You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;
Parallel Translations
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You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;
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And ye have forgotten the consolacion which speaketh vnto you as vnto chyldren: My sonne despyse not the chastenynge of the Lorde nether faynt when thou arte rebuked of him:
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And ye haue forgotten the consolation, which speaketh vnto you as vnto children, My sonne, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither faint when thou art rebuked of him.
Cross-references (23)
Passages linked to Hebrews 12:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 3:11-12 My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of his correction; for whom Yahweh loves, he corrects, even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.
- Job 5:17-18 “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. For he wounds and binds up. He injures and his hands make whole.
- Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.
- 1 Corinthians 11:32 But when we are judged, we are punished by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
- Psalms 94:12 Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah, and teach out of your law,
- James 1:12 Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.
- 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not to despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed;
- Psalms 118:18 Yah has punished me severely, but he has not given me over to death.
- Psalms 119:109 My soul is continually in my hand, yet I won’t forget your law.
- Psalms 119:75 Yahweh, I know that your judgments are righteous, that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
- Jeremiah 31:18 “I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.
- Hebrews 12:3-4 For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls. You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.
- Hebrews 12:7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline?
- Deuteronomy 4:9-10 Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children— the day that you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, “Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.”
- Joshua 7:7-11 Joshua said, “Alas, Lord Yahweh, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? I wish that we had been content and lived beyond the Jordan! Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after Israel has turned their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will surround us, and cut off our name from the earth. What will you do for your great name?” Yahweh said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face like that? Israel has sinned. Yes, they have even transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. Yes, they have even taken some of the devoted things, and have also stolen, and also deceived. They have even put it among their own stuff.
- 2 Samuel 6:7-10 Yahweh’s anger burned against Uzzah; and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by God’s ark. David was displeased, because Yahweh had broken out against Uzzah; and he called that place Perez Uzzah, to this day. David was afraid of Yahweh that day; and he said, “How could Yahweh’s ark come to me?” So David would not move Yahweh’s ark to be with him in David’s city; but David carried it aside into Obed-Edom the Gittite’s house.
- Psalms 6:1-2 Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your anger, neither discipline me in your wrath. Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint. Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
- Proverbs 3:1 My son, don’t forget my teaching; but let your heart keep my commandments:
- 1 Chronicles 15:12-13 and said to them, “You are the heads of the fathers’ households of the Levites. Sanctify yourselves, both you and your brothers, that you may bring the ark of Yahweh, the God of Israel, up to the place that I have prepared for it. For because you didn’t carry it at first, Yahweh our God broke out in anger against us, because we didn’t seek him according to the ordinance.”
- Job 34:31 “For has any said to God, ‘I am guilty, but I will not offend any more.
- Psalms 119:16 I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word.
- Proverbs 4:5 Get wisdom. Get understanding. Don’t forget, and don’t deviate from the words of my mouth.
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (20 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 5. And ye have forgotten, etc. I read the…
5. And ye have forgotten, etc. I read the words as a question; for he asks, whether they had forgotten, intimating that it was not yet time to forget. But he enters here on the doctrine, that it is useful and needful for us to be disciplined by the cross; and he refers to the testimony of Solomon, which includes two parts; the first is, that we are not to reject the Lord’s correction; and in the second the reason is given, because the Lord loves those whom he chastises. But as Solomon thus begins, my “Son”, the Apostle reminds us that we ought to be allured by so sweet and kind a word, as that this exhortation should wholly penetrate into our hearts.
Now Solomon’s argument is this: — If the scourges of God testify his love towards us, it is a shame that they should be regarded with dislike or hatred. For they who bear not to be chastised by God for their own salvation, yea, who reject a proof of his paternal kindness, must be extremely ungrateful.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Secondly, because they are testimony of his fatherly good…
Secondly, because they are testimony of his fatherly good will toward us, insomuch that they show themselves to be bastards, which cannot abide to be chastened of God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh…
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Ver. 5. And ye have forgot the exhortation] Or, have ye forgot the consolation? {a} Are the consolations of God small unto you? Job 15:11. Do ye, instead of wrestling with God, wrangle with him, refusing to be comforted (as Rachel), out of the pettishness of your spirits, as he, Psa 77:2? Will ye not, as children, eat your milk, because you have it not in the golden dish? Will ye be like the hedgehog, of which Pliny reporteth, that being laden with nuts and fruits, if the least filbert fall off, will fling down all the rest in a pettish humour, and beat the ground with her bristles.
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Despise not thou the chastening] See my Love Tokens, p. 37. Count it not a light matter, a common occurrence, such as must be borne by head and shoulders, and when things are at worst, they will mend again. This is not patience but pertinacy, strength but stupidity, "the strength of stone, and flesh of brass," Job 6:12. When Gallienus the emperor had lost the kingdom of Egypt, What? said he, Sine lino Egyptio esse non possumus? cannot we be without the hemp of Egypt? but shortly after he was slain with the sword. When the Turks had taken two castles in Chersonesus, and so first got footing in Europe, the proud Greeks said that there was but a hog’s sty lost, alluding to the name of the castle. But that foolish laughter was turned within a while into most bitter tears. When Calais was lost under Queen Mary, those of the faction strove to allay the Queen’s grief, saying that it was only a refuge for runaway heretics, and that no Roman Catholic ought to deplore, but rather rejoice, at the damage:
At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura,
Vulnus alit venis-
Nor faint when thou art rebuked] If we faint in the day of adversity, our strength is small, saith Solomon, Pro 24:10; and it is, Non quia dura, sed quia molles patimur, saith Seneca; not for that we suffer hard things, but because we are too soft that suffer them. As is the man, so is his strength, said they to Gideon, Jdg 8:21. Joseph’s bow abode in strength, even when the iron entered into his soul, Gen 49:24; and Job’s stroke was heavier than his groaning, Job 23:2. Invalidum omne natura querelum, saith Seneca: It is a weakness to be ever whining. See my Love Tokens.
{a} Legenda haec sunt cum interrogatione. Pisc.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain And ye have forgotten; eklelhsye, whether rendered interrogatively: have…
And ye have forgotten; eklelhsye, whether rendered interrogatively: have ye forgotten? Or positively: ye have forgotten; either way it carrieth a check upon their forgetfulness of what was of the greatest importance for them to remember in the time of persecutions, and implieth a direction of them to their duty, that they ought to remember the counsel or command given by God to them, how to interpret these persecutions for Christ and the gospel, and how to improve them; and so introduceth a further help to their rnnning of the race of God with patience.
The exhortation; paraklhsewv notes properly consolation, and is here a consolatory exhortation to the management of a duty which would be highly such to them, and a dehortation from an evil which would greatly prejudice them; when it is said to speak, it is a metonymy of the effect for the efficient; the Lord in the exhortation speaking this to them.
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Which speaketh unto you as unto children: these words were written by Solomon, from God unto his children in that time; and God speaks no less by him to these Hebrews, who were his children now, as to all others who are such, or should be such, children to him. And whereas it is spoken singularly:
My son, it is to every child of God in Christ Jesus, and so collectively includeth all of them.
Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord: the dehortation is written in Pro 3:11, that not one of these children should care little for, or set light by, denying all regardlessness, senselessness of, and incorrigibleness under, such smart correction as a parent gives to a child, either by himself, or by any other to whose care it is committed; but this chastening is from the Lord, the most gracious and tender Father, who can do them no evil, and will profit and benefit them by it. As they come from their persecutors for the sake of Christ, they are injuries; but as ordered by God their Father, they are so many favours to them, preventing sin, preserving in duty, and preparing them for blessedness.
Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; nor to nauseate his rebukes, or to faint under them; neither to let our faith or hope in our Father fail, nor to sink in our love to him, his way, or truth, or religion; nor to be weary, and give over our course, because of persecutions, but continuing faithful to him to the end, Heb 12:14,15; Mt 10:22; Luk 22:28,29.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain As if he had said, "By growing weary and…
As if he had said, "By growing weary and faint in your minds, you will plainly show and evidently declare, that you have forgotten that exhortation which God gives, Proverbs 3." The want of a diligent consideration and due remembrance of God’s promises, recorded in scripture for our encouragement unto duty, and support under difficulties, is very sinful, and of dangerous consequence unto our souls. Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you,-
Note here, 1. A sweet and endearing compellation, My son.
