Proverbs 24
Butler1. Be not thou envious against evil men, Neither desire to be with them :
2. For their heart studieth oppression, And their lips talk of mischief.
3. Through wisdom is an house builded ; And by understanding it is established :
4. And by knowledge are the chambers filled With all precious and pleasant riches.
5. A wise man is strong ; Yea, a man of knowledge increaseth might.
6. For by wise guidance thou shalt make thy war : And in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
7. Wisdom is too high for a fool : He openeth not his mouth in the gate.
8. He that deviseth to do evil, Men shall call him a mischievous person.
9. The thought of the foolish is sin : And the scorner is an abomination to men.
10. If thou faint in the day of adversity, Thy strength is small.
11. Deliver them that are carried away unto death, And those that are ready to be slain see that thou hold back.
12. If thou sayest, Behold, we knew not this : Doth not he that weigheth the hearts con- sider it ?
And he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it ?
And shall not he render to every man ac- cording to his work ?
13. My son, eat thou honey, for it is good ; And the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste :
14. So shalt thou know wisdom to be unto thy soul :
If thou hast found it, then shall there be a reward, And thy hope shall not be cut off.
15. Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the habitation of the righteous ; Despoil not his resting place :
16. For a righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again : But the wicked are overthrown by calamity.
17. Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, And let not thine heart be glad when he is overthrown :
18. Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, And he turn away his wrath from him.
19. Fret not thyself because of evil-doers ; Neither be thou envious at the wicked :
20. For there will be no reward to the evil man ; The lamp of the wicked shall be put out.
21. My son, fear thou the LORD and the king : And meddle not with them that are given to change :
22. For their calamity shall rise suddenly ; And who knoweth the destruction of them both ?
23. These also are sayings of the wise.
To have respect of persons in judgment is not good.
24. He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous ; Peoples shall curse him, nations shall abhor him :
25. But to them that rebuke him shall be de- light, And a good blessing shall come upon them.
26. He kisseth the lips That giveth a right answer.
27. Prepare thy work without, And make it ready for thee in the field ; And afterwards build thine house.
28. Be not a witness against thy neighbour with- out cause ; And deceive not with thy lips.
29. Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me ; I will render to the man according to his work.
30. I went by the field of the slothful, And by the vineyard of the man void of un- derstanding ;
31. And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, The face thereof was covered with nettles, And the stone wall thereof was broken down.
32. Then I beheld, and considered well : I saw, and received instruction.
33. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep :
34. So shall thy poverty come as a robber ; And thy want as an armed man.
1,2. THE frequent admonitions of the Scrip- tures (e.g., Psalms 37 and 73 and Prov. 3 : 31 ;
23 : 17 ; 24 : 19) against being envious of the wicked assume that they often prosper in this world for a season, and that we need to be reminded that a God of retributive justice has an account to settle with them except they repent, and that His favor is more to us than all earthly good can ever be. It follows that God’s children never can have any good reason for being envious of the prosperity of the wicked. The special point added here is a caution against being intimate with them because their heart will plot destruction and their lips will speak evil, and consequently their social influence will be morally perilous.
3,4. Wisdom is always useful in its application to the common business of life. It helps to build houses well, to give them a firm foundation, to furnish and to fill their chambers. Perhaps the gist of the proverb is to suggest that the same good judgment which proves itself so useful in the common matters of our external life must be worthy of our confidence and of our diligent pursuit and careful use in the greater and more vital matters of our moral and eternal life—the treasures to be garnered in “the house not made with hands.” H. C.—That which is here recommended to us as having the best influence upon our outward prosperity is wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge—that is, both piety toward God (for that is true wisdom) and prudence in the management of our outward affairs. We must govern ourselves in everything by the rules of religion first and then of discretion. Some that are truly pious do not thrive in the world for want of prudence, and some that are prudent do not prosper because they lean to their own understanding, and do not acknowledge God in their ways; therefore both must go together to complete a wise man. H.
7. Wisdom being very high, the fool cannot attain to it. Therefore he must not open his mouth in the gate, for there causes are tried and decided, and much wisdom is needed there. M. S.
9. Unbelief comes oftener from irreverent association than intellectual doubt. The sneer of a Voltaire has killed more than all his arguments. A jesting tone of talk on religious truths, a habit of reckless criticism on religious things, is to take the name of God in vain as truly as the vulgar oath. Intellect without reverence is the head of a man joined to a beast. There are many who think it a proof of wit; but it is the cheapest sort of wit, and shows as much lack of brains as of moral feeling. Never indulge that habit, never allow sacred things to be jested at without rebuke. There is an anecdote of Boyle that he never pronounced the name of God without an audible pause. We need this reverence in the air of our social life, and its neglect will palsy our piety. Washburn.
