Proverbs 20

Proverbs 20:1-30

1. Raging] RV ‘a brawler.’ Is deceived] RM ‘reeleth.’ It makes a man sneer, quarrel and reel about.
2. Fear] the ’terror’ which he causes. Soul] RV ’life.’
3. Read, ‘In the autumn.. therefore when he seeketh,’ etc.: the first season begins about October, the second about April.
4. A clever cross-questioner elicits one’s plans.
5. Scattereth away] RM ‘winnoweth’ (1 Kings 3:28).
6. ‘What mortal when he saw, Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend, Could ever yet dare tell Him fearlessly: “I have kept uninfring’d my nature’s law; The inly-written chart Thou gavest me, To guide me, I have steer’d by to the end”?’
7. Open thine eyes] i.e. Wake up!
8. Read, ‘There is gold and abundance of corals and precious vessels—wise lips are all these.’
9. ‘Strangers,’ not a strange woman. He does not deserve to escape the consequences of his folly.
10. A ‘chatterbox,’ not a ‘flatterer,’ is meant.
11. RV ‘It is a snare to a man rashly to say, It is holy,’ etc. Reflect before vowing (Sir 15:1.; Matthew 15:8). There is a Greek story of one who found a gold mine, and thereupon vowed a gold ram to Juno: soon he substituted a silver one; then a small brass one; eventually she got nothing. ‘The river past and God forgotten.’
12. The wheel of the threshing-cart, crushing in its weight (Amos 1:3).
13. Conscience is a searchlight, piercing the depths of the heart (1 Corinthians 2:11).
14. It is the king’s goodness and reliableness that are meant.
15. The blueness, etc.] RV ‘Stripes that wound cleanse,’ etc. (Psalms 119:67).