Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but one who keeps the law is blessed.
Parallel Translations
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Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but one who keeps the law is blessed.
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Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
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Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to Proverbs 29:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- James 1:25 But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.
- Luke 11:28 But he said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.”
- Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.
- John 13:17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
- Psalms 1:1-2 Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night.
- Proverbs 19:16 He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, but he who is contemptuous in his ways shall die.
- Psalms 119:2 Blessed are those who keep his statutes, who seek him with their whole heart.
- 1 Samuel 3:1 The child Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli. Yahweh’s word was rare in those days. There were not many visions, then.
- Amos 8:11-12 Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing Yahweh’s words. They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek Yahweh’s word, and will not find it.
- Matthew 9:36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd.
- Exodus 32:25 When Moses saw that the people were out of control, (for Aaron had let them lose control, causing derision among their enemies),
- Psalms 74:9 We see no miraculous signs. There is no longer any prophet, neither is there among us anyone who knows how long.
- Psalms 19:11 Moreover your servant is warned by them. In keeping them there is great reward.
- Romans 10:13-15 For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!”
- Revelation 22:14 Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city.
- 2 Chronicles 28:19 For Yahweh brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, because he acted without restraint in Judah and trespassed severely against Yahweh.
- John 14:21-23 One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Where there are not faithful ministers of the word…
Where there are not faithful ministers of the word of God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Pro 29:18 Where [there is] no vision, the people…
Pro 29:18 Where [there is] no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy [is] he.
Ver. 18. Where there is no vision the people perish.] Or, Are barred of all virtue; laid naked and open to the dint of divine displeasure; scattered, worsted, and driven back. Great is the misery of those Brazilians, of whom it is said that they are sine fide, sine rege, sine lege, without faith, king, or law. And no less unhappy those Israelites about Asa’s time, that for a long season had been "without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law." {2Ch 15:3} Then it was that God’s "people were destroyed for lack of knowledge"; {Hos 4:6} and not long after, that they sorrowfully complained that there was "no more any prophet among them, nor any that knew how long" {Psa 74:9} - no minister, ordinary or extraordinary. How did it pity our Saviour to see the people "as sheep without a shepherd!" This troubled him more than their bodily bondage to the Romans, which yet was very grievous. {Mat 9:36} And what good heart can but bleed to think of those once flourishing churches of Asia and Africa, now overspread partly with Mohammedanism and partly with heathenism; and that by the most miserable occasion might befall - namely, famine of the word of God, through lack of ministers! What a world of sects, superstitions, and other horrible abuses got into the Church of Rome, when prophecy was suppressed, and reading the Holy Scriptures inhibited! - and what a slaughter of souls ensued thereupon! Letters were framed by some, as sent from hell to the Popish clergy (A.D. 1072), wherein the devil and his angels give them many thanks for such a number of souls sent them down daily, by their neglect of preaching, as had never been before. {a} Hence it was that in this kingdom, at the first Reformation, for want of ministers, readers were sent; whence one of the martyrs wished that every able minister might have ten congregations committed to his charge, till further provision could be made; for of preaching it may be said, as once David did of Goliath’s sword, "There is none to that" for conversion of souls; as where that is wanting people go tumbling to hell thick and threefold.
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But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.] Though to want the word preached and sincerely handled, rightly divided - for as every sound is not music, so every pulpit discourse is not a sermon - be a great unhappiness, a ready road to utter ruin; yet is not the bare hearing of it that which renders a man blessed, unless he "hide it in his heart," with David, and "lift up his hands" to the practice of it. {Psa 119:48} The words of the law are, verba vivenda non legenda, as one said - words to be lived, and not read only. Let not your lives be Antinomians, no more than your opinions, saith another. That is a monstrous opinion of some Swenckfeldiains, that a man was never truly mortified till he had put out all sense of sin, or care of duty: if his conscience troubled him about such things, that was his imperfection; he was not mortified enough. {b} Some of our Antinomians are not far from this. Their predecessors in Germany held that the law and works only belong to the court of Rome; that good works are perniciosa ad salutem, {c} hurtful and hindersome to salvation; that that saying of Peter, "Make your calling and election sure" by good works, was dictum inutile, an unprofitable saying - and Peter did not understand Christian liberty: that as soon as a man begins to think how he should live a godly and modest life, he wandereth from the gospel. David George was so far from accounting adulteries, fornications, incests, &c., for being any sins, that he did recommend them to his most perfect scholars as acts of grace and mortification. {d} This fellow was sure somewhat akin to those Carpocratian heretics in St John’s days, who taught that men must sin, and do the will of all the devils, otherwise they could not enter into heaven. {e}
{a} Mat., Paris. Hist.
