CRITICAL NOTES.--+1. Rivers of water.+ Rather _streams,_ the allusion
being to the watercourses, which in hot countries intersect fields
and gardens for the purpose of irrigation, in which the water is
entirely under the control of the husbandman. +2. Pondereth,+ rather
_weigheth,_ as in chap. xvi. 2. It is the same verb as that used in
1 Sam. ii. 3 and Isa. xl. 12, 13. +4. The ploughing.+ This word is by
most modern commentators translated, as in the marginal references,
_light._ It is likewise so rendered in the Septuagint, the Vulgate,
and in Luther's version. Ewald, Elster, Wordsworth, and others,
translate as in the English version. The Hebrew words are very
similar. Those who adopt the former rendering understand the word to
stand in apposition to the _high look_ and the _proud heart_ of the
first clause (literally, _"To be lofty of eyes, and to be swollen of
heart"_), and regard it as a figurative representation of the spirit
of the wicked man. Ewald and others refer the _ploughing of the
wicked_ to the "very first-fruits of a man's activity."
+5. Thoughts,+ rather the _counsels,_ the _calculatings._ +6. Vanity
tossed to and fro.+ Rather _a fleeting breath._ The Hebrew word
_hebel,_ here translated vanity, means _vapour._ +7. Robbery,+ or
_violence, rapacity._ +8.+ Zöckler translates the first clause of
this verse, _"Crooked is the way of the guilty man."_ Fausset remarks
that the Hebrew word _ish_ (man) expresses a man once _good;_ froward
implies his perversity, by having left the good way. +Right,+ _i.e.,
direct, straightforward._ +9. Wide house.+ Literally _house of
companionship, i.e.,_ to share the house with her. +11. Instructed.+
Zöckler translates this _"prospereth,"_ and understands the simple to
be the subject of both clauses of the verse. +12.+ The words _man_
and _God_ are both supplied by the translators. The verse should be
_"The righteous considereth the house of the wicked_ (and)
_overthroweth,"_ etc. Some understand it, therefore, to mean "The
righteous man gives instruction to the house of the wicked to turn
them away from evil." But Stuart remarks that the verb of the second
clause is a very strong word, _to precipitate, to cast down
headlong,_ and refers the righteous (one) of the first clause to God.
This is Zöckler's rendering also. +15. Shall be.+ These words are not
in the original, and destroy the sense, which is that justice is joy
to the good, and destruction to the bad. Luther renders, "It is a joy
to the just to do what is right; but to the wicked a terror."
+24. Proud wrath,+ literally _"wrath of pride"_ or _overflowings of
haughtiness._ +27. With a wicked mind,+ literally, _"for iniquity,"_
and may refer to a desire to cloak a sinful purpose by an outward
show of piety, or an attempt to expiate a sinful act by an outward
atonement. Miller reads for +"how much more"+ _"because also."_
+28. Constantly,+ rather _for ever._ Stuart understands the verse to
mean "that the sincere listener to the Divine commands will ever be
at liberty to speak, and find confidence put in what he says."
+29. Hardeneth his face,+ or "putteth on a bold countenance."
+Directeth,+ or _"considereth,"_ or _"establisheth."_
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 1.
THE KING OF KINGS.
+I. Kings are more entirely in the hand of God than subjects are in
the hands of kings.+ The king of the days of Solomon was, as some
Oriental rulers are now, an absolute monarch. In the case of Solomon
himself, his will was law, and in his hand was the power of life and
death (see 1 Kings iii. 24, 25). Of Nebuchadnezzar it is said, _"Whom
he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; whom he would he
set up, and whom he would he put down"_ (Dan. v. 19). It is to such a
king that the proverb refers--to one who called no man or any number
of men master, but upon whose single will apparently depended the
destiny of millions. Yet he was not the independent being that he
appeared, neither were his subjects so dependent upon his will as
they appeared to be. The most abject slave in his dominions was less
under his control than he was under the control of Him by whom
_"kings reign"_ and _"princes rule"_ (chap. viii. 15, 16). The
gardener whose ground is intersected by water-channels finds it a
very easy task to turn the stream in the direction he desires; the
soil yields to his touch, and forthwith the water flows whithersoever
he wills. But the moist earth is not so easily moulded by the hand of
man, as the heart of the proudest monarch is subdued to obedience by
his Maker; and the water is not more entirely subject to the will of
the husbandman than is the will of the most stubborn despot to the
will of Jehovah.
+II. The power which God exercises over kings extends into a region
where no earthly ruler can penetrate.+ The _heart_ of the king is in
the hand of Jehovah. This is more than the most absolute monarch can
boast concerning his meanest subject. Nebuchadnezzar could issue his
decree, but whoso did not fall down before his golden image should be
cast into the fiery furnace, but he could not move the steadfast
determination of the Hebrew youths to acknowledge no god but the God
of Israel. His will could determine what should be done to their
bodies, but all his threatenings could not reach their hearts. But
God rules the spirit of a man in that He has access to his innermost
thoughts and feelings, and can thus touch the spring of all his
actions, and thus bring him to do His will, even when he seems to be
doing only his own.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
Could anything be more bold? Mark the compass--first, of _subject,_
the whole _stream_ as the gardener turns it; second, of object,
_"whithersoever"_ or anything He pleases; and third, of
_sovereignty;_ its pleasing Him, that being the only test. The
_"king"_ may be Cæsar. His lip may make new geographies (ch.
xvi. 10). His _"heart"_ may change the history of all things. And
yet, like a vineyard's channels diverted by a child, the Pharaoh's
heart is in the fingers of the Most High. . . . _Upon_ whatsoever.
Not toward anything. A stream may be turned in a new direction to get
rid of it. God has no such streams. It is turned on something. For
God has an end to answer when He rules even the vilest of
fiends.--_Miller._
Whether, in the second line, the pleasant refreshing influence of the
rivulets, dispensing blessing and increase, comes into account as a
point of the comparison, is uncertain (comp. Isa. xxxii. 2); this,
however, is not improbable, inasmuch as the heart of a king may in
fact become in an eminent degree a fountain of blessing for many
thousands, and, according to God's design, ought to be so. See chap.
xvi. 15.--_Lange's Commentary._
For Homiletics on verse 2 see on chap. xvi. 2, page 454.
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 3.
THE MORE ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE.
+I. The sacrifices of the Mosaic law were acceptable to God as
ceremonial signs.+ They were instituted by God, and therefore He
expected them to be offered, and was displeased when His commands
concerning them were disregarded. But they were but the means to an
end, and if they did not lead to that end they were worthless in His
sight. They were intended to awaken a sense of sin, and to be
accompanied by observance of higher precepts and by obedience to more
enduring laws. It availed nothing for a man to offer his bullock or
his goat unless he laid his will upon the altar at the same time--no
sin-offering could be acceptable to God unless the sin was put away,
and no meat-offering could be regarded with favour if the heart of
the offeror was without love to his neighbour and his life was marked
by acts of injustice to him. It was of no avail to come before the
Lord with _"thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil,"_
unless the higher requirement was fulfilled--_to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with God_ (Micah vi. 7, 8).
+II. The doing of justice and judgment is more acceptable to God
because it is a moral reality.+ To love our neighbour as ourself is
in itself good,--it is a moral attribute, an element of character, a
part of the man himself. It is an expression of love to God and
obedience to His commands which can be made anywhere and at all
times, for to do justice and judgment is the law of the moral
universe, and belongs to heaven as much as to earth. It is to do what
God has been doing from all eternity, for it is written that they
_"are the habitation of His throne"_ (Psa. lxxxix. 14). All other
offerings without these are _"vain oblations,"_ and even _"an
abomination"_ (Isa. i. 13) unto Him who owns _"every beast of the
forest and the cattle upon a thousand hills"_ (Psa. l. 10). To expect
a holy and spiritual Being to accept anything less than a moral
reality is to expect Him to be satisfied with less than would often
content a fellow-creature.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
_Sacrifice;_ literally, _slaughter._ But with slender exceptions, the
slaughter is a slaughter for sacrifice. . . . He did not love the
slaughtering of His Son upon the cross. He did not love the
slaughtering of beasts year by year continually. On the contrary, He
does love righteousness, and, therefore, He does love, in the
severities that men impugn, that very element of right which is the
attribute that they would bring into the question. Doing
righteousness Himself, He prefers the right-doing of His creatures to
any form of sacrifice or possible service they can ever
render.--_Miller._
"Sacrifice" at best is only circumstantially good--rectitude is
essentially so. Sacrifice, at best, is only the means and expression
of good; rectitude is goodness itself. God accepts the moral without
the ceremonial, but never the ceremonial without the moral. The
universe can exist without the ceremonial, but not without the
moral.--_David Thomas._
This maxim of the Proverbs was a bold saying then--it is a bold
saying still; but it well unites the wisdom of Solomon with that of
his father in the 51st Psalm, and with the inspiration of the later
prophets.--_Stanley._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 4.
THE PLOUGHING OF THE WICKED.
+I. The high look and the proud heart indicate a man wrong at the
foundation of his character.+ They show that he has not yet learned
the alphabet of true godliness--that he has not yet begin to know his
guilt and his weakness. He is ignorant of the depravity of his moral
nature--of the capabilities of wrong that lie hidden within him,
undeveloped now, it may be, but ready to assert their presence when
the temptation presents itself. The man who has been born blind is
entirely ignorant of the outline even of his own features, but he
does not form a conception which is farther removed from the reality
than a spiritually unenlightened man does of the real features of his
moral character. The proud man by his pride proclaims his moral
blindness--his high look is a sure indication that the light within
him is darkness--that he has never seen himself as he really is.
Hence it follows that he is wrong at the very core and centre of his
moral being; where pride holds her throne there is no room for God,
there is no confession of sin, and no yielding to Divine guidance.
+II. While the heart is wrong the whole life will be wrong.+ This
truth is expressed in the proverb, however we translate the verb in
the second clause (See Critical Notes). Things that are not wrong in
themselves become wrong if done from a sinful motive. A man may
plough a field, and in itself the action may be neither good nor bad,
but if he plough in order to sow a crop of thistles the action is a
criminal one. A man may be diligent and painstaking in his business,
and his diligence may in itself seem commendable, but if he exercises
it only to gain money for sinful ends his very buying and selling
becomes sin. And if we translate the word _"light,"_ and understand
it to signify _prosperity,_ the truth taught is very much the same.
While a man's pride keeps him at a moral distance from God, no matter
how successful he may be, the taint and curse of unpardoned sin is
upon all his gains and possessions.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
Holy intention is to the actions of a man that which the soul is to
the body, or form to its matter, or the root to the tree, or the sun
to the world, or the fountain to the river, or the base to a pillar.
