Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 9:17

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread [eaten] in secret is pleasant.

17. stolen waters ] Maurer compares what he calls “tristissimum illud Ovidii,”

“Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The besetting sin of all times and countries, the one great proof of the inherent corruption of mans nature. Pleasures are attractive because they are forbidden (compare Rom 7:7).

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Pro 9:17-18

But he knoweth not that the dead are there.

The fatal banquet

Here two texts. Preach concerning a couple of preachers; one by usurpation, the other by assignation: the worlds chaplain, and the Lords prophet. First, the delightfulness of sin; second, converted Solomon. The text of the one is from hells scriotum est. The text of the other is the word of eternal truth. We are here presented with a banquet. The inviter is a degenerate woman, representing sin–such as ambition, pride, engrossing, bribery, faction, riot, oppression. The cheer is presented in several dishes–waters, stolen, secret; bread, eaten in secret, pleasant. Sins may be in some sense likened to waters.

1. Water is an enemy to digestion.

2. Water dulls the brain.

3. Grace is compared to fire, gracelessness to water.

4. Water is a baser element, as it were, sophisticate with transfusion.

5. Physicians say that water is a binder.

On the other hand–

(1) Waters mundify and cleanse; but these soil and infect.

(2) Waters quench the thirst, and cool the heat of the body; but these rather fire the heart and inflame the affections.

(3) We say of water, It is a good servant, though an ill master; but we cannot apply this to sin. It is not good at all; indeed, less ill when it serves than when it reigns. The nature of these waters is not more pernicious than their number is numerous. The first course of these waters are such sins as more immediately rob God. Atheism is the highest theft against God, because it would steal from Him, not His goods, but Himself. Heresy soon tickles the brain, and makes a man drunk. This sin robs God of His truth. Sacrilege robs God of His goods. Faction robs God of His order and peace. Profaneness robs God of His glory. The second sort of stolen waters are those sins which mediately rob God, immediately our brethren, depriving them of some comfort or right which the inviolable law of God hath interested them to–such as irreverence, murder, adultery, thievery, slander, flattery. The third sort of stolen waters–sins which immediately rob ourselves–such as pride, epicurism, idleness, envy, drunkenness, covetousness. Stolen–in this consists the approbation of their sweetness, that they come by stealth, and are compassed by dangerous and forbidden pains. A second argument of their sweetness is their cheapness. What a man gets by robbery comes without cost. A third argument is derived from our corrupt affections. Sin pleaseth the flesh. The other service at this banquet is bread; bread of secrecies, bread of pleasure. Bread implies much health, great comforts, fulness of all requisite good things. Since the devil will put the form of bread upon his tempting wickedness, let us examine what kind of bread it is. The seed is corruption; the influences that ripen the seed are temptations; when ripe it is cut down by the sickle of the devils subtlety; it is threshed out with the flail of his strength; the flood of concupiscence drives the mill that grinds it. The mill consists of two stones–pleasure and profit. The leaven is the colourable and fallacious arguments that persuade the sweetness of this bread. The oven that bakes it is our own evil affections. It is called bread of secrecy. Unjust things love privacy. But God sees. Satans guests unhappily come from the end of a feast to the beginning of a fray. All sinful joys are dammed up with a but. The devil does but cozen the wicked with his cates. The punishments of the wicked are most usually in the like; proper and proportional to their offences. The perdition that follows the feast of sin destroys a man in his goods, in his good name, in his health, in his soul. The tempted are called the dead. There are three kinds of death–corporal, spiritual, eternal. Corporal, when the body leaves this life spiritual, when the soul forsakes and is forsaken of grace; eternal, when both shall be thrown into hell. The text has also the attempted, the new guest whom sin strives to bring in to the rest. He is described by his ignorance: Knoweth not. Five kinds of ignorance: human, natural, affected, invincible, proud. The place of the banquet is the depths of hell. This amplifies the misery of the guests in three circumstances.

