The spirit of man is Yahweh’s lamp, searching all his innermost parts.
Parallel Translations
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The spirit of man is Yahweh’s lamp, searching all his innermost parts.
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The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
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The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inward parts.
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to Proverbs 20:27 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Corinthians 2:11 For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.
- Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
- Job 32:8 But there is a spirit in man, and the Spirit of the Almighty gives them understanding.
- 1 John 3:19-21 And by this we know that we are of the truth, and persuade our hearts before him, because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have boldness toward God;
- Genesis 2:7 Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
- Romans 2:15 in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them)
- 2 Corinthians 4:2-6 But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. Even if our Good News is veiled, it is veiled in those who are dying, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them. For we don’t preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake, seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
- Proverbs 20:30 Wounding blows cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the innermost parts.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The word of God giveth life unto man, and…
The word of God giveth life unto man, and causeth us to see and try the secret of our dark hearts, Heb. 4:12.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Pro 20:27 The spirit of man [is] the candle…
Pro 20:27 The spirit of man [is] the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
Ver. 27. The spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord.] Some read it, The breath of a man, that is, his life, is the candle of the Lord, and sense it thus: Look how men deal by their lights or lamps, so doth God by our lives. Some we put out as soon as lighted; others we let alone till half wasted, and others again till wax and wick and all be consumed. So some die younger, some older, as God pleaseth. But the word Neshamah here used, as it holds affinity with the Hebrew Shamajim, Heaven, so it doth with the Latin word mens, the mind, or reasonable soul, which indeed is that light that is in us by an excellence, {Mat 6:23} that "spirit of a man that knows the things of a man," {1Co 2:11} that candle that is in a man’s belly or body, as in a lantern, making the least mote perspicuous. This is true by a specialty of that divine faculty of the soul, conscience, which is frequently called the "spirit of a man," as being planted by God in all and every part of the reasonable soul, where she produceth occasionally several operatious, being the soul’s schoolmaster, monitor, and domestic preacher; God’s spy, and man’s overseer, the principal commander and chief controller of all his doings and desires.
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“ Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ira concipit intra
Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo. ”
- Ovid.
Surely it is a most celestial gift, saith one. {a} It is so of God and in man, that it is a kind of middle thing between God and man; less than God, and yet above man. It may be called our God, saith another, {b} in the sense that Moses was Pharaoh’s; having power to control and avenge our disobediences with greater plagues than ever Moses brought on Egypt. Therefore that was no evil counsel of the poet: Imprimis reverere teipsum. {c} And,
“ Turpe quid ausurus, re, sine teste, time. ”
{a} Bifeild on 1 Pet. ii.
{b} Huet. of Cons.
{c} Auson.
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 The spirit, i.e. the reasonable soul.
The spirit, i.e. the reasonable soul.
Is the candle; is a clear and glorious light set up in man for his information and direction.
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Of the Lord; so called, partly because it comes from God in a more immediate and peculiar manner than the body doth, Ecc 12:7; and partly because it is in God’s stead to observe and judge all a man’s actions.
Searching all the inward parts of the belly; discerning not only his outward actions, which are visible to others, but his most inward and secret thoughts and affections, which no other man can see, 1Co 2:11. The belly is here put for the heart, as it is frequently. The soul can reflect upon and judge of its own dispositions and actions; which plainly showeth that the heart is not so deceitful, but that a man by diligent study of it, and the use of the means appointed by God, may arrive at a certain knowledge of its state and condition, in reference to God and to salvation.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We have here the dignity of the soul, the…
We have here the dignity of the soul, the great soul of man, that light which lighteth every man. 1. It is a divine light; it is the candle of the Lord, a candle of his lighting, for it is the inspiration of the Almighty that gives us understanding. He forms the spirit of man within him. It is after the image of God that man is created in knowledge. Conscience, that noble faculty, is God's deputy in the soul; it is a candle not only lighted by him, but lighted for him. The Father of spirits is therefore called the Father of lights. 2. It is a discovering light. By the help of reason we come to know men, to judge of their characters, and dive into their designs; by the help of conscience we come to know ourselves. The spirit of a man has a self-consciousness (Co1 2:11); it searches into the dispositions and affections of the soul, praises what is good, condemns what is otherwise, and judges of the thoughts and intents of the heart. This is the office, this the power, of conscience, which we are therefore concerned to get rightly informed and to keep void of offence.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The spirit of man is the candle of the…
The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,.... The rational soul of man is a light set up in him; this is what is commonly called the light of nature; it was a bright and burning light at first, but through sin is become a very feeble one; by which men have only a glimmering view of divine things, of God and his worship, and of what he would have done, or not done; by this light men do but grope after him, if happily they may find him and know his will; it is but like a candle light at best, in comparison of divine revelation, or the Gospel of the grace of God, which has shone out like the sun in its meridian glory; and especially in comparison of the sun of righteousness, Christ Jesus, and the light of the divine Spirit; yet this is a light set up by the Lord, a candle of his; it comes from the Father of lights, he is the author and maintainer of it; it is a spirit and understanding which is by the inspiration of the Almighty; see Gen 2:7;
searching all the inward parts of the belly; or heart; the thoughts, intents, and purposes of it; which are the things of a man that only the spirit of man knows; by this candle, or light, he can look into his own heart, the inmost recesses of it, and reflect upon his thoughts and schemes, and judge in some measure whether right or wrong; there is a conscience in man, which, unless seared, passes sentence on what is in man, or done by him, and either excuses or accuses; see Co1 2:10, Rom 2:14.
