Chapter XXVII
CRITICAL NOTES.--+4.+ Delitzsch reads this verse "The madness of anger and the overflowing of wrath, and before jealousy who keeps his place?" +5. Secret love.+ Zöckler and Hitzig understand this love to be that "which from false consideration dissembles, and does not tell his friend of his faults when it should do so." Delitzsch thinks it refers to "love which is confined to the heart alone, like a fire, which, when it burns secretly, neither lightens nor warms." +8. Place,+ rather "home." +9.+ This verse is obscurely rendered in the English version. Delitzsch translates "Oil and frankincense rejoice the heart, and the sweet discourse of a friend from counselling of soul." Ewald, Elster, Luther, etc., render "The sweetness of the friend springeth from faithful counsel of soul." Zöckler, "The sweetness of a friend is better than one's own counsel." +10. Neighbour that is near,+ etc. "The near neighbour is he who keeps himself near as one dispensing counsel and help to the distressed, just as the far-off brother is he who, on account of his unloving disposition, keeps at a distance from the same." (Zöckler.) Most commentators substantially agree with this view of the text. +14. As a curse,+ etc. It is no better than a curse, or it may be regarded as veiling an evil intention. +16. And the ointment of his right hand.+ Zöckler and Delitzsch translate "And his right hand graspeth, or meeteth oil," that is, he cannot hold her. Other commentators, retaining the English translation, understand it to refer to the hopelessness of concealing her vexatious disposition. +17.+ Stuart and Noyes find here the idea of provocation. But most critics take the ordinary view. Miller translates "Iron is welded by iron: so, for a man, the tie is the face of a friend." +20. Hell and destruction,+ rather "the world of the dead." +Eyes.+ Some understand the reference to be the insatiableness of human passion. +21. A man to his praise.+ Delitzsch understands the meaning to be that a man is valued according to the measure of public opinion. Ewald, Hitzig, and others, coincide with Zöckler's rendering, "A man according to his glorying," i.e., "One is judged according to the standard of that which he makes his boast."
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 1.
DIVINE PROPERTY.
+I. A possession exclusively Divine.+ Both the distant and the immediate future belong to God alone; not only does He possess the exclusive control of what shall be in a hundred years to come, but to-morrow, and even the next hour and minute, are exclusively His. There is, doubtless, an existence beyond time where God's creatures can look forward to the future with more certainty than can man in his present condition, but it does not belong to even the highest archangel to say what shall be in the far-off or even the near time to come. This is the prerogative of Him alone with whom all is one eternal present.
+II. A possession to which men often lay claim.+ If we were to hear a man making definite plans as to how he would spend a fortune which it was only probable he would possess, we should wonder at his tone of certainty, and perhaps attribute it to weakness or presumption. But we all dispose of our days, and sometimes of our months and years, long before they are ours, and while our own past experience and that of others around us admonish us of the great uncertainties that surround our future, we are prone to lay our plans as if to-morrow and many years to come were ours. It is doubtless necessary and right to forecast to a certain extent--we must look forward to what will probably or may be on the morrow, or be guilty of another form of presumption. But we are not forbidden by the wise man to do this--all that the proverb warns us against is that boastful certainty in relation to the future which so ill becomes creatures so limited in their knowledge and so straitened in their resources--that definite laying of our plans which leaves God entirely outside of them, and that confident disposal of ourselves which forgets to say, "If the Lord will we shall live, and do this, or that" (James iv. 15). It would be foolish for a raw recruit to pretend to map out the plan of his general's campaign, or for an unlettered peasant to prophecy what line of policy would be adopted by the prime minister of the land; but he who boasts himself of to-morrow is more foolish, and is also wicked.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
The day is said to bring forth because time travaileth with the Lord's decrees, and in their season bringeth them forth, even as a woman with child doth her little babies. Indeed, time properly worketh not, but, because God's works are done in time, it is said to do those things which are done therein.--Muffett.
I. This ignorance of the morrow is necessary to the prosecution of our duties on earth. Could we draw aside the veil of the future and look at the things which are coming to us, our energies would be so paralysed as to incapacitate us for the ordinary avocations of life; mercy has woven the web of concealment. II. This ignorance of to-morrow is our incentive to the preparation for the future. Christ used this argument: "Be ye, therefore, ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."--Dr. David Thomas.
The same reason that should check our boasting of to-morrow may preserve us from desponding fears. It may be stormy weather to-day; but storms do not last all the year. We are filled and tormented with fears of some impending evil, but we often give ourselves real pain by the prospect of calamities that never were appointed to us by the providence of God.--Lawson.
How awfully has this boasting been put to shame! In the days of Noah "they married wives, and were given in marriage, until the very day when the flood came and destroyed them all." Abner promised a kingdom, but could not ensure his life for an hour. Haman plumed himself upon the prospect of the queen's banquet, but was hanged like a dog before night. The fool's soul was required of him "on the very night" of his worldly projects "for many years" to come. "Serious affairs to-morrow," was the laughing reply of Archias, warned of a conspiracy which hurried him into eternity the next hour. The infidel Gibbon calculated upon fifteen years of life, and died within a few months, at a day's warning.--Bridges.
To count on to-morrow so as to neglect the duty of to-day is in many respects the greatest practical error among men. None have a wider range, and none are charged with more dreadful consequences. Whether the work in hand pertain to small matters or great--to the sowing of a field or the redemption of a soul--for every one who resolves deliberately not to do it, a hundred tread the same path, and suffer the same loss at last, who only postpone the work of to-day with the intention of performing it to-morrow. The proverb contains only the negative side of the precept, but it is made hollow for the very purpose of holding the positive promise in its bosom. The Old Testament sweeps away the wide-spread indurated error; the New Testament then deposits its saving truth upon the spot. . . . Solomon warns us to distrust the future, and Paul persuades us to accept the present hour. "Behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation." "To-morrow," is the devil's great ally, the very Goliath in whom he trusts for victory. "Now," is the stripling whom God sends forth against him. A great significance lies in that little word. It marks the points on which life's battle turns. That spot is the Hougoumont of Waterloo. There the victory is lost or won. . . . An artist solicited permission to paint a portrait of the Queen. The favour was granted--and the favour was great, for probably it would make the fortune of the man. A place was fixed, and a time. At the fixed place and time the Queen appeared; but the artist was not there--he was not ready yet. When he did arrive, a message was communicated to him that her Majesty had departed, and would not return. Such is the tale. We have no means of verifying its history, but its moral is not dependent on its truth. If it is not a history, let it serve as a parable. Translate it from the temporal into the eternal. Employ the earthly type to print a heavenly lesson.--Arnot.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 2.
SELF PRAISE.
+I. Merit will win the praise of others.+ The light of the sun makes its existence felt by every man who is possessed of vision, and there are but few men who do not acknowledge that it is a good and pleasant thing. The perfume of the flowers cannot be hidden while there are creatures endowed with the sense of smell, and their fragrance is so grateful and refreshing to us, that it is sure to win from us an acknowledgement of its existence and expressions of delight. And as men are endowed with senses which recognise light and fragrance and every form of physical beauty, so there is a moral sense in man which compels him to discern moral excellence or moral superiority. The conscience and the reason stand in the same relation to spiritual worth and intelligence as the sense of sight does to the sunlight, or that of smell to a pleasant odor. It is true that there are men who will refuse to acknowledge the presence of moral worth, but there are also some who will not acknowledge the existence of good in anything. But they know it is there notwithstanding. And although man as fallen may be more ready to praise that which appeals to his senses than that which commands the admiration of his better nature, there will always be found some in every community who will give to real worth its due proportion of praise.
+II. Self-praise generally implies a lack of merit.+ A man of intellectual or moral worth loves knowledge or excellence of any kind for its own sake, and not for the height to which it may raise him in the estimation of his fellows. Although he is or ought to be grateful for the esteem of others, he does not make that the end of his existence; his satisfaction arises not from what people think of him, but from what he is in himself. And just in proportion as a man attains to mental or moral heights, so does he apprehend more truly how little after all he has and is, and so the higher he goes the less value he commonly sets upon his present attainments. It is therefore an inference most commonly drawn that he who praises himself is but little deserving the praise of others, and is not likely to get it. And this conclusion is generally a correct one.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
It must never be forgotten that all such passages imply the sincere and earnest cultivation of a real and divinely approved principle. The principle called for in this verse is that of true, self-diffident modesty. Considerations entirely different, and even opposite, may induce the suppression of self-praise:--even the very desire of praise from others. From this arises the danger of holding out--to the young especially--the motive or inducement of getting a character for modesty. This may produce artifice, affectation, simulation, hypocrisy. That which is wanted,--that which God approves and requires,--is honest simplicity, which neither, on the one hand, courts praise, nor, on the other, affects to disdain and undervalue it,--which neither blusters out its own commendation, nor whines and simpers, and depreciates, and makes light of what it is or of what it has done, merely for the purpose of making others say more. The affectation of despising the commendation of others is worse than the self-commendation that is reprehended. It is, in truth, the very same spirit showing itself under another aspect.--Wardlaw.
Praise is a comely garment, but though thyself do wear it, another must put it on, or it will never fit well about thee. Praise is sweet music, but it is never tuneable in thine own mouth, if it come from the mouth of another, it soundeth most tuneably in the ears of all that hear it. Praise is a rich treasure, but it never makes thee rich, unless another tell the sum.--Jermin.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES 3 and 4.
WRATH AND ENVY.
+I. A most unhappy combination.+ A fool and wrath. Wrath or displeasure is possible of every being capable of emotion. The power to love implies the power to hate, and he who can be pleased can also be displeased. The most tender mother can be angry, and righteously angry, with her child, and we read in Scripture of the "wrath of the Lamb" (Rev. vi. 16). But there is an infinite distance between the wrath of the Holy God, and even between that of a good man or woman, and that of a moral fool. Divine displeasure is an emotion, and never a passion. God is never passive in the hands of His anger. And in proportion as men are like God they always have their displeasure under the control of their will. It is as amenable to their conscience and their reason as an obedient horse to his rider. But a fool is a man who is without power of self-government--who is himself governed first by one passion or desire and then by another--like a ship without a rudder, at the mercy of the winds and waves. When such an one is in the hands of his wrath, a most mischievous and destructive force is at work. For whether we consider its effects on the man himself, or upon the objects of his anger, we may truthfully brand it as burdensome, and cruel and outrageous. 1. It is a cruel burden to the subject of it. A more wretched creature can hardly be found in the universe than a man passive in the hands of his own anger; it is like a heavy weight crushing out of him all power to stand morally erect and self-possessed, and like a knotted scourge inflicting wounds not on the body but on the spirit. 2. The objects of it also find it a painful yoke. In proportion as the fool is in a position to exert his influence over others, in the same proportion is the amount of misery which he can create by his unbridled wrath. Perhaps its effects are nowhere so painfully felt as in the domestic circle. As a master the wrathful fool may make his servants miserable, but they may be able to quit his service and so get beyond his influence. But there is no escape for wife and children from the wrath of a morally foolish husband and father; for such there is a millstone ever about the neck, and tormenting goads always pricking the feet.
+II. The most pitiless foe.+ Terrible as is the unbridled wrath of a fool, there is a passion more to be dreaded. The open battle-field in broad daylight is a place to be shunned, but an ambush at midnight is more certain death. Men fear to meet the lion upon the highroad, but the scorpion concealed among the grass is more dangerous. For some resistance can be offered to an open and avowed enemy, but no defence can be prepared against an unseen foe. And if wrath is like the angry lion, envy is like the deadly scorpion. The first gives some warning of his design, but the latter none. The man of unbridled passion often misses his aim by reason of his unsteady hand--the very excess of his wrath sometimes takes away his power to execute his intention. And he generally deals his blows at his enemy's face--speaks out his hatred in his hearing, and publicly and openly tries to do him a mischief. But the envious man acts in a different manner. The natures that are most prone to envy have generally some power of self-control--they are more cold-blooded than passionate men. Though they are moral fools, they have generally enough intellectual wisdom to see the best method of bringing to pass their malicious purposes; and they consequently prefer an ambush to an open fight, and choose rather to stab a man in the back than to meet him face to face. In other words, they do not upbraid him openly and give him an opportunity to defend himself, but blacken his character by insinuations when he is absent. And as it is the nature of envy to brood over its grievances in secret, and that of unbridled wrath to manifest its displeasure immediately and openly, the first gathers strength by repression and the other loses it by the very force of its expression.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
As an earthquake ariseth from a tumultuous vapour shut up in the caverns and bowels of the earth, where it tosseth and tumbleth until it break out and overturn all that standeth in the way of it, so envy is a pestilent vapour which lieth in the heart of a man, where it boileth and fretteth until it tumbleth and throweth down all that standeth in the malicious eye of it. Houses and trees stand firm against a tempest of lightning or a flood of rain, and men stand out against the cruelty of sudden wrath and rage of a man's lasting anger, but what house or tree standeth against the force of an earthquake, and who is able to stand against the force of envy?--Jermin.
I do not ask for men passionless; this is hominem de homine tollere. Give them leave to be men, not madmen. Anger in the best sense is the gift of God, and it is no small art to express anger with premeditated terms, and on seasonable occasions. God placed anger among the affections engrafted in nature, gave it a seat, fitted it with instruments, ministered it matter whence it might proceed, provided humours whereby it is nourished. It is to the soul as a nerve to the body. The philosopher calls it the whetstone to fortitude, a spur intended to set forward virtue. But there is a vicious, impetuous, frantic anger, earnest for private and personal grudges; not like a medicine to clear the eye, but to put it out. . . . To cure the bedlam passion . . . let him take some herb of grace, an ounce of patience, as much of consideration how often he gives God cause to be angry with him, and no less of consideration how God hath a hand in Shimei's railing--mix all these together with a faithful confidence that God will dispose all wrongs to thy good; hereof be made a pill to purge choler. . . . Anger is a frantic fit, but envy is a consumption. . . . Among all mischiefs it is furnished with one profitable quality--the owner of it takes most hurt. . . . It were well for him that he should dwell alone. It is a pity that he should come into heaven, for to see "one star excel another in glory" would put him again out of his wits. . . . His cure is hard. . . . Two simples may do him good if he could be won to take them--a scruple of content and a dram of charity.--T. Adams.
Well then might it be asked: Who is able to stand before envy? Even the perfect innocence of paradise fell before it. Satan lost his own happiness. Then he envied man, and ceased not to work his destruction. (See Wis. ii. 23, 24.) It shed the first human blood that ever stained the ground (1 John iii. 12). It quenched the yearnings of natural affection, and brought bitter sorrow to the patriarch's bosom. Even the premier of the greatest empire in the world was its temporary victim. Nay more--the Saviour in His most benevolent acts was sorely harassed, and ultimately sunk under its power. "His servants therefore must not expect to be above their Master."--Bridges.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 5 and 6, 9 to 11, and 14.
TESTS OF FRIENDSHIP.
We group these verses together because they all treat of the same subject, viz., friendship in reality and friendship in profession only. The same subject occurred in the preceding chapter (see on verses 23-28, and in chap. xvii. 17, 18, page 519).
+I. He does not love us truly who does not love us well enough to tell us of our faults.+ The true friend must desire to see the object of his affection as free from faults as it is possible for him to be; the truest and the purest love seeks by every means within its reach to bless the beloved one. And as we should not consider him a friend who would make no effort to free us from any bodily disease or physical deformity, we ought not to call him an enemy who will strive to rid us of moral and spiritual blemishes. For such an one gives proof that he cares more for our ultimate good than for our present smile--he shows that he is even willing to risk our displeasure in the hope of doing us real kindness. He who gives us kisses when he ought to give us reproof, or who holds back deserved rebuke from cowardice, is more cruel than if he withheld from us an indispensable medicine simply because it had a bitter taste. For if we will not take the unpleasant draught from the hand that we have clasped in friendship, we are not likely to find it more pleasant when administered by a stranger, much less by an enemy. And if a wound is to be probed it is surely better for the patient that it should be done by a skilful and tender hand than by one who has no sympathy with us and no acquaintance with our inner life. And as it is certain that those who do not love us will either rebuke us for our faults or despise us on account of them, the real friend is he who, by a loving faithfulness, strives to rid us of them. What would have become of David if Nathan had lacked the courage to say to him, "Thou art the man."
+II. Such a true friend is the most refreshing and invigorating influence that can bless our life.+ Setting aside the blessing and strength which come to man direct from his Father in heaven, there is no source whence he can derive so much help and comfort as from the hearty sympathy and sound advice of a real friend. They are like the anointing oil and perfume which refresh the weary Eastern traveller at the end of his day's journey, removing the traces of toil and the sense of fatigue, and putting new life into every limb. Life is a dusty, toilsome highway for most men, and they sorely stand in need of some soothing and renewing influence as they pursue the journey. And this, Solomon assures us--and experience confirms his assurance--is to be found in hearty friendship.
+III. The cultivation and retention of such friends should be one of the aims of life.+ Seeing that there is no other means by which we are so likely to get a true acquaintance with ourselves, and no other earthly influence which is so likely at once to elevate and console us, we ought to try and make real friends and be faithful to our friendships after they are formed. And especially we ought ever gratefully to remember the friends of our youth--those who gave us help and counsel when we most needed them, and to whose faithfulness and forbearance we probably owe far more than we can ever rightly estimate. There is a proneness in the youth as he rises into manhood, and is probably removed from early associations and lifted into a higher social sphere, to forget his earliest and truest friend, but the truly wise and honourable man will count fidelity to such a sacred duty.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Verse 6. Many indeed profess their value for a true friend; and yet in the most valuable discharge of friendship, they "count him their enemy." The apostle had some just apprehension on this account, though so wise and affectionate, and speaking from the mouth of God (Gal. iv. 12-16). As of the rule of friendship was, that we should absolutely, "please," without reference to the Divine restriction--"for good to edification" (Rom. xv. 2). Christian faithfulness is the only way of acting up to our profession. And much guilt lies upon the conscience in the neglect. But this open rebuke must not contravene the express rule of love--"telling the fault between thee and him alone." Too often, instead of pouring it secretly into our brother's ear, it is proclaimed through the wide medium of the world's ear, and thus it passes through a multitude of channels before it reaches its one proper destination. The openness of the rebuke describes the free and reserved sincerity of the heart, not necessarily the public exposure of the offender; save when the character of the offence, or the interests of others, may appear to demand it (1 Tim. v. 20).--Bridges.
This is that false love which really injures its object; and which, on this account,--that is, from its injurious tendency, how little soever designed, gets in the Scriptures the designation of hatred: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him" (Lev. xix. 17).--Wardlaw.
Verse 9. The best physic for man is man. For friendship is a kind of life to man, without which there is no comfort of a man's life. Friendship is in men a kind of step to God, and by means of love man draweth near to God, when, as from being the friend of man, he is made the friend of God. But as among the Jews there was no oil that did so rejoice the heart as that wherewith the kings were anointed; no perfume that did so delight the soul as that which the priest offered; in like manner as there is no friend so sweet as God, so there is no counsel that doth so glad the soul, so cheer the heart, as that which He giveth in His Word, whereby we are made even kings and priests unto Him.--Jermin.
The heartiness of a friend's counsel constitutes its excellence. It is not official, or merely intelligent. It is the counsel of his soul.--Bridges.
