Proverbs 20:27

The spirit of man [is] the candle of the Lord,.... The rational soul of man is a light set up in him; this is what is commonly called the light of nature; it was a bright and burning light at first,

The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord - a candle or lamp lit by the Lord; a light divinely given to man. Conscience is this candle.

The spirit, i.e. the reasonable soul. Is the candle; is a clear and glorious light set up in man for his information and direction. Of the Lord; so called, partly because it comes from God in a more immediate and peculiar manner than the body doth, ; and partly because it is in God’ s stead to observe and judge all a man’ s actions. Searching all the inward parts of the belly; discerning not only his outward actions, which are visible to others, but his most inward and secret thoughts and affections, which no other man can see, . The belly is here put for the heart, as it is frequently. The soul can reflect upon and judge of its own dispositions and actions; which plainly showeth that the heart is not so deceitful, but that a man by diligent study of it, and the use of the means appointed by God, may arrive at a certain knowledge of its state and condition, in reference to God and to salvation.

Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man [is] the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.Ver. 27. The spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord.] Some read it, The breath of a man, that is, his life, is the candle of the Lord, and sense it thus: Look how men deal by their lights or lamps, so doth God by our lives. Some we put out as soon as lighted; others we let alone till half wasted, and others again till wax and wick and all be consumed. So some die younger, some older, as God pleaseth. But the word Neshamah here used, as it holds affinity with the Hebrew Shamajim, Heaven, so it doth with the Latin word mens, the mind, or reasonable soul, which indeed is that light that is in us by an excellence, that "spirit of a man that knows the things of a man," that candle that is in a man’ s belly or body, as in a lantern, making the least mote perspicuous. This is true by a specialty of that divine faculty of the soul, conscience, which is frequently called the "spirit of a man," as being planted by God in all and every part of the reasonable soul, where she produceth occasionally several operatious, being the soul’ s schoolmaster, monitor, and domestic preacher; God’ s spy, and man’ s overseer, the principal commander and chief controller of all his doings and desires. “ Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ira concipit intra Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo. ” - Ovid. Surely it is a most celestial gift, saith one. It is so of God and in man, that it is a kind of middle thing between God and man; less than God, and yet above man. It may be called our God, saith another, in the sense that Moses was Pharaoh’ s; having power to control and avenge our disobediences with greater plagues than ever Moses brought on Egypt. Therefore that was no evil counsel of the poet: Imprimis reverere teipsum. And, “ Turpe quid ausurus, re, sine teste, time. ” Bifeild on 1 Pet. ii. Huet. of Cons. Auson.

(27) The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.—The spirit of man, breathed into him at first by the Creator (Genesis 2:7), and afterwards quickened and illumined by the Divine Spirit, is the “candle of the Lord,” given to man as an inward light and guide. Searching all the inward parts of the belly.—That is, of the inmost heart of man; testing all his thoughts, feelings, desires, by God’s law, approving some, condemning others, according as they agree with it or not. The word “belly” is equivalent to “heart” or “soul” in Job 15:2; Job 15:15; Job 32:19. (Comp. John 7:38.)

Verse 27. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord] God has given to every man a mind, which he so enlightens by his own Spirit, that the man knows how to distinguish good from evil; and conscience, which springs from this, searches the inmost recesses of the soul.

27. spirit] Lit. breath (ðíïÞ, LXX.). The word, in this unusual sense, may probably have been chosen to recall Genesis 2:7 : the Lord God … breathed into his nostrils the breath (the same word as here) of life. “The breath of the higher life, above that which he has in common with the lower animals, coming to him direct from God, such a life, with all its powers of insight, consciousness, reflection, is as a lamp which God has lighted, throwing its rays into the darkest recesses of the heart,” Dean Plumptre in Speaker’s Comm. candle] Rather, lamp, A.V. marg. and R.V.

The spirit of man - The “breath” of Genesis 2:7, the higher life, above that which he has in common with lower animals, coming to him direct from God.

27. The spirit — πωׁ ?ξδ, (neshamah,) construct πωׁ ?ξϊ, (nishmath,) Genesis 2:7; not ψεη, (rua’hh,) spirit, a word with which it is sometimes coupled, kindred to which is the word nephesh, the