Proverbs 9
DOYLYProverbs 9:17
- Stolen waters are sweet, &c.] Forbidden pleasures are sweet when enjoyed in secret. 18. — he knoweth not that the dead are there. He considers not all this while, that she invites him to his utter ruin both of body and soul, and sinks down all those who accept of her invitation to the pit of destruction. Bp. Patrick. Chap. X. ver. 1. The proverbs of Solomon.] Here now properly begins the book of the Proverbs, as the title of this chapter tells us; what has been delivered hitherto being rather a preface, to awaken attention, and form sundry arguments to commend the wise instructions which now follow to every one’s practice, and to caution those who would receive benefit by these instructions, to avoid such things as may hinder their edification in the school of wisdom. Bp. Patrick. From this chapter to the twenty-fifth, are contained more particularly the theorems of the doctrine of morality; which, under sundry observations concerning virtue and vice, or moral good and evil, may form a full and complete system of Divine ethics. The virtues and vices are for the most part set in opposition the one to the other, and compared together; that so the wisdom and beauty of the one, and the folly and deformity of the other, may the more convincingly appear. Wogan.