Verse 10. "Neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity." This has certainly the appearance of a very strange advice. Whither, in the day of our calamity, should we go, if not to the house of a brother? Where are we to expect a kind reception, and the comfort we require, if not there? But the proverb, like all others, must be understood generally, and applied in the circumstances and the sense obviously and mainly designed. The meaning seems to be either--1. Do not choose "the day of thy calamity" for making thy visit, if thou hast not shown the same intimacy before, in the day of thy success and prosperity. This unavoidably looks not like the impulse of affection, but of felt necessity, or convenience and self-interest: "Ay, ay," your brother will be naturally apt to say, "I saw little of you before: you are fain to come to see me now, when you feel your need of me, and fancy I may be of some service to you." Or, 2. Let not sympathy be forced and extorted. "In the day of thy calamity," if thy brother has the heart of a brother, and really feels for thee, he will come to thee; he will seek and find thee. If he does not, then do not press yourself upon his notice, as if you would constrain and oblige him to be kind. This may, and probably will, have the effect of disgusting and alienating him, rather than gaining his love. Love and sympathy must be unconstrained as well as unbought. When they are either got by a bribe, or got by dint of urgent solicitation, they are alike heartless, and alike worthless. The reason is--"For better is a neighbour that is near, than a brother far off." The antithetical phrases "at hand" and "far off," have evident reference here, not to locality, but to disposition. A friendly and kindly-disposed neighbour, who bears no relation to us save that of neighbourhood, is greatly preferable to a brother--to any near relation whatever that is cold, distant, and alienated.--Wardlaw.
The proverbial sense is, that better is a lesser comfort which is ready at hand, than a greater solace which we must go to seek after.--Jermin.
Verse 14. It is an excellent description of a notorious flatterer, and a just denunciation of his due reward. First, he blesseth with a loud voice, as if he wanted breath and sides to set out the praise of his friend, and as if he would not only awaken him with the news of it but many others also with the loudness of it. Secondly, he doth it rising early as if it were some main and principal business which he had to do, and wherein he would show himself more forward than any others. Thirdly, he doth it in the morning, as if he would bless his friend before he blessed God, or rather would make him his god by offering his sacrifice of praise unto him.--Jermin.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 7.
WANT OF APPETITE.
+I. The value which men set upon things depends upon their condition and circumstances.+ When we look around upon our fellow-creatures, we can but remark the widely different estimates which different men place upon the same things, and also the different value which the same man attaches to the same object at different times. To begin as Solomon does, with our lower nature--there are hundreds of well-fed citizens in every community who look with indifference at the most tempting dainties that are set before them, and perhaps close to their mansions are to be found as many to whom one good meal would give the keenest physical enjoyment. And if a traveller were passing through England he would probably turn away with disdain from a dinner of bread and water; but if he were in some far-off desert land he would hail such plain fare with delight. If we apply the proverb to man's intellectual nature, we find the same law in operation. Some men are surrounded with opportunities of mental culture and growth, and they despise and neglect them because they have no intellectual appetites, while others who are shut out for such advantages are longing eagerly for them. And it is no less true in spiritual things. The longings and aspirations of those whose spiritual appetites have been awakened are entirely unknown to those who have not felt their soul need, and the language which they use to express their desires is an unknown tongue to those who say, "I am rich and have need of nothing" (Rev. iii. 17). There was a time in the life of Saul of Tarsus, when the language of Paul the apostle would have been utterly unintelligible to him. It would have been hard to convince the young man who consented to the death of Stephen, that he would one day "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus" (Phil. iii. 8), but the different estimate which he set upon the Gospel of the Son of God depended entirely upon the difference in his own spiritual condition at those different periods in his life. Even the gift of a Saviour is lightly esteemed, when men are full of pride and worldliness; it is true in this sense as in others that "the full soul loatheth an honeycomb."
+II. A sense of need will not only teach men to value luxuries and comforts, but will make what was unpalatable welcome and acceptable.+ The young man who had lightly esteemed the good things on his father's table, came not only to remember with a longing desire the bread that fed his father's servants, but would "fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat" (Luke xv. 16). And when a youth has known the misery of homelessness, the restraints of his father's house, and the daily toil which once he felt to be so irksome, are light and easy in comparison. And so it is when a soul begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness. The conditions of reconciliation with God and the yoke of Christ, which before were so distasteful, are joyfully and eagerly accepted, and that which was bitter becomes sweet to the soul.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 8.
A MAN AND HIS PLACE.
+I. It is good for every man to have a place in the world which he can call his home, and work which he feels especially belongs to him.+ A man should have some spot on earth which is dearer to him than all the world beside, and some calling or profession which he can recognise as his own. It is not by any means desirable that he should always be in that place, or that he should never employ his time in other work. The bird often leaves the nest and flies hither and thither for many hours, and men must and ought not to confine themselves always to one place and to the same employment. Change of scene and occupation is always desirable within certain limits, and is often a necessity with men. But however far the bird flies she returns to her nest, and however much men may be obliged or may choose to wander, they should always have one place to call home; and however many things may occupy their hours of leisure, they should have one kind of work which especially fills up their life.
+II. It is not good hastily and often to quit one sphere of work and one mode of life for another.+ Every honest calling has some advantages connected with it, and almost every sphere in life has something to recommend it; and steady perseverance in one employment, and continuance in one position, is often far more conducive to our material prosperity, and more beneficial to our character and reputation, than constant changes, even although they promise more speedy promotion and a smoother path to some desired end. This much is certain, that change merely for the sake of change is foolish, and change without good and sufficient reason is not wise.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
By place, the Holy Ghost understandeth particular callings. Now God had taken care that none should molest a bird in her nest, there she was safe (Deut. xxii. 6, 7); but when she begins to wander then she is in danger, either to be shot by the fowler or caught in the snare, or made a prey to other ravenous birds. So a man that is diligent in his calling whilst he is employed therein, is in God's precincts, and so under God's protection; but when he wandereth abroad from his calling, going out of his bounds to sit and talk, he is a waif and a stray, and so falleth to the lord of the manor, "the god of this world." Reader, thou mayest expect to be preserved whilst thou art a-working, but not when thou art wandering. Those soldiers who leave their place in a march and straggle to pilfer, are many times snapt and slain by their enemies, while they who keep their places are safe and secure.--Swinnock.
Changes of place is thought of as an evil. The sense of security is lost and cannot be regained. The maxim, it may be noted, is characteristic of the earlier stages of Hebrew history, before exile and travel had made change of country a more familiar thing. We seem to hear an echo of the feeling which made the thought of being "a fugitive and a vagabond" (Gen. iv. 12, 13) the most terrible of all punishments.--Plumptre.
In such a comparison as this, we cannot but suppose there is a reference to the purposes for which the nest is constructed. The allusion is doubtless to the period of incubation--to the hatching of the eggs, and the rearing of the young. If the bird "wanders from her nest" during that period, what is the consequence? Why, that the process is frustrated--the eggs lose their vital warmth; they become cold, addled, and unproductive. Absence, even for a very short time, will produce this effect; and produce it to such a degree, that no subsequent sitting, however constant and prolonged, can ever vivify again the extinct principle of vitality. And then, during the period of early training, when the young are dependent on the brooding breast and wing of the parent bird for their warmth, and on the active quickness of the parent bird, as their purveyor, for their sustenance,--desertion is death. If the mother then "wanders from her nest," forsaking for any length of time her callow brood--they perish, the hapless victims of a mother's neglect. They are starved of cold, or they are starved of hunger; or, it may be, their secret retreat is found out by some devouring foe. Such appears to be the apt illusion. Let us now consider to what cases it may with truth and profit be applied. 1. In the first place then, I apply it to a man's HOME. Home may surely be regarded as most appropriately designated "his place." It is there he ought to be; not merely enjoying comfort, but imparting it;--not the place of selfish ease and indulgence, but of dutiful and useful occupation. He has a charge there,--committed to him, not by the instincts of nature merely, but by the law of God. His family demand his first interest and get his first attention. 2. I apply the proverb to the SITUATION IN LIFE which has been assigned to a man by Providence. As the brooding bird should be found upon her eggs, or with her young, so should every servant, in every department, be found in his own place, and at his own occupation. It should be the aim of every man to have it said of him with truth--Tell me where he ought to be, and I will tell you where he is. 3. I wish to apply the words to the SANCTUARY OF GOD. I think they may be so applied with perfect appropriateness. Every Christian must delight in God's sanctuary. It is to him, as a worshipper of God, "his place;"--the place where, at stated times, he ought to be, and where he chooses, and desires, and loves to be. How frequently, how strongly, how beautifully, does the Psalmist express this feeling!--and on one occasion with an exquisitely touching allusion to those birds of the air, that built their nests in the vicinity of the temple; and which, when banished from Jerusalem, and kept at a distance from the sacred precincts, he represents himself as envying--coveting their proximity to the altars of Jehovah (Psa. lxxxiv. 3).--Wardlaw.
The 9th, 10th, 11th, and 14th verses have been considered with the 5th and 6th. For Homiletics on the subject of verse 12 see on chap. xiv. 15, page 364. Verses 13, 15, and 16 are almost a verbal repetition of chaps. xx. 16, and xix. 13. For Homiletics see pages 589 and 573.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 17.
A SOCIAL WHETSTONE.
+I. This proverb may be applied to men's general intercourse with each other.+ It is needful for a man to mingle with his fellow-creatures in order to have his faculties and capacities developed and fitted for action. Social intercourse is stimulating to the mind and refreshing to the spiritual nature, and is indeed indispensable to our happiness and usefulness. "A man by himself," says Muffet, "is no man--he is dull, he is very blunt; but if his fellow come and quicken him by his presence, speech, and example, he is so whetted on by this means that he is much more skilful, comfortable, and better than when he was alone." The human countenance, as the organ by which the soul of one man makes its presence felt by another, has a quickening influence even when no words are uttered, and this general friction of soul with soul preserves men from intellectual dulness and spiritual apathy.
+II. It is especially applicable to intercourse with those whom we know and love.+ Above and beyond the general need of man to have constant intercourse with man, there are times and seasons when the face of a friend is especially helpful. The sword that has seen much hard service must come in contact with another steel instrument to restore its edge. The ploughshare that has pushed its way through hard and stony ground must be fitted for more work by friction with a whetstone, and the axe, after it has felled many trees, must be subjected to a similar process. So the intellectual and spiritual nature of man becomes at times in need of a stimulus from without which may fitly be compared with this sharpening of iron by iron. Hard mental toil, contact with uncongenial persons and things, disappointments, and even great spiritual emotions, have a tendency to exhaust our energies and depress our spirits, and render us for a time indisposed to exertion, and perhaps incapable of it. In such a condition a look of sympathy and encouragement from one who understands us is very serviceable indeed, and has the power to arouse within us fresh hope, and therefore new life for renewed action.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
As you can only sharpen iron by iron, you can only sharpen souls by souls. Neither dead matter, however majestic in aspect or thunderous in melody, nor irrational life, however graceful in form or mighty in force, can sharpen a blunted soul. Mind alone can quicken mind; it is in all cases the spirit that quickeneth.--Dr. David Thomas.
Iron is welded by iron. (This is Miller's rendering.) That is, we must bring a "force" of "iron" (not of tin, or brass, or wood, but, by the very necessities of its nature, of iron), and strictly a face of it, so that face may meet face (as of the water in the 19th verse), or they cannot run or mould themselves together. Fit a face of iron, red hot, to a face of iron, also hot, and force them hard upon each other, and thus you weld them. Bring a man face to face with his neighbour, and let them be warmed by a common taste, and, though one of them be God Himself, this will weld them.--Miller.
We owe some of the most valuable discoveries of science to this active reciprocity. Useful hints were thrown out, which have issued in the opening of large fields of hitherto unexplored knowledge. The commanding word in the field of battle puts a keen edge upon the iron (2 Sam. x. 11-13). The mutual excitation for evil is a solemn warning against "evil communications." But most refreshing is it, when, as in the dark ages of the Church, "they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." Sharpening indeed must have been the intercourse at Emmaus, when "the hearts of the disciples burned within them." The apostle was often so invigorated by the countenance of his friends, that he longed to be "somewhat filled with their company." Upon the principle--"Two are better than one"--our Lord sent His first preachers to their work. And the first Divine ordination in the Christian Church was after this precedent (Acts xiii. 2-4).--Bridges.
The countenance of a friend is a wonderful work of God. It is a work as great and good as a sun in the heavens; and verily, He who spread it out and bade it shine did not intend that it should be covered by a pall. . . . He intends that it should shine upon hearts that have grown dark and cold. . . . The human countenance--oh, thou possessor of the treasure, never prostitute that gift of God! If you could, and should pluck down these greater and lesser lights that shine in purity from heaven, and trail them through the mire, you would be ashamed as one who had put out the eyes and marred the beauty of creation. Equal shame and sin are his who takes this terrestrial sun--blithe, bright, sparkling countenance--and with it fascinates his fellow into the old serpent's filthy folds.--Arnot.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 18.
THE REWARD OF SERVICE.
+I. The reward of the servant of nature.+ The fig-tree may here be taken as typical of all that the earth produces for the sustenance of man. God has ordained that man shall be a co-worker with Himself in making the earth fruitful. If He gives the life to the herb or the tree, and sends the sun and the rain to quicken and nourish it, man must give his service too. It is his business to prepare the soil, to tend the God-given life, and to protect it as far as possible from all adverse influences. And this being done, some reward is certain. There will be cases of individual and occasional failure, but fruit for service is the rule in the kingdom of nature.
+II. The reward of service rendered to man.+ Although the word servant is now obnoxious to many ears, we do well to remember the estimate which God puts upon faithful service and the important place which it holds in the world. He who served unto death left this command on record, "Whosoever will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all" (Mark x. 44), and a little consideration will convince us that the whole of human society is knit together by service. In one sense, all true men and women, however high their position, are servants to others. The good monarch and the faithful statesman are servants to their nation as truly as men and women in more lowly stations are servants to individual masters. It is, however, doubtless to these latter that the wise man here refers, and faithful service rendered by them in their small sphere is as much esteemed by God as the service of the greater and more gifted. Those who serve "as to the Lord, and not unto men" shall "of the Lord receive the reward of the inheritance," says Paul (Col. iii. 22-24). Honour shall be awarded by God, not in proportion to the kind of service rendered, but in proportion to the spirit in which it is performed, and this fruit of faithful service will never fail. And, as a rule, esteem and gratitude from the earthly master will also be rendered.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
All sorts of inferiors, then, as both servants and subjects, must make this reckoning and account of their superiors and rulers, that they are unto them their peculiar charge, whereon they must attend, and the special hope of their honour and preferment. They must therefore think and say thus with themselves: Surely this is the fig-tree that I must watch and keep; this is the same olive-tree that I must look unto. I must not suffer this to be spoiled or destroyed. I must not suffer my ruler's goods to be wasted, nor his name to be discredited, nor the gifts of God in him to decay; I must keep his favour, and I must seek his welfare, as much as in me lieth.--Muffet.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 19.
A CORRECT LIKENESS.
+I. A mirror in which we may see the reflection of the hearts of others.+ All the knowledge that we have of our own personal appearance is gained by means of some reflecting surface. We can only look upon ourselves indirectly, and it is quite possible that every person who looks upon us has a juster conception of our appearance than we ourselves have. If there were no substance which could serve as mirrors, a man must always remain ignorant as to those peculiarities of feature which distinguish him from every other person on the face of the earth. But none are destitute of nature's looking-glass--the stream or lake, or even a smaller quantity of water, will show a man what he is like as to his exterior. And by means of a medium we can gain much knowledge concerning the inner life of our human brothers and sisters. As we may gain a good idea of our own face by seeing its reflection in water, so we may form a fairly correct estimate of the feelings and hopes and desires of others by studying our own. After making allowance for many differences upon the surface dependent upon difference of temperament, and education, and circumstances, we shall be safe in concluding that in the depths of the human soul there are spots which form a common meeting-ground for all mankind.
+II. A means by which we may gain the hearts of others.+ We cannot plead ignorance of the way to our brother's heart. We must not conclude, because in outward expression he differs from us, we have therefore nothing in common, no clue to what is passing within his breast. If we could call to mind how we felt in like circumstance, or try to imagine how we should feel if we were in his place, we shall hardly fail to form some idea of his feelings, and shall therefore be able so to regulate our behaviour towards him as in some measure to supply his soul needs.
(There are other interpretations of this verse, for which we refer to the Comments.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Here is one of the foundations on which that rule is built of doing to others as we would be done by (Exod. xxiii. 9). . . . One corrupt heart is like another, and so is one sanctified heart, for the former bears the same image of the earthy, the latter the same image of the heavenly.--Henry.
The proverb may be regarded as expressing reciprocity of soul. It may mean this: that just as the water will give back to you the exact expression which you gave to it--the frown or the smile, the hideous or the pleasing--so human hearts will treat you as you treat them. "With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again." This is true--manifestly true; kindness begets kindness, anger anger, justice justice, fraud fraud, the world through.--Dr. David Thomas.
In the world we see our own hearts embowelled; and there we can learn what ourselves are at the cost of other men's sins.--Bp. Hopkins.
As in the outline water trembles, and is uncertain, so also are hearts. The lesson is: Trust not!--Luther.
No man knoweth or showeth the spirit of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him. The water, as a certain glass, somewhat dim indeed, but very true, representeth the countenance therein imprinted unto the countenance that beholdeth the same; even so the heart showeth man to man; that is to say, the mind and the conscience of every man telleth him justly, though not perfectly what he is, as whether he be good or evil, in God's favour or out of the same; for the conscience will not lie, but accuse or excuse a man, being instead of a thousand witnesses. . . . As water that is troubled representeth the visage amiss, so a troubled or polluted mind may sometimes wrongly show to a man the estate wherein he standeth. But if the soul be not wholly corrupt and the conscience seared as with a hot iron, it will declare to a man his condition rightly, though not peradventure fully in all respects.--Muffet.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 20.
INSATIABILITY.
+I. A destructive force always in operation.+ Ever since the earth closed over the first dead body, it has been constantly opening to receive those whom death has made ready for the grave, and to-day this terrible and remorseless destroyer is as busy in our midst as ever. And we know that it will be so to the end of time; while the present dispensation lasts, men will never be able to say that death has ceased to claim the mortal part of man, or that the last grave has been dug in the vast graveyard of the world. This is a most melancholy stand-point from which to view man and his destiny. If all the human race lived to a good old age, and went down to their last earthly resting-place like a stock of corn fully ripe, death would still be a dark and dreary thing, looked at by itself, but it becomes much more appalling when it strikes men and women in the prime of life, and carries them off, often without warning, from the place where they seemed so much needed, and to which they were bound by so many ties.
+II. A faculty of men always at work.+ The eye of man is simply an organ by which knowledge is conveyed to his mind. And his appetite for fresh mental food is not lessened by that which he has received in the past--on the contrary, it is quickened and whetted in proportion to the supply, for while an ignorant man is often content in his ignorance, the man who has learned most is generally the most eager to learn more. And this passion in man for knowledge is not quenched by the certain consciousness he possesses that one day he must, that to-morrow he may, quit the scene of his investigations, and end his search after truth under his present conditions. Surely if men did not instinctively feel that this life is not the only one, their desire after constant intellectual growth would not be so ardent. If there was not that within them that told them that death would not end their opportunities of growing in knowledge, the contemplation of the shortness of life would paralyze the acquisitive faculty of men. But we take the strength and universality of this undying desire of man as an argument for his existence after death and the grave have taken possession of the material house in which he lived and laboured on the earth.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
The eye is the avenue of growth. The growth will be eternal. . . . It will take in more and more and raise or sink us through eternal ages. . . . The terms here used are used elsewhere for anything insatiate (chap. xxx. 16). Solomon describes a great psychological law, that the mind by its very nature sees, and by all its seeings will grow, either in one way or the other.--Miller.
The eyes, by a very natural figure, are put for the desires. Upon that which is the object of our desire, we fix our eyes; and that with an intensity of settled eagerness proportioned to the degree of the desire (chap. xxiii. 5). The meaning, then, is not merely that the sense of sight never has enough of its own peculiar enjoyments, but that the desire that is by the eye expressed is never satisfied by any amount of present gratification. The desires of men are insatiable. They set their hearts on some particular object, and long for its attainment. They fix in their mind some point of advancement in the acquisition of the world,--some measure of wealth, or of power which they think, if once realised, would satisfy them to the full. They get what they want; but they still long as before. There is ever something unattained. Having gained the summit of one eminence, they see another above it; and as they mount, their views widen and their conceptions and wishes amplify, and still more is required to fill them.--Wardlaw.
The meaning of the second clause as indicated by this parallel cannot be doubtful. It relates to the really demoniacal insatiableness of human passion, especially the "lust of the eyes." (Comp. 1 John ii. 16, James iii. 6; and in particular Prov. xxx. 16; Eccles. i. 8.)--Zöckler.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 21.
A CRUCIBLE FOR CHARACTER.
Although the second interpretation of this proverb given in the Critical Notes is very generally adopted, it will very well bear the other constructions given below, which is indeed adopted by many expositors.
+I. Praise received is a test of character.+ Many moralists think that it is more difficult to pass uninjured through "good report" than through "evil report." Dr. Payson reckons "well meant but injudicious commendations" a source of temptation to him, and we do certainly often meet men possessing many good qualities whom popularity seems to have injured. But all men who have any striking intellectual gifts or moral excellencies will be subject to this refiner's fire, and if they pass through it uninjured they will prove that they are made of very pure metal. As we remarked on verse 2, page 725, merit will win praise, and therefore every deserving man will be more or less subject to this test, and his conduct and bearing under it will reveal the real character of his motives and the strength of his principles. In proportion as his actions have been disinterested and his aims pure and unselfish, in the same proportion will he be able to bear praise. If he is a truly humble man--if he has a right sense of his dependence on God and a consciousness of his own shortcomings--the praise of his fellow-creatures will only make him strive to be more deserving of it; but if there is an alloy of baser metal mixed with the gold and silver of his character, such an ordeal will be very likely to reveal it.
+II. Praise given is a test of character.+ That upon which a man bestows praise reveals the standard by which he rules his life. Men praise that which they value, and there cannot therefore be a better revelation of their moral condition. A man who praises the action of another, irrespective of its moral character, shows that he attaches little value to goodness, while he who praises a bad action proclaims himself a lover of sin. On the other hand, commendation bestowed upon good deeds and godly men at least indicates a preference for what is good, which one may hope will be manifested not only in word but also in deed.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
1. It may express what every man, with reference to the praise bestowed upon him, ought to do:--that is, he ought to do with it what the "fining-pot" does to the "silver," and the "furnace to the gold." He should try it well. There is a deal of dross frequently in it; and men are apt to be fonder of the dross, in some of its appearances, than of the sterling metal. The process of refining should in this case be very cautiously pursued: just as a chemist, if anxious for the correct result of an experiment with the crucible, will be the more careful in making it, in proportion as he is conscious of any leaning towards a particular theory,--lest this should bias his mind and put him off his guard. 2. "A man is to his praise what the fining pot is to silver, and the furnace is to gold," because a man's conduct actually does put to the test the commendation bestowed upon him. That conduct is like "the fining-pot" and "the furnace" to it, in regard to the estimate formed of it by others. His behaviour detects whether it be or be not just and merited. Commendation naturally excites notice. All eyes are on the man who elicits applause, to ascertain if the applause be well-founded. In this way the commendation is put to the test; and the man himself is the tester;--proving or disproving the justice of the character given him.--Wardlaw.
As praise is due to worth, so it is the tryer and refiner of worth. For as silver is melted in the fining pot, and gold in the furnace; so is the heart of man even melted with joy in the furnace of praise. And as those metals which have least solidity are soonest melted, so where there is least of the solidity of worth, there the heart is soonest melted with praise. And as in the furnace the light matter is blown away into smoke and vapour; so by praise a light heart is quickly blown up, and vainly transported and carried away with it. But as the silver and the gold are made the finer and the purer by the furnace, so true worth is ennobled and made the richer by just praise ascribed to it. For he that hath worth in him, the more he is praised the more will he endeavour to deserve it, and by praise seeing what is dross in himself, will by his care purge it out, and cast it away.--Jermin.
The thought in verse 22 is but a repetition of a thought which has often occurred before, as for instance in chaps. xvii. 10 and in xix. 29. See pages 509 and 510, also page 581.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 23-27.
MODEL FARMING.
These words were especially applicable to the Israelitish people in their early history, when every family lived upon its own domain and found all its simple wants supplied by the produce of the land and the cattle which fed upon it. The paragraph deals--
+I. With the duties of such a life.+ Solomon had several times before given exhortations to diligence in labour, but here he sees rather to enforce the necessity of diligent and constant supervision on the part of the master and owner of the land. He is not addressing a hired servant, but one who is a landed proprietor and has flocks and herds of his own. If a man in so highly favoured a position desires to reap all its benefits he must diligently superintend all who he employs and set them a good example of industry and perseverance. He must not be content to leave these things to hirelings, but must give such close attention to all that is going on in his domain as to be able intelligently to guide all the varied engagements which follow one another as one season succeeds the other. No man ought to consider this an unworthy employment of his mental powers, and he who does so would do well to remember that the cultivation of the soil was the employment which God gave to man when He first created him in His own image. As an incentive to industry in this direction the proverb contains a reminder of the uncertainty of riches--it is unwise of any man to be wholly dependent upon a fortune made in the past and to have no resource in case of its loss.
+II. It sets forth the rewards attached to the performance of such duties.+ There is first the supply of the necessaries of life. Luxuries are not promised, but it is implied that simple food and clothing will not be wanting; and a sufficiency of these is all that is really needful to man's comfort. But there is a pleasure in obtaining them in this way which is surely not found in any other calling. The cultivator of the ground escapes much of the monotony found in most other professions, and has pleasures and advantages to which dwellers in the city are strangers. If he is more exposed to the hardships of the winter, the joy of spring--"when the tender grass sheweth itself"--is surely enough to repay him for it, and then follow the varied occupations of summer, one affording relief to the other, until the year is crowned with the "joy of harvest." Surely no mode of life is more favourable to bodily and spiritual health than the one here sketched by the Wise Man.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Solomon tells us, in another place, that the instability and uncertainty of earthly things, after all our care, is a motive to draw off our hearts from them, and to fix our eyes upon nobler objects; but he tells us, in this place, that the perishing nature of earthly things is likewise a reason for bestowing a moderate and lawful share of our attention upon our temporal interests.--Lawson.
Verse 25. The frail condition of fading worldly things is here well expressed, it appeareth only and is cut down. The tender grass sheweth itself, and it is but a shewing, for that being done, it is eaten up presently, being at once, as it were, both seen and devoured. The herbs of the mountain are gathered; their growing is not mentioned as being no sooner grown than gathered, and as being grown for the gathering only. . . . Wherefore as the careful husbandman looketh to the hay and grass and herbs, and takes them in their time, so is the good spiritual husbandman to consider the short time of worldly contentments, and in their time to use them, at no time to trust in them. As hay and grass and herbs are taken in their season, so it is the season in all things that is to be taken. And, therefore, when the season appeareth, let not thy negligence appear in omitting it; when occasion shows itself, show not thyself careless in apprehending of it; when the fruit of opportunity is to be gathered, climb the mountain speedily.--Jermin.
Verses 26 and 27. In these two verses the wise man dehorteth from wastefulness of apparel, and from excess in diet. . . . The proverbial sense is, that plainness of apparel keepeth a man's estate warmest; and that a homespun thread in clothing is a strong and lasting thread in the web of a man's worldly fortune, and that a sober and temperate feeding both in himself and family doth best feed the estate of any man, and that the flock of a man thriveth best when he is contented with the nourishment and sustenance that cometh from the flock.--Jermin.
* * * * * *
Chapter XXVIII
CRITICAL NOTES.--+2. For the transgression,+ etc. Or, "In the rebellion." "For this use of the word transgression in the sense of revolt, compare the verb employed in this sense in 2 Kings i. 1; also Exod xxiii. 21, etc." (Zöckler.) Zöckler translates the last clause, "through wise, prudent men, he (the prince) continueth long." Delitzsch reads, "Through a man of wisdom, of knowledge, authority continues." +5. Judgment,+ or "what is right" (Delitzsch). +6. Perverse,+ etc., literally "he who is crooked in two ways." Delitzsch translates, "a double-dealing deceiver." +8. Usury and unjust gain.+ Literally, "Interest and usury." "These are so distinguished according to Lev. xxv. 36, that the former denotes the annual revenue of a sum of money loaned out, the latter an exaction in other things, especially in natural products" (Zöckler). +12. Hidden.+ Or "sought for." Delitzsch understands this to mean "plundered," or "subjected to espionage." +16.+ Ewald, Zöckler, Delitzsch, and others read this verse, "O prince devoid of understanding, he that hateth unjust gain continueth long." +17.+ First clause. "A man laden with the blood of a soul." +18. Perverse ways.+ Rather "double ways." +21.+ Zöckler reads the last clause, "And (yet) even for a piece of bread (many) a man will transgress." +22.+ Rather "The man of an evil eye hasteth," etc. +23.+ Delitzsch reads this verse, "He that reproveth a man that is going backwards," etc.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 1.
COWARDICE AND COURAGE.
+I. This act of a wicked man reveals an unnatural condition.+ The sparrow flies to her nest when the hawk is on the wing, and the stag flees before the hunter or hounds that are on his track. But neither bird nor beast is ever found fleeing in terror when it is not pursued. But bad men flee when they are not chased, and when there is nothing following them more substantial than their own shadow.
+II. The cause of this unnatural action.+ There must be some influence at work somewhere which strikes this terror into the human spirit. There must be some hidden power which thus unnerves a man when he is out of the reach of any visible avenger, and causes him to tremble at the sound of his own footstep, or to see the reflection of the face of the man he has wronged in every human countenance that he meets. In the absence of all causes without we must look within, and there we find the pursuer. It is conscience that thus makes every wicked man a coward--that voice within him which thus bears witness to the existence of a Divine law which he has broken, and to a Divine Lawgiver to whom he must render an account whether he escape human justice or not.
+III. The hopeless nature of the act.+ The man who flees when none are pursuing reveals that he is engaged in an attempt to flee from himself, and this is an endeavour that will ever be fruitless. A man may quit the scene of his crime and go into a country where all around him is entirely different, but he will be painfully conscious that he is himself the same being--that although he has changed everything outside himself he has preserved his identity. He can free his soul from his body and so flee from the world, but he cannot free himself from the consciousness of guilt and so break the tie that binds him and his sin together. For this flight from self is but another name for flight from God--from Him to whom alone the Psalmist's words apply:--"Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there; if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall uphold me" (Psa. cxxxix. 7-10).
+IV. The entirely contrary attitude of a righteous man reveals an entirely opposite relation to conscience and to God.+ The natural position of any creature in relation to the Creator is the position which he held when he was originally created. Man was then on such good terms with himself and in such conscious favour with God that he had no sense of fear and no desire to flee from the Divine presence. It was not until the first sin had been committed that Adam and his wife hid themselves, and fled when no man pursued. But there are descendants of Adam who, although they cannot pretend to sinlessness, have no guilty fear of God, and consequently are not afraid of man. The original and natural relation between them and their Father in heaven has been re-established by their acceptance of His conditions of reconciliation, and being now on the side of righteousness they have no reason to flee even when many pursue them, much less when they are alone with themselves and God. They can sing with the Psalmist, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? . . . Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident" (Psa. xxvii. 1, 3).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Moses "feared not the wrath of the king." Caleb and Joshua stood firm against the current of rebellion. Elijah dared Ahab's anger to his face. Nehemiah, in a time of peril, exclaimed--"Should such a man as I flee?" The three confessors stood undaunted before the furious autocrat of Babylon. The Apostles' boldness astonished their enemies. Paul before the Roman governor, and even before Nero himself, witnessed a good confession. Athanasius before the Imperial Council of Heresy; Luther at the Diet of Worms, finely exemplified this lion-like boldness.--Bridges.
The wicked is a very coward, and is afraid of everything; of God, because He is his enemy; of Satan, because he is his tormentor; of God's creatures, because they, joining with their Maker, fight against him; of himself, because he bears about with him his own accuser and executioner. The godly man contrarily is afraid of nothing; not of God, because he knows Him his best friend, and will not hurt him; not of Satan, because he cannot hurt him; not of afflictions, because he knows they come from a loving God, and end in his good; not of the creatures, since, "the very stones in the field are in league with Him;" not of himself, since his conscience is at peace.--Bp. Hall.
Conscience within a man is one extremity of an electric wire, whose other extremity is fastened to the judgment-seat. . . . A man may be saved from death by seeing the reflection of his danger in a mirror, when the danger itself could not be directly seen. The executioner, with his weapon, is stealthily approaching through a corridor of the castle to the spot where the devoted invalid reclines. In his musings the captive has turned his vacant eye towards a mirror on the wall, and the faithful witness reveals the impending stroke in time to secure the escape of the victim. It is thus that the mirror in a man's breast has become in a sense the man's saviour, by revealing the wrath to come before its coming.--Arnot.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 2.
THE PENALTY OF REVOLT.
As will be seen by a reference to the Critical Notes, the word transgression would be better translated rebellion. The proverb then sets forth,
+I. The disadvantages attendant on revolt against the existing government.+ Whether the rebellion be a lawful one or not--whether the ruler that is dethroned be a tyrant or a wise and just monarch, the result is very much the same. There will be many claimants to the vacant place, and many to support the claims of each aspirant. This is an effect which is almost certain to follow any uprooting of the existing order of things, whether the order be good or bad. If the crew of a vessel put their officers in irons, the difficulty will immediately arise as to who is to guide the vessel. If this is not speedily settled, the ship will be in danger of running upon the rocks while she is drifting on without a guide. It is the same with the vessel of the State. Many justifiable efforts to better the government of a country have broken down at this point--although there has been entire unity of feeling in favour of a change, there has been a great diversity of opinion as to who should inaugurate it and succeed those who have been deprived of authority. The confusion and insecurity which such a division has caused, has often made way for a return to the old condition of things, and the last state of the land has been worse than the first. But this can hardly be used as an argument against all revolt against existing abuses, but only as a strong incentive to try every other means before resorting to this last extremity.
+II. That which makes revolt unnecessary, and consequently conduces to the peace of the commonwealth.+ Wisdom and prudence on the part of the monarch and his ministers (for the words may be referred to either) will avert such a calamity. That kingdom is highly blest in which the throne is filled with a worthy occupant, and surrounded by men of intellectual ability and moral worth, and therein lies its only real security. For every reasonable man knows that the reins of government must be held by some one, and there is generally a sufficient number of reasonable citizens in a nation to uphold an enlightened administrator of righteous laws, and to keep in check those turbulent spirits to be found everywhere, who, under the name of patriots, only advocate change to serve their own selfish ends.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
"Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King." The kingdom to which they belong has one King; and a king whose reign is permanent as well as unparticipated. There are no rival powers there. If the princes of this world, in the plenitude of their presumption, take upon them to intrude themselves within the precincts of His sole jurisdiction, and to intermeddle with what does not belong to them, the subjects of the King of Zion must stand by His prerogative, resist the encroachment, and, at all risks as to this world, refuse obedience. In the spiritual kingdom of which they are subjects, Christ is the only Head; and His Word the only authoritative rule.
And there is no succession here. He reigns over the house of Jacob for ever; "and of His kingdom there is no end." Blessed be God for this! The sceptre of our King can never, even to the end, be wrested out of his hands; and He never dies. He must reign, till all His people are saved with an everlasting salvation, and all His enemies are put under His feet.--Wardlaw.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 3.
THE MOST INEXCUSABLE OPPRESSION.
+I. Oppression from an unexpected quarter.+ Although poverty sometimes has a very hardening influence upon men, we do not often find it takes the form of oppression of their fellow-sufferers in poverty. On the contrary, the sympathy of one poor man for another is often the brightest spot in his character. But the ability to oppress implies some elevation of the oppressor over the oppressed, and therefore leads us rather to look for the heartless tyrant among those who have known poverty, but who are now in some degree raised above it. And even here we should hardly expect to find an oppressor of the poor. Such a man cannot plead ignorance of the miseries of poverty. We might expect that he would be full of sympathy for those into whose trials his own experience has so fitted him to enter. If we wanted a tender nurse for a wounded man we should expect to find one in him who has himself been wounded, and who knows what bodily pain is, and in a man who has himself been poor we ought to find the most patient and generous ruler and judge of the poor. Oppression from such a quarter is a painful surprise.
+II. Oppression to an extreme degree.+ The oppressor of the proverb is one who has sinned against the knowledge furnished by his own experience, and is therefore a greater transgressor than one who sins without such experimental knowledge. If this barrier is not strong enough to restrain him, he is not likely to be hindered by any less powerful ones, and will therefore allow his cruel and unnatural passions to have full dominion over his conduct. And so it will come to pass that a man, who has been poor if he become an oppressor, will be a more terrible one than he who has always been rich and powerful. It may be regarded as a rule with few exceptions, that he who breaks through the most restraints in order to sin will go to the greatest lengths in it.
ILLUSTRATION.
This illustrative comparison is here most impressive. It is founded upon a phenomenon which I have frequently seen, and sometimes felt. A small black cloud traverses the sky in the latter part of summer or beginning of autumn, and pours down a flood of rain that sweeps all before it. The Arabs call it sale; we, a water-spout, or the bursting of a cloud. In the neighbourhood of Hermon I have witnessed it repeatedly, and was caught in one last year, which in five minutes flooded the whole mountain side, washed away the fallen olives--the food of the poor--overthrew stone walls, etc. Every summer threshing-floor along the line of its march was swept bare of all precious food. . . . And such is the oppression of a poor man that oppresseth the poor. These landlords, and sheiks, and emirs are generally poor, hungry, greedy, remorseless, and they come in successive swarms, each more ravenous than his predecessor. On a gigantic scale, every hungry pasha from the capital is such a sale, sweeping over the distant provinces of the empire. Vast regions, formerly covered with golden harvests in their season, and swarming with people full of food and gladness, are now reduced to frightful deserts by their rapacity.--Thomson's "The Land and the Book."
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Woeful is the condition when necessity and imbecility meet together and encounter. For necessity hath no mercy, imbecility hath no help. When poverty oppresseth anyone, there is no measure in his oppressing another that is poor. He spares not to strip him naked who hath already no clothes on. He fears not to be a spoiler whom spoiling hath left nothing. For there is nothing that doth so harden the hart of man as his own need; and he hath little or no feeling of another's misery, who feels the biting of his own. As the rain falls, so the earth bears it; and as oppression dealeth, so must the poor suffer it; for as the earth lieth under all, so doth he. The rich man is a dashing rain upon him, and when he pleaseth, washeth away his means and succour from him . . but there is no such sweeping rain unto him as when the oppressor is oppressed by poverty. . . . For he having nothing, takes all that he can get, and the hunger of his own distress so devoureth all, as that he leaveth no food.--Jermin.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES 4 and 5.
LAWKEEPERS AND LAWBREAKERS.
+I. A quick understanding in Divine things springs only from sympathy with Divine precepts.+ Spiritual truth can only be apprehended by a soul in love with what is good and true. A mere intellectual assent to certain moral propositions will not bring men to a real and intimate acquaintance with Divine realities, for the revelation of God is not a mathematical problem which appeals only to the intellect, but a message to the consciences and affections of men. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him" (Psa. xxv. 14). There must be spiritual sympathy before there can be spiritual perception, for sin puts out the eyes of the soul, and renders a man incapable of apprehending spiritual realities, as physical blindness makes him unable of seeing material objects. Hence our Lord made willingness to do His Will the one essential condition to knowledge concerning His teaching (John vii. 17).
+II. Those who love and obey the Divine precepts contend with the wicked by their obedience.+ Love to God and obedience to Him are inseparable. The one is the necessary outcome of the other, so that "seekers after God" described in verse 5, and the "keepers of the law" mentioned in verse 4, are the same persons. The lives of such people are a more powerful reproof to the godless and wicked than any words which they can utter. The feathers of the arrow have their place and value in helping the arrow find its destination, but it is the steel point that penetrates the breast. So words of admonition fitly spoken have their worth, and are of some weight in contending with the wicked, but a constant life of obedience to God is more convincing and penetrating. So that ever true servant of God is fighting against the servants of sin by simply seeking to bring his life into conformity with His Master's Will.
+III. All neglect of God's law is a commendation of sin.+ There are many men who would be ashamed openly to praise a wicked action who yet by their disregard of the Divine requirements encourage open transgressors. For there is no middle way here. Every man is on one side or the other, and all who are not contending with the wicked by obedience are countenancing their evil courses by their own forsaking of the law of God.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Verse 4. "Forsaking;" simply evading or avoiding it, no matter on what pretence. Solomon strikes for the result. He scoffs at all apology. Do you, or do you not, obey direction? If you do not, the fact that you do not is all that is needed to mislead the looker-on, for, seizing upon that most villainous of all things, praising the wicked--a thing that scarce ruffians do, a thing that obscene seducers scarcely venture--he says, All disobedience does it. . . . But the lonely widow, going quietly to heaven, who has asked carefully the road, and has moved on as she was directed, the text suddenly arms with a sword and spear! She is a warrior! In her quiet walk she is smiting down the rivals of her King. And Solomon literally means it. The most effective army of the saints is the quiet group that dream of nothing but obedience.--Miller.
Verse 5. The natural man perceiveth not the things that belong to God, but the spiritual man discerneth all things. Albeit there is some light in the wicked man which is sufficient to make him inexcusable, yet he is always so blinded by natural ignorance and malice that both Christ and the Law to him are a mystery. Hence it cometh to pass that he neither fully seeth what is to be believed nor yet what is to be done, either generally in all sorts of actions, or particularly in the course of his calling or office.--Muffet.
Origen saith, "Of them who do not see, some are blind, and do not see because of their blindness; others are in darkness, and therefore do not see; but others do not see because they shut their eyes." And this is which many times makes the evil man not understand judgment--he will not do judgment, and therefore will not understand it. But true also it is that wickedness is a great blinding of the understanding. For it turns away the eyes from the Son of Righteousness, and casteth also a black shadow before it. . . . But what do they not understand, that understand Him that understandeth all things? In all things that are required of them, they understand what is to be done by them; in all things that are taught them, they understand the truth of them. . . . They understand the judgment that shall be upon the wicked; they understand the reward that shall be to themselves; they understand in all things to do judgment to others; they are general scholars in their duties both to God and man.--Jermin.
He who makes wickedness his element, falls into the confusion of the moral conception; but he whose end is the one living God gains from that, in every situation of life, even amid the greatest difficulties, the sense of what is morally right. Similarly the apostle John (1 John ii. 20): "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things:" i.e., ye need to seek that knowledge which ye require, and which ye long after not without yourselves, but in the new Divine foundation of your personal life; from thence all that ye need for the growth of your spiritual life, and for the turning away from you of hostile influences, will come into your consciences.--Delitzsch.
For Homiletics on verse 6, see on chap. xix. 1, page 561; on verse 7, chap. x. 1, page 137; on verse 8, see the last remarks on chap. xiii. 22, page 331. On the subject of verse 9, see on chap. xv. 8 and 9, pages 407 and 408, and on verse 10, see on chap. xxvi. 27, page 721, etc.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 11.
WISDOM IS WEALTH AND POVERTY.
+I. Riches tend to produce self-deception.+ The power of riches to give external position and influence is almost unlimited. Wealth can bring its owners into the palaces of princes, and place them on an equal footing with men of talent and rank. It can surround a man with servants who will obey his nod, and with friends who will flatter him to his heart's content. By means of riches a man can make his name famous in both hemispheres while he lives, and cause it to be remembered after he is dead. It is not therefore surprising that many men who possess this potent means of influence should be so dazzled by it as to be unable to see themselves apart from it, and should credit themselves with being more than ordinary men, while the only difference is that they have more. A rich man is always in danger of mistaking his wealth, which is but an appendage to his personality, for the wealth of wisdom, which is a part of oneself, and so of being the subject of the worst of all deception, viz., self-deception.
+II. But the possessor of riches does not often deceive other people as to his real worth.+ Men around him may flatter him and treat him as if they thought him very wise and clever, but they are often despising him all the time, and oftentimes there are those about him who, although they are beneath him in rank and wealth, are far above him in sagacity and penetration, and can read his character and motives far better than he can himself. Wealth can do much for a man, but it cannot purchase for him the respect and esteem of even the poor man who "hath understanding," and poverty has many drawbacks, but it is free from this one--it does not minister to human vanity.
+III. A poor man who has moral and mental wealth is a greater blessing to the world than even a rich man who is wise and good.+ He can show the world that there are some things better than wealth, and that these better things are in no sense connected with it or dependent upon it. He can convince men that God is but a shadow and that riches of heart and mind are the substance, and he can demonstrate how much more lasting and satisfying is the influence gained by wisdom than that which is born of wealth.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
The phrase "searches him out," may be variously understood. He discerns his true character. He sees that wisdom and wealth do not always go together; that a full purse is quite compatible with an empty head. He sees, too, that a man's wisdom is not to be estimated by his opinion of himself. He sees shallowness where the man himself fancies depth, and folly in what elates him with a vain consciousness of his own wisdom. He sees abundant reason for not making the rich man his oracle, or setting him up as his idol, or making his example the pattern for his imitation, merely for the number of his acres, or for the gold and silver in his coffers. He sees how prone men in general are to allow weight to counsel in proportion to the wealth of the counsellor. But the "understanding" which God has given him shows him the absurdity of this. He "searches out" the fallacy, and directs and exposes the imprudence and folly of sentiments and proposals, that are propounded and recommended by the wealthiest of the wealthy. And still further, taking "understanding" in its higher sense, as it is used in this Book as including a mind Divinely enlightened and under the influence of the fear of God and all the principles of true religion:--the poor man who has this, sees and knows that "a little with the fear of the Lord is better than the riches of many wicked;"--that "a good understanding have all they who do his commandments;"--that no folly can be more palpable and flagrant than the folly of "trusting in uncertain riches,"--"setting the eyes upon that which is not," and neglecting provision for the soul and for eternity,--forfeiting the "unsearchable riches" provided by the mercy of God for sinners,--all the blessings, unspeakably precious, summed up in "life everlasting;"--spurning away the counsel that would put these in possession;--greedily coveting the treasures of the world that perish in the using, and rejecting the Divine offer of the treasures of immortality. The poor man who hath understanding--I can hardly say "searches out" the folly of this,--he discerns it by a kind of spiritual intuition.--Wardlaw.
The thought in verse 12 is the same as in chap. xi. 10. See Homiletics on page 206.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 13.
CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS.
+I. Sin tends to produce shame.+ Even a child often tries to hide an act of disobedience to a good mother's law, and this not from fear of punishment merely, but from an undefined sense of shame. And this feeling clings to all men through life who are not entirely hardened in iniquity. So long as the conscience is not entirely stifled, men try to hide their wrong actions from their fellow-men even when no human punishment would follow the discovery, and they even try to cover them from themselves by inventing excuses for them. They often endeavour to cloak their sin before their fellow-creatures by putting on the garb of special sanctity, and so add hypocrisy to their other transgressions, and they will try to palliate their guilt at the bar of their own conscience by lowering the standard of morality which God has set up within them, or by persuading themselves that He is a hard taskmaster, requiring them to render Him an unreasonable and a burdensome service. There are other motives which induce men to cover their sins besides this one of shame, and other methods by which they try to do it, but whatever impels them, and whatever means they use, the truth taught in the proverb is always verified, viz., that all such makeshifts are worse than useless.
+II. The only prosperous method of dealing with sin.+ This method consists of two acts which God has joined together, and which man may not put asunder, because neither of the two by itself would give evidence that the sinner was fit to receive full absolution. If a man confesses his sin without forsaking it, he seems almost to aggravate his transgression, for he acknowledges that he sins knowing that it is sin, and that it is useless to pardon him to-day, because he will do the same thing to-morrow. And if he forsakes his sin without confessing his guilt he shows that he does it from some other motive than abhorrence of evil. Certain sins are sometimes forsaken from expediency, or from self-righteous motives, but in such cases there is no guarantee that there will not be a return to them. Our Lord describes such when he speaks of the unclean spirit going out of a man, but returning to find an empty house--a soul with none of the newborn hopes and desires and aims which always come with true repentance--and of such He says that "the last estate of that man is worse than the first" (Luke xi. 26). But when hearty and sincere acknowledgement of sin is joined with earnest endeavour to forsake it, God sees a soul which will know how to value His pardon, and will find strength in it to fight against evil and finally to overcome it. And to such a soul it is given to know the "blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile" (Psa. xxxii. 1, 2).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
There are various ways of endeavouring to cover sins. By denying them. A lie is a cover which men put over their sins to conceal them from others. They sin and deny the fact, they wrap up their crimes in falsehood. Thus Cain, Rachel, Joseph's brethren, Peter, Ananias and Sapphira, endeavoured to hide their sins. By extenuating them. Men plead excuses. The influence of others, the power of circumstances, the moral weakness of the constitution. Extenuation is a common cover. By forgetting them. They endeavour to sweep them from the memory by revelry and mirth, by sensuality, worldliness, and intemperance.--Dr. David Thomas.
A child of God will confess sin in particular; an unsound Christian will confess sin by wholesale; he will acknowledge he is a sinner in general, whereas David doth, as it were, point with his finger to the sore: "I have done this evil" (Psa. li. 4); he doth not say I have done evil, but this evil. He points at his blood-guiltiness.--Watson.
Confession of sin will work a holy contrition and a godly sorrow in the heart (Psalm xxxviii. 18). Declaration doth breed compunction. Confession of sin is but the causing of sin to recoil on the conscience, which causeth blushing, and shame of face, and grief of heart. . . . Secret confession gives a great deal of glory to God. It gives glory to God's justice. I do confess sin, and do confess God in justice may damn me for my sin. It gives glory to God's mercy. I confess sin, yet mercy may save me. It gives glory to God's omnisciency. In confessing sin I do confess that God knoweth my sin.--Christopher Love.
It is fearful for a man to bind two sins together when he is not able to bear the load of one. To act wickedness and then to cloak it, is for a man to wound himself and then go to the devil for a plaster. What man doth conceal God will not cancel. Iniquities strangled in silence will strangle the soul in heaviness. There are three degrees of felicity:--the first is, not to sin; the second, to know; the third, to acknowledge our offences. Let us, then, honour Him by confession whom we have dishonoured by presumption. . . . Sinfulness is a sleep, confession a sign that we are waked. Men dream in their sleeps, but tell their dreams waking. In our sleep of security we lead a dreaming life, full of vile imaginations; but if we confess and speak our sins to God's glory, and our own shame, it is a token that God's Spirit hath wakened us. . . . This is true, though to some a paradox; the way to cover our sins is to uncover them.--T. Adams.
Sin is in a man at once the most familiar inmate and the greatest stranger. . . . Although he lives in it, because he lives in it, he is ignorant of it. Nothing is more widely diffused or more constantly near us than atmospheric air; yet few ever notice its existence and fewer consider its nature. Dust, and chaff, and feather, that sometimes float up and down in it, attract our regard more than the air in which they float; yet these are trifles that scarcely concern us, and in this we live, and move, and have our being. . . . Such, in this respect, is sin. It pervades humanity, but, in proportion to its profusion, men are blind to its presence. Because it is everywhere, we do not notice it anywhere. . . . But the chief effort of the alienated must ever be to cover his sins from the eye of God. . . . All the wiles of the tempter, and all the faculties of his slave, are devoted to the work of weaving a curtain thick enough to cover an unclean conscience from the eye of God. Anything and everything may go as a thread to the web; houses and lands, business and pleasure, family and friends, virtues and vices, blessings and cursings--a hideous miscellany of good and evil--constitute the material of the curtain; and the woven web is walked over and over again with love and hatred, joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, to thicken the wall without, and to deepen the darkness within, that the fool may be able, with some measure of comfort, to say "in his heart, No God."--Arnot.
Sin and shifting came into this world together. Sin and Satan are alike in this, they cannot abide to appear in their own colour. . . . We must see our sin to confession, or we shall see it to our confusion. . . . No man was ever kept out of heaven for his confessed badness; many are for their supposed goodness.--Trapp.
St. Gregory speaketh, "He that covereth his sin, doth not hide himself from the Lord, but hideth the Lord from himself, and that which he doth, is that himself may not see God, who seeth all things, not that he be not seen."--Jermin.
For Homiletics on verse 14 see on chaps. xii. 15, and on xiv. 16, pages 271 and 365.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 15-17.
VICE AND VIRTUE IN HIGH PLACES.
+I. A cruel ruler is on a level with the most cruel of the brute creation.+ The more power a man holds in his hand over the destinies of his fellow-creatures the greater is his responsibility, and the blacker is his crime if he abuses his opportunities of blessing them. In proportion to the unlimited character of his authority ought to be his care not to overstep the limits of the strictest justice, and he is bound to lean rather to the side of mercy than to severity. The less reason he has to fear any retaliation from those whom he rules, the more is he bound to mingle much gentleness and forbearance with his government, for it is the act of a coward to act towards the weak and defenceless as we should fear to act towards one who is our equal in strength. The man who can be capable of such cowardice no longer deserves the name of a man, but puts himself on a level with those beasts of prey from whom we shrink in terror, knowing that in them there is no reason, or conscience, or pity to which we can appeal.
+II. Incapacity in a ruler may work almost as much misery as cruelty.+ A mother may not be guilty of positive acts of cruelty towards her children, and yet they may suffer very keenly and very seriously from her unfitness to train their souls and her ignorance as to how to take care of their bodies. Her neglect may in the end bring consequences as fatal as the greatest severity would have done. This rule holds good wherever one human creature has others dependent upon him, and the more entire the dependence, the more miserable will be the results of his or her incapacity. In countries where rulers do not bear absolute sway, a "prince who wanteth understanding" is not so great a curse as where his will is the only or the supreme law, but the history of our own country contains instances of monarchs who, although they would have been harmless in private life, were, from lack of capacity to rule, very great oppressors of the people.
+III. The curse which rests upon all such oppressors of their kind.+ Like Jehoram of old, they depart undesired (2 Chron. xxi. 20). The blood of their brothers crieth out for vengeance upon their heads, and no man puts forth a hand to arrest their doom. Even those who pity as well as blame, if they wish well to the body politic, feel it is a blessing when such tyrants are removed from the earth--when their power of doing violence to the rights of their fellow-creatures is at an end. "Let no man stay him" for the sake of those whom he leaves behind, and let no man hinder his departure for his own sake, for his continuance in his place upon the earth would but give him opportunity to add to his crimes, and thus increase the weight of his punishment. (For illustrations of this subject and additional Homiletics see on chap. xi. 17, page 220--also page 208.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Verse 15. But these emblems were insufficient to represent the monstrous barbarities that have been often exercised by those that were at the head of the Roman empire in its pagan or antichristian state; and, therefore, Daniel and John represent them under the figure of monsters more dreadful than any that were ever beheld by the eyes of man (Jer. xxxi. 18, Daniel vii. 10, Rev. xiii.). The language of inspiration could not furnish out more terrible images for the devil himself, than those which have been used to represent the wickedness of tyrannical and persecuting powers. We ought to be thankful for the wounds that have been given to the beast with seven heads and two horns, and for the civil and religious liberties which we enjoy.--Lawson.
Verse 16. As want of understanding maketh a man an oppressor, so to be an oppressor showeth a want of understanding in him. But the special want at which the verse seems to aim is the greedy want of covetousness. For as a covetous man wanteth understanding, because he seeketh that so eagerly which he cannot keep, so a covetous prince wanteth understanding, because he seeketh that so earnestly which he hath already.--Jermin.
Verse 17. God's jealous regard for the life of man was strongly expressed at the second outset of our world's history; and expressed in terms of evident allusion to the early and awful violation of its sacredness in the antediluvian period:--"And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man" (Gen. ix. 5, 6). For my own part, having examined the various principles of interpretation by which those who are for doing away all capital punishments have explained these words, I have not been able to satisfy myself with any one of them. They seem to be all forced and unnatural, and, on different critical grounds, inadmissible. I cannot but regard the language as bearing no fair and natural interpretation, but that which makes it a Divine requisition, on the part of man, of blood for blood--that is, of life for life; and as thus affording more than a sanction, as laying down a requirement. Though I am far from conceiving that we are bound by Jewish criminal law, yet in the law regarding murder there is so evident an allusion to this original and universal injunction, and the language withal is so very pointed and emphatically reiterated, that I cannot go the length of those who would include murder among crimes to be punished with infliction short of death. When set beside the original and universal law it serves, by its very emphasis and peremptoriness, to confirm the ordinary interpretation of that charge to the second progenitors of our race as the just one, and to show, therefore, the universality of its obligation.--Wardlaw.
Even the heathen judged this awful transgressor to be under the Divine vengeance (Acts xxviii. 4). The death therefore of the murderer is an imperative obligation. It is miscalled philanthropy that protests against all capital punishments. Shall man pretend to be more merciful than God? Pity is misplaced here. The murderer therefore of his brother is his own murderer.--Bridges.
This is not directly an admonition against that which is immoral; it may also be a declaration of that which is impossible.--Delitzsch.
The subjects of the next six verses have all been treated before. For Homiletics on verse 18, see on chaps. x. 9, and xi. 3, pages 153 and 195. Verse 19 is almost a verbal repetition of chap. xii. 11, see page 266. On the main subject of verses 20 and 22, see on chaps. xiii. 11 and xxi. 5, pages 306 and 609. On verse 21, see on chap. xvii. 23, page 524, and on verse 23 chap. xxvii. 5 and 6, page 728.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 24.
ROBBING PARENTS.
+I. A parent's sacred rights.+ A father and mother, if they are worthy of the name, have a very strong claim upon their children's consideration. Their children owe them obedience in their childhood, and reverent and loving regard when they have reached manhood. If their parents are rich, their possessions are to be held as peculiarly sacred. "A feeling," says Wardlaw, "should attach to it somewhat like that which attaches to holy things--things pertaining to God and His service. The violation of their property should be felt to be a description of sacrilege." On the other hand, if the parents are poor, their children are certainly bound to help to support them, and so in some measure to repay to them the expense of their own bringing up. Christ puts this duty to parents before that of giving even to the support of Church ordinances, and severely condemns the Pharisees and Scribes for inculcating opposite teaching (Mark vii. 11).
+II. The character of the child who violates these rights.+ There are, alas, many sons and daughters who, instead of rendering more honour to their parents than to other people give them less, and instead of showing more regard to their parents' rights than to those of a stranger, seem to ignore the fact that they owe anything to them. In the matter of money, those who would not touch the possession of any other person will sometimes appropriate what belongs to their parents, and say, "It is no transgression;" or if they do not go quite so far as this, do not hesitate to live upon them when they ought to be earning their own living, or to incur debts which they know their parents will discharge. He who is guilty of any of these negative or positive transgressions "robs," his father and his mother, and his character is given here. Although he may not be openly a vicious man--although he may seem to be much less blameworthy than the man who openly violates the law of the land, he is here put on a level with him. The sin in the sight of God is as great, and there is in such a man the capability of developing into an open transgressor, for he who can violate such holy demands of duty, and trample upon the rights of such a sacred relationship, only wants the motive and opportunity to commit actions which would at once class him among the criminals of society.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
"But if any widow have children or nephews, let them first learn to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents" (1 Tim. v. 4). It is observable, children's kindness to their parents is termed piety or godliness, because it is a part thereof, and very acceptable to God. Besides, it is called a requiting them, intimating that it is not an act of grace, but of justice.--Swinnock.
To say that we did not look upon a thing to be a transgression will be no just excuse for any piece of conduct that we might have known to be criminal. It will only shew us to be so depraved that even our minds and our consciences are defiled.--Lawson.
For Homiletics on the first clause of verse 25, see on chap. xiii. 10, page 305.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 26, AND LAST CLAUSE OF VERSE 25.
SELF-CONFIDENCE.
+I. He that trusts in his own heart is a fool, because he refused to profit by the experience of others.+ If a man who has made a perilous voyage declares at the end of it that he has found his compass utterly untrustworthy, we should count him a madman who would set out upon a similar expedition with the same faulty guide; and if he went down in mid-ocean to rise no more, we should certainly say that it was his own fault. To trust to a guide which another man has proved to be unworthy of confidence when so much was at stake, would be universally condemned as obstinate foolhardiness. Yet this is what men do in the voyage of life. The testimony of most men who, rejecting the guidance of a higher wisdom, have shaped their lives according to their own ideas and inclinations, has been at the end that they have trusted a guide that has misled them. Solomon himself steered a good deal of his life by this deceiving compass, and at the end confessed that he had acted foolishly in so doing (Eccles. i. 2). It may be that the words of our text were the expression of his own bitter experience on the subject, and that he is here counselling others to avoid the error into which he had fallen.
+II. He is a wise man who seeks guidance from God because he trusts in One who has proved Himself worthy of confidence.+ He who has declared that the human heart "is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer. xvii. 9) has offered Himself as the object of man's trust and as His infallible guide. Millions of the human family have assented to the truth of the Divine statement, and have testified to the blessedness of submission to Divine guidance, and have been manifestly delivered by their submission from the bondage of evil, and elevated into a region of moral purity and freedom to which other men are strangers. They are living proofs that He who exhorts men to trust in Him is not a deceiver, but can justify the demands He makes upon our confidence and submission. Human experience has set its seal to the inspired word:--"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For He shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit" (Jer. xvii. 7-8). Surely, then, he is a wise man who makes the trial for himself.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
The heart, indeed, has instrumentality to save us. We must trust everything to that. But it is the heart dwelt in by Christ. He that takes his heart and confides it to the Son of Man, receives for it an altered life, and will be able to trust that heart thus trusted to Christ as the instrument in the battle of deliverance.--Miller.
Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, yet the needle of his compass, which points to it, tells him which way he sails. Thus the heart that is touched with the loadstone of Divine love, trembling with godly fear, and yet still looking towards God with fixed believing, interprets the fear by the love in the fear, and tells the soul that its course is heavenward towards the haven of eternal rest.--Leighton.
Whoever trusts another for his guide must do it upon account of two qualifications to be found in him:--1. That he is able to direct and lead him. 2. That he also faithfully will give the best directions. . . . There are two things which may make a trust foolish:--1. The value of the thing which we commit to a trust. 2. The undue qualifications of the person to whose trust we commit it. In both respects the confidence reposed by men in their own hearts is exceeding foolish. I. The honour of God is entrusted. So far as the manifestation of God's honour depends upon the homage of His obedient creatures, so far is it at the mercy of our actions, which are at the command of the heart, as the motion of the wheels follows the disposition of the spring. God is never disobeyed but He is also dishonoured. II. Man trusts his heart with his happiness in this world, and this is two-fold--spiritual and temporal. III. He entrusts his heart with the eternal concernment of his soul hereafter. . . . The heart of man will also be found to have eminently these two ill qualities utterly unfitted for such a trust. I. It is weak, and so cannot make good a trust. Its weakness is twofold. 1. In point of apprehension it cannot perceive and understand certainly what is good. 2. In point of election, it cannot choose and embrace it. II. The heart is deceitful, and so will not make good its trust. . . . The delusions of the heart may be reduced to three sorts. 1. Such as relate to the commission of sin. 2. Such as relate to the performance of duty. 3. Such as relate to a man's conversion, or change of his spiritual estate. . . . The heart if it does not find sins small, has this notable faculty, that it can make them so . . . and in duty is willing to take up with the outside and superficies of things, and . . . it will persuade him that he is converted from a state of sin, when perhaps he is only converted from one sin to another; and that he has changed his heart when he has only changed his vice.--South.
On the subject of verse 27, see on chap. xi. 24-26, page 234, and on chap. xiv. 31, page 389. The subject of verse 28 has been treated in chap. xi. 10, page 206.
* * * * * *
Chapter XXIX
CRITICAL NOTES.--+4. He that receiveth gifts.+ Zöckler translates this, "a man of taxes." +7. Considereth.+ Literally knoweth. Zöckler and Delitzsch translate the latter clause, "the godless discern, or understand not, knowledge." +8. Bring a city,+ etc., literally, "set a city on fire." +9.+ The second clause should rather be "he rageth and laugheth (i.e., the fool), and there is no rest." +10.+ Delitzsch translates this verse: "Men of blood hate the guiltless and the upright; they seek his soul." +11. His mind.+ Rather his wrath. +Keepeth it till afterward.+ Rather restraineth it, keeps it in the background. +13. The deceitful.+ Rather "the usurer." A man of usury is only a more concrete expression for a rich man and this is the corresponding term in chap. xxii. 2 (Zöckler). +18. Vision.+ Rather "Revelation." "The word denotes prophetic prediction, the revelation of God by His seers (1 Sam. ix. 9); the chief function of these consisted in their watching over the vigorous fulfilling of the law, or in the enforcement of the claims of the law" (Zöckler). +19. Doth not answer.+ Rather "there is not an answer," that is in action, by obedience. Delitzsch translates "does not conform thereto." +21. A son,+ etc. There are many different translations of this verse, but the general verdict of scholars seems to favour the English rendering. Luther translates the verse, "If a servant is tenderly treated from youth up, he will accordingly become a squire." +24. He heareth cursing.+ Rather the curse, i.e., according to Zöckler, "the curse which according to the law (Lev. v. 1. sq.) marks a theft as an offence demanding a heavy penalty." Delitzsch translates "he hateth the oath," and explains it "as that of the judge who adjures the partner of the thief by God to tell the truth." (See also Lev. v. 1.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 1.
REPROOF AND DESTRUCTION.
+I. An act of benevolence which is often resented.+ When a child is reproved, and if need be chastised, for playing with the fire or neglecting its lessons, all reasonable people see that it is a kind act, and the child itself, when it has grown wiser, acknowledges that the reproof, even if it took the form of punishment, was an act of true benevolence, for it has saved him from bodily suffering or from intellectual loss. But it is probable that at the time the reproof was administered it was received with resentment, and the parent or friend who administered it was looked upon as an enemy. And it is so generally with men in relation to the reproofs of God, whether they come direct in the shape of providential chastisements or indirectly in the rebukes of His servants. God can have but one aim in reproving His creatures, and that is to save them from the pain which follows sin, and to increase their capabilities of happiness by bringing them under His Divine training. But this effort of God is often resisted, and man in the act of resistance is here and elsewhere likened to the ox which refuses to obey his master. He "hardens his neck" against the yoke of Divine reproof. Repentant Ephraim acknowledges that under Divine chastisement he was "as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke" (Jer. xxxi. 18); he resisted the efforts of his God to bring him into subjection to His wise rule, and into harmony with His benevolent purposes concerning him. The ox who does nothing but browse is living the lowest form of life which a brute can live--he eats, and sleeps, and fattens for the knife. But if his master leads him from his pasture, and harnesses him to the plough, he thereby makes him a co-worker with himself; the beast now helps to raise the corn which not only feeds himself, but feeds men also, and thus, by coming under the yoke, he becomes a more useful and valuable creature. But as he is only a brute, he is not to be blamed if he prefers the lower life to the higher. As it is with the ox and his master, so it is with the sinner and God. The godless man is content to live upon a level with the lowest level of brute life--to satisfy his bodily appetites, to eat and drink, and die and leave undeveloped all his capacities for spiritual growth and blessedness. But God would make him a co-worker with Himself in lifting him to a higher level and in making him a more useful and blessed creature. But men often resist this benevolent intention, and resent this check upon their self-will.
+II. The resistance to many acts of benevolence bringing one act of judgment.+ It must at last be decided whose will is to be the law of the universe--that of rebellious men or that of the Holy God; and though the Divine longsuffering is so exceedingly great, He must, in the interests of His creatures, assert His right to their obedience. This He did in the case of His chosen people--after centuries of resisted reproof sudden and irremediable destruction came upon the nation, and those who, like the Jews, will not come under the yoke of God, must sooner or later feel His rod. If they will not be His children they must be treated as rebellious subjects. On this subject see also on chap. vi. 12-19, page 81.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Such was the destruction of the old world, and of the cities of the plain, long hardened against the forbearance of God. Pharaoh grew more stubborn under the rod, and rushed madly upon his sudden ruin. Eli's sons "hearkened not unto the voice of their father, and in one day died both of them." Ahab, often reproved by the godly prophet, hardened his neck, and "the bow, drawn at a venture," received its commission. How must Judas have steeled his heart against his Master's reproof! Onward he rushed, "that he might go to his own place."--Bridges.
Sins repeated and reiterated are much greater than sins once committed. . . . As in numbers, one in the first place stands but for a single one, in the second place ten, in the third place for a hundred, so here, each repetition is a great aggravation. It is one thing to fall into the water, another thing to lie there; it is the latter that drowns men.--Swinnock.
On the subject of verse 2, see on chap. xi. 10, page 206. On verse 3, see on chap. x. 1, page 137, and on chap. v. 1-20, page 68. The subject of verse 4 has been treated on page 472, in the homiletics on chap. xvi. 10-15, and that of verse 5 in the homiletics on chap. xxvi. 23-28, page 721.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 6.
A SNARE AND A SONG.
+I. Sin deceives men.+ If a man digs a pit for the purpose of entrapping a victim, his great aim is to make the path over it as inviting as possible and entirely to hide from sight the snare which he has laid, for, as Solomon tells us elsewhere, "Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird" (chap. i. 17). So when the great deceiver of men tries to lead them into sin, he makes the way of transgression look very inviting, and persuades his victim that some great gain is to be gotten by the sin. He hides from view the pit of misery that lies at the end of every path of disobedience to God. He did not let Adam and Eve see beforehand the bitter consequences of breaking the Divine command or he would not have succeeded in accomplishing their downfall. And he does not let the young man whom he persuades to rob his master see the felon's cell beyond, or his persuasions would be ineffectual. His great aim is to make men believe there is security where there is danger--a solid rock where there is a yawning pit--probable gain where there is certain loss. Seeing that sin is against the sinner's own interests, and that there is in every man an instinct of self-preservation, we must conclude that if transgressors were not ensnared, Satan could take the captive no other way.
+II. Righteousness gladdens men.+ God, who is the Fountain and Source of all the joy in the universe, made man for happiness. This is the portion which He intended all His creatures to possess, and which they forfeit by their own act and deed. Before sin entered our world, song was man's natural employment--it was as natural for him to rejoice in God's love as it was to breathe God's air. And in proportion as sin is banished from the human soul, and the right relation between it and God is re-established, joy and gladness re-enter the heart. The indissoluble connection which is found everywhere between righteousness of life and peace of mind is a revelation of the character of the Being who sits upon the throne of the universe, and although the song of the righteous in this world is not an unbroken one, and they have sorrow as well as joy, they are hastening to a world where "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more sorrow or crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away" (Rev. xxi. 4).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Or, a cord, viz., to strangle his joy with--to check and choke all his comforts. In the midst of his mirth he hath many a secret gripe, and little knows the world where the shoe pinches him. Every fowl that hath a seemly feather hath not the sweetest flesh, nor doth every tree that bringeth a goodly leaf bear good fruit. Glass giveth a clearer sound than silver, and many things glitter besides gold. The wicked man's jollity may wet the mouth, but not warm the heart--smooth the brow, but not fill the breast. . . . But though Saul could not be merry without a fiddler, Ahab without Naboth's vineyard, Haman without Mordecai's courtesy, yet a righteous man can be merry without all these.--Trapp.
For Homiletics on verse 7 see on chap. xiv. 31, page 389, and on chap. xxiv. 11, 12, page 680.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 8.
THE CITIZEN'S ENEMY AND THE CITIZEN'S FRIEND.
+I. A scornful man is a social calamity.+ A scorner is a man who has a great opinion of his own wisdom and ability, and a very low one of all who oppose him. From his self-constructed elevation he looks down upon those who refuse to obey him, and counts them his inferiors simply because they do so. This is a perilous course to pursue even when only individual interests are at stake, but when the scornful man holds the welfare of others in his hand, the disastrous effects of his conduct are more widely spread. When he is the only person who suffers from over-estimating himself and underrating the strength of his opponents the issue is hardly to be regretted, but Solomon here has in his mind a public man who brings ruin upon many besides himself by his proud disdain of their foes, and by his refusal to recognise a common danger. Goliath was such a man. As the representative and champion of the Philistines he over-estimated the value of his physical strength, and set too low an estimate upon the unseen power arrayed against him, and his scorn of his enemies brought a great calamity upon his nation. A scornful man brings the heaviest calamity upon a people when he scoffs at the power of God and persuades his followers to set at nought His demands and threatenings. This was the great crime of many of Solomon's successors on the throne, and of the false prophets of Judah and Israel, and hence the sentence passed upon them and upon those who listened to them: "Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, we have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we in agreement: when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: Therefore thus saith the Lord God . . . Judgement also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuges of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding places," etc. (Isa. xxviii. 14-22).
+II. A wise man is a social blessing.+ We have before seen (see on chap. xiv. 15-18, page 364) that it is one of the characteristics of a wise man that he recognises the presence of moral danger in relation to himself, and the same may be said concerning danger of every kind, not only as regards himself, but others also. The recognition of danger is quite distinct from the fear of it; indeed those who are most quick to discern it have generally the most courage to meet it and the most wisdom to avert it. Scornful men generally have nothing but scorn wherewith to meet a foe, but the man who is truly wise can afford to acknowledge the strength of his enemies because he is fully prepared to meet them. If he seek to turn away the wrath of man by persuasion, he will be able to back his persuasion by wise reasoning, and if he strive to avert the wrath of God he will endeavour to bring those for whom he intercedes to such a state of mind as will render them fit to appreciate Divine pardon. But if he cannot do this his own character will give effect to his prayers, and as in the case of Moses and the children of Israel, God will spare many sinners for the sake of one righteous man.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Surely it was wisdom in the king and people of Nineveh, instead of bringing their city into a snare by scornful rebellion, to avert by timely humiliation the impending destruction (Jonah iii. 5-10). Let the people be gathered; let the ministers of the Lord gird themselves to their work of weeping and accepted pleaders for the land (Joel ii. 17). Surely "except the Lord of Hosts had left us a very small remnant" of these powerful intercessors, "we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah" (Isa. i. 9). Praised be God! The voice is yet heard--"Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it" (Ib. lxv. 8). The salt of the earth preserves it from corruption (Matt. v. 13). Shall not we, then, honour these wise men with reverential gratitude--"My father--my father! the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof?" . . . Moses--Exod. xxxii. 10-14; Deut. ix. 8-20; Ps. cvi. 23; Aaron--Num. xvi. 48; Phinehas--Num. xxv. 11; Ps. cvi. 30. Elijah--1 Kings xviii. 42-45; James v. 16, 18; Jer. xviii. 20; Dan. ix. 3-20; Amos vii. 1-6. The righteous remnant--Isa. i. 9, vi. 13. Comp. Gen. xviii. 32; Job xxii. 30; Jer. v. 1; Ezek. xxii. 30, 31. Contrast Ezek. xiii. 5.--Bridges.
For Homiletics on the subject of verse 9, see on chaps. xxiii. 9 and xxvi. 3-11, pages 665 and 716.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 10.
SOUL-SEEKERS AND SOUL-HATERS.
+I. A proof of the unnatural condition of the human family.+ When we look at a human body we see that every limb and organism belonging to it ministers to the well-being of the whole frame, and thus to the comfort of the living soul that inhabits it. This we recognise to be a natural and fitting state of things--just what we should have expected to find before experience. If in any human body we at any time see the hand inflicting injury upon the head, or any one member causing discomfort to another, we conclude, and with reason, that some disturbance of the natural condition has taken place--that there is physical disease in some bodily organism, or moral disease in the spirit that animates the body. So our human instincts and our reason force us to the conclusion that the natural relation of the members of the great body of humanity is one in which "each for all and all for each" should be the rule of action. That it is not so, can but strike all thinking men and women as a terrible incongruity. That most men not merely regard their human brethren with indifference, but that many actually hate and seek to injure their fellow-creatures is surely an evidence that some fatal moral distemper has laid hold of the race. And the evidence becomes stronger when we consider the truth of the first assertion in the proverb--that not only do bloodthirsty men seek to injure other men in general, but that the objects of their especial malignity are the upright--those who have given them no provocation, but whose desire and aim it is to bless their human brothers and sisters.
+II. An example in renewed men of what human brotherhood ought to be.+ Notwithstanding the great amount of self-seeking and enmity that is found in the world, there always has been found a small minority who have been seekers of the good of others, and in whom love to their human brethren has been the keynote of existence. And this love has been felt, and this seeking has been active, in behalf of those who hated them, and sought to do them ill. All such members of the human family are doing their part towards restoring men to the condition of peace and goodwill in which their Creator intended them to live, and help us to form some idea of what earth would have been if sin had never entered it. It is true they would then have had no opportunity of loving their enemies, and of doing good to those who hate them, but the love which "seeketh not her own" would have found free scope for her activities in going out towards those animated by the same spirit of love and would never have had to sorrow over efforts to seek and save that have been apparently fruitless. All just men who are seekers of the well-being of others, and especially those who seek the good of their enemies, are followers of that Just One who was hated by the bloodthirsty of His day, and who sought their souls while they sought His life. The history of the martyr Church in all ages has been the history of the "bloodthirsty hating the upright," and of the just treading in the footsteps of their Divine Master, and "seeking the souls" of their persecutors.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
These words may mean--and probably do mean--that the upright, in opposition to the blood-thirsty by whom the just is hated, "seek his soul,"--that is, the soul or life of the object of the hatred--of the just or the upright. Of the Lord Himself it is said--"He loveth the righteous." And in this all His people resemble Him. It is one of their characteristic distinctions. They pray for the upright, and endeavour, by all means in their power, to preserve them from the deadly machinations of their persecutors. The amount of love required of God's people towards God's people is that they be ready to "lay down their lives for the brethren." And if "for the brethren"--how much more for THE JUST ONE.--Wardlaw.
The just seek his soul. As Paul did of his countrymen the Jews, of whom five times he received forty stripes save one (2 Cor. xi. 24); as the disciples did of those spiteful Pharisees that had causelessly accused them (Matt. xv. 2-12); as that martyr Master Saunders did: "My lord," said he to Bishop Bonner, "you seek my blood, and you shall have it. I pray God you may be so baptized in it as hereafter you may loathe blood-sucking, and so become a better man."--Trapp.
On the subject of verse 11 see on chap. x. 19-21, page 168.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 12.
A MORAL CANCER IN A KING'S COURT.
+I. A man in authority should be a discerner of character.+ The man whose bodily sight is defective is not fit to be entrusted with the destinies of others in any case in which clear vision is needed. A purblind seaman would not be the man to stand upon the bridge of a vessel and direct its movements, nor would a general unable to distinguish friends from foes be a safe person to whom to entrust the guidance of an army in the field. And a man is manifestly in the wrong place if he is a ruler over others and is not a discerner of character.
+II. A man in authority should be the possessor of a character.+ A ruler may be a good man himself and yet be imposed upon by others, but as a rule a lover of truth is a discerner of truth, and an honest man will detect the false ring of the liar's words. But if a man is himself a liar, he will instinctively shrink from contact with true men, and true men will not care to hold intercourse with him, or to serve him, and so he must necessarily gather round him servants who are like himself. Such processes of attraction and repulsion are always going on in the world, in all departments of government, in the family, in the factory, and in the court. The servants are generally what the master is, and the courtiers reflect the character of the monarch.
+III. It is therefore indispensable to the moral purity of any community that its head be first a good man and then an able man.+ Moral excellence is before all other things needful, but it is not the only thing needful. A good man is not always a keen discerner of character, although his goodness will strengthen his power of discernment, but he who rules men should possess in an uncommon degree the power of reading them as well as that of setting them a good example in his own life.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
He that carrieth Satan in his ear is no less blameworthy than he which carrieth him in his tongue. Untruths are cherished and fostered, as it were, by those who are too light of belief. But this credulity is especially to be shunned by rulers in church, commonwealth, or private families; for all the inferiors commonly follow the example of the superiors. . . . It may indeed sometimes fall out that an Obadiah may lurk in Ahab's court, but this is rare, and commonly the sway goeth another way. Who were Saul's courtiers but Doeg and such backbiters?--Muffett.
How wise was David's determination--both as the sovereign of his people and the ruler of his house--to discountenance lies, and uphold the cause of faithful men! (Ps. ci. 2-7).--Bridges.
It is natural, when we think of Solomon's own situation as king of Israel, to expect to find some of his maxims of proverbial wisdom bearing special reference to the character and conduct of men in power. And so it is. When, moreover, we think of the wisdom with which, at the outset of his reign, and at his own earnest request, he was Divinely endowed, we as naturally anticipate a correspondence between the maxims and the character. Nor are we disappointed. The maxims are not those of the selfishness of power,--not those of arbitrary despotism or the sovereignty of royal will; nor are they those of an artful, intriguing, Machiavellian policy. They are sound and liberal, and based on the great principle of the public good being the end of all government--the principle that kings reign, not for themselves, but for their people; while, in all their administration, they ought to be swayed and regulated by the laws of an authority higher than their own, by a regard to the Will of God as their rule, and the Glory of God, to which all else must ever be subordinate, as their supreme aim. But we must not forget, that the Book of Proverbs forms part of the canon of Inspired Scripture; that it does not contain, therefore, the mere dictates of human wisdom, how extraordinary soever that wisdom was; that "a greater than Solomon is here."--Wardlaw.
The reigns of those princes who gave an easy belief to accusations, are stained with the most atrocious crimes. Tiberius Cæsar put to death the greater number of his own privy councillors, by giving ear to lies, and encouraging his servants to be wicked; and it is probable that the worst action that ever was committed since the fall of Adam, the murder of the Prince of Life, was occasioned by Pilate's wicked and cowardly regard to the temper of that tyrant, and his fear of being accused as an encourager of treason, if he had suffered our Lord to escape.--Lawson.
Rulers are the looking-glasses according to which most men dress themselves. Their sins do much hurt, as by imputation (2 Sam. xxiv.)--the prince sinned, the people suffered--so by imitation; for man is a creature apt to imitate, and is more led by his eyes than his ears. . . . Height of place ever adds two wings to sin, example, and scandal, whereby it soars higher and flies much further.--Trapp.
The subject of verse 13 is the same as that of chap. xxii. 22, page 636. The deceitful man should be "the man of usury, money-lender," meaning simply the "rich man." (Zöckler.) For subjects of verses 14 and 15, see on chapter xvi. 10-15, page 472, and xiii. 24, page 335, also on chap. xix. 13-18, page 573.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 16.
VICTORY NOT WITH THE MAJORITY.
+I. There is no necessary connection between numbers and righteousness.+ Weeds grow faster than wheat, and are much more abundant than the grain. But the simple fact that there are more weeds than there is corn does not alter the character of either. In the same field it may happen that there is more to bind for fuel than for food--that the tares far outnumber the ears of wheat--and in this case the worth is on the side of the smaller quantity. So it is in the moral field of the world. It is a startling fact that under the government of God the wicked are permitted to multiply--that when a man sets himself in opposition to his Maker, he is not at once removed from the earth, but is permitted to live and use his life to make other men wicked like himself. We may sometimes be inclined to ask with the patriarch, "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power" (Job xxi. 7), and the question may be difficult for us to answer; but this we must never forget, that neither with an nor with God is there any necessary connection between quantity and quality, between worth and abundance.
+II. Neither are numbers any guarantee of victory.+ The greatness of a tree and the number of its branches do not make it certain that it will outlive the storm--on the contrary, its great bulk and height are often the causes of its fall. When the wicked multiply, and so increase transgression, they sometimes lose sight of their personal sin and danger in the sin and danger in the multitude, and persuade themselves that there is safety in numbers. But the very opposite is the case. Men grow more bold in transgression in proportion as they are surrounded with other transgressors, and venture to do deeds of wickedness when in company with others that they would fear to commit alone. And so the multiplication of the wicked, as it increases transgression, is the means of hastening their fall instead of retarding it. It was "when men began to multiply upon the face of the earth" (Gen. vi. 1) that their wickedness became so great as to compel God to destroy them by a flood. It was the combination of the entire Jewish nation that enabled them to commit the crime of crucifying the Lord of Glory, but it was this "increase of transgression" that led to their final fall.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Combination emboldens in sin (Isa. xli. 7). Each particle of the mass is corrupt. The mass therefore of itself ferments with evil. Hence the prevalence of infidelity in our densely crowded districts above the more thinly populated villages. There is the same evil in individual hearts, but not the same fermentation of evil.--Bridges.
The reference is, in all probability, to the influence of wicked rulers in promoting the increase of wickedness in the community, which requires not either illustration or proof.--"But the righteous shall see their fall."--Their fall, that is, from power and authority. It is not the final fall--the perdition of the wicked, that is intended. In that the righteous have no pleasure. Herein they resemble God; are of one mind and heart with Him. He says, and confirms it by His oath--"As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." In the execution of the sentence against them, God glorifies Himself; and the righteous solemnly acquiesce, acknowledging and celebrating the justice of the Divine administration:--"Even so, Lord God, Almighty, for true and righteous are Thy judgments!" But pleasure in witnessing the execution of the sentence, we cannot, we must not, for a moment, imagine them to have.--Wardlaw.
Cyrillus Alexandrinus tells us, when man was alone upon the earth there was then no such matter as sinning. . . . Much company in sin ever makes more, it being the weakness of man's understanding to fear little hurt and danger, where many run into it, and it being the nature of wickedness to take strength from a multitude, as not fearing then to be opposed or resisted.--Jermin.
For Homiletics on the subject of verse 17, see on chap. xix. 18, page 573.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 18.
DIVINE REVELATION AND HUMAN OBEDIENCE.
+I. The human soul needs what it cannot produce.+ If the flower is to attain to its development of beauty and colour it must have the sunlight and the rain from without itself--it needs what it has no power to produce. The husbandman and all mankind need a harvest, but they have no power within themselves to supply their need; although they can plough, and plant, and sow, they cannot give the quickening rays of light and heat which alone can make the seed to live and grow. The entire human race has spiritual needs which it cannot supply, and capabilities which must be developed by influences outside and above itself. It needs a knowledge of God's Nature, and Will, and Purposes, if it is to grow in moral stature, and blossom and ripen into moral beauty and fruitfulness, but no human intellect or heart can acquire this knowledge by its own unaided efforts. If the human soul is to grow in goodness it must know God, and if it is to know Him, God must reveal Himself.
+II. God by revelation has supplied man's need.+ This supply men had a right to look for and expect. He had a right to look to the Creator of his bodily appetites and needs for the supplies that are necessary to his physical life and well-being, and he does not look in vain. God has given the "earth to the children of men" (Psa. cxv. 16), and every year He causes it to bring forth and bud, not only giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, but an abundance of luxuries for his enjoyment. It is most natural and reasonable to look to the Giver of all these good things for the body, and expect from Him the supply of the deeper needs of the soul. We do not think a human parent does his duty to his child if he only feeds and clothes him and makes no effort to enlighten his mind and satisfy his heart. And surely the Great Father of the universe would not be worthy of His name if He dealt so with the children of whose bodies and souls He is the Author. But He has not left us thus unprovided for, but "at sundry times and in diverse manners He has spoken unto men" (Heb. i. 1), telling them enough of Himself and of themselves to satisfy their spiritual cravings, and to elevate their spiritual nature.
+III. It follows that gratitude and self-love should prompt men to listen to God, and to obey Him.+ If the foregoing assertions are true, it follows that man must give heed to the revelation of God, or sustain permanent and irretrievable loss. As he cannot reject the Divine provision for the body without bodily death, so he cannot refuse attention to God's provision for his soul without spiritual ruin--without causing to perish all those powers and faculties of his highest nature the exercise of which make existence worth having. Self-love, therefore, should prompt a man to "keep the law," and if he do not listen to its voice he has only himself to blame for missing real happiness. If a man is starving, his best friend can do no more than supply his need, he must eat the food set before him; and when God has offered to the children of men that wine and milk which will satisfy the soul, and cause it to grow, He has done all that even a God can do (Isa. lv. 1, 2). Man is a self-murderer if he refuse it.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
He doth not say they may perish, but they do perish; or they are in danger of perishing, but they do certainly perish where there is no serious, conscientious, faithful, powerful preaching. . . . These men perish temporarily; when vision, when preaching ceased among the Jews, oh, the dreadful calamities and miseries that came upon the people! . . . There men perish totally: both the bodies and the souls of men perish where serious conscientious preaching fails (Hosea iv. 6); "My people are destroyed for want of knowledge.". . . The Papists say that ignorance is the mother of devotion; but this text tells us that is the mother of destruction.--Brooks.
This is only a hypothetical case, for there are no such "people." Nevertheless there is such a principle. Just in proportion as men do not know they will not be punished. Paul and Solomon are in full accord. "They that sin without law shall also perish without law; but they that sin in the law shall be judged by the law" (Rom. ii. 12). These Proverbs elsewhere have taught the same doctrine (chap. viii. 36). Men might all perish, but some less terribly, from a difference of light. All men have some light (Rom. i. 20); and that which they actually have is all that they shall answer for in the day of final account. Still there is a form of ignorance that will exactly proportion our guilt. It is ghostly ignorance, or the absence of spiritual knowledge. Perhaps I may still say that a man is punished for what he has, and not for what he has not. A man who knows of this ignorance, and has light enough to know his need of light, has enough to give account for in that without being supposed to suffer for a profound negation. Be this as it may, there is such an ignorance. It exactly grades our sins. It is the measure of our depravity. The profounder it sinks we sink. No man need sink or perish. There is a remedy. "The word is nigh" (us).--Miller.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES 19 and 21.
MASTERS AND SERVANTS.
+I. Human servants generally need correction.+ The relation of master and servant is generally, though not always, founded upon some superiority on the one side and inferiority on the other. Where there is any right adjustment of social relations, those who serve are those who lack knowledge of some kind which those who rule are able to impart, and hence arises the necessity of correction on the part of the master and of submission on that of the servant. It is undeniable that there are many inversions of this ideal moral order, but the proverb can only refer to what ought to be, and what often, though not always, is the case.
+II. The means of correction ought to be moral means.+ A servant is a moral and intelligent agent, and not a machine or a brute, and he can and ought to appreciate appeals to his reason and conscience. A wise and humane rider will use his voice to his steed in preference to the whip or the spur, and generally finds it effectual. And words of reproof and encouragement are probably the only successful means of dealing with human nature in this relationship. If these fail, no others will avail, and all benefit from the connection will cease.
+III. Therefore human masters need much wisdom.+ If they are over-indulgent the servant may take undue advantage and claim privileges to which he has no right (ver. 21). In the present constitution of things in this world, and probably throughout the universe, there are inequalities of position and rank which no wise man can ignore, and it is kind and wise to those beneath us to maintain these differences and distinctions. But to maintain them without haughtiness, and with that consideration and sympathy which ought to mark all our intercourse with our fellow-creatures, needs much wisdom on the part of superiors. Dr. David Thomas suggests another, and perhaps a pleasanter application of this proverb. "There is another side," he says, "to the kindness of a master towards his servant, that is, the making of the servant feel towards him all the sympathy and interest of a son. . . . He who can make his servant feel towards him as a loving, faithful, and dutiful child, will reap the greatest comfort and advantage from his service." But this happy result can only be brought about where the master is truly wise as well as kind.
For Homiletics on verses 20 and 22, see on chap. xiv. 17 and 29, pages 363 and 386. On verse 23, see on chap. xi. 2, page 192, and on xvi. 18, page 482.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 24.
CRIMINAL PARTNERSHIP.
+I. Partnerships are self-revealing.+ That proverb is an old and true one--"Tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you what you are." A man seeks the society and shares the pursuits of those who are likeminded with himself; if he chooses the fellowship of the good it shows that there is something in his character that has an affinity to theirs, and if he willingly associates himself with bad men, he proclaims himself to be a bad man. Good men do not "walk in the counsel of the ungodly," or "sit in the seat of the scornful"--men who are found in such places must be counted among the ungodly and scornful, although they may be negative rather than positive sinners.
+II. Criminal partnerships are self-destroying.+ As we have seen, partners with criminals are criminals themselves in spirit if not in actual deed, and must therefore meet with the doom of the transgressor. Probably the proverb is directed against those who shelter themselves under the idea that those who do not commit the crime themselves, but only consent to it beforehand, or conceal it afterwards, are not so very guilty; but this is nowhere the teaching of Scripture, nor is it the verdict of the human conscience.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
A partnership life is becoming more and more common and necessary in our commercial England. Great undertakings can only be carried out by companies. Modern legislation has greatly encouraged these combinations, by limiting the monetary liability of its members. Hence, joint-stock companies are multitudinous and multiplying. Such companies are often, perhaps generally, projected and managed by selfish, needy, and unprincipled speculators; and honest men are often tempted by the glowing promises of their lying programmes to become their adherents, and they soon find themselves in the unfortunate position referred to in the text.--Dr. David Thomas.
The receiver and resetter is at least as guilty as the thief. I say at least; for in one obvious respect he is worse. His is a general trade, which gives encouragement to many thieves, by holding out to them the means of disposing of their stolen property and evading the law. He is thus, in fact, a partaker in the guilt of all. One thief cannot set up and maintain a resetter; but one resetter may keep at their nefarious trade many thieves.--Wardlaw.
There is a warning under the eighth commandment. Do we realise the same solemnity of obligation as under the first? Many professors attach a degree of secularity to a detailed application of the duties of the second table. But both stand on the same authority. The transgressions of both are registered in the same book. The place in the Decalogue cannot be of moment, if it be but there with the imprimatur--"I am the Lord thy God."--Bridges.
It is the cursed policy of Satan, that he strives to join men in wickedness. In drunkenness there must be a good fellow; in wantonness there must be a corrival; in bloody duels there must be a second; in theft there must be a partner, yoking men together to draw upon themselves the heavy burden of God's displeasure. . . . Wherefore, although it may be a love unto the things stolen, or else a love unto the stealer, which maketh others to join with him, certainly he showeth little love to God's law, certainly he proveth great hatred, which he has to his own soul. For while he joineth with another in stealing some worldly goods, he joineth with Satan in stealing his own soul from himself. And whatsoever fear he may have of some curse which the other hath laid upon him, if that he doth reveal it, he hath much more cause to feel the curse of God's wrath, if he doth conceal it. He hath but heard the one, he shall feel the other.--Jermin.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES 25 and 26.
SAFETY FROM A SNARE.
+I. Men fear and hope too much from their fellow men.+ This fear and this hope are very active agents in this world, influencing men often to abstain from what they know to be right, and inducing them to do deeds of evil. Good men have often staggered and sometimes fallen before this fear and have been misled by this false hope, and both the hope and the fear are intensified when the object of them belongs to the ranks of the conventionally great--when the man whom they desire to propitiate is a "ruler" among his fellows. Such a man sometimes has the power to injure those who displease him, and has also much that he can bestow upon those who seek his favour; but the weight of his displeasure and the worth of his gifts are generally estimated far too highly by his inferiors in rank, and when this is the case they are snares which lead to sin.
+II. Trust in God is the only escape from the fear that will mislead, and the hope that will disappoint.+ The many and the great contrasts, not only between the favour of God and the favour of man, but between all that is connected with the seeking and the bestowal, will lead every wise man to forsake the pursuit of the less for the greater. 1. The favour of an earthly ruler is often obtained only by the exercise of great skill on the part of the seeker. When the woman of Tekoa desired to obtain from David the forgiveness of Absalom, what ingenuity on her part was necessary in order to gain the monarch's ear and goodwill. She had to study how to put the case before him in the best light, and to enact a little drama before his eyes in order to enlist his attention and soften his heart. And yet she was pleading with a tender-hearted father for his own son. How different it is when we plead for the mercy of God either for ourselves or others. The simplest statement of the case is sufficient; no schemes or plans of any kind are necessary to win the ear of Him who is always waiting to be gracious. 2. Success with an earthly ruler is often unconnected with the merit or demerit of the pleader. It often happens that the most worthless characters obtain the greatest favours, even if the ruler himself be a fairly impartial man, because they have more friends at court than a deserving man. In the case just mentioned, Absalom, a thoroughly bad man, was able to command the services of a person who was probably more fitted to gain the desired end than any person in the kingdom. If there had been a banished subject who really merited a free pardon from the king, he would probably not have been able to command the services of so successful a pleader as the woman of Tekoa. But the case is altogether different with Him who doth not "judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears" (Isa. xi. 3). The "judgment which cometh from the Lord" is founded on the strictest impartiality, and depends upon nothing but the character and needs of the suitor. If we add to these drawbacks the uncertain good which may be contained in the "favour of a ruler" even after it is obtained, we may well wonder that it is as true now as in Solomon's days that the "many" seek it, and only the few trust their earthly and their spiritual interests with their God. How many of the few who are not disappointed of the favour of great men are disappointed in it, and find it a poor and unsatisfying portion after all; but the testimony of all those who seek the higher good is "In Thy favour is life, and Thy lovingkindness is better than life" (Psa. xxx. 5; Psa. lxiii. 3).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
To those who look out upon society from the standpoint of trust in God, the greatest magnates of the world will appear only as grasshoppers. . . . He who can say, "Surely my judgment is with the Lord," will stand before his race with undaunted heroism, and before his God with devotion. Conscious dependence on the Almighty is the spirit of independence towards men.--Dr. David Thomas.
The fear of man leads you into a snare, and will the fear of God make you safe? No; if the character of the affection remains the same, you will gain nothing by a change of object. If you simply turn round and fear God as you feared men you have not thereby escaped. The fear of the greater Being is the greater fear. The weight presses in the same direction, and it is heavier by all the difference between the finite and the infinite. . . . It is not a transference of fear from man to God that can make the sinner safe. The kind of affection must be changed, as well as its object. Safety lies not in terror, but in trust. Hope leads to holiness. He who is made nigh to God by the death of His Son stands high above the wretched snares that entangled his feet when he feared men. The sovereign's son is safe from the temptation to commit petty theft. . . . When you know in whom you have believed, and feel that any step in life's journey hereafter may be the step into heaven, the fear of this man and the favour of that will exert no sensible influence in leading you to the right hand or to the left.--Arnot.
Albeit faith, when it is in the heart, quelleth and killeth distrustful fear, and is therefore fitly opposed to it in this sacred sentence; yet in the very best sense it fights sore against faith when it is upon its own dunghill. I mean in a sensible danger. Nature's retraction of itself from a visible fear, may cause the pulse of a Christian that beats truly and strongly in the main point--the state of the soul--to intermit and falter at such a time, as we see in the examples of Abraham, Isaac, David, Peter, and others. . . . The chameleon is said to be the most fearful of all creatures, and doth therefore turn himself into so many colours to avoid danger, which yet will not be. God equally hateth the timorous and the treacherous. "Fearful" men are the first in that black roll (Rev. xxi. 8).--Trapp.
There is a higher step to be taken before we can well step so high; there is the favour of God to be procured before the favour of the ruler can well be obtained. For kings are but God's kingdoms; as they reign over their people, so He reigneth over them; as they sit on the throne of their kingdom, so He sitteth on the throne of their hearts, and by a distributive justice dispenseth the judgment of his and their favours according as it seemeth good to His eternal wisdom. The favour therefore of thy ruler is worth thy seeking for; but first seek and get God's favour, if thou wilt get and enjoy the other to thy happiness. And when thou hast gotten it, remember that it was God's hand which directed the king's hand to reach it forth unto thee. For it is too commonly seen, as one speaketh, "Then doth God especially slip out of the minds of men, when they enjoy His benefits and favours."--Jermin.
For Homiletics on verse 27, see on chap. xxviii. 4.
* * * * * *
Chapter XXX
CRITICAL NOTES.--+1. Agur.+ There have been many conjectures about this person. Many consider that it is a figurative name, and some have adopted the old Jewish tradition that it is an allegorical designation of Solomon. "The name," says Delitzsch, "means 'the gathered'" (see chap. vi. 3, x. 5), also "the collector," or the word might mean, perhaps "industrious in collecting." +The son of Jakeh,+ etc. Stuart and Zöckler adopt here the reading of Hitzig and others, and read "The son of her who was obeyed in Massa (or the princess of Massa): I have toiled for, or carried myself about, God, and have ceased." For their reasons the student is referred to their commentaries, where the subject is discussed at great length. Ithiel and Ucal signify respectively "God with me," and "the son of the mighty," and the common opinion is that they were Agur's disciples. From the great differences between the language and style of the last two chapters of the book, and those which have preceded them, most scholars believe that they were written outside the land of Palestine. Zöckler thinks that "Agur and Lemuel might very properly be regarded as Arabian-Israelitish shepherd-princes or kings of a colony of Israelites of the tribe of Simeon that had emigrated to northern Arabia." (See 1 Chron. lv. 38-43; Micah i. 15, ii. 8, 10.) Delitzsch suggests that they were "Ishmaelites who had raised themselves above the religion of Abraham, and recognised the religion of Israel as its completion." +2. Brutish,+ i.e., without reason. +10.+ Stuart and Zöckler here read "Cause not a servant to slander his master." Delitzsch agrees with the English version. +15. Horseleach,+ or "vampire, an imaginary spectre or ghost, supposed to suck the blood of children." (Stuart.) +15+ and +16.+ On these verses, Dr. Aiken, the American translator of the Proverbs for Lange's Commentary, remarks, "As compared with the numerical proverbs which follow, the complexity and the more artificial character of the one before us at once arrests attention. They all have this in common, that whatever moral lesson they have to convey is less obvious, being hinted rather than stated. . . . In the one now under consideration, insatiable desire and the importance of its regulation seem to be the remote object. In the development, instead of the 'three things' and 'four things' which repeatedly appear afterwards, we have the 'leech,' its two daughters, the three and the four. Some have regarded the two daughters as representing physical characteristics of the bloodsucker, others as expressing by an Orientalism a doubly intense craving. Parallelism suggests making the first two of the four the two daughters; other allusions of the Scripture to the greediness of the world of the dead justify the first, while the second alone belong to human nature." +23. Odious,+ or unloved. +26. Conies.+ A gregarious animal of the class Pachydermata, which is found in Palestine living in the caves or clefts of the rocks. Its scientific name is Hyrax Syriacus. . . . It is like the Alpine marmot, scarcely the size of a domestic cat, having long hair, a very short tail, and round ears (Smith's Biblical Dictionary). +28. Spider.+ Most commentators translate "lizard." Delitzsch reads, "The lizard thou canst catch with the hands, and yet it is in the king's palaces." +29. Go well,+ rather, "are of stately walk." +31.+ Delitzsch renders the last clause of this verse:--"A king with whom is calling out of the host."
NOTE.--The following is Miller's unique translation of the first four verses of this chapter with his reasons for the same, and the teaching which he sees in the passage. "It struck us that we would take the simple Hebrew and inquire its meaning. We would accept nothing as a proper name till we found it destitute of sense; and, following no intricate conceits, we would fail of a directer meaning before we went into anything more difficult. It is astonishing how facile the result. We believe that all was the work of Solomon. We believe there was no such man as Agur, except that great man Jesus Christ. We believe there was no such king as Lemuel. We believe everything is the work of Solomon as much as any other proverb. If it appear Arabic or extra-Hebraic no matter. Solomon gathered his materials over a wide surface. We believe it is distinctly what it says, The prophecy. We count it as all finished in the four first verses, and Jakeh and Ithiel, and Ucal and Muel in the next chapter (verse i. 4). We would be quite willing to read it that way, if, like Lo-ammi in the prophet, or Lo-ruhamah, words confessedly significant (Hosea i. 8, 9), it were thought euphonious or wise to give them without a translation. But what the Hebrews saw why not our people see? Certain it is that the words to a Hebrew were about as follow:--
"1. Words of I-fear, Son of the Godly: The prophecy:-- The Strong Man speaks to God-with-me, to God-with-me and to I-am-able. 2. Forasmuch as I am more brutish as to myself, than a man of the better sort, and have not the intelligence of a common man. 3. and have not been taught wisdom and yet know the knowledge of holy things. 4. who has gone up to heaven and come down? who has gathered the winds in his fists? who has bound the waters in a garment? who has set firm all the extremities of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name? Because, Thou knowest.
"Let us examine, first, the language, and then the result as to the sense. I-fear. This is the very simplest Hebrew. It actually occurs in Deuteronomy (chap. xxxii. 27). The verb is the familiar one בדּ ך, which means primarily to turn out of the way. And this turning out of the way for danger is a prudent and innocent character of fear. Agur therefore, or I-fear, with the light we get afterward, marks himself as the Strong Man of the next clause; the Son of the Godly, because descended out of the loins of the Church (see Rev. xii. 5); and the Man--just as Muel (chap. xxxi. 1) is God and man--contemplating the low humanity of Christ, which is about to express its wonder at its amazing knowledge. Godly; from a root meaning to venerate: Jakeh is in the singular, and means the pious one; which keeps in view what is too often forgotten, that Christ was not the son of the abandoned, but, as His mother expresses it (chap. xxxi. 2), the son of my vows. The Prophecy; not needfully prediction, as in the present case, but an oracle, vision, or inspired elation of any kind. The words that follow constitute the prophecy for though the speech of the Man-Christ does not begin till the second verse, the very names in the next clause are predictive; and the most vitally so of the whole of the vision. The Strong Man; strong, though weak; strong because he sees in himself such wonderful conditions. The word strong is implied in the noun that is selected. Speaks; oracularly. It is the solemn, poetic, and in fact, rare expression. To-God-with-me. That the Man-Christ should address the Deity has innumerable precedents. If it were necessary, we could imagine the Human Nature as addressing the Divine Nature; for that really occurs in high Eastern vision, in the Book of Zechariah (chap. iii. 4, 6, 7, 8). In lofty texts, like this, it is perfectly admissible. Christ speaks of His Divine Nature (John iii. 13); and speaks of it as being where the Man Christ Jesus was not, viz., in Heaven. But the fourth verse of this chapter mentions both Father and Son; and therefore in this, which is so near it, it is not necessary to distinguish. The Strong Man speaks to the God which was with (Him), and calls Him Ucal, which means I-am-able. There was a powerful Divinity in Christ, and that He was wondering about. His mother repeats the wonder in the after case (chap. xxxi. 2). The whole is a grand Prophecy of Christ in the form of a grand inquiry. Agur makes it of Ithiel. That is, the Man, I-fear, goes searching into the God-with-me. There is an I-fear part and an I-am-able part, of His one Grand Person; and these parts speak even in the New Testament with the humility (John v. 19) and with the splendour (John viii. 58) that belong to each. Forasmuch as; the simple particle because. I am more brutish, i.e. more the mere untaught animal. As to Myself, i.e. as to my human self; for it is the Strong Man that speaks. The emphasis is laid by the mere expression of the pronoun. Than a man of the better sort; than an educated, refined man, which Christ was not. And have not the intelligence of a common man. That is, he had not the education usually given to the more lowly. The commonness of the humanity is expressed again by the noun. And have not been taught wisdom. Here the emphasis is on taught. And yet know the knowledge of holy things. The meaning of the whole is, that he has singular light. He confronted the doctors in the temple, and, as a little child, was a miracle. Whence came this? This is what the prophecy represents as a surprise. Who has gone up to Heaven and come down? Somebody has. The Strong Man addresses this appeal to the God-with-me; and ends it significantly;--Who is it? Because Thou knowest. One word back in the third verse:--know the knowledge. We have not altered this, nor said have the knowledge, which would be better English, because this seems the intentional form. The words that Christ gave to His disciples, God gave to Him; and Christ, in saying so, would include all senses; the outer word; the inner word; the outward blessed revelation, and the inner teaching. He knew the knowledge; i.e., He discerned in perfect ways what the Spirit without measure was there to impart. Going up to heaven, gathering the wind, binding the waters, and setting firm the extremities of the earth, were the work of a Divinity. Some Divinity had been at work upon Him. He applies to the Able One, to the God with Him, to explain a low man's wonderful knowledge, and then adds, as significant of the reply, Because Thou knowest."
The extract is given here, not because we agree with Miller's view of the passage, but as affording a specimen of the mode of interpretation which he adopts throughout the book.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 1-9.
THE SOURCE OF TRUE HUMILITY.
+I. In proportion as men know God they confess they know Him not.+ A child looks above his head at the midnight sky and he concludes that the stars that he sees are only so many shining points which have no use beyond that of beautifying the heavens and giving a little light to our world. He does not think that there is any more to know about the stars, but this conclusion of his is based upon complete ignorance. How different is the attitude of the astronomer in relation to the stars. He has good reason to believe that each one is a sun like unto that which makes the centre of our own system of planets, and this enlarged knowledge enables him to form some idea of how much he has to learn about them, and so draws from him such a confession of ignorance as a child would never utter. He realises that what he knows is nothing in comparison with what there is to know, and it is his increased knowledge which makes him feel thus. So men who never reflect upon the nature or character of God have no conception of the height and depth of the knowledge of the Infinite, and hence have no conception of their ignorance concerning Him. It is only the man who has in some degree apprehended the greatness of his Maker that has any idea of how far he is from comprehending Him, and his consciousness of ignorance increases with his growth in the knowledge of God. Agur, who here declares that he has no "knowledge of the Holy," and is "without understanding" on the highest and deepest subjects, was evidently a man who had endeavoured by searching to find out God, and his confession is the result of his knowledge and not of his ignorance. But what he knew only served to show him how much remained unknown.
+II. Therefore humility is the great sign of high attainments in Divine knowledge, and those who know most will be the most able and willing to be taught more.+ Humility is the effect of the most thorough acquaintance with any subject, and of the most profound meditation upon it. When men utter their opinions in the spirit of self-conceit, and are lifted up by their acquirements, we must ascribe it to their ignorance and not to their knowledge. Those who have learned most are the most teachable scholars and the first to welcome instruction from whatever source it may come. If we were to tell a savage of the wonderful capabilities of electricity he would most likely look upon us with contempt, and refuse to believe our statements; but if we were to speak to an experienced electrician about some new theory or discovery in relation to it he would not turn from us in disdain simply because he was unacquainted with it, but would gladly welcome any new light upon the subject. This is pre-eminently the case in the knowledge of all that relates to the Divine Being. When He becomes the object and subject of study and contemplation--when a creature who had no existence a few years ago seeks to know Him who is God from everlasting to everlasting he finds himself embarked upon an ocean without a shore, and is compelled to exclaim: "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it" (Psa. cxxxix. 6). His humble reverence will always be in proportion to the progress that he has made. He who knew as much about God and His dealings as any man who ever lived, gave, as the result of his researches, that "His ways are past finding out," and was led by it to ascribe to Him "glory for ever" (Rom. xi. 33-36); and all who have trodden the same path, either before or after him, have arrived at the same conclusion, and have acquired the same spirit of humility. And this is the spirit which makes a man willing and therefore able to receive a higher and deeper revelation. Because he knows that he has not "already attained"--that there is no comparison between what he knows and what there is to know--his mind is ever open to receive new instruction, and he welcomes any means by which he can advance a step nearer to that "light which no man can approach unto," and catch a fresh glimpse of Him "whom no man hath seen or can see" (1 Tim. vi. 16).
+III. The unsearchableness of God is no hindrance to practical godliness.+ If Agur could not know all that he desired about God, he knew enough to trust Him, and enough to make him desire to serve Him. He could from experience testify that God had spoken to men, and that His word was to be depended on, and that there was a reward to those who kept it. If God is unknowable in some aspects of His nature, godly men in all ages have found him a shield in danger, and a rock of certainty, upon which it is safe to rest. Although Agur could not ascend into heaven and read the secrets of the other world, he felt that he could strive to walk with God in this world, and the effect of a real conviction of the greatness and majesty of God is not to drive men from Him but to draw them near in holy living as well as in humble adoration.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Verse 2. This was true humility, that like true balm ever sinks to the bottom, when hypocritical, as oil, swims on the top. . . . He that looks intently on the sun hath his eyes dazzled; so he that beholds the infinite excellencies of God, considers the distance, cannot but be sensible of his own naughtiness, nothingness. It is fit the foundation should be laid deep, where the building is so high! Agur's humility was not more low than his aims lofty: "Who hath ascended up to heaven?" It is a high pitch that he flies, for he knew well that godliness, as it begins in a right knowledge of ourselves, so it ends in a right knowledge of God.--Trapp.
Verse 4. The discourse is philosophically accurate, as well as religiously devout. It is through the mutual relations of air, earth, and water, that the Supreme Ruler gives or withholds the food of man (verse 8). These three, each in its own place and proportion, are alike necessary to the growth of grain, and consequently to the sustenance of life. . . . The earth is the basis of the whole operation. . . . Alike in its creation and its arrangement, its material and its form, the final cause of the earth has obviously been the growth of vegetation and the support of life. But the earth could not bear fruit at any portion of its surface without the concurrence of water; and how shall the supply of this necessary element be obtained? "Who hath bound the waters in a garment?" Again the clouds and showers, the springs and streams, with one voice answer, "God." So wide is the dry land, and so low lies the water in its ocean storehouse, that we could not even conceive how the two could be made to meet, unless we had seen the cosmical hydraulics in actual operation from day to day and from year to year. Here lies the earth, rising into mountains and stretching away in valleys, but absolutely incapable, by itself, of producing food for any living thing. There lies the sea, held by its own gravity helpless in its place, heaving and beating on the walls of its prison-house, but unable to rise and go to the help of a barren land. . . . In this strait--when the land could not come to the water and the water could not come to the land--a Mediator was found, perfectly qualified for the task. "Who hath gathered the wind in His fists?" The air goes between the two, and brings them together for beneficent ends. The atmosphere softly leans on the bosom of the deep, and silently sucks itself full. The portion so charged then moves away with its precious burden, and pours it out partly on the plains but chiefly on the vertebral mountain ranges. Thus the continents are watered from their centres to the sea.--Arnot.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES 5 and 6.
THE WORD OF GOD.
+I. God has given man a knowledge of His Character and Will.+ Although, as we have just seen from the preceding verses, God is so great and incomprehensible in His nature, there is a knowledge of Him which is possible to man and which he possesses. This seems reasonable before experience. If a man built a vessel which he intended to send his son to navigate across an unknown sea, we should conclude beforehand that he would put a compass in the vessel. And we should likewise conclude before experience that a just God would not build a world, and call into existence a creature like man to dwell in it, without furnishing him with a compass by which to guide his life--a revelation and a law by obedience to which he can be blest and saved. And what might have been expected has come to pass. God has spoken, and has thus met human expectation and human need. Agur recognised this fact in the days of old, and we, to whom in these last days God has spoken by His Son (Heb. i. 1), have a clearer revelation. In answer to Agur's question, "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended," we can bring the words of Christ, "No man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven" (John iii. 13), and in the record of His life and death obtain the fullest and clearest revelation of God that it is possible for Him to give and for us to receive.
+II. The Word of God is what of necessity it must be.+ The sun is in its nature light, and therefore rays of light must proceed from it. That which flows from it must of necessity be of the same nature as the sun whence it comes, and the fountain of natural light being pure the streams which flow from it must be pure also. When human words are a reflection of the human soul, and "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matt. xii. 34), the spoken word must be of the same nature and character as the inward feelings. The purity of the outward word will be in proportion to the purity of the inner life. God is moral light--"In Him is no darkness at all" (1 John i. 5)--therefore, rays of moral light must flow from Him; all that proceeds from Him must be, like Himself, perfectly free from all shadow of moral imperfection.
+III. Because the Word of God is what it is, it must be carefully preserved from human additions.+ It is manifest that nothing that man can add to what God has said can make His Word more fitted to a man's needs, any more than any intervention of man can make the sun more perfectly adapted to human vision. It is therefore a criminal act for any creature to add to the Divine Word by putting his own ideas on an equality with the revealed thoughts of God, and most foolish for him to expect them to have the same power on the heart and conscience as Divine words have. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul" (Psa. xix. 7), and man must not tamper with its perfection. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17). The fact that it comes from God is a guarantee that blessing will come from seeking to understand and obey it, and condemnation by seeking to improve it by human addition.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
It is the saying of Tertullian, "This is the first thing which we believe, that there is nothing beside God's word to be believed.". . . At least it must not be taught or received, as added to His words, either as of equal authority with them, or as supposing any defect in them. . . . He therefore that addeth to God's words, shall add unto his own words the just and sharp reproof of God upon them; and whatsoever any may think to find by the doing of it, he shall himself therefore be found a liar. Search them thou mayest to find the depth of them, explain them thou mayest that others may be able to find the meaning of them: but in searching, in explaining, let nothing be added that is contrary to them. . . . For what can he be but a liar that opposeth truth itself?--Jermin.
The learner is far in advance of his starting-point now. He set out in quest of knowledge to gratify a curious intellect; he ends it by finding rest for a troubled soul. He addressed himself successively to the air, and the water, and the earth; but they were all dumb. They sent back to him only the echo of his own cry. Turning next to the Scriptures, he finds what he sought and more. His darkness vanishes, and his danger too. No sooner has he learned that the Word is pure than he learns that the Speaker is gracious.--Arnot.
There is, perhaps, in the expression here a more immediate reference to the unmingled truth of God's Word. This suits the connection with what follows:--"He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him." Scepticism and infidelity unsettle the mind. They leave it without confidence and without security. The mind under their influence is like a vessel that has drifted from its moorings, and has been left to drive out to sea, without rudder and without anchor,--unmanned, and at the mercy of the winds and waves and currents:--or, to keep nearer to the allusion in the verse under comment, it is like a soldier in the thick and peril of the battle without a shield, in danger from every arrow that flies, and every sword that is raised against him. They make their unhappy subject the sport and the victim of every delusive theory and every temptation of Satan. Hence such expressions as that of Paul to the Ephesians:--"Over all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." God is the "SHIELD" of all who trust in Him. And it is the trust,--it is the firm faith in God,--that imparts the feeling of security. So, what is here said of God himself is said of His truth or faithfulness:--"His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." God could not be "a shield," though His power be almighty, unless He were faithful. It is His faithfulness that renders Him the object of trust. And when this view of God's faithfulness is such as to impart perfect trust--the spirit, calm and tranquil, feels as if it were under the protection of an all-covering shield.--Wardlaw.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES 7-9.
THE MIDDLE WAY.
+I. A desire that our circumstances should be favourable to our godliness reveals a soul alive to the meaning of existence.+ The man who values his health more than his raiment, and is more anxious to keep his body in a fit condition to work than to clothe it in purple and fine linen, reveals that he rightly estimates the comparative value of the two, and values most that which is worth most. But no man attains to a right estimate of the comparative worth of all that belongs to him until he values his character more than all things else, and is willing to suffer the loss of all his other possessions in order to preserve that. He is a wise man who, in the choice of clothes, considers first what will conduce to health; but the highest wisdom is that which leads a man in choosing--so far as he is able--his position in life, to consider first of all what will be favourable to his soul's welfare. Such a man reveals that he has made the all-important discovery that the chief end of man is to glorify God, and that he can do this only by a holy life. He therefore makes it the aim of his life to say in deed as well as in word "Hallowed be thy name;" for he has learned the lesson of the text, that anything less than perfect dependence upon God is a denial of Him, and any act of doubtful integrity is "taking His name in vain."
+II. A prayer that our circumstances may be thus favourable, reveals a soul conscious of its own weakness.+ There can be no doubt that a man's confidence in God ought to be so strong as to remain unshaken in the most adverse circumstances, and his spirituality ought to be deep enough to remain uninjured in the greatest temporal prosperity, but this is but seldom the case. All sincere and humble servants of God acknowledge their proneness to yield to temptation, and the more vital their godliness, the more earnestly do they put up the petition, "Lead me not into temptation." Paul could say without boastfulness, "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. iv. 12, 13), but there have been but few men who would say this with truth, and those who have been most like him in spirit have been the most ready to acknowledge the danger of being exposed to either extreme. A very robust man can keep in perfect health either in the arctic regions or in the torrid zone, but there is most safety in living in a region between these two extremes, and the wisest men acknowledge this, and unless duty calls them, prefer the latter to either of the former. So a man of God, although he hopes that he might be found faithful in any circumstances, reveals a right spirit of humility when he puts up the prayer of Agur. For he knows that the tempter of men is most skilful in using our circumstances against our godliness, and that both great wealth and extreme poverty are weapons which he can use with great skill.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Verse 7. Agur re-enforces his request. It was honest, else he would never have begun it; but being so, he is resolved to follow it. So Jacob would have a blessing, and therefore wrestles with might and slight; and this he doth in the night and alone, and when God was leaving him, and upon one leg. . . . When poor men ask us two things we think we deal well if we grant the one. Few are Naamans that when you beg one talent will force you to take two. But God heaps mercies on his suppliants, and blames them for their modesty in asking.--Trapp.
Verse 8. We are not only to pray for the removal of sin, but for the removal of it at a great distance from us. As God removes it far away in pardon, the soul that abhors sin desires to have it far removed from the heart and life. Our Lord reaches us not only to pray against sin, but against temptation; for there is a strong inclination in the hearts of men to comply with temptations when they are presented to the soul. If a man has a bag of powder in his hands, he will certainly wish to keep at a distance from the fire.--Lawson.
Food convenient is obviously not a fixed measure. It implies, not a bare sufficiency for natural life, but a provision varying according to the calling in which God has placed us. "If Agur be the master of a family, then that is his competency, which is sufficient to maintain his wife, children, and household. If Agur be a public person, a prince or a ruler of the people; then that is Agur's sufficiency, which will conveniently maintain him in that condition." Jacob when "he had become two bands," evidently required more than when in his earlier life "with his staff he had passed over Jordan" (Gen. xxxii. 10). What was sufficient for himself alone, would not have been sufficient for the many that were then dependent upon him. The immense provisions for Solomon's table, considering the vast multitude of his dependents, might be only a competency for the demand (1 Kings iv. 22). The distribution of the manna was food convenient--nothing too much, but no deficiency--"He that gathered much had nothing over; and he that gathered little had no lack" (Exod. xvi. 18). And thus, in the daily dispensation of Providence, a little may be a sufficiency to one, while an overflowing plenty is no superfluity to another. Only let Christian self-denial, not depraved appetite, be the standard of competency.--Bridges.
Verse 9. Many in their low estate could serve God, but now resemble the moon, which never suffers eclipse but at her full, and that is by the earth's interposition between the sun and herself.--Trapp.
For Homiletics on the subject of verse 10 see on chap. xxiv. 28, 29, page 689.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 11-17.
FOUR MANIFESTATIONS OF UNGODLINESS.
+I. Children without natural affection.+ Parents that have the disposition and character which God intends them to possess are the best reflection of God that a child can look upon in a fallen world. A son or daughter can by no other means so well come to understand the fatherhood of God as by considering the tenderness and self-sacrifice of good human parents, and hence the Saviour in His most beautiful parable (Luke xv.) uses this relationship to set forth the depth and strength of Divine love to sinful men. He who treats such love lightly, therefore, despises the love of Him who instituted the relationship of parent and child to minister to human happiness and to elevate human character. The man or woman who is guilty of this crime reveals a heart incapable of worthy emotion, and a conscience dead to all the claims of duty. Such an unnatural being must fail in all his other relationships--he cannot be a good husband or faithful friend, or worthily fulfil any of the more public duties of life. A man who was found wanting here, was, in the Hebrew commonwealth, regarded as rotten at the very core of his moral nature, and condemned to suffer the extreme penalty of the law (Deut. xxi. 18-21). Thus God puts the rebellious child on a level with the murderer and blasphemer, and the terrible threatening passed here upon one who disregards the fifth commandment is another proof of the greatness of the sin in the eyes of God. In verse 17 such a sentence is passed upon an undutiful child as is scarcely paralleled in Scripture. Even the body which was the home of so unnatural a soul shall be exposed to ignominy and contempt.
+II. Self-deceivers.+ This is a manifestation of ungodliness, which is in some degree common to all men whose inner vision has not been set right by Divine grace. All unrenewed men are more or less like the ancient Laodiceans, who thought they had need of nothing, but who were in reality so spiritually blind that they could not see their spiritual nakedness (Rev. iii. 15). It is those who are "not washed from their filthiness" that are "pure in their own eyes," for they are in the condition of spirit described by the apostle John--they "walk in darkness," and "that darkness hath blinded their eyes" (1 John ii. 11). But it is their own fault if they remain in this condition of blindness. A man may be born into this world with weak or impaired vision, but there may be means within his reach whereby the defect may be remedied and he become capable of seeing things as they are. By coming under the influence of those who can see well themselves and who can help him to sight also, he may be brought from a state of comparative darkness to one of light, and if with these opportunities within his reach he become worse instead of better, and at last totally blind, his blindness is a crime and not a misfortune. So, although it is true that we all come into this world with our spiritual perceptions defective and impaired, we are blameworthy in the highest degree if we do not put ourselves in contact with the moral light which God has placed within our reach, and we shall in time come to the condition of the Jewish nation in the days of the prophet and in the time of Christ (Isa. vi. 9; Matt. xiii. 14), "seeing, we shall see, and shall not perceive." For "the light which lighteneth every man" (John i. 9) has come into the world; and when His Word is allowed free access to man's heart and conscience it opens his spiritual eyes as the morning sun playing upon the bodily eyes of the sleeper arouses him to life and consciousness. Self-deception, therefore, is a sin, and a sin inseparable from ungodliness.
+III. The proud.+ This sin is the natural outcome of the one just mentioned. If a man has no sense of his state before God, he will have no right conception of his position in relation to his fellow-creatures. The eyes that cannot discern their own moral defilement will certainly look disdainfully upon others. He who thus dishonours his God will certainly despise his brother, and the less a man has to be proud of, the prouder he will be. (On the subject of pride see on chap. xi. 2, and xiii. 10, pages 192 and 305.)
+IV. The cruel and covetous.+ Man's rapacity and selfishness are set forth in verses 15 to 17 in very strong terms. His greediness and cruelty are compared to that of a creature the sole end of whose existence is to gorge itself with blood; to the ever open grave; to swords and knives, etc. We know too well that this picture is not overdrawn. Nothing that man can imagine in the form of cruelty can surpass what man has been guilty of, and such ingenuity has he sometimes displayed in this direction that one is constrained to believe that he has been inspired by a supernatural power of evil, for his deeds of darkness have seemed too black for man of himself to conceive. Some of the cruelty of man towards man may not be the offspring of covetousness, but doubtless much of it is. Men often care not who suffers, or how much they suffer, so that they satisfy their own selfish desires, and all this unnatural conduct is an evidence that there is a schism in the human race which calls for some remedy such as that of the Gospel, whereby such savage natures may be transformed, and "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid," etc. (Isa. xi. 6).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
In Scripture, the word "generations" is repeatedly used to signify particular classes or descriptions of men; for two reasons, or points of analogy:--first, that as generation follows generation, so surely, in every generation, a succession of such characters is to be found;--and secondly, that they very often communicate the character to one another, and thus keep up their respective kinds,--are successive propagators of their species.--Wardlaw.
Verse 11. Here a new thought begins, but probably one from the same teacher. As he had uttered what he most desired, so now he tells us what he most abhorred, and in true harmony with the teaching of the Ten Commandments places in the foremost rank those who rise against the Fifth.--Plumptre.
Solon, when asked why he had made no law against parricides, replied, that he could not conceive of anyone so impious and cruel. The Divine lawgiver knew His creature better, that his heart was capable of wickedness beyond conception (Jer. xvii. 9).--Bridges.
Verse 14. Yet withal, these cruel oppressors are marked by pitiful cowardice. They vent their wantonness only where there is little or no power of resistance. It is not the wolf with the wolf, but with the defenceless lamb; devouring the poor and needy from off the earth,--"eating up my people"--not like an occasional indulgence, but "as they eat bread" their daily meal, without intermission (Ps. xiv. 4).--Bridges.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 18-20.
DEPTHS OF WICKEDNESS.
+I. There are deeds of iniquity which leave no outward immediate trace.+ The path which the eagle opens by her wings when she soars aloft cannot be traced by the human eye. The air closes behind her as she moves, and she leaves nothing to show that she has passed that way. The vessel ploughs its way through the deep, and leaves a wake behind her for a short time. But the sea, like the air, soon resumes its former condition, and the keel leaves no lasting indication upon the water whereby the course of the mariner can be seen. So the serpent glides over the rock, and for a moment its shining scales are reflected in the sun, and then it is hidden from sight and the rock bears no footprint upon its surface. No human skill could, in any of these instances, find any evidence by which to establish the fact that either the thing without life or the living creatures had been there. So the sin to which all these comparisons are linked is one which may be concealed from the eyes of all except those concerned in it, not only at the time of its committal, but also in the immediate future. Those who come in contact with the guilty parties may see no more trace of the sin than they would do of an eagle's course, or, to use the other metaphor, of bread that had been eaten by one who has wiped his mouth after the meal.
+II. Sin is so in opposition to the voice of the human conscience that even those who love it must seek to hide it.+ The adulteress has sunk as low in the moral scale as it is possible for a human creature to sink, and yet she seeks to hide her shame. Men of evil deeds love darkness rather than light, and so give evidence that there is that within them that condemns their unholy deeds. The very denial of the crime is a condemnation of it. There are many crimes which are not amenable to human law which men, notwithstanding, try to hide from human eyes, and their efforts to do this are witnesses against them and in favour of the law which they have broken.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 21-23.
BURDENS GRIEVOUS TO BE BORNE.
+I. It is sometimes dangerous to the peace of a community to raise a person from a low to a high position.+ To place a man who has never before crossed a horse, upon a high-spirited charger, is to create a source of danger both to himself and others. There is a strong probability that the unskilful rider will be thrown from his unaccustomed elevation, and so injure himself. And it is also probable that he will be the means of mischief to other travellers upon the road, whom he will overthrow in his unskilful efforts to keep his seat. It is generally as dangerous an experiment to lift a man at once from the position of a servant to that of a ruler. Although faithfulness "over a few things" is, according to the highest authority, the best qualification for rulership "over many things" (Matt. xxv. 21), it is not always hands used only to service are fit to hold the reins of government, either in a small or a large society. On this subject see also on chap. xix. 10, page 569.
+II. Some human creatures cannot safely be trusted with even a sufficiency of this world's goods.+ They are not only unfit to rule others, but so unfit to rule themselves that they cannot be "filled with meat" without becoming a centre of disturbance. Even enough of the necessaries of life suffices to make them injurious to themselves and insolent to their betters. This is especially true of men who are slaves to their bodily appetites. There are men in the world who, although peaceable and even useful citizens when they are kept in a state of comparative want and hardship, indulge in excess and immorality as soon as the restraint is removed. They will sometimes know this to be true, and yet they are so wanting in moral courage and strength as not to struggle after a higher condition of being. Such men are fools indeed.
+III. The change of disposition which change of circumstance sometimes seems to work may be the result of deliberate purpose.+ When a servant becomes a ruler he may be the occasion of trouble simply from intellectual inability, and the fool who cannot safely be filled with meat may be only morally weak; but the woman here represented as developing into a curse after marriage suggests a person who has deliberately hidden her real character for a time in order to gain a position in which she can have more opportunities of indulging her evil propensities. This is a step farther in wickedness, and this domestic burden is often the most grievous of all burdens. On this subject see on chap. xxi. 9 and 19, page 613.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
Judge, then, how horrible it is that men should set the devil, or his two angels the world and the flesh, in the throne, whiles they place God in the footstool; or that in this commonwealth of man, reason, which is the queen or princess over the better powers and graces of the soul, should stoop to so base a slave as sensual lust.--T. Adams.
And now, just notice the comprehensiveness, in regard to the happiness of human life, of the four things thus enumerated. They begin, observe, at the throne, and come down to the domestic servant. They embrace four great sources of the social unhappiness of mankind. They are--incompetent rule, preposterous and besotted folly, conjugal alienation and strife with its domestic miseries, and the unnatural inversion of social order.--Wardlaw.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 24-28.
LOWLY TEACHERS.
+I. Men can learn from creatures far beneath him.+ Herein he gives evidence both of his greatness and of his imperfection. He is often so faulty in many respects that some of the most insignificant creatures around him read him lessons of wisdom, and yet his capability of receiving instruction from them shows how superior he is to them. For creatures below man, although their actions are often marked by something that seems very nearly akin to reason, are not capable of receiving moral instruction, either from those above or beneath them, and so give proof that they lack a capacity which man possesses.
+II. The lessons taught him by each of these creatures.+ 1. From the ant industry and forethought. On this subject see on chap. vi. 6-11, page 78. 2. From the coney (see Critical Notes) a prudent acknowledgement of weakness. It is one of the marks of a wise man that he knows his weakness as well as his strength, and this seems to be the lesson conveyed by the feeble folk who, conscious of their feebleness, make their abodes in the rocks. Foolhardiness may ruin a man as surely as cowardice, and it is quite a different thing from courage, though it is sometimes mistaken for it. 3. From the locust the need of unity and co-operation. The locust is in itself a small and weak insect, yet it is well known what mighty and terrible work can be accomplished by them when they unite. They stand as an example of the wonderful effect of perfect combination and unanimity in action. (See Joel ii. 2-11.) They seem animated by a single purpose, and the myriads of individuals seem to become one great and irresistible monster, and thus show us what great things can be accomplished in any community when men are of one heart and mind on any subject, and are willing to lay aside personal preferences and individual interests in order to achieve a common purpose. 4. From the lizard (see Critical Notes) the results of perseverance. This little creature is constantly found in Eastern houses, and doubtless in the palace as well as in more lowly dwellings. Although hardly so good an example of perseverance as the spider, yet it owes its presence in the house to its own energy in overcoming obstacles, and its pertinacity in seeking out some means of entrance, and may therefore be regarded as worthy of man's imitation when some task is set before him which calls for continuous and watchful effort.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.
It has been remarked by some, that the four emblems express all that is requisite for the conservation and well-being of a STATE or KINGDOM. There is supply of food;--commodious and secure dwelling places;--subordination, concord, and united exertion;--and the prevalence and encouragement of the ingenious and useful arts. These are things that governors and kings should look to. And we may apply the emblematic lessons to domestic life. Before a man can prudently marry, and have a family, he should have some suitable provision made, and something like a fair prospect of being able to support them. Next is to be found a suitable dwelling, adapted to the circumstances and convenience. Then, when settled, there must be harmony, union, co-operation, in all departments of the household. And lastly, there must be the diligent, constant, persevering application of his skill and labour to his worldly calling.--Wardlaw.
The ants prepare their meat in the summer, that they may not starve in the rigours of the winter months. How despicable, compared with these insects, are the rational creatures, who suffer the thoughts of an endless duration to be pushed out of their minds by threescore and ten years? The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies; and has God provided no refuge for our souls? God himself is our refuge and our strength, and those that make Him their habitation shall be secured from the fear of evil.--Lawson.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses 29-31.
KINGLY QUALITIES.
These words seem to set forth animal qualifications needed by human leaders.
+I. They must be men of courage.+ A cowardly man in any position in society will, at some time or other, be found wanting, but what is needed in everyday life and by men in ordinary positions, is indispensable in him who has to lead others. A king in the days of Solomon was expected to be at the head of his army in the day of battle, and if he was not then an example to all beneath him in this respect, he brought disgrace and ruin upon himself and them. A king in all ages, and under all circumstances should be to his subjects what the lion is to the other beasts of the forest--a pattern of dignity and courage.
+II. They must be active and watchful.+ Both the greyhound and the war-horse--whichever may be here meant--are characterised by swiftness of foot and great sagacity. They are ready at any moment to set forth on any errand, and are always on the alert when danger is near. The goat, also, is agile in its movements, and as sure-footed as it is fleet. All these animal qualities are symbolic of mental qualifications which must be possessed by those who aspire to lead and rule their fellow-men successfully. They must not be behindhand when called to action, but they must at the same time take heed to the dangers which may lie in wait for them. They must be ever ready at the call of duty, but they must not be rash and hasty, and so endanger much more than their own personal safety.
On the subject of verses 32 and 33, see on chap. xvii. 14, page 513.
REMARKS ON THE CHAPTER AS A WHOLE.
While it appears at the first view that the flowers and fruits from the cornucopia of Agur's wisdom, original and in part so rarely fashioned, are heaped up wholly without order, yet they all agree in this, that they depict the glory and all sufficiency of the Word of God, dissuade from adding to it by any human supplement, and most urgently commend the fulfilling and following it by a pious life. There is hardly a single commandment of the Decalogue that is not directly or indirectly repeated and emphasised in these maxims. Observe the relation of the prayer for the hallowing of God's name (verses 7-9) to the first and third commandments; the references contained in verse 11, and again in verse 17 to the fifth commandment; the warnings against the transgression of the sixth commandment in verse 14 as well as in verses 32-33; the reproving and warning aim of verses 18-20, and 23, in their bearing upon the seventh; the allusion to the eighth in verse 9, and to the ninth in verse 10; and finally the reference, reminding us of the tenth in verses 15 and 16. . . . No one of these proverbs is wholly without an ethical value; not even the two numerical proverbs (verses 24-28, and 29-31), which at the first view stand apart as incidental reflections on merely natural truths, but in reality hide under their ingenious physical drapery decided moral aims. For in verses 24-28 four chief virtues of one's social and political avocation are specified through an allusion to a like number of examples from the animal world, and verses 29-31 run into a delineation of the high dignity and glory of a king by the grace of God in contrast with the insufferable tyranny of base upstarts (verses 21-23).--Lange's Commentary.
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