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 The spirit - The reasonable soul. The candle -…
The spirit - The reasonable soul. The candle - Is a clear and glorious light set up in man for his information and direction. Of the Lord - So called because it comes from God in a more immediate manner than the body, Eccles xii, 7, and because it is in God's stead, to observe and judge all our actions. Searching - Discerning not only his outward actions, which are visible to others, but his most inward thoughts and affections. The belly is here put for the heart, as it is frequently.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 27. The spirit of man is the candle…
Verse 27. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord] God has given to every man a mind, which he so enlightens by his own Spirit, that the man knows how to distinguish good from evil; and conscience, which springs from this, searches the inmost recesses of the soul.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Pro 20:27. The spirit of a man — That…
Pro 20:27. The spirit of a man — That is, the rational soul; is the candle, &c. — Is a clear and glorious light, set up in man for his information and direction. It is said to be the candle of the Lord, because it comes from God in a more immediate manner than the body, Ecc 12:7; and because it is in God’s stead, to observe and judge all our actions. Searching all the inward parts of the belly — Discerning not only man’s outward actions, which are visible to others, but his most inward thoughts and affections. The belly is here put for the heart, as it is frequently. The soul can reflect upon, and judge of, its own dispositions and actions; and by the use of the means which God hath appointed, especially the word of God, and prayer for supernatural light, may arrive at a certain knowledge of its state and condition, in reference to God and salvation.
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 The spirit of man - The “breath” of Gen…
The spirit of man - The “breath” of Gen 2:7, the higher life, above that which he has in common with lower animals, coming to him direct from God. Such a life, with all its powers of insight, consciousness, reflection, is as a lamp which God has lighted, throwing its rays into the darkest recesses of the heart. A still higher truth is proclaimed in the Prologue of John’s Gospel. The candle, or lamp of Yahweh, derives its light from “the Light that lighteth every man,” even the Eternal Word.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain We are placed under a solemn dispensation of Divine…
We are placed under a solemn dispensation of Divine government. An infallible judgment is in constant exercise, discerning our principles, estimating their standard, and pronouncing sentence. There ought evidently to be in the soul some sense, that acknowledges the judgment of the Great Sovereign. Such is conscience, aptly called — ’God in man.’ Thus "God hath not left himself without witness" in his own benighted world. (Act 14:16, 17.) He brings the searching light of his candle into the darkness. At the first creation bright indeed was this candle of the LORD, shining in the little world — Man. (Gen 1:26 .) But every faculty partook of the ruin of the fall. Still enough is left in the inner mind and conscience, to shew even in the thick darkness of heathenism the Divine perfections, the just desert of sin,†1 and even some faint glimpses of the standard of right and wrong.†2 Yet dim indeed is this candle, except it be lighted at God’s lamp.†3 But when the word and Spirit of God give light to it, it will effectually perform its important offices — (as Bishop Reynolds defines them) — ’direction, conviction, and consolation;’†4 not only exhibiting the outward acts, but searching the innermost parts of the belly — all the hidden acts and conduct of the inner man. (1Co 2:11 . Compare Job 32:8 .) This unwelcome intruder follows everywhere, interpreting the dispensation of the rod, not — as men would have it — as the incidents or phænomena of the day, but as penal retribution. Glad indeed would the man of ungodliness be to extinguish this candle. He is too great a coward to venture into his secret chamber in the dark. He "hates the light" (Joh 3:20 ), which, in spite of all his opposition, drags forth into day many secret lurking evils; never allowing the plea — "Is it not a little one?" Whatever may have been his gay and thoughtless pleasures, the time will come, when he must leave them, and be alone. And then — as the question has been stated in a manner not to be answered — ’What is all that a man can enjoy in this way for a week, a month, a year, compared with what he feels for one hour, when his conscience shall take him aside, and rate him by himself?’†5
