never perish. They are forever linked up with Himself. The precious life they have received is eternal life-non-forfeitable. A careful study of Peters words shows he refers to persons who only had outwardly reformed their lives, but who were never truly converted to God. He says:

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge [or acknowledgment] of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire (2Pe 2:20-22).

In the previous part of the chapter, Peter had been writing of false teachers who make false professions throughout: persons who would pursue Christianity as a system, even with a view to pervert it, but who had never known its power. Such people might go on for a time as though really born of God, but their true state would at last be seen. Giving up their unsatisfactory profession and relapsing into their old ways, they become apt illustrations of the truth of this proverb.

It should be noted that a dog in Scripture never illustrates a believer, but is often used to picture a false teacher. See Pauls warning in Php 3:2 and notice Isaiahs description in chapter 56:10-12 of his prophecy regarding false teachers. They are like dogs who turn to their vomit again, even as a sow that has been washed goes back to her wallowing in the mire. Had the sow been changed into a sheep (the figure of a Christian) it would no longer delight in mud and filth. A sheep may fall into the mire, but it will never be at rest again until it is free from it. A sow finds its natural element in the mire. This marks the difference between a real saint of God and a mere reformed hypocrite. Peter and Judas aptly picture the two classes of people. When Jesus simply looked at Peter his heart was broken and this resulted in his restoration (Luk 22:61 and Joh 21:15-19). On the other hand, Judas was controlled by his covetous spirit to the end, until remorse set in, but no repentance toward God. See the notes on Pro 14:14.

26:12

See Pro 26:5. A person who is arrogant and considers himself superior to all instruction places himself hopelessly beyond the reach of help. The out-and-out fool, who does not pretend to anything more than his foolish ways is more easily delivered than the narrow-minded egotist who merely pretends to be wise and pious, but is thoroughly in love with his own ways. We are warned against this miserable condition in Rom 12:16.

Having considered the fool in various aspects, the sluggard is held up to view in the next four verses.

26:13-16

See notes on Pro 13:4; 15:19; 19:15; 20:4; 21:25-26; 24:30-34. We are all familiar with the sluggard; he is one who means well, but accomplishes nothing because of continued procrastination. If there are no real difficulties, he will imagine them, and they then become as real to him as if actually existent. He cannot go out on the streets because he imagines there is a lion in the way, though others see no danger. The man of determination goes out in the strength of the Lord and tears the lion apart as Samson did; but not so with the slothful man. Any paltry excuse will hold him back (see 22:13).

In olden times doors were not hung on hinges, but turned on pivots, thus moving frequently, but never going anywhere. Whether they turned on pivots or hinges, the door cannot move away from them. So with the sluggard; he is constantly expecting to be up and doing, but remains in his bed, tossing from side to side.

Even when seated at the table, he is almost too lazy to carry his food from the dish to his mouth. It is the extreme of slothfulness, but in warm climates is not an untrue description. See 19:24.

Despite his lack of purpose and determination, he is wiser in his own eyes than any number of men who are characterized by tact and energy. He can invent excuses and plausible arguments in unlimited quantities to justify his disgraceful behavior. Neither the disgust nor the anger of better men than himself will affect him.

This lack of purpose is sometimes found among young saints and can only result in a weakened testimony. It is better to be overzealous than play the part of the sluggard. See Joash king of Israel and Elisha the prophet (2Ki 13:14-19).

26:17

To meddle with other peoples quarrels is always foolish and often dangerous. Dogs in Syria are wild and savage. To take one by the ears would be to needlessly expose oneself to injury and suffering. It is wise to leave dogs alone, a custom that is commonly followed. In the cities they swarm in packs and are useful as scavengers; but no one attempts to control or interfere with them.

So when others are in strife, the passerby should avoid interference. It is best to let people settle their own differences between themselves, unless they appeal to another person to act the part of a peacemaker. Moses found that the Hebrew men who fought together were bitterly resentful of his unsolicited mediation (Exo 2:13-14).

26:18-19

This proverb describes a person who wantonly perpetrates unkind tricks on others, causing them serious inconvenience and perhaps heavy loss. Then he attempts to laugh it off as mere amusement. He is like a man pretending to be insane and finding his sport in injuring others. Deceit in the name of pleasure is as much to be denounced as any other sin. Self-control and a concern for the welfare of his neighbors will cause one to avoid this deceitful behavior. Only the most thoughtless and selfish person will engage in amusement at the expense of anothers suffering. See Pro 10:23 and 2Pe 2:13.

26:20-22

See notes on Pro 11:13; 16:27-28. Already we have had our attention frequently directed to the evil of gossiping. But because we are so slow to learn, we are given added instruction in regard to what has become in many places a blighting curse among the people of God. Happy is the assembly of saints that does not number a slanderer or talebearer among its members! Just as fire goes out for lack of fuel, so many difficulties disappear when there is no whisperer to go around perpetuating the strife. But, just as coals added to burning coals preserve the fire, so a contentious man causes ill feelings to be inflamed, and malice and hatred to burn more strongly than ever. It is a miserable business to go about stirring up unholy passions and making conflicts more difficult to settle. For the words of a gossiper are devoured by many as though they were choice tidbits, which go down into the depths of the being and often cause permanent damage. See Pro 12:18 and 18:8.

26:23-28

One who makes fervent affirmations of love and affection, while his heart is bent on evil, is like a cheap piece of pottery that has been veneered with a coating of worthless silver. Such an article appears to be of value, but is really rubbish. So it is with the hypocritical professions of the flatterer. He speaks fervently only to cover his evil intent. Hating the object of his attentions, he endeavors to deceive by fair speech; but his heart is corrupt, and he is not to be trusted. He attempts to cover his malice with sweet sounding words and for a time may succeed; but eventually his true character will be openly demonstrated.

Having dug a pit for his neighbor, he will fall into it himself, as did Haman in the book of Esther. By flattery and apparent zeal for the honor of Ahasuerus, he won permission to destroy all the Jews; but he was discovered in his perfidy and hanged on the gallows he had made for Mordecai. He was as one who had rolled a stone up a hillside, and when it broke loose, it returned on him with crushing force. The courtiers, by similar means, persuaded Darius to promote the decrees which they thought would result in Daniels destruction. In the end, they were brought to the fate which they hoped would have been Daniels (Daniel 6).