Without these the body is a dead trunk, the matter is sluggish, the
tree is a block, the world is darkness, the river is quickly dry, the
pillar rushes into flatness and ruin, and the action is sinful, or
unprofitable and vain.--_Jeremy Taylor._
The evil spirit called sin may be trained up to politeness, and made
to be genteel sin; it may be elegant, cultivated sin; it may be very
exclusive and fashionable sin; it may be industrious, thrifty sin; it
may be a great political manager, a great inventor; it may be
learned, scientific, eloquent, highly-poetic sin! Still it is sin,
and, being that, has in fact the same radical and fundamental quality
that, in its ranker and less restrained conditions, produces all the
most hideous and revolting crimes of the world.--_Bushnell._
All thine actions while unregenerate--whether inward or outward,
whether worldly or religious--are all sinful and cursed. Like the
leper under the law, thou taintest whatever thou touchest, and makest
it unclean. . . . Thy calling is not without its corruption . . .
nay, thy very religious exercises are sinful. . . . Thine incense
stinks of the hand that offered it. . . . The vessel of thy heart is
not clean, and God will not taste of the liquor which cometh out of
it. Because thy person is not accepted, thy performances are all
rejected. "Thou art in the flesh, and therefore canst not please God"
(Rom. viii. 8).--_Swinnock._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES_ 5, 7, _and_ 17.
THE ROADS TO WEALTH.
+I. The most likely road to lead to wealth.+ 1. _Thoughtful diligence
as opposed to thoughtless haste._ We have before considered the
necessity of thought before action (see on chap. xx. 18), and the
same idea is conveyed in the use of the first noun here (see Critical
Notes). But although it is wise and necessary to think before we act,
thinking must only be preparatory to action, and must not take its
place. It is good for a man to make a good plan of his house before
he begins to build; but a house on paper only will not shelter him
from the winter storms. It is advisable for the captain to study his
chart well before he embarks upon his voyage, but if he does no more
he will never reach the desired port. So it is good for a man to take
counsel with himself and others before he sets out upon the voyage of
commercial life--before he begins to build for a competency or a
fortune; but after the thought and with the thought there must be
action, and there must be painstaking and persevering action. He must
not be all eagerness to-day and indifference to-morrow--he must not
work hard this week and neglect his business next week;--such a man
may get rich by a mere chance speculation or by a dishonest act, but,
apart from all higher considerations, it is not the best road,
because it is not the most likely road. No doubt there are men who
have made their fortune by short cuts--by what is called luck, or by
craft and robbery--but these are the exceptions, and the way of
diligent perseverance is the one by which riches are generally
gotten. 2. _Self-denial as opposed to self-indulgence._ "He that
loveth pleasure shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil
shall not be rich" (ver. 17). He who spends in self-indulgence as
fast as he earns will be always poor. The lover of pleasure and
luxury will not be a lover of hard work, and as we have just seen, it
is that alone by which most men grow rich. And the extravagant and
idle man will not be very likely to keep within his means, and to
confine himself to honest ways of making money. And both these roads
are roads which lead in the end to ruin. It is not likely that
Solomon here refers to any poverty except material poverty. But it is
also true that no man whose heart is set upon the gratification of
his own selfish desires--whose life is one of self-indulgent
ease--can ever be rich in the only true and lasting riches. He must
always be in poverty as to character, as to intellectual wealth, and
as to the gratitude and respect of those whom he might bless with his
riches. _"If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous
mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have
not been faithful in that which is another man's_ (or another's),
_who shall give you that which is your own?"_ (Luke xvi. 11, 12). He
is a poor man who has nothing but what he must leave behind him when
he leaves the world. The greatest millionaire has nothing he can call
his own if he has not a godly character.
+II. The only blessed road to wealth, viz., the way of truth as
opposed to lying, the way of honesty as opposed to dishonesty.+ We
need not consider these sins separately, for they are inseparable in
human character and conduct. The liar is a thief, for by his tongue
he cheats men of their rights, and the thief lies in action as well
as in word. Solomon does not say that thieves and liars shall not
grow rich. As a matter of fact they often do, and leave far behind
them in their race those who are plodding slowly on in the path of
honest diligence. But he looks to the end of such a way of making
money, and of these who so make it. It often vanishes like a vapour
(see Critical Notes), while the man who made it still lives. One
falsehood leads to another, and a little dishonesty bringing success
leads to another and another, each one on a larger scale, until the
bubble becomes too thin, and it bursts and all is gone. But if the
rogue keeps his fortune till the last--if he meets death a rich man,
and is buried with all the pomp of wealth,--retribution awaits him
before the tribunal of a righteous God. He sought death and
destruction while he lived, and he found it ever here;--destruction
of character and spiritual death, and he who here "refused to do
judgment" goes to meet his judge a morally self-ruined man--one whose
spiritual deathblow has been dealt by his own hand. (On this subject
see also Homiletics on chap. xiii. 11, page 306.)
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
Verse 5. Haste may have much of diligence in the temperament. But as
indolence is its defect, this is its excess, its undisciplined
impulse. The hand too often goes before, and acts without the
judgment. Hence our English philosopher wisely counsels us--"not to
measure dispatch by the times of sitting, but by the advancement of
the business." A wise man had it for a bye-word, when he saw men
hasten to a conclusion--"Stay a little that we may make an end the
sooner." To choose time is to save time, and an unreasonable motion
is but "beating the air." The heavenly race is not to be run by so
many heats, but by a steady course. "Run," not with haste or speed,
but "with patience the race set before us" (Heb. xii. 1). The seed
springing up in haste withered (Matt. xiii. 20, 21).--_Bridges._
Verse 6. They _seek_ death because they not only walk in the way of
it, but run and fly with post haste as if they were afraid they
should come too late or that hell would be full before they got
thither. Thus Balaam's ass never carries him fast enough after the
wages of wickedness. Set but a wedge of gold before Achan, and Joshua
that could stop the sun in his course, cannot stay him from fingering
of it. Judas, in selling his Master, what he doth, doth
quickly.--_Trapp._
_Treasures;_ literally stores; from a root to shut up. _"Tongue;"_
standing for all instruments of labour (see comment on chap. xii. 6).
_"Lying;"_ not telling lies in the worldly sense, for, so put, decent
sinners would miss the signification, but _lying_ in that high sense
in which the most honest worldling may fill the portrait. _"Tongue;"_
just coincident with fact, is of the haste of the last verse; that
untrue uttering of thought against conviction in one's self, and,
therefore, hardly to be dreamed of and spared by the Most High.
Stores got by this lying career of business may seem solid, because
they may be whole blocks of granite in some fire-proof square mile of
street; and yet as to their possession the wise man employs a
singularly intensive figure. They are _driven breath!_ Surely he will
pause at that! But no! They are driven breath as of man chasing after
death! . . . The meaning is, that the hot breath of a man rushing to
his doom is like the money made by the deceived impenitent. First, it
is utterly perishable; second, it betokens the speed; and third, the
voluntary rush to get himself to ruin.--_Miller._
And forget not what the "lying tongue" includes--that he is
chargeable with the evil who pretends, in any way, to be what he is
not, to have what he has not, not to have what he has, to have said
what he has not said, or to have done what he has not done, or not to
have said and done what he has said and done; who tries to gain an
end by any word, or act, or look, or even by silence and concealment
designed to convey a false impression--by any means whatever not in
harmony with honest truth--with "simplicity and godly sincerity."
This, says Solomon, "is vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek
death." It is a "vanity;" inasmuch as it involves both folly and
sin--the folly being made evident in ultimate detection, exposure,
shame, and loss--loss of character, loss of confidence, and many a
time loss of even what the falsehood had acquired. It is "tossed to
and fro." Men learn it from one another. The man who has been imposed
upon retaliates--he has no satisfaction until he has succeeded in
duping him by whom he has himself been taken in, in practising on him
an equal or a better trick. It is practised with little thought--with
the vanity of a light and inconsiderate mind--and laughed at, in many
instances, when it proves successful, instead of engendering remorse.
Success produces a hundred imitators: and the cheats and the dupes
are successively reversed, the dupe becoming in his turn the cheat,
and the cheat the dupe.--_Wardlaw._
Verse 17. Self-indulgence is not human happiness; it is a delirium,
not a delight. It is a mere titillation of the dying nerves, not a
Divine thrill of our imperishable sensibilities and powers. Its music
is the notes of a maniac, not the strains of a seraph.--_David
Thomas._
He may be rich secularly. For here is a proverb that on earth has but
a partial verity. But now, spiritually it is as settled as the
heavens. "He that loveth his life shall lose it" (John xii. 25). A
man cannot scale heaven for its "wine." Unless a man gets higher
objects than himself, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And,
therefore, it is literally true that the wealth that the soul attains
is never made by the very most feverish desire to escape, or by the
very most impassioned thirst for the mere joy of heaven. "Man;" the
higher name for man. He may be ever so skilful. . . . "Loving;" not,
if it loves, but because it loves. It is no harm to love happiness;
but it cannot be in loving it, or because we love it, that we can
create everlasting riches.--_Miller._
Strange as it may seem, the way to enjoy pleasure is not to love it;
to live above it; to "rejoice as though we rejoiced not; to use the
world, as not abusing it" (1 Cor. vii. 30, 31); never pursuing it as
our portion, or as making the happiness of an immortal being. The man
who gives his whole heart and time to the love of pleasure, and
sacrifices to it all his prudence and foresight, is surely on the
highroad to poverty. On the same road is he that loveth wine, under
the power of a "mocking delusion." He that loveth oil--one of the
most precious fruits of Canaan--may find, that "those who could not
live without dainties came to want necessaries."--_Bridges._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 8.
TWO WAYS.
+I. The way of fallen man.+ It is a froward or refractory way in
relation to God. When we look at man's ways and compare them with the
ways of all the creatures below him and inferior to him, we note a
remarkable contrast. The sun, which was created to give him light and
heat, never turns aside from its ordained path, and the moon never
forsakes her orbit, with the rest of the heavenly bodies, continue in
the way ordained for them at the creation, and impress us with a
sense of order, and regularity, and obedience. And the living
creatures beneath man remain true to their instincts, and manifestly
fulfil their destinies in ministering to the wants of the human race.
