Chapter XIV

Critical Notes.—1. Wise woman, or “woman’s wisdom.” 2. He that walketh, etc., or, “He walketh in his uprightness who feareth Jehovah, and perverse in his ways is he that despiseth Him” (Delitzsch.) 3. Rod, or “sceptre.” Zöckler reads, “In the mouth of a fool is a rod for his pride.” Stuart, “Haughtiness is a rod,” etc. 5. Miller here translates, “He who witnesses things correctly, does not lie; but of a deceived witness the very breath is lies” (See his comments on the verse). 6. Rather, “The scorner has sought wisdom,” etc. 7. Stuart translates the latter clause, “for thou hast not discerned,” etc.; Miller, “and thou shalt not know,” etc. 8. Deceit, or “deception.” 9. Many translators read this verse, “The sacrifice,” or “the sin-offering, makes a sport of,” or “mocks fools.” So Zöckler, Elster, Ewald, Stuart, Wordsworth, etc. Miller translates, “Sin makes a mock at fools.” Among, or “to.” 10. Zöckler reads the latter clause, “Let no stranger,” etc. Miller renders the whole verse, “A knowing heart is a bitterness to itself; but with its joy it does not hold intercourse as an enemy.” 11. Tabernacle, “tent.” 13. The heart is sorrowful, or “will be” (perchance). 14. Filled with, i.e., “satisfied with.” Stuart translates the latter clause, “Away from him is the good man,” i.e., he will keep aloof from the backslider. 16. Rageth, “is presumptuous,” or “haughty.” 21. Poor, or “suffering” (Delitzsch). 24. Or, “It is a crown to the wise when they are rich, but the folly of fools remains folly” (Delitzsch). 28. Miller translates, “In a great people.” 30. A sound heart, “a quiet heart.” Envy, “passion,” “perturbation.” 32. Driven forth, or “thrust lower” (Miller). Delitzsch translates, “When misfortune befals him, the wicked is overthrown, but the righteous hath hope even in his death.” 34. The Hebrew word for reproach means also “mercy.” Hence Gejer and Miller translate “Mercy for nations is the sin-offering,” the word sin being often used to express the sin-offering. 35. Miller reads, “The kindness of a king is a wise servant, but his wrath becomes one that bringeth shame” (See his comments).

main homiletics of verse 1.

The House Builder and the House Destroyer.

I. A woman’s special sphere of work—her house. In this word is included all that in any way relates to the home life. Woman’s relation to it is three-fold. 1. The house—properly so-called—the interior of the building, is under her especial care. It is her temple of service, she is its priestess. As the female priestess in the Roman temple and the Hebrew priest in the temple of God were responsible for the internal order of their temples, so is every woman responsible for the order, the cleanliness, and comfort of the house of which she is the social priestess. It is her house, and in it she is expected to perform duties to which she is not called in any other house. Her oversight and presence, if not her actual labour, are indispensable to the proper arrangement of everything in it. 2. The affairs or business of the house is her special care. It is for her to preside over the domestic economy of the house—over that which we call housekeeping. All transactions of this nature seem naturally to fall within her jurisdiction, and it looks odd and out of place to see them in other hands. 3. She is specially related to the life of the house. If she is a mother, she, above all others, has the charge of the children, her opportunities for influencing them are greater than those possessed by the father. Her life is always before them. Her words are treasured up and repeated by them. If she is a mistress, the servants are under her special jurisdiction and guidance.

II. The wise woman is a social architect. She “builds her house.” 1. Building implies a plan. No man sets about building a house without first having a plan, which is well considered in proportion to the wisdom of the builder. No argument-builder, with any wisdom, enters into an argument without first considering what he is going to do, and how he is going to do it, in order, if possible, to arrive at an unanswerable conclusion. So, to build a house in the sense of the text, there must be a plan of action. Every wise woman has an end in view in the government of her household. She has plans in relation to each department. She knows what she purposes to do before she begins to do anything. 2. Building implies personal exertion on the part of the architect. All his work is not done when he has drawn the plan and issued his orders. He must see that they are executed. He must, if needful, show how they are to be carried out. In times of emergency the general of an army must—like Napoleon at the Bridge of Lodi—engage himself in a hand-to-hand fight with the enemy. So will a wise woman. She does not always say, “Go,” but sometimes, “Come.” She does not say, “That is the way,” when “This is the way” is necessary. She never contents herself with saying, “Do this,” without assuring herself that it is done. 3. Building implies a union of diverse materials to form a complete whole. Many and diverse materials are brought together to build a house. It would be impossible to erect a building of usefulness and beauty of one material alone. So a wise woman brings together many different elements, and blends them in due proportion, in order to make the home-life true, and beautiful, and good. Her wisdom is shown in developing the abilities and capacities of each member of the household, so that each may contribute to the strength and comfort of the whole. Upon the female head of the house, more than upon anyone else, depends the unity, peace, and concord of this temple of living stones.

III. An unwise woman, who is at the head of a house, caricatures her position by her conduct. Her position implies that she is a builder-up. Her conduct has the effect of pulling down. A clown upon a kingly throne is not more out of place than a foolish woman who bears the name of mistress, wife, and mother. The reins are in her hands, but she does not know how to guide the chariot; the materials are in her possession but she has no skill to use them. She is not only no centre of unity, she is a source of discord; she not only cannot build the house herself but she makes it impossible for anybody else to do anything towards it. She is not only no “crown to her husband,” but she is “rottenness to his bones” (chap. xii. 4).

outlines and suggestive comments.

A good wife is heaven’s last best gift to a man; his angel of mercy; minister of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his casket of jewels; her voice, his sweetest music; her smiles, his brightest day; her kiss, the guardian of his innocence; her arms, the pale of his safety; the balm of his health, the balsam of his life; her industry, his surest wealth; her economy, his safest steward; her lips, his faithful counsellors; her bosom, the softest pillow of his cares; and her prayers, the ablest advocates of heaven’s blessings on his head.—Jeremy Taylor.

The following is a translation of a Welsh Triad:—A good wife is modest, void of deceit, and obedient; pure of conscience, gracious of tongue, and true to her husband; her heart not proud, her manners affable, and her bosom full of compassion for the poor, labouring to be tidy, skilful of hand, and fond of praying to God; her conversation amiable, her dress decent, and her house orderly; quick of hand, quick of eye, and quick of understanding; her face benignant, her head intelligent, and provident, neighbourly, gentle, and of a liberal way of thinking; able in directing, providing what is wanting, and a good mother to her children; loving her husband, loving peace, and God.—New Handbook of Illustration.

“House” means all interests. “Has built” is preterite. If all interests are prosperous at present, it has been the work of the past. The second clause wisely returns to the future, which we commonly translate as the present, because the act is steadily running on, and includes both the present and the future. Wisdom in woman has built her house, beginning a long time ago; but “folly” in woman is an affair of the present. If it had been at work long, it would have had no house to pull down. As entering upon the work of the wise, ungodly mothers tear down the house which generations of the righteous have been slowly building. The grand comment, however, is that this womanly wisdom or wise woman, like the woman of grace (chap. ix. 16), or woman of folly (chap. ix. 13) has an allegoric meaning. Women do much toward building up. But the text means more, that “wisdom,” as personified, is the only builder of a “house,” and “folly,” as impenitence, all that can pull it down.—Miller.

Only the characteristic wisdom of woman (not that of the man) is able to “build itself a house,” i.e., to make possible a household in the true sense of the word; for the woman alone has the capacity circumspectly to look through the multitude of individual household wants, and carefully to satisfy them; and also because the various activities of the members of a family can be combined in a harmonious unity only by the influence, partly regulative, and partly fostering, of a feminine character, gently but steadily efficient. But where there is wanting to the mistress of a house this wisdom attainable only by her, and appropriate only to her, then that is irrecoverably lost which first binds in a moral fellowship those connected by relationship of blood—that which makes the house, from a mere place of abode, to be the spiritual nursery of individuals organically associated.—Elster.

The fullest recognition that has as yet met us of the importance of woman, for good or evil, in all human society.—Plumptre.

With calm, clear eyes, deep insight, ready sympathy; active, without bustle; alert, without over-anxious vigilance; ignorant perchance of æsthetic rules, yet with subtle touches transforming into a fine picture the home-spun canvas, and with soft fairy music blending into harmony the noises of the day; apathetic about stocks and shares, and far-off millions; but with a keen appreciation of new sovereigns and no disdain for sixpences; a mere formalist, if professing interest in city improvements and parochial reforms, but as touching torn curtains and threadbare carpets much exercised in spirit; sure that the commotions of Europe will all come right, but shedding bitter tears at any outburst of juvenile waywardness, and praying earnestly, “Oh, that Ishmael may live before thee!” with small belief in the transcendental philosophy, and allowing that much may be said on both sides, but in the interpretation of the Ten Commandments positive, unreasoning, absolute; in theology hopelessly confounding the theology of the schools, and in an innocent way adopting half the heresies, but drinking direct from the fountain that living water which others prefer, chalybeate, through the iron pipe, or ærated from the filtering pond, and in a style which Calvin or Grotius might equally envy teaching the little ones the love of the Saviour; the angel of the house moulds a family for heaven, and by dint of holy example, and gentle control, her early and most efficacious ministry goes farther than any other to lay the foundations of future excellence, and train up sons and daughters for the Lord Almighty.—Dr. Jas. Hamilton.

