Job 42

7. AND it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that 8 is right, as my servant Job hath. Now therefore, take unto you seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, that I deal not with you after your folly; for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job 9 hath. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the LORD commanded them: and the LORD accepted Job. 10 And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that

THREE things we have met with in this book which have troubled me much; but we find all the three grievances thoroughly redressed in this chapter—everything set to rights. It has been a great trouble to us to see such a holy man as Job was so fretful and peevish, and especially to hear him quarrel with God and speak indecently to Him; but, though he thus fall, he is not utterly cast down, for here he comes to himself and to his right mind again by repentance, is sorry for what he has said amiss, unsays it and humbles himself before God. It has been likewise a great trouble to us to see Job and his friends so much at variance, not only differing in their opinions, but giving one another a great many hard words and passing severe censures one upon another, though they were all very wise and good men; but here we have this grievance redressed likewise, the differences between them happily adjusted, the quarrel taken up, all the peevish reflections they had cast upon one another forgiven and forgotten, and all joining in sacrifices and prayers, mutually accepted of God. It has troubled us to see a man of such eminent piety and usefulness as Job was so grievously afflicted, so pained, so sick, so poor, so reproached, so slighted, and made the very centre of all the calamities of human life; but here we have this grievance redressed too; Job healed of all his ailments, more honored and had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him concerning all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one a ring of gold. 12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: and he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a 13 thousand she-asses. He had also seven sons 14 and three daughters. And he called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah: and the name of the 15 third, Keren-happuch. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. And after this Job lived an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, even 17 four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days.

beloved than ever, enriched with an estate double to what he had before, surrounded with all the comforts of life, and as great an instance of prosperity as ever he had been of affliction and patience. All this is written for our learning, that we, under these and the like discouragements that we meet with, through patience and comfort of the Scripture, may have hope. H.

7-17. Jehovah, having confounded all the false reasonings of Job and sufficiently humbled him, proceeds now to condemn the principle maintained by the three friends, which He affirms “not to be right.” As an atonement, therefore, for their behavior He commands them to offer a sacrifice for themselves; and as some compensation to Job, they have the mortifying penance enjoined them of begging his prayers in their behalf. He, whom they had represented as the vilest of men, was the only intercessor whom God would accept. Job is at length not only restored to his former prosperity, but as a recompense for his past sufferings blessings flow in upon him in a double tide, which he enjoys to a very old age, and leaves to a numerous posterity. Heath.—Job’s unreserved submission terminates his trial. His integrity is recognized, and his friends are declared not to have spoken the truth, a fault which, however, as proceeding from a mistaken apprehension of Divine justice, is pardoned on the intercession of Job. The restoration of Job’s earthly prosperity, which is an inevitable result of the Divine manifestation, symbolizes the final compensation of the righteous for all the sufferings of life. Cook.

7. The Lord blames the three friends for not speaking that which was right concerning Him, not concerning Job; He also commends Job for speaking what was right concerning Him. It is obvious that the three friends spoke many just and profound things concerning God, and that Job, on the other hand, said many things that were both blameworthy and false, things for which he was both rebuked by the Almighty and expressed his penitence. The reference cannot be to such things as these. Neither can the charge made against the friends here be merely that brought against them by Job, that they did not speak in honesty and sincerity, though this may be included. Rather, the friends are blamed for speaking in regard to God that which was not right, or true, in itself; and the reference must be to the theories they put forth in regard to God’s providence and the meaning of afflictions. On this point the friends spoke in regard to God what was not right, while Job spoke that which was right. A. B. D.

The friends affirmed these great mistakes: that all the sufferings and afflictions which befall man in this world are laid upon him by God as a punishment for sin; that all wicked men sooner or later are visibly punished for sin in this life; that though a good man may possibly suffer grievous afflictions in this life, yet God always delivers him out of them before he departs this life. Hence if a man for long continuance of time be continued in great calamity, that man must be judged wicked, though no apparent wickedness can be charged upon or proved against him. Upon these unsound principles they were all confident to infer that Job was a hypocrite, and that all those troubles which befell him were inflicted by the righteous hand of God as a punishment for his sin. Caryl.