But when we come to man we come to a law-breaking, perverse
creature--to a being who resists the law of God as written in his
conscience, and the commands of God as given in revelation, and the
very pleadings of _self-love_ which often urge him to submission. The
way of the Hebrew people under special Divine tuition is a specimen
of the frowardness of all men in their natural condition, which is
indeed a most _unnatural_ condition, seeing that it is out of harmony
with all the rest of creation. Delivered from bondage by miracle and
fed and guided by the same miraculous love and power for nearly half
a century, and again and again after their settlement in Canaan
delivered from the consequences of their disobedience by the same
mighty hand, the testimony against them was, _"Ephraim is joined unto
idols, let him alone"_ (Hosea iv. 15). Neither appeals to their
conscience or their reason, or even to their own self-interest, nor
promises nor threatenings, could induce them to choose God's way in
preference to their own, and when He appeared among them in flesh,
and after He had risen from the grave and the full meaning of His
incarnation and death was unfolded to them by His apostles, they
still perversely chose to go about _"to establish their own
righteousness"_ rather than _"submit themselves unto the
righteousness of God"_ (Rom. x. 3). And man in general is as froward,
as perverse, as was this froward people. Though their reason, and
conscience, and self-love are all on the side of God's way they
persist in walking in their own.
+II. The way of renewed man.+ It is a _direct_ or _straight_ way (see
Critical Notes), because it is an obedient way. No man but a godly
man keeps in one undeviating course, for none but he has but one aim
and goal. The unrenewed man may be swayed by passion to-day, and by
worldly interest to-morrow; but with him who has been born to a new
and higher life one principle lies behind all his actions; and
whatever his secondary plans and purposes, they are all subordinated
to the one ruling law--the Will of God. His work--whatever it may
be--whether that of the judge upon the bench, the minister in the
pulpit, the tradesman behind the counter, or the sailor at the
mast-head, has one end and aim above all others, viz., to glorify
God; and this gives to it a directness and straightforwardness which
is not an element in the walk and work of the ungodly. See also on
chap. x. 9, 10, page 153, and on chap. xi. 3, page 195.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
No one is such a stranger in any land as man is in the land of
righteousness; neither is any stranger so ignorant of his way, as man
is of the way of virtue. Wherefore, man and purity are rightly
opposed in our translation. For what is more froward, more impure,
than man's way is? And he that is pure, how little _man_ must he have
in him. How must he put off _man_ to put on purity. Wherefore, if in
the whole way of man there be a right work, it is not the work of
man, as he is man, but the grace of God.--_Jermin._
It is too natural for us to think that, if we are no worse than the
generality of our neighbours, we are safe. But Solomon and Paul teach
us, that, to walk as man, is not to walk like saints (1 Cor. iii. 3).
Whilst we are following the course of this world, we are walking in
the broad road that leadeth to destruction, and not in the narrow way
that leadeth unto life.--_Lawson._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES_ 9 _and_ 19.
AN ANGRY WOMAN.
+I. No social discomfort is to be compared to that of an ill-tempered
wife.+ A corner of the housetop would be exposed to the rain and to
the storm, both of which, in Eastern countries, are generally of a
violent character; and although it is not uncommon for Orientals
sometimes to pass the night there, it would be most undesirable to be
obligated at all seasons, and under all circumstances, to have no
other place of refuge. He who had to dwell there would at one time be
subjected to the intense heat of the mid-day sun, and at another
would be chilled by the midnight air. Neither is the wilderness a
pleasant place of abode. In addition to all the drawbacks of the
housetop arising from exposure to the weather, a wilderness is a
place of dreary solitude, and often of danger from wild beasts and
lawless men. But it is better to dwell in either of these places than
with a brawling or even with an angry woman. 1. _Because one might
enjoy intervals of repose._ The rain would not always descend,
neither would the storm-wind be always blowing; the sun would
sometimes give forth only an agreeable warmth, and the night-wind
bring only a refreshing coolness. Even in the wilderness the solitude
would sometimes be enjoyable, and life there would not always be in
peril. But the woman pictured here is one whose ill-temper is always
ruling her and casting gloom over the home, and when there is no
storm of passion actually raging there is one brewing and ready to
burst forth. The unhappy partner of her life can never look forward
to an hour of ease, for the lulls in the storm are but momentary, and
the rifts in the clouds obscured again immediately. 2. _Because,
whatever may be the discomforts of a housetop or wilderness dwelling,
they may leave the soul at rest._ They can but reach the body, and
the mind may be so absolutely calm or absorbed in thought as to be
almost unconscious of what is passing without. To some men solitude
has such charms that they are willing to forego many bodily comforts
in order to obtain it. There have been and are those whose own
thoughts are the only company they desire, and who would gladly brave
the drawbacks of the housetop or the wilderness, if by so doing they
could be left undisturbed to indulge their own speculations, or
pursue their meditations. But the sharp tongue of a contentious woman
leaves no corner of the soul undisturbed. It is vain for the subject
of it to seek refuge in reflection upon more agreeable topics, to
endeavour to banish the actual present by calling up images of the
future, or of unseen though distant realities. All the powers of the
mind are paralyzed by such an incubus, and the soul cannot wing its
flight into pleasant regions, as it can do sometimes when the
suffering only touches the outer man.
+II. External good fortune is no proof against this domestic curse.+
The _"wide house"_ or the _"house of companionship,"_ suggests a
goodly mansion--a dwelling which might be the centre of social
gatherings, and whose owner is able to indulge in hospitality on a
large scale. It calls up before us not the top-story garret of the
very poor, or even the narrow dwelling of a struggling man, where the
fight for bread, and the effort to make both ends meet, may have
something to do with spoiling the temper of the housewife. But the
angry and contentious woman is not confined to these abodes--Solomon
almost seems to speak here from experience, but even if he did not,
we know that even palace walls cannot keep out the curse, and that
there is often such a skeleton at the must sumptuous feast.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
The family is sometimes a fierce fire. It comprehends the greatest
portion of our world. It is to us the most interesting, and therefore
is capable of becoming the most trying portion.--_Cecil._
Everyone has known some pair chained together by human laws where the
heart's union has either never existed or been rent asunder. Two
ships at sea are bound together by strong, short chains. As long as
the sea remains perfectly calm all may be well with both; though they
do each other no good, they may not inflict much evil. But the sea
never rests long, and seldom rests at all. Woe to these two ships
when the waves begin to roll. There are two conditions in which they
might be safe. If they were either brought more closely together, or
more widely separated, it might yet be well with them. If they were
from stern to stern riveted into one, or if the chain were broken and
the two left to follow independently their several courses, there
would be no further cause of anxiety on their account. If they are so
united that they shall move as one body, they are safe; if they move
far apart, they are safe. The worst possible position is to be
chained together, and yet have separate and independent motion in the
waves. They will rasp each other's sides off, and tear open each
other's heart, and go down together.--_Arnot._
Better to retire into a corner of the housetop than to quit the house
and go into bad company for diversion, as many who, like Adam, make
their wife's sin the excuse of their own.--_Henry._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 10.
THE DESIRE OF THE WICKED.
On "the desire of the wicked" see on chap. xi. 5, 6, page 199.
Concerning that desire it is here affirmed--
+That it overmasters and destroys all natural feelings of
compassion.+ The Bible teaches us that in the estimation of God he is
our neighbour who, as one of the same great human family, stands upon
the same level with us,--the child of the same God and heir to the
same inheritance of sorrow and death. As such he has a claim upon our
consideration and goodwill at all times, and sometimes he stands in
need of our sympathy and help. Now there are spiritual desires and
inclinations to which we are bound to subordinate some claims of
human kinship. The relation of a disciple of Christ to his Master is
so far above all human ties that they sink into apparent
insignificance beside it, but this relationship has not the effect of
lessening man's concern for the welfare of his brother, but of
increasing it tenfold. But here is subjection to a principle as much
below nature as the other is above it--evil instead of good is the
aim of the life, and in proportion as it rules and reigns it drags a
man below the level of even ordinary human nature and leads him to so
earnest a pursuit of his own wicked devices that he has no time to
pause to consider the claims of others.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
_"Evil."_ All kinds of it. He rejoices in iniquity (1 Cor. xiii. 6);
he rejoices in calamity (chap. xvii. 5); he desires nothing but evil
(chap. xvii. 11). Blessed be God, if a soul desires anything but
_evil, i.e.,_ desires it truly (see James iv. 2), that soul is saved.
As to the second clause, there may be a bending over earthly
distress, but real _favour_ to his _neighbour_ the lost man never
shows. "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel" (chap.
xii. 10).--_Miller._
And here lies the difference between the godly and the wicked; not
that the one is pure from evil and the other commits it, but that the
one does it from constraint, the other from delight. The one
testifies--"What I hate"--the other--What my soul desireth--"that do
I." As the fruit of this native cherished principle, self to the
wicked is both his god and his object.--_Bridges._
He views "his neighbour" in no other light than as, on the one hand,
the means of thwarting, or, on the other, the instrument of promoting
his own ends. Can he gain anything by him? he will flatter and cajole
him and do everything to win his favour, and secure his services.
Does his "neighbour's" interest, reputation, personal and family
comforts, connections, or even life itself, stand in the way of the
attainment of his wishes?--he is ready to sacrifice all to his
idol.--_Wardlaw._
It is the common maxim of the schools, that, seeing the nature of the
good is the nature of that which is desirable, it is impossible that
evil, as it is so, should be desired. But then the schools do add
also, that the will may desire anything, it is not required that it
be good in the truth of the thing, but that it be apprehended as if
it were good. And thus it is that the soul of the wicked desireth
evil, because that he apprehendeth the good, either of some pleasure
of profit, or some contentment in it.--_Jermin._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 11.
INSTRUCTION FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT.
+I. An inevitable event in the history of the scorner.+ It is here
taken for granted that he will be punished--that he who sets at
nought the _"counsel,"_ and will have none of the _"reproof"_ of
wisdom, will have his day of reckoning. The _"day of his calamity"_
and _"fear"_ will come (chap. i. 27). Throughout this book, as
throughout all the inspired writings, sin and punishment are linked
as cause and effect. There is punishment in the constantly increasing
dominion of evil in the soul, and there is punishment in the stings
of conscience; but there is also punishment by the direct
interposition of God, and it is to this that the proverb evidently
points.
+II. One of the fruits of wisdom.+ He who is wise will be instructed.
