Proverbs 23
Butler1. WHEN thou sittest to eat with a ruler, Consider diligently him that is before thee;
2. And put a knife to thy throat, If thou be a man given to appetite.
3. Be not desirous of his dainties; Seeing they are deceitful meat.
4. Weary not thyself to be rich; Cease from thine own wisdom.
5. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings, Like an eagle that fieth toward heaven.
6. Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, Neither desire thou his dainties:
7. For as he thinketh within himself, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; But his heart is not with thee.
8. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, And lose thy sweet words.
9. Speak not in the hearing of a fool; For he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
10. Remove not the ancient landmark; And enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
11. For their redeemer is strong; He shall plead their cause against thee.
12. Apply thine heart unto instruction, And thine ears to the words of knowledge.
13. Withhold not correction from the child: For if thou beat him with the rod, he shall not die.
14. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, And shalt deliver his soul from Sheol.
15. My son, if thine heart be wise, My heart shall be glad, even mine:
16. Yea, my reins shall rejoice, When thy lips speak right things.
17. Let not thine heart envy sinners: But be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long:
18. For surely there is a reward (or, future); And thy hope shall not be cut off.
19. Hear thou, my son, and be wise, And guide thine heart in the way.
20. Be not among winebibbers; Among gluttonous eaters of flesh:
21. For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: And drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
22. Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, And despise not thy mother when she is old.
23. Buy the truth, and sell it not; Yea, wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
24. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: And he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.
25. Let thy father and thy mother be glad, And let her that bare thee rejoice.
26. My son, give me thine heart, And let thine eyes delight in my ways.
27. For a whore is a deep ditch; And a strange woman is a narrow pit. 28 Yea, she lieth in wait as a robber, And increaseth the treacherous among men. 29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? Who hath complaining? who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? 30 They that tarry long at the wine; They that go to seek out mixed wine. 31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red,
1-3. “Consider diligently” not so much what as “who is before thee.” Solomon exhorts us to consider thoughtfully where we are, in whose presence we are sitting, and how much may depend on the impression we may make upon his mind by our manner and bearing at his luxurious table. Let it be suggested that self-control is always manly (as opposed to beastly), and that we always sit at table in the presence of the Great King!
4,5. An admonition against making riches the chief end of one’s labor. “Cease from thine own wisdom,” as bearing on the subject in hand, must mean, Cease to depend on thine own sagacity, shrewdness, skill in making money. Solomon assumes that the supreme pursuit of wealth is sure to fail of its object. Wilt thou let thine eyes fly upon riches?—i.e., turn eagerly, with longing look as if to rush with outspread wings upon them? But they are not; they will not be there; they vanish from your view; they suddenly elude your grasp and your hand is upon nothing; for they take wings like an eagle and are away! See similar sentiments in Paul (1 Tim. 6: 9, 10) and below (28: 20)—a lesson which men of the world are sadly slow to learn. H. C.—The things of this world have a real existence in nature and are the real gifts of Providence, but in the kingdom of grace they are things that are not; they are not a happiness and portion for a soul; are not what they promise to be nor what we expect them to be; they are a show, a shadow, a sham upon the soul that trusts to them; they are not, for in a little while they will not be; they perish in the using. It is therefore folly for us to set our eyes upon them; to admire them as the best things and appropriate them to ourselves as our good things, and to aim at them as our mark at which all our actions are levelled. . . . There is a burden of care in getting, of fear in keeping,
When it giveth its colour in the cup, When it goeth down smoothly: 32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, And stingeth like an adder. 33 Thine eyes shall behold strange things, And thine heart shall utter froward things. 34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. 35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not hurt; They have beaten me, and I felt it not: When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
of temptation in using, of guilt in abusing, of sorrow in losing, and of responsibility in at last accounting for riches. H.
The certain way to be truly rich is not to be so solicitous to increase a fortune as to give limits to our desires. For whoever is always grasping at more confesses he is still in want, and is therefore miserable and poor, because in the midst of all his affluence he wants that contentment and moderation of his desires which only can render any person rich and happy. Plutarch.—Neither contentment nor discontentment arises from the outward condition, but from the inward disposition. If a man is not content in that state he is in, he will not be content in any state he would be in. J. Mason.
6-8. Sentiment: “Beware of flattering and deceitful men, who show you special civility only to mislead you, and to put you off your guard. Their courtesies will be loathed, when their real design comes to be known.” Here are three connected verses again. M. S.
7. As he thinketh within himself, so is he. This is the Hebrew way of telling us, in a casual word about feasting, that a man’s inmost thinking is the true index to his character. J. Clifford.—The idea plainly is that a man’s thinking exhibits the nature of the man. The same idea is brought out by the tree and its fruits, and the fountain and its waters. The thinking does not make the man, but the man makes the thinking. We want to know what his real thinking is, in order to judge of his character. A man may be smooth, polite, kindly spoken—but we require more than that, because we have learned from observation that this may only be a method of hiding and yet accomplishing bad purposes. Interior.
