Proverbs 19

1. BETTER is the poor that walketh in his integrity Than he that is perverse in his lips and is a fool. 2 Also, that the soul be without knowledge is not good; And he that hasteth with his feet sinneth. 3 The foolishness of man subverteth his way; And his heart fretteth against the LORD. 4 Wealth addeth many friends: But the poor is separated from his friend. 5 A false witness shall not be unpunished; And he that uttereth lies shall not escape. 6 Many will intreat the favour of the liberal man: And every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts. 7 All the brethren of the poor do hate him: How much more do his friends go far from him! He pursueth them with words, but they are gone. 8 He that getteth wisdom loveth his own soul: He that keepeth understanding shall find good. 9 A false witness shall not be unpunished; And he that uttereth lies shall perish. 10 Delicate living is not seemly for a fool; Much less for a servant to have rule over princes. 11 The discretion of a man maketh him slow to anger; And it is his glory to pass over a transgression. 12 The king’s wrath is as the roaring of a lion; But his favour is as dew upon the grass. 13 A foolish son is the calamity of his father: And the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. 14 House and riches are an inheritance from fathers: But a prudent wife is from the LORD.

15. Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; And the idle soul shall suffer hunger. 16 He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his soul: But he that is careless of his ways shall die. 17 He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD, And his good deed will he pay him again. 18 Chasten thy son, seeing there is hope; And set not thy heart on his destruction. 19 A man of great wrath shall bear the penalty: For if thou deliver him, thou must do it yet again. 20 Hear counsel, and receive instruction, That thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. 21 There are many devices in a man’s heart; But the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand. 22 The desire of a man is the measure of his kindness: And a poor man is better than a liar. 23 The fear of the LORD tendeth to life: And he that hath it shall abide satisfied; He shall not be visited with evil. 24 The sluggard burieth his hand in the dish, And will not so much as bring it to his mouth again. 25 Smite a scorner, and the simple will learn prudence: And reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge. 26 He that despoileth his father, and chaseth away his mother, Is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach. 27 Cease, my son, to hear instruction Only to err from the words of knowledge. 28 A worthless witness mocketh at judgment: And the mouth of the wicked swalloweth iniquity. 29 Judgments are prepared for scorners, And stripes for the back of fools.

2. KNOWLEDGE, in the first clause, opposed to hastening with the feet in the second, implies the practical use of knowledge, i.e., discretion, forethought, wisdom. It is not good that the soul be void of such knowledge. The word for “sinneth” means etymologically to miss the mark; to make a misstep and get a fall—the natural consequence of too much haste with the feet. H. C.

The understanding is the pilot and guide of the whole man; that faculty which sits at the stern of the soul, but as the most expert guide may mistake in the dark, so may the understanding when it wants the light of knowledge. “Without knowledge the mind cannot be good,” nor the life good, nor the external condition safe. “My people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4: 6). Westminster Divines.—Knowledge expands the mind, exalts the faculties, refines the taste of pleasure, and opens numerous sources of intellectual enjoyment. By means of it we become less dependent for satisfaction upon the sensitive appetites, the pleasures of sense are more easily despised, and we are made to feel the superiority of the spiritual to the material part of our nature. R. Hall.

3. The ruin which the man brings on himself by his own folly he will angrily charge upon his Maker. This occurs even now too often for us to call in question the truthfulness of the proverb. M. S.—The sinner destroys himself by his own wilful and obstinate folly, and then he accuses God, as if He were the cause of his misery; although God hath done everything to save him which could have been done by the righteous Lawgiver and Governor of the world. R. W.

8. They that take pains to get wisdom, to get knowledge and grace and acquaintance with God, show that they love their own souls. And to those that take care to keep it when they have got it, it is health, wealth, and honor to the soul, and therefore he that keeps understanding, as he shows that he loves his own soul, so he shall certainly find good, all good. H.