St. Ambrose noteth that when God asked Abraham, “Where is thy wife, Sarah?”—He was not ignorant where Sarah was; but that He asked the question that by Abraham’s answer, “Behold, in the tent,” He might teach women where they ought to be—namely, in the house, and not so much in the house as in the affairs of the house, making ready provision to entertain God as Sarah was.—Jermin.

The modest virgin, the prudent wife, or the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice and trains the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.—Goldsmith.

main homiletics of verse 2.

Fearing and Despising the Lord.

I. A wholesome fear. “The fear of the Lord.” When we fear to grieve or offend a person because of his or her goodness the fear does not spring from dread of their power, but from our high estimate of their character. It may exist where there is no power to injure. Strong men have sometimes had this fear for little children. There is also a fear which may spring from a conception of both goodness and power. It is the feeling which a child has for a good parent. There is a consciousness of the parent’s goodness, and also a consciousness of his power to enforce his authority. In proportion as these elements are combined in relation to human creatures the fear which men have for them is wholesome—is salutary. Benevolence alone tends to weaken the fear—to lessen the reverence. Power alone is likely to produce hatred as well as fear. But when benevolence is linked with power it looks doubly attractive. The fear which a good man has for God arises from a conception of both the Infinite power and Infinite love of the Divine Father. If the first were wanting it would lack reverence; if the latter it would be a fear that “hath torment.”

II. The proof that a man possesses this wholesome fear. “He walks uprightly.” Fear is a feeling of the mind. It can only be proved to exist when it brings forth action. Uprightness of life is an unanswerable proof that a man speaks truly when he says that he fears the Lord. God asks for no greater (Gen. xvii. 1, 2). This demonstration does not consist in a single act of integrity, but in a constant succession of acts, in a habit of life. It is a walk. (On “walking uprightly,” see on chap. x. 9, 10, page 153.)

III. The character of a perverse man—of a man whose walk is not upright. He is a “despiser of God.” His life proves it, even if his words deny it. We despise that to which we do not attach a due value. All men who perversely refuse to accept God’s plan of salvation despise both the “riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering,” which are intended to “lead them to repentance” (Rom. ii. 4), and also that “power of His anger,” of which no man can form an estimate (Psalm xc. 11).

outlines and suggestive comments.

I. Grace and sin in their true colours. Grace reigning is a reverence of God. Sin reigning is no less a contempt of God; in this, more than in anything, sin appears exceeding sinful, that it despises God, whom angels adore. II. Grace and sin in their true light. By this we know a man that has grace, and the fear of God, reigning in him, he makes conscience of his actions, is faithful to God and man. But on the contrary, he that wilfully follows his own way, is a wicked man, however he pretend to devotion.—Henry.

A man walking over a field has a certain level course (if there be such) that he naturally follows. If he walk not level, or if he turn constantly out of his way, men think him either drunk or mad. It is this reasonable instinct of our nature that our text embodies. We do not say uprightness, but “levelness,” for it agrees with the idea of walking. Such meaning is, that folly is self-condemned; that if a man would put one foot before another, or mentally move as he himself thinks level and right, he would practically “fear” God; but that he drops out of his own “way,” and walks brokenly, and with change of gait. It is careless to define fear as anything beside fear itself. A holy fear, however, is not terror; and yet a being afraid more really and more tremblingly often than the sinner. It is remarkable that when men have escaped wrath they begin most healthily to fear it, and when men are faithless even to their own ways, they despise the most the law of the Almighty. This text, like many another, is pregnant. Pregnant texts are ambidextrous, and the alternative meanings, though distinct, are mutually embracing. Another sense is grammatical and equivalent in thought. It would read “His” levelness, and His ways, referring to Jehovah. It is only substituting capitals. It would mean, “He that walks in God’s level track fears Him; but he that is turned out of God’s way,” that is, he that has got out of the line for which he was made, instead of fearing, as he might, chooses that horrid moment for despising God. He would rank this higher than an ambiguity; for God’s ways and man’s ways, when they are levelness and suited to our step, are the same blessed track, for we are created in the image of God.—Miller.

He that walketh so that the sincerity of his heart maketh the uprightness to be his, for a feigned uprightness is of the devil, not a man’s own. God is feared where goodness is embraced. And, as St. Basil speaketh, the despising of the laws is the reproach of the lawmaker.—Jermin.

Here is consolation to faithful men, though not void of infirmities, against the temptations of Satan, the calumniations of wicked men, and the fears of their own hearts. None are so much accused of contempt against God as those which are most religious. The devil seeketh to persuade them there is nothing in them but fraud. Sinful men, when they can charge against them no misdemeanours or lewdness of life, exclaim that they are hypocrites, and many doubts arise in their own souls by reason of the manifold imperfections of their lives. But are they desirous impartially to keep every commandment, if their power were answerable to their will? Do they endeavour to please God, though they cannot do it perfectly? Then they are upright in their ways, and walk in the law of the Lord; then God testifieth of them here, that they are of the number of them that fear Him, and elsewhere He testifieth that all those that fear Him they are blessed.—Dod.

main homiletics of verse 3.

Speech a Rod.

I. Speech is a rod because it is emblematic of power. A rod is an emblem of position and authority. It represents more than it is. Speech is a sign of man’s superiority to animal creation. Words in themselves are not much, but they are mighty because of what they represent, viz., the soul of man. The sceptre of a king may not in itself be of much value, but it is of worth because of what it signifies.

II. Speech will be man’s destruction or salvation according to his character. The mouth of the fool represents the soul of the fool. We have before noted the unwisdom and danger of him who is too proud to receive instruction (see chap. xi. 1, page 192; xiii. 18, etc.). His proud boasting speech will by-and-by become the cause of his chastisement—a rod for his own back. And the godly wise speech of the wise will be the means of his preservation and honour (See on chap. xii. 5–8, page 255, vers. 17–19, page 274).

outlines and suggestive comments.

The fool’s rod of pride is his tongue, wherewith he assails and strikes others. But it recoils on himself. The instrument of punishment is called a rod, not a sword, to denote the contumely with which the proud shall be visited.—Fausset.

The rod in the mouth is often sharper than the rod in the hand (Jer. xviii. 18). Sometimes it strikes against God (Exod. v. 2; Psa. xii. 3, 4; 2 Kings xix. 10); sometimes it is “the rod of His anger against His people” (Isa. x. 5) permitted (Rev. xiii. 5) yet restrained (Psalm cxxv. 3). Always in the end it is the rod for the fool himself (Psa. lxiv. 8).—Bridges.

The “mouth” is the great word in the Proverbs for our whole earthly agency. The word translated “rod” is the favourite emblem of sovereignty. A fool’s life-work or energy is his sovereignty, by which he would carve his way. But it is a “sceptre of pride.” His kingship is a notion of pride. But the “lips of the wise” do really win, and do really govern. They have a true sceptre which shall really guard them.—Miller.

The lips of the wise preserve them. 1. From doing wrong to others, in their loving mildness. 2. From suffering wrong from others, by a wary heedfulness. 3. From the rod of God’s anger, in a humble craving pardon for their errors. The former part of this verse St. Gregory applieth unto arrogant preachers, who desire more sharply to reprove their afflicted hearers, than sweetly to comfort them, for they study more how they may condemn evil things by blaming of them, than how they may commend good things by praising them. They always desire those things which, by fierce chiding, they may beat upon.—Jermin.

main homiletics of verse 4.

The Clean Crib.

I. An empty and clean crib does not fulfil the end for which it was made. It was made for use; it was made to hold food for the ox, who earns, by his labour, the means of keeping it full. When God first created this world, and saw it lie before him in all its unsullied beauty, He said that it was very good. But, beautiful as it was, it was not to remain simply beautiful—it was to fulfil a higher purpose: it was to be a dwelling-place for man. And God gave it into the hands of men to build cities in it, to dig quarries in it, to mar in many respects its first beauty and order, but to make it of more real worth as man’s dwelling, as his market, as his workshop. If man had never been compelled by hunger to put forth his hand and blacken its surface, and spoil some of its lovely landscapes, it would not have become what it now is, his training-school for a higher life. It would have been in perfect order and beauty, but it would not have fulfilled the purpose for which it was created. So with a large manufactory. No doubt it looks cleaner and fresher on the day that it comes from the hands of the builder than it does when its chimneys are pouring forth smoke and its floors are covered with grimy machinery, but if its owner were to build it simply to keep it clean by keeping it empty, he would be looked upon as a madman. So with the crib. So long as there are no oxen to use it, it can be kept empty and clean, but there is no use in having a crib unless it is put to its use.