Every man is as the objects are with which he converses. A man may better know what he is by eyeing the objects with which his soul does mostly converse, than by observing his most pompous services. T. Brooks.—It is the habitual thought that frames itself into our life. It affects us even more than our intimate social relations do. Our confidential friends have not so much to do in shaping our lives as thoughts have which we harbor. F. W. Teal.—Our thoughts are the measure of our characters, because all the elements of our being find expression in our thoughts. The intellect, the affections, the motives, and the attainments, all have their part in shaping our thoughts. Our opinions and judgments are miniatures of ourselves. S. S. T.
There is no fruit which actually we bring forth, be it good or bad, but it proceeds from the voluntary thoughts. Wherefore, ordinarily, these give the best and surest measure of the frame of men’s minds. Owen.—The “mind” in you is what you are, in your thoughts, desires, and aims. Not all the thoughts which you have belong to your mind, but only such thoughts as are intensely vital, stirring your deepest emotions and impelling you to action. Not all that you feel belongs to your mind, but only such emotions as spring out of your thoughts and shape your conduct. Not everything that you do shows what your mind is, but only such actions as are the outcome of rational conviction and genuine love. The “mind” of a man is what he is in the organic unity of his secret thoughts, affections, and aims. He has the mind of the flesh, if the gravitation of his inmost self is toward the things of the flesh, the things that minister to selfish ease and ambition, no matter how refined his pursuits and habits may be. Behrends.—My works will be answerable to my thoughts; if my thoughts be wicked or fruitless, so will my actions be. My thoughts are the seed that lies in the ground out of sight; my works are the crop which is visible to others; according to the seed, whether good or bad, such will the crop be. How much it concerns me that my heart be sown with pure and holy thoughts, that my crop may tend both to my credit and comfort! Swinnock.—That is a man’s mind and will which is habitually his mind and will. When the very inclination and bent of your will is right, then only is your heart right. It is not an extraordinary act that you can try yourselves by, but such a free course and tenor of your lives as will prove that you have a new nature, or a heart inclined and habituated to God. The main business, therefore, is to prove that you are habitually resolved. Baxter.
Character is a very different thing from reputation. Reputation is easily gained, lost and gained again, as the world goes. Character, on the contrary, is a thing of slow growth and difficult acquirement. When well developed and firmly fixed, it has great staying power. If the character is good, its possessor is supremely concerned in its careful preservation. If bad, he knows it as no one else can know, and he also knows that, unlike his bodily condition, it cannot be doctored and repaired on short notice. Interior.—Character is the only test, and the only true fruit, of living. It is not knowledge, for knowledge will fail. It is not money, for money cannot be carried away from earth. It is not fame, for fame’s laurels fade at the grave’s edge and its voice gives no cheer in the valley of shadows. It is not culture or education or refinement. It is character—not what we have or what we know, but what we are—that we carry with us into the eternal world. Therefore the building of character should be cur central aim in all life. Business, home, church, reading, pleasure, struggle, work, sorrow—all are but means to the one end. The daily temptations which make every true life such a painful conflict from beginning to end bring us constant opportunities for growth of character. The lessons we get from others, the influences which friends exert upon us, the truths which reading puts into our minds, the impressions which life leaves upon us, the inspirations from the Divine Spirit—in all these ways the silent work of building goes on. It never ceases. The builders never rest. By day and by night the character-temple is rising. J. R. M.
It is not great, or special, or extraordinary experiences which constitute in the best sense the “religious character.” It is the uniform daily walk with God; serving Him in little things as well as great things—in the ordinary duties and every-day avocations, as well as in the midst of grave and eventful contingencies. The spiritual life is itself the grandest illustration of the power of littles. Character is the product of hourly actions, words, and thoughts; daily forgivenesses, unselfishness, kindnesses, sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others, struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial. It is these which constitute “the man!” Macduff.—It is the struggle, and not the attainment, that measures character and foreshadows destiny. Character is not determined by faults and weaknesses and periodic phases of life, nor by limitations and accidents of present existence, but by the central purpose, the inmost desire of the heart. If that be turned toward God and His righteousness, it must at last bring us thither. T. T. Munger.
No man really believes any more than he practises. Faith is the most abused noun in the language and believe the most abused verb. Men say they believe in Christ, who do not show the first quality of His temper. Women say they believe in love, who are exacting, selfish, vain, worldly, altogether unlovely. In religion, only that is believed which is lived. There is no Christian faith unless it makes a man a Christian, and that not in the head, but in the heart and the life. Pres. Observer.—Truths we sincerely and heartily believe govern our whole life. Inwrought and powerful convictions of any kind mould the character of a man whether for good or ill. Consequently, our beliefs are the real factors in our history. Anon.
10,11. Encroach not upon the lands of the fatherless [the orphan], for they have a mighty Redeemer in the Great God — always the Father of all fatherless ones; the most formidable antagonist you can have. Stir not up His wrath, for He will plead and avenge their cause with thee. H. C.
15-35. Another continuous exhortation, in the same strain as the earlier chapters, rather than a collection of maxims. E. H. P.
15,16. Beautiful outgushings of a father’s heart are these! How deep are the fountains of his joy over a truly wise son! How does his very heart exult when a son’s lips speak uprightly, according to truth and righteousness! We must assume that this father speaks of his own son!