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Learn hence, That good men, when under the greatest trials and heaviest afflictions, are God’s sons; he calls them sons, and he deals with them as with sons.
Note, 2. The nature of the saints’ afflictions declared; not judgments, out chastisements, and fatherly rebukes; the original word signifies such a correction as a father gives a child for his instruction, and bringing him to a sense of his duty.
Learn hence, That all the afflictions which God lays upon his children are not the effects of his vindictive anger, but the fruits and effects of his paternal love.
Note, 3. A cautionary direction given against two very dangerous extremes in the time of affliction, namely, despising correction, and fainting under it. It is the duty, and ought to be the endeavour, of all the children of God, when under his fatherly hand, to take care that they neither despise his chastisements, nor faint under them.
When God has taken away one of our comforts, to say, "Let him take all if he will; if my children must die, let if he will; if my children must die, let them die; if my estate must go, let it go;" -this is to despise. God cannot bear to see us bear his hand thus lightly.
The other extreme is fainting: If when goods are taken away, the heart is taken away, and whe relations die, the spirit of a person dies with them: Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint, &c.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And ye have forgotten the exhortation,.... Or consolation, the…
And ye have forgotten the exhortation,.... Or consolation, the consolatory word or doctrine, in Pro 3:11. This, by their conduct, the apostle feared they had forgotten, and therefore puts them in mind of it; or it may be read by way of question, "and have ye forgotten?", &c. do not ye remember? it would be right to call it to mind:
which speaketh unto you as unto children; not as the children of Solomon, but as the children of God, or of Christ, the wisdom of God: here, by a prosopopeia, the word of exhortation is introduced as a person speaking,
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my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord; by which is meant, not vindictive punishment; this would not be speaking to them, nor dealing with them as children, and would be contrary to the love of God towards them; besides, chastisement in this sense has been upon Christ for them, and it would be unjust to lay it on them again; but a fatherly correction is designed, and which is given in love by God, as a Father, and for the instruction of his children, as the word used signifies: and it is called not the chastening of men, but of the Lord; every chastening, or afflictive providence, is appointed by God, and is looked upon by believers, when grace is in exercise, as coming from him; and it is directed, and governed, and limited by him, and is overruled by him for his own glory, and their good: and this is not to be despised, as something nauseous and loathsome, or as not useful and unprofitable, or as insignificant and unworthy of notice, but should be esteemed for the good ends, which are sometimes answered, by it:
nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; God has various ways of rebuking, reproving, and convincing, sometimes by his Spirit, sometimes by his word and ministers, and sometimes by afflictive providences; by these he rebukes his people for their sins, convinces them of them, and brings them to acknowledgment and confession; he makes them hereby sensible of their duty, in which they have been remiss, and brings them to a more constant and fervent discharge of it; he reproves them for, and convinces of their folly in trusting in the creature, or loving it too much, and of every wrong way they have been walking in; and these rebukes are not in a way of wrath, but love, and therefore saints should not faint at them: there are two extremes they are apt to run into, under such a dispensation; either to take no notice, and make light of an affliction, or else to be overwhelmed by it, and sink under it; both are guarded against in this exhortation.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain And yet ye seem already to have forgotten the…
And yet ye seem already to have forgotten the exhortation - Wherein God speaketh to you with the utmost tenderness. Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord - Do not slight or make little of it; do not impute any affliction to chance or second causes but see and revere the hand of God in it. Neither faint when thou art rebuked of him - But endure it patiently and fruitfully. Pro iii, 11, &c.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 5. And ye have forgotten] Or, have ye…
Verse 5. And ye have forgotten] Or, have ye forgotten the exhortation? This quotation is made from Pr 3:11-12, and shows that the address there, which at first sight appears to be from Solomon to his son, or from some fatherly man to a person in affliction, is properly from God himself to any person in persecution, affliction, or distress.
Despise not thou the chastening] Μη ολιγωρει παιδειας Κυριου· Do not neglect the correction of the Lord. That man neglects correction, and profits not by it, who does not see the hand of God in it; or, in other words, does not fear the rod and him who hath appointed it, and, consequently, does not humble himself under the mighty hand of God, deplore his sin, deprecate Divine judgment, and pray for mercy.
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Nor faint] Do not be discouraged nor despair, for the reasons immediately alleged.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Heb 12:5-8. And ye have forgotten, &c. — As…
Heb 12:5-8. And ye have forgotten, &c. — As if he had said, If you faint it will appear you have forgotten, the exhortation — Wherein God speaks to you with the utmost tenderness; as unto his own dear children, saying, My son, despise not thou — Do not slight or make light of; the chastening of the Lord — Do not impute it to chance or to second causes, but see and revere the hand of God in it; account it a great mercy, and improve it; nor faint, and sink, when thou art rebuked of him — But endure it patiently and fruitfully, avoiding the extremes of proud insensibility and entire dejection. For — All such dispensations spring from love; therefore neither despise them nor faint under them; whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth — Or correcteth for their faults, in order to their amendment; and that he may try, exercise, and thereby increase their faith, hope, love, resignation, patience, meekness, and other graces; and that he may purify them by such fires, as gold and silver are purged in the furnace from their dross. And scourgeth — With seeming severity; every son whom he receiveth — Into his peculiar favour. See note on Pro 3:11-12, &c. If ye endure, &c. — If God correct you, and cause you to endure chastening, he dealeth with you as wise and affectionate parents deal with their beloved sons; for what son is he whom the father — Namely, the person who performs the duty of a father; chasteneth not — More or less? There are scarce any children who do not sometimes need correction, and no wise and good parent will always forbear it. But if ye be without chastisement — “If ye pass your lives without experiencing sickness of any kind, or worldly losses, or affliction in your families, or death of children, or injuries from your neighbours, or any of the other troubles to which the children of God are exposed, certainly you are treated by your heavenly Father as bastards, and not as sons.” Ye are not owned by God for his children.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And ye have forgotten the exhortation - This exhortation…
And ye have forgotten the exhortation - This exhortation is found in Pro 3:11-12. The object of the apostle in introducing it here is, to show that afflictions were designed on the part of God to produce some happy effects in the lives of his people, and that they ought, therefore, to bear them patiently. In the previous verses, he directs them to the example of the Saviour. In this verse and the following, for the same object he directs their attention to the design of trials, showing that they are necessary to our welfare, and that they are in fact proof of the paternal care of God. This verse might be rendered as a question. “And have ye forgotten?” etc. This mode of rendering it will agree somewhat better with the design of the apostle.
Which speaketh, unto you - Which may be regarded as addressed to you; or which involves a principle as applicable to you as to others. He does not mean that when Solomon used the words, he had reference to them particularly, but that he used them with reference to the children of God, and they might therefore be applied to them. in this way we may regard the language of the Scriptures as addressed to us.
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As unto children - As if he were addressing children. The language is such as a father uses.
My son - It is possible that in these words Solomon may have intended to address a son literally, giving him paternal counsel; or he may have spoken as the Head of the Jewish people, designing to address all the pious, to whom he sustained, as it were, the relation of a father. Or, it is possible also, that it may be regarded as the language of God himself addressing his children. Whichever supposition is adopted, the sense is substantially the same.
Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord - Literally, “Do not regard it as a small matter, or as a trivial thing - ὀλιγώρει oligōrei. The Greek word used here does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. The word rendered here “chastening” - παιδεία paideia - and also in Heb 12:6-8, and in Heb 12:9, “corrected” - παιδευτὰς paideutas - does not refer to affliction in general, but that kind of affliction which is designed to correct us for our faults, or which is of the nature of discipline. The verb properly relates to the training up of a child - including instruction, counsel, discipline, and correction (see this use of the verb in Act 7:22; 2Ti 2:25; Tit 2:12), and then especially discipline or correction for faults - to “correct, chastise, chasten;” 1Co 11:32; 2Co 6:9; Rev 3:19. This is the meaning here; and the idea is, not that God will afflict his people in general, but that if they wander away he will correct them for their faults. He will bring calamity upon them as a punishment for their offences, and in order to bring them back to himself. He will not suffer them to wander away unrebuked and unchecked, but will mercifully reclaim them though by great sufferings. Afflictions have many objects, or produce many happy effects. That referred to here is, that they are means of reclaiming the wandering and erring children of God, and are proofs of his paternal care and love; compare 2Sa 7:14; 2Sa 12:13-14; Psa 89:31-34; Pro 3:11-12. Afflictions, which are always sent by God, should not be regarded as small matters, for these reasons:
The fact that they are sent by God. Whatever he does is of importance, and is worthy of the profound attention of people.