1. Their weakness: they are soon in.

2. The place: hell.

3. The unrecoverableness of it: the depth of hell.

By hell is meant the deep bondage of wicked souls, Satan having by sin a full dominion over their consciences. (T. Adams.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 17. Stolen waters are sweet] I suppose this to be a proverbial mode of expression, importing that illicit pleasures are sweeter than those which are legal. The meaning is easy to be discerned; and the conduct of multitudes shows that they are ruled by this adage. On it are built all the adulterous intercourses in the land.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Stolen waters; by which he understandeth, either,

1. Idolatry, or other wickednesses, which in Solomons time before his fall were publicly forbidden and punished, but privately practised; or rather,

2. Adultery.

Are sweet; partly, from the difficulty of obtaining them; partly, from the art which men use in contriving such secret sins; and partly, because the very prohibition renders it more grateful to corrupt nature.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

17. The language of a proverb,meaning that forbidden delights are sweet and pleasant, as fruits ofrisk and danger.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Stolen waters are sweet,…. Wells and fountains of waters in those hot countries were very valuable, and were the property of particular persons; about which there were sometimes great strife and contention; and they were sometimes sealed and kept from the use of others; see Ge 26:18; now waters got by stealth from such wells and fountains were sweeter than their own, or what might be had in common and without difficulty, to which the proverb alludes. By which in general is meant, that all prohibited unlawful lusts and pleasures are desirable to men, and sweet in the enjoyment of them; and the pleasure promised by them is what makes them so desirable, and the more so because forbidden: and particularly as adultery, which is a sort of theft r, and a drinking water out of another’s cistern, Pr 5:15; being forbidden and unlawful, and secretly committed, is sweeter to an unclean person than a lawful enjoyment of his own wife; so false worship, superstition, and idolatry, the inventions of men, and obedience to their commands, which are no other than spiritual adultery, are more grateful and pleasing to a corrupt mind than the true and pure worship of God;

and bread [eaten] in secret is pleasant; or, “bread of secret places” s; hidden bread, as the Targum, Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions; that which is stolen and is another’s t, and is taken and hid in secret places, fetched out from thence, or eaten there: the sweet morsel of sin, rolled in the mouth, and kept under the tongue; secret lusts, private sins, particularly idolatry, to which men are secretly enticed, and which they privately commit, De 13:6; the same thing is designed by this clause as the forager.

r “Furtiva Verus”, Ovid de Arte Amandi, l. 1. “Furta Jovis, furtiva munuscula”, Catullus ad Mantium, Ep. 66. v. 140, 145. So Propertius, l. 2. eleg. 30. v. 28.

, Pindar; for which he was indebted to Solomon, according to Clemens of Alexandria, Paedagog. l. 3. p. 252. s “latebraram”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Michaelis. t “Quas habeat veneres aliens pecunia nescis”, Juvenal. Satyr. 13.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

OUR DAUGHTERS AND THE DOWNTOWN

Pro 9:17-18; Pro 1:33

THERE are special reasons why the pastor of a down-town church should speak to this subject. First of all, the church itself is located near the center of the city, and it must, if it keep the Divine approval, deal with the problems of the people round about it.

In the next place the membership of such a body of believers is commonly not a wealthy and aristocratic one. For the most part its people are employed in the sterner vocations; and the majority of her young women take their way every day to shop, office and store. Their problems are the problems of the Church and their preservation in body, mind and spirit should be the serious concern of the church upon whose services they constantly attend, and to whose maintenance they so willingly contribute.

We meet pastors, occasionally, who boast administering to the intellectual and wealthy of the city; quite often our so-called religious newspapers pay special tribute to the preachers who are successful in reaching the upper classes.

We have no controversy with either class of these ministers, or the press that lauds their labors; but we never reflect on the ministry of Jesus without being convinced that He was no respecter of persons, and that the greater part of His time and attention was expended upon the plainer people who are so multitudinous. It is enough for the servant that he be as his Lord. The true minister will be as content to preach the Gospel to the company of plain men and employed girls, who must eat bread in the sweat of the brow, as he could be to preach to the kings of finance, the queens of fashion, or even to titled lords and ladies. In truth, he counts it a greater honor and a nobler privilege to minister to plain people than to an audience from palaces.

In discussing this theme of Our Daughters and the Down-Town we must deal with the problem of the employed girls, by which we mean, of course, those thrust out of the home into the more public service of the shop, office, store, and so forth.

Let us think first of

THE SOCIAL CHANGE

The woman whose words are quoted in our first text has quit the seclusion of her own house, and to gratify the longings of an evil nature is tramping the streets. But in the thousands of years which have intervened since these words were written, the most virtuous of our sisters have been called from the enclosure of home to daily appearance in public.