To these friends of Job no other idea ever occurs than that a man suffers because he is a sinner. They had never yet caught the great Gospel idea of Jesus and His apostles that a man might be made to suffer more because he is a saint; that his suffering may not always be a punishment, but rather a token of love; a means of ripening glory; a blessing in disguise; so that ofttimes the saint has occasion to say: “It was good for me that I have been afflicted.” Thus from reasoning on a false principle to confute Job and bring him to repentance these friends, in seeking to confute and convict him of irreverence, gave all the weight of their influence against God’s cause. S. R.—Their ignorance regarding the meaning and design of God’s dealings with Job was not reprehensible. This could not have been otherwise, for they had no means of knowing it. But what cannot be excused in them is that they undertook to expound, as though they had full knowledge in the case, what they did not understand; and in so doing rested the Divine procedure on insufficient reasons, and sought to square it by their own limited notions. They were inexcusable in another respect. They not only entered a weak and unsuitable plea as the only one upon which the cause of God could be rested or His providence justified, but they made allegations which they had no means of knowing to be true, and which, in fact, were not true; they were mere inferences from the false premises on which they were conducting the defence of the Divine government. In defending the cause of religion and of piety, as they professed to do, they were guilty of making rash and reckless assertions; they were unjust to Job in not only harboring baseless suspicions, but in venturing upon positive declarations of his guilt in matters of which he was wholly innocent; they were shamefully cruel to their suffering friend, causelessly aggravating his distress, which professedly they had come to soothe, when he was already weighed down by troubles that might have disarmed malice itself and softened hearts of stone. No exigencies of their argument could justify a course like this. And no straits in which the defence of God’s righteous government and the claims of religion seemed to be could justify it. If the Divine administration could not be honestly and truthfully defended, and without a resort to what is questionable or false, they should have retired from its defence, and concluded that they were not called of God to be His champions in this particular. More than this, they had really inculpated the providence of God by their professed defence of it. By covering up and ignoring its enigmas and seeming contradictions they had cast more discredit upon it than Job by honestly holding them up to the light. Their denial of its apparent inequalities was more untrue and more dishonoring to the Divine administration, as it is in fact conducted, than Job’s bold affirmation of them. Even his most startling utterances wrung from him in his bewilderment and sore perplexity were less reprehensible than their false statements and false inferences. W. H. G.

Job hath (spoken of Me the thing that is right). This decision, while not to be interpreted as a sanction of the whole of Job’s language, must be understood to convey an approval of its substance and groundwork; and to pronounce that his argument was true, and his feeling legitimate and right in the main. It must be remembered that there is a wide distinction between that movement of natural passion which has a reason and that which has not, and that exactly the same amount of temper which is fretfulness in one case is natural or constitutional anger in another. Mozley.—This expression of approval has a reference to his share in the previous argument with the friends, and is designed to express a comparative preference of the views he had set forth in that argument. This will appear the more clearly when it is borne in mind that the arguments and illustrations adduced by the Lord Himself do not really convey any rebuke of Job’s main position, but only to the incidents of temper and character—the impatience, the recklessness, and the presumption which had been manifested by him in the course of the debate. Still this praise is to be taken rather as comparative than as absolute. Both had about equally erred in their views as to the nature of sin; but Job had put this part of the charge against him out of court by his penitent confession. The removal of this fault in his argument, seeing he had expressly recalled it, while it remained on theirs, would alone give the balance in his favor had all else been equal. But, in fact, the main position which Job had defended was correct, though he was unable to grasp all its bearings, and more than that which the friends had upheld, tended to vindicate the Divine government. It is clear that inasmuch as Job had an essentially good case, but marred it by many vain and unseemly utterances; so the friends had an essentially wrong case, although they supported it by many goodly reasons, and by words out of which much holy doctrine may be gathered. Kitto.

7,8. My servant Job. God calls him again and again His servant Job, four times in two verses, and He seems to take a pleasure in calling him so, as before his troubles—" Hast thou considered My servant Job? Though he is poor and despised, he is My servant, and as dear to Me as when he was in prosperity; though he has his faults, and has appeared to be a man subject to like passions as others; though he has contended with Me, has gone about to disannul My judgment, and has darkened counsel by words without knowledge, yet he sees his error and retracts it, and therefore he is My servant Job still." If we still hold fast the integrity and fidelity of servants to God, as Job did, though we may for a time be deprived of the credit and comfort of the relation, we shall be restored to it at last, as he was. The devil had undertaken to prove Job a hypocrite, and his three friends had condemned him as a wicked man; but God will confess those whom He accepts, and will not suffer them to be run down by the malice of hell or earth. If God says, Well done, good and faithful servant, it is of little consequence who says otherwise. H.

8. Jehovah has now risen up as a witness for Job; the spiritual redemption is already accomplished; and all that is wanting is that He who has acknowledged and testified to Job as His servant should also act outwardly and visibly, and in mercy show Himself the righteous One. D.

9,10. Only the compliance of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar with the requirement is named, leaving the natural inference that they were accepted with their offerings. The turning of the captivity of Job is the great point of interest—a phrase that simply indicates that from this point Job’s great affliction, comparable to a terrible captivity, was exchanged for returning health and joy and prosperity. Curry.