Having used what he has, he will in accordance with the Divine law
receive more. To _"him that hath shall be given"_ (Mark iv. 25). He
who by a wise use of five talents has gained other five, shall have
his store increased still more. This is likewise a foundation
principle of this book, that the wise are those who are willing to be
instructed, and that to those who desire instruction it will not be
wanting. The special point of the verse is in the fact--
+III. That the punishment of evil men, and the soul-advancement of
the good, have a work to do outside the men themselves.+ When the
scorner receives punishment others receive instruction. This is one
of its objects. A good ruler, as we have before seen (chap. xx. 26),
is bound to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked for many
reasons, and for this reason among others, that the punishment of one
offender may prevent others from committing a like offence. Men often
learn by example what they would not learn by precept--the
inexperienced are often more deeply impressed by one instance of
retributive justice than they would be by many admonitions in word.
This is, as we know from God's Word, one end of His visitations.
_"For this cause,"_ said God to Pharaoh, _"have I raised thee up, for
to show in thee My power, and that My name may be declared throughout
all the earth"_ (Exod. ix. 16). There are vessels belonging to our
navy which are past repair, and are therefore unfit for sea. Yet they
are retained as light-ships along the coast, and are useful in
preventing better ships from going to pieces on the rocks. Pharaoh
had long scorned the commands and the judgments of Jehovah, and his
own doom was fast hastening on. But he would still serve as a
beacon-light to save others--by his punishment the simple would be
made wise. But there is the other and brighter side of the picture.
The inexperienced are allured to goodness by the advancement of the
good, as well as deterred from evil by the downfall of the wicked.
When the simple sees the wise man in the attitude of a learner--when
he finds that the wiser he is the more he desires instruction; and
when he marks the effect of his humility and earnestness in his
growth in all that is calculated to win him respect and to afford him
real satisfaction, he "receives knowledge" by "the instruction of the
wise" as well as by the "punishment of the scorner."
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
A respectful sinner; how is he a scorner? The Holy Ghost plainly
intends just the shock that such words occasion. If a man hears that
he should repent, and knows the reasons, and among the reasons are
facts like hell, and calls like Christ's, and scenes like death, with
all the realities of an eternal judgment, is there any spoken scorn
that can be thought of as more scornful than the acted scorn of not
repenting? "The simple becomes wise," _i.e.,_ the subject or the
witness of the punishment, just as it may happen. . . . Punishment
never wastes. The wicked may be thrust lower by his evil (chap.
xiv. 32), but some saint receives the lesson. This principle reaches
through the system. The philosophy of hell is its good-doing through
all the universe.--_Miller._
It is a stroke easily taken which another feels, the receiver only
fears, and it is a blow haply given which, striking one, reacheth
two; the scorner to his reward, the simple to his amendment. . . .
Let it therefore be a sharp punishment which is inflicted; _smite a
scorner,_ for such it is that the scorner deserveth, and it will work
upon the simple, though not by the touch of the punishment yet by the
virtue of it. And when wisdom hath once subdued him by fear, then
will it lead him on to hear the wise, and by attention to receive
knowledge.--_Jermin._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 12.
GOD'S SURVEILLANCE OF THE WICKED.
We follow here the rendering now generally given of this verse. (See
Critical Notes.)
+I. We have a reference to a mystery in the government of God.+ It is
mysterious that the wicked are permitted to live _at large_--to
pursue their plans and carry on their iniquitous work. Under human
governors, men who break the laws of the State and endanger life and
property are not allowed to have liberty. If they are permitted to
live, they live under restraint--their activities are confined within
narrow limits, and so their power to do mischief is taken from them.
The prisons scattered throughout our land declare that our rulers
only permit those who break our laws to have a very narrow sphere of
action; they live where all their freedom is taken from them, and
where their rule of life is not their own but that of others. But God
allows those who break His laws a larger amount of freedom--He
permits them to mingle freely with righteous men, and to exercise
their influence upon the world, and to carry out designs which are
often in defiance of His commands. This has often perplexed the good
in the world, and they have again and again asked the question,
_"Wherefore do the wicked live--become old; yea, are mighty in
power?"_ (Job xxi. 7).
+II. The wicked living thus at large have God for a sentinel.+ There
are many men living at large who are known to be dangerous
characters--who, although they do not come within the reach of the
law, are known to cherish feelings and intentions which are
antagonistic to it. Such people need a more vigilant supervision than
those in the prison cells, just because their freedom is greater. An
ordinary man can watch a criminal who is secure in a prison, but much
greater watchfulness and skill is needed to supervise the actions of
one at liberty. Every house of the wicked contains a lawbreaker at
liberty, and often one house contains many such who have a large
amount of freedom in the execution of their wicked designs. God is
the only Being capable of being the sentinel over such a house. They
need one who knows the heart as only God knows it--one who sees all
their plans before they become actions. They need a sleepless
sentinel--one who can be awake at all hours, and so can never be
taken by surprise. And this they have in God. None enters or departs
from the house of the wicked, and no plot is concocted within it that
is not marked by this ever-wakeful sentinel. The wicked have what it
is indispensable they should have--an omniscient and omnipresent eye
ever upon them.
+III. After the watch has been kept for a given time, the house is
marked for falling.+ We know why God gives such men freedom, for He
has told us. It is that they shall have opportunities of
repentance--that _they "shall turn from their way and live"_ (Ezek.
xxxiii. 11). He spares the house of the godless, for the same reason
that the vine-dresser desired that the fruitless fig-tree should be
spared (Luke xii. 6-9). He gives men time to bring forth fruits of
holiness, to their own profit and to His glory. So He considered the
house of the sinners, before the flood. His _"longsuffering waited
while the ark was a preparing"_ (1 Pet. iii. 20) for some tokens of a
change of disposition towards Himself, and consequently towards His
laws. But none came, and so the day came when the flood came, and
swept away both the houses and their inhabitants. So He considered
the house of the Jewish nation, after the death of Christ. In the
days of John the Baptist, the _"axe was laid unto the root of the
tree"_ (Matt. iii. 10), but the hand was not lifted to strike, until
the rejection of the Messiah, and of the ministry of His apostles,
had proved that there was no hope of a moral change. The wicked shall
be overthrown, but God _considereth their house_ long before He gives
the final blow.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
(It will be seen that these read the verse as in our version.)
The punishment of the wicked reads a lesson not only of love and
trembling, but of wise consideration. Yet many are the perplexing
mysteries of Providence. The righteous man does not always see with
his right eyes. The prosperity of the wicked staggers his faith,
excites his envy, and induces hard thoughts of God (Ps.
lxxiii. 2-14). But when he looks with the eye of faith, he sees far
beyond the dazzling glory of the present moment. He wisely
considereth their house; not its external splendour and
appurtenances, but how it will end. He justifies God, and puts
himself to shame (_Ib._ verses 16-22). "Shall not the Judge of all
the earth do right?" (Gen. xviii. 25). Here we rest, until He shall
"arise, and plead His own cause," and "with the breath of His mouth,
and the brightness of His coming, destroy" the very existence of
evil. Meanwhile, where the superficial eye sees nothing but
confusion, let the righteous man wisely consider lessons of deep and
practical profit. The shortness of the prosperity, and the certainty
of the overthrow, of the wicked; the assurance of a day of
recompense; the contrast of the substance of the godly for time and
for eternity--these are the apprehensions of faith. Do they not
marvellously set out the perfections of God, and call to each of His
children--"My son, give glory to God?"--_Bridges._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 13.
THE CRY OF THE POOR.
+I. The cry of the poor may always be heard.+ _"The poor,"_ said the
Saviour, _"ye have always with you"_ (John xii. 8), and so long as
sin is in the world it must be so. There are many who sickness and
bereavement makes poor, and many who are in need because of the sin
of others, besides those who have been brought to poverty by their
own wrong-doings. And from all these creatures of need there comes a
cry--a direct appeal, it may be, for help, or the voice of
lamentation because of their distress. This cry may be around us even
when no appeal comes from the lip, and when no word of complaint is
uttered. The wrongs of the oppressed and the miseries of the needy
cry still when there is no speech nor language, and when no voice is
heard.
+II. No human creature can afford to stop his ears to this cry.+ Not
one of the millions who walk the earth can reckon upon being always
independent of the pity and help of his fellow-creatures. He may be
almost certain that he will not be so. He is not sure, however rich
he is now, that he may not have to cry for bread, or he may have to
cry for help in sickness or for sympathy in sorrow. It is quite
certain that he will at some period of his existence cry to God for
mercy. If, therefore, he is deaf to the cry of those whose distress
he can relieve, he is as unwise as the servant of whom our Lord
speaks in His parable, who refused to have compassion on his
fellow-servant to the amount of a hundred pence, while he himself
stood in need of the forgiveness of a far heavier debt (Matt.
xvii. 23, 35). He who stops his own ears at the cry of the poor stops
the ears of God against His own, for in the day when the favour of
the King of the universe will be more precious than the wealth of ten
thousand worlds, the charge will be brought against him, _"I was an
hungered and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave Me no
drink,"_ etc. (Matt. xxv. 42).
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
When we have reason to complain that we cry and shout, but God
shutteth our prayer, let us consider our ways; perhaps we have shut
our ears on some occasions against the cries of the poor. This was
one reason why God accepted not the prayers and fasts of those people
whom Isaiah speaks of in the fiftieth chapter of his book.--_Lawson._
Did a rich man know for certain, that himself should be a beggar
before he died, it would make him give to the poor when they cried,
that others might give to him when he cried. Now the wise man here
assureth every hard churl, that although now he be never so rich, yet
shall he be a beggar. . . . The cries of the poor are but God's
proclamation, whereby He publisheth His pleasure for the relieving of
them. It is God therefore Himself that is not heard when they are
denied; it is God that is not heard in His command, as well as the
poor in his necessity. And, therefore, being made deaf as it were
with the loudness of His own crying, He doth not hear the
uncharitable when they cry unto him.--_Jermin._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 14.
THE PACIFICATION OF ANGER.
+I. Human anger is an evil to be avoided.+ Even the anger of a
righteous man exposes the object of it to danger. David had good
reason to be angry with Nabal, but his anger, though it was the anger
of a man just in the main, so nearly overmastered him for the time as
to lead him to meditate a very bitter revenge. For even righteous
indignation has a tendency to run into unrighteous action, as in the
case of Esau and Jacob. The elder brother had just cause to be angry
with the younger for his meanness and deceit, but lawful displeasure
soon degenerated into an unlawful purpose, and Jacob had to flee for
his life. If, then, even the anger of the righteous man is to feared
because it may lead him to visit the offender with justice without
mercy, much more is the anger of the unrighteous man likely to lead
him to extreme measures, and the anger of either is an evil to be
avoided when it can be done without sin.