17,18. Be not envious toward sinners who seem to be prosperous, but abide thou permanently in thy piety—the “fear of the Lord,” comprehending piety in all its relations, involving here especially the elements of faith and trust. The Lord would say, Be not troubled by the present prosperity of the wicked; the righteous will surely have their reward in due time; if not wholly in this world, yet without fail in the world to come. Your expectation of due reward can by no means fail in the end. H. C.
20,21. Our Saviour warns against surfeiting as well as intoxication. It were well to have a high standard of abstemiousness in respect to both. Whether there should be seasons of fasting or not, there should be a general habit of temperance; and the command of one appetite strengthens for a like mastery over the others. T. C.
The connection of pains with the violation of moral and physical law is as distinguished by clemency as by justice, for they are intended to subserve a benevolent end. Thus the nausea, the headache, and sickness which follow the first drunken surfeit are gentle warnings to avoid that course in the future; and the debility, the delirium tremens, and the dropsy, which attend a more advanced stage of intemperance, are still louder tones of admonition to escape from the disgusting vice. Indeed, all the physical evils springing from sin are so many merciful admonitions to repentance and reformation. They are so many appeals to man’s self-love, even when he is lost to every higher principle, declaiming against his vicious habits and summoning him to the path of virtue and obedience, lest iniquity be his utter ruin. And generally, this appeal of nature, though gentle at first, becomes louder and louder as the danger becomes more imminent—the tones of admonition uttered by suffering and woe consequent on vice assume a more startling and terrific cry as the rebel steps nearer the precipice of irrecoverable ruin. We ask, What principle could dictate this economy? The sinner’s recovery to virtue and happiness is obviously the object, and that surely is the object of clemency and love. Punitive justice may, indeed, be manifested, but evidently in harmonious connection with tender compassion—with unbounded goodness and love. W. Cooke.—If before we sin we could but feel the sequences, we would never commit it; if we could but see the blindness of mind, the horror of conscience, the hardness of heart that will inseparably follow them, we would certainly shun them; for is any man so mad as to think that if a man felt the surfeit before he ate the sweetmeat, that he would then eat it? No, surely; so, could we but see the punishment now that will follow a little pleasure, surely we would reject all the pleasure. J. Preston.
Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, vigor in the body, contentment in the house, clothes on the bairns, intelligence in the brain, and spirit in the constitution. B. Franklin.
23. Buy, means acquire, obtain. Sell it not. Prize it so highly that no consideration will induce you to part with it. The last three nouns have buy implied before them; and the description thus becomes cumulative, in order to include every species of wisdom and instruction. M. S.—Get hold of truth at any cost; pay its price and take it; but never sell it! Part with it for no consideration! Its value is above rubies! To expand more fully the idea embraced in the word “truth,” he subjoins— “wisdom, instruction, understanding.” Obey- ing this direction, we shall accumulate a vast store. H. C.
The force of the metaphor lies in this, that we cannot obtain truth without cost, and that when we have it we shall be bribed to part with it. “Buy it”—then there must be a price; “sell it not”—then there must be a temptation to let it go. J. Vaughan.
You can never overbuy it, whatsoever you give for it; you can never sell it at its value if you should have all the world in exchange for it. Solomon bids us “buy the truth,” but doth not tell us what it must cost, because we must get it, though it be never so dear. We must love it both shining and scorching. Every parcel of truth is precious as the filings of gold; we must either live with it, or die for it. As Ruth said to Naomi: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge, and nothing but death shall part thee and me” (Ruth, 1:16, 17); so must gracious spirits say, Where truth goes, I will go, and where truth lodges, I will lodge, and nothing but death shall part me and truth. A man may lawfully sell his house, land, and jewels; but truth is a jewel that ex- ceeds all price, and must not be sold; it is our heritage. “Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever” (Psalms 110:111). It is a legacy which our forefathers have bought with their blood, which should make us willing to lay down anything, and to lay out anything, that we may, with the wise merchant in the Gospel, purchase the precious pearl, which is more worth than heaven and earth, and which will make a man live happy, die comfortably, and reign eternally. T. Brooks.
Buy the truth, and sell it not. Pay the price required. Buy with obedience. Buy with study. Buy with self-denial. Buy with self- sacrifice. Buy with fidelity. And know that still, whatever you pay, the truth you buy is the unpurchasable gift of God through Jesus Christ. This is the paradox of grace. You must pay everything, and then you have your prize for nothing. And lo! the prize you have found is far more glorious than the prize you sought. You sought truth, and you have found Christ. To find Christ, to agree with God in God’s chief thought—the thought of Christ as Saviour and as Lord to men—this, this, at length, is orthodoxy. This truth buy. Buy, and sell it not. W. C. Wilkinson.