Most valuable also is this candle, throwing the light of God upon the narrow path; so that we ’are not scrupulous and nice in small matters, negligent in the main; we are still curious in substantial points, and not careless in things of an inferior nature; accounting no duty so small as to be neglected, and no care great enough for principle duties; not so tything mint and cummin, that we should forget justice and judgment; nor yet regarding judgment and justice, that we should contemn mint and cummin.’†6
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Now let me ask — when God causes his candle to shed a clearer light, can I abide it? Do I welcome the hateful discoveries which it brings out? Do I value its light, as opening the secret business of communion between a sinner and a holy jealous God? Do I exercise myself to preserve the light from being dimmed in the atmosphere of sin, and to guard its purity, as the means of establishing my confidence with God?†7 Oh! let there be no inward part of my soul, where I am not most willing, most earnest, to bring the candle of the LORD, that all secret indulgences may be searched out and mortified. "He that doeth good cometh unto the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God." (Joh 3:21 .)
Footnotes:
†1 Rom 1:20-21, Rom 1:32 .
†2 Rom 2:14, 15.
†3 Pro 6:23. Psa 119:105 .
†4 Treasise on the Passions, chapter 41.
†5 South’s Sermon on Pro 3:17 .
†6 Bishop Hall’s Works, viii. 112.
†7 Act 24:16. 1Jn 3:20-21 .
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Lamp. The breath of life, (Genesis ii. 7.) and…
Lamp. The breath of life, (Genesis ii. 7.) and the light of man, 1 Corinthians ii. 11.
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 The spirit . . . Lord--Men's minds are God's…
The spirit . . . Lord--Men's minds are God's gifts, and thus able to search one another (compare Pro 20:5; Pro 18:8, Pro 18:17; Co1 2:11).
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 27. The spirit — נשׁמה, (neshamah,) construct נשׁמת, (nishmath,)…
27. The spirit — נשׁמה, (neshamah,) construct נשׁמת, (nishmath,) Gen_2:7; not רוח, (rua’hh,) spirit, a word with which it is sometimes coupled, kindred to which is the word nephesh, the breath, inspiration, or inbreathing of the Almighty, which giveth understanding. (Job_32:8.)
Inward parts of the belly — Put by synecdoche for “the inner man.” Comp. Pro_20:30; Pro_18:8; 1Co_2:10. “Who knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him;” that is, a man is conscious of the schemes, plans, and purposes of his own mind; and no man can know these but himself, unless he reveals them. Man’s intelligent consciousness — that by which he cognises the operations of his own mind — and his moral consciousness — conscience — by which he discerns his moral status and the moral quality of his thoughts, emotions, passions, and the actions that proceed from them — this intelligent self-consciousness, implying a rational and moral nature, is the gift of Jehovah — the lamp or light of Jehovah within him, distinguishing him from all other beings in this world. Compare Rom_1:19-20; Mat_6:22-23; Joh_1:4; Joh_1:9.
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 27. spirit] Lit. breath (πνοή, LXX.). The word, in…
27. spirit] Lit. breath (πνοή, LXX.). The word, in this unusual sense, may probably have been chosen to recall Gen_2:7 : the Lord God … breathed into his nostrils the breath (the same word as here) of life. “The breath of the higher life, above that which he has in common with the lower animals, coming to him direct from God, such a life, with all its powers of insight, consciousness, reflection, is as a lamp which God has lighted, throwing its rays into the darkest recesses of the heart,” Dean Plumptre in Speaker’s Comm.
candle] Rather, lamp, A.V. marg. and R.V.