The last proverb of this chapter expresses a truth that has long been recognized among all nations and is preserved in proverbial form among many peoples. It is common for men to hate those whom they have injured is the English rendering of the saying of Tacitus. Conscious of having wronged another and being determined not to confess it, the deceiver fills his heart with hatred against the object of his wrongdoing.

He who has debtors may graciously forgive them; but he who is in debt is very apt to cherish the bitterest animosity against the one from whom he has borrowed. One may readily overlook an injury, but the one who has done another a favor will often be hated for his kindness. This is so common among fallen men that it hardly needs comment.

To hide his wretched feelings, a liar will flatter with his lips while all the time he is plotting the ruin of his victim. It is the sin which became, as it were, incarnate in Judas Iscariot! May every Christian learn to avoid it as most revolting and disgusting and altogether opposed to the truthfulness of the spirit of Christ.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Pro 26:13

I. There is a lion in the way? In what way? I answer, In the way of life, of every life. Life, if it is to be a true life, is not an easy thing. The men who live for nobler objects than those of shameful selfishness, like St. Paul, will have to fight with wild beasts at Ephesus or elsewhere. Every step of the road requires effort, courage, resolution, watchfulness; it needs the girded loins and the burning lamp; it needs the swift foot, and the sharp sword, and the stout heart, and the strong arm; it needs faith, and prayer, and the battle, and the cross; it needs the will to toil on though the feet bleed, and to fight on though the heart faint, to do all this unto death. That is the way, dim, thorny, and lion-haunted; and all the best and noblest of the earth have trodden it.

II. “There is a lion in the way.” Yes, and not one, but many lions: (1) the lion of the world’s opposition and hatred; (2) the lion of our own fleshly nature, of our own physical and mental passions; (3) our “adversary the devil.”

III. These lions-the world, the flesh, and the devil-for all their seeming strength and ferocity and the passion in their throats, prove but cowardly beasts after all; and though Timorous and Mistrust may not find it out, they are but chained lions, and we stand beyond their spring But the slothful man not only says, “There is a lion in the way,” but adds, “I shall be slain in the streets,” and then in a reproachful and injured tone, “You well know that many have been so slain.” Yes, it is quite true; they have been so slain: but to them, as to their Lord, through death and after death, if not in life, have come the glory and the victory.

F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 17.

References: Pro 26:20.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 41. Pro 27:1.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 94; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 333; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses, p. 8; F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. ii., p. 231. Pro 27:4.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 468; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 289; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses, p. 37. Pro 27:7.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1227. Pro 27:10.-Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 192. Pro 27:15.-S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 250.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 26 Concerning the Fool and the Sluggard

Eleven times we meet the word fool in this chapter. Three different words are used in the Hebrew for fool. The first is avil which signifies weakness. The second word kesil occurs nearly fifty times, means fat or dense. The third word is the Hebrew nabal, which is derived from the verb to fade, or to wither; it means a vulgar, bad man who has given himself over to wickedness. The natural man in his condition, his darkened mind, his sinfulness answers to much that is said about the fool in this book. As snow in summer and rain at harvest time are quiteimpossible in Palestine, so is honor for a fool. A fool may utter a curse, as they often do, and wish something evil, but being causeless, it will not be fulfilled. The fool needs correction, the stripes for his back, he deserves no answer, and if he is answered it must be according to his folly. The foolish questions mentioned in the New Testament may well be considered here Tit 3:9. The tenth verse Pro 26:10 is doubtful in its translation. A better suggested rendering is the following:

A master workman formeth all himself aright,

But he that hireth a fool hireth a transgressor–

That is, a master does everything right; a fool spoils everything. The eleventh verse is quoted in 2Pe 2:22. The Apostle applies it to the outward professor of Christianity who turns back to the world after a period of profession and reformation. The true child of God is never described as a dog, nor could the other sentence in Peters Epistle mean a true believer. The sow that was washed turned to her own wallowing in the mire. A hog may be washed, yet in spite of the washing he is still a hog. So a sinner may profess salvation yet may never have been born again, and after a brief period of profession turn again to his old sins and habits.

The slothful man, the man that deceiveth his neighbor, the talebearer, the contentious man, the lying tongue and the flattering mouth, furnish other proverbs. How true it is A flattering mouth worketh ruin. Every godly man and woman should hate and avoid flattery.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

in summer: 1Sa 12:17, 1Sa 12:18

so: Pro 26:3, Pro 28:16, Jdg 9:7, Jdg 9:20, Jdg 9:56, Jdg 9:57, Est 3:1-15, Est 4:6, Est 4:9, Psa 12:8, Psa 15:4, Psa 52:1, *title Ecc 10:5-7

Reciprocal: Pro 26:8 – so

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Pro 26:1. As snow in summer, &c. Unseasonable and unbecoming; so honour is not seemly for a fool Because he neither deserves it, nor knows how to use it, and his folly is both increased and manifested by it. Bishop Patrick considers this as a tacit admonition to kings (for whose use principally, he thinks, this last part of the book of Proverbs was collected) to be very careful in disposing of preferments only to worthy persons; bad men being made worse by them, and usually doing as much hurt to others, by the abuse of their power, as snow or hail does to the fruits of the earth, when they are ripe and ready to be gathered. So that, says he, we may make this aphorism out of Solomons words, that the blending of summer and winter would not cause a greater disorder in the natural world, than the disposal of honour to bad men (and consequently throwing contempt upon the good) doth in the moral world.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Pro 26:1. As snow in summer, which beats down the fruits; and as rain in harvest, which causes the corn to shoot in the ear; so is honour incongruous to a fool. He shames his laurels, he wastes his money, and dishonours his station.

Pro 26:2. As the bird by wandering: ut passer ad vagandum, et ut hirundo ad gyrandum, &c.: as the sparrow by vagrating, and as the swallow by flying round to a warmer climate, and returning to build her nest in the same house; so a causeless curse shall never come. What then shall be done to unburden the conscience of a guilty world? The wrongs and insults offered to women; the tricks, frauds, and robberies in trade; the innumerable estates, entirely wrested from ruined families by means of mortgages, not to mention war and bloodshed; do not the ghosts of injured innocence, of parents whose orphans are defrauded; does not the blood of martyrs raise a loud cry in the ears of heaven, How long, oh Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth. Rev 6:10. What shall the guilty do? Let them make restitution to the utmost of their power; let them ask forgiveness of the injured, and pray with tears to God that their sins may be forgiven: let them seek the opposite virtue of every vice.