11. The thoroughly wise man will be long-suffering, slow to anger, keeping his passions under vigorous self-control. It is his glory to overlook and forgive offences. H. C.—Men think it is a disgrace; as if clemency did argue a man void of courage or spirit. But in the judgment of the Word, clemency is your honor, and there is more generosity in pardon than in revenge. “As the elect of God put on mercies;” that is a good garment for a Christian. T. M.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice. In taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over he is superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon, and Solomon saith, “It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.” Bacon.—Although it may be hard to bear down the selfish and resentful feelings of our nature, the true dignity that is attained by doing so should stimulate every generous mind not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good. Bishop Butler.—Generous and magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive, and it is a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to forgive. Bacon.

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven. Lord Herbert.—This is the noblest victory, and to excite us to aspire after it we have the highest example. God is our pattern in love and compassions; we are well warranted to endeavor to be like Him in this. Leighton.—This is the true valor of a Christian when he can overrule his own nature drawing him to revenge, return benefits for injuries, and overcome evil with goodness according to the example of our heavenly Father. Then he shows his fortitude and triumphs over his spiritual enemies, when he vanquishes without striking, and though unarmed of all offensive weapons doth courageously march into the field, having nothing in his hand but the shield of patience, and by bearing the blows gets the greater victory. Downame.

Write thy wrongs in ashes. Draw the curtain of night upon injuries, shut them up in a tower of oblivion, and let them be as though they had not been. To forgive our enemies, yet hope that God will punish them, is not to forgive enough. To forgive them ourselves, and not to pray God to forgive them, is a partial act of charity. Forgive thine enemies totally and without any reserve that God will avenge thee. T. Browne.—It is no forgiveness when you say, “I forgive, but I can never forget.” It is the unforgiving spirit that says that. It may be true that you never can forget; but if you are really, heartily, wholly forgiving, you will not remember that you are never going to forget. Still less will you wish to say that you are never going to forget. Least of all will you feel like saying so in the spirit which such a form of words almost necessarily implies. Anon.—We may make the best of one another. We may forgive, even as we hope to be forgiven. We may put ourselves in the place of others and ask what we should wish to be done to us, and thought of us, were we in their place. By fixing our attention on their good qualities, we shall rise to their level as surely as, by fixing our attention on their bad qualities, we shall sink below their level. By loving whatever is lovable in those around us love will flow back from them to us, and life will become a pleasure instead of a pain, and earth will become like heaven. A. P. S.

14. A discreet and virtuous wife is a choice gift of God’s providence to a man; a wife that is prudent, in opposition to one that is contentious (v. 13). It is a more valuable gift than house and riches, contributes more to the comfort and credit of a man’s life and the welfare of his family, is a greater token of God’s favor. H.—“Prudent” is here in the sense of wise, intelligent to apprehend the responsibilities of her position and true to her duty. While houses and lands come down from fathers to sons, such a wife comes from the Lord. He provides this choicest of social blessings for the good of the race through well-ordered families. Those who believe this and have faith in God’s universal providence will, of course, see the fitness of asking such a blessing from the Lord, and, when received, of recognizing it through all their life as a gift from His hand. H. C.

15. The idle man is never a happy man! His thoughts, unemployed in doing, pour out their ceaseless currents in wishing. They create, from sheer loss of something to do, ideal wants and deficiencies, which, when supplied, bring no rest, because they were not real. The way to keep off depression, to banish vain cravings, for which there is nowhere any portion, is to buckle on the harness of exacting and beneficent work. We are happiest when busiest if busy in useful labor. Stone.

17. Sir Thomas More, a famous Lord Chancellor of England, used always to say, “There was more rhetoric,” more persuasive argument, “in this little sentence than in a whole library.” Bishop Horne.—Familiar as the words are, we almost lose sight of the original greatness of the thought. We give to the poor. Have we lost our gift? No, what we gave we have. We have lent to One who will repay with usury. Underlying this, again, is the yet nobler truth of our Lord’s teaching (Matt. 25: 40). He identifies Himself with all sufferers. In giving to them we have done it also unto Him. E. H. P.

It is assumed here that this pity of the poor does not expend itself in mere emotion, but yields the genuine fruits of substantial help according to our ability and their need. He who gives to the poor in the spirit of such true pity virtually lends to the Lord upon the Lord’s promise to repay in His own due and best time. The Hebrew has it, His recompense the Lord will make good to him. What an investment this must be! Do we believe in the plighted word of the Most High? Have we confidence in His resources to pay and in His wisdom to make the payment in the best possible time and manner? If so, then here is an opportunity for investing which ought to be regarded as amply secure and eminently satisfactory. H. C.