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 (27) The spirit of man is the candle of…
(27) The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.—The spirit of man, breathed into him at first by the Creator (Gen_2:7), and afterwards quickened and illumined by the Divine Spirit, is the “candle of the Lord,” given to man as an inward light and guide.
Searching all the inward parts of the belly.—That is, of the inmost heart of man; testing all his thoughts, feelings, desires, by God’s law, approving some, condemning others, according as they agree with it or not. The word “belly” is equivalent to “heart” or “soul” in Job_15:2; Job_15:15; Job_32:19. (Comp. Joh_7:38.)
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 The spirit of men is the candle (lamp) of…
The spirit of men is the candle (lamp) of the Lord. Neshamah, "spirit," or "breath," is the principle of life breathed into man by God himself, (Gen_2:7) distinguishing man from brutes the conscious human soul. We may consider it as equivalent to what we Christians call conscience, with its twofold character of receiving light and illumination from God, and sitting as judge and arbiter of actions. It is named "the Lord"s lamp," because this moral sense is a direct gift of God, and enables a man to see his real condition. Our Lord (Mat_6:23) speaks of the light that is in man, and gives a solemn warning against the danger of letting it be darkened by neglect and sin; and St. Paul (1Co_2:11) argues, "Who among men knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of the man, which is in him?" As Elihu says, (Job_32:8) "There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding." And Aristotle speaks of practical wisdom (fronhsiv ) combined with virtue as "the eye of the soul (omma thv quchv )." Searching all the inward parts of the belly; i.e. the very depths of the soul, probing thoughts, desires, affections, will, and approving or reproving, according as they are in conformity with or opposition to God"s Law. We must remember that Eastern houses, before the introduction of glass, had very scanty openings to admit light, and lamps were necessary if for any purpose the interior had to be thoroughly illuminated. Hence the metaphor used above would strike an Oriental more forcibly than it strikes us. Septuagint, "The breath (pnoh , as Pro_11:13) of man is a light of the Lord, who searches the chambers of the belly." St. Gregory ("Moral.," 12:64), "We ought to bear in mind that in holy Writ by the title of the "belly," or the "womb," the mind is used to be understood. For the light of grace, which comes from above, affords a "breathway" to man unto life, which same light is said to "search all the inward parts of the belly," in that it penetrates all the secrets of the heart, that the things which were hidden in the soul touching itself it may bring back before the eyes thereof" (Oxford transl.).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_20:27
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_20:27
THE CANDLE OF THE LORD
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We understand by the spirit of a man the self-conscious ego—that which takes cognizance of the inner life, and which reasons and passes judgment upon all a man’s perceptions, emotions, and volitions.
I. Man’s spirit is a candle, because it is not self-originating. When we speak of a candle, the idea of a borrowed light comes before us; with us there is but one source and fountain of material light, and that is the sun, which, although it is but a candle of the Lord placed in the midst of our solar system, so far transcends all our artificial lights in its glory and permanence, that in comparison with them it seems self-existent and eternal. As a matter of fact, we know that all the artificial light stored up for us in combustible materials around us had its origin in that great father of lights, the sun, and that these lesser lights require kindling before they give forth brightness. So with the spirit of man—it is not self-existent and eternal, nor did it kindle itself, it owes its existence to that God who is the intellectual and moral light of the universe, because He is the source of all knowledge and goodness. That same Divine Creator, who said “Let there be light and there was light,” who set the sun in the heavens to rule the day, made man in His own image by breathing into the human body that spiritual life which makes man a living soul, and distinguishes him from the animal creation around him. We can no more claim to be the author of our own spirits than the sun can claim to have called itself into existence.
II. Man’s spirit is a candle, because it is a revealing power. All light is revealing; it first makes evident its own existence and then reveals the existence of objects outside itself. When the sun comes forth above the eastern horizon like a bridegroom from his chamber, it reveals its own glory, and it makes manifest all things upon which its rays fall, and nothing is hidden from the light thereof. So in a less degree is it with every flame of light, and so is it with the mysterious spirit of man. It is self-revealing and self-evidencing, and in and by its light we become conscious of the existence of material forms and spiritual beings, and moral and physical influences outside ourselves.