(2)They are sent for some important purpose, and they should be regarded, therefore, with attentive concern.
Men “despise” them when:
(1)They treat them with affected or real unconcern;
(2)When they fail to receive them as divine admonitions, and regard them as without any intelligent design; and,
(3)When they receive them with “expressions” of contempt, and speak of them and of the government of God with scorn.
It should be a matter of deep concern when we are afflicted in any manner, not to treat the matter lightly, but to derive from our trials all the lessons which they are adapted to produce on the mind.
Nor faint ... - Bear up patiently under them. This is the second duty. We are first to study their character and design; and secondly, to bear up under them, however severe they may be, and however long they may be continued. “Avoid the extremes of proud insensibility and entire dejection” - Doddridge.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain You have forgotten the consolation, &c. He puts them…
You have forgotten the consolation, &c. He puts them in mind, that it ought to be a subject of great comfort to them, that God calls them his children, his sons, and treats them as his true and legitimate children, when he admonished them to live under the discipline and obedience to him, when, to correct their disobedient and sinful ways, he sends the afflictions and persecutions in this world, which they ought to look upon as marks of his fatherly tenderness; for this is what a prudent kind father does to his legitimate children, of whom he takes the greatest care: and not to use these corrections, is to neglect them, as if they were [3]illegitimate children. We reverence the father of our flesh, (ver. 10.) our parents in this world, when they instruct and correct us, how much more ought we to obey the Father and Creator of spirits, (i.e. of our souls) that being truly sanctified by him, we may live and obtain life everlasting. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
adulterini, non germani filii.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain forgotten--"utterly," so the Greek. Compare Heb 12:15-17, in which…
forgotten--"utterly," so the Greek. Compare Heb 12:15-17, in which he implies how utterly some of them had forgotten God's word. His exhortation ought to have more effect on you than the cheers and exhortations of the spectators have on the competitors striving in the games.
which--Greek, "the which," of which the following is a specimen [ALFORD].
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speaketh unto you--as in a dialogue or discourse, so the Greek, implying God's loving condescension (compare Isa 1:18).
despise not--literally, "Do not hold of little account." Betraying a contumacious spirit of unbelief (Heb 3:12), as "faint" implies a broken-down, weak, and desponding spirit. "Chastening" is to be borne with "subjection" (Heb 12:9); "rebuke" (more severe than chastening) is to be borne with endurance (Heb 12:7). "Some in adversity kick against God's will, others despond; neither is to be done by the Christian, who is peculiarly the child of God. To him such adverse things occur only by the decree of God, and that designed in kindness, namely, to remove the defilements adhering to the believer, and to exercise his patience" [GROTIUS].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 5. Ye have forgotten—Perhaps this is truly a question:…
5. Ye have forgotten—Perhaps this is truly a question: have ye forgotten? It then becomes a gentle, yet reproving reminder.
Children—Greek, sons.
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Chastening—Inflictions intended to reform, not to punish with irrevocable retribution. The good are disciplined, the incorrigible are vindicatively punished. When we suffer let us remember our sins, and be submissive. But our author puts it better even than this. When we suffer let us see in it a proof of our divine sonship, a promise of our own improvement, and rejoice.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 5. And ye have forgotten] “Yet ye have utterly…
5. And ye have forgotten] “Yet ye have utterly forgotten,” or possibly the words may be intended interrogatively “Yet have ye utterly forgotten?”
the exhortation] “the encouragement,” or “strengthening consolation.”
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speaketh] “discourseth,” or “reasoneth” (dialegetai).
My son …] The quotation is from Pro_3:11-12, and is taken mainly from the LXX. There is a very similar passage in Job_5:17, and Philo, de Congr. quaerend. erudit. gr. (Opp. i. 544).
despise not] “Regard not lightly.”
the chastening] Rather, “the training.”
nor faint …] In the Hebrew it is “and loathe not His correction.”
rebuked] Rather, “tested,” “corrected.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (5) In this cowardly avoidance of trouble and persecution…
(5) In this cowardly avoidance of trouble and persecution they have been shrinking from that chastening which every son receives from the Lord.
Which speaketh unto you.—Better, which holds converse (or, reasoneth) with you as with sons. The words which follow are taken from Pro_3:11-12, and agree with the text of the LXX., except that for “son” we have “my son,” and for “reproveth” (Heb_12:6) “chasteneth.” In the original passage Solomon is the speaker, and it is the second verse only that speaks of God’s fatherly love. It may be so here also, but the exhortation of the Scripture seems to be quoted as if spoken directly by God Himself to His sons.
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Despise.—Better, think not lightly of. In the next clause the Hebrew (“and loathe not His correction”) denotes rather a spirit that rejects and chafes under divine discipline. As the words are found here, they point to losing heart and hope.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 5, 6. And ye have forgotten (or, have…
Vers. 5, 6. And ye have forgotten (or, have ye forgotten?) the exhortation which speaketh unto you (more correctly, discourses, or reasons, with you; i.e. in the way of fatherly remonstrance) as unto children, My son, etc. This verse introduces a further motive for persevering under prolonged trial, viz. our being assured in Holy Writ of its beneficial purpose as discipline. The quotation is from Pro_3:11, Pro_3:12, as it is in the LXX We observe that the word "faint" (ekluou) is the same as was used in ver. 3. In the seventh and following verses this scriptural admonition is applied and commented on.
Vers. 5, 6. Divine discipline. "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, etc. Our subject is Divine discipline. Let us notice
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I ITS CHARACTER. Three words are used to express it chastening," "scourging." The last two seem to be used synonymously here. Archbishop Trench points out that rebuke" and "to chasten" are often found together, but they are very capable of being distinguished. "To rebuke" is so to rebuke that the person is brought to the acknowledgment of his fault is convinced, as David was when rebuked by Nathan." (2Sa_12:13) The word translated to "chasten," "being in classical Greek to instruct, to educate, is in sacred Greek to instruct or educate by means of correction, through the severe discipline of love." The object of the discipline is to deliver the subjects of it from sin, to establish them in the faith, and to perfect them in holiness. The means of the discipline are afflictions, persecutions, and trials. And it may be administered by the enemies of the Church of Christ. The persecutions of man may be the discipline of God. "Persecution for religion is sometimes a correction and rebuke for the sins of professors of religion. Men persecute them because they are religious; God chastises them because they are not more so: men persecute them because they wilt not give up their profession; God chastises them because they have not lived up to their profession.
II ITS AUTHOR. The chastening of the Lord .... Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." Some of our trials are from his hand. He is the great Husbandman, and he prunes the vines that they may bring forth more fruit. The trials which are not sent by him are permitted by him. (cf. Job_1:12 2Co_12:7) And he gives to all our trials their disciplinary character. He makes the bitter potion medicinal. By his blessing our sufferings become salutary, and our sorest afflictions our sagest instructors. The fact that the Lord is the Author of our discipline, that our trials either proceed from him or are permitted and regulated by him, supplies a guarantee that we shall not be tried beyond our strength. He is infinite in wisdom and in love. "He knoweth our frame;" and he will either restrict our trials so that they exceed not our strength, or increase our strength until it surpasses the severity of our trials. "He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind." "I will correct thee in measure." "Though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies." "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
III ITS SUBJECTS. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
1. They are filially related to him. "Every son" of his he subjects to reproof and chastisement. "God has one Son without sin, but none without suffering." If we are his sons, we may rest assured that he will not fail to secure to us the discipline that we need. Thus our sufferings may be an evidence of our sonship.
2. They are beloved by him. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." Because he loves us he corrects us. It has been well said, that lawns which we would keep in the best condition are very frequently mown; the grass has scarcely any respite from the scythe. Out in the meadows there is no such repeated cutting; they are mown but once or twice in the year. Even thus the nearer we are to God, and the more regard he has for us, the more frequent will be our adversities. To be very dear to God involves no small degree of chastisement.