II. If men want wealth they must not mind the labour and trouble of getting it. This seems to be the idea of the proverb. A clean crib can be kept, if there are no oxen to use it; but without oxen, in Solomon’s days (when wealth was chiefly gained by agriculture) there would be no increase. Many men would like to be rich, but they do not like the means by which alone they can obtain it. They would like to handle the golden coins, but they do not like to soil their fingers with honest toil to get it. They would like to gather in a harvest in the sunny autumn, but they do not like to plough and sow in the days of winter. They would like the increase which the ox would bring, but they do not like the trouble of cleaning his crib and caring for his wants. But this is not possible. The toil and the increase go together; the labour must come before the wealth, whether in relation to the body, the soul, or the spirit.

outlines and suggestive comments.

In its liberal meaning a household proverb, “Labour has its rough unpleasant side, yet it ends in profit.” But here, as elsewhere, there may be a meaning below the surface. The life of contemplation may seem purer, “cleaner,” than the life of action. The outer business of the world brings its cares and disturbances, but also “much increase.” There will be a sure reward of that activity in good works for him who goes, as with “the strength of the ox,” to the task to which God calls him.—Plumptre.

The literal sense of this verse seems to commend the care and pains of tillage. Or else we may take the words as shewing how the want of any needful instrument denieth the success of that which is desired, though other things be ready. But the words are more useful when taken by way of application. Wherefore, in God’s tillage, for “we are God’s husbandry” (1 Cor. iii. 9), the oxen are His ministers—they are, as Jerome speaketh, oxen that bear the yoke of the Lord after whose steps he that soweth seed is blessed; yea, God Himself is pleased to be joined in yoke with them, for they are labourers with God in His husbandry. They plough up the fallow ground by preaching and pressing repentance, they bring the corn into the barn by bringing home wandering sinners into the bosom of the Church; they tread out the grains from the chaff and straw by subduing the corruptions of nature, and separating it from the graces of God’s Spirit. Now, where these oxen are wanting, there the room will be empty, swept and clean for him to enter in, who quickly will fill it with the filth of the corruption of death. But, by the pains of the minister, much increase there is of corn in the field of the Lord—much increase is there of the seed of grace in the hearts of the people, and of the fruits of godliness in their lives.—Jermin.

The ox is the most profitable of all the beasts used in husbandry. Except merely for speed, he is almost in every respect superior to the horse. He is longer-lived, scarcely liable to disease, steady, lives, fattens, and maintains his strength on what a horse will not eat, and when he is worn out in labour his flesh is good for food, his horns useful, and his hide almost invaluable.—A. Clarke.

For Homiletics on verse 5 see on chapter xii. 17, 19, page 274; also on verse 25 of this chapter.

outlines and suggestive comments.

The man not walking in His levelness (see verse 2) shows by his staggering that he does not “witness things correctly.” (See Critical Notes for Miller’s translation of this verse.) The grand truth is here broached that the man who lies does not see correctly. This is a universal doctrine. Moreover, lies stand for all sin. All sin, therefore, flows from being deceived. A deep moral blindness is the source and measure of all possible transgression. Several proverbs depend for their significance upon this meaning, a “deceived” rather than a deceiving “witness.”—Miller.

He that for conscience sake doth speak the truth in common and small matters, he will also speak the truth in things of greater importance; and he that is not ashamed of a lie in his private dealing, he will also without shame bear false witness before a judge. Here, then, we be taught in the least things to ensure our tongues to speak the truth, so shall we be preserved from false-witness bearing, for the Lord would not have us daily with sin. . . . If we would not have Him punish our lesser frailties with greater sins—if we would not have Him punish our secret sins with open and notorious offences, then let us be afraid to tell a lie in the very lightest and most secret causes.—Greenham.

main homiletics of verse 6.

Seeking, but Not Finding.

I. A contradictory character—a scorner in quest of wisdom. It would be strange to hear a man ask advice of a physician whose opinion he held in contempt, or to ask guidance of a traveller whose judgment and ability he despised. It would be obvious that the advice given or the rules laid down would not be followed. So a scorner, while he seeks wisdom, scorns the only method of becoming wise. He asks advice of those whom he despises, he inquires the way to wisdom, while he holds the road to it in utter contempt. The antithesis of the verse implies that he does not find wisdom because he lacks understanding—because he finds it above his comprehension. Two children may be equally ignorant of knowledge, but if one has the desire and the will to acquire it, and the other has not, what was hard to both at first will only continue hard to him who despises knowledge. So the scorner fails to find wisdom because he does not value it enough to make an effort to acquire it. The spirit in which he seeks is an effectual barrier against his finding.

II. A man of teachable spirit is the only one who will ever find wisdom. The man of understanding knows its value, and therefore scorns neither it nor the means of attaining it. Therefore, to him “knowledge” becomes “easy.” A clever man and a dull one may be pupils of the same master, but if the clever one thinks that he needs no instruction and the dull one feels his need, what was above the comprehension of both at first will become easy to the teachable scholar, while it will remain out of the reach of the self-sufficient one. Even a dull but willing pupil will learn faster than one who has intellectual ability, but lacks the docile spirit. A seeker of wisdom in any department of knowledge must become in relation to it as a child before his teacher; he must acknowledge his ignorance, and be willing to submit to the conditions of acquiring knowledge. The same spirit is indispensable for the attainment of moral wisdom. Those who would learn of Christ must take his yoke; those who would know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, must be willing to do His will (Matt. xi. 29; John vii. 17).

outlines and suggestive comments.

The Greeks sought after wisdom, but Christ crucified was foolishness to them. They were already too wise to admit of the preaching of the cross, and scorned a tent-maker who would inform them of new doctrines which had never entered into their own minds, and who would prove them by other methods than their favourite ones—eloquence and reasoning.—Lawson.

There are two descriptions of scorners. There are “scorners” of truth, from pride of intellect; and there are “scorners” of authority, from the pride of self-will. They are nearly allied, and they are frequently united. It is the former that is chiefly meant here, seeing the subject is knowledge rather than duty.—Wardlaw.

A page of Hebrew, what is it to a child? It is absolutely nothing. But the whole was easy to the Hebrew eye. “A scorner has sought wisdom.” Notice the past sense. Every scorner has done it. Take any impenitent man. We may be sure some day or other he has sought spiritual intelligence. But he has done it selfishly. Moreover, he has done it fitfully and feebly. He has groped. He has made a sort of blind man’s pass for knowledge, and has come back with the averment that there is no such thing. Light is simple, “easy;” literally, light as opposed to heavy; light is obvious; nothing can be more so; but then, as the inspired man advises us, it is only “easy” to the “discerning,” or “understanding,” man.—Miller.

It is not by a one-sided action of the thinking power, but only by undivided consecration of the whole nature to God, which therefore involves, above all other things, a right relation of the spiritual nature to Him, that true knowledge in Divine things can be attained. The wise man, however, who has found the true beginning of wisdom, in bowing his inmost will before the Divine, not as something to be mastered by the understanding, but as something to be simply sought as a grace by the renunciation of the very self; he can easily on this ground, which God’s own power makes productive, attain a rich development of the understanding.—Elster.

Wisdom estrangeth herself from the scorner, as a gentlewoman hideth herself from a suitor whom she fancieth not. . . . As a loving spouse, when he cometh to the door, whom she affecteth, will show herself to him, and run to meet him, so the grace of God’s spirit offereth itself, and draweth near unto the humble and modest.—Muffet.

By knowledge we may understand, not the knowledge of the letter floating in the brain, and flowing even at the tongue’s end (which, indeed, is not worth the name of knowledge); but the true understanding of the word taught by the Spirit, which entereth into the heart, and worketh on the affections, frameth to obedience, and assureth of everlasting life. This, indeed, is healthful knowledge, which the scorners, though they seek, shall never obtain. And hereunto doth our Saviour give witness, when He saith: “Many shall seek to enter in, and cannot.”—Greenham.

The finding of wisdom is that which needeth help from others. More eyes than the eyes of one are requisite unto it. And, therefore, a scorner, who seeketh it with scorning of another’s help; yea, who scorneth not only the help of man, but of God also, how can he ever find it? If it be offered to him by another, he will not accept it, and if he seek it never so much in his own ways he shall not obtain it. It is, says Clemens Alexandrinus, to draw out threads and to spin nothing; and, therefore, whensoever he shall stand in need of it, he shall not find it, for wisdom and a scorner shall never meet. But to him that understandeth his own defects and infirmities, to him that understandeth how to make use of other men’s abilities, and that in the seeking of wisdom, the assistance of God is chiefly to be sought, to him it is a short course to come to it; to him it is an easy matter to obtain it.—Jermin.