+II. Gifts may appease human anger.+ This proverb does not, we think,
refer to bribery but to lawful tokens of goodwill, and of a desire to
be reconciled--to gifts by which we seek to make some atonement for a
wrong done. Such were the presents which Jacob offered to Esau, and
Abigail to David. A bribe is a gift offered to a third person who is
to judge between the parties at strife, but the gift here is from the
offender to the person offended.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
A gift in itself is gracious, but if it be secretly given it is yet
more acceptable; for privy bestowing taketh away the blush of open
receiving. When as then a present shall even so closely be conveyed
unto the receiver as that it shall covertly be put into his bosom,
then it will be most welcome and even forcible.--_Muffet._
"Have gifts," says a judicious writer, "such a powerful influence to
disarm resentment? Then let no man plead, in apology for the fury of
his passions, that he is not able to conquer them. If money can
conquer them, shall reason, and the fear of God, and the command of
Christ, be too weak to bridle them? Surely the commandments of God
our Saviour have too little authority with us, if they have less
influence upon our spirits than gold and jewels have upon the spirits
of almost all men."--_Wardlaw._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 15.
THE JOY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
+I. The just man's own character and actions give him joy.+ It is a
matter of experience with all the righteous beings in the universe
that joy comes to them from uprightness of character. The blessedness
and joy of God Himself comes from His supreme and absolute
righteousness, and in proportion as His creatures are conscious of
partaking of His rectitude of character they feel real joy. But this
righteousness of character is made manifest in righteous deeds. We
know that God is a righteous God by what He has done, and by what He
has promised to do, and the character of righteous men is likewise
manifested in their acts. From these deeds come joy to the doer.
Whenever a good man is able to redress some injury, or to make right
some moral wrong--to put into exercise the love of right which is
always latent within him--he feels joy.
+II. The just man derives joy from the justice and righteousness of
others.+ His great desire is to see the world freed from the rule of
sin, with all its consequent miseries, and he hails every act of
justice done as one more step towards that end. He sympathises with
all those who struggle for right against might, whether with human or
Satanic powers, and every victory gained by them gladdens his heart.
As he is on the side of justice he has nothing to fear, but
everything to gain, from the advance of justice in the world, and in
the universe, and therefore he not only rejoices in the doings of
other righteous men, but especially in the righteous acts of God.
Knowing that every one of them tends to bring in the rule of
everlasting righteousness, and knowing that this rule will be the
best possible for both the just and the unjust, and having a glad
consciousness that to him it can bring nothing but good, the just
dealings of God are the constant theme of his glad meditations. With
the Psalmist he can sing, _"Seven times a day do I praise Thee,
because of Thy righteous judgments"_ (Psalm cxix. 164).
+III. The workers of iniquity have no such source of personal joy.+
The name given implies their character. It is iniquitous, unequal,
crooked. Their path lies quite apart from the straight road of
obedience to God and justice to men, and therefore none of the
flowers and fruits which grow only in the one path can be gathered
upon the other. But they not only miss the joy of the just, but are
active agents in creating their own misery. Sin is a destructive
power. Destruction is used in two senses. A thing is destroyed when
the elements which compound it cease to be, but it is also destroyed
when the form which made it precious and beautiful is lost. The
palace is destroyed when the earthquake lays it level with the
ground, although all the stones and timbers are still there. The
garment is destroyed when the fire blackens and scorches it, although
the warp and woof of the fabric is still in existence. So a man's
destruction is, as we understand the Word of God, not the cessation
of his existence, but the loss of all that makes existence of worth
to himself and others.
+IV. The workers of iniquity cannot rejoice in the righteous dealings
of others.+ The rectitude of the just man condemns them. It makes
their ways look more crooked by the force of contrast, and it rebukes
their consciences. It necessarily sometimes takes a more active form
against them. The thief cannot joy in the law that condemns him to
punishment, and is not likely to take pleasure in the character of
the judge who passes sentence upon him. No godless man can rejoice in
reflecting on the righteousness of God, for that righteousness fills
him with terror in the present, and apprehensions concerning the
future.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
Not the saint's _"judgment;"_ that is "joy," of course: but all
"judgment," even the judgment of the lost. Sad doctrine that! and to
man's feeling a very shameful one. But to man's reason there may be a
glimpse of light. The highest _"joy"_ is to be holiness; the highest
holiness, the holiness of God. All judgment is built upon that. God's
holiness, therefore, being the basis upon which He condemns the lost,
is that _"judgment"_ which is part of the trait may be part of the
_"joy"_ which springs to the glorified believer.--_Miller._
"It is joy to the just to do right; but vexation" (distress, trouble)
"to the workers of iniquity." Such is Boothroyd's rendering; and it
agrees with the French. The righteous find their happiness in the
ways of God,--in doing the thing that is right. So far from true
religion--practical godliness--being a source to them of irksome
melancholy, it is their "joy." But to the wicked it is irksome. The
principle of goodness or of godliness being absent from the heart,
all conformity to precept is against the grain with them. They may do
what is right from compulsion, from considerations of interest, or
from the constraint of conscience and fear; but pleasure in it they
have none--no "joy." And hence it is that amongst ungodly, worldly
men, the impression and saying are so prevalent, that religion is
melancholy. While the heart continues at enmity with God, all outward
conformity to the will and worship of God can be nothing better than
vexation,--harassing and fretting to the spirit and drawing forth the
exclamation, What a weariness is it! The joy of religious and
virtuous practice can only be felt where there is the inward power of
religious and virtuous principle. It is a joy that can only be known
by the experience of the new heart; and by the new heart it is felt
to be the only joy worthy of the name. But the heart that is still a
stranger to the love must be still a stranger to the joy; and the
whole life of the good man must appear a life of bondage. The man who
has no ear for music would regard the ecstasies of a Handel as
ridiculous; but such ecstasies are not on that account the less
real.--_Wardlaw._
Gravity is nowhere so seemly, as where it is the robe of the judgment
seat; and though justice be done, yet if wantonly or lightly done, it
is divested of the honour of it. Wherefore the _joy_ which the wise
man here commendeth is not the _vanity,_ but the _alacrity_ of the
mind. That detracteth from the worth of it even in the sight of men,
this addeth to it in the sight of God. Now, that which breedeth this
joy is the habit of it. He that doth judgment now and then is not
righteous, though he do that which is righteous. It is the constant
doer of judgment that is made righteous by it, and findeth joy in the
doing of it.--_Jermin._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 16.
LIKE TO LIKE.
+I. The way of understanding.+ What is this way? In other parts of
this book it is called the "path of the just" (chap. iv. 18, see page
58), "a way of righteousness" (chap. xii. 28, page 291), and a "way
of life" (chap xv. 24, page 430). It is a way of understanding,
because it is the path or method of life which is followed by those
who have well considered their way--who regard both their present and
future welfare in the highest sense of the word. The way of
righteousness is a way of understanding, because it leads to
spiritual life and blessedness, both here and hereafter; therefore
those who walk in it give a proof of their wisdom. If we count a man
to have no understanding who persists in walking on a road which
those who know tell him leads to a precipice over which he must fall,
and if the truth of what they say is confirmed by his own knowledge,
how much more shall we count those of no understanding who persist in
following the path of moral ruin? And by contrast the way of present
moral light and life which is ever leading on to more light and life
is well named "the way of understanding."
+II. The doom of the wanderer from it.+ He becomes one of an assembly
with whom it is most undesirable to be numbered--the congregation of
the dead. The graveyard is a place in which living men never take up
their abode. Those who are there are there because they can no longer
remain in the dwellings of the living and healthy. They would pollute
the homes of those who are in life, and must therefore be separated
from them. There is a spiritual graveyard--a place to which those who
are destitute of moral life must be banished, because they are unfit
for any other dwelling. And there they must _remain,_ for it is the
only place suited to their character and disposition. Judas, when he
left this world, went to his _"own place"_ (Acts i. 25)--to the place
to which he belonged, because it was the abode of those like-minded
with himself. From the parable of the rich man and Lazarus we infer
that those who become numbered with that congregation will remain
there until the _great gulf fixed_ between them and the living is
removed (Luke xvi. 26).
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
The original word here translated _remains,_ signifieth to rest and
be quiet. It is rest that giveth understanding, and it is
understanding that giveth rest. A disquieted mind doth not readily
understand things, and it is the understanding of things that
quieteth the mind. In the way, therefore, of understanding, here be
many resting-places. He that is wearied with the cares of the world,
when he understandeth that man is born to cares, resteth himself
therein. He that is toiled in getting the things of this world, when
he understandeth how little sufficeth nature, and that when he dieth
all shall be taken from him, resteth himself there. He that tireth
his brains to search out knowledge, when he understandeth that the
greatest part of men's knowledge is the least of his ignorance, and
that to know Jesus Christ is life everlasting, resteth himself there.
But he that wandereth from the way of understanding meeteth with no
rest in all the ways he goes--his thoughts are in no quietness, his
heart hath no contentment, his mind no peace. It is the grave alone
that is the bed of his rest; and when he cometh to the congregation
of the dead, to the general assembly of all mankind, then he shall be
quiet. Or else, to consider the verse as our translation hath it:
everyone that understandeth his way is not in the way of
understanding. The crafty politician understands his way well enough,
and goes on readily in it; the covetous worldling understandeth his
way well enough, and goes and gets apace in it; the cunning cheater
understandeth his way well enough, and passeth through with it. But
none of these are in the way of understanding: that is but one, and
is the enlightening of the understanding by the Word and Grace of
God. That is the way of understanding, because thereby we understand
ourselves to be in the right way indeed. The man, therefore, that
wandereth out of this way, when he hath wandered all his ways, shall
end them at last in the congregation of the dead--that is the
rendezvous to which all are gathered--and being once there, he shall
_remain_ for ever amongst them. For when that change is come, they
that have passed the way of understanding shall pass from death to
life, but they that have gone out of the way shall only go from one
death to another.--_Jermin._
Verse 17 has been treated with verses 5 and 7.
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 18.
THE RANSOM OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
This verse must be understood to express the same truth as that in
Isaiah xliii. 3, in which Jehovah, speaking to the Hebrew people,
says, _"I gave Egypt for thy ransom--Ethiopia and Seba for thee,"_
referring doubtless to the deliverance by the overthrow of the
Egyptians and other nations. Here the Divine interposition is not on
behalf of an elect nation, but on behalf of a special character; not
for the deliverance of Israel according to the flesh, but of the true
Israelite--the righteous and upright man wherever he is found, for
_"in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is
accepted with Him"_ (Acts x. 35).