IV ITS RECEPTION. "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord," etc.
1. It should not be deemed unimportant. "Regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord." "We may be said to despise the chastening of the Lord," says Dr. Wardlaw, "in the following eases:
(1) When it is not felt; when there is a want of natural sensibility to the particular stroke of the rod. This is but rare. Men in general are quite sufficiently alive to the value of temporal things. But the value is comparative. There are cherished and favorite possessions, and others less highly thought of, less fondly held. The Lord, it may be, deals gently. He spares the "gourd." He does not take what is most highly set by. And instead of humbly owning the kindness being lowly and submissive, and seeking a blessing on the gentle stroke, that the heavier one may be withheld the preservation and safety of the greater produces insensibility to the privation of the less; and the correction is thus disregarded, and proves inefficient.
(2) When it is not duly felt as from God.
(3) When, although God is seen in it and his hand is felt, it is not felt humbly and submissively; not bowed to, but resisted.
(4) When the design or end of correction is not laid to heart.
2. It should not be deemed intolerable. Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him." We are not to sink under the reproofs and strokes of the Divine discipline, though they be severe. The fact that our trials are regulated by our Father"s hand, that they are educational, that they are intended and adapted to promote our spiritual and eternal well-being, should keep us from sinking beneath their pressure. The tears we shed are not in vain; Nor worthless is the heavy strife; If, like the buried seed of grain, They rise to renovated life. It is through tears our spirits grow Tis in the tempest souls expand, If it but teaches us to go To him who holds it in his hand. Oh, welcome, then, the stormy blast! Oh, welcome, then, the ocean"s roar! Ye only drive more sure and fast Our trembling bark to heaven"s bright shore. (T. C. Upham.) W. J.
Vers. 5-10. God"s discipline of his children.
Continually in the New Testament, when we get into circumstances of doubt and pain, we are brought back to the rich truth and comfort to be found in the fatherhood of God. Here, as elsewhere, fortiori argument is employed. If an earthly father, being evil, gives good gifts to his children, how much more will the heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them asking him? And even so, if an earthly father disciplines his children, making them do and bear many hard things that they may grow into a useful manhood, how much more will the heavenly Father make his children to suffer hardness that they may be fit to run in the way of his commandments hereafter?
I HOW A BRIGHT SIDE MAY BE FOUND TO SUFFERING. They were evidently a sadly tried community to whom this letter was written. What shall be done to comfort and encourage them? In the fourth verse there is a very common and not altogether useless ground of comfort suggested. Things are bad, no doubt, but they might be worse. "You have to suffer a good deal in resisting sin, but not yet have you resisted to blood." This view of suffering, however, useful as it is for the moment, soon leads on to the question, "Why should others suffer, or seem to suffer, more than I?" And so the writer quickly turns to bid his friends remember that they are the children of God, and if they only recollect their character and destiny, and live under the ever-deepening influence of this recollection, then they will see that nothing can do them abiding harm. All the comfort of the exhortation passes away, unless it mingles with the assurance of the Spirit bearing witness with our spirits that we are indeed the children of God. Suffering must cast an ever-thickening gloom upon the heart unless the hopes of a child of God come in to shed abroad an amply countervailing light.
II THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT SUFFERING LAYS UPON US. It is a serous thing for one who reckons himself a Christian to pass through suffering and difficulty. He is expected to be the better for it all. If he uses it aright, according to the wisdom communicated from above, then assuredly he will emerge front it with a purified heart and a clearer spiritual vision. The first rule is that suffering is to be escaped if possible. But if it cannot be escaped, it must not merely be endured. It must be received as an agent of God"s will in making us better and more capable children. Hence the plain truth that we shall be held responsible for all we have had in the way of pain.
III THE USE GOD CAN MAKE OF HUMAN WICKEDNESS. Those here sought to be comforted were evidently suffering persecution. This is distinctly suggested in the expression "striving against sin." And thus it is made manifest how the discipline comes in. Much suffering could have been escaped by yielding to the temptation of compromise, or of total retreat from the Christian"s position. Little do the enemies of Christ imagine the service they render his true people by the demonstrations of hostility. We are forced to a firmer grasp of truth and to a more penetrating and exact estimate of our spiritual possessions. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord
Heb_12:5-6
Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord
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How to bear afflictions
The proposition that ariseth from the words is this: It is the duty and best wisdom of afflicted Christians to preserve themselves from the vicious extremes of despising the Schastenings of the Lord, or fainting under them.
I. To DESPISE THE CHASTENINGS OF THE LORD, imports the making no account of them, as unworthy of serious regard, and includes inconsiderateness of mind, and an insensibleness of heart.
1. Inconsiderateness of mind with respect to the Author or end of chastenings.
(1) With respect to the Author. When the afflicted looks only downwards, as if the rod of affliction sprang out of the dust (Job_5:6), and therewere no superior cause that sent it.
(2) Inconsiderateness of the end of the Divine discipline is a great degree of contempt. The evils that God inflicts are as real a part of His providence as the blessings He bestows; as in the course of nature the darkness of the night is by His order, as well as the light of the day; therefore they are always sent for some wise and holy design. Sometimes, though more rarely, they are only for trial, to exercise the faith, humility, patience of eminent saints; for otherwise God would lose in a great measure the honour, and His favourites the reward, of those graces--afflictions being the sphere of their activity. But for the most part they are castigatory, to bring us to a sight and sense of our state, to render sin more evident and odious to us.
2. Insensibility of heart is an eminent degree of despising the Lords chastenings. A pensive feeling of judgments is very congruous, whether we consider them either materially as afflictive to nature, or as the signs of Divine displeasure: for the affections were planted in the human nature by the hand of God Himself, and are duly exercised in proportion to the quality of their objects; and when grace comes, it softens the breast, and gives a quick and tender sense of Gods frown.
II. THE CAUSES OF THE DESPISING OF GODS CHASTENINGS.
1. A contracted stupidity of soul, proceeding from a course in sin.
2. Carnal diversions. The pleasures and cares of the world, as they render men inapprehensive of judgments to come, so regardless of those that are present (Luk_21:34).
3. An obstinate fierceness of spirit, a diabolical fortitude. Their hearts are of an anvil-temper, made harder by afflictions, and reverberate the blow; like that Roman emperor, who, instead of humbling and reforming at Gods voice in thunder, thundered back again.
III. I shall proceed to consider the other extreme, of FAINTING UNDER GODS REBUKES.
1. The original word signifies the slackening and relaxing of things that were firmly joined together.
2. It may respect the sinking and falling away of the soul like water, being hopeless of overcoming troubles. When water is frozen into hard ice it will bear a great burden; but when it is melted, nothing is weaker: so the spirit of a man, confirmed by religious principles, is able to sustain all his infirmities (Pro_18:14).
3. The causes of this despondency are usually
(1) Either the kind of affliction. When there is a singularity in the case, it increaseth the apprehension of Gods displeasure, because it may signify an extraordinary guilt in the person that suffers; and upon that account the sorrow swells so high as to overwhelm him.
(2) The number and degrees of afflictions. When, like those black clouds which in winter days join together, and quite intercept the beams of the sun, many troubles meet at once, and deprive us of all present comfort.
(3) The continuance of afflictions. When the clouds return after rain, and the life is a constant scene of sorrows, we are apt to be utterly dejected and hopeless of good.
(4) The comparing their great sufferings with the prosperity of these who are extremely vicious, inclines some to despair.
IV. TO PROVE THAT IT IS THE DUTY AND WISDOM OF THE AFFLICTED NOT TO DESPISE THE CHASTENINGS OF THE LORD, NOR TO FAINT UNDER THEM.
1. It is their duty carefully to avoid those extremes, because they are very dishonourable to God.
(1) The contempt of chastisements is a high profanation of Gods honour, who is our Father and Sovereign, and in that quality afflicts us.
(2) Fainting under chastenings reflects dishonourably upon God.
2. It is the best wisdom not to despise Gods chastenings, nor faint under them.
(1) The contempt of chastenings deprives us of ill those benefits which were intended by them.