It is as much a moral obligation to seek for truth in our opinions as to express it in our words or to manifest it in our conduct. We are responsible for the opinions which we form, not merely as these opinions are connected with conduct, but on the ground that the love of truth, in the whole extent and variety of its im- port, is an imperative and indestructible duty. This is the uniform teaching of the Scriptures. This is implied in the exhortation to buy the truth and sell it not, to seek that wisdom which is only another name for it as for hidden treas- ures, and to prefer its merchandise to that of gold and silver. The mind cannot move in charity nor rest in Providence unless it turn upon the poles of truth. “The inquiry of truth,” says Bacon, “which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God in the work of days was the light of sense, the last was the light of reason, and His Sab- bath-work ever since is the illumination of His Spirit.” Thornwell.
Wheresoever the search after truth begins, there life begins. Wheresoever that search ceases, there life ceases. Ruskin.—The no- blest truths are not given to us for intellectual luxury, still less for a moral opiate of spiritual charm. They are for the inspiration of our whole being, for the hallowing and for the bracing of every power, outward and inward, with which we are endowed, and for use in the busy fields of common duty. Westcott.— There is a natural affinity between all truths and all forms of goodness. They may be sep- arable as they are distinct; but when any one great truth is held fast, it wards off some evil influences; when any good, loving habit is re- tained, it keeps the heart open to truth. In the highest sphere of being truth and goodness are one, and by their commingled influence quick- en and sustain the inner man. F. C. Cook.
One way in which we can continue to pur- chase truth is by having the eye ever open to its still developing lessons. A more direct means of the acquisition of truth will be reading, med- itation, and conversation. The reproof of the wise and good, or of those in authority over us, will be a third means by which we can purchase truth for ourselves. Prayer to God becomes a constant mode of purchasing truth. E. Monro. —The truth-seeker must be a genuinely hum- ble man. More and more he learns how vast the treasures of truth are, how far they extend beyond the powers of his mind and the range of his knowledge. He should also be a reverent man. Having found that he himself can err, his reverence will no longer terminate upon himself, but will be reserved for that great world of fact, and reality which opens before him. He will be ready to respect any new fact, and to welcome any new light, and to accord to it its true dignity so soon as it shall be seen to be well authenticated. The truth-seeker is also a hopeful man. He believes that there is truth to be found, and that he has not found it all, else he would never become a seeker. He believes that it is right and safe to seek it, and that he will succeed in his search. He wants to know the reality of things, and is confident that an eager and earnest search will yield him more and more such knowledge. H. C. T.
He who refuses to expend effort that he may obtain this treasure, forfeits every right and title to receive the name of man; for man cannot live deprived of truth. Doubt as regards the truth from God brings darkness on our souls, distraction to our minds, and takes all comfort from our life and death. A firm conviction, on the other hand, though frequently the issue of an inward strife, produces in its turn a comforting tranquillity; and even the heavenly King could not give promise to His subjects of a higher bliss than what is pointed out in His sententious words: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Van O.—How faithful and truthful is the truth which aims at our liberty and blessedness, that it takes from us step by step all false consolation, and in such a manner that though at first we do not feel thankful, yet at last we offer praise and adoration for this very discipline. Nitzsch.
Let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the Book of God’s Word, or in the book of God’s works—divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficiency in both. Bacon.—No one can comprehend all truth. The relation of disciple grows out of the vastness of truth, which is infinite like its Author. Heaven will enlarge our powers, but not exhaust the truth we study. The basis of our disciple life is here in the old, rich, fascinating revelations of scriptural truth, which point us onward by the way of the cross and in the path of loyalty to the Redeemer. Vincent.
Sell it not. We are bound to keep the truth for the food of our own souls, and to see that the atmosphere in which we live, and the prevailing tendencies around us, the worldliness, the selfishness, the absorption in the things seen to the exclusion of the things that are unseen and eternal—do not rob us of the treasure which we say that we value. See to it that you keep it as what you profess that it is, the anchor of your hope and the guide of all your lives, binding it upon the pains of your hands, that all your work may be sanctified; writing it between your eyes, that all your thoughts may be enlightened; and inscribing it on the posts of your doors and your gates, that whensoever you go forth to work you may go under its guidance, and when you come back to rest and solitude you may bear it with you for your meditation and refreshment. A. M.
26. The wise man here claims the heart in the name of the Lord. Bear in mind that, although this claim is put affectionately and appealingly, it is a claim and admits of no compromise. God will not be put off with any minor or inferior concession. He says to every child of man, “My son, give Me thine heart.” It is a very comprehensive claim, this demand of the heart. The best way to comply with it is to identify God with everything which will bear contact with Him. A life thus controlled and regulated would be indeed a blessed and a model life. Bear further in mind that God demands your heart, in order that He may enlighten, convince, pardon, sanctify, keep, dignify, and save you. A. Mursell.—God ever gives what He asks. It is, as Augustine beautifully expresses it, “Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt;” a principle, we cannot too often repeat, applicable throughout the economy of grace, where all originates with God. A. E.