+I. When the wicked man stands in the way of the true advancement of
the good he shall be removed out of the way.+ It is a law of the
universe, and the end to which all God's government tends, that
goodness shall finally have the ascendency over evil--that right
shall triumph over wrong. Now, although we speak of goodness and of
evil in the abstract, they have no abstract existence; they can only
exist in connection with free personalities; with beings who have the
choice of their actions. Hence, if evil is to be put down, it must be
put down in the person of evil men or devils, and if good is to rule
it must rule in the person of the good. Therefore, when the
transgressor in any way opposes the real and true advancement of the
righteous man he opposes the advance of righteousness, and he must be
sacrificed. This is not always apparent to human eyes; things often
seem to tend in quite the contrary direction; but this is because we
do not know what is really most conducive to the coming of the
kingdom of righteousness, nor how the overthrow of evil can be best
accomplished.
+II. Every man must either be ransomed from sin or become a ransom
for righteousness.+ The righteous and the upright on the earth have
only become so by submission to the righteous will of God--by taking
His yoke and choosing His service. This has delivered them from the
power of evil--this has redeemed them from the slavery of sin. It was
quite open to Pharaoh to fall in with God's will concerning
Israel--to obey the demand which was made upon him. It was only after
repeated refusal that he and his were made a ransom for God's people.
It is in every case where God's will is made known, and it is only
when men persist in transgression that they are made a ransom for the
upright. But there is no neutral ground. Every man who is not upright
is a transgressor, and as such will be subject to this law.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
In the time of some strange visitation for sin, the notorious
offender, who is guilty of heinous crimes, by his suffering and death
shall free the innocent person from the stroke of God's vengeance,
who should not be spared, but plagued, if the evildoer were winked
at. Moreover, some one that hath, by breaking the Lord's covenant or
precept, caused trouble to fall both on himself and many others, who
in like manner have not sinned as he hath done, shall, suffering
alone for the sin which he hath committed, deliver by his misery the
rest that are in the same adversity, but not for the same cause. The
executing of Saul's sons (2 Sam. xxi.), the stoning of Achan (Josh.
vii. 20), and casting of Jonah into the sea (Jonah i. 12), may more
plainly declare and more fully prove the truth of this matter. It may
be here objected, if the Lord punish the righteous for the wicked
man's offence, how is he then righteous? To answer hereunto
briefly--First, though the Lord afflict the innocent with the sinners
oftentimes, yet He doth not correct them for the faults of
transgressors, but for their own faults, there being none so just but
that he sinneth sometimes. Secondly, when the just, having authority
to punish sin, wink at the known offences of the ungodly, by letting
them go scot-free, they make their transgressions their own, so that
in such cases no marvel if the Lord scourge the just with the unjust;
for even the just do in such cases appertain to the family of the
unjust.--_Muffet._
It is the hatred of the wicked against the righteous that bringeth
them into captivity, but it is the favour of God towards them that He
maketh those who have made them captives to be themselves the
_redemption_ of them. Or else, if the condition of this world by
God's permission and providence hath cast the righteous into
thraldom, it is the sport of the wicked to insult over them; but it
is the compassion of God towards them that He maketh those who make
sport at them to be themselves the sacrifice of their deliverance.
And, seeing misery, being man's master, requireth the right of
command over him, according as many are the general calamities of
mankind, God maketh the wicked to serve it, and the transgressor to
pay bondage unto it instead of the righteous.--_Jermin._
The subjects of verses 19 and 20 have been already treated in this
chapter. See on verses 5 and 7, and on verse 9.
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 21.
A NOBLE PURSUIT AND A RICH PRIZE.
+I. A noble pursuit.+ Following after righteousness and mercy. These
words may be taken as referring both to a state of judicial
righteousness before God and to mercy received from him, and also to
the attainment of a righteous and merciful character. The teaching of
the Scriptures is that the latter is the result of the former;--that
all true righteousness and mercifulness among men flows from having
obtained mercy from God, and having come into right relations with
Him. If a pursuit of any kind is to be successful it must be
conducted according to certain known laws, and must recognise certain
indisputable facts. If a man sets out to seek a distant shore where
he knows the land is fertile enough to afford him abundant means of
living, he must regulate his pursuit of the land and of its riches in
accordance with the laws which govern the natural world. During his
voyage he must observe the laws of navigation--he must steer his
vessel with a due regard to the winds and tides, or he will never
reach the shore, and when he lands he must still seek to obtain what
he desires by working in harmony with natural laws. If he ploughs in
the autumn and expects to gather in the winter, or sows weeds and
expects to reap corn, he will be utterly disappointed. God is willing
to bless his endeavours if they are made in subjection to known and
established conditions, but not otherwise. So in every pursuit,
whether in the world of matter or of mind. _"If a man also strive for
masteries,"_ says Paul, _"yet is he not crowned except he strive
lawfully"_ (2 Tim. ii. 5), that is, unless he conform to the rules of
the course. The _Grecian runner_ might reach the goal without having
a regard to the conditions of the contest, but he would not even then
receive the crown. But in the pursuit of many things--and especially
in the following after a righteous and godly character--it is
impossible to reach the desired end without observance of the
conditions laid down by God Himself. There is one way only to become
a truly righteous and merciful man, and that is by accepting the
mercy of God and His method of justification, called in the New
Testament _"the righteousness of God"_ (Rom. iii. 21, etc.). The
history of the Church combines with the testimony of Scripture to
confirm this truth. The Jewish nation, as a nation, refused to accept
it, _"going about to establish their own righteousness they have not
submitted unto the righteousness of God"_ (Rom. x. 3). Their history
since has been a moral failure, and it is the history of all who have
united with them in the rejection of the way of righteousness through
the atonement of the Son of God. On the contrary, the acceptance of
that righteousness and mercy has been the first step in the formation
of the most righteous and merciful characters that have ever lighted
up our world. The apostle who was the great expounder of the doctrine
of imputed righteousness through the mercy of God could appeal to his
spiritual children in such words as these: _"For our exhortation was
not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile; . . . neither at any
time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of
covetousness . . . but we were gentle among you, even as a nurse
cheriseth her children; so being affectionately desirous of you, we
were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only,
but also our own souls, because ye were so dear unto us"_ (1 Thess.
ii. 3-8). This was Paul's disposition and character after he became a
partaker of Divine mercy and a justified man through faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and all those who sincerely accept God's method of
being made righteous bring forth the same kind of fruit in their
life, although not always in such abundant measure.
+II. A rich reward.+ He who seeks mercy and righteousness from God by
faith becomes, as we have seen, a righteous and merciful man. This in
itself is moral life--a quickening of the spiritual capabilities--an
awakening to spiritual realities and joys which were before
unknown--an entrance into the possession of all that makes existence
worth having. Such a man gets honour of a real and lasting
nature--the goodwill of all the good in all worlds and the favour of
God Himself. He follows after righteousness for its own sake--out of
the pure love of holiness and purity, and not for any reward that it
may bring either now or hereafter, and he finds as he follows it that
many things are added unto it.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
_"Follows after," chases eagerly._ How absorbed the chase of some
poor partridge on the hills. Even let that be our picture.
_"Righteousness and mercy, or kindness,"_ the two tables of the law;
a genial picture of all holiness. Now let a man chase holiness with
the absorbed forgetfulness of self that such game would imply, and
all else will come in at the death. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness, and all things else will be added thereto"
(Matt. vi. 33). _"Life,"_ all sorts of life. _"Righteousness,"_ but
one sort of righteousness in place of that personal righteousness
which (in the first clause) we are still called to chase. _"Glory,"_
all sorts of glory. The list is not an illogical one. "Life," all
that is personally good and happy, "righteousness;" all that buys
that and keeps a title to it, "glory," that which is above happiness,
and is always to be counted higher--viz., the honour and excellency
of absolute purity of being.--_Miller._
There is nothing which a man hath that is not going from him; there
is nothing that a man seeketh that doth not seek to keep itself from
him. It is therefore _following_ that bringeth a man both to finding
and possessing. Both are spiritual things, not the things of this
world, that are worthy either of a man's following, or finding, or
possessing. They are _righteousness_ and _mercy_ that are worthy of
our seeking, they are _life, righteousness,_ and _mercy_ that are
worthy of our finding. . . . Gregory, comparing spiritual and
temporal riches together, showeth their differences to be great,
because spiritual riches do even then increase, when they that are
laid out, earthly riches are either laid out and so consumed, or else
are kept and are not profitable. And in the following after them
there is also this difference, that he who followeth after the things
of this world always findeth less than he looked for; but he that
followeth after spiritual things shall be sure to find more than he
did or could look for--_Jermin._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 22.
A WISE MAN AND A MIGHTY CITY.
+I. The city of the mighty will not easily yield to conquerors.+ When
a fortress encloses within its walls many strong arms and stout
hearts, it will not be captured by child's play. The confidence that
the defenders have, not only in the strength of their position but in
their own individual power and prowess, will certainly prevent them
from giving up without a struggle. Such a city must be "scaled" or
captured either by stratagem or by a mightier force than that which
defends it. There are various ways in which this may be done. When
the height and thickness of the walls prevent their overthrow from
without they may be assailed from beneath, and when brave men cannot
be subdued by the sword they may be by hunger.
+II. In whatever way the city is taken wisdom is the mightiest force
employed.+ Military strength--indeed physical force of any kind--is
of little or no avail without wisdom to direct it. Under the guidance
of a wise commander an undisciplined and almost powerless mob becomes
a powerful army, and a very small amount of mere strength can be made
very effective if it is wisely directed. Belshazzar had strong walls
around his city, and a mighty army within it, but Cyrus possessed the
wisdom which the Babylonians lacked, and therefore the "wise man"
overthrew the confidence of the mighty.
+III. Wisdom is a power that is needed to take other strongholds
besides those built of brick or stone.+ Any obstruction or difficulty
which a man encounters in life may be a "city of the mighty" to
overthrow which _wisdom_ will be an indispensable ally. _Poverty_ is
such a city, and it cannot be scaled by activity and industry
alone--the industrious effort must be guided by wisdom. _Ignorance_
may be compared to such a stronghold, and wisdom is needed to guide
the pursuit after knowledge. _Sinful habits_ are walls around a man,
and they are so defended and strengthened by invisible powers of evil
that they cannot be cast down by strength of will alone--wisdom must
be sought from above to turn the struggle into a victory. But we have
not only to contend with personal evils but with relative ones, with
the misery and sin around us if not within is, and here again nothing
can be done without wisdom. Muscular force can do a little to put
down their outward manifestations, but wisdom only can do anything
towards lessening their real and terrible hold upon man. The _human
soul,_ also, is a "city" which can be "scaled" only by "the wise
man." In Eden the city of _Man-soul_ was taken by the subtlety and
craft of the devil, and a wisdom more than human is needed to regain
it. The undertaking is especially difficult, because there are
inhabitants within the city who are averse to a change of
masters--there are evil tendencies within which make men unwilling to
leave the yoke of Satan for the service of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ
has, however, scaled this city of the mighty; all the wisdom of God
has been brought to bear upon the work of reconciling men to Himself,
and the Cross has accomplished what physical force of Omnipotence
itself could not have achieved.