(2) The neglect of chastenings doth not only render them unprofitable but exposes to greater evils.
(a) It provokes God to withdraw His judgments for a time. This the sinner desired, and thinks himself happy that he is at ease. Miserable delusion l This respite is the presage of his final ruin.
(b) The slighting of lighter strokes provokes God sometimes to bring more dreadful judgments in this life upon sinners. No man can endure that his love or anger should be despised.
(3) Faintings under chastenings is pernicious to sufferers.
(a) It renders them utterly indisposed for the performance of duty. He that is hopeless of a good issue out of troubles, will neither repent nor pray nor reform, but indulges barren tears instead of real duties. Besides, it often falls out, that the same affliction is sent from Gods displeasure upon His people for their sins, and is the effect of the rage of men against them upon the account of their professing His name.
(b) They are incapable of the comforts proper to an afflicted state. Those arise from the apprehension that God loves whom lie chastens Rev_3:19); for the least sin is a greater evil than the greatest trouble, and His design is to take that away; and from the expectation of a happy issue. Hope is the anchor within the veil, that in the midst of storms and the roughest seas preserves from shipwreck. USE. The use shall be to excite us to those duties that are directly contrary to the extremes forbidden; namely, to demean ourselves under the chastenings of the Lord with a deep reverence and humble fear of His displeasure, and with a firm hope and dependence upon Him for a blessed issue upon our complying with His holy will.
USE
I. With a humble reverence of His hand. This temper is absolutely necessary and most congruous with respect to God, upon the account of His sovereignty, justice, and goodness, declared in His chastenings; and with respect to our frailty, our dependence upon Him, our obnoxiousness to His law, and our obligations to Him that He will please to afflict us for our good.
USE
II. Let us always preserve a humble dependence and firm hope on God for a blessed issue out of all our troubles.
1. The relation God sustains when He afflicts believers. He is a Judge invested with the quality of a Father.
2. It is a strong cordial against fainting to consider that, by virtue of the paternal relation, He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. For no troubles are more afflictive and stinging than those that are unexpected. Now when we are assured that there is no son whom the Father doth not chasten, we are less surprised and less troubled when we meet with crosses.
3. The apostle represents the special prerogative of God as the Father of spirits (verse 9). As a prudent physician consults the strength of the patient as well as the quality of the disease, and proportions his medicine; so all the bitter ingredients, their mixture and measure, are dispensed by the wise prescription of God, according to the degrees of strength that are in His people.
4. The apostle specifies the immediate end of God in His chastenings. God is pleased to fashion us according to His image by afflictions, as a statue is cut by the artificer, to bring it into a beautiful form. He is pleased to bring us into divers temptations to try our faith, to work in us patience, to inflame our prayers, to mortify our carnal desires, to break those voluntary hands whereby we are fettered to the earth, &c. (Wm. Bates, D. D.)
The Lords chastening
I. DESPISE NOT THOU THE CHASTENING OF THE LORD. YOU are guilty of this
1. When you shut your eyes to the Author of your affliction. Everything that takes place in the whole universe comes to pass either by His direct appointment, or by His equally direct permission.
2. When you inquire not the cause of your affliction. God does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. If therefore He sends chastisement upon you there must be some adequate cause, which you are bound to search out and discover.
3. When you resist the design of your affliction. You have long, perhaps, been convinced that you ought to forsake sin, and turn wholly to the Lord. But sin has still kept its hold on you; and you have resisted the conviction of your conscience. At length, then, God interrupts your comforts-pours contempt upon your idols; or He comes even closer--chastises you with bodily sickness, sorrow, and pain.
II. FAINT NOT WHEN THOU ART REBUKED OF HIM.
1. Although God be the Author of your sorrows, it is as a Father that He sends them. All is not against you. Your heavenly Father is for you, and, if you trust Him, will make these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
2. Although sin be the cause of year sorrows, yet those sorrows are not the special penalty of sin. They may distress and scorch you, but you are not tormented in this flame. Earth is not hell! Your Father is correcting you rather than punishing you.
3. Although conversion be the design of your sorrows, yet, it, was never intended that these should be, the only meads used by the Lord; and that you should be left, to do all the rest. The very expression, when thou art, rebuked, implies that other methods are also employed. He gives grace for grace--a Saviour to pardon-a Spirit to heal--promises to encourage and save your soul. (J. Jowett, M. A.)
Chastisement;
There are two dangers against which a person under the chastising hand of God should always be very careful to keep a careful look out. The one is despising the rod, and the other is fainting under it. We will begin with the first; My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.
I. THIS MAY BE DONE IN FIVE WAYS; AND IN DISCUSSING THE SUBJECT I SHALL PROPOSE THE REMEDY FOR EACH OF THESE AS WE PASS ALONG.
1. A man may despise the chastening of the Lord when he mumurs at it. Ephraim is like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; when a son of God first feels the rod he is like a bullock--he kicks at it, he cannot bear it. A want of resignation shows that we despise Gods chastening hand. A word with thee, O murmurer! Why shouldst thou murmur against the dispensations of thy heavenly Father? Hast thou not read that amongst the Roman emperors of old it was the custom when they would set a slave at liberty, to give him a blow upon the head and then say, Go free? This blow which thy Father gives thee is a token of thy liberty, and dost thou grumble because tie smites thee rather hardly? After all, are not Ills strokes fewer than thy crimes, and lighter than thy guilt?
2. We despise the chastening of the Lord when we say there is no use in it. It is always a providence when it is a good thing. But why is it not a providence when it does not happen to be just as we please? Surely it is so; for if the one thing be ordered by God, so is the other. It is written, I create light and I create darkness, I create good and I make evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. But I question whether that is not despising the chastening of the Lord when we set a prosperous providence before an adverse one; for I do think theft an adverse providence ought to be the cause of as much thankfulness as a prosperous one.
3. There is a third way in which men despise the chastening of the Lord, that is--we may think it dishouourable to be chastened by God. How many men have thought it dishonourable to be persecuted for righteousness sake! But, my son, thou dost not weigh the blessing rightly. I tell thee it is the glory of a man to be chastened for Gods sake. Now you who faint under a little trouble, and despise the chastening of the Lord, let me encourage you in this way. My son, despise not the persecution. Remember how many men have borne it. What an honour it is to suffer for Christs sake! because the crown of martyrdom has been worn by many heads better than thine.
4. Again, in the fourth place, we despise the chastening of the Lord when we do not earnestly seek to amend by it. Many a man has been corrected by God, and that correction has been in vain. Take heed if God is trying you, theft you search and find out the reason. Are the consolations of God small with you? Then there is some reason for it. I have sometimes walked a mile or two, almost limping along, because there was a stone in my shoe, and I did not stop to look for it. And many a Christian goes limping for years because of the stones in his shoe, but if he would only stop to look at them, he would be relieved. What is the sin that is causing you pain? Get it out, and take away the sin, for if you do not, you have not regarded this admonition which speaketh unto you as unto sons--My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord
5. Once more: we despise the chastening of the Lord when we despise those that God chastens.
II. The second evil is this: NOR FAINT WHEN THOU ART REBUKED OF HIM.
1. The first way of fainting is when we give up all exertion under the rod.
2. Again, the man faints when he doubts whether he is a child of God under chastisement. Remember the passage: If we be not partakers of chastisement then are we bastards, and not sons. Say not He has forgotten thee, but look upon thy trial as a proof of His love. Cecil once called on his friend Williams, and the servant said he could not see him because he was in great trouble, Then I would rather see him, said Cecil; and Williams, hearing it was his old pastor, said, Show him up. Up he went, and there stood poor Williams, his eyes suffused with tears, his heart almost broken, his dear child was dying: Thank God, said Cecil; 1 have been anxious about you for some time; you have been so prosperous and successful in everything that I was afraid my Father bad forgotten you; but I know He recollects you now. I do not wish to see your child full of pain and dying; but I am glad to think my Father has not forgotten you. Three weeks after that Williams could see the truth of it, though it seemed a harsh saying at first.