If, as the Scriptures teach, there is in the Father of spirits a disposition for communion, it follows that the same disposition should be found in the human spirit, because it was formed in the Creator’s image and likeness. Or if, on the other hand, there is in man a disposition for communion, it follows that a similar disposition must dwell in the Deity. Therefore he who admits man to have been formed in God’s image and likeness must admit that if a disposition for communion dwells in the spirit of the creature, it must dwell in infinite plenitude and perfection in the Creator. All spiritual religion is grafted on this disposition for communion. Under its influence the affections go out toward Him, the thoughts dwell upon Him, the soul delights in Him, and all the religious exercises of the soul are so many acts of communion with Him. And this fellowship of the created mind with the eternal and uncreated Mind is religion; the religion which God requires and commands, “My son, give Me thine heart.” In the absence of this fellowship there is no religion; and without it the profession of religion is but formality and hypocrisy, which God despises and condemns. No external rites, no well-ordered ceremonials, no imposing pageantry, can be a substitute for this. Even morality and good works, apart from this fellowship with God, are of no avail; so essential is communion with God to the very existence of true religion, and so expressive is God’s approval of that spiritual exercise in which the soul realizes fellowship with Himself. W. Cooke.
Anything which makes religion the second object makes religion no object. God will put up with a great many things in the human heart; but there is one thing He will not put up with in it—a second place. He who offers God a second place offers Him no place. Ruskin. —The only way is to live altogether and only to God. Thus it must be; there is no monster in the new creation, no half-new creature; either all, or not at all. We have to deal with the Maker and the Searcher of the heart in this turn, and He will have nothing unless He have the heart, and none of that neither unless He have it all. If thou pass over into His kingdom and become His subject, thou must have Him for thy only Sovereign. Loyalty can admit of no rivalry, and least of all the highest and best of all. If Christ be thy King, then His laws and sceptre must rule all in thee; thou must now acknowledge no foreign power; that will be treason. Leighton.
The personal devotion of the heart, the personal surrender of the individual will, can alone save a man or make him holy. A man’s life may be influenced, but it is not determined, by his circumstances. No aid, save that which comes from above to every man, can help him to climb the mountain-path of life, or enter the wicket-gate of righteousness. Nor, on the other hand, can any will or power, except his own, retard his ascent or forbid his ingress. On ourselves, on the conscious exercise of our own free will, depends our eternal salvation or ruin. Farrar. —The grace of God, though sovereign in its operations, yet acts not by force and compulsion, as upon mere machines, destroying the will and dragging men to heaven, as some in contempt please to assert. No, the service of our Lord is perfect freedom. He loves a cheerful giver. Spiritual affections can only be happy from spiritual objects. The heart can only be happy in God, when cheerfully given up to Him in faith and love. This is the very essence of vital godliness. W. Mason.
Christ’s demand is not only for the surrender of the heart, but for the giving up of self, and, in a very profound sense, for the surrender of life. To die in and to self is the path to living in Christ. We possess ourselves only when we give ourselves away to Him. We live by dying. We die in our true selves if we seek to live for and by ourselves. He only truly lives, the motto of whose life is: “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” A. M.—There is no service thoroughly right which does not directly acknowledge and honor the Saviour. The heart’s offering to Him is the beginning of all righteousness. He who knoweth our frame has ordained that our spiritual life shall grow strong and earnest, just in proportion as our personal affections and faith centre in the living Saviour, who manifests the Father unto the world. We must touch His garment, sit at His feet, lean upon His cross. So we are made. We may wonder at the way, but we adore it, in our deeper experience, none the less. F. D. H.
27,28. Her victims will never or almost never escape from her deadly grasp. Once in her snare, they are lost—lost to virtue, lost to happiness, lost to society, lost as to their own welfare for this world and for all worlds! She lieth in wait as a robber [so the Hebrew], and she multiplieth transgressors among men. Many of the otherwise strong and mighty fall before her, never to rise again. (Compare 7:26, 27.) The observation of the discerning in all ages confirms the fearful truth so strongly put here, that no form of sin holds its victims with more unyielding grasp than this; no form breaks down all self-recuperative power and hurries men to their graves more swiftly or more fearfully. H. C.—Of all the vices, licentiousness seems to hold men in the strongest bonds, and affords the least prospect of reformation. The fetters which it weaves around them, while they serve to bind, serve also the longer they are worn to weaken the strength of the captive, and diminish the hope that he will ever cast them asunder. No vice makes such havoc in the soul; it is a concentration of impurity, cruelty, and contempt of both God and man; it produces a self-loathing and abhorrence, which renders him more desperate and abandoned. At length he awakes when the enchantment is dispelled; abused nature will have its revenge, will make a road of every nerve and vein “for the scorching feet of pain to travel on;” and the poor wretch finds himself in the purlieus of perdition even before his spirit leaves its tenement. J. M. M.
29-35. (Read note on Psalm 104:14.) A third class of texts, the directly ethical, where wine and its effects, instead of being incidentally mentioned, form the principal subject, are all one way. Among others in the Old Testament, see Prov. 23: 29-35; 31: 3; Isa. 5: 11; 28: 1, 3, 7, 8; Jer. 35: 1, 19; Dan. 1: 8; Hos. 4: 2; Joel 1: 5; Amos 6: 6; Hab. 2: 5, 15. They condemn, with no reference to excess or moderation. Wine-drinking is spoken of as a bad thing, leading to ruinous consequences. Some are more directly didactic than others. Among these stands pre-eminent Prov. 23: 29-35. Never were the evils of wine-drinking or the danger of any incipient yielding to it more strongly set forth. For vivid painting there is nothing to equal it in all the Greek Anthologies. I give it most literally, with all its abrupt changes of number and person:
29. To whom is woe?
To whom is ah me?