11,12. The more precise translation is, Deliver those who are borne toward death; oh, do thou rescue those who move on trembling toward the slaughter! For shouldst thou say, Behold, we have not known this (man), the Ponderer (Searcher) of hearts—will not He detect; the Watcher of thy soul—will not He know; and will He not requite to man as his work (may be)? The innocent and helpless are seen dragged away to their death; the voice of God comes through the inspired proverb—Rush thou to the rescue! If thou shouldest say, That man is a stranger, we know him not; of what concern is his case to us? will not the great God fathom thy selfish heart, and prove thy lying lips, and hold thee to a stern and solemn responsibility to meet the claims of our common humanity? H. C.
It is easy to escape distress, perplexity, and to flee away from the burdens of other men; but the whole word is, “Thou shalt not hide thyself” but “Thou shalt surely help him.” The proverb, “Every man must take care of himself,” has no place in the Book of God. We must take care of one another: “Whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth-up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” If thou sayest, Behold, I knew it not, will not He who makes inquisition for blood bring the matter to a positive and inevitable test? Christians are not called upon to close their eyes, to run away from danger, and to lay down some narrow doctrine of mine and thine. Christianity means nothing if it does not mean the common rights of humanity; and he who fails to interpose in all cases of injustice and wrong-doing, or suffering which he can relieve, is not a Christian. J. P.—Our age needs to be reminded that in one sense each of us has the keeping of his brethren confided to him, and that love is the law and the fulfilling of the law. The rights of men to our love, to our consideration, rest upon an act of Divine love. Their chartered right to our reverence is in these terms: That God loved them and sent His Son to be the propitiation for their sins, and the Saviour set to it His seal and signed it with His blood. Archbishop Thomson.
It is impossible to live in this world and escape responsibility. It is not they alone who are trying purposely to convert or corrupt others who exert an influence; you cannot live without exerting influence. The doors of your soul are open on others and theirs on you. You inhabit a house which is well-nigh transparent; and what you are within, you are ever showing yourself to be without by signs that have no ambiguous expression. Simply to be in this world, whatever you are, is to exert an influence—an influence, too, compared with which mere language and persuasion are feeble. You cannot reasonably doubt that others are continually receiving impressions from your character. As little can you doubt that you must answer for these impressions. And for what can you be held responsible, if not for this? Do not deceive yourselves in the thought that you are, at least, doing no injury, and are, therefore, living without responsibility; first make it sure that you are not every hour infusing moral death insensibly into your children, wives, husbands, friends, and acquaintances. By a mere look or glance, not unlikely, you are conveying the influence that shall turn the scale of some one’s immortality. Dismiss, therefore, the thought that you are living without responsibility; that is impossible. H. B.
It is quite conceivable and perfectly capable of illustration that the mere neglect to do that which might and ought to be done in behalf of others’ welfare, the not acting at all, may involve guilt as real though not as great, may be alike heinous in kind though not in measure, as the commission of the highest positive crimes. Indeed, nothing is more plainly disclosed in the entire Word of inspiration than the grand principle that God holds every one responsible for the good neglected which he might have done, as well as the evil he actually performs. Neglected opportunities, unused talents, undone good—these are to be arraigned at the great day in the same catalogue with boldest sins of darkest dye, according to that solemn verdict of the Judge, “Inasmuch as ye did it not!” Most explicitly and with exceeding fulness and force these verses introduce and state this principle. B.
Selfishness sometimes causes its subjects only to neglect the things of others. They do not oppress or injure or despoil; they are neither robbers nor calumniators; but they are so engrossed by self-interest and so absorbed in self-gratification as to be utterly regardless of the miseries or comfort of which they cannot but be the spectators. They have no sympathies, no benevolent sensibilities; they care nothing for the happiness of their neighbors. Their highest boast and attainment in virtue is to wrong none; their idea of excellence is purely of a negative kind; to dispel sorrow, to relieve want, to diffuse gladness, especially to make sacrifices is an effort which they have never tried and which they have no inclination to try. The world might perish if the desolation did not reach them. They forget that they will be punished for not doing good as well as for doing evil. The unprofitable servant was condemned; and the wicked are represented as doomed, not for inflicting sorrow, but for not relieving it J. A. J.
Silence is sin, if your cry might prevent a neighbor from stumbling over a precipice. Silence is sin, if neighbors are treading the broad path that leadeth to destruction, and your word might lead their steps into the way of life. Silence is sin, if a believing brother is sliding back, while your loving reproof might become to him a healing balm. Silence is sin, if a believing brother is oppressed with doubts and fears, while your lips might pour the consolations of God into his weary heart. Arnot.—God knows and considers whether the excuse we make be true or no; whether it was because we did not know it, or whether the true reason was not because we did not love our neighbor as we ought, but were selfish and regardless both of God and man. Let this serve to silence all our pleas by which we think to stop the mouth of conscience when it charges us with the omission of plain duty. Does not He that ponders the heart consider it? He will judge us accordingly. As His knowledge cannot be imposed upon, so His justice cannot be biassed, but He will render to every man according to his works, not only the commission of evil works, but the omission of good works. H.