Pro 26:4. Answer not a fool according to his folly. By the fool, so largely characterized in this place, and so often branded in the Proverbs, we do not understand a man of weak intellect, and inoffensive life. The gradation of intellectual powers from dulness to the clearest perception is a high display of the Creators wisdom. It prepares one to rule, and another to obey. It qualifies one to take the helm of state, a second to lead in commerce, and a third to be a father in the profession of science; while all the less successful, and less enlightened, take their place in the humbler walks of life. Hence, by the fool we understand a man who degrades himself to that reproach by imprudence, and the folly of his passions and conduct. This sort of folly is very common to youth: they often degrade themselves with it in company, and in the streets. Honour conferred upon them renders their folly the more conspicuous. It is unseasonably bestowed, as snow in summer and rain in harvest. Far more judicious to apply the rod to a fools back; for that would make him exercise his reason by avoiding sin. So we do with the horse, and the ass, to which the fool is compared, by a stupid adherence to his own way. But if the man be too aged for the rod, we must sometimes treat his talk and conduct with silent contempt, and especially we must not answer him according to his folly, with foolish jesting and buffoonery, lest we be like unto him. Yet on other occasions we must answer according to his folly; we must condescend to expose his sophistry, and so reply to his folly as to make him ashamed, lest he be wise in his own conceit. He who sends the fool on business, brings reproach on his affairs; for he will delay as though he had no feet. It is like slinging a stone at random which may do mischief; or like carrying a stone to Mercurys heap, to distinguish leagues or miles. He will tell all his heart like a drunkard in wine. Reproof and advice are bestowed without effect. He returns to his folly as the dog to his vomit. Then it is the last of folly for men who have for awhile refrained from sin, to return to their former habits and ways.

Pro 26:12. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit. This man, instead of learning wisdom from others, deifies his own knowledge, and despises instruction. A mind disposed to wisdom, perceives its past ignorance and errors, and profits by books and wiser men; but the opinionated hides himself in the cloud of error. If we dispute against the truth we shall stumble; but if we pray the Lord to teach us, he will lead us in the way we ought to go.

Pro 26:22. The words of a talebearer are as wounds. This character, so often branded in this book, here receives a just rebuke. When strife happens between factions and families, when no mediation is accepted because of the haughtiness of the heart, it dies of itself in a short time; for the ear of the public is tired with a repetition of evils. But when the tale-bearer hears one talk partly in anger, or perhaps in jest, not doubting but common prudence will preserve him from repeating the evil, and when he goes pregnant with mischief to court the favour of the absent, he kindles up strife anew, and burns himself with the coals. He heard the evil as a friend, he heard it without remonstrance, and meanly revealed it as a foe. Therefore they will despise him as a traitor; and the party he served for the moment will so know him as not to trust him with secrets. How then will God despise those who trim between religion and the world. Because they are lukewarm, he will spue them out of his mouth.

Pro 26:23. Burning lips. dalak, occurs in Obadiah, Pro 26:18. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame. Eze 24:10. Heap on wood, kindle a fire, consume the flesh. The sense then of this knotty proverb will be, that the burning lips of a tale-bearer, moved by a wicked heart, will set the house on fire; and that his fair speeches of pretended friendship will be like the fragments of a broken china vase, though painted with gold and silver, nothing worth.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Pro 26:1-12. The Book of Fools.A section containing a series of synthetic couplets dealing with folly (except Pro 26:2). The text is unusually corrupt and defective.

Pro 26:1. For the opposite use of snow in harvest cf. Pro 25:13*.

Pro 26:2. Directed against the superstitious belief in the magical value of a curse. The simile refers to the aimless wandering of a bird, and is not to be compared with the flying roll of curses in Zec 5:1-4.

Pro 26:4 f. An antithetic quatrain enjoining the right method of answering a foolnot to descend to the fools level, yet to make him conscious of his folly.

Pro 26:6. damage: inaccurate. The word means violence, and the phrase drinketh violence usually means to practise or delight in violence, which is not the sense required here.

Pro 26:8 a is very uncertain. RV is much less probable than RVm, to give honour to a fool is as absurd as to fasten a stone firmly in a sling.

Pro 26:9. Another couplet on the fools inability to use the mshl.

Pro 26:9 a is very improbable, although supported in exegesis by a reference to the drunkards insensibility to pain in Pro 23:35. It is better to interpret thorn as thorn bush (cf. 2Ki 14:9). Then we have the figure of a drunkard armed with a thorn-spiked bough as the comparison for a fools use of the mshl.

Pro 26:10. The text is too corrupt for restoration. RV and RVm are each about as satisfactory as any of the numerous attempts at restoration.

Pro 26:11 a occurs in 2Pe 2:22 as part of a saying which is quoted by the author as a true proverb. The quotation, however, is not from the LXX, and seems to be from some popular Aramaic proverb based upon this couplet.

Pro 26:13-16. The Book of Sluggards.

Pro 26:13. cf. Pro 22:13.

Pro 26:15. cf. Pro 19:24*.

Pro 26:16. render a reason: rather return a sensible answer (cf. mg.). Apparently aimed at the sluggards dislike of any intellectual effort.

Pro 26:17-28. A collection dealing with rash, slanderous, or false speech.

Pro 26:17. by the ears: LXX has the more vivid and appropriate by the tail.

Pro 26:21. coals: sense uncertain. Toy renders charcoal. Perhaps we should read bellows.

Pro 26:22. cf. Pro 18:8.

Pro 26:23. RV inverts the order of the clauses. Fervent is lit. burning, which has not in Heb. a metaphorical sense. Read smooth (LXX).

Pro 26:28. hateth . . . wounded: extremely doubtful. Read multiplieth crushingi.e. causes destruction to many.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

THIS SECONDCHAPTER of the series is clearly the Exodus section, the work of the enemy manifesting itself in various forms of opposition to the truth, beginning with foolishness and ending with hatred. To the end of verse 11 the fool is dealt with, then to the end of verse 16, the sluggard; verse 17 only, the meddler; verses 18 and 19, the trifler; to the end of verse 22, the talebearer; and lastly the dissembler. The real character of all enmity against the truth is here exposed thoroughly, and if we are not ignorant of the resources of the enemy, we shall be the better prepared to meet the opposition. There is no virtue in underestimating the enemy’s power; but we must not limit the power of our God to deal with this rightly.