It is the constant profession of those who read the Bible that they are seeking truth. Their likeness is taken here from life. They seek wisdom, but do not find it. They want the first qualification of a philosopher, a humble and teachable spirit. There is a race of men among us at the present day who scorn bitterly against faith’s meek submission to God’s revealed will. The divinity, they say, is in every man; which means that every man is a god unto himself. It is, in its essence, a reproduction of the oldest rebellion. A creature discontented with the place which his Maker has given him strives to make himself a god. If men really were independent beings, it would be right to assert and proclaim their independence; but as matters really stand, this desperate kicking against authority becomes the exposure of weakness, and the punishment of pride. We are not our own cause and our own end; we are not our own lords. We are in the hands of our Maker, and under the law of our Judge. Our only safety lies in the submission to the rightful authority and obedience to the true law. The problem for man is, not to reject all masters, but accept the rightful one. . . . In these days, when the pendulum is often seen swinging from scepticism over to superstition, and from superstition back to scepticism again, we would do well to remember that there is truth between these extremes, and that in truth alone lies safety for all the interests of men. . . . I see two men near each other prostrate on the ground and bleeding, while one man stands between them, with serenest aspect looking to the skies. Who and what are these? The two prostrate forms are superstition and unbelief. Superstition bowed down to worship his idol, and cut his flesh with stones to atone for his soul’s sin. Unbelief scorned to be confined, like an inferior creature, to the earth, and was ever leaping up in the hope of standing on the stars. Exhausted by his efforts he fell, and the fall bruised him, so that he lay as low as the neighbour whom he despised. He who stands between them neither bowed himself to the ground, nor attempted to scale the heavens. He neither degraded himself beneath a man’s place, nor attempted to raise himself above it. He abode on earth, but he stood erect there. He did not proudly profess to be, but meekly sought to find God. This man understands his place, and feels his need; to him, therefore, knowledge is easy. To him that hath shall be given. He has the beginning of wisdom, and he will reach in good time its glad consummation. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom.”—Arnot.

There are four things that particularly unfit a man for such a task (the finding of wisdom), viz., a very proud, or a very suspicious temper, false wit or sensuality. The two last generally belong to the man whom we call a scorner, the first are essential to him and inseparable from him. . . . Pride makes a man see sufficient in his own eyes for all manner of speculations and inquiries, and hence it comes that he, not being duly qualified for every search, is fain to take up with light and superficial accounts of things, and then, what he wants in true knowledge, to make up in downright assurance. By consequence it gives him just enough understanding to raise an objection, but not enough to lay it; which, as it is the most despicable, so it is also the most dangerous state of mind a man can be in. He that is but half a philosopher is in danger of being an atheist; a half physician is apt to turn empiric. In all matters of speculation or practice, he that knows but little of them, and is very confident of his own strength, is more out of the way of true knowledge than if he knows nothing at all. And in this character there is always a strange and unreasonable suspicion, by which he doubts everything he hears, and distrusts every man he converses with. He is so afraid of having his understanding imposed upon in matters of faith that he stands aloof from all propositions of that kind, whether true or false. Which is, as if a man should refuse to receive any money because there is a great deal of counterfeit; or resolve not to make friendship with any man, because many are not to be trusted. A third part of a scorner’s character is a false wit, a way of ridiculing arguments instead of confuting them, and a fourth is sensuality. That this, too, does for the most part accompany a contempt of religion, I appeal to the observation and experience of every man.—Bp. Atterbury.

He seeks it as a coward seeks his adversary, with a hope that he shall not find him; or as a man seeks his false coin, which he hath no joy to look upon. “What is truth?” said Pilate in a jeer to Christ, but stayed not the answer. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” said the carnal Capernaites (John vi. 52), and away then went—who, if they had stayed out the sermon, might have been satisfied on the point. . . . He that comes to the fountain to fill his pitcher must first wash it, and then put the mouth of it downwards to take up water. So he that would have heavenly knowledge must first quit his heart of corrupt affections and high conceits, and then humble himself at God’s feet, “everyone to receive His words” (Deut. xxxiii. 3).—Trapp.

main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 7–9.

The Fool and the Prudent Man.

I. How to know a fool. The dead carcase that is above ground is its own evidence. No one needs to inquire what it is, or where it is. The pestilential atmosphere which surrounds it tells its own tale. So a fool is a self-evidencing person. His words proclaim his character. He says nothing that is worth saying. Nothing that can enlighten a man’s mind or better his nature is to be found in his conversation. “The lips of knowledge” are not with him. But there is not simply the absence of wisdom. He is not a negative character. No man’s soul can remain like an empty house; if wisdom is absent sin comes in and takes up the abode. The fool is also a knave. “The folly of fools is deceit,” and in this also he will sooner or later be his own evidence. Like particles of poisonous matter, his deceit, as well as his ignorance, will make its presence known. His words will sooner or later betray his untruthful character. He will also be known by his profanity. “Fools make a mock at sin.” The most perfect beings in God’s universe regard sin as a serious matter, knowing, as they do, the bitter fruits which spring from one sinful action. God Himself treats sin as a terrible and awful reality. Yet men are to be found who make light of it, and others so depraved as to laugh at that which God regards with abhorrence, and visits with retribution.

II. How to treat a fool. “Go from the presence of a foolish man.” There are three reasons why we go from the neighbourhood of a polluted and polluting carcase. First, its odour is offensive to us. Secondly, to linger near may generate disease in our bodies. Thirdly, being diseased ourselves, we may become an occasion of injury to others. So a man void of moral wisdom ought to be an offensive presence to every man. Our moral instincts ought to be strong enough without any outside voice to say, “Go from him.” The “folly of a fool,” being deceit, he is an incarnation of the devil; our own self-love should prompt us to quit his society. The man that mocks at sin is a generator of moral disease, we cannot be in his company without moral injury, and if we catch the pestilence ourselves we shall in turn infect others with the disease.

III. What constitutes a prudent or morally wise man. He “understands his way.” A fool cannot be said to have a way or method of life any more than the leaf which is driven before the wind, or the timber that is floating down the rapid. Like them, he is the victim of circumstances; he is driven hither and thither by the currents of inclination or passion. He has no “way” to understand. He is as a cloud driven before the hurricane. He floats like a rudderless vessel upon the sea of life. But a prudent man has a “way,” or method of life (see Homiletics on chap. xiii. 14), and the great business of his life is to “understand” it—to find the best means of bringing his life into conformity with that rule of righteousness which is his standard of life; to gather from the voice of God in revelation, in conscience, and in Providence what course he is to pursue, what at all times is the right thing to do, and what is the right way of doing it. This is the life-study of the man who is morally prudent, and the highest aim that a man can propose to himself is to attain to a right understanding of his way. (On the latter clause of verse 9 see Homiletics on chap. xiii. 14.)

outlines and suggestive comments.

Verse 7. The path of sin is much more easily avoided than relinquished. We can far more easily keep out of the course of the stream than stem the torrent.—Bridges.

Thou mayest tarry with a foolish man while he holdeth his peace, and while he is willing and patient to hear thee. For he may get knowledge by hearing, and thou mayest have comfort by speaking. But it is time to be gone when by his lips thou perceivest knowledge to be gone from them.—Jermin.

In nature, some creatures are strong and bold, having both instincts and instruments for combat: other creatures are feeble but fleet. It is the intention of their Maker that they should seek safety, not in fighting, but in fleeing. It would be a fatal mistake if the hare, in a fit of bravery, should turn and face her pursuers. In the moral conflict of human life it is of great importance to judge rightly when we should fight and when we should flee. The weak might escape if they knew their own weakness, and kept out of harm’s way. That courage is not a virtue which carries the feeble into the lion’s jaws. I have known of some who ventured too far with the benevolent purpose of bringing a victim out, and were themselves sucked in and swallowed up. To go in among the foolish for the rescue of the sinking may be necessary, but it is dangerous work, and demands robust workmen. . . . The specific instruction recorded in Scripture for such a case is, “save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted with the flesh” (Jude 23). He who would volunteer for this work must fear lest the victim perish ere he get him dragged out, and fear lest himself be scorched by the flame.—Arnot.

Verse 8. We are not to infer, because “wisdom” eludes the scorner, that it is, therefore, something mystic. It fits earth so closely, that it actually carves our “way.” Nay, more closely still, it is actually path-finding itself. She takes a man from her very gate, and tells him all that he must do. She not only discerns paths, but that is all of her; she does nothing else. “The wisdom of the subtle is the making discernible of his way,” while, on the other hand, “the folly of the stupid is (its own) delusion.” All of us having a way, and all of us following it with the great energy of our lives, “The excellency and knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.” Wisdom grasps its end; folly never. Wisdom is the great pathfinder; folly a “delusion.”—Miller.