10. It was an honor put on Job, and likewise a testimony of his meek and loving spirit, that he prayed for his friends. Nor can we have stronger proof that our prayers and intercessions for others, especially for our offending brethren, are acceptable to God than what is here related. For then “the Lord turned the captivity of Job,” when his resentment against his accusers was extinguished, and he put up to heaven charitable petitions for them. The sufferer was restored to health, abundance, and prosperity. He received twice as much property as he had before possessed, so that his latter end was better than his beginning. The Lord gave him favor among an extensive acquaintance, a very large property, a numerous issue, and an honorable old age. It is delightful to trace the dealings of God toward His people and their faith in Him, which are the same in all ages. The very truths that supported Job under his sorrows remain to the present day, firm as the pillars of heaven, an unshaken basis of confidence for the people of God. E. Copley.

With this simple conclusion the author of the book seems to have ended. The six remaining verses, particularizing the increase, the number of his sons and daughters, and the names of the latter, who, according to primitive usage, were made coheiresses with their brothers; and the number of years that Job survived his trial, form an appendix which, probably, was added in later times by whoever introduced the book into the sacred canon. Hales.

11. When Job had humbled himself and God had accepted him, he quickly turned the hearts of his friends to regard him with kindness. Clark.—Every man also gave him a piece of money. It was an ancient custom, which is still observed in the East, never to visit a person of distinction without paying him the compliment of a present. It is uncertain whether one kind of present made to Job on this occasion was a sheep, or a piece of money that had the figure of a sheep stamped upon it. Scott.

12. So the Lord blessed. The theism of revelation rests upon one fact—the love of God for man; and aims at one fact—the love of man for God. In the relation to one another of two living creatures who love each other tenderly, do we not see how every grief suffered by one in presence of the other strengthens the link of affection which unites them, and calls forth a still more lively manifestation of it? And does not every new act of devotion make the flame of satisfied and even grateful love on the part of the being so faithfully loved break forth into view? It is no question of payment of what has been earned; it is love called forth by love exhibited, and answering to it with eagerness. “So the Lord blessed, not rewarded, the latter end of Job.” The restoration of Job does not then rest upon any servile notion of works of merit, but upon the value which love sets upon love. Love appreciates love above all things—loves essentially only it. If God is love, and if, being such, He has willed to be loved, how should He not in His turn, having found what He seeks, manifest Himself emphatically as the loving God? Were He to act otherwise, His creature would be better than Himself. Godet.

Job’s trials are at length over. He has been convinced, pardoned, vindicated, and accepted. Nor was this all; he was healed of his sore disease, and restored to a prosperous estate. And, yet more—for the Lord is very bountiful to His servants—he was not merely restored to all he had before possessed, but all things were given back in double measure to him; all except children, of whom he eventually gained the same number he had lost. How the restoration of his wealth was effected we are not told, nor are we required to suppose that it took place all at once. We know that in the case of his new family, for instance, the restoration must have been gradual, and so it was probably of the rest. And with regard to Job’s possessions being doubled after his recovery from his calamities, it is not necessary to suppose that this was exactly true to the letter. The statement is justified if by the recapture of some of his possessions from the robbers, by the gifts of friends, and by remarkable prosperity in all his doings, his possessions were eventually brought to something nearly double what they were before his trials commenced. In the statement itself there is nothing improbable. Job lived one hundred and forty years after his trials. If he then had only the same measure of prosperity as before, with such assistances as we have indicated to enable him to begin life again, there is nothing improbable in his possessions being doubled. Kitto.—So does God pour out upon Job all the tokens of His love, as if to make up to him for the extreme anguish which he had gone through for the manifestation of His glory both in heaven and in hell. Godet.

In the result he is pardoned and restored; and the conclusion is such as to sanction the prevalent idea of the finally retributive character, even in this world, of the Divine government; for “the Lord blessed his latter end more than his beginning,” restoring double to him of all his prosperity and wealth. This, in fact, was the argument of the friends of Job; but the fault was that they did not wait “to see the end.” Even in their view of the Divine government by temporal retribution, it is visibly impossible safely to pass such judgments as they were in haste to pronounce, until the end of all is seen, for there is no afflicted man whose prosperity may not be restored with large increase; and, while that remains possible, no judgment upon his conduct can be founded upon his condition, which may be but temporary—may be but an incident in his career. Kitto.