To whom are strifes, to whom deep muttering?
To whom are causeless wounds?
To whom the bloodshot eye?
30. To them who stay late at the wine;
To them who seek the mingled drink.
31. Look not on the wine, with its ruby blush, When it showeth its eye in the cup;
When it walks (o’er the lips) so pleasantly.
32. At its end, like the serpent, it bites.
Like the venomous adder, it stings.
33. Strange visions thine eyes shall behold;
Wild ravings thy heart shall utter.
34. As one who lies down in the heart of the deep;
Who sleeps on the top of the mast.
35. They smite me, but I am not sore;
They beat me—I feel it not.
How long till I awake,
Till I seek it yet again? —T. Lewis.
29,30. Inspired summary of the woes of intemperance. The whole chapter is filled with warnings against the leading forms of sensual indulgence, and earnest counsels to a temperate and virtuous life. The verses conclude these exhortations, presenting as a climax the vice of drunkenness in all its fearful aspects, as they always have been, as we see them to-day. The picture is vividly drawn throughout. In the twenty-ninth verse the ruinous results of the vice are impressively set forth in the bold form of question, as if to compel a personal attention to this matter of greatest moment. Woe, sorrow, contentions, complaining, wounds without cause, redness of eyes—what a dire catalogue of human experiences flowing from a single unrestrained appetite! Woe instead of welfare, grief in place of gladness, not to him alone that indulges, but to all associated with him. Improvidence, poverty, and want from misuse and waste of energies and means; discomfort and desolation of heart and exhaustion of hope from loss of self-respect and social degradation—these are the familiar tokens of this woe and sorrow in the individual and the family. And more than these; all the effects of maddened rage and strife, when inflamed passions have a wild mastery; all the cruelties in the desolate house, the wounds anywhere given and received without just cause, and the assaults and conflicts in which life is purposely or unconsciously taken. B.—This evil to-day, this insatiate monster of intemperance, more than all else, makes misery, anguish, unhappy homes, pauperism, crime, murder, self-destruction. In the thousands of years since this sacred word came from inspiration, every year has been realized the truthfulness of this series of striking and startling questions We speak of the horrors of war, and there are horrors in war. Carnage and bloodshed, mutilation and broken frames, widows’ weeds and children’s wants, enormous debt and grinding taxation, all come from war. But they fail in all their horrors compared with those that flow from intemperance. We shudder as we read of the ravages of the pestilence; but the pestilence, like war, kills only the body, and leaves the soul unharmed. Yet to-day four hundred thousand more people are engaged in the manufacture and sale of liquors than in preaching God’s word and in teaching the rising generation. And every year sixty thousand of our people march voluntarily, self-destroyed, down through a drunkard’s life to the drunkard’s death and grave. Colfax.
Isa. 5:11 describes the class referred to in the first part of v. 30, and forewarns of these woes. The mixed wine of this verse refers to a drugging process by which the intoxicating power is increased. The inference is that the hard drinkers of Solomon’s time, like those of our day, sought out every means by which the diseased craving, increasing in intensity, and so demanding stronger and yet stronger stimulus, might be satisfied with a more and more fiery draught.
31. The simple but sufficient counsel, “look not upon the wine.” It is to be noted that no counteractive to a formed habit is hinted at, nor any partial indulgence allowed. Not abstinence from the taste or handling, but from the look, even the slightest glance. Its color, its sparkle in the cup, its smooth mellow flow, and its odor, these are points of tempting appeal which are to be resolutely avoided by putting them out of reach of every physical sense. And this is the only sure, safe counsel. B.—Every one feels that he would sooner sacrifice everything than take his place beside the degraded beings who seem dead to all that is noble in our nature or hopeful in our lot. These are victims that have gone blindfold to their fate. Gentle is the declivity, smooth and noiseless the descent, which conducts them, step by step, along the treacherous way, till suddenly their feet slide, and they find themselves plunging over the awful precipice. Men do not begin by what is usually called immoderate indulgence, but by that which they regard as moderate. Gradually and insensibly their draughts are increased until the functions of life are permanently disturbed, the system becomes inflamed, and there is that morbid appetite which will hardly brook restraint, and the indulgence which is sottish intemperance. Let it be remembered, then, that what is usually styled temperate drinking stands as the condition precedent to that which is intemperate. Discontinue one, and the other becomes impossible. And what is the cause of moderate drinking? Is it the force of natural appetite? Rarely. Nine-tenths, if not ninety-nine hundredths of those who use alcoholic stimulants, do it in the first instance, and often for a long time, not from appetite, but from deference to custom or fashion. They look on the wine. Bishop Potter.