Civilization has ended seclusion for the weaker sex. Let us hasten to explain the phrase weaker sex before we lose the good will of some of our sisters. Of course, we refer to physical prowess whenever mans superiority over woman is asserted, for we agree with Charles Parkhurst that intrinsic qualities of personal texture, the refinement of its organization, woman is not the weaker, but rather the superior. But whatever may be said upon that subject, her seclusion is at an end. From the infancy of the American girl to the hour in which she fills her grave, she touches the active world as directly, and almost as constantly, as does her brother. At the public school the sexes mingle with little restriction upon, and less supervision over their intercourse. Like their brothers, girls must meet, even there, the refined and the base, the kindly and the brutal, the virtuous and the vicious; and a schooling, fraught with perils, begins with the first session when our daughters are at the tender age of six.

How different all this is from the social life which once characterized the world, we may learn from a very little study of history. You will remember that the author of Quo Vadis, speaking of the members of the early church, remarks upon the appearance of Christian women in public after this manner:Among them women hear instruction as well as men. The only significance in those words is found in the fact that the heathen women were not privileged to appear at public meetings, and were seldom seen upon the streets. In oriental countries where social customs have remained unchanged, the best women live and die knowing but little of the world outside their own homes. Perhaps the most marked difference between Chinas civilization and that of America is manifest in this point. Their sisters live largely in seclusion; ours spend a great part of time in street or shop.

Here, Commerce has called women, into every walk and work. It has been said, Man is set in community; he never escapes it. The same claim can now be made for woman, in almost all the countries of Europe, and especially in America. Orison Swett Marden says, Only a few years ago marriage was the only sphere open to girls, but now every sphere is open to them.

They talk about a womans sphere,

As though it had a limit;

Theres not a place in earth or Heaven,

Theres not a task to mankind given,

Theres not a blessing or a woe,

Theres not a whisper, Yes or No,

Theres not a life, or death, or birth,

That has a feathers weight of worth,

Without a woman in it.

This public life is fraught with peculiar perils. These endanger the body, the mind and soul of our sisters. Think of several states that have forbidden, by law, women working in mines. When the most dirty and dangerous work, and work destined to undermine the health of even men, is imposed upon girls and mothers, it is high time we inquired into the social changes that are coming over the land. Dr. S. G. Smith, of St. Paul, preached a sermon some years since on Women and Manual Labor. The Press, with its accustomed ability at misrepresentation, published a few garbled sentences of that sermon, and by disconnecting them from their context, made Dr. Smith appear to be almost a foe to womankind. On the contrary, in that sermon he said some things worthy the widest reading and the deepest concern. For instance, his remark, It was in savage times that woman was the slave and served her master in menial tasks. We are fast on the road to a new savagery; the problem began when the discovery of machinery and the factory system took the place of the man and the tool. Greedy employers bade the delicate fingers of women and the dimpled hand of childhood grasp the fallen task. I have watched a woman and cow yoked together dragging a heavy load in Europe; I have seen the haggard faces of the factory girls here and there. God never intended either * *. But economic conditions have no chivalry and human avarice has no sense of honor. The majority of working women in this country, now millions of them, are between the ages of fourteen and twenty five. * * We are devouring the possible strength of the nation by draining the life of its future mothers.

Would God that were all! But we are doing another thing which no thoughtful man, and certainly no good minister of Jesus Christ can reflect upon without alarm. We are putting these same daughters, at the very period of life when they are most easily and most terribly imperiled, into places of rifest temptation, and surrounding them by circumstances that lead them, daily, to the very edge of the pit. There is a bit of history being made now in the heart of the Metropolis that will send many mothers to premature graves, whiten the hair and break the heart of many a father; history that will loosen the foundation of our future homes by unfitting young women to become loyal wives and devoted mothers; and history that will finally produce its bitterest fruit in the buried outcast.

Think, will you, of institutions whose very character is so hellish that the man who applied a torch to them and burned them to ashes would be even more righteous in conduct than was ever Carrie Nations demolition of the plate glass mirrors in unlawful and accursed saloons. I speak of those that, with unblushing face, declare their ability to call from department stores girls, yet in their teens, in as large numbers as their most popular patronage might demand. While we sit on Sunday night in our sanctuary, such is the statement on the lips of the embruted henchmen of houses within five blocks of the place of holy worship. We do not plead for a return to the social customs of twenty centuries gone, to a turning of the keys of home against the egress of our wives and daughters; but we insist that when men seek to lighten the burdens of getting the living for a family by sending unsophisticated girls into such shops and offices as are many of those now appealing for them, they will pay for this additional income the price of weakened bodies, perturbed intellects and often of lost immortal souls.

