Proverbs 29

1. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck

Shall suddenly be broken, and that without remedy.

2. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice:

But when a wicked man beareth rule, the people sigh.

3. Whoso loveth wisdom rejoiceth his father:

But he that keepeth company with harlots wasteth his substance.

4. The king by judgment establisheth the land:

But he that exacteth gifts overthroweth it.

5. A man that flattereth his neighbour

Spreadeth a net for his steps.

6. In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare:

But the righteous doth sing and rejoice.

7. The righteous taketh knowledge of the cause of the poor:

The wicked hath not understanding to know it.

8. Scornful men set a city in a flame:

But wise men turn away wrath.

9. If a wise man hath a controversy with a foolish man,

Whether he be angry or laugh, there will be no rest.

10. The bloodthirsty hate him that is perfect:

And as for the upright, they seek his life.

11. A fool uttereth all his anger:

But a wise man keepeth it back and stilleth it.

12 if a ruler hearkeneth to falsehood,

All his servants are wicked.

13. The poor man and the oppressor meet together:

The LORD lighteneth the eyes of them both.

14. The king that faithfully judgeth the poor,

His throne shall be established for ever.

15. The rod and reproof give wisdom:

But a child left to himself causeth shame to his mother.

16. When the wicked are increased, transgression increaseth:

But the righteous shall look upon their fall.

17. Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest;

Yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.

18. Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint:

But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

19. A servant will not be corrected by words:

For though he understand he will not give heed.

20. Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words?

There is more hope of a fool than of him.

21. He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child

Shall have him become a son at the last.

22. An angry man stirreth up strife,

And a wrathful man aboundeth in transgression.

23. A man’s pride shall bring him low:

But he that is of a lowly spirit shall obtain honour.

24. Whoso is partner with a thief hateth his own soul:

He heareth the adjuration and uttereth nothing.

25. The fear of man bringeth a snare:

“THE man of reproofs” (the form of the Hebrew) is he who has been reproved mach, and upon whom the power of reproof has been exhausted in vain. “Hardening the neck” takes its figure from the bullock who resists the yoke and rebels against restraint—a very common figure with the Hebrews. “Destroyed” is expressed in Hebrew by a very strong verb and in its most intensive form, “shall be utterly broken to pieces—and no healing!” When all hope of amendment is gone, judgment without mercy must ensue, for the honor and safety of God’s moral universe demand it H. C.

There is a period of sensibility, and there is also a period of its decay. There is a time during which the sensibilities of our nature are developed, becoming quicker and stronger, more delicate, refined, and perfect. But this period of tender sensibilities looks to a period of active character, for the formation of which the sensibilities are given and the requisite excitements provided for them, after which they pass from the form of mere sensibilities into habits and fixtures of feeling and of action. Every ineffectual appeal made to the sensibilities upon religious things, every appeal not followed by active effort, leaves the sensibilities in that direction less susceptible. The habit is formed of disregarding them, of disregarding the appeals made to them. This habit becomes so powerful that the difficulty is perhaps not so much to move the heart, as to break up that habit of disregarding its remonstrances or of deferring the moment of obedience to them. In truth, it makes but little difference whether the sensibilities be diminished, or the power of resistance and procrastination increased. Either way is fatal. If the sensibilities diminish, a greater power will be requisite to reach what is left; and if the power of resistance be increased, as it certainly is by the habit of resistance, then a greater influence will be requisite to overcome that power. From these considerations we gather the infinite importance of the time given us for the formation of a holy character, the appropriate and critical nature of such a period, and the impossibility of exchanging it for an

But whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.

26. Many seek the ruler’s favour:

But a man’s judgment cometh from the LORD.

27. An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous:

And he that is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked.

other period. It is first our seed-time, then our growing time; the time of tenderness, of lively sensibility, of susceptibility to impressions from affecting scenes, thoughts, truths, arguments. As this period passes away the susceptibility of the soul diminishes and finally dies. Cheever.