3. Again, many persons faint by fancying that they shall never get out of their trouble. Three long months, says one, have I striven against this sad trouble which overwhelms me, and I have been unable to escape it. For this year, says another, I have wrestled with God in prayer that He would deliver me out of this whirlpool but deliverance has never come, and I am almost inclined to give the matter up. I thought He kept His promises, and would deliver those who called upon Him, but He has not delivered me now, and He never will. What! child of God, talk thus of thy Father! say He will never leave off smiting because He has smitten thee so long? Rather say, He must have smitten me long enough now, and I shall soon have deliverance. Say not thou canst escape. The fetters on thy hands may not be broken by thy feeble fingers, but the hammer of the Almighty can break them in a moment. Let them be laid on the anvil of Providence and be smitten by the hand of Omnipotence, and then they shall be scattered to the winds. Up, man! up. Like Samson, grasp the pillars of thy troubles and pull down the house of thine affliction about the heads of thy sins, and thou thyself shalt come out more than conqueror. Let me ask those who are afflicted and have no religion, where they get their comfort from. The Christian derives it from the fact that he is a son of God, and he knows that the affliction is for his good. But what does the worldling do when he loses his wife, when his children are taken away, when his health departs and he himself is nigh unto death? I leave him to answer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The aim of Divine chastisement
Whom He loves, He loves so much that He will not let them abide in the lower parts of their nature. He will rout them out; He will drive them up. Whom He loves He means to make more of. He means to ennoble them. A king ennobles a man by putting a crown on his head: but God ennobles men by putting dispositions in their hearts. Whom He loves He chastens and scourges. That is very severe. A man may be chastised with small whips, but no man is scourged except with cord, laid on with soldiers hands. It is a horrible operation. God both chastens and scourges men, and all because He loves them. Wonderful love that is! and yet it is just your love. You have not a child whose body is worth more to you than his mind. No child of yours ever told a lie under circumstances of great baseness, that you did not feel rising against him an utter indignation, not because you hated the child, but because you loved him. All your identification with the child pleads for punishment. You said, It is my child, and he is not worthy of me; and he shall be worthy of me. As I was reading, For they--that is, our parents--verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. Great pleasure they had in it, if they felt as I did! I would rather be whipped any time than whip my children. And when my father used to say, Henry, I do not want to do it, I used to say to myself, What under heaven do you do it for then? I did not want to be whipped; and if he did not want to whip me, it seemed to me a very unnecessary ceremony! But when I became a father, I felt that nothing in the world was more true. When I had children to bring up, they so far inherited my nature that they deserved to be whipped often, and they got their deserts! It was true that I would rather have taken five blows than to have given one; and yet I put it on to them. And I remembered the precept, What your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Do not you know what that is? Are you not familiar with both sides of the experience? Paul says, We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He--God--for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. Here is the end that God is driving at continually, by such a grand sympathy, by such a tender personal connection with us, by such a constant interference and meddling with all that belongs to us, that we shall not be thralled in lusts and the lower parts of our nature, and depart from His will, and inherit the final remuneration; but that we shall escape, and go up and be made partakers of the Divine nature. (H. W. Beecher.)
Faint not when rebuked
1. To faint when we as rebuked is to lose self-possession, or to be so overwrought, or overwhelmed with the trial, that we grow insensible to its nature, its extent, its punishment.
2. To faint when we are rebuked is under the pressure of the sorrow, to relax any duty--for praise or love--and especially to let go our holy confidences, and to take the eye off Jesus.
3. To faint when we are rebuked is to grow weary on account of its length, and not to let patience have her perfect work. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Submission under loss:
When John Flavel lost his wife and child in one day--root and branch cut off together--he acknowledged the bitterness of the cup, but said there was not a drop of injustice in it. Under the severest losses the Marquis de Renty was wont to go to his chamber, and drop on his knees to thank God that not his own but the Lords will was done.
Submission:
Stonewall Jackson was once asked, Suppose that these unprofitable eyes of yours, that give you so much trouble, should become suddenly blind, do you believe your serenity would remain unclouded? He paused a moment, as if to weigh fully the exact measure of every word he uttered, and then said: I am sure of it; even such a misfortune could not make me doubt the love of God. Still further to test him it was urged: Conceive, then, that besides your hopeless blindness, you were condemned to be bedridden, and racked with pain for life; you would hardly call yourself happy then? There was again the same deliberateness before he replied: Yes, I think I could; my faith in the Almighty wisdom is absolute: and why should this accident change it? Touching him upon a tender point--his impatience of anything bordering on every species of dependence--the test was pushed further. But if in addition to blindness and incurable infirmity and pain you had to receive grudging charity from those on whom you had no claim, what then? There was a strange reverence in his lifted eye, and an exalted expression over his whole face, as he replied with slow deliberateness: If it was Gods will, I think I could lie there content a hundred years! (H. O. Mackey.)
Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth
Suffering, the gift and presence of God:
This, then, is the first, most comprehensive, yet most special way, in which God is the consolation of the afflicted, that He has revealed, that sorrow is a token of His love. We have often thought perhaps, If God did but tell me that He loves me! If He has sent you sorrow or pain, He has told you that He loves you.
Suffering is in the order of our salvation; it is in order to our salvation. In the mercy of our God, it arrests the sinner; it deepens the loving sorrow of the penitent; it proves and advances the all-but-perfected. It exhibits us to ourselves; it enhances the love of our Redeemer; it is Gods instrument to make us of one mind with Himself. This, then, is the great comprehensive comfort in every ache of mind or body, that we know infallibly from Gods infallible Word that it is a token of His love. Be it disease or loss of bodily health or strength, or of clearness of intellect, the consequence of sin; be it the shame with which God filleth the face that they may seek Thy Face, O God; be it the first terror of hell, which, by Gods grace, scares the yet unconverted sinner towards the wide-open arms of Jesus on the Cross, or the last sharp pang of death, which lets the imprisoned soul go free, to meet its God for whom it yearned and fainted, we know, by Gods own Word, it is His love. Yet it is not only love, working through some fixed or some general rule of His Providence. It is something far nearer, more tender, more blessed. It is Gods own personal act. It is our Redeemers own medicinal hand. I have afflicted thee. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Happy is the man whom God correcteth. Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law. This is the deep reassuring truth, that it is not mans caprice, nor a fixed iron law, nor a combination of events, but our own God. This is the deep inward peace in every trial, that He orders each particular blow or weight of sorrow, or fretting care, or harassing discomfort or unrest, in His all-wise love, fitting each trial to our own particular temperament. He gives to each of us just our own trial, what, by His grace, will most amend us, what will bring us most to Himself, what will most draw out the good which He has implanted in us, or burn out the evil which would most estrange or ruin us. This too is not all. It is not an all-wise God, unseen, unfelt, at a distance, guiding all things in perfect wisdom for the good of each individual creature which He had made. Great were this, yea, in one sense, all; for it is His individual, infinite, personal love. He who loves us infinitely loves us individually. But this too not afar off, not only in the heaven of heavens (Psa_91:15). Trouble is the special presence of God to the Isa_43:2). He who, present with them, soothed to the three youths the flames of fire, so that they fanned softly around them, and were to them an unharming robe of glory; He who, ever-present with His disciples, then appeared to them, when the storm was at its highest, and its waves were boisterous; He, still present to the soul, now soothes to His own the fire of affliction, that, while it burns out the dross, it should not touch the soul, but should yield it pure, transfigured and translucent with the fire of love. He who baptizes with a baptism of blood, holds His own, that, although immersed and sunk deep down, the waters should not come in to the very soul itself, but should only wash away its stains through His most precious blood. Can there be more yet than the presence of God with the soul? Yes, the end of the presence is more to the soul itself than that presence itself. For it is the earnest of His abiding presence, yea, of union with God. Suffering, the due reward of our deeds, becomes, by His mercy, the means of conforming us to the Son of His love. While we suffer for our own sins, and bear about us less than their deserved chastisements, God gives us yet an outward likeness to His Cross, in that it is suffering. For on Him were laid the iniquities of us all. But we still hang, as it were, by His side; His healing compassionate look falls upon us; from His all-holy sufferings there goeth forth virtue to sanctify ours. Hence is deserved suffering by Gods mercy such a token of predestination, that it brings us near to, makes us partakers of, the sufferings of Christ. (E. B.Pusey, D. D.)