What is strength without a double share
Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome;
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties; strength's not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command.--_Milton._
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
The Israelites never crushed the Philistines. The Jebusites long
dwelt in Jerusalem's stronghold (Josh. xv. 63). The sinner (at
conversion) in his feeblest state enters Canaan, and "scales the city
of the mighty." But when his foot has touched that eternal
tramping-ground, alas for him! there is still the _citadel!_ "A wise
man," not only as being _a wise man,_ but in _becoming a wise man,_
has scaled the city of the mighty, and evermore afterwards, in
becoming wiser, he is "casting down the strength of its place of
confidence." . . . Not to print mistake upon his emblems, Solomon
qualifies the last by those that immediately follow. Conversion is
not a warfare. It is not the glow of camps or the shout of armed men,
but a drowsy and forlorn awakening. Arrayed against it may be the
_strength of the mighty,_ but it is a strength absurd and miserable,
as against a droning and depressing inanition. "We wrestle not
against flesh and blood," and when we come to understand the venture,
the climb over the gates is not a bound of strength, but a torpid
crawl out of mortal infirmity of feeling. Hence the patient prosing
of the Preacher, as he next approaches us (in verse 23). Christian
obedience is the way to triumph.--_Miller._
The art of war has already shewn the pre-eminence of wisdom above
strength. Prudent tactics, or a wise application of courage, triumphs
over mere personal prowess. Joshua's strategy in taking Ai was a
proof of military wisdom. Solomon seems to have known of a wise man
singly delivering his city from the power of a mighty king; a proof
of wisdom quite tantamount to the strength of an aggressor scaling
the walls, and thus casting down its confidence (Eccles ix. 13-18).
Much more therefore will spiritual wisdom, the immediate gift of God,
overcome difficulties as formidable as the scaling of the city of the
mighty. A wise calculation of the cost is eminently serviceable in
achieving most important triumphs (Luke xiv. 31, 32). For does not
conscious weakness lead to a single dependence upon God? And what
difficulties are too great for an Almighty arm? "By thee"--said a
valiant soldier in the army of faith--"I have run through a troop;
and by my God have I leaped over a wall." "Weapons of a spiritual,
not a carnal," temper, "are mighty through God to the pulling down of
strongholds" (2 Cor. x. 4), impregnable to the power of man. All the
promises are "to him that overcometh." Let the soldier go to the
conflict "strong in the Lord," and "putting on his whole armour"
(Eph. vi. 10). The triumph is sure. The heavenly city will be scaled.
"The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by
force" (Matt. xi. 12).--_Bridges._
For Homiletics on verse 23 see on chap. xiii. 3, page 294.
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 24.
A NAME OF DEGREES.
+I. Many terms are needed to set forth the complete character of the
wicked man.+ A complicated machine has many parts, each of which has
a different action and performs a different work, and each of which
has its distinctive name. But the whole make up one machine, the name
of which includes all the parts. So it is with a wicked man. He is
like a complicated and destructive piece of machinery--all that he
does and is may be comprehended in the general term, godless, or
wicked; but the various vices which go to make up his character have
their distinctive name. In this proverb three degrees of wickedness
seem to be set forth under different names, each one being an
intensified form of the vice that has gone before. First there is
_pride;_ the man overrates his own worth, and by so doing underrates
the worth of others. From pride of heart comes _haughtiness of
conduct_--he is overbearing and insolent in his bearing towards those
whom he looks upon as his inferiors. Then he becomes a _scorner_--he
despises all, whether good or bad, and so fills up the measure of
wickedness. For when all feelings of respect and reverence for even
human worth have died out of a man he cannot fall much lower.
+II. Such a man is a constant vendor of what is within him.+ He
_dealeth_ in it; he cannot keep his pride and scorn to himself, it
overflows in his contemptuous carriage, in his haughty look, in his
angry words, and in his oppressive deeds. He may deny the fidelity of
the portrait which Solomon here draws of him, but he whose dealings
with his fellow-creatures are marked by these characteristics must
submit to be called by the odious names here given.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
In the course of different proverbs this teacher will be found to
have explained all his own use of terms. Piety as _wisdom,_ and
wickedness as _folly_--terms very characteristic of his books--he
explains at the very first. _Scorner_ is his favourite name for the
impenitent. We were giving reasons for this under the eleventh
verse. . . . The demurest sinner, who seems thoroughly respectful to
the truth, would not push along so into the very jaws of death if he
were not arrogantly trusting to himself, and if he felt not
scornfully free from the necessities of the Gospel.--_Miller._
It is the nature of pride to show itself as losing the contentment of
those things upon which it is placed, unless by showing of them it
show itself in them. And yet so odious a vice is pride, and so
shameful, as that it would fain hide itself also. But there is
nothing that doth so manifest and make known the pride of anyone as
his wrath doth; wherefore as the name of a man telleth who he is, so
he who dealeth in wrath telleth his name.--_Jermin._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES_ 25 _and_ 26.
THE SWORD OF THE SLUGGARD.
+I. A sluggard cannot help desiring the results of toil.+ It is
natural and lawful for men to value bodily health and comfort, and
all those blessings which are the ordinary fruits of industry--they
are good things which God gives His creatures to enjoy, but they are
not His only gifts nor His best gifts. But they are the main objects
of the sluggard's desire, for an inordinate and exclusive love of
them has made him a slothful man. If he had put his reputation and
his duty before his love of ease--if he had listened to the voice of
conscience rather than to the pleadings of self-indulgence, he would
be a worker instead of a mere wisher. The text suggests that mere
desire to possess is not a power strong enough to turn an indolent
man into an industrious one, although it is strong enough to make him
miserable and wicked. For--
+II. A sluggard is an unrighteous man.+ This is both implied and
expressed in the proverb. He is placed in contrast with the righteous
man as one of an opposite character, and he is declared to be an
habitual breaker of the tenth commandment. Covetousness is a sin
nearly allied to envy, and both are in themselves transgressions of
the moral law, and often lead to more heinous crimes. Let no man,
then, say that his refusal to take his part in the work of the world
is a matter which concerns himself alone, for even if a man were not
responsible for a negative existence, such a course is certain to
lead to positive sin.
+III. He is a self-destroyer.+ This is a phase of sloth which has not
been placed before us in former proverbs on the subject. The sluggard
not only makes wretched the existence which it his great aim to
pamper, but he shortens it. His covetous and unsatisfied state of
mind is a canker-worm at the root of all that he does possess, and,
deprived of the healthful influence of labour, he becomes an easy
prey to disease and death. It is probable that nothing undermines the
bodily constitution more surely than unsatisfied desire. Men who have
been great workers, but who have not seen the desire of their hearts
fulfilled, have often died in consequence. How much more likely will
the slothful man be to die under such a disappointment! If the rust
eats into the sword which is in constant use, how much more certainly
will it destroy that which is never drawn from the scabbard!
+IV. The righteous man is a worker and a giver.+ He is in all
respects the exact opposite of the sluggard. He works not so much
because of the gain of labour as because he loves to work, and
because it is wrong to be idle. This he shows by the use he makes of
much that he gains--he gives with an unsparing hand. In both he is an
imitator of the righteous God, who is the Greatest Worker and the
Greatest Giver in the universe. The righteousness of God prompts Him
to bountiful acts towards needy creatures, and the righteousness of
His righteous servants prompts them to do like deeds, according to
their ability. On this subject see also Homiletics on chap. xiii. 4,
page 296.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
The _desire kills him._ Why? Because he will not gratify it. The way
to gratify it is to get it accomplished. . . . Say not, It is the
refusal that kills and not the desire. That is not altogether the
case. The spark that is too weak to grow puts itself out by its
attempts. The desire that is too dull to act has treasured in it the
last remainders of the heart, and in its languid throbs makes itself
the instrument of its own growing dissolution.--_Miller._
In the Paris French translation the words stand thus--"All the day
long he does nothing but wish." How very expressive at once of the
unconquerable indolence and the fretful, envious, pining unhappiness
of the sluggard! And in his wishing, he may at times, by the power of
a sanguine imagination, work himself into hope; and then,
disappointment only embitters the cup of his own
mingling,--aggravates the misery, which he is painfully conscious is
self-inflicted.--Further: he appears before us a stranger to all the
positive and exquisite pleasures of charity and beneficence; but "the
righteous _giveth and spareth not._" It is not said, you will
observe--"the _diligent_ giveth and spareth not;" because there are
not a few who are sufficiently exemplary in diligence, to whom the
Bible would not give the designation of _"the righteous,"_ and who
are far from being distinguished for benevolence. But the antithesis,
as it stands here, implies these three things: _First,_ that
_diligence_ is one of the features in the character of the
_righteous_:--_Secondly,_ that the natural tendency, and ordinary
result of this is, through the Divine blessing, abundance to
spare:--_Thirdly,_ that another distinguishing feature of the
character of the _righteous_ man, is _readiness to part_ with what
his industry acquires--"giving, and _not sparing;_" that is, giving
cheerfully, and giving liberally; not assenting merely to the truth
of the maxim, as being the word of the Lord, but _feeling_ the truth
of their own heart's experience--"It is more blessed to give than to
receive."--_Wardlaw._
It is not said by Paul, "If any man _do_ not work, neither let him
eat," for some would work and cannot get it, others would work and
are not able, but "If any man _will_ not work," if any have work to
do, and will not, let him not eat. In the same manner the wise man
speaketh; he doth not say, his hands _do not_ labour, but his hands
_refuse_ to labour. . . . But he sheweth that though a sluggard be
idle himself, yet his desire be so hard a labourer, that it is a
_daily_ labourer, and such a daily labourer painfully worketh _all
the day long._ So that although he have no hands to work, his desire
hath hands to beg and crave of him; which being not satisfied, is a
just punishment of his careless sluggishness. But the righteous man,
being as earnest in his labour as the other in his desire, getteth
enough, not only to satisfy his own desire, but to supply the wants
of others.--_Jermin._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 27.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE WICKED.