THE SINISTER SUGGESTION

But our text contains a sinister suggestion, She saith * * stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

Satan is the Author of that Evil Thought. The silly woman here described is not speaking at first hand. This sentence has been whispered to her by the adversary of souls. How can we doubt the personality of our adversary? If he had no existence, no ability to think, no power to impart his thought, how would a sentence like this find its first expression in life? Take the temptations of Jesus as reported in the fourth chapter of Matthew.

It is not necessarily believed that Jesus saw any devil or heard any audible words though both are reasonable enough; but while He waited in that wilderness there came into His mind the thought, If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread. We have no question at all that He walked to the pinnacle of the temple and while He sat there the thought came into His mind, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.

Doubtless Jesus made His own way to the mountain top, and with His own perfect knowledge, saw all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and heard, by His inner ear, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me. And yet, the Scriptures distinctly affirm that Satan was the author of every thought. If he could thrust these evil suggestions into the Saviours mind, how much more easy is it to flash them into the thought of mortal men and women; and we declare our conviction that this language never originated with the fallen woman, but with the Adversary himself. It has in it the hiss of the serpentstolen waters are sweetand upon it is the vile breath of the dragonBread eaten in secret is pleasant.

A suggestion once adopted is soon spoken to others. If Jesus Christ had acted upon Convert these stones into bread, Cast thyself down, Fall down and worship me, He would inevitably have turned tempter and ceased to be our Saviour. This is a fruit of sin which men and women are prone to forget! When, at first, we consciously transgress Gods law we fear only the direct result of our act. We are troubled over the offence of the Father, and the injury to our own souls. At that time we little dream that we shall so soon be seeking the downfall of others; and yet that is the almost inevitable result. To listen to this satanic suggestion stolen waters are sweet is to make possible our repetition of the same in the ears of Others.

, A few years since, when Dr. Talmage was delivering a sermon from the text She that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth, he remarked truly, Better, that in the hour of your birth, you had been struck with orphanage and handed over into the cold arms of the world, than that you should have been brought up under a fathers care and a mothers tenderness to scoff at last at their example and deride their influence.

The same wise man who penned the proverb of this evenings text, describes the woman uttering it, as the stranger which flattereth with her words; which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. Of her Solomon remarks, Her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.

Another evidence that Satan is the author of this sentence is found in the secrecy suggested. Stolen waters are sweet; bread eaten in secret is pleasant. Be not deceived! One may cover away his character and even his conduct from the eyes of men; but he will find no pleasure therein. Stolen waters are turned to gall; and bread, eaten in secret, to bitterness. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. And after all, can one hide his iniquity from the eye of God?

There was, in a city, one awful institution, so arranged as to shut out the light of Gods own day, and cover evil practice from every human eye; and yet every patron of the place ought to have understood that as a friend or acquaintance may watch you enter its open door, God sees in its darkest department.

The X-ray can penetrate through stone or wood. Gods eyes are as flaming fires. They penetrate deeper still. Let evil men remember, Thou God seest me.

THE SOULS OF THE SLAIN

But * * the dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of hell. The study of the Scripture argues the truth that death may be the condition of those who move, think and speak. It is interesting to note some of the passages relating to the subject of spiritual decease.

Paul affirms that the pleasure-loving perish. In his Epistle to Timothy he says, She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. That sounds like a paradox; but is known to many as a personal experienceDead while she liveth. The Ancient Mariner pictures dead men manning a ship. Men have thought this scene a strange one; on the other hand, it is only suggestive of the awful truth that the spiritually dead are in every vocation of life.

The mere pleasure seeker is not living! In Louisville, Ky., the home of a very wealthy family was hard by the grounds on which a theological seminary stood. The daughter of that house undertook no serious work. Her evenings till long after midnight, were spent at the theatre and at the dance; the remainder of the night and all the hours of the forenoon in sleep; and the afternoon in drives or strolls. She did not live; or rather, she was dead while she lived.