“As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.” The basic character of a fool in the Scriptural sense is that of leaving God out of his calculations: he is simply a rationalist. He says in his heart, “No God”; he builds greater and greater barns to store his earthly goods, and forgets eternity (Psa 14:1; Luk 16:21). A man like this receiving honors is grossly out of his place; for he is worthy only of dishonor and contempt. Only faith can maintain what is truly becoming to any position. Snow in summer and rain in harvest are both unbecoming and hindering to proper activity, no matter how proper they may be at the proper time. So honor is proper for some men, but not for a fool. Folly is the precise opposite of faith. Pharoah was in the highest place of honor in Egypt but blatantly defied God: “Who is the Lord?” “I know not the Lord” (Exo 5:2). How repulsively foreign to noble kingly dignity!

“As the bird by wandering, and as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.” A curse does not come without some cause. Moreover it is most characteristic of a fool to be a wanderer, and as restless as the swallow, always on the wing. The bird may havebeen made for this, but not so man, and he will reap the baneful effects. The believer, on the other hand, is like the sparrow that has found a house (no more wandering) and like the swallow having found a nest (no more restlessness) in the courts of God (Psa 84:3). Let the believer then act in proper character, and not like the fool,-not wandering from God’s place for him, not allowing a restless, discontented spirit. These are real enemies of the truth, and will bring bad results.

“A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.” The horse and the ass, both unclean animals, are typical of the unbeliever in different ways; the horse of Palestine unwilling to work, the ass generally wild and unwilling to be controlled. Soft, soothing measures are hopeless in such cases. Concerning “unruly and vain talkers”, the apostle says, “whose mouths must be stopped” (Tit 1:10-11). The rod of authority is the only language they understand. In certain cases it was necessary for Paul to use this authority, howevermuch it pained him: Hymenaeus and Alexander he delivered unto Satan that they should learn not to blaspheme (1Ti 1:20). If even a believer should act as a horse or an ass, resorting to foolish ways or sidetracked by foolish doctrine, a rod of discipline may he necessary for him too, even to the point of putting away from fellowship.

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” The connection here with the previous verse is evident. A fool will argue for the sake of ridicule, with no real reasonableness. It is a mistake therefore to lower oneself to the same unwholesome level of argument. Heated words are likely to betray a believer into the use of the same unsound argument and ridicule. Thus we make ourselves like the one whom we so resent! A fool’s objections ought to find us most careful to weigh our answers well. 2Ti 2:2-3 is directly to the point here: “Foolish and unlearned (or unsubject) questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.”

Yet there is a delicate balance to be observed here, and there follows what appears on the surface a contradiction, though it is of course no such thing: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.” While mere argument on the same basis is to be avoided, yet it may be most necessary that a fool should be answered in such a way that his argument will be exposed as folly, without any resorting to argument, as Tit 1:9 implies. “that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort, and to convince (or refute) the gainsayers.” The wisdom of the Lord Jesus inanswering contentious men illustrates this beautifully. Rather than merely answering their cunning questions, he answered the men. Consider Luk 10:25-37 and Mat 22:15-22. There could then be no argument: they were silenced.

“He that sendeth a message by thehand ofa foolcutteth off (his own) feet and drinketh damage” (New Trans.). To employ a fool to convey a serious message would be itself folly even in the world’s view. Ought then an unbeliever to be ordained by men to proclaim the message of God to a sinful world? Yet how many “fools” occupy pulpits today! Such men, not born again, having no love for the Lord Jesus, no regard for the truth of the Word of God, can only be expected to misrepresent the message they pretend to carry. The senders of such a man by this means cut off their own feet: they render themselves unfit for a proper walk: their association with the fool is the drinking of a deadly portion that damages their own testimony for God. Yet there have been many Christian men on church boards, who have shared in the ordaining of false teachers with apparently little concern as to what they were doing! How important a contrast to this is seen in Paul’s words to Timothy: “The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” This is no human ordination, but godly discernment of men’s characters and earnest communication of the precious truth of God, such as will connect the messenger directly with God as the Sender, rather than men. Let us have no association with a fool who professes to be carrying a message from God.

“The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” A parable should accurately re-present what it is intended to teach, but subtle manipulation can so use a parable as to convey a completely false conclusion. A fool will use comparisons that are not equal, not parallel at all: his whole argument then is lame because not balanced. The wise woman of Tekoah, being hired by Joab, used subtle, worldly wisdom in presenting to David a case that was in measure similar to that of his son Absalom, but not at all parallel: in fact completely at odds in fundamental points. David allowed himself to be deceived by it. This was plain dishonesty, the type of thing to which an unbeliever will resort to gain his own ends, the resource of one who in God’s eyes is a fool. David ought to have easily discerned that these legs were not equal (2Sa 14:1-33). No believer should be deceived by such things.

“As a bag of gems in a stone heap, so is he that giveth honor to a fool” (New Trans.). In all of these things we cannot but be reminded of present – day corruptions of Christianity. But let us note that it is not the fool who is here reproved: it is that one who gives honor to the fool; just as we have seen that one who sends a message by the hand of a fool damages himself. So here, if we give honor, dignity, any place of spiritual elevation to one who dishonors our Lord, we are virtually like precious jewels in a stone-heap, a thoroughly unseemly association. Shall we place a common, unsightly stone in a lovely setting, to have a place that stands out among precious jewels?

“As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” A parable can be dangerous when used by a fool. We have before seen feet cut off and lame legs (verses 6, 7) and now the hand damaged. It is evidently the fool’s own hand, a virtual drunkard, intoxicated with pride in the subtle use of his tongue. His own hand (his work) is badly affected by the thorn, which is the very word used in Scripture for sin. He is sinning against his own soul by such abuse of a parable, the same type of person as “those that oppose themselves,” spoken of in 2Ti 2:25. It is well to keep this in mind when considering such men, whose words no doubt seek to damage others. We shall have a more balanced, godly attitude in meeting them if we remember they are harming themselves even more than others.