III. Man’s spirit is a candle which is intended to prevent self-deception. Knowledge of any description is good and desirable, but there are two beings of whom it is moral death to remain in ignorance—ourself and God. The spirit of a man is the power by which he apprehends both, and this proverb deals exclusively with man’s power to know himself, and especially with his power to take cognizance of himself as a moral and responsible being. As the sun, when it darts forth its rays upon the earth, does not leave us in twilight, and in uncertainty as to what is around us, and as the candle brought into a dark chamber shows us, maybe, the dust and the cobwebs, as well as the costly drapery on the walls, so this God-kindled light searches into the innermost thoughts, and feelings, and motives, and shows to every man who does not wilfully turn away from the sight, both the good and the evil that is in him. True it is that, as a moral light, it does not shine so brightly as it did when man came forth from his Maker’s hand, and that he who “hateth light” because it is a reprover of his sin (Joh_3:20) may to some extent obscure its brightness, yet every man possesses light enough within to show him his need of a light outside and above him—even of that “true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (Joh_1:9).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The candle which God has kindled in man has, as the nearest sphere of illumination which goes forth from it, the condition of the man himself—the spirit comprehends all that belongs to the nature of man in the unity of self-consciousness, but yet more, it makes it the object of reflection; it penetrates, searching it through, and seeks to take it up into its knowledge, and recognises the problem proposed to it, to rule it by its power. The proverb is thus to be ethically understood.—Delitzsch.
The essential connection between the life of God and the life of man is the great truth of the world, and that is the truth which Solomon sets forth in the striking words of my text. The picture which the words include is one of the most simple. A candle stands upon a table in a dark room, itself unlighted. Fire is brought into the room; a blazing bit of paper holds the fire, but it is blown and flutters, and any moment may go out; but the blaze touches the candle and the candle catches fire, and at once you have a steady flame which burns bright and pure and constant. The candle gives forth its manifestation to all the neighbourhood which is illuminated by it. The candle is glorified by the fire, and the two bear witness that they are made for one another by the way in which they fulfil each other’s life. That fulfilment comes by the way in which the inferior substance renders obedience to the superior. The wax acknowledges the subtle flame as its master and yields to its power, and so, like every faithful servant of a noble master, it gives itself most unreservedly up, and its own substance is clothed with a glory that does not belong to itself. The granite, if you try to burn it, gives no fire; it only opposes a sullen resistance, and as the heat increases splits and breaks but will not burn. But the candle obeys, and so in it the scattered fire finds a point of permanent and clear expression. “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,” says Solomon. God is the fire of this world. It is a vital principle, a warm pervading presence everywhere. What thing in outward nature can so picture to us the mysterious, subtle, quick, productive, and destructive principle; that which has always elevated men’s hearts and solemnized their voices when they have said the word God, as this strange thing, so heavenly, so unearthly, so terrible, and so gracious, so full of creativeness, and yet so quick and fierce to sweep whatever opposes it out of its path? The glory, the beauty, the marvel, the mystery of fire! Men have always felt the fitness of fire as being the closest of all the elements around the throne on which their conception of Deity is sitting. Man and all other beings, if such beings there are capable of watching our humanity, see what God is in gazing at the manhood God has kindled. The universe is full of the fire of divinity; men feel it in the air as they feel an intense heat which has not yet broken out into a blaze. There is meaning in a great deal of the unexplained, mysterious awfulness of life—the sense of God felt, unseen. The atmosphere is burdened with heat that does not burst out into fire, and in the midst of this solemn burning world there stands up a man, pure and Godlike. In an instant it is as if a heated room had found some sensitive inflammable point where it would kindle into a blaze, and prospects of God’s felt presence become clear and definite. The fitfulness of the impression of divinity is steadied into permanence. The mystery changes its character, and is a mystery of light and not of darkness. The fire of the Lord has found the candle of the Lord, and burns clear and steady, guiding and cheering instead of bewildering and frightening us, just as a man obedient to God has begun to catch and manifest His nature. I hope you will find this truth comes very close to your separate lives, but let me remind you first what essential dignity clothes the life of man in this world. Such philosophy as belongs to our time would deprecate the importance of man in the world, and rob him of his centralness. His position in such philosophies is this: that the world was not made