16,17. Job lived a hundred and forty years. Abraham lived 175 years, and Moses 120; but if to Job’s 140 after his restoration be added 80, or even 60 years, to which age all the facts brought into the light would indicate that he must have lived before his afflictions come upon him, then his whole number of years must have been 200 or more, which is about the age (205) to which Terah, the father of Abraham, attained. It is not altogether unreasonable to presume that by thus signifying the age to which the patriarchal hero of the poem lived, the author meant to indicate the date in the world’s history in which he would locate the scenes that he describes. Curvy.

The length of days and unexampled prosperity granted to Job should not be regarded as a compensation for sufferings, but as the outward and visible indication of Divine favor, of which the future manifestation was as yet a matter of hope rather than a sure belief founded on revelation. Cook.

17. Job dies, old and full of days. “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11). A. B. D.

God looks more upon the bright side of the cloud than the dark. “Remember the patience of Job” (James 5:11). It is not, “Remember the murmuring of Job, the complainings of Job, the impatience of Job,” but “Remember the patience of Job.” God looks upon the pearl, and not upon the spot that is in it. T. Brooks.—All that Job is told is that God most surely loved him; that He will not answer his eager and passionate questions, but that through them all and in spite of them all he is dear to Him because he had loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and that for these things God cares, and cares infinitely; and in the sense of this and of God’s power and wisdom he must rest content. And he is told also that trouble and affliction do not prove God’s displeasure; that the very heaviest, the most overwhelming blows may come from a Maker who is full of love to him on whom they fall—may come, as did Job’s, from causes far beyond his power to comprehend or guess, and that he need not look on God as his persecutor or his enemy—not shrink from Him, but draw closer and closer to Him in his trouble, and trust Him more wholly. And his story reminds us of God’s mercy and forbearance to those who are under sorrow; of the larger, the other eyes with which He may look on the impatience, the bewilderment, the fretfulness, even the doubts and questionings of His servants. The impatience, as it seems to us, of Job is answered by the patience and pitifulness of Job’s God: “The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy”—and this, surely, is much. Dean Bradley.

“In your patience, ye shall win your souls,” are the words of the Master (Luke 21:19). Patience is active as well as passive. It includes the persistent energy which wins no less than the submissiveness which bears. The popular conception of patience is too narrow. The popular phrase, “As patient as Job,” is applied to a man who submits to trouble without murmuring. In this aspect Job’s patience is not a model. He chafed under his trouble, not so much indeed at his bodily suffering as at his inability to understand what God meant by it; he murmured and impugned God’s justice, and well-nigh blasphemed in his frenzied wrestle with this problem. And yet the core of this struggle reveals the truth of Christ’s words. The man’s thought was absorbed, not by the relations of this calamity to his flocks and herds and family and health, but by its relations to himself as a son of God and a believer in God. His fear centred in the possibility that God had forsaken his soul; and Job’s patience appears in his holding fast by that thought, and in his steadily fighting his way toward God through all that agony, even though at times he raved at the Almighty. He clung to the hand that smote him, even while he struck at it, as the only hand which could unlock the mystery. He pressed his way through the darkness, groping after God. If he could but see God! If he could but come into court with God and make his plea to His face! If God would only speak to him! And at last he prevailed. God did speak to him. Job’s soul was calmed, though it was humbled to the dust. He won his soul in his patience. Vincent.

The explanation of the sufferings of God’s dear children, as suggested by the case of Job, may be embraced in the following particulars. They afford to all gainsayers a palpable test of their integrity. The very intensity of the struggle develops their faith and other graces, and leads them on to clearer views of heavenly truth. These sorrows are sent on the part of God with a gracious design, and afford the occasion of His revealing Himself to chastened souls with new fulness and power, in consequence of which they are brought nearer to Him than ever before, and their happiness and welfare are proportionally promoted. W. H. G.—Job’s recorded history shows that God sometimes permits the best men to be afflicted by Satan, and that most grievously, to prove their faith, patience, humility, and resignation to His will; that this world is not a perfect state of retribution for virtue and vice; but that all the inequalities which are to be found here will be completely redressed in a future state, in which the good will be finally rewarded and the wicked punished. Job, indeed, was one of the best men that ever lived; but he was not exempt from the frailties and infirmities of human nature, and he failed under his last and sorest trial. Still, with all his imperfections, he will shine forth to the end of time an admirable example and an heroic pattern of piety and patience, to be exceeded only by that inimitable Standard of perfection who, in His state of humiliation, was “meek and lowly of heart ;” who was “in all points tempted like as we are,” and that “by the devil,” but yet “did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth ;” and who was “perfected by sufferings” in this life, that He might be transcendently “exalted at the right hand of God”—the blessed “Seed of the woman,” the man Jesus Christ. Hales.