+I. A Divine institution may become an abomination to the Divine
Being.+ The right use of the gifts of God makes them blessings to
men, but the abuse of them turns them into curses. So with the
ordinances of worship, both under the Old Testament dispensation and
in the New--that which is designed to bless men may by misuse add to
their guilt before God, and that which, done in a right spirit, is
most acceptable to Him, will, when joined to a sinful motive, be most
abhorrent to His holy nature. The sacrifice of the Levitical
dispensation was an ordinance of Divine appointment, but even those
who lived before the days of the prophets were not left to suppose
that the merely ceremonial act was of any value in the sight of God
if a correspondent state of heart was wanting, The offering of Cain
was unacceptable, because he lacked the faith of his brother Abel
(Heb. xi. 4). Samuel taught the truth that _"to obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams"_ (1 Sam. xv. 22), and
the father of our preacher was deeply conscious that _"sacrifice and
burnt offering"_ would not be acceptable to God unless they were the
outcome of a _"broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart"_ (Psalm
li. 16, 17). The doctrine that _"God is a spirit, and they who
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth"_ (John iv. 24),
is taught in the Old Testament as well as in the New. It is the
teaching of this proverb.
+II. A Divine institution may be used by men to cloak their
iniquity.+ The absence of a right motive is enough to turn the
sacrifice into an abomination, as we have seen (see also on chapter
xv. 9, page 408), but this comparatively negative wrong seems to lose
some of its guilt beside the actual crime of the second clause of the
verse, when men actually put on the outward semblance of religion,
not from inadequate ideas of the requirements of God's law, or from
the force of habit, or in a thoughtless spirit, but with the
deliberate intention of deceiving their fellow-creatures. For it is
inconceivable that any reasonable being can for a moment suppose that
he can blind Him before whom all things must be _"naked and opened"_
(Heb. iv. 13). If he believes in a God he cannot think that He is a
Being who can be imposed upon by such a miserable deception, and,
this being granted, it is most astonishing that any creature can
presume to offer so great an insult to his Creator. And yet we know
that sacrifices have been and are even now being offered to God for
no other purpose than to cloak sin.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
This is a New Testament idea:--"Ye ask and receive not," saith the
Apostle James, "because ye ask amiss." How? Why, precisely in the way
that the proverb points out, because ye do it for an interested
purpose; as the Apostle expresses it, "that ye may consume it upon
your desires." The wicked man asks for heaven that he may consume it
in keeping comfortable through a long eternity. The proverb in verse
17 postulates the opposite. _In merely loving happiness a man cannot
create wealth._ The mass of hypocrites, therefore, are those
eternal-happiness _hypocrites._. . . There may be other reasons, but
that additional and fundamental among them all is this deepest one,
that religious acts cannot be accepted if they are built upon nothing
tenderer than _"a calculated purpose."_ (So Miller translates the
last two words. See also Critical Notes.) "Ye seek Me," says our
blessed Redeemer, "not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye
did eat of the loaves and were filled" (John vi. 26).--_Miller._
For Homiletics of verse 28, see on chap. xii. 19, page 275. _"The man
that heareth"_ is evidently the man who is teachable and open to
conviction, and therefore qualified to bear witness of the truth.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
The last clause of the proverb seems to fix and restrict the first.
_A false witness_ often becomes so by the culpable habit of
thoughtlessly repeating, without examination or certain knowledge. A
man may thus do very serious injury to his neighbour's character or
property. It proves a very loose conscience, and an utter want of
that "charity which covers" instead of exposing faults. It is
"rejoicing in iniquity" rather than "rejoicing in truth." This _false
witness_ will certainly be punished by God; and even by man he will
be confounded and silenced. No one for the future will regard or
receive his testimony. _But the man that heareth_--the true witness
who speaketh only what _he heareth,_ and is fully acquainted
with--_he speaketh constantly_--to conviction. He holds to his
testimony and never contradicts himself. He "speaks the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth." His word, even if it had
been slighted at first, gains more and more credit and authority when
_the false witness shall have perished_ (chap. xii. 19).--_Bridges._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE_ 29.
THE FACE AND THE WAY.
The last verb in the text is better translated--_establisheth,_ or
_maketh firm._
+I. What is intended to reveal may be used to conceal.+ The human
countenance is intended to express the feelings of the mind, and when
a man is not afraid for another to read his thoughts and intentions,
his face is to a great extent the index of his heart. But a bad man
is unwilling that his neighbour should know what is passing within
him--his thoughts and purposes will not bear the light--they are so
selfish or impure that he is ashamed of them, or they are occupied
with some malicious plan which must be concealed if it is to be
successful. He therefore hardens his face--puts on an appearance of
innocence and frankness as a cloak of the evil underneath. But this
method of life is not an easy or a pleasant one--the contrast in the
second clause seems to imply that such a man walks in an uneven or a
miry road--it is hard to be always acting a part and to be obliged at
all times to look what we do not feel, and there may come unguarded
moments and unlooked-for surprises when the mask will fall and the
truth come to light.
+II. The godly man has no need to practise hypocrisy.+ His thoughts
and desires, and aims, are toward the true and the good--his heart is
filled with goodwill towards his fellow-men, and he has, therefore,
nothing to fear or to be ashamed of when his face reveals his inner
self. This way of the upright is, in comparison with the way of the
wicked, as a firm and level road--he who walks on it finds solid
ground beneath his feet, and has no need to be ever on the look-out
for bogs and pitfalls.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
A hardened heart and a hardened face,--a face that has learned to
brave accusation and to look innocent under conscious guilt, are the
most undesirable of all attainments. The confusion of innocence, when
evil is imputed, is far preferable. Better far to be innocent and
thought guilty, than to be guilty and thought innocent. Better far to
have the sentence of acquittal in our own bosoms, though condemned by
men, than to succeed in getting acquittal from men, and carry within
us the sentence of guilt. How painful soever the former, we can still
look up to God, and forward to His tribunal, as that of unerring
rectitude,--where He will "bring forth our righteousness as the
light, and our judgment as the noon-day." O! there will be no
"hardening of the face" then. Conscience will do its duty. The eyes
which are as a flame of fire will search the inmost soul. Every eye
will quail, and every countenance, even the most hardened, sink,
before the look of Him that sitteth upon the throne. He will then at
once "wipe off the reproach of his people," and "bring to light the
hidden things of darkness." And then they who, under the influence of
faith, and fear, and love, have "considered their way," shall lift up
their faces without dread, and meet the smiles of their gracious
Judge!--_Wardlaw._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSES_ 30 _and_ 31.
COUNSEL AGAINST THE LORD.
+I. Only those plans succeed which harmonise with the will of God.+
This is of course true only in regard to the ultimate and final issue
of men's plans and purposes. Sometimes, and indeed oftentimes,
counsel against the Lord is very successful for a season, and for a
very long season, but it is only for a season. 1. This is obvious if
we consider _God's knowledge of the future._ It is inseparable from
His Divine nature that He shall be able to _"declare the end from the
beginning,"_ and therefore He says _"My counsel shall stand, and I
will do all my pleasure:" "yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring
it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it"_ (Isaiah xlvi. 10,
11). Imagine the general of a vast army being confronted with a
handful of blind men, would there be any room to doubt who would have
the victory? If a traveller whose eyesight is so dim that he can only
see a step or two before he has to travel an unknown road, will he
not do well to take the arm and avail himself of the guidance of a
man whose sight is perfect? The plan or purpose of our life is the
road we desire to walk upon, and as we _"know not what shall be on
the morrow"_ (James v. 14) we can only hope to attain our desire if
we enlist the All-seeing God on our side, and in order to do this our
counsel must be in harmony with His. 2. _God's Almighty power,_ also,
ensures the success of His counsel. _"The horse is prepared against
the day of battle,"_ but what is the united force of a world compared
with the might of Him _"who hath comprehended the dust in a measure,
and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a
balance?"_ . . . The prophet answers the question, _"The nations are
as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of a
balance"_ (Isaiah xl. 12, 15). The knowledge that our guide has of a
dangerous path--the fact that he is acquainted with it from the
beginning to the end--may not ensure our arrival at the desired goal.
He and we may together be attacked by powerful foes, and power to
protect is as needful as knowledge to guide. When we commit our way
to God we have omnipotence as well as omniscience on our side.
+II. Yet men are ever opposing their finite wisdom and strength to
the almightiness and infinite knowledge of God.+ The proverb embodies
a truth so palpable to any who will look facts plainly in the
face--it contains an inference so obvious to an unprejudiced mind
that it would seem unnecessary to write it if we did not know that
sin has so distorted men's mental vision--so biassed their
reason--that they are ever imagining a _"vain thing"_ and taking
_"counsel against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us
break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us"_ (Psa.
ii. 2, 3). The world is full of confirmations of the fact, and it
also contains abundant evidence of the truth of the inspired word.
_"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, and the Lord shall have
them in derision."_
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
It would be a strong sentence if he declared that counsel against the
Lord could never amount to anything. . . . But he does something more
clear than that. _There is no_ (such thing as) _wisdom,_ etc.,
against the Most High. They could do nothing if they were; but wisdom
never could be enticed to that side. The sentence embodies both
ideas. There is no wisdom that could avail against God; but secondly,
there is none that would ever attempt it. The expressions are
peculiar. _There is nothing of wisdom._ The word is repeated:
_"Nothing, nothing, nothing."--Miller._
We may, perhaps, consider the wise man as pointing out _three modes_
of covering and effecting evil purposes: in the twenty-seventh verse,
the _mask of religion;_ in the twenty-eighth, _false testimony;_ in
the twenty-ninth, the _assumed boldness and look of innocence._ But
(verse 30) "there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel,
against the Lord." There may be against _men._ In one, or other, or
all of these ways they may be deceived. There may, in many cases, be
"wisdom, and understanding, and counsel" more than sufficient to
impose upon and outwit them. But God _knows all._ His eye cannot be
eluded; His designs cannot be thwarted; neither His promises nor His
threatenings can be falsified, by any artifice, or policy, or might
of the children of men--no, nor of any created being.--_Wardlaw._
Wisdom is that which is gotten by experience, understanding that
which is gotten by study, counsel that which is gotten by
advice . . . but let all be put in the scales against the Lord, they
are but the dust of the balance unto Him. . . . For if wisdom be
gotten by experience, He is the Ancient of days; He was ancient when
days began. If understanding come by study, He hath all understanding
of Himself at once. . . . And the whole world is His common council,
and that not to give at all, but to receive counsel from
_Him.--Jermin._
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