Every man has a final destination before him. The way of all is the way to the grave, and to eternity. But in that eternity are two widely different states. To the opposite states there are two ways—“the narrow,” and “the broad.” Oh the infinite value of true wisdom here,—the wisdom that understands both ways, and rightly chooses between! The folly of fools is deceit may mean that the folly of fools proves to them deceit. Their confidence in it, and their expectations from it, are sheer delusion. Or the sense may be, “deceit is the folly of fools.” “New stratagems,” says Lord Bacon, “must be devised, the old failing and growing useless; and as soon as ever a man hath got the name of a cunning crafty companion, he hath deprived himself utterly of the principal instrument for the management of his affairs,—which is trust.” Policy, therefore, on this as on other accounts, is “the folly of fools.”—Wardlaw.

When men are acquainted with everything but what they ought to know, they are only notable fools. If we had hearts large as the sands upon the sea-shore, and filled with a world of things, whilst we remained ignorant of the way of attaining true happiness, we should resemble that philosopher who was busied gazing at the moon till he fell into the ditch. . . . They are fools who know other people’s business better than their own. Some people, if you will take their own word for it, could reign better than the king and preach better than the minister. They know, in short, how to manage in every condition but their own.—Lawson.

Religion is an orderly thing, as wise as it is warm. Whatever be the excitement of an irregular course, more good is done by steady consistency. To break the ranks in disorder, to be eager to understand our neighbour’s way (John xxi. 21, 22), obscures the light upon our own. The true wisdom is to understand what belongs to us personally and relatively (1 Kings iii. 6–9; Eccles. viii. 5). “As God hath distributed to every man, so let him walk, and abide with God” (1 Cor. viii. 17). Let the eye do the work of the eye, and the hand of the hand. If Moses prayed in the mount, and Joshua fought in the valley (Exod. xvii. 10, 11), it was not because one was deficient in courage, and the other in prayer; but because each had his appointed work, and understood his own way.—Bridges.

Every one that goeth on in the right way doth not understand his way. Hence it is that many so often wander out of it, hence that so easily they are drawn from it. But he that is prudent looketh into his way, considereth the dangers of it, provideth himself against the enemies that he shall or may meet with, and being well assured of the righteousness of the way, he goeth on with confidence and safety. And this is the wisdom of the prudent, this proves him to be wise. . . . Again, the folly of fools, though it be folly in themselves, it is deceit to the devil, who maketh them to think that to be the right way, wherein they are clean out of the way.—Jermin.

Verse 9. The word here used signifieth both the fault and the guilt of it, whereby the offender is liable unto wrath and punishment. For they being firmly joined together, the Hebrew joineth them in the same word. Notwithstanding fools not finding the scourge of sin tied immediately unto the act committed, as if they were mocked when they are told of punishment to come, they make a mock at it. The favour, therefore, which the righteous show them is quickly to make them feel the rod of justice. For while they punish the offence they show great love to the offender, not only in stopping the course of his sinning, which is the stopping the increase of his misery, but it may be also working his amendment, which is the salvation of his soul.—Jermin.

The idea of sacrificial offering is that of expiation (see Critical Notes for the renderings of the word translated sin): it is a penitential work, it falls under the prevailing point of view of an ecclesiastical punishment, a satisfaction in a church-disciplinary sense. The forgiveness of sin is conditioned by this, (1) that the sinner either abundantly makes good by restitution the injury inflicted on another, or in some other way bears temporal punishment for it, and (2) that he willingly presents the sacrifice of rams or of sheep, the value of which the priest has to determine in its relation to the offence. Fools fall from one offence to another, which they have to atone for by the presentation of sacrificial offerings; the sacrificial offering mocketh them, for it equally derides them on account of the self-inflicted loss, and on account of the errors with which they must make good the effects of their frivolity and madness; while on the contrary, among men of upright character, a relation of mutual favour prevails, which does not permit that the one give to the other an indemnity, and apply the trespass-offering.—Delitzsch.

“Sin makes a mock at fools; but between upright beings there is favour.” Not makes sport, as a fool might, of engaging in his sins. A fool may make sport of sin, but hardly could be said to make a mock at it. “Sin makes a mock at fools,” but between “upright beings,” or “among the righteous,” we cannot conceive of any mockery. The upright God, and the upright saint; the upright saint and the upright Saviour; grace and judgment; faith, and the scenes of the last day; between these there must be goodwill, i.e., mutual delight and favour. So 1 John iv. 17, 18, “Herein does the love gain its end between us (that is, between God and us; see ver. 16), that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world,” etc.—Miller.

Among the righteous is favour; that is to say, the practice of virtue and uttering of gracious speeches, joined with such goodwill and sweet joy as their meeting is like the precious ointment that was poured on the head of Aaron.—Muffet.

The conduct of the man who makes a mock at sin involves—1. Impiety. To mock at sin is to despise God’s holiness, set at nought God’s authority, to abuse God’s goodness, to disregard and slight God’s glory. 2. Cruelty. The scoffer may pretend to humanity, but there breathes not on earth a more iron-hearted monster. He may profess to feel for the miseries of mankind; for the ravages of disease and death over their bodies; of fire, and flood, and storm over their means of life and comfort; of melancholy, and idiocy, and madness over their minds. But he makes a mock at the prolific cause of all. There is not an ill that man is called upon to suffer that does not owe its origin to sin. Like the “star called wormwood” in the Apocalyptic vision, it has fallen on very “fountain and river” of human joy, turning all their waters into bitterness. It is the sting of conscience. It is the venom and barb of the darts of the King of Terrors. It is the very life of the “worm that dieth not.” Oh! the miserably-mistaken flattery that can speak of the kind-heartedness of the man who laughs at that which is the embryo-germ of all the sufferings of time, and all the woes of eternity. 3. Infatuation. Sin is the evil that is ruining the sinner himself—the disease that is preying upon his own vitals—the secret consuming fire that is wasting his eternal all. Yet the deluded victim of its power makes a jest of it!—Wardlaw.

Some men are so like their father, the devil, that they will tempt men to sin that they may laugh at them.—Lawson.

To complete the antithesis, the sense must be supplied, fools make a mock at sin (and so incur the wrath of God); but (the righteous regard sin as a serious offence), and therefore among the righteous there is the favour of God.—Fausset.

The fools’ sport—sin. 1. Sin, which is so contrary to goodness that it is abhorred of those sparks and cinders which the rust of sin hath not quite eaten out of our nature as the creation left it. 2. Sin, which sensibly brings on present judgments, or if not, is the more fearful. The less it receives here, the more is behind. 3. Sin, that shall at last be laid heavy on the conscience: the lighter the burden was at first, it shall be at last the more ponderous. The wicked conscience may for awhile lie asleep, but this calm is the greatest storm. 4. Sin, which provokes God to anger. 5. Sin, which was punished even in heaven. 6. Sin, which God so loathed that he could not save men because of it, except by the death of His own Son. Oh, think if ever man felt sorrow like Him, or if He felt any sorrow except for sin. Did the pressure of it lie so heavy upon the Son of God, and doth a son of man make light of it? Thou mocked at thy oppressions, oaths, frauds; for these He groaned. Thou scornest His gospel preached; He wept for thy scorn. Thou knowest not, O fool, the price of sin; thou must do, if thy Saviour did not for thee. If He suffered not this for thee, thou must suffer it for thyself.—T. Adams.

They dance with the devil all day, and yet think to sup with Christ. Their sweet meat must have sour sauce, but among the righteous, though they sin of infirmity, yet forasmuch as they are sensible of and sorrowful for their failings, and see them to confession, God will never see them to their confusion.—Trapp.

main homiletics of verse 10.

Secrets of the Heart.

I. Opposite dwellers in the same spirit. “Bitterness” and “joy.” The world without us is a type of the world within us. In the world of matter the bitter cold, the desolations of winter, alternates with the brightness and joyous fruitfulness of summer. On the same globe we have at the same time the vine-clad regions of southern latitudes, and the dreary shores of arctic regions. Bitterness in the human spirit is a fact of human consciousness, and so is joy. There are few hearts that have not been at different times possessed by both. There are few in which there does not dwell at the same time a root of gladness and a root of sadness.

II. A possession which its possessor may keep a profound secret. It is within the power of a human soul to keep his sorrow or his joy to himself if he so pleases, and under certain conditions this is a desirable thing to do. A man or woman often finds himself or herself surrounded by those who are entire strangers to the circumstances, or the persons, or the experiences which have given birth to the sorrow or the joy. To speak of it to such would be worse than useless. It is a comfort in such circumstances to be able to lock the secret within one’s own breast. There is a consolation in sorrow, and a sense of increase of joy in not being compelled to lay open our feelings to the inspection of the unsympathetic. There are also sorrows of such a nature as to be entirely beyond the power of the tenderest human love to alleviate. To conceal such from all human ken is a kindness to those who love us. We should inflict sorrow upon them without lightening our own burden; and if we are unselfish, we are glad that it is possible in such a case to keep our bitterness within our own breast.