The Book of Job is a book of consolation for the New Testament Church. From it we learn that we have not only to fight with flesh and blood, but with the prince of this world, and to accomplish our part in the conquest of evil, to which from the first promise (Gen. 3 : 15) onward the history of the world tends ; that faith and avenging justice are absolutely distinct opposites ; that the right kind of faith clings to Divine love in the midst of the feeling of wrath ; that the incomprehensible ways of God always lead to a glorious issue, and that the suffering of the present time is far outweighed by the future glory—a glory not always revealed in this life and visible future, but the final glory above. The nature of faith, the mystery of the cross, the right practice of the care of souls—this, and much besides, the Church learns from this book, the whole teaching of which can never be thoroughly learned and completely exhausted. D.

“PROVERBS” has become in the LXX, the Vulgate, and the Authorized Version, the common heading of the book. It would seem, however, as if there had been at one time another name given to it as a title of honor. Like the two books of analogous nature in the Apocrypha, which probably took their title from it, it was known as the Book of Wisdom. So it was described in the Talmud. So it was named by the great body of early Christian writers. E. H. P.

Properly and strictly speaking, most of Solomon’s Proverbs are rather to be called maxims or sentences. A proverb is a short moral sentence which means something else than what the words naturally and literally imply—that is to say, it must be expressed in a figurative manner. When Solomon says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not onto thine own understanding,” this is no proverb, but a moral sentence. When he says, “Drink waters out of thine own cistern,” this is a proverb; and it means, “Meddle not with that which belongs to another.” These Proverbs of Solomon are a collection of wise and moral sayings, usually plain and concise; they also fall into metre, and, therefore, were the more easily learned and remembered by those in whose language they were written. Jortin.—In its most usual form the proverb is a brief, sententious maxim or saying, naturally conforming somewhat to the laws of Hebrew poetic parallelism, and therefore in two parts, one of which is usually antithetic to the other. Thus (10:1), “A wise son makes a glad father; a foolish son, a heavy-hearted mother.” The first half gives the wise son; the second, the foolish. The joy of the father in the former is set over against the grief of the mother in the latter. This antithetic po sition makes the thought more distinct. Contrast heightens its force. This antithesis is not always apparent without close and searching attention. It may lie between what is affirmed in one clause and what is merely implied in the other. Proverbs of this class are a sort of enigma or riddle, “a dark saying” (1:6), designed to test the sagacity and tax the wits of the reader, and so heighten his interest and perhaps deepen the impression of the truth when he has searched it out. Thus in the proverb (10:8), “The wise in heart will receive instruction, but a prating fool shall fall,” there is a double antithesis: (1) The wise-hearted man (instead of prating perpetually himself) hears and receives advice; while the fool prates with deaf ears. And (2) the wise man (it is implied) lives and prospers by means of the wise counsels which he both hears and obeys; while the prating fool, neither hearing nor heeding counsel, falls into remediless ruin—this secondary antithesis lying between what is affirmed of the fool and what is left to be inferred of the wise. This proverb is a “dark saying” to the reader until he has studied out this implied idea and has thus reached the full sense. There is, however, a considerable range of diversity in the manner of making up these proverbs. Some of them are comparisons, “As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him” (10:26); or the comparison is blended with the antithetic arrangement, “As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more; but the righteous is an everlasting foundation;” where the passing away of the wicked is first compared to a whirlwind, and then put in contrast with the enduring life and blessedness of the righteous. The proverb proper is complete in a single verse. Of this sort are those which stand in 10-22:16. But in the first nine chapters, and also in the last seven, the same subject is usually continued through two or more successive verses. H. C.

This book is attributed (1:1) to Solomon, who was the son of David and his successor on the throne of Israel. The book itself makes the last two chapters an exception, ascribing chap. 30 to one Agur, and chap. 31 to a certain King Lemuel and his mother. The fact that while the book in general is ascribed to Solomon, these special exceptions and these only appear in the book itself, is presumptive evidence that all the rest is the work of Solomon, and was so regarded by the original compilers. A distinct notice of this work of compilation appears in the opening of chap. 25, which is justly supposed to include the five chapters immediately following (25-29) as having been collected and compiled (“copied out”) by certain men assigned to this service by King Hezekiah. H. C.—Of his three thousand proverbs, less than one-third are here preserved. Of his thousand and five songs we have a yet smaller proportion. And of his extensive writings upon natural history none remain. B.—The Jewish commentators place the composition of the Proverbs in the middle life of the king. Living about two hundred and sixty years before the reign of Cyrus, under whom the seven wise men of Greece flourished, and six hundred and seventy years before Alexander the Great, under whom lived Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, it is evident that Solomon could have drawn no part of the materials for his collection of proverbs from heathen moralists and philosophers. It seems more probable that they derived much valuable information from the writings of the renowned monarch of Israel. Muen-scher.