The fallen man’s steps have been thronged by pleading spirits. The cross of Christ has blocked his wayward course more impassably than if it had been a flaming sword. Intercessions have been made for him in heaven with hands uplifted, in which were the prints of nails. His history has been one long struggle against obstacles, with a wilful repugnance to holy restraints; with an adroit suspense of conscience, that he might fraternize with sin, he has sought out, and discovered, and selected, and seized upon, and made sure of his own way over, and around, and through these obstacles to the world of despair. He has done it—he, and not another. A. P.

The man in the iron cage in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” said: “I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit and He is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger and He has left me; I have so hardened my heart that I cannot repent.” If our natural lusts are not under the restraint of a higher power; if by that power we are not trained to watch, and check, and overpower them; if we allow them to burst all restraint and lord it over us as they will, then will they grow into so many tyrants, who will rule us with rods of iron; laugh at the feeble remonstrances of our conscience; scoff at every messenger of God; vex His Holy Spirit, and hurl us at last to everlasting woe! W. G. B.

God’s object in the self-imposed punishment of the sinner is not personal gratification or vindictiveness, but is resorted to as an extreme measure. It is a plan by which to prevent another catastrophe in His kingdom. The heart sickens at the thought of another. Loyalty throughout His vast empire, henceforth, is His grand design. The safety of an ever-progressive and ever-increasing kingdom is the problem. Extreme measures which now exist, but which were not commenced before Satan fell and before sin entered the universe, can effect this. Shall God employ them, or not? They are in process of execution already; shall He arrest their normal action? Shall the event of death reverse all law and make treason glorious? Shall an impenitent Satan be reinstated in Paradise? Shall the lights of heaven be re-intrusted to his bloody and deathly hand? Universal and eternal interests hang trembling upon the answer. “Yes,” and “Farewell, heaven!” must be spoken in the same breath. The future, if our conclusions be correct, lies between one hell and one heaven, or two hells and no heaven. Townsend.—No analogies can grapple and bring up from the depths of the darkness of the lost world any distinct probable truths. No philosophy has line and plummet long enough to sound the depths. There remains for us only the few authoritative and solemn words of God. These declare that the bliss of the righteous is everlasting; and with equal directness and simplicity they declare that the doom of the wicked is everlasting. H. W. Beecher.

5. The law of sincerity is as inconsistent with adulation and flattery as it is with hypocrisy. The hypocrite and flatterer belong to the same genus; one lies about himself, the other about his neighbor, but both are equally liars. There are degrees of malignity in the vice of flattery according to the motives and ends which prompt to it; but in every form it is a departure from truth, as well as a departure from that charity which meditates no wrong to another. “A man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet.” J. H. T.

7. “The righteous knoweth” and takes pains to know the case of the weak. The weak are not necessarily the penniless, but rather the friendless and dependent. The wicked man does not seek this knowledge; takes no pains to inform himself as to their case. H. C.

11. Uttereth anger . . . keepeth back and stilleth it. It is not enough to deal with the temper. We must go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet, not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in—a great love, a new spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. H. Drummond.

13. The poor and the oppressor. The innocent poor man and the griping oppressor meet both together; and the Lord causeth His sun to shine on them both, maintaining them both in life, doing good outwardly even to the worst-deserving. Bishop H.

18. The proverb is a rich testimony to the practical value of a revelation from God of man’s moral duty and of the sanctions of the Divine law. H. C.—Where there is no vision, no prophet to expound the law, no priest or Levite to teach the good knowledge of the Lord, no means of grace, they are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6). What reason we have to be thankful to God for the plenty of open vision which we enjoy! H.

23. The humble of spirit shall take hold of honor, shall attain it. This seems to be the sense of the Hebrew verb, and corresponds well with the first clause. Pride brings a man low in general esteem; humility raises him high. H. C.

Pride is cherishing an overestimate of our relative importance, involving a corresponding depreciation of others, accompanied by neglect of them or contempt for them. It is self-worship, and thus a species of idolatry. Humility, on the other hand, is a willingness to pass at our real worth, whatever that may be—a readiness to take the precise place which God has assigned to us, not envying those who seem to be in a superior position, or despising those below us, or striving to mount higher than God’s providence and our own true capacity and usefulness indicate. W. W. Patton.—I have been more and more convinced, the more I think of it, that in general pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. All the other passions do occasional good; but whenever pride puts in its word everything goes wrong; and what it might really be desirable to do quietly and innocently, it is mortally dangerous to do proudly. Ruskin.