III. There is One who possesses the secret even more truly than the human possessor, and who should always be invited to intermeddle with our sorrow or our joy. 1. We should invite God to intermeddle, because we can do so in the strictest secrecy of the soul. It may be impossible sometimes to put into words our joy or our sorrow, and therefore no human being, even the nearest and dearest, can always “intermeddle” with our deep emotions. But the thought is speech to God. He “knoweth what is in the mind of the spirit.” 2. Because God’s “intermeddling” will bring softening to our bitterness and refinement to our joy. He “knew the sorrows” of Israel in their bitter bondage (Exod. iii. 7). He sent His Son to “bind up the broken-hearted” (Isa. lxi. 1). That Son Himself has known a bitterness that is unknowable by any creature. And as He can lighten sorrow so He can refine and increase joy.

outlines and suggestive comments.

Within the range of human experience there is, perhaps, no expression of the ultimate solitude of each man’s soul at all times, and not merely (as in Pascal’s Je mourrai seul) at the hour of death, so striking in its truth and depth as this. Something there is in every sorrow, and in every joy, which no one else can share. Beyond that range it is well to remember that there is a Divine sympathy, uniting perfect knowledge and perfect love.—Plumptre.

The first half of this proverb treats of life experiences which are too complex a nature to be capable of being fully represented to others, and, as we are wont to say, of so delicate a nature that we shrink from uncovering them and making them known to others, and which, on this account, must be kept shut up in our own hearts, because no man is so near to us, or has so fully gained our confidence, that we have the desire and the courage to pour out our hearts to him from the very depths. If we were to interpret the second clause as prohibitive (see Critical Notes), then this would stand in opposition, certainly not intended, to the exhortation (Rom. xii. 15), “Rejoice with them that do rejoice,” and to the saying, “Distributed joy is doubled joy, distributed sorrow is half sorrow;” and an admonition to leave man alone with his joy, instead of urging him to distribute it, does not run parallel with the first clause. Therefore we interpret the future as potentialis.—Delitzsch.

Not to let a man be private in his house is a great injury, but not to let a man be private in his heart is a wrong inexcusable. And yet this is the strange presumption of some. They know the heart of another; they know what troubles it and what pains it. Perhaps by some discoveries thou mayest have some conjectures; but let not a small conjecture make thee a great offender. Wrong not another with unjust surmising. Every key a man meets with is not the right key to this lock; every likelihood thou apprehendest is not a sure sign to make thee know the heart of another.—Jermin.

“A knowing heart is a bitterness to itself; but with its joy it does not hold intercourse as an enemy.” We venture upon this translation. We find no spiritual sense in the one heretofore given. . . . A heart spiritually enlightened is a bitterness to itself on the principle which Christ meant when He said, He “came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. x. 34); but with its joy, weak as it may be, and small and easily clouded, “it does not,” as the impenitent do, “hold intercourse as with an enemy.” His joy is like his bitterness, a friend; and all will work in opposite direction to the joy of the wicked.—Miller.

Eli could not enter into the “bitterness of soul” of Hannah (1 Sam. i. 10, 13, 16): nor Gehazi into that of the Shunamite woman (2 Kings iv. 27). Michal, though the wife of David, was “a stranger to his joy” at the bringing up of the ark to Zion (1 Sam. xviii. 13, 20, with 2 Sam. vi. 12–16).—Fausset.

The two extreme experiences of a human heart, which comprehend all others between them, are “bitterness” and “joy.” The solitude of a human being in either extremity is a solemnising thought. Whether you are glad or grieved, you must be alone. The bitterness and the joyfulness are both your own. It is only in a modified sense, and in a limited measure, that you can share them with another, so as to have less of them yourself. . . . Sympathy between two human beings is, after all, little more than a figure of speech. A physical burden can be divided equally between two. If you, unburdened, overtake a weary pilgrim on the way, toiling beneath a load of a hundred pounds weight, you may volunteer to bear fifty of them for the remaining part of the journey, and so lighten his load by half. But a light heart, however willing it may be, cannot so relieve a heavy one. The cares that press upon the spirit are as real as the load that lies on the back, and as burdensome; but they are not so tangible and divisible. . . . There are, indeed, some very intimate unions in human society, as organized by God. . . . The closest of them all, the two “no longer twain, but one flesh,” is a union of unspeakable value for such sympathy as is compatible with distinct personality at all. . . . The wife of your bosom can, indeed, intermeddle with your joys and sorrows, as no stranger can do, and yet there are depths of both in your breast which even she has no line to fathom. When you step into the waters of life’s last sorrow, even she must stand back and remain behind. Each must go forward alone. The Indian suttee seems nature’s struggle against that fixed necessity of man’s condition. But is a vain oblation. Although the wife burn on the husband’s funeral pile, the frantic deed does not lighten the solitude of the dark valley. One human being cannot be merged in another. Man must accept the separate personality that belongs to his nature.—Arnot.

It is true, observes a philosophic essayist, that we have all much in common; but what we have most in common is this, that we are all isolated. Man is more than a combination of passions common to his kind. Beyond them and behind them, an inner life, whose current we think we know within us, flows on in solitary stillness. Friendship itself is declared to have nothing in common with this dark sensibility, so repellent and so forbidding, much less may a stranger penetrate to those untrodden shores. We may apply Wordsworth’s lines,—

To friendship let him turn For succour; but perhaps he sits alone On stormy waters, tossed in a little boat That holds but him, and can contain no more.

—Jacox.

By this thought the worth and the significance of each separate human personality is made conspicuous, not one of which is the example of a species, but each has its own peculiarity, which no one of countless individuals possesses.—Elster.

Who but a parent can fully know the “bitterness” of his grief who “mourneth for an only son”—of him who is “in bitterness for his first-born.” Who but a parent can sympathise with the royal mourner’s anguish over a son that has died in rebellion against his father and his God! Who but a widow can realise the exquisite bitterness of a widow’s agony when bereft of the loved partner of her joys and sorrows! Who but a pastor can know, in all its intensity, the bitterness of soul experienced in seeing those on whom he counted as genuine fruits of his ministry, and on whom he looked with delighted interest, as his anticipated “joy and crown” in “the day of the Lord,” falling away—going back and walking no more with Jesus.—Wardlaw.

The principal thought of verse 11 has been treated before. See on chapter ii. 21, 22, etc.

outlines and suggestive comments.

The wicked build houses on the earth; the earth is their home, where they desire to be, and they imagine to settle themselves in it. The upright do set up tabernacles only, seeking another country, and as knowing the uncertainty upon which the world standeth. For though the habitation of the wicked be a house, and rooted in the earth, yet it shall not only be shaken, but overthrown, and though the abiding of the upright be but a tabernacle pinned to the earth, yet shall it stand so safely that it shall flourish like a rooted tree. Wherefore, when in the Revelation we read “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth” (chap. viii. 13), St. Jerome understands it of the wicked only. For a godly man is not an inhabiter of the earth, but a stranger and a sojourner. And his tabernacle doth so flourish, that it reacheth to heaven, for he hath his dwelling in heaven to whom the whole world is an inn.—Jermin.

The “house of the wicked” may be a most prosperous one, and may seem to be full of peace; but it is doomed. It must become “desolate,” literally astonished; which is the eastern way of describing great downfalls. “But the tent of the upright” (another intensive clause) his slenderest possessions; like a sprout; like some poor tender plant, shall bloom forth. Such is the meaning of “flourish.”—Miller.

main homiletics of verse 12.

What Seems to Be, and What Is.

I. Human nature needs more light than is found in the human conscience. The way which “seems right unto a man” may be “the way of death.” A mariner who has insufficient light to observe correctly the needle in the compass, may think he is steering for the haven when he is taking the vessel straight upon the rocks. He may be very sincere in his conviction that he is going right, but his thinking so will not make it so. He needs more light than he has. So the light of conscience is not enough to guide a man with certainty in the true and right way. If conscientious sincerity was an infallible guide Paul would not have “delivered to prison” men and women for being followers of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts. xxii. 4). The way that in his ignorance seemed right to him, was felt by him to be a “way of death” when his conscience was enlightened. Conscience may be deadened by sin, or warped by prejudice or self-interest; it is not a reliable and certain guide. If it were, it was needless for the Son of God to visit the earth and make known the will of His Father—the revelation of God’s will in the books of the Old and New Testaments is a superfluity. The existence of the Bible is explained by the fact which is found to be true by all God-taught men, that “the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. x. 23). God, by speaking unto men in “sundry times and in divers manners,” and especially “in these last days by His Son” (Heb. i. 1) declares plainly that man needs something outside of himself to guide him into that path of righteousness which alone is a way of life. The history of the world confirms this truth. Observation of every-day life tells the same tale.

II. The need of human nature has been fully met. All that the mariner needs in order to keep the vessel’s head right is light to see the compass. God in Christ is a sufficient light to man. Paul says: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6). Christ Himself tells us that it is those only who “follow Him” who have the “light of life” (John viii. 12). That the way thus revealed is fully adapted to meet man’s need is proved by the results which follow from walking in it. The progress which a sick man makes towards health is the most convincing proof of the efficacy of his physician’s treatment. The light which is shed upon men by the revelation of God, and especially by the Gospel, has been proven by its result upon individuals and upon nations, to be all-powerful to turn men from “darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts xxvi. 18). The way of sin is the way of death—death morally, socially, and physically. The way of holiness is the only way of spiritual life to the soul and to the community, and ensures victory over the penalty of bodily death.

illustration.