The mystery of suffering:
This, after its sort, is a kind of philosophy, a phenomenon of human experience. Everything in nature, according to the measure of its power, is happier than man. Men have been studying how to create happiness that should be unbroken in this world. They have invented a great many things, found out a great many medicines, but happiness has eluded their search. A steady flow of happiness, a soul that knows how to keep time as that watch knows how to keep time, has never been born, and does not live. We flit between light and dark blow, happiness is certainly, we may believe, the final end of creation. Whatsoever maketh a lie or causeth offence in the grand land of consummation will have been purged out, and happiness without alloy will yet be the end of every true life that by sorrow and suffering has been wrought out into the full possession of its birthright. The process or education of man in this world proceeds on the law of suffering--happiness the graduating point; suffering the academy, the seminary; and the best teachers are the teachers that inflict suffering on man. Clear down to the last vision they are highest that have been most suffering in the great school of this life. It is the law of education. Why it was made so, if you know, please instruct me. Why did God make things thus and so? Why did He make the law of suffering the law of education, rather than the law of happiness? This why pours into the gulf of ignorance. We dont know. We are ignorant in proportion as we go back to the beginnings of things. These are secrets that no science will penetrate; at any rate, not for ages yet; these lie hidden in the bosom of God. But Christ is the type of the moral kingdom of God. It was necessary to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering, because He was leading the multitude, the whole worlds population, towards elevation through suffering, and He entered Himself under that august law of the universe, suffering. It is a badge of discipleship--suffering is. Men do not come to the fulness of their relation to God except through it. Now, look at the scale of suffering. The first is physical pain, which is the lowest; it is cautionary. The remembrance of it prevents a man violating some natural law; that is, some law that has its seat in the physical structure of the mans own body. It teaches men patience; it teaches men to bear valiantly. Cheerfulness under physical suffering is a wonderful victory, repining is a defeat. If a man shirks down, if he sneaks into complaints and all forms of bewilderment, and dissipated faith, he is wretched indeed, and there is no moral end gained under such circumstances. Then, aside from the suffering which comes to us through our bodily organs, there is that suffering which comes to us through the law of evolution in ourselves. The law of conflict between the lower man and the higher man, or, as St. Paul phrases it, between the flesh man and the spirit man. If, in unfolding ourselves from childhood to manhood, the process goes on by which we subdue the animal that is in us, and the passions that belong to it, by the ascendency of higher social, moral and intellectual inspirations, then suffering is more immediately and perceptibly a schoolmaster. Men are driven up higher and higher towards the citadel of God, by the sufferings which take place in the conflict between the lower and the higher man. Living largely in the West in my early life, I had the opportunity of beholding phenomena that are good illustrations. When the great western rivers were suddenly swollen, and booming freshets came tearing down, flooding the country on either side, I have seen the river Ohio, that was not a quarter of a mile wide, ten miles wide in the flood. Nothing is more familiar to the settlers than the fact that the animals are all driven from the lower places, and frequently it is the case that they mount to some round hill and the water following surrounds it, and they are imprisoned on that hill. But they still go higher up, and higher up, and higher up, until they get a place that is a refuge. Suffering that teaches an animal to go up ought to teach a man to go up. Then suffering is still on another level, where we suffer by our social relations, where we suffer with and for each other, and here is the beginning of the grandeur of the kingdom of suffering. Vicarious suffering then, I may say at last, is the law of the universe. Christ entered into the world to partake of those very things that the race have passed through, Tempted in all points like as we are, tried into all points as we are; and as it is the law of social connection that one shall suffer for another, Christ suffered for men under the same great grand law of vicarious suffering. That is a wretched child, that is a wretched man, who has no one to suffer for him. Then, higher than this, or rather more extended in its relation, is the suffering which men have in civic relations. Men are not individuals. Man is a collective animal; every man stands on his own stem, but he also stands on the trunk which holds up a million stems, and if anything afflicts the root it afflicts everything at the top. Although blossom is not identical with blossom, nor fruit with fruit, human life is made up of individualisms; but collected and made into one great organisation. And so men must suffer when society suffers. Then, next and yet higher, men suffer on account of their moral relations that unite them to man and to God and to the universe. The progress of knowledge is through suffering. One man suffers, and leaves a glow of new truth behind him, which irradiates the whole of a generation. Thus far we can see and understand. But the world is the workshop of heaven. There we shall see the consummation of that which we see but feebly and understand but partially. Many there are on earth who see no outcome; they are underfoot, they are out of place; suffering seems not only to bring to them no relief and no inspiration, but it seems never to have declared its real nature to their surroundings or to their generations. Oh I there will be a land where these things will be known; there will be an interpretation to every pang and to every tear, and to every crushing sorrow; and as for those who suffer for a noble cause, who suffer for children, who suffer for those who have no parents, who suffer for the community, though they are accounted unworthy, and are east out by the community, though they be crushed out of life and hope, and go mourning all the days of their lives, there is a reckoning--that is to say, there is to be an unfolding of the reasons of their suffering, and the results of it which do not by any means all appear upon this mortal sphere and in this limited life--it is to be made known. You do not know what is going on, you do not know all the meaning of your sorrow; God does. Do you suppose that the wool on the sheeps back knows what it is coming to when it is sheared? When it was scoured, and washed, and spun, and twisted of its life almost; when it went into the hateful bath of colour; when it was put into the shuttle, and was thrust back and forth, back and forth, in the darkness, and out came the royal robe, it did not know what it started for; yet that is what it comes to--kings wear it. The flax in the field sighs to be made into the garment of the saints. All right. Pluck it up; rot it, put it under the brick, thread it, weave it, bleach it, purify it; and the saints may wear it now. It came to honour and glory through much suffering. Suffering is Gods guardian guiding angel to those that will; it takes them up through the gate of trouble and trial to that land of perfectness and of everlasting peace. And you do not know what your suffering means? Yet you may rejoice in the general fact that somehow or other it is going to make you glorious if you are only worthy of it. Allow me still one more figure; for some may take one figure easily and some another. When this organ was built the lead and the zinc did not know what the men were about when they were melting them, and making them into pipes, and when the work was distributed through the different shops among different hands. Here you have the sesquialtera and the mixture--hideous stops unless they are masked or hidden under a great weight of sound. If you tried them in the factory you would run out with your fingers in your ears, and cry, Lord deliver me from that sort of music! Then there are the flute stops, and the diapasons in their grand under tones. With all the different parts of the organ separately made, unconnected, nobody can tell what is coming except an experienced workman; but by-and-by, little by little, the frame is erected, the stops are all arranged and in connection with the wind-chest, and now that it is an organic whole every part plays into every other part. As a whole it is magnificent; but the separate steps were poor and weak and unsatisfactory. God makes stops on earth, but He builds the organ in heaven; and many a man will never know till he comes there what was the reason of that providence by which he was trained and fitted to be of that great band of music in the heavenly home. Thus far illustrated and explained the subject will give rise to some applications. And, first, no man should hunt after suffering any more than a man should hunt after sickness. Do not regard suffering as if it were in and of itself a means of grace. If it makes you better it will come of itself. Secondly, lower animal suffering is penalty for sin; but, going up the scale, it is not punishment, but the other way. Men suffer because they are so good; they are the vicarious sufferers for those who are not good, through sympathy, through pity, through endeavour to help them, through self-repression for the development of those that are round about. I have but one more thought, and that is final--not alone in this sermon, but final in creation. No imagination can conceive the wonder, the ecstasy, of the great hour of finding out. When we have borne our body, borne our allotted suffering and pain, borne our obscurity and our persecution, borne all the troubles that go to the making of manhood in this life, unrecognised, not rated according to our moral value, rated according to the law of selfishness in human society, when at last emancipated the pauper from the poorhouse, the debtor from the prison, the broken-down man in business, who has been living on the crusts of his former prosperity, mothers, nurses, servants, whose souls were greater than their places, when at last they shall come and stand in the light of the eternal heavens--oh, what a surprise, and oh, what a dismay, when the last tumble from their heights of imagined greatness, when the first shall be last, and the last first! But oh! when the suffering is all gone, and we come to find ourselves, and come to find that the work of life, racking, filing, sawing in various violent ways upon us, has made us perfect, and we stand in the light of the other life, to see the meaning of all that has taken place in our obscure life--oh, what an hour of joy and of consolation! (H. W. Beecher.)