15,16. The latter of these two verses is so often carelessly but wrongly quoted as a half apology for sin, “The righteous falleth, i.e., sinneth, seven times a day,” that it is necessary to put its true meaning in the clearest light possible. The Hebrew word for “falleth” is never used of falling into sin, and the teaching of the proverb is simply that men are warned not to attack or plot against the righteous. They will lose their labor, “Though the just man fall (not into sin, but into calamities), yet he riseth up.” The point of the teaching is not the liability of even good men to err, but God’s providential care over them, as in Psalm 34:19. “Seven times” is, of course, a certain for an uncertain number. In contrast with this is the fate of the evil-doers, who fall utterly even in a single distress. E. H. P.—The tacit assumption here is that just men are helped to rise by their Great Protector and Defender.
“Seven,” a round for a large indefinite number, means that however often he may fall he will rise again. No such rising is to be the lot of the wicked. Their fall is to be final and fatal. H. C.
17. Sentiment: “If evils come upon a man who is your enemy, and you feel that he deserves them, do not exult in his sufferings. If thou displayest such a temper of mind, the Lord will rebuke thee by removing the cause of thine exultation.” M. S.—Charity, if it had full possession of our hearts, would not only repress all outward exhibitions of this delight, but all inward emotions; would make us dread lest an opponent should fall into sin; would not allow us to see him go unwarned to transgression, but compel us to admonish him of his danger. This is the holiness of love and the proof of a genuine hatred of sin; for if we mourn only over our own sins, or the sins of our friends or our party, there may be something selfish in our grief after all; but to mourn over iniquity, when it may in some sense promote our cause is, indeed, to hate sin for its own sake, and for the sake of Him by whom it is condemned. J. A. J.—Banish all revengeful thoughts; a spirit of revenge is the very spirit of the devil; than which nothing makes a man more like him, and nothing can be more opposite to the temper which Christianity was designed to promote. If your revenge be not satisfied it will give you torment now; if it be it will give you greater hereafter. None is a greater self-tormentor than a revengeful man who turns the poison of his own temper in upon himself. J. Mason.
19,20. The reason assigned here against fretfulness and envy toward the wicked is that there is really nothing in their lot that should excite such feelings. Alas! they have no reward, no blessed future; their lamp of light and hope shall go out in eternal darkness! Oh, how little dost thou understand their case and their doom when thou art envious of their prosperity! Rather come and drop a tear over their mad infatuation and their bitter end! H. C.
22. Their calamity means the calamity which they (God and the king) inflict or send. This is made clear by the latter clause: The destruction of them both—that is, the destruction which both Jehovah and the king will bring on the wicked. This, who knoweth? i.e., no one can tell when or how it will come—it will come suddenly and unexpectedly.
27. Sentiment: “Prepare, first of all, for your necessary sustenance; accommodations follow.” With us, in our climate, a house comes early into the list of our necessaries; much less so in Palestine. The proverb: “First bread, then family,” applies well there. M. S.—The precept seems at first to be economical rather than ethical—agriculture before building, getting an estate into good order before erecting a house on it, this seems to be recommended as the true order. To “build a house” has, however, a figurative as well as a literal meaning, and may be equivalent here, as elsewhere (Ex. 1: 21; Ruth 4: 11), to “founding a family.” So interpreted, the words are a warning against a hasty and imprudent marriage. The young man is taught to cultivate his land before he has to bear the burdens of a family.
29. The teacher enters his protest against vindictiveness in every form, and thus foreshadows the yet higher lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. E. H. P.—Say not, I will render to the man according to his work, and make him pay dear for it; for it is God’s prerogative to do so, and we must leave it to Him and not step into His throne or take His work out of His hands. If we will needs be judges in our own cause, we forfeit the benefit of an appeal to God’s tribunal. H.—Personal retaliation assumes to take the administration of justice out of the hand of the Almighty, as if you could not wait His time or had no confidence in His justice. Can you hope to please God by such implied imputations against Him and by thus assuming His prerogatives? Can you suppose that He will quietly resign His throne to you that you may gratify your excited passion, or even what you suppose to be your just indignation? Remember who has said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay.” H. C.
To avenge one’s self is to confess that one has been wounded; but it is not the part of a noble mind to be wounded by an injury; a great mind, and one which is conscious of its own worth, does not avenge an injury, because it does not feel it. Seneca.—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 piece of charity. Forgive thine enemies totally and without any reserve, that God will revenge thee. Browne.
30,31. Remarkably Solomon associates sloth with folly, as if he assumed that every sensible and wise man will be industrious and will take good care of his farm and garden. But on the grounds of the slothful, void of un-
derstanding, all is dilapidated and desolate! H. C.—This covering over the face of his vineyard with nettles and thorns is to show what fruit the slovenly, slothful, careless professor will reap out of his profession when reaping time shall come. I beseech you, consider that the man that professeth the name of Christ and yet liveth a wicked life, is the greatest enemy that God has in the world, and consequently one that God will most eminently set His face against. Bunyan.