{b} Wendelinus.
{c} Bucholcer.
{d} Vita Dav. Georg.
{e} Epiphan.
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 No vision, i.e. no prophecy, for the prophets were…
No vision, i.e. no prophecy, for the prophets were anciently called seers, 1Sa 9:9, i.e. no public preaching of God’s law or word, (as appears by the opposite clause,) which is called prophecy, Rom 12:6; 1Co 14:1, &c., where the people are destitute of the means of instruction.
The people perish, because they want the only means of salvation. Or, is made naked; stripped of their best ornaments, God’s favour and protection, as this word is taken, Exo 32:25.
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He that keepeth the law: this he saith rather than
he that hath vision, which the laws of opposition might seem to require, to teach us that, although the want of God’s word be sufficient for men’s destruction, yet the having, and hearing, or reading of it is not sufficient for their salvation, except they also keep or obey it.
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 See here, I. The misery of the people that…
See here, I. The misery of the people that want a settled ministry: Where there is no vision, no prophet to expound the law, no priest or Levite to teach the good knowledge of the Lord, no means of grace, the word of the Lord is scarce, there is no open vision (Sa1 3:1), where it is so the people perish; the word has many significations, any of which will apply here. 1. The people are made naked, stripped of their ornaments and so exposed to shame, stripped of their armour and so exposed to danger. How bare does a place look without Bibles and ministers, and what an easy prey is it to the enemy of souls! 2. The people rebel, not only against God, but against their prince; good preaching would make people good subjects, but, for want of it, they are turbulent and factious, and despise dominions, because they know no better. 3. The people are idle, or they play, as the scholars are apt to do when the master is absent; they do nothing to any good purpose, but stand all the day idle, and sporting in the market-place, for want of instruction what to do and how to do it. 4. They are scattered as sheep having no shepherd, for want of the masters of assemblies to call them and keep them together, Mar 6:34. They are scattered from God and their duty by apostasies, from one another by divisions; God is provoked to scatter them by his judgments, Ch2 15:3, Ch2 15:5. 5. They perish; they are destroyed for lack of knowledge, Hos 4:6. See what reason we have to be thankful to God for the plenty of open vision which we enjoy.
II. The felicity of a people that have not only a settled, but a successful ministry among them, the people that hear and keep the law, among whom religion is uppermost; happy are such a people and every particular person among them. It is not having the law, but obeying it, and living up to it, that will entitle us to blessedness.