for man. With us the old story that the Bible told, the book of Genesis with its garden of Eden, and its obedient beasts waiting until man should tell them what they should be called, stands firmly at the beginning of the world’s history. The great notion of the centralness of man in the Garden of Eden re-asserts itself in every cabin of the western forests, or the southern jungles, where a solitary settler and his wife begin as it were the human history anew. There once again the note of Genesis is struck, and man asserts his centralness, and the beasts hesitate in fear till he shall tame them to his service, or bid them depart. The earth under his feet holds its fertility at his command, and what he does upon the earth is echoed in the storms. This is the great impressive idea which over the simplest life of man is ever growing, and with which the philosophies that would make little of the sacredness and centralness of man must always have to fight. This is the impression which is taken up, and steadied, and made clear, and turned from a petty pride to a lofty dignity and a solemn responsibility, when there comes such a message as this of Solomon. He says that the true sacredness, and superiority, and centralness of man is in the likeness of his nature to God’s, and that capacity of spiritual obedience to Him, in virtue of which man may be the earthly declaration and manifestation of God to all the world. So long as that truth stands, the centralness of man is sure. “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.” This is the truth of which I wish to speak to you—the perpetual revelation of God by and through human life. I. You must ask yourself, first, what God is. See how at the very bottom of His existence, as you conceive of it, there lie these two thoughts—purpose and righteousness; how impossible it is to give God any personality, except as the embodiment of these two qualities, the intelligence that plans, and the righteousness that lives in duty. How could any knowledge of these qualities, of what they are, of what sort of being they will make, exist upon the earth, if there were not a human heart in which they could exist, and from which they could be shown? Only a person can truly utter a person; only from a character can character be echoed. You might write it over the skies that God was just, but it would be at best only a bit of knowledge—never a Gospel—never something which it would gladden the hearts of men to know. That comes only when a human life is capable of a justice like God’s justice, and is clothed with His justice in the eyes of men. I have just intimated one thing that we need to observe: man’s utterance of God is purely the utterance of a quality; it can tell me nothing of the quantities that make up His life. That God is just, and what it is to be just, I can learn from the just lives of the just men about me; but how just God is, to what unconceived perfection, to what unexplained developments that majestic quality of justice may extend in Him—of that I can form no judgment that is worth anything from the justice I see in my fellow-men. II. This seems to me to widen at once the range of the truth I am stating. If it be a quality of God, which man is capable of uttering, then it must be the simple quality of manhood that is necessary for the utterance, and not any specific quantity, not any assignable degree of human greatness. Whoever has the spirit of man may be the candle of the Lord. A larger measure of that spirit may make a brighter light; but there must be a light wherever any human being, in virtue of his essential humanness, by obedience becomes luminous with God. There are the men of manhood, spiritually the leaders of the race; how they stand out! how all men feel their power as they come into their presence, and feel that they are passing into the light of God! They are puzzled when they try to explain it. There is nothing more instructive and suggestive than the bewilderment men feel when they try to tell what inspiration is. He who goes into the presence of any powerful nature, feels sure in some way he is coming into the presence of God; but it would be melancholy if only the great men could give you this conviction. The world would be darker than it is if any human spirit, as soon as it became obedient, did not become the Lord’s candle. A poor, bruised life, if only it keeps that human quality, and does not become inhuman, but is obedient to God, in its blind way becomes a light. A mere child with his pure humanity, and with his turning of his life towards God from Whom he came—how often he may burn with some suggestion of divinity, and cast illumination upon problems and mysteries so difficult that he himself has never felt them! Little lamps burning everywhere. III. We have here the key to another mystery that often puzzles us. What shall we make of some men rich in attainments and well educated, who stand in the midst of their fellow-men dark and helpless?… Let us let the light of Solomon’s figure upon it. Simply this: they are unlighted candles; they are the spirit of man furnished to its very finest, but lacking the last touch of God; like silver lamps all chaste and wrought with wondrous skill, all filled with choicest oil, but all untouched by fire. IV. There are multitudes of men whose lamps are certainly not dark, and yet who certainly are not the candles of the Lord,—with a nature richly furnished, yet profane, impure, worldly.