But it is important that we remember an even more pertinent matter than this. “The great God that formed all things both rewardeth (or hireth) the fool, and rewardeth (or hireth) transgressors.” While the name God does not appear in the Hebrew here, yet this seems implied in the fact of being “the great (one) who formed all.” However great may be the damage caused by a fool, there is One infinitely greater than he, One who has formed all things, and Who has all still in the control of His own hand. He is a Master who hired even the fool, or the “passerby,” as the New Translation renders “transgressors.” True that He will reward each in perfect righteousness; but it seems here that the true word is “hireth,” and indicates the sovereign power of God, by which “He maketh even the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He doth re-strain.” He has a wise reason for allowing the fool to work his evil counsels, and every incidental “passerby” He uses in a manner precisely according to His great wisdom. The believer therefore is to discern God’s hand in the most dreadful cases of trial, persecution, opposition; and in every little detail of his pathway, whether deeply distressing or whether merely irritating. Does this not encourage calm confidence in the face of all enmity against the path of faith?

Now the closing verse of this section concerning the fool is quoted in 2Pe 2:22, and there applied to a false teacher, one making a profession of Christianity that is hypocrisy. This will of course confirm the applications made in the previous verses.

“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” The dog an unclean animal, is typical of the unbeliever, as is the sow returning to her wallowing in mud, after being washed. Whatever may be done to such animals, their nature remains the same, and will show itself. So thefool may reform in a measure and appear even to be a converted man, but his nature not being changed, hewill return to his folly. Thus did Simon the sorcerer (Act 8:1-40 ), and he is refused all “part or lot” with the people of God (vs. 21).

But a different form of enmity against the truth is seen the verses 12 to 16, where the proud, self-opinionated sluggard is considered. “Seest thou a man wise in his own eyes? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” A fool may be actively opposed to God; but the sluggard takes a haughty, contemptuous attitude, considering himself wiser than everybody else, and therefore indifferent to what is good and precious. He can easily tell how everything ought to be done, but does nothing himself. A man of this kind is less likely to be converted than is a fool.

“The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.” He can always perceive difficulties standing in the way of doing good; but does not perceive the tragic harm that his laziness brings to his own soul. No faith is present, to give courage to overcome difficulties, whether real or imagined. If Satan (the lion) is in our way, the believer may count upon the power of God to overcome this; but the slothful man gives up before he ever tries. The believer ought not to be like him in any way.

“As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon hisbed.” If this is only worthy of strong censure in ordinary life, how much more so in the things of God! The door swings only in the same place: so for the sluggard there is no getting free from mere selfish, self-centered habit: no acting in faith for God. The believer too must take care not to hide his light under a bed.

“The sluggard burieth his hand in the dish: it wearieth him to bring it again to his mouth” (New Trans.). It is evident this is not merely intended literally, but who can doubt its spiritual significance? Food is available for him: he knows it, and reaches out his hand, but only to trifle with it: he has not energy even to eat it. How descriptive of the way many treat the food of the Word of God! They complacently think they know all about it, and have no concern about digesting it!

“The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men that answer discreetly” (New Trans.). This sums up this section, and of course connects with the first verse of it (vs. 12). Seven men may be careful, judicious, honorable; and give a united judgment upon a matter. But the sluggard will contemptuously reject their judgment upon no other basis than his own self-cantered opinion, considering that wisdom is his exclusive possession. May we who are Christians be careful that we do not in any measure resemble such egotists. This sluggish character of fleshly religion is typified clearly in the enmity of Moab against Israel. “Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.” In the days of Ehud,the king of Moab was Eglon, an exceedingly fat man, how easily is discerned here a fat, lazy, opulent religion, the turning of God’s grace into lasciviousness, no exercise of soul, no earnest feeding upon the Word of God, but self-complacent boasting, “I am rich and increased With goods, and have need of nothing.” The above quotation concerning Moab (Jer 48:11) is followed later in the chapter thus: “We have heard of the pride of Moab, (he is exceeding proud,) his loftiness, and his arrogance, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart.” The boaster is not a worker: how much better to work, and not boast!

Verse 17 alone deals with the case of the meddler: “He that passeth by and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.” This is not the case simply of one who leaves God out of his reckoning (the fool) nor of the proud, indolent observer (the sluggard), but of the pride that considers itself capable of settling the quarrels of others. This is dangerous. If one should interfere in domestic affairs, for instance, between a husband and wife, he may find them both his vicious enemies. Nations do this today, and once taking the dog by the ears, they fear to let go, for the longer one holds a dog’s ears, the more violent is likely to be the reaction when he does let go. A proud world considers itself able to settle troubles belonging to others. Ungodly men often think they can do this even in matters of spiritual conflict, but the results will be tragic. But even a believer may attempt something like this, to his own regret. King Josiah was warned by Necho, king of Egypt, “from the mouth of God,” not to interfere in a battle that had nothing to do with him; but he persisted and was killed (2Ch 35:20; 2Ch 35:24).

Let us learn from these things that present-day testimony is to walk with God in true faith, whatever others may do. When John told the Lord of seeing one casting out demons in Christ’s Name, and that they “forbad him, because he followeth not us,” the Lord firmly corrected him: “Forbid him not.” This was simply not John’s business: whatever others were doing, he was to follow Christ. On the other hand, this verse must not be taken to apply to one who is doing work for which the Lord has sent him, just because his work may disturb the comfort of a selfish person. Doubtless some in Corinth felt that Paul was interfering when he reproved and exposed evil in their assembly; but this was a matter that deeply affected Paul himself and his Master required his intervention. Any honest child of God shouldbe able to discern such distinctions.

Now verses 18 and 19 go a step further in this actual contention against the truth. “As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death,so is the man that deceivth his neighbor, and saith, `Am not I in sport?” Here is the man who trifles with truth as though it were a plaything to use as he pleases, even to the point ofdeceiving another and excusing himself for it on the basis that it was a joke. How strong is the condemnation of such conduct here: he is likened to a mad man indiscriminately throwing firebrands and arrows, likely to cause death. And if one should dare to use the Word of God in this light, frivolous way, to make fun of its infinitely serious truths, what deadly influence this may have upon others! Let us hold the truth in the pure, serious sublime dignity that belongs to it. It would appear that Lot, a believer, but in evil associations, had effected too light an attitude in Sodom, the truth not exerting living, serious power in his own conversation; for when he warned his sons-in-laws of the impending doom of Sodom, they thought it was a mere deceptive joke (Gen 19:14). If one acquires a reputation for frivolity then when he is in earnest, he will have no effect.

The following three verses now speak of the tale-bearer. In this there is another advance of evil, for the talebearer will do more real damage than will the trifler, simply because hewill give his evil work the appearance of zeal for righteousness. “Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth.” Discord between the people of God can certainly be stopped simply by adding no fuel to the fire. “It is an honor for a man to cease from strife.” But to spread abroad by talebearing the details of trouble or wrong-doing (or imagined wrong-doing) is grievous guilt, and multiplies the fury of the flames.