The Last Words of Hildebrand.—One of the greatest of the sons of earth (if we measure greatness either by posthumous fame or posthumous influence) lay on his death bed. Prelates, princes, priests, devoted adherents and attendants stood around. Anxious to catch the last accents of that once oracular voice, the mourners were bending over him, when, struggling in the very grasp of death, he collected, for one last effort, his failing powers, and breathed out his spirit with the indignant exclamation, “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile.” . . . That he went into the unseen world consciously and deliberately with a lie in his right hand, is a supposition utterly inadmissible. Passionate earnestness and intense conviction were stamped upon all his words and works. . . . He had climbed the slippery steps of intrigue to the Papal throne, and to set that throne above all thrones of the earth, and to cause everyone, “both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,” to bow down in the dust before it, was thenceforward his sole aim and object. . . . It was for this that he enforced that celibacy of the clergy which has ever since been the law of the Church. He found thousands of married priests ministering at her altars in innocence of heart, thinking no sin, and fearing no dishonour. . . . He commanded them to put away their wives on pain of excommunication, which meant deprivation of all rights, spiritual, social, and human. . . . One cry of indignation, one prolonged and bitter wail of agony, arose throughout Europe, from the Apennines to the Baltic Sea. . . . Wives were torn from their husbands, children from their fathers. Popular fanaticism allied itself with Papal tyranny. . . . There was no pity for worse than widowed wives, and worse than orphaned children flung out upon the cold world to starve. The Pontiff trod his stern, remorseless way over broken hearts. . . . But he had a dangerous antagonist to encounter. . . . The Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Church were together to dominate the world. But which of them was to dominate the other? Hildebrand’s long contest with Henry IV. may be said to have decided the question. But with what weapons was it fought? We see the gallant Saxons tempted by bribes and promises to revolt, and then, in their hour of distress, treacherously abandoned by him who was at once their ally and “spiritual father,” and to whom they addressed in vain those noble and pathetic remonstrances which, even to this day, cannot be read without emotion. Thus Hildebrand “loved righteousness.”. . . But the Pontiff, so stern to his antagonists, could be mild to his allies. Keen swords in strong hands were necessary to support his power, the heaviest swords in Europe were borne by Norman knights. Robert, the conqueror of Sicily, William, the conqueror of England, were the representative men of this fierce and fiery race. . . . They were bloody, avaricious and unscrupulous. No more cruel conquerors ever turned a fruitful land into a waste, howling wilderness. No more remorseless oppressors ever trod down the poor with a heel of iron. . . . But their crimes were unrebuked by Hildebrand. . . . William was “addressed in the blandest accents of esteem and tenderness,” while Robert, the tyrant of Sicily, “was embraced and honoured as the faithful ally of Rome.” Thus Hildebrand “hated iniquity.” That “way” in which he walked all his life long with a consistency of purpose and intensity of energy that moves our admiration, seemed “right unto himself,” nay, it seemed to be pre-eminently the way of righteousness, but what shall we say of “the end thereof.”—Etchings from History, by Miss Alcock. See Sunday at Home, February 15th, 1879.

outlines and suggestive comments.

Souls perish always with surprise. . . . But yet the seeing here noted must be taken cum grano. Deep in the lost heart of the knowledge of its “end,” rather its “afterpart.” The way lasts for ever, and its afterward “is the ways of death!” Deep in the lost man’s heart he knows all this, and this makes a dark ground for his gaieties. (See next verse.)—Miller.

There are some ways which can hardly “seem right” to any man—the ways, namely, of open and flagrant wickedness. But there are many ways, which, under the biassing influence of pride and corruption, “seem right,” and yet their “end” is “death.” I. The way of the sober, well-behaved worldling. He thinks of the law as if it had been only one table, the first being entirely overlooked. He passes among his circle for a man of good character, and flatters himself, in proportion as he is flattered by others, that all is right. . . . But his way is not the way of life, for God is not in it. II. The way of the formalist. He follows, strictly and punctually, the round of religious observance. . . . But his heart has not been given to God. The world still has it. He compromises the retention of its affections for the things of sense by giving God the pitiful and worthless offering of outward homage. But it will not do. Those services cannot terminate in life, which have no life in them. III. The way of the speculative religionist. From education, or as a matter of curiosity, he has made himself an adept in religious controversy. He holds by the creed of orthodoxy, and imagines that this kind of knowledge is religion. But speculative opinion is not saving knowledge—is not the faith which “worketh by love” and “overcomes the world.”—Wardlaw.

Good intentions are not a justification for wrong doing (2 Sam. vi. 6). Judges xvii. 6 gives an awful illustration of the end of “every man doing that which is right in his own eyes.” (Cf. the prohibition of this, Deut. xii. 8.)—Fausset.

This may be his easily besetting sin, the sin of his constitution, the sin of his trade. Or it may be his own false views of religion: he may have an imperfect repentance, a false faith, a very false creed. Many of the Papists, when they were burning the saints of God in the flames of Smithfield, thought they were doing God service.—A. Clarke.

The self-delusion of one ends in death by the sentence of the judge, that of another in self-murder; of one in loathsome disease, of another in slow decay under the agony of conscience, or in sorrow over a henceforth dishonoured and distracted life.—Delitzsch.

Sin comes clothed with a show of reason (Exodus i. 10); and lust will so blear the understanding, that he shall think there is great sense in sinning. “Adam was not deceived” (1 Tim. ii. 14), that is, he was not so much deceived by his judgment—though also by that too—as by his affection to his wife, which at length blinded his judgment. The heart first deceives us with colours; and when we are once a-doting after sin, then we join and deceive our hearts (James i. 26), using fallacious and specious sophism, to make ourselves think that lawful to-day which we held unlawful yesterday. . . . But it falls out with us as with him that, lying upon a steep rock, and dreaming of good matters befallen him, starts suddenly for joy, and breaks his neck at the bottom. As he that makes a bridge of his own shadow cannot but fall into the water, so neither can he escape the pit of hell who lays his own presumption in the place of God’s promise.—Trapp.

Some say, surely God will not punish a man hereafter who conscientiously walks up to his convictions, although these convictions be in point of fact mistaken. They err, knowing neither the inspired Word of God nor natural laws. Do men imagine that God, who has established this world in such exquisite order, and rules it by regular laws, will abdicate, and leave the better world in anarchy? This world is blessed by an undeviating connection between cause and effect; will the next be abandoned to random impulses, or left to chaos? . . . It is not even conceivable that the direction of a man’s course could not determine his landing-place. . . . Perhaps the secret reason why an expectation so contrary to all analogy is yet so fondly entertained, is a tacit disbelief in the reality of things spiritual and eternal. We see clearly the laws by which effects follow causes in time; but the matters upon which these laws operate are substantial realities. If there were a firm conviction that the world to come is a substance, and not merely a name, the expectation would naturally be generated, that the same principles which regulate the Divine administration of the world now, will stretch into the unseen, and rule it all. . . . Truth shines like light from heaven; but the mind and conscience within the man constitute the reflector that receives it. Thence we must read off the impression, as the astronomer reads the image from the reflector at the bottom of his tube. When that tablet is dimmed by the breath of evil spirits dwelling within, the truth is distorted and turned into a lie.—Arnot.

There is no way which doth not seem right in his eyes who liketh to go in it. For man is led in all things by a seeming good; and such is the foulness of doing amiss, that it must put on the painted colours of doing right, or else it cannot draw the eyes of man’s mind unto it. But it is the not seeing the end which causeth the seeming rightness of the way, and it is to man that it seems so, who is so apt to be deceived. He that hath a long fight, and in the beginning can see the end, he maketh the shortest journey and speedeth the best in it. If the beginning be a due consideration of the end, the end will be a beginning of true joy and comfort. It is not so in the way which seemeth to be right. For being but a way, it is passed and ended, and then begin the ways of death, which are said to be many, because there is an endless going on in them.—Jermin.

main homiletics of verse 13.

True and False Mirth.

This proverb, as it stands in our English version, cannot be taken as universally true. The first clause is rendered by some translators—“Even in laughter the heart may be sorrowful” (see Critical Notes), and experience and Bible teaching both necessitate our giving a limitation to the second clause also.