—God has not left alms-giving free to our choice, that we should plume ourselves upon our trifling charities, as though they were the free gifts of our liberality. The freedom of the Gospel is freedom from sin, not from duty; it is a free service that we may serve freely. He lays down no measure for us, that giving, as did the early Christians, “to their power, yea, and beyond their power,” we might imitate in some measure the measureless love of our God for us. But the law of mercy itself is as absolute a law as any of the commandments given on Mount Sinai. It is the soul of all the commandments of the second table. Posey.

Just as the smallest, the feeblest, the poorest, the most ignorant, the most miserable, received in the name of Christ, brings with him Christ and God Himself, to him who thus receives him, so the most insignificant work done in that name—that is to say, with the heart full of what Christ has been and what Christ has done for us—assumes in the eyes of God an infinite value. The cup of cold water, given in that name, is the emblem of all those hidden good deeds which are nothing in the eyes of men, but which are of infinite worth in the eyes of God, which the feeblest can accomplish in their feebleness, the poorest in their poverty. The value of an action, in the Divine estimate, depends not on what we do, but on the spirit in which we do it. How some deeds glorified by the public voice, some magnificent gifts, lauded to the skies, will be consumed as stubble and as chaff, in the day when the judgment of the Holy Spirit shall be accomplished; while the widow’s mite, the bit of bread given in love, the word of consolation springing from a pitying heart, and which no one has repeated, the prayer of intercession heard by God alone, will shine like gold, silver, precious pearls in that great day of the final judgment! Godet.

He that lays out for God, God lays up for him. But, alas! God’s credit runs low in the world; few care to trust Him. Give and spend, and be sure that God will send; for only in giving and spending do you fulfil the object of His sending. J. G. Holland.—You want to double your wealth without gambling or stock-jobbing. Share it. Whether it be material or intellectual, its rapid increase will amaze you. What would the sun have been had he folded himself up in darkness? Surely he would have gone out. J. C. Hare.

Careless, indiscriminate alms-giving encourages idleness and improvidence and also imposture. If you give freely to ragged and filthy street beggars, you are in fact hiring people to dress themselves in filthy rags and go about begging with fictitious tales of distress. If, on the contrary, you carefully inquire for and relieve honest and industrious persons who have fallen into distress through unavoidable misfortune, you are not only doing good to those objects, but also holding out an encouragement generally to honest industry. Whately.

20. It is well with those that are wise in their latter end, wise for their future state, that are found wise when their latter end comes; wise virgins, wise builders, wise stewards. Those that would be wise in their latter end must hear counsel and receive instruction, in their beginnings, must be willing to be taught and ruled, willing to be advised and reproved, when they are young. H.

21. The meaning goes deeper than the trite parallel of “Man proposes, God disposes.” Stress is laid on the many purposes of man, shifting, changing, from good to better, from bad to worse, and the one unchanging righteous “counsel” of Jehovah. E. H. P.—“A man’s heart” is a little world, full of scheming and business. “The devices of a man’s heart,” taken altogether, are his scheme for being happy. So the great collective whole of the “devices” of all hearts constitutes the grand complex scheme of the human race for their happiness. This vast, confused total of man’s devices the Omniscient Searcher of hearts evermore looks upon. And while He sees every part and the whole, His single immense will, His one all-comprehending system of design, is co-extended with the entire breadth of the scene, confronting it at every point and, indeed, stretches away beyond it to infinity, like the sky expanded beyond our earth to other worlds. So that, to every device of all hearts, His “counsel,” His design exists parallel, whether in coincidence or opposition. In other words, respecting the object of every device He has His design, a fixed design, paramount to all designs and devices. Foster.