“As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife.” The talebearer and contentious man are here synonymous: their spirit is the same, the contrary of the peacemaker. If the fire is doing damage, they are all ready to add further coals or wood. “But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God” (1Co 11:16). If I dare to speak of the wrongs of another, it ought always to be with a genuine desire for his proper restoration, and only when necessity calls for it. This is a matter we ought all to deeply take to heart.

“The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.” How aptly this describes the normal reaction of the soul to the words of talebearers. They are as deep, internal wounds, the Hebrew word meaning “to burn in.” Such things will have such deep effect that they may never be forgotten, while other forms of wrong may soon be dismissed from the mind. Talebearing may easily lead to a permanent rupture between saints of God. “But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine” (Tit 2:11).

But now the final and most flagrant manifestation of evil occupies the last five verses of the chapter. This deals with the deliberate dissembler, moved by hatred, assuming a cunning disguise, with the object of breaking apart the people of God, and any testimony for God. This is the enemy’s work, which so opposes the precious unity emphasized in chapter 25.

“Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross.” A piece of a broken vessel of earth may be covered, not with silver plate, but with the dross from refined silver, which of course will have a silvery appearance, ill concealing the roughness of the dross. So 2Ti 2:20 speaks of vessels of wood and of earth as being unbelievers: but the covering of silver dross is of course deception. “Burning lips” are the silver dross, fervent with apparent zeal, yet its hypocrisy evident enough to be discerned by those who walk with God. A wicked heart will stoop to such things, but the believer ought not to be deceived.

“He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him. When he speakethfair believe him not:for there areseven abominations in his heart.”If one’s character is formed by hypocrisy, we may be certain that actual hatred is behind this. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him” (1Jn 3:15). To think of a man of this kind having any place among Christians is dreadful: he can be there with no other purpose than to scatter the sheep. True, his own immediate object may be to get personal gain, but behind this is the Satanic intention of mining what is of God. He may speak fair, his voice gentle and gracious, but in this is the most danger: “believe him not.” The “seven abominations in his heart” indicate that he is completely given over to idolatry, seven being the number of completeness, and abominations a term for idols.

No believer actually has the character of the dissembler, no more than of the fool. Yet again, it is all too possible for a believer to be guilty of dissembling, as we see in Gal 2:13, when “even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation.” Peter’s influence in this was grievously wrong, not because of hatred, but because of fear. The believer must take care to act true to his character, and not as does the wicked enemy of God. But the wicked “layeth up deceit within him.” That is, he feeds on it, conceives it, stores it up for use at his pleasure. But let every believer be able to say with the Psalmist, “Thy Word have I hid in my heart” (Psa 119:11).

“Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation.” Hatred cannot indefinitely cover itself: there comes a point where hypocrisy is laid bare. “For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known” (Luk 12:2). Would one not recoil bothfrom the disgusting sin of hypocrisy, and from the humiliation of being exposed? But there is no doubt of such exposure.

“Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him”. The object in these cases is of course to do harm to another. But “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Haman built a gallows for Mordecai, and was himself hanged upon it (Est 5:14; Est 7:10). Jezebel in cunning cruelty had Naboth murdered; but the poor deluded woman was little prepared herself to be thrown from a window, trampled by horses, and eaten by dogs (1Ki 21:1-29; 2Ki 9:30-37).

“A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth worketh ruin.” Falsehood and hatred always go hand in hand. One may have done not a particle of harm to another, yet through the other lying about the first, the hatred of the guilty against the innocent will only increase. The remedy is of course honest confession, but one who is accustomed to falsehood steels himself against confessing the truth. If one should be accused of lying against another, the wise believer will watch for evidences of hatred before drawing his own conclusions. Again, if we are honest ourselves, then we shall discern that the flattery of others is actually false-hood.Commendation, approval, appreciation are no doubt right in their place, but if this is excessive, it is unbecoming: if it should take the form of flattery, it is just not true. The one who practices this cannot be trusted: ruin follows hard upon his words, if he is successful in deceiving his victims.

It seems significant that this chapter, dealing with the opposition of the enemy, should present six forms of evil, each an advance upon the other: for six is the number of man’s work, the manifestation of the evil heart of man. How good for us to be well armed against it, not deceived by it, and in no way or measure imitating it.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

2. Fools and folly ch. 26

The analogies in chapter 25 dealt with both wise and foolish conduct, but those in chapter 26 deal mainly with fools and folly.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER 27

THE FOOL

“As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a foolA whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the back of fools. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off his own feet, and drinketh in damage. The legs of the lame hang loose: so is a parable in the mouth of fools. As a bag of gems in a heap of stones, so is he that giveth honor to a fool. As a thorn that goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools. As an archer that woundeth all, so is he that hireth the fool and he that hireth them that pass by. As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is a fool that repeateth his folly. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”- Pro 26:1; Pro 26:3-12

THIS passage points out certain characteristics of the fool, a term which occurs so frequently in the book of Proverbs that we must try to conceive clearly what is to be understood by it. The difficulty of forming a distinct conception arises from the fact that there are three different words, with different shades of meaning, all rendered by the one English expression, fool or folly. For want of carefully distinguishing these delicate varieties of the original, some of the proverbs appear in English tautological and almost meaningless. We must try then to separate and to understand these several terms.

The Hebrew word which most frequently occurs in the book to designate fool together with its derivative, which is the usual word for folly signifies weakness. We are to think of that ignorant, inconsiderate, sanguine, and self-confident temper which eschews counsel, which will have its own way, which declines to be governed by reason, which forms fond expectations and baseless hopes, and which is always sure that everything will turn out according to its wish, though it takes no means to secure the desired result. Perhaps the simplest way of describing the habit of mind and the type of character intended by the Hebrew is to use the word infatuation. This would not do as a translation in all the passages where it occurs, but it will serve to point out the underlying idea.