I. Whether mirth will end in heaviness depends upon its character—therefore upon the character of the man who is mirthful. There is an innocent and right mirth, there is an ill-timed, guilty mirth. The end of lawful mirth is not heaviness. It is good for the body. A physician is glad to see his patient mirthful. He knows that it will act most beneficially, and assist his recovery to health. A mirthful man will not suffer so much physical injury from the wear and tear of life as one who is always sombre and melancholy. Lawful mirth is good for the mind. It is the unbending of the bow which breaks if it is kept always at its extreme tension. A man who is naturally mirthful—who is ever disposed to see men and things in their brightest colours, must be a creature of hope, and hope has power to surround those who possess her with a paradise of their own creation, which is very independent of outward circumstances. Natural, wholesome mirth will make a man much stronger to do and to bear all the duties and trials of life. But natural, lawful mirth is only proper to godly men. Christians are the only people in the world who have reason to be glad. All those who are worthy of the name ought to be able, amidst all the saddening influences of life, to hold fast such a confidence in God as shall leave room for the play even of mirth. But the man who is in a state of alienation from God has no reason to be mirthful, his mirth must be either feigned or the result of a thoughtless disregard of his own relations to God and eternity. The “end” of such mirth must be “heaviness.”

II. Laughter is not always an index of feeling. There is doubtless much that passes for mirth among the ungodly that is merely a blind to conceal intentions or feelings deeply hidden in the soul. The seducer laughs at the fears and misgivings of his victim, but his laugh is not the laugh of the light-hearted, God-fearing man. Its very ring tells any unprejudiced hearer that there is a flaw somewhere, and it is only assumed to enable him to effect his purpose. In such laughter there may not be present actual sorrow, but there is an entire absence of gladness of heart. But laughter often veils the deepest and most heartfelt misery. The poor drunkard will laugh at the debauchery of the past night while he feels a bitter consciousness of his degradation. Many a man laughs with his gay companions, and all the while sees a dread future rising up before him which he trembles to meet. The character of him who laughs will afford the best clue by which to determine whether or not the laughter is the outcome of genuine mirth.

outlines and suggestive comments.

Already the wise king was beginning to experience what he more fully states in Eccles. ii. 2; vii. 6. Men’s very pleasures turn into their opposites.—Fausset.

Not of its own nature, of course; for a proverb has already said that there is a “joy” which is not our foe. Not this is always the case; but there is such a case. Because the wicked get nothing really but their “ways” (verse 14).—Miller.

The sun doth not ever shine: there is a time of setting. No day of jollity is without its evening of conclusion, if no cloud of disturbance prevent it with an overcasting. First God complains, men sing, dance, and are jovial and neglectful; at last man shall complain, and “God shall laugh at their calamity.” Who should God be conjured to receive that spirit dying which would not receive God’s Spirit living?—T. Adams.

As soon might true joy be found in hell as in the carnal heart. As soon might the tempest-tossed ocean be at rest as the sinner’s conscience (Isa. lvii. 20, 21). He may feast in his prison, or dance in his chains. . . . But if he has found a diversion from present trouble, has he found a cover from everlasting misery? It is far easier to drown conviction than to escape damnation. . . . But the end of that mirth implies another with a different end. Contrast the prodigal’s mirth in the far country with his return to his father’s house when “they began to be merry.”—Bridges.

Every human heart carries the feeling of disquiet and of separation from its true home, and of the nothingness, transitoriness of all that is earthly; and in addition to this, there is many a secret sorrow in everyone which grows out of his own corporeal and spiritual life, and from his relation to other men; and this sorrow, which from infancy onward is the lot of the human heart, and which more and more deepens and diversifies itself in the course of life, makes itself perceptible even in the midst of laughter, in spite of the mirth and merriment, without being able to be suppressed or expelled for the soul, returning always the more intensely, the more violently we may for a time have kept it under, and sunk it in unconsciousness. From the fact that sorrow is the fundamental condition of humanity, and forms the back-ground of laughter, it follows that it is not good for man to give himself up to joy, viz., sensual (worldly), for to it the issue is sorrow.—Delitzsch.

There are two sorts of joys—the joy natural and the joy spiritual; the joy of vanity and the joy of verity; a joy in the creature and a joy in the Creator; a joy in a mutable thing and a joy in a matter immutable. The spiritual joys are the joys of the palace. The natural joys are the joys of prisoners. These are to worldlings that are without God seeming joys, because they know no better. They cannot get Penelope, they will be suitors to her maidens. . . . The godly are like the ant, they are first weary, then merry; but the ungodly are like the grasshopper, first they sing and then they sorrow.—Bishop Abernethy, 1630.

main homiletics of verse 14.

Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction.

I. The position and character of the backslider. The word suggests that there has been a time in the past when his moral standing was high. There must have once been a going forward, if there is now a sliding backward. Up to a certain time progress was made. Of many followers of our Lord it is written that from a certain period “they went back and walked no more with Him” (John vi. 66). They had walked with Him in outward discipleship at least, and it is probable that their hearts had been more or less influenced for good. Their “walking no more” was a going back probably in outward life, certainly in right disposition towards the Christ of God. The man of our text is “a backslider in heart.” Then there must once have been a going forward of his soul towards God and goodness, and outward movement towards righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. But the forward movement has ceased—the retrograde movement has set in within the man, although it may not immediately be seen in his outward conduct. Solomon was himself a sad example of a backslider. In his early days his heart was turned towards his God, his desires after righteousness were strong, his moral progress a reality. No one can read his dedication prayer without feeling that the man who offered it stood in right relations with his God—that his aspirations were after righteousness of heart and life. He is himself a proof of the certain fact that a man can terribly deteriorate in character even after he has given evidence of a progression in the good and the right way.

II. His portion. “He shall be filled with his own ways.” Retribution will flow from both his past and present character. The remembrance of what he once was will embitter the present. To think of what might have been is in itself a hell when a man feels that by his own act he is now far lower in the moral scale than he once was. How it must embitter the misery of the fallen angels to remember that they once stood sinless before God’s throne, and, but for their own act, would stand there still. In one of the writings of Lucian, he represents the ghost of a man who has left the world coming up for judgment before the bar of Rhadamanthus. He had lived so depraved a live that his judge exclaims that a new punishment is needed that will be in some degree adequate to his unparalleled villany. A poor cobbler, standing by, suggests that it will be enough if the cup of Lethe, which was supposed to obliterate all remembrance of the past, and which each shade was permitted to drink as he passed from the dread tribunal, should, in this instance, be withheld. And the criminal was therefore condemned to remember for ever what he had done in life, and this was held to be retribution sufficient for the worst of crimes. And if this is true of every wicked man, surely to be filled with the remembrance of what he once was will be the bitterest cup that can be the portion of every backslider.

III. The portion of the godly man. He, too, shall be filled with his own ways, but it will be the fulness of satisfaction. The foundation of real happiness is in character alone. The blessedness of the Eternal God comes from nothing outside of Himself. It has its foundation in His own perfect character. So nothing outside a man can yield him satisfaction. It must come from what he is—from his partaking of some degree of the character of the ever-blessed God. In proportion as he approaches that—in proportion as he brings forth the fruits of righteousness—will he be conscious of a well-spring of satisfaction which is quite independent of outward circumstances. This well-spring has the advantage of being always at hand. A man may often find himself shut out from external sources of joy, death may part him from those who have largely ministered to his happiness, but wherever he is—whether in this world or another—a “well of water” which is “within him” (John iv. 14) is always at hand. It is needless to remark that this well-spring does not originate with man, but is the outcome of relationship and communion with God.

outlines and suggestive comments.

Temporary backsliding may take place in the true children of God; but the “backslider” here is evidently he who, in the language of the apostle, “goes back into perdition.” Solomon alludes to such perpetual backsliding on the part of those who thus prove themselves to have been no more than professors—“having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” Such characters, whatever appearances they present to the eye of men,—even of the people of God, with whom they associate, never were vitally and savingly one with Christ, and one with true believers in Him. This is as plainly affirmed as it is in the power of language to affirm it. “They went out from us but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John ii. 19).—Wardlaw.

Every spot is not the leprosy. Every mark of sin does not prove a backslider. “A man may be overtaken in a fault” (Gal. vi. 1); or it may be the sin of ignorance (Lev. iv. 2; Heb. v. 2) or sin abhorred, resisted, yet still cleaving (Rom. vii. 15–24). Backsliding implies a wilful step; not always open, but the more dangerous, because hidden. Here was no open apostasy, perhaps no tangible inconsistency. Nay, the man may be looked up to as an eminent saint, but he is a backslider in heart.—Bridges.

The upright is satisfied from his own conscience, which though it be not the original spring, yet is the conduit at which he drinks peace, joy and encouragement.—Flavel.

The wicked are travelling; and they seek an end; and they confidently expect it, but they never get it. What they do get, therefore is their journey. The old man has got about enough of travelling, but enough, if he be an impenitent man, of nothing else, in either world, whatever. The saint may have very little on the earth, but he has made more than his own journey. “The backslider in heart.” Not a Christian. A Christian never really backslides. Not, therefore, what our usage means, but a heart sliding back, as every lost heart does. The writer has but written a fresh name for the impenitent. Such a sliding heart will just have its journey at last, and nothing for it.—Miller.