Proverbs 30:5

Every word of God [is] pure,.... The whole word of God. "All Scripture", given by inspiration of God, to which Agur directs, as giving the best account of God, of his name, nature, and perfections;

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Hence, (Proverbs 30:4) we must rest in the divinely revealed doctrine, which is pure and saving to all who trust in its Almighty Giver and Object.

Every word of God is pure; and therefore you, Ithiel and Ucal, must not expect the full knowledge of Divine mysteries from me, nor from any man, but from the word of God, which is a certain rule, both of your belief and practice, because every part and parcel of it is holy, and true, and good, and there is not the least mixture of falsehood and folly in it, as there is in all the words and writings of men. That put their trust in him; which supposeth their knowledge of him by his word, ; and contains their reliance upon his promises, joined with obedience to his commands.

Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Ver. 5. Every word of God is pure: he is a shield.] Albeit all the sacred sentences contained in this blessed book are pure, precious, and profitable; yet as one star in heaven outshineth another, so doth one proverb another, and this is among the rest, velut inter stellas luna minores, an eminent sentence often recorded in Scripture, and far better worthy than ever Pindar’ s seventh ode was to be written in letters of gold. Every word of God is pure, purer than "gold tried in the fire," purer than "silver tried in a furnace, and seven times purified." Julian, therefore, that odious apostate, is not to be hearkened to, who said there was as good stuff in Phocylides as in Solomon, in Pindar’ s odes as in David’ s psalms. Nor is that brawling dog Porphyry to be regarded, who blasphemously accuseth Daniel the prophet, and Matthew the evangelist, as writers of lies, Os durum! harsh speech. The Jesuits, some of them, say little less of St Paul’ s epistles, which they could wish by some means censured and reformed, as dangerous to be read, and savouring of heresy in some places. Traditions they commonly account the touchstone of doctrine and foundation of faith; the Scriptures to be rather a Commonitorium , as Bellarmine calls it, a kind of storehouse for advice, than cor et animam Dei, the heart and soul of God, as Gregory calls them, - a fortress against errors, as Augustine. The apostle calleth concupiscence sin - at non licet nobis ita loqui; but we may not call it so, saith Possevine, the Jesuit The author to the Hebrews saith, "Marriage is honourable among all men"; but the Rhemists, on 1 Corinthians 7:9, say that the marriage of priests is the worst sort of incontinence. Christ saith the sin against the Holy Ghost hath no remission. Bellarmine saith that it may be forgiven. The Council of Constance comes in with a non obstante against Christ’ s institution, withholding the cup from the people at the sacrament. And a Parisian doctor tells us, that although the apostle would have sermons and service celebrated in a known tongue, yet the Church, for very good cause, hath otherwise ordered it. Bishop Bonner’ s chaplain called the Bible, in scorn, ‘ his little pretty God’ s book,’ and judged it worthy to be burnt, tanquam doctrina peregrina, as strange doctrine. Gilford and Raynolds said it contained some things profane and apocryphal. Others have styled it the ‘ mother of heresy,’ and therefore not fit to be read by the common people, lest they suck poison out of it. Prodigious blasphemy! Of the purity and perennity of the holy Scriptures, see more in my True Treasure, pp. 85, 139. He is a shield to them that put their trust in him.] See Genesis 15:1 Proverbs 29:25. Oda septima Pind.

(5) Every word of God is pure.—Comp. Psalms 19, where first (Proverbs 30:1-6) the glories of God as revealed in nature are described, and then (Proverbs 30:7 sqq.) the excellence of the revelation of Himself in His word is extolled. Every word of God is “pure,” i.e., tested and proved in the furnace of experience; e.g., His promise to be a “shield” (Genesis 15:1) to those that trust in Him. (Comp. Psalms 18:30.)

Verse 5. Every word of God is pure] כל אמרת אלוה צרופה col imrath eloah tseruphah, "Every oracle of God is purified." A metaphor taken from the purifying of metals. Every thing that God has pronounced, every inspiration which the prophets have received, is pure, without mixture of error, without dross. Whatever trials it may be exposed to, it is always like gold: it bears the fire, and comes out with the same lustre, the same purity, and the same weight. He is a shield unto them] And this oracle among the rest. "He is the defence of all them that put their trust in him." לכל lechol, to all, is added here by nineteen of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS.; for instead of לחסים lachosim, to the trusters, they read לכל החוסים lechol hachosim, "to EVERY ONE of them that trust." Where the preposition and adjective are not only added, but the noun is written more full, and more emphatic: but a translation cannot well express it without paraphrase.

5. pure] Heb. purified. The image “hinted at” here is “expanded” (Bp Perowne) on Psalms 12:6 [Hebrews 7]: “The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried (same Hebrew word as here) in a furnace of (or, on the) earth, purified seven times.”

Out of this consciousness of the impotence of all man’s efforts after the knowledge of God rises the sense of the preciousness of every living word that God has Himself revealed, whether through “the

5. Every word of God is pure — ΰμεδ, (eloah,) God. In the unquestioned Solomonic portions of this book, the word JEHOVAH, (Authorized Version, LORD,) is used almost invariably; ΰμδιν, elohim, the