32. That which charms like the serpent shall sting and destroy like the serpent. “At the last it biteth and stingeth.” Not at the first. Did it bite at the first, who would tamper with it? Did the sting come at the beginning of the indulgence, who would be led astray? But the pleasure comes at the first and the sting at the last, and herein lies the danger of looking on the wine. At the first it excites mirth and song, at the last it produces sorrow and curses. At the first it is an affair of good feeling and fellowship; at the last it is an affair of feuds, fighting, and murder. At the first it may kindle up the countenance to a more animated expression; at the last it gives redness of eyes, and bloat and deformity to the visage. At the first it may quicken the intellect to unwonted activity, and impart a captivating brilliancy to the conversation; at the last it emasculates the mind of every element of strength, and degrades the conversation to the merest stammering of idiotic gibberish. At the first it may stimulate the body to an unnatural vigor; at the last it breaks down the strongest frame, and sends weakness into the limbs and trembling into the flesh. At the first there may be health enough to resist the pernicious tendency of intoxication, so that with all the pleasures there are few of the pains of indulgence; at the last they become victims of manifold, inveterate, loathsome, and distressing diseases. At the first it is the grateful stimulus of an hour; at the last it is the “fire that never shall be quenched.” Trask.
33-35. Prominent features of fearful experience “at the last,” tersely but vividly outlined. Strange visions and wild ravings, the maddening sights and incoherent talk of one under the sway of delirium tremens. The image of one in the sea or upon the mast represents a senseless feeling of security while surrounded by the most imminent peril. It refers to the stupid incapacity to see or avoid danger which results from intoxication. The moral sense, locked up with the physical, has become steeped in utter insensibility. How hopelessly sad, how vividly terrible such a condition! And yet this surely sinking wreck of immortal humanity answers again to those who would kindly remonstrate. He derides their warnings: “I am not sick; I have no bruises; as soon as I sleep I will seek the cup again!” Thus the crazed inebriate seeks the embrace of the slayer, and sinks stupidly into the first and second death! B.
35. The picture ends with the words of the drunkard on waking from his sleep. He has been unconscious of the excesses and outrages of the night, and his first thought is to return to his old habit. When shall I awake? Better, omitting the interrogation, When I shall awake I will seek it yet again. E. H. P.—Half arousing from his stupor, he says, “They have stricken me, but I was not sick; they have beaten me; I felt it not. Little did I know or care, only to ask, When will this stupor be off? Then I will be to my cups again!” Oh, the appetite that is never quenched! Alas, the bands strong as death that bind the inebriate to this worse than beastly life—to this destiny of shame and woe! H. C.
Who can “they” be, in this most striking passage, but the phantoms of the drunkard’s delirium, so graphically set forth? It is the only view that consistently accounts for the contradictory ravings, with their semi-consciousness—the strange smiting that seems to leave no wound, the blows that are seen but not felt. And then this strange experience mingling with the half-dreaming utterances of his burning thirst: “Oh, when shall I awake, that I may seek it yet again?” Poor wretch, struggling in the deep waters! Who would not plunge in to save him? How many thousands like him, in every part of our country, are thus falling into hell, whatever hell may be! Who that rightly conceives it would hold back his hand from using every means—personal, social, moral, political—that may yield a hope of rescuing men from such a perdition? Abstinence, total abstinence, is the lesson, if language can convey that idea. “Do not look upon it,” my son; turn away immediately, as from a venomous serpent; think of its biting, stinging, maddenning end, and let not thine eye yield for a moment to its ruby fascination. The language of the whole passage is most urgent, reminding us of that used (Prov. 4:15) in respect to other tempting sins that lead to a dreadful end: “Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, pass away.” There is no other text better entitled to be regarded as the heart of the Bible doctrine in respect to wine-drinking, and its moral weight is increased by the fact of its being the teaching of the ethical Scriptures, giving, not incidental illustration, but the best known rules for the guidance of human life in this perilous world. T. Lewis.
Two thoughts may be usefully added. 1. All natural safeguards and restraints are one by one overthrown in the successive steps of that long process which at last makes the confirmed drunkard. The ties of natural affection, and the solicitous, provident spirit which accompanies these ties; native self-respect and desire for approbation of others; conscience, the voice of God speaking to the soul; and the very instinct that holds life itself precious; all these natural safeguards must be and are utterly trampled upon before the man can take a place below the brute. And that is the place of the inebriate, who wastes property, withers precious affections, destroys hopes, degrades character, exhausts energy and capacity, deadens the sense of duty, and obliterates from his present life the thoughts of God and judgment and an eternal being. 2. Of the Bible teachings concerning this subject thus much at least may be affirmed: “It nowhere condemns abstinence from strong drinks, nor associates God’s blessing with their use. In various ways it commends such abstinence, and exhibits the manifold evils of strong drinks. It is the first book that proclaimed abstinence as the cure of drunkenness; and its great principle—philanthropy—enforces the practice of abstinence.” B.