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 Where there is no vision, the people perish,.... That…
Where there is no vision, the people perish,.... That is, "no prophecy", as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; and which is often the sense of the word, as the vision of Isaiah is the prophecy of Isaiah; and, in the New Testament, prophesying is often put for preaching; and here vision, or prophecy, signifies the public ministering of the word and ordinances, and want of persons to administer them; no expounder, as the Septuagint version; or interpreter, as the Arabic. This was the case in the latter end of Eli's life, Sa1 3:1; in Asa's times, and before, Ch2 15:3; in the Babylonish captivity, Eze 7:26; in the times of Antiochus, Psa 74:9; when John the Baptist and Christ first came preaching the word, Mat 9:36; and now is the case of the Jews, and will be till the time of their conversion. So it was in the Gentile world, before the Gospel was brought into it, Act 17:30; and so it now is in those places where the seven churches of Asia were; and in all Asia, which once heard the word of the Lord, even all that large country; and now it is not heard at all in it, but covered with Mahometan darkness. And this is the case in all Popish countries, subject to the see of Rome, where the word of God is not preached to the people, nor suffered so much as to be read by them; and even in reformed churches, for the most part, only a little morality is preached, and not the Gospel of Christ; so that here the people are perishing for lack of knowledge, Hos 4:6; and when the witnesses will be slain, who now prophesy in sackcloth, there will he an entire stop put to prophesying or preaching for a while; but, when they shall rise, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God, through the ministry of the word. Now, where there is no preaching, men perish in their sins; the word being the ordinary means of grace, of regeneration, conversion, faith, and salvation; without which, men know nothing of Christ, of peace, pardon, righteousness, and eternal life by him: and where there is preaching, yet it not being of the right kind, there is no spiritual knowledge spread by it, no food for souls under it; they perish with hunger, as the prodigal did, or are in starving and famishing circumstances; no comfort for the people of God, who perish in their comforts under such a ministry, Co1 8:11; and poison is spread among others; false doctrine eats as a canker, and destroys souls. Again, where there is right vision and prophecy, or true preaching of the word, and that is despised and neglected, men perish notwithstanding; as the Jews of old, and all deniers and contemners of the word now, Act 13:41; and this seems to be intended here, as appears by the following clause. The word translated "perish" has various senses, which agree with the text. It may be rendered, "the people become idle", or "cease" (s); from the performance of good works, grow dissolute in their manners, and licentious in their practices: or "they become refractory" (t); fierce, obstinate, and ungovernable, and rebel against their superiors: or they are "made naked" (u); stripped of their ornaments; of their privileges, civil as well as religious, which is often the case where no vision is; as well as of all virtue and morality, and of the blessing and protection of God;
but he that keepeth the law, happy is he: not the moral law, which no man can keep perfectly, but the law of faith. It may be rendered, "happy is he that observes doctrine" (w); the doctrine of the Gospel, where it is preached; that attends to it, values and esteems it, receives it by faith, and with meekness; blessed is he, blessed are his eyes and ears; he sees wondrous things out of this law or doctrine, and he hears and knows the joyful sound, which brings salvation and eternal life unto him!
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(s) "feriabitur", Montanus. (t) "Rebellis erit", Pagninus; "retroagitur", Mercerus; "defecit, recedit", Vatablus; "refractarius", Gejerus. (u) "Nadatur", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Michaelis; "denudatur", Cocceius; "cessabit et otiosus erit, deficiet et retrocedit atque denudatur", Baynus. (w) "qui observat legem", i. e. "verbum Dei", Cocceius; "doctrinam", Amama.
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 No vision - No prophecy; no publick preaching of…
No vision - No prophecy; no publick preaching of God's word.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 18. Where there is no vision] My old…
Verse 18. Where there is no vision] My old MS. Bible, following the Vulgate, translates: Whan prophecye schal failen, the peple schal ben to scatered. Where Divine revelation, and the faithful preaching of the sacred testimonies, are neither reverenced nor attended, the ruin of that land is at no great distance.
But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.] Go how it may with others, he shall be safe. So our Lord: "Blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it."
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 29:18. Where there is no vision — That…
Pro 29:18. Where there is no vision — That is, no prophecy, the prophets being anciently called seers; no public preaching of God’s word, called prophecy, Rom 12:6; 1Co 14:4, &c. Where the people are destitute of the means of instruction; the people perish — Because they want the chief means of salvation; but he that keepeth the law — He does not say, he that hath the law, or he that hath vision, which the rules of opposition to the preceding clause might have given us reason to expect he would have said, but he that keepeth it; to teach us, that although the want of God’s word may be sufficient for men’s destruction, yet the mere having and hearing, or reading of it, is not sufficient for their salvation, unless they also keep, or obey it.