The proverbs of the Gentile nations are almost all of anonymous origin—concentrations of many men’s wisdom, or expressions of a popular humor, or national turn of thought, floating down, in the concise form of the apothegm, from an unknown antiquity. But almost all the proverbs of the Hebrews are due to the wit and wisdom of one man whom God had specially endowed. David was not more thoroughly trained to be the Psalmist of Israel than Solomon was qualified to be the master of practical admonition. From the first he had every princely advantage; he acquired every accomplishment of science and letters, and gifted with extraordinary powers of observation, he knew human character and life thoroughly, and could describe what he knew with wonderful terseness and point, his spirit also being enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord. D. F.

In this book Solomon was inspired to use his surpassing wisdom and acquired knowledge and to interpret the lessons of his own wide experience in the setting forth of wise, practical counsels for all that should live after him. This he did in brief moral sentences, using either the proverb, a figurative form of expression, or the maxim, a plain statement. His aim is to set forth the principles and rules of right living in this world. His themes include almost every topic touching personal and social relations, rights and duties, and bearing upon the welfare of the individual, the family, and the community. The book, therefore, embodies an inspired manual of ethics or right acting. For the individual it furnishes all essential counsels pertaining to sobriety, purity and all probity, as well as to industry and economy. And, says Coleridge, it is “the best statesman’s manual that was ever written. An adherence to the political economy and spirit of that collection of apothegms and essays would do more to eradicate from a people the causes of extravagance, debasement, and ruin than all the contributions to political economy of Say, Smith, Malthus, and Chalmers together.” Further, though civilization changes by steady advances and though customs differ, yet man’s nature and acting are the same in every age and among every people. Hence these terse, energetic sentences, each unfolding or summing up some principle of right living in the positive form of counsel or the negative one of warning, must ever have a universal application; and, though not often directly containing distinctive Christian instruction, yet the spirit of their inculcations is always in harmony with the precepts of Christ and His apostles. B.

Solomon judiciously sums up his precepts in brief, energetic sentences, which are well contrived for popular instruction. The wisdom of all ages hath chosen to compress its lessons into compendious sentences, which were peculiarly adapted to the simplicity of earlier times; which are readily conceived and easily retained, and which circulate in society as useful principles to be unfolded and applied as occasion may require. The inspired son of David had the power of giving peculiar energy and weight to this style of writing, and his works have been the storehouse from which posterity hath drawn its best maxims. His proverbs are so justly founded on principles of human nature, and so adapted to the permanent interests of man, that they agree with the manners of every age, and may be assumed as rules for the direction of our conduct in every condition of life, however varied in its complexion or diversified by circumstances; they embrace not only the concerns of private morality, but the great objects of political importance. Gray.

Although the Proverbs are not a part of the Gospel, in its limited sense, yet they prescribe in morals, manners, and social and relative duties the same things for substance which the Gospel, in its fuller and enlarged sense, requires. We may now employ them to inculcate justice, prudence, temperance, chastity, industry, and, in a word, all the duties usually denominated either moral, social, or industrial; and also reverence for God and for His commandments. We have many and excellent moral and religious precepts in the New Testament, and most of them in a form which is not to be bettered. But the Book of Proverbs touches many points not fully developed in the New Testament, and assists greatly in guiding the simple into the way of wisdom. All the proverbs are adapted to regulate our moral, religious, social, and civil demeanor. Some principle of conduct, some rule of life, some cautions adapted to produce sobriety and regularity, lie upon the face of the whole book. M. S.

As we have no book so useful to us in our devotions as David’s Psalms, so we have none so serviceable to us for the right ordering of our conversations as Solomon’s Proverbs, which, as David says of the commandments, are exceeding broad, containing in a little compass a complete body of Divine ethics, politics, and economics; exposing every vice, recommending every virtue, and suggesting rules for the government of ourselves in every relation and condition, and every turn of conversation. H.—What a vast collection of sayings we have in this book relating to human life, to human duty; the fear of God, charity to man, modesty, humility, forbearance, industry, self-denial! Here we see that one plain use and design of the whole book is to give us a quantity of short and summary expressions of deep truths of practice, such as we can carry about with us and call to mind when we want them. This book will imprint upon our minds the great truths of God’s providence and the profundity of God’s judgment. The proverbs show Divine justice already partially commenced and exhibited in this life; and the Gospel carries out this view, and completes it in the world of futurity. Mozley.