Louis Albert Banks tells how, when the great Napoleon occupied the city of Moscow, a party of officers and soldiers determined to have a military levee. It was held in the deserted palace of a Russian nobleman, in the vault of which a large quantity of powder had been deposited. That night the city was set on fire. But the soldiers and the women who followed the fortunes of the French army danced on until the building next blazed; and then, as if in daring, they only stopped to look at it a moment, and returned to their amusement. Finally the building in which they were revelling was on fire. They prepared for instant flight, but a dashing young officer named Corinot, waved his jewelled glove above his head and exclaimed, One dance more; defiance to the flames. The challenge was accepted. Louder grew the music, and faster fell the pattering feet, until suddenly one cried into the hallway, The magazine! Fly! Fly for life! They were transfixed with horror! A moment more and the building was shattered to atoms and the dancers were sent to a fearful eternity. Only their bodies died that night; as lovers of pleasure they had long since put their souls to death. In the language of this text they had said, Stolen waters are sweet; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant, knowing not that the dead were there, and they were numbered among them.

But there is another sentence in this text which speaks more awful things: Her guests are in the depths of hell. There is such a thing as a living death; there is also such a thing as perdition for those who are yet in the flesh. Here are some extracts from a letter which was received years ago. It was written by a girl who once walked the streets of the authors city; who once regularly attended the services of his church. I know that you know that I have not been the kind of a girl that I should have been. God only knows what I will do! I am in trouble and the pangs of remorse are upon me. I disgraced my people and broke my mothers heart. * * I am done for. I cannot stand this. I am thoroughly discouraged with life. My life has been such that I cannot expect any one to either believe or respect me. I think you will forgive me and ask mother to forgive me. I will never enter her threshold again unless it is to come home to die. I dont know where I am to go. I am an unhappy, God-forsaken girl, an outcast. I do not want to say any more; so I close this sad letter with many regrets, and will once more take up the battle and try to do right. So good-bye. Your once good girl.

She had a right to subscribe herself so! Between the years of twelve and fifteen, we knew no better girl. Thank God, we believe, by His grace, she is now a saved girl. But when, some months after writing this letter she told us the awful sorrow she had endured, we wished that every poor girl, walking the streets of a city, whether in the vocation of honest labor or after the sale of self, might have heard what she said, and have listened to her sobs, and learned from the testimony of another, the awful danger of life in the down-town.

No chapter is complete, however, that sounds only warning and expresses only sorrow, and in concluding permit us to speak on the second text, suggesting, as it does,

THE SURE AND ONLY SALVATION

Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

A few years since Colonel Green, addressing the Evangelical Alliance, called attention to the White Cross League and said, I know of nothing better than to take these vows:

To treat all women with respect, and endeavor to protect them from wrong and degradation.

To endeavor to put down all indecent language and coarse jests.

To maintain the law of purity as equally binding upon men as women.

To endeavor to spread these principles among my companions, and to try and help my younger brothers.

To use every possible means to fulfill the command Keep thyself pure.

But we know of things better than any vows. If vows would save men and women, few would be lost. Where is the individual who has not vowed to do right? In moments of serious meditation we say, I will, God helping me. On our knees, in prayer, we repeat our purpose; but in the bitterness of defeat we appreciate that good resolutions have no power to save.

Jonah voiced the truth, Salvation is of the Lord.

He dispossessed the Gadarene, He opened the eyes of the blind man; He laid hands on the leper, and lo he was whole; He dismissed the despised woman with benediction; He called Lazarus from the grave; He can and He will save all them that come unto God by Him.

Salvation is the portion of them that hear His Word. Whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell safely. Hearkeneth unto Me! Salvation cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

The longer I live, the more I preach this Gospel, the more do I appreciate the blessed truth that men and women are made to dwell safely in proportion as they hearken unto the Word of the Lord. It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.

Some time since in St. Paul, a friend was preaching. A well-dressed but drunken woman staggered into the service. She was sent to a suitable room. The friends wife watched over her for a few days, and when she was fully sobered, these missionaries at the center of that city, prayed with and for her, and urged upon her the promises of the Gospel. At first she seemed indifferent and even hard. But when they said to her, You know these things are so. You know the awful character of your sin; and you know that there is no salvation for you until you call on God for help, she burst into tears and said, It is so! On her knees she begged to be forgiven. A few days later she pawned her watch for $8.00, and adding it to the $16.00 already in her possession, purchased a ticket for her Southern home, and went back, scarred by her past life, yet saved by the power of the Gospel. This is the meaning of the word of the Lord, Whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell safely.