The word which comes next in frequency-the word used uniformly throughout the particular passage before us, -has at its root the notion of grossness, the dull and heavy habit of one whose heart has waxed fat, whose ears are slow to hear, and whose higher perceptions and nobler aspirations have succumbed to the sensual and earthly nature. We have to think of moral, as well as mental stupidity, of insensibility to all that is true and good and pure. The fool in this sense is such a dullard that he commits wickedness without perceiving it, {Pro 10:23} and utters slanders almost unconsciously, {Pro 10:18} he does not know when to be silent; {Pro 12:23} whatever is in him quickly appears; {Pro 14:33} but when it is known it is very worthless, {Pro 14:7} nor has he the sense to get wisdom, even when the opportunity is in his hand; {Pro 17:16} his best advantages are quickly wasted and he is none the better. {Pro 21:20} Perhaps the English word which best fits the several suggestions of the Hebrew one is senseless.

The third term occurs only four times in the book. It is derived from a verb signifying to fade and wither. It describes the inward shrinking and shriveling of a depraved nature, the witlessness which results from wickedness.

It contains in itself a severer censure than the other two. Thus “He that begetteth a senseless man doeth it to his sorrow, but the father of the bad fool hath no joy.” {Pro 17:21} In the one case there is trouble enough, in the other there is nothing but trouble. Thus it is one of the four things for which the earth trembles when a man of this kind is filled with meat. {Pro 30:22} This third character is sketched for us in the person of Nabal, whose name, as Abigail says, is simply the Hebrew word for fool in its worst sense, which fits exactly to its bearer. But dismissing this type of folly which is almost synonymous with consummate wickedness, of which indeed it is the outcome, we may turn to the distinction we have drawn between infatuation and senselessness in order to explain and understand some of the Proverbs in which the words occur.

First of all we may notice how difficult it is to get rid of the folly of infatuation: “Though thou shouldest bray a person possessed of it in a mortar with a pestle among bruised corn, yet will it not depart from him.” {Pro 27:22} “It is bound up in the heart of a child,” {Pro 22:15} and the whole object of education is to get it out; but if childhood passes into manhood, and the childish win fullness, self-confidence, and irrationality are not expelled, the case is well-nigh hopeless. Correction is practically useless: “He must be a thorough fool,” it has been said, “who can learn nothing from his own folly”; but that is precisely the condition of the infatuated people we are considering; the only correction of their infatuation is a further increase of it. The reason is practically choked; the connection between cause and effect is lost: thus every ill consequence of the rash act or of the vicious habit is regarded as a misfortune instead of a fault. The wretched victim of his own folly reviles fortune, nature, men, and even God, and will not recognize that his worst enemy is himself. Thus, while the wise are always learning and growing rich from experience, “the infatuation of senseless men is infatuation still.” It is this which makes them so hopeless to deal with; their vexation being quite irrational, and always refusing to recognize the obvious facts, is worse than a heavy stone or the piled-up overweight of sand for others to bear. {Pro 27:3} If a wise man has a case with such a person, the ill-judged fury and the misplaced laughter alike made it impossible to arrive at any sound settlement. {Pro 29:9}

The untrained, undisciplined nature, which thus declines the guidance of reason and is unteachable because of its obstinate self-confidence, is constantly falling into sin. Indeed, strictly speaking, its whole attitude is sinful, its every thought, is sin. {Pro 24:9} For reason is Gods gift, and to slight it is to slight Him. He requires of us a readiness to be taught, and an openness to the lessons which are forced upon us by Nature, by experience, by our own human hearts. This flighty, feather-brained, inconsequential mode of thinking and living, the willful neglect of all the means by which we might grow wiser, and the confident assurance that, whatever happens, we are not accountable for it, are all an offence against God, a failure to be what we ought to be, a missing of the mark, a neglect of the law, which is, in a word, sin. But now let us look at the fool in the second signification, which occurs in this twenty-sixth chapter so frequently, -the man who has become spiritually gross and insensible, unaware of Divine truths and consequently obtuse to human duties. We may take the proverbs in the order in which they occur. “As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.” It is a melancholy fact that the kind of person here referred to is too often found in positions of honor among men. Men rise to distinction in an artificial order of society, not by wisdom, but by the accident of birth and opportunity; and not infrequently the ill-placed honor itself leads to that insensibility which is so severely censured. The crass dullness, the perversity of judgment, the unfeeling severity, often displayed by prominent and distinguished persons, are no matter of surprise, and will not be, until human society learns to bring its honors only to the wise and the good. “Delicate living is not seemly for such persons.” {Pro 19:10} It is precisely the comfort, the dignity, the exaltation, which prove their ruin. Now it is true that we cannot always trace the effects of this misplaced honor, but we are reminded that it is out of the course of Natures eternal laws, incongruous as snow in summer, hurtful as rain in harvest. Consequently the due penalty must inevitably come. According to one reading of Pro 26:2, this penalty which overtakes the exalted fool is thus described: “As the sparrow in her wandering, and the swallow in her flying, so a gratuitous curse shall come upon him.” In any case Pro 26:3 states clearly enough what will eventually happen: “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, arid a rod for the back of fools.” It is not, of course, that this penalty can be remedial, but Nature herself prepares a “rod for the back of him that is void of understanding”; {Pro 10:13} “As judgments are prepared for scorners, so are stripes for the back of fools.” {Pro 19:29} Nor must we only understand this of fools that attain to unnatural honor: there are many dullards and insensates who are not made such by the stupidity of misdirected admiration, but by their own moral delinquencies; and as surely as the sparrow after flitting about all day returns to her nest in the dusk, or as the swallow in the long summer flight arrives at her appointed place, the punishment of folly will find out the delinquent. It may be long delayed, but an awakening comes at last; the man who hardened his heart, who turned away from the pleadings of God and mocked at His judgments, who chose the vanishing things of time and scorned the large fruition of eternity, discovers his Incredible stupidity, and the lash of remorse falls all the more heavily because it is left in the hand of conscience alone. We must never lose sight of the fact that by the fool is not meant the simple or the short-witted; there is in this folly of the Proverbs a moral cause and a moral responsibility which involve a moral censure; the senseless of whom we are speaking are they whose “heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart.” {Mat 13:15}