It is impossible for any description of persons to read the Book of Proverbs without profit. Fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters, masters, and servants may here also learn their respective duties; and the most excellent rules are laid down not only in reference to morality, but to civil policy and economy. Many motives are employed by the wise man to accomplish the end at which he aims; motives derived from honor, interest, love, fear, natural affection, and piety toward God. The principal object Solomon has in view is to inspire a deep reverence for God, fear of His judgments, and an ardent love for wisdom and virtue. He exhibits injustice, impiety, profligacy, idleness, imprudence, drunkenness, and almost every vice in such lively colors as to render every man ashamed of them who has any true respect for his interest, honor, character, or for himself. And as there is nothing so directly calculated to ruin young men as bad company, debauchery, and irregular connections, he labors to fortify his disciple with the most convincing reasons against all these vices. A. Clarke.

The Book of Proverbs is not on a level with the Prophets or the Psalms. It approaches human things and things Divine from quite another side. It has even something of a worldly, prudential look, unlike the rest of the Bible. But this is the very reason why its recognition as a sacred book is so useful. It is the philosophy of practical life. It impresses upon us in the most forcible manner the value of intelligence and prudence, and of a good education. The whole strength of the Hebrew language and of the sacred authority of the book is thrown upon these homely truths. It deals, too, in that refined, discriminating, careful view of the finer shades of human character so necessary to any true estimate of human life. “The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and the stranger does not intermeddle with its joy.” How much is there in that single sentence of consolation, of love, of forethought! And above all it insists over and over again upon the doctrine that goodness is “wisdom” and that wickedness and vice are “folly.” There may be other views of virtue and vice, of holiness and sin, higher and better than this. But there will be always some in the world who will need to remember that a good man is not only religious and just, but wise; and that a bad man is not only wicked and sinful, but a miserable, contemptible fool. Stanley.

The Book of Proverbs reveals a state of society in the cities of Solomon’s empire not unlike what prevails among ourselves. The same passions are seen at work; the same desires; the same strength, and the same feebleness of virtue. A greed of gain, which brought about its owner’s ruin and death, meets a reader at the beginning of the book and darkens many a saying to the end. The search for wisdom was neglected for the finding or the making of money. Nothing was allowed to stand in the way. In spite of the curses of a starving people, dealers withheld their corn from sale till enormous gains rewarded them, contrary to the spirit of Hebrew law. Unjust trading in other forms contrived to acquire great revenues, while righteous dealing secured only what is called “a better little.” False balances and unjust weights were common, the hope of gain outweighing the loss sure to follow on detection. The pursuit of wealth was thus the fruitful mother of selfishness and wrong-doing in every form. Men broke their words or faithlessly repudiated their engagements. But the extensive commerce of Solomon’s reign also presented chances of honorably realizing great riches, which were unknown to the simpler tastes of a former generation. Nor were these chances lightly esteemed by the public sentiment. “In all labor there is profit,” says the writer, correctly laying down the first principle of our political economy; “but the talk of the lips tendeth to penury.” A mere talker was contemptible in his sight. A true worker was one who profited by honest labor, and of whom the further saying held good, “The crown of the wise is their riches.” Wealth, unjustly got, brought many evils in its train. Justice was not always administered with purity: “A mean man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.” Princes and judges gave way also to wine and strong drink. Drunkenness had become common. A staggering winebibber was not an unusual sight in the streets. He is compared to the voyager on a stormy sea, who chooses for his bed the unsteady top of a mast in a swaying, pitching ship. And never was a more graphic description written of the helpless drunkard, muttering incoherent thoughts to himself, than “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath quarrels? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine” (23:29). Fools attained to high positions which would have been beyond their hopes had not money formed a ladder up which they could climb. A fool without wealth is a fool, and nothing more. A rich fool may be laughed at or used to point the moral of a sharp saying. Sometimes he becomes a danger to society as well as himself.

Indecent women seem to have abounded in the cities of Palestine. They are not said to have been of Hebrew birth. As a vast body of heathen laborers were pressed into the king’s service and transported from home to the Lebanon woods, many women must have been left destitute and friendless. The indecency which was the curse of Solomon’s large cities may have largely arisen from this forcible shifting of the population. Honest women, again, were the fairest ornament and the strongest bulwark of the land. Nothing is more striking in the Book of Proverbs than the contrast drawn between the two classes. Shame and ruin attend the one; wealth and honor follow the other. Deceit and treachery were waiting at street corners to snare unwary youth. Honorable marriage and vows honorably kept enabled thrifty women to place their husbands among the rulers of the land, to clothe all their household in scarlet, and to fill their houses with every good thing. A virtuous wife is compared to “the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from far.” What men and women are to-day in the various duties and labors of life, they were also in the age of Solomon. Nothing is changed; but experience has added many an example to confirm the grand aim of his proverbial philosophy, “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.” Sime.