Still further this salvation is enriched by assurance. And shall be quiet from fear of evil. Quite often we meet men and women who have purposed to reform and they are doing right; but they live in daily alarm lest the old enemy should overtake them again and they should fall afresh into the loathsome customs of the past times. The salvation in Christ promises something better than this, namely: a quiet from fear of evil. When He keeps you, you will feel confidence that the Adversary will not again conquer you! To be under the care of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah is to live in sweet security against every danger.

There is a good story told of a man who had a little dog trained to many tricks. One day he desired the dog to show off to visiting friends, but the dog was not in the humor of obedience and refused to do anything. This angered the owner, and in his heart he swore vengeance against him. Living, as he was, just down the street from the zoological garden, he went for a walk and the little dog followed him. When he came to the cage of the lion, he deliberately picked up the dog and threw him in, expecting that the lion would make a meal of him. On the contrary, the big, shaggy fellow got up, walked over to the little dog, sniffed him over, showed himself friendly and the dog responded in spirit. When the lion lay down, the dog curled up against him and immediately they became friends. A day later when the owners ire had cooled, he repented his deed and walked by the cage, expecting to grieve at the sight of bones, if there were any left. To his amazement, he saw the dog in perfect health, lying against the side of his big friend. Immediately the man called the keeper and said, That is my dog, and I would like him, to which the keeper answered, Yes, I know; he was your dog. I saw you, when, in anger, you threw him in. He is not yours any more; at least, if he is, you can go in and get him. I shall not turn him back to such a master as yourself. But the old owner went not in. He knew better than to brave the dogs new friend.

Christ is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. When He keeps you; no evil hand can be laid upon you.

When He keeps you even the last Enemy, Death, shall stir in your heart no fear.

Dr. Talmage tells of having been called to see a young woman die. It was a very humble home. She was an orphan. As I entered the room I saw nothing attractive, no pictures, no tapestry; not even a cushioned chair. The snow on the window casement was not whiter than the cheek of that dying girl. It was a face never to be forgotten! Sweetness and majesty of soul and faith in God had given her a matchless beauty. The sculptor who could have caught the outlines of those features and frozen them into stone would have made himself immortal. With her large brown eyes she looked calmly into the great eternity. I sat down by her bedside and said, Now tell me all your troubles, and sorrows, and struggles, and doubts. She replied, I have no doubts or struggles. Jesus has smoothed the way for my feet. I wish when you go to your pulpit next Sunday you would tell your people that religion will make them happy. Oh, Death, where is thy sting? Mr. Talmage, I wonder if this is not the bliss of dying? I rose to go and she said, I thank you for coming. Good-night. When we meet again it will be in Heavenin Heaven. Good-night. Good-night.

For her it was a Good-night to tears; Goodnight to poverty; Good-night to death. But when the sun arose again it was Good-morning. The light of another day had burst in upon her soul. The angels were singing her welcome home; and the hand of Christ was putting upon her brow a garland!

My sister, my daughter; may your last end be like hers!

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

(17) Stolen waters are sweet.See above, on Pro. 5:15.

Bread eaten in secret.The same figure is used in Pro. 30:20.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

17. Stolen waters This verse, expressive of the above idea, was, probably, a proverb which the woman of vice turns to her own purposes.

Bread eaten in secret Literally, bread of secrecies. Both allude to unlawful pleasures.