… Such a man is not another unlighted candle. He burns so bright and lurid that often the pure light grows dim within its glare. But if it be possible for the human candle, when the subtle components of a human nature are all mingled carefully in it; if it be possible that, instead of being lifted up to heaven, and kindled at the pure beam of Him who is eternally and absolutely good, it should be plunged down into hell, and lighted at the cruel flames that burn out of the dreadful brimstone pit, then we can understand the sight of a man who is rich in every energy of manhood cursing the world with the exhibition of the devilish instead of the Godlike in his life.… V. There is still one other way, more subtle and sometimes more dangerous than this, in which the spirit of man may fail of its functions as the candle of the Lord. The man may be lighted, and the fire at which he is lighted may be, indeed, the fire of God, and yet it may not be God alone he shows forth upon the earth. I can picture to myself a candle which should in some way mingle the peculiarity of its own substance with the light it sheds. So it is, I think, with the way in which a great many men manifest God. They have really kindled their lives at Him. It is His fire that burns in them. They are obedient, and so He can make them His points of exhibition, but they are always mixed with the God whom they show. They show themselves as well as Him; just as a mirror mingles its own reflection with the things that are reflected from it and gives them a curious convexity because it is itself convex. This is the secret of pious bigotry, of holy prejudices; it is the candle putting its own colour into the flame it has borrowed from the fire of God. The feeble man makes God seem feeble, the speculative man makes God look like a doubtful dream, the legal man makes God seem as hard and steel-like as law. VI. I have tried to depict some difficulties which beset the full exhibition in the world of the great truth of Solomon.… Man is selfish and disobedient, and will not let his light burn at all; man is wilful and passionate, and kindles his light with ungodly fire; man is narrow and bigoted, and makes the light to shine in his own peculiar colour; but all these are accident—distortions of the true idea of man. How can we know that? Here is the perfect man, CHRIST!… I bring the man of my experience and the man of my imagination into the presence of Jesus, but they fall short of Him, and my human consciousness assures me they fall short of the best ideal of what it is to be a man. “I am come a light into the world,” said Jesus; “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “In Him was light, and the life was the light of men.” So wrote the man who of all men knew Him best. I think I need only bid you look at Him and you will see what it is to which our feeble lights are struggling. There is the true spiritual man who is the candle of the Lord, “the Light that lighteth every man.” It is entirely a new idea of life, new to the standards of our ordinary living, which is there revealed. All ordinary appeals to men to be up and doing, and to make themselves shining lights, fade away and become insignificant before this higher message which comes in the words of Solomon in the life of Jesus. What does that higher message say to you and me? That your full relationship to God can only be realised by obedience to Him, when you will shine by His light; then you cannot be dark, for He shall kindle you; then you shall be as incapable of burning with false passion, as you shall be quick to answer the true; then the devil may hold his torch to you, as he held it to the heart of Jesus in the desert, and your heart shall be as uninflammable as His. As soon as God touches you, you shall burn with a light so truly your own that you shall reverence your own mysterious life, and yet be so truly His that pride shall be impossible. In certain lands, for the most holy ceremonies they prepare the candles with the most anxious care. The very bees that distil the wax are sacred. They range in gardens planted with sweet flowers for their use alone. The wax is gathered by consecrated hands, and the shaping of the candles is a holy task performed in holy places, with the singing of hymns, and in an atmosphere of prayer. All this is done because the candles, when they are made, are to burn in the most elevated ceremonies and on the most sacred days. With what care must the man be made whose spirit is to be the candle of the Almighty Lord! It is his spirit that the Lord is to kindle for Himself; therefore the spirit must be the precious part of him. The body must be valued only for the protection and education that the spirit may gain by it. The power by which his spirit shall become a candle is obedience; therefore obedience must be the struggle and desire of his life; obedience, not hard and forced, but ready, loving, and spontaneous; obedience in heart, the obedience of the child to the father, the obedience of the candle to the flame; the doing of duty not merely that the duty may be done, but that the soul in doing it may become capable of receiving and uttering God; the bearing of pain not merely because the pain must be borne, but that the bearing of it may make the soul able to burn with the Divine fire that found it in the furnace; the repentance of sin and the acceptance of forgiveness not merely that the soul may be saved from the fire of hell but that it may be touched with the fire of Heaven, and shine with the light of God as the stars, for ever.—Philips Brooks.