The ministry of sorrow:
There is no fact in human life more certain than universality of suffering, and there is, perhaps, nothing for which man finds a greater difficulty to discover an adequate or satisfactory reason. The Bible does not solve the difficulty. The Bible deals with the subject practically, and only practically. The Bible never satisfies your speculative inquiry. No question is solved by the Book so as to answer everything that you can ask. It is only solved so that yon can live as faithful servants of the Eternal One. And the Bible shows us the relation of suffering to sin. But, finally, it bids us fall back upon God. He will do right, He will make all well, He is the great consoler of man. These are the three facts that lie in this text of ours: sorrow, discipline, love.
I. THE ACCEPTANCE OF GODS MERCY DOES NOT ASSURE THE BELIEVER FROM THE LOT OF THE SUFFERER. It is perfectly true we may promise to him who accepts the gospel much joy and much pleasure. For a man to place himself in harmony with the Divine law; for him to say, No longer my will but Thine be done; for him to seek no more his ends but the Divine ends; he will find therein the peace, the calm, the quiet restfulness, enter his spirit, and will give him infinite delight. Now, this is true; but at the same time the believer will not be exempt from the conditions of distress. They will come. Natural griefs will be yours. The imperfections of his own character will distress him; the ideal that we sometimes set before us, and then the real that is ours; the picture that we would paint, and the unhappy daub that is often the result of our best endeavour; the beautiful garments that we would set upon ourselves--the garments of righteousness and glory--richer and brighter than the garments that the angels wear--and then the poor tattered rags of the righteousness that we have lost, and the smear and smirch of the secular wrong or the sensual vice into which we have fallen. Oh the disappointment through which life seems to pass until it shall reach the blessed consummation which you hope for! I promise you blessedness, infinite blessedness; but the sorrows will conic.
II. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE BELIEVER ARE INTENDED TO BE DISCIPLINES OF LIFE AND MINISTRIES OF CHARACTER. They direct the soul to its true home and life. Life eternal, remember, is a quality; it is not merely a state; and you may enter into eternal life now. Your sorrows and your pains do not belong to the eternal life; and they are given to you that you may lift your spirit out of the surroundings of the present, and that you may clothe them with the glory and the blessedness that belongs to the life that lies beyond. Yes; and these sufferings limit and destroy the evil that remains. And think of the scope it gives for the practice and perfection of the Christians virtues.
III. THESE SUFFERINGS, BEING DISCIPLINARY, ARE THE PROOFS AND THE RESULTS OF THE DIVINE LOVE. They are signs that God has not forgotten us. One of the most famous men of this city one day said to me: I know not how it is, I sometimes tremble at the success of my life. I have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; I have success in business phenomenal even in these days of success; I have a satisfaction and joy in my family life and in all the relations of my public life that I cannot describe; I sometimes tremble with fear and apprehension. Within six months that man was smitten--smitten in what was the dearest part of his own self-consciousness; charged with an unworthy action, charged with base behaviour, and held up to obloquy because of things done in his name over which he had no control, and for which he was not responsible, but for which he suffered. Ah! God had not forgotten him. What is Gods will concerning you? It is not merely your joy; it is the bettering of your moral nature; it is the perfecting of all those virtuous characteristics that come out even in the midst of your sorrow. And it is always accompanied by some proof of peculiar favour. When sometimes your loved ones have entered into the place of sorrow, be silent; God is with them. Far off, far off, ye profane ones! was the cry of the ancient priestess. So, sometimes, should be the cry to your own souls when the presence of God is manifested in the sorrows of those you love. This is the spirit in which we should receive it, and this is the forecast of its complete removal. For the work of chastisement shall be perfected. All the dealings of God with us shall issue in the attainment of the highest conceptions of the Christian life. And when sorrow shall have done its work, we shall have entered into that infinite life where death itself shall die, and sin itself shall be forgotten, the life that issued even out of the sins and the sorrows and the death of this. (L. D.Bevan, D. D.)
Trouble for our good
The dealings of the Lord, which seem so mysterious to us, may be and often are, the answer to some forgotten petition for spiritual gifts or grace which we have desired. (Anna Shipton.)
Adversity the blessing of the New Testament:
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carried the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of Gods favour. (Lord Bacon.)
Love in pain
Years ago I went into the operating room of University College Hospital, and once saw one of the most skilled of our surgeons removing a limb. It was my first sight of the movement of the surgeons knife. I could not keep back a shudder. It made me ill to note the writhing of the sufferer as the cruel instrument penetrated the quivering flesh. I looked at the surgeons face. Not a muscle betokened anxiety. His gaze was steady, his spirit calm. His larger vision of the issues, the beneficent issues of his work, filled him with strength, steadied his nerve, and delivered him from weakening fear. The sight of his countenance made me strong. I could look to the end in calm self-control. So have I often found an unspeakable consolation in the joy of God. If He, the Lord of this pain-filled, care-laden, sin-fettered life, where misery and sin and shame abound, and the struggle is so keen, and the strife so dinning; if He is glad and blessed amid all this, it is because He sees all and knows all. (D. Clifford, D. D.)
Afflictions precious:
When Munster lay sick, and his friends asked him how he did, and how he felt himself, he pointed to his sores and ulcers (whereof he was full) and said, These are Gods gems and jewels wherewith He decketh His best friends, and to me they are more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. (J. Trapp.)
Afflictions--tokens of Divine regard
Lawns which we would keep in the best condition are very frequently mown; the grass has scarcely any respite from the scythe. Out in the meadows there is no such repeated cutting, they are mown but once or twice in the year. Even thus the nearer we are to God, and the more regard He has for us, the more frequent will be our adversities. To be very dear to God, involves no small degree of chastisement. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Divine discipline
In Southern Europe grow the larches. When they were first introduced into England, the gardeners took it for granted that they needed warmth to cause them to grow; so they were placed in the hothouses, and at once began to wither and droop. The gardeners became disgusted, and threw them out of doors. They at once began to grow, and became trees of great beauty. So it ofttimes becomes necessary for Christ to throw us out of doors into the cold of reverses, disappointments, sorrow, and pain, that our Christian characters may be developed. It becomes at times necessary that God bring upon us sore trials and bereavements that we may be brought back to Him and His service. God does not willingly afflict His people; but in order to bless us it is often necessary to put us in a position to receive and to appreciate His blessings, though it may be through severe trials and galling crosses. (C. W. Bibb.)
Divine discipline:
Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things. Far up the mountain side lies a block of granite, and says to itself, How happy am I in my serenity--above the winds, above the trees, almost above the flight of the birds! Here I rest, age after age, and nothing disturbs me. Yet what is it? It is only a bare block of granite, jutting out of the cliff, and its happiness is the happiness of death. By and by comes the miner, and with strong and repeated strokes he drills a hole in its top, and the rock says, What does this mean? Then the black powder is poured in, and with a blast that makes the mountain echo, the block is blown asunder, and goes crashing down into the valley. Ah! it exclaims as it falls, why this rending? Then come saws to cut and fashion it; and humbled now, and willing to be nothing, it is borne away from the mountain and conveyed to the city. Now it is chiselled and polished, till, at length, finished in beauty, by block and tackle it is raised, with mighty hoistings, high in air, to be the top-stone on some monument of the countrys glory. So God Almighty casts a man down when He wants to chisel him, and the chiselling is always to make him something finer and better than he was before. (H. W. Beecher.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 5–11. Ye have forgotten the exhortation, etc. Surely they…
5–11. Ye have forgotten the exhortation, etc. Surely they must have forgotten, or they would bear their tribulations more cheerfully. My son, despise not, etc. This is quoted from Job 5:17, 18. See also 2 Sam. 6:7–10. The thought is, Do not murmur at God's reproofs and chastenings.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Jehovah. Pro 3:11; Pro 3:12.
Lord
Jehovah. Pro 3:11; Pro 3:12.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 12:5-6 In these verses, the encouraging words are quoted…
12:5-6 In these verses, the encouraging words are quoted from Prov 3:11-12, a passage that regards hardship as the Lord’s loving discipline for his children. God can turn a wide variety of trials and difficulties to our good, training us in righteousness and holy character.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.