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

Pro 9:17. Stolen waters are sweet A proverbial expression for illicit pleasures; the Greeks and Latins make use of the same phrase. See chap. Pro 5:15 and Calmet. One of the profitable lessons to be learned from this chapter is, that there is nothing more inconsistent with wisdom, than the service of those impure lusts, which have been the ruin of all those who have been led by them; and therefore with this the wise man concludes his preface to the book of proverbs; again repeating (Pro 9:10.) that first principle upon which all religion is built, and wherewith he began his preface, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Indeed, there is no true wisdom but religion. The reader cannot but be pleased with the following passage from the excellent Bishop Berkeley’s Minute philosopher; a work which well deserves the most careful perusal, “To suppose a society of rational agents, acting under the eye of Providence, concurring in one design to promote the common benefit of the whole, and conforming their actions to the established laws and order of the divine parental wisdom; wherein each particular agent shall not consider himself apart, but as the member of a great city, whose author and founder is God; in which the civil laws are no other than the rules of virtue, and the duties of religion; and where every one’s interest is combined with his duty;to suppose this would be delightful. On this supposition, a man need be no stoic or knight-errant to account for his virtue. In such a system vice is madness, cunning is folly, wisdom and virtue are the same thing; where, notwithstanding all the crooked paths and by-roads, the wayward appetites and inclinations of men, sovereign reason [under sovereign grace] is sure to reform whatever seems amiss, to reduce that which is devious, make straight that which is crooked, and in the last act wind up the whole plot, according to the exactest rules of wisdom and justice. In such a system or society, governed by the wisest precepts, enforced by the highest regards and discouragements, it is delightful to consider how the regulation of laws, the distribution of good and evil, the aim of moral agents, do all conspire in due subordination to promote the noblest end, to wit, the complete happiness or well-being of the whole. In contemplating the beauty of such a moral system, we may cry out with the Psalmist, Very excellent things are spoken of thee, thou city of God!” See Min. Phil. vol. 1: p. 183.

REFLECTIONS.When in the days of his flesh the Wisdom of God appeared upon earth, he chose for the most part to convey his divine instructions by parables, a method which he had used of old, to communicate the mysteries of his gospel. So here,

1. A rich entertainment is provided in a sumptuous palace for Wisdom’s guests. She hath builded her house, the church upon earth, founded on Christ, the rock of ages; and gloriously adorned with all the gifts and graces of the Spirit therein abundantly dispensed; or the heavenly mansions provided for the saints’ everlasting rest, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. She hath hewn out her seven pillars; intimating the liability and perpetuity thereof, seven being the number of perfection; or referring to the constant provision of wise and able ministers, qualified with gifts and graces for the edifying of the body of Christ, and the support of the interests of his church and people. She hath killed her beasts, or her sacrifice; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. The sacrifice is a crucified Jesus, offering himself upon the cross for sinners. The wine is his blood, the richest cordial to the guilty soul. The table is furnished with all the blessings of grace, pardon, righteousness, peace, strength, consolation; the provision Jesus himself has made, and freely offers to every poor and hungry sinner.

2. An invitation is sent to them. She hath sent forth her maidens, the ministers of the gospel, appointed and sent to publish the glad tidings of salvation, She crieth upon the highest places of the city, as our Lord himself did at Jerusalem; and his servants continue to lift up their voice, with zeal and earnestness delivering their message. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither; even every soul which, conscious of its spiritual ignorance, desires to be taught the lessons of divine truth. As for him that hath no understanding, at least not distinguished by any attainments of science, she saith unto him, Come, eat of my bread, feed upon the delicacies provided, and drink of the wine which I have mingled; welcome to the festal board, to the wine and milk of gospel-grace; Eat, O my Friends; yea, drink abundantly, O beloved; for here no excess is to be feared. They who feed upon Christ and his love, cannot come with desires too enlarged; yea, blessed are they that hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled.

3. An admonition is given to the guests. Forsake the foolish, and live; the company of sinners, whose works are folly, and their wages death: these we must leave, have no fellowship with them, that we may live to God, quickened by his Spirit, and go in the way of understanding; the way of grace, peace, holiness, and glory, which the word of God lays open and plain before us, and in which all who come to Jesus Christ ought henceforth to walk, even as he also walked.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Pro 9:17 Stolen waters are sweet, and bread [eaten] in secret is pleasant.

Ver. 17. Stolen waters are sweet. ] Forbidden pleasures are most pleasing to sensualists, who count no mirth but madness; no pleasure, unless they may have the devil to their playfellow. Venison is nothing so sweet, they say, as when it is stolen.

“ Quod licet ingratum est; quod non licet, acrius urit:

Sic interdictis imminet aeger aquis. ” – Ovid.

Men long to be meddling with the murdering morsels of sin, which nourish not, but rent and consume the belly that receives them. Many eat on earth that which they digest in hell. a

a In terris manducant quod apud inferos digerant. – Augustine.

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