We are in the main obliged to leave the insensate to God and their conscience, because it is well-nigh impossible for us to deal with them. They are intractable and even savage as wild animals. “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his infatuation.” {Pro 17:12} They are irritated with any suggestion of spiritual things, indignant with any hint of their own case and its responsibilities. If, on the one hand, you try to approach them on their own ground, to realize their motives and work upon the base ideas which alone influence such minds, you seem to lose all power over them by coming down to their level. “Answer not a fool according to his infatuation, lest thou also be like him.” {Pro 26:4} If, on the other hand, you feel bound to convict him of his folly, and to humble him to a sense of his position, you are obliged to use the language which will be intelligible to him. “Answer a fool according to his infatuation, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” {Pro 26:5} I recollect one Sunday afternoon passing by a large village public-house, and it chanced that a little group of street preachers were doing their best to make known the Gospel to the idlers who were sitting on the benches outside. Going up to interest the men in what was being said, I was confronted by the landlord, who was in a state of almost frenzied indignation. He denounced the preachers as hypocrites and scoundrels, who lived on the honest earnings of those whom he saw around him. Every attempt to bring him to reason, to show that the men in question spent their money on drink and not on the preachers, to secure a patient hearing for the gracious message, was met only with violent abuse directed against myself. The man was precisely what is meant in these verses by a fool, one in whom all spiritual vision was blinded by greed and sensuality, in whom the plainest dictates of common sense and human courtesy were silenced: to answer him in his own vein was the only way of exposing his folly, and yet to answer him in such a way was to come down to his own level. What could be done except to leave him to the judgments which are prepared for scorners and to the stripes which await the back of fools? A fool uttereth all his anger, and facing the torrent of angry words it is impossible to effectually carry home to him any wholesome truth. {Pro 29:11}

We have seen how the kind of man that we are describing is in an utterly false position when any dignity or honor is attributed to him; indeed, to give such honor is much the same as binding a stone in a sling to be immediately slung out again, probably to some ones injury; {Pro 26:8} but he is almost equally useless in a subordinate position. If, for instance, he is employed as a messenger, he is too dull to rightly conceive or correctly report the message. He will almost certainly color it with his own fancies, if he does not pervert it to his own ends. To receive and to deliver any message accurately requires a certain truthfulness in perception and in speech of which this unfortunate creature is entirely devoid. Thus anyone who employs him in this capacity might as well cut off his own feet, as he drinks damage to himself. {Pro 26:6}

It is the awful punishment which comes to us all, when we allow our heart to wax gross, that wisdom itself becomes folly in our lips, and truth herself becomes error. Thus if we know a proverb, or a text, or a doctrine, we are sure to give it a lame application, so that, instead of supporting what we wish to enforce, it hangs down helpless like a cripples legs. {Pro 26:7} In this way the insensate corruptness of the Mediaeval Church tried to justify the abuse of giving great ecclesiastical preferments to young children by quoting the text, “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.” Sometimes the result of this culpable stupidity is far more disastrous; it is like “a thorn which runs up into a drunkards hand,” visiting with terrible condemnation those who have misused and perverted the truth, {Pro 26:9} as when Torquemada and the administrators of the Inquisition based their diabolical conduct on the gracious words of the Lord, “Compel them to come in.” No, the fools heart can give no wholesome message; it will turn the very message of the Gospel into a curse and a blight, and by its dull and revolting insensibility it will libel God to man, suggesting that the Infinite Father, the Eternal God, is altogether such a one as these who profess to speak in His name.

The offence of the fool then cannot be condoned on the ground that he is only an enemy to himself. It is his master that he wrongs. As the proverb says, “A master produces all things, but a fools wages and hirer too pass away.” The fool loses what he earns himself: that is true, but he undoes his employer also. One is our Master, even Christ; He hires us for service in His vineyard; when we suffer our heart to wax dull, when we grow unspiritual, unresponsive, and insensate, it is not only that we lose our reward, but we crucify the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.

And the worst, the most mournful, feature about this fools condition is that it tends to a perpetual self-repetition: “As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so a fool is always repeating his folly.” {Pro 26:11} Every hardening of the heart prepares for a fresh hardening, every refusal of truth will lead to another refusal. Last Sunday you managed to evade the message which God sent you: that makes it much easier to evade the message He sends you today. Next Sunday you will be almost totally indifferent. Soon you will get out of reach altogether of His word, saying it does you no good. Then you will deny that it is His word or His message. You pass from folly to folly, from infatuation to infatuation, until at last you can with a grave face accept the monstrous self-contradiction of materialism, or wallow unresisting in the slime of a tormenting sensuality. “As the dog returns to his vomit!”

It must be owned that the condition of the fool seems sufficiently sad, and the gloom is deepened by the fact that our book knows nothing of a way by which the fool may become wise. The Proverbs uniformly regard the foolish and the wise as generically distinct; between the two classes there is a great gulf fixed. There is the fool, trusting in his own heart, incurring stripes: not profiting by them, always the same incorrigible and hopeless creature; and there is the wise man, always delivered, learning from experience, becoming better and better (Pro 28:26; Pro 9:8; Pro 23:9). The only suggestion of hope is a comparative one: “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” {Pro 26:12} But there is no tone of confidence about this assurance, because, as we have repeatedly seen, the case of the proud or conceited man is regarded as practically desperate.

No, for comfort and hope in this matter we have to turn away from the Ancient Wisdom to the revealed Wisdom, Christ Jesus. It is He and He alone who practically forbids us to be hopeless about any one. A noble Roman in the time of the Punic Wars received an honorable recognition from the Senate because he had not in the darkest times despaired of the Republic. That is the kind of debt that we owe to the Savior. He has not despaired of any human being; He will not let us despair. It is His peculiar power, tried and proved again and again, to turn the fool into the wise man. Observing the threefold distinction which is hidden under the word we have been examining, Christ is able to arouse the weak, fond, infatuated soul to a sense of its need. Could there be a better instance than that of the woman at the well, -a foolish creature living in conscious sin, yet full of specious religious talk? Did He not awake in her the thirst for the living water, and satisfy the craving which He had excited? Christ is able to transform the dull and heavy soul, that has suffered itself to be mastered by greed and petrified by selfishness. Was not this what He did to Zaccheus the publican? And even with that worst kind of fool, whose heart is withered up within him by reason of sin, and who has learnt to say in his heart that there is no God, {Psa 14:1} the Lord is not helpless.

We do not see such a one in the pages of the New Testament, because the folly of Atheism was not among the follies of those times. But in our own day it is an experience by no means uncommon; when an avowed infidel comes under the power of the Gospel, Christ enters into him with the overwhelming conviction that there is a God; Christ shows him how it is sin which has thus obscured the elementary conviction of the human spirit; and, by the direct power of Christ, his heart comes to him again as that of a little child, while in the rapturous joy of believing he lays aside the folly which made him doubt along with the sin which made him unwilling to believe.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary