'Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life
shall be many. 11. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led
thee in right paths. 12. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be
straitened; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. 13. Take
fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy
life. 14. Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way
of evil men. 15. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass
away. 16. For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and
their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. 17. For
they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. 18.
But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day. 19. The way of the wicked is as
darkness; they know not at what they stumble.'--PROVERBS iv. 10-19.
This passage includes much more than temperance or any other single
virtue. It is a perfectly general exhortation to that practical wisdom
which walks in the path of righteousness. The principles laid down
here are true in regard to drunkenness and abstinence, but they are
intended to receive a wider application, and to that wider application
we must first look. The theme is the old, familiar one of the two
paths, and the aim is to recommend the better way by setting forth the
contrasted effects of walking in it and in the other.
The general call to listen in verse 10 is characteristically enforced
by the Old Testament assurance that obedience prolongs life. That is a
New Testament truth as well; for there is nothing more certain than
that a life in conformity with God's will, which is the same thing as
a life in conformity with physical laws, tends to longevity. The
experience of any doctor will show that. Here in England we have
statistics which prove that total abstainers are a long-lived people,
and some insurance offices construct their tables accordingly.
After that general call to listen comes, in verse 11, the description
of the path in which long life is to be found. It is 'the way of
Wisdom'--that is, that which Wisdom prescribes, and in which therefore
it is wise to walk. It is always foolish to do wrong. The rough title
of an old play is _The Devil is an Ass_, and if that is not true
about him, it is absolutely true about those who listen to his lies.
Sin is the stupidest thing in the universe, for it ignores the
plainest facts, and never gets what it flings away so much to secure.
Another aspect of the path is presented in the designation 'paths of
uprightness,' which seems to be equivalent to those which belong to,
or perhaps which consist of, uprightness. The idea of straightness or
evenness is the primary meaning of the word, and is, of course,
appropriate to the image of a path. In the moral view, it suggests how
much more simple and easy a course of rectitude is than one of sin.
The one goes straight and unswerving to its end; the other is crooked,
devious, intricate, and wanders from the true goal. A crooked road is
a long road, and an up-and-down road is a tiring road. Wisdom's way is
straight, level, and steadily approaches its aim.
In verse 13 the image of the path is dropped for the moment, and the
picture of the way of uprightness and its travellers is translated
into the plain exhortation to keep fast hold of 'instruction,' which
is substantially equivalent to the queenly Wisdom of these early
chapters of Proverbs. The earnestness of the repeated exhortations
implies the strength of the forces that tend to sweep us, especially
those of us who are young, from our grasp of that Wisdom. Hands become
slack, and many a good gift drops from nerveless fingers; thieves
abound who will filch away 'instruction,' if we do not resolutely hold
tight by it. Who would walk through the slums of a city holding jewels
with a careless grasp, and never looking at them? How many would he
have left if he did? We do not need to do anything to lose
instruction. If we will only do nothing to keep it, the world and our
own hearts will make sure that we lose it. And if we lose it, we lose
ourselves; for 'she is thy life,' and the mere bodily life, that is
lived without her, is not worth calling the life of a man.
Verses 14 to 17 give the picture of the other path, in terrible
contrast with the preceding. It is noteworthy that, while in the
former the designation was the 'path of uprightness' or of 'wisdom,'
and the description therefore was mainly of the characteristics of the
path, here the designation is 'the path of the _wicked_,' and the
description is mainly of the travellers on it. Righteousness was dealt
with, as it were, in the abstract; but wickedness is too awful and
dark to be painted thus, and is only set forth in the concrete, as
seen in its doers. Now, it is significant that the first exhortation
here is of a negative character. In contrast with the reiterated
exhortations to keep wisdom, here are reiterated counsels to steer
clear of evil. It is all about us, and we have to make a strong effort
to keep it at arm's-length. 'Whom resist' is imperative. True,
negative virtue is incomplete, but there will be no positive virtue
without it. We must be accustomed to say 'No,' or we shall come to
little good. An outer belt of firs is sometimes planted round a centre
of more tender and valuable wood to shelter the young trees; so we
have to make a fence of abstinences round our plantation of positive
virtues. The decalogue is mostly prohibitions. 'So did _not_ I,
because of the fear of God' must be our motto. In this light, entire
abstinence from intoxicants is seen to be part of the 'way of Wisdom.'
It is one, and, in the present state of England and America, perhaps
the most important, of the ways by which we can 'turn from' the path
of the wicked and 'pass on.'
The picture of the wicked in verses 16 and 17 is that of very grossly
criminal sinners. They are only content when they have done harm, and
delight in making others as bad as themselves. But, diabolical as such
a disposition is, one sees it only too often in full operation. How
many a drunkard or impure man finds a fiendish pleasure in getting
hold of some innocent lad, and 'putting him up to a thing or two,'
which means teaching him the vices from which the teacher has ceased
to get much pleasure, and which he has to spice with the condiment of
seeing an unaccustomed sinner's eagerness! Such people infest our
streets, and there is only one way for a young man to be safe from
them,--'avoid, pass not by, turn from, and pass on.' The reference to
'bread' and 'wine' in verse 17 seems simply to mean that the wicked
men's living is won by their 'wickedness,' which procures bread, and
by their 'violence,' which brings them wine. It is the way by which
these are obtained that is culpable. We may contrast this foul source
of a degraded living with verse 13, where 'instruction' is set forth
as 'the life' of the upright.
Verses 18 and 19 bring more closely together the two paths, and set
them in final, forcible contrast. The phrase 'the perfect day' might
be rendered, vividly though clumsily, 'the steady of the day'--that
is, noon, when the sun seems to stand still in the meridian. So the
image compares the path of the just to the growing brightness of
morning dawn, becoming more and more fervid and lustrous, till the
climax of an Eastern midday. No more sublime figure of the continuous
progress in goodness, brightness, and joy, which is the best reward of
walking in the paths of uprightness, can be imagined; and it is as
true as it is sublime. Blessed they who in the morning of their days
begin to walk in the way of wisdom; for, in most cases, years will
strengthen their uprightness, and to that progress there will be no
termination, nor will the midday sun have to decline westward to
diminishing splendour or dismal setting, but that noontide glory will
be enhanced, and made eternal in a new heaven. The brighter the light,
the darker the shadow. That blaze of growing glory, possible for us
all, makes the tragic gloom to which evil men condemn themselves the
thicker and more doleful, as some dungeon in an Eastern prison seems
pitch dark to one coming in from the blaze outside. 'How great is that
darkness!' It is the darkness of sin, of ignorance, of sorrow, and
what adds deeper gloom to it is that every soul that sits in that
shadow of death might have been shining, a sun, in the spacious heaven
of God's love.