This “candle of the Lord” is a slight and diminutive light. A lamp is no such dazzling object. A candle has no such goodly light as that it should pride and glory in it; it is but a brief and compendious flame, shut up and imprisoned in a narrow compass. How far distant is it from the beauty of a star! how far from the brightness of a sun! This candle of the Lord, when it was first lighted up, before there was any thief in it, even then it had but a limited and restrained light. God said unto it: “Thus far shall thy light go; hither shalt thou shine and no further.” Adam, in his innocency, was not to crown himself with his own sparks. God never intended a creature should rest satisfied with his own candle-light, but that it should run to the fountain of light, and sun itself in the presence of God. What a poor happiness had it been for a man only to have enjoyed his own lamp.… The “candle of the Lord” is a light discovering present, not future things, for did you ever hear of such a lamp as would discover an object not yet born? Would you not smile at him that should light a candle to search for a futurity?… Let, then, this candle content itself with its proper object. It finds work enough, and difficulty enough, in the discovery of present things, and has not such a copious light as can search out the future.… The light of reason is a certain light. Lamplight, as it is not glorious, so it is not deceitful—though it be but limited, it will discover such things as are within its own sphere with a sufficient certainty. The letters of nature’s law are so fairly printed, they are so visible and capital, that you may read them by this candlelight.… Although there is not vigour enough in any created eye to pierce into the pith and marrow, the depth and secrecy of being … It is a directive light. The will looks upon that, as Leander in Musæus looked up to the tower for Hero’s candle, and calls it, as he doth there: “Lamp which to me, on my way through this life, is a brilliant director.” … The will doth but echo the understanding, and doth practically repeat the last syllable of the final decision; which makes the moralist well determine that “moral virtues cannot exist without intellectual powers.” … Other creatures, indeed, are shot more violently into their ends; but man hath the skill and faculty of directing himself, and is, as you may so imagine, a rational kind of arrow, that moves knowingly and voluntarily to the mark of its own accord.… It is an aspiring light. I mean no more by this than what that known saying of Augustine imports: “Thou hast made us, O Lord, for Thyself: our heart will be restless till it return to Thee.” The candle of the Lord—it came from Him and it would fain return to Him. For an intellectual lamp to aspire to be a sun is a lofty strain of that intolerable pride which was in Lucifer and Adam; but for it to desire the favour, and presence, and enjoyment of a beatifical sun, is but a just and noble desire of that end which God created it for.… If you look but upon a candle, what an aspiring and ambitious light it is!… It puts on the form of a pyramid, occasionally and accidentally by reason that the air extenuates it into that form: otherwise it would ascend upward in one greatness, in a rounder and completer manner. It is just thus in “the candle of the Lord;” reason would move more fully according to the sphere of its activity, it would flame up to heaven in a more vigorous and uniform way; but that it is much quenched by sin … therefore it is fain to aspire and climb as well as it can. The bottom and base of it borders upon the body, and is therefore more impure and feculent; but the apex and cuspis of it catches toward heaven.… Every spark of reason flies upward. This Divine flame fell down from heaven and halted with its fall—as the poets tell us of the limping of Vulcan—but it would fain ascend thither again by some steps and gradations of its own framing.—Culverwell.
For Homiletics on Pro_20:28, see Pro_20:26.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain v. 27. The spirit of man is the candle…
v. 27. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, the spiritual and moral powers of man, under the direction of Jehovah, penetrate into his innermost being, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The spirit of a person is the lamp of…
The spirit of a person is the lamp of Yahweh, searching all his inmost parts
This speaks of a person's spirit as if it were a lamp. A person's spirit helps him to understand his inner self. AT: "Yahweh has given us a spirit to understand our deepest selves, just as a lamp makes you see in the dark" (See: Metaphor)
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Covenant faithfulness and trustworthiness preserve the king
The abstract nouns "faithfulness" and "trustworthiness" can be stated as "faithful" and "trustworthy." This can also be stated in active form. AT: "The king preserves himself by being trustworthy and faithful to the covenant" (See: Active or Passive and Abstract Nouns)
preserve the king
keep the king safe from harm
his throne is made secure by love
Here "throne" represents the king's power to rule. The abstract noun "love" can be stated as a verb. Also, this can be stated in active form. AT: "a king ensures that he will rule for a long time by loving others" (See: Metonymy and Abstract Nouns and Active or Passive)
translationWords
spirit
lamp
Yahweh
covenant faithfulness
trust
king
throne
love
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 20:27 The Lord’s light penetrates the human spirit: God…
20:27 The Lord’s light penetrates the human spirit: God sees deep into people’s hearts (see 16:2).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.