This book is the great book in the Bible for the young. The proverbs are the words of a father to his children. The main form of address is “My son,” because young men are most exposed and disposed to the sins that destroy character and embitter life. There are frequent repetitions, but these repetitions are helpful as emphasizing the main dangers to which the young are exposed. They are especially warned against four sins—impurity, intemperance, lying, and robbery. The warnings against impurity of life are the most frequent and solemn. With terrible vividness does he describe the subtlety of the temptation, the suddenness of the fall, the bitterness of the awakening, the inevitable and life-long remorse. The man who loses his virtue takes a viper into his heart. He will always hear the hissing and feel the sting. Next to this come the warnings against intemperance, against the wine whose ruddy color tempts the young, but whose use produces an excitement that proves injurious to body and soul. Solomon’s advice to the young is total abstinence, from his standpoint of wise expediency, from the havoc he had seen strong drink produce among the youth of his day; and his advice represents the sober judgment of every age. He speaks to the young as a class, whose power of body and mind are still in process of development, and to them he says, what every lover of the young must still say, “Let the wine-cup alone. Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging.” Next Solomon strongly advises the young against every form of lying, especially against slander. Veracity, we have been told, is the backbone of modern civilization. In the marts of the world a man’s word must be as good as his bond; and it should be said that when you remember the immense sums of money which every day pass from hand to hand, in spite of occasional defalcations, modern commercial life is a grand exhibition of fidelity to trusts. But there may be deception when no promise is broken. Don’t lie in word or act. Let there be truth on your lips and love in your heart. Finally, Solomon warns the young against robbery of every kind, whether it be the robbery of violence or the robbery of false weights and measures. Don’t steal. Three feet to the yard; sixteen ounces to the pound; a fair equivalent in every bargain you make—that is Solomon’s advice, and he was a great merchant as well as a king. This book is full of downright good common sense and is the best practical guide for young men to-day, in its warnings against impurity, intemperance, falsehood and theft. Five great, positive virtues are commended to the young man who cherishes an honorable ambition, and these are regard for parental advice, industry, economy, contentment and piety. The diligent man carves his way to recognition; he stands before kings. The sluggard is advised to learn of the ants, who lay by in store against the winter. Sluggishness and improvidence invite disaster. Laziness and wastefulness are the great enemies of prosperity. Work and save is the Solomonic motto. That may not insure wealth. But the king says, and Agur joins him in the advice, riches are a snare. And finally, the young are exhorted to cultivate an earnest piety, for wisdom is the glory of God and His counsellor from eternity. Behrends.

The references to this Book of Proverbs in the

New Testament are somewhat numerous, but in general are not designated as quotations. The sacred writers use the book as it was made to be used—that is, for the value of its maxims of wisdom. In one passage (Heb. 12 : 5) the words found (Prov. 3 : 11, 12) are referred to as an “exhortation which speaketh to you as unto children,” and which, therefore, must have been recognized as their accredited teacher—i.e., as being words “spoken” in their sacred books. The common form of reference to the proverb appears in Peter’s words (1 Pet. 4 : 8), “Charity shall cover the multitude of sins,” words taken from Prov. 10 : 12, “Love covereth all sins.” So also Prov. 25 : 21, 22 appear in Rom. 12 : 20, and the sentiment of Prov. 17 : 13 about rewarding evil for good appears in similar words Rom. 12 : 17 and 1 Thess. 5 : 15. H. C.—This book is frequently quoted by the apostles, who considered it as a treasure of revealed morality from which Christians were to derive their rules of conduct; and the canonical authority of no part of the Old Testament is so ratified by the evidence of quotations as that of the Proverbs. But it is remarkable that the Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, which has so striking an affinity to the Book of Proverbs, is not quoted in a single instance by the apostles and evangelists; and the difference between canonical and apocryphal is nowhere so strongly marked as in this example. Michaelis.

The Proverbs of Solomon are in three divisions:

Nine chapters (1-9), addressed chiefly to the young.

Fifteen chapters (10-24), more various, and addressed to all ages and ranks.

Five chapters (25-29), a later collection made by scribes under the orders of King Hezekiah from extant records of the wisdom of Solomon.

There are added two appendices. The words of Agur fill the thirtieth chapter. They are entitled his “prophecy,” or rather burden, or weighty deliverance. Of this sage nothing whatever is known. The thirty-first chapter contains the words of Lemuel the king, probably an Arab prince. D. F.