A lowly spirit. True humility consists not so much in thinking meanly of ourselves, as in not thinking of ourselves at all. Bowes.—Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all. Bernard.—No humility is perfect and proportioned but that which makes us hate ourselves as corrupt, but respect ourselves as immortal, the humility that kneels in the dust but gazes on the skies. W. A. B.

Humility is not a lack of courage; it is not the poverty of spirit which shrinks from encounter. It is not an abandonment of inalienable responsibilities; to God alone we must make account for what we believe and do. Still less is it a false, artificial posture of the soul, a kind of dramatic attitude—or, as men have imagined, an ecclesiastical grimace—the putting on language, and looks, and a demeanor that might belong to something which is not really felt. Beyond everything else, humility is the victory of truth in the soul and character, which dares to recognize the insignificance and pollution of self beneath the purity and majesty of God. A humble man may well have a burning zeal for the welfare of his fellow-man, or an uncompromising hatred of moral evil, or the courage which is strong to work, to struggle, or to suffer. H. P. L.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. All great men not only know their business, but usually know that they know it; and are not only right in their main opinions, but usually know that they are right in them; only they do not think much of themselves on that account. They have a curious undersense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them. And they see something Divine and God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful. Ruskin.

25. The fear of what men can do unto us, with all the confusion and wretchedness in which it entangles us, is contrasted with the serene security of one, who not only “fears” the Lord, so as to avoid offending Him, but trusts in Him as his protector and guide. E. H. P.—You would get rid of that fear instantly if you realized your immortality and stood in the midst of the great world of your eternal life. What is there in scorn or criticism, that dies the day it is born, that can terrify, however it may pain, the man who is to live forever? P. Brooks.

Trust in the Lord. Trust is belief of God’s promises. Those who wander about in the world, without any reliance on Divine promise, are orphans, and call for our commiseration. The believer has assurances for a great while yet to come. His filial relation to God makes him look on the future with new eyes. Whatever may befall him, one thing is certain, nothing can come but what God ordains. “All things work together for good to them that love God.” His life is insured. In proportion to his strength of trust is he raised above all those vexatious apprehensions which men of the world experience. In his happier hours he is enabled to put in practice his Lord’s direction, and to cease taking thought for the morrow. How serene and balanced is the soul which has so fixed itself on God as to feel satisfied that all His dispensations are part of a matchless plan for its good! J. W. A.

26. The complement of the previous verse. To trust in the favor of princes is to build upon the sands. The judgment which will set all wrong right will come, sooner or later, surely if slowly, from the Lord. E. H. P.—We may live long or briefly, prosperously or ill, conspicuous or obscure lives, but we must at last all face our final Judge. At the outset let us lay aside the common but erroneous impression that the function of judging is one which God might demit if He chose, and that in exercising it He invests Himself with the aspect of severity. Moral judgment is inseparably connected with moral character. The discrimination of the good or evil in character is not the province of one who is ignorant of moral distinctions, any more than is criticism in art the business of the blind. But just as fast and just as far as the conscience of a man becomes illuminated, intuitive, fine, commanding, just to that extent does he discriminate. He cannot help it if he would. The honest man must judge the cheat; the sincere soul, the hypocrite; the truthful, the liar; and the warm, loving-hearted, the cold and calculating. Now, it is an inevitable sequence from the perfections of God that He should judge the world. He is perfect and absolute in holiness. It is not His power or wisdom and knowledge, but His immaculate purity of character that makes Him a judge. His power alone would make Him a tyrant if not controlled by moral qualities, but God’s holiness is spotless. In mediæval times men swore a royal or knightly oath by the “glory of God”—that is, His unsullied purity of being. We and all spirits are transparent and open before God. Nothing, even a diaphanous veil, separates or hides. Every scar and soilure is seen by Him. He must judge. R. S. S.

27. The just abhor the unjust because they hate and loathe wickedness. On the other hand, the wicked dislike the upright, whose very name and presence rebuke them; whose influence annoys them and perhaps even frustrates their wicked schemes and brings them to just punishment. There never can be any common sympathy between men of morally opposite character. H. C.