Intemperance cuts down youth in its vigor, manhood in its strength, and age in its weakness. It breaks the father’s heart, bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes natural affection, erases conjugal love, blots out filial attachment, blights parental hope, and brings down mourning age in sorrow to the grave. It produces weakness, not strength; sickness, not health; death, not life. It makes wives widows, children orphans, fathers fiends, and all of them paupers and beggars. It feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes epidemics, invites cholera, imports pestilence, and embraces consumption. It covers the land with idleness, poverty, disease and crime. It fills your jails, supplies your almshouses and demands your asylums. It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels and cherishes riots. It crowds your penitentiaries and furnishes victims for your scaffolds. It is the life-blood of the gambler, the aliment of the burglar, the prop of the highwayman, and the support of the midnight incendiary. It countenances the liar, respects the thief, and esteems the blasphemer. It violates obligation, reverences fraud, and honors infamy. It defames benevolence, hates love, scorns virtue, and slanders innocence. It incites the father to butcher his helpless offspring, helps the husband to massacre his wife, and aids the child to grind the parricidal axe. It burns up man and consumes woman, detests life, curses God and despises heaven. It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defies the jury box and stains the judicial ermine. It bribes votes, disqualifies voters, corrupts elections, pollutes our institutions, and endangers our government. It degrades the citizen, debases the legislature, dishonors the statesman, disarms the patriot. It brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not happiness, and with the malevolence of a fiend it calmly surveys its frightful desolation, and unsatiated with havoc, it poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights confidence, slays reputation, and wipes out national honor, then curses the world and laughs at its ruin. It does all that and more. It murders the soul. It is the sum of all villainies, the father of all crimes, the mother of all abominations, the devil’s best friend, and God’s worst enemy. Anon.
Suppose a man, when about to commence the traffic in ardent spirit, should write in great capitals on his sign-board, to be seen and read of all men, what he will do: That so many of the inhabitants of this town or city, he will, for the sake of getting their money, make paupers and send to the almshouse, and thus oblige the whole community to support them and their families; that so many others he will excite to the commission of crimes, and thus increase the expenses and endanger the peace and welfare of the community; that so many he will send to the jail, and so many more to the state prison, and so many to the gallows; that so many he will visit with sore and distressing diseases, and in so many cases, diseases which would have been comparatively harmless he will by his poison render fatal; that in so many cases he will deprive persons of reason, and in so many cases will cause sudden death; that so many wives he will make widows and so many children he will make orphans, and that in so many cases he will cause the children to grow up in ignorance, vice, and crime, and after being nuisances on earth will bring them to a premature grave; that in so many cases he will prevent the efficacy of the Gospel, grieve away the Holy Ghost, and ruin for eternity the souls of men. And suppose he should put at the bottom of the sign this question: What, you may ask, can be my object in acting so much like a devil incarnate and bringing such accumulated wretchedness upon a comparatively happy people? and under it should put the true answer, Money; and go on to say, I have a family to support; I want money, and must have it; this is my business, I was brought up to it; if I should not follow it, I must change my business, or I could not support my family. And as all faces begin to gather blackness at the approaching ruin, and all hearts to boil with indignation at its author, suppose he should add for their consolation, “If I do not bring this destruction upon you, somebody else will.” What would they think of him? what would all the world think of him? what ought they to think of him? And is it any worse for a man to tell the people beforehand, honestly, what he will do if they buy and use his poison, than it is to go on and do it? And what if they are not aware of the mischief which he is doing them, and he can accomplish it through their own perverted and voluntary agency; is it not equally abominable, if he knows it, and does not cease from producing it? Justin Edwards.
Speech of Lord Chesterfield. Luxury, my lords, is to be taxed, but vice prohibited, let the difficulty in the law be what it will. Luxury, or that which is only pernicious by its excess, may very properly be taxed, that such excess, though not strictly unlawful, may be made more difficult. But the use of those things which are simply hurtful in their own nature, and in every degree, is to be prohibited. None ever heard, in any nation, of a tax upon theft or adultery, because a tax implies a license granted for the use of that which is taxed, to all who are willing to pay for it. Drunkenness is universally, and in all circumstances, an evil, and therefore ought not to be taxed, but punished. The noble lord has been pleased kindly to inform us, that the trade of distilling is very extensive, that it employs great numbers, and that they have arrived at exquisite skill; and therefore the trade of distilling is not to be discouraged! Once more, my lords, allow me to wonder at the different conceptions of different understandings. It appears to me that since the spirit which the distillers produce is allowed to enfeeble the limbs, vitiate the blood, pervert the heart, and obscure the intellect, that the number of distillers should be no argument in their favor; for I never heard that a law against theft was repealed or delayed because thieves were numerous. It appears to me that really, if so formidable a body are confederate against the virtue or the lives of their fellow-citizens, it is time to put an end to the havoc, and to interpose, while it is yet in our power, to stop the destruction. So little am I affected with the merit of that wonderful skill which distillers are said to have obtained, that it is, in my opinion, no faculty of great use to mankind to prepare palatable poison; nor shall I ever contribute my interest for the reprieve of a murderer because he has, by long practice, attained great dexterity in his trade. If their liquors are so delicious that the people are tempted to their own destruction, let us at least secure them from their fatal draught, by bursting the vials that contain them. Let us crush at once these artists in human slaughter, who have reconciled their countrymen to sickness and ruin, and spread over the pitfalls of debauchery such a bait as cannot be resisted! In House of Lords, 1743.