There is nothing better than that a man should live in the feeling that it is not his purpose, but the purpose of God that must stand sure. He may have plans and designs, indeed the business of life cannot well go on without them; but he must know that God is not bound by his plans, and is under no obligation to bestow His prospering blessing upon them. God has a plan of His own for every one of us. If our plans agree with His, well, He may bless them; but if not, He will either make them promote the purpose which He intends and which we did not intend, or will try our faith by blasting our beloved plans altogether, that He may bless us in His own way, and lead us to safety, to usefulness, to blessedness, by paths that we know not of and by ways that never did enter or could enter our minds. Let us not, therefore, be discouraged if our plans do not answer to our minds, if everything turns wrong upon our hands. We know that He is not unkind, that He does not forget us; and we have reason to hope that He only brings our own small plans and devices to nought because He has something of His own—something larger, something far better—in store for us. How many are they to whom God has not spoken comfortably until He lured them into the wilderness, where the soul, withdrawn from amid the ruins of its broken plans and frustrated hopes, is alone with Him, sees Him alone, leans on Him only. Kitto.

22. His kindness. A “kind” person is a “kinned” person, one of kin; one who acknowledges his kinship with other men and acts upon it; confesses that he owes to them, as of one blood with himself, the debt of love. And so mankind is mankinned. Thus Hamlet does much more than merely play on words when he calls his father’s brother, who had married his mother, “A little more than kin, and less than kind.” Beautiful before, how much more beautiful do “kind” and “kindness” appear when we apprehend the root out of which they grow and the truth that they embody; that they are the acknowledgment in loving deeds of our kinship with our brethren; of the relationship which exists between all the members of the human family, and of the obligations growing out of this. Trench.

23. The fear of the Lord (true piety) is unto life; not only tends toward life, but surely works out this result. He shall pass the whole night satisfied—a beautiful way of saying that his peace of soul shall be constant. The visitations of judgment on the wicked shall not touch him. H. C.—Not in the increase of knowledge merely, not in any mere mastery of human arts and sciences, is the secret of the deeper and truer life to be found. It is true that all human culture, rightly used, tends to deepen and broaden the life, to make thought more direct and intense, to give a finer tone to the nerves, and a keener sensitiveness to the feelings. But it is only when human culture is made subordinate to something higher that it becomes really effective in the way of deepening and broadening the real life. Where the fear of the Lord is the ruling principle in life—where this is joined to an earnest purpose, a deep enthusiasm, a broad capacity, an unwearying diligence—there are present the elements whereof true life is made. Where these are present, humanistic culture will be assimilated and wrought over into something higher; it will form part of the rich chord of life wherein all that is true finds somewhere its harmony. S. S. T.

24. The Orientals used no knife, fork, or spoon; only fingers. This sluggard is supposed to be hungry; but having plunged his hand all over (hiding it) in the dish, as if to economize labor to the utmost, he still finds himself too lazy to bring it back to his mouth again! This is strongly put—too lazy to eat! H. C.

25. Simple as the words are, they embrace nearly the whole theory of punishment. If the man who offends is a scorner, sc., hardened beyond all hope of reformation, then punish him by way of retribution and example, and let the penalty be sharp, that even the unwary and careless may beware. If the man is still “understanding,” then let the punishment take the form of discipline. Admonish, reprove, educate. E. H. P.—Give the offender his due praise as well as his deserved reproof; this will make reproof the more prevalent. The iron when heated red-hot is bent and beaten without breaking, which way the smith pleases. When I have heated him with the fire of commendation, I may then beat upon him with reproof in greater hopes of success. There is hardly any work of Christianity which requires more wisdom than this of admonition. The temper and quality of the persons, the nature and difference of the crimes, the manner and way of delivering the reproof, the fittest season for it, ought all to be seriously and diligently considered. Scinnock.

26. Strong precepts does the Old Testament everywhere exhibit against cruel and severe treatment of parents by their children. Even one out of the ten commandments is occupied with this subject. M. S.

28. Sin begets sin; yea, one sin begets numberless sins, and one violation of law and conscience leads to other violations, and these to more, till the fearful progression ends in open profligacy, insult to the Eternal King, and speedy destruction. No one knows when initiated into some lower degree of Satan’s lodge whether he may not penetrate to the highest. This makes it dangerous to parley with temptation. Judicial blindness befalls those who voluntarily put out the light of education and conscience. One sin, in God’s awful judgment, becomes the punishment of another. J. W. A.