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 Vision - The word commonly used of the revelation…
Vision - The word commonly used of the revelation of God’s will made to prophets. Compare Isa 1:1; Nah 1:1.
When prophetic vision fails, obedience to the Law is the best or only substitute for it, both being forms through which divine wisdom is revealed. Very striking in the midst of ethical precepts is this recognition of the need of a yet higher teaching, without which morality passes into worldly prudence or degenerates into casuistry. The “wise man,” the son of David, has seen in the prophets and in their work the condition of true national blessedness. The darkest time in the history of Israel had been when there “was no open vision 1Sa 3:1; at such a time the people “perish,” are let loose, “are left to run wild.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain 18 Where there is no vision, the people perish†a…
18 Where there is no vision, the people perish†a (is made naked, marg.) but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
The vision — as appears from the contrast — is divine instruction. (1Sa 3:1 .) The Ministry is the appointed ordinance to communicate this blessing,†1 and therefore the main instrumentality of conversion,†2 and subsequent Christian perfection.†3 No greater calamity therefore can there be than the removal of the vision. The temporal famine, affecting only the body, is a light judgment, scarcely to be mentioned, compared with that, by which the people perish — "the famine of hearing the words of the LORD."†4 For ’when there is none that can edify, and exhort, and comfort the people by the word of God, they must needs perish. They become thrall and captives unto Satan. Their heart is bound up. Their eyes are shut up; they can see nothing. Their ears are stopped up; they can hear nothing. They are carried away as a prey into hell, because they have not the knowledge of God.’†5
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Often did Israel provoke this most fearful judgment — the removal of the open vision.†6 "The candlestick" of the Apocalyptic Churches has from the same cause been long since removed out of its place; and for the most part little more remains than the ceremonial of bygone days.†7 From the Apostate Church of Rome, the vision is well-nigh withdrawn, and the people perish in ignorance and delusion. For as our Protestant Cranmer nobly testified — ’I know how Antichrist both obscured the glory of God, and the true knowledge of his word; overcasting the same with mists and clouds of error and ignorance through their false glosses and interpretations. It pitieth me’ — he adds, ’to see the simple and hungry flock of Christ led into corrupt pastures, to be carried blindfold they know not whither.’†8
In other bodies also, "having a name to live," the complaint is as real, as in days of old — "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." (Hos 4:6 .) The sun shines not on more wretched objects, than on the awful masses of our fellow-sinners, growing up in habitual estrangement from God.
It has been calculated, that between four and five millions of our countrymen are living in habitual separation from the worship of God. Whether from the guilty neglect of rulers, the willful neglect of individuals, or from the population having grown far beyond the extent of instruction provided, certain it is, that in the most enlightened country in the world, to vast masses of our poor there is no vision, and the people perish in ignorance — "the things belonging to their peace being hid from their eyes"!†9
Take the most awful illustration of this Proverb that can be imagined. If to be without vision be the mark of a perishing state, what ray of Scriptural hope dawns upon the Heathen world? Being "without Christ," they are described by infallible testimony as "having no hope." (Eph 2:12 .) Salvation is indeed free to all, "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord." But how shall they call without faith; believe without hearing; "hear without a preacher?" (Rom 10:13-17 .) If therefore there be no vision, how can they but perish? "They perish indeed without law" (Rom 2:12 ) (not condemned under the law of revelation, which they have never known); but still they perish "without excuse" (Rom 1:20 ), alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the "blindness of their hearts." (Eph 4:18 .) Proud reasoning man revolts, and presumes to be more merciful than God. But this false charity is only the cover for selfishness. Men deny the danger, because they are too indolent, too self-indulgent, to stretch out the helping hand, or to make one sacrifice for the rescue. True charity is the fruit of reverential faith. And, while it realizes the tremendous peril, it concentrates all the energy of compassionate tenderness, believing prayer, and self-denying effort upon their salvation.
But the contrast is not between those, who have not the vision and those who have it; but between the destitution and the improvement of the blessing. The mere profession of the Gospel may be a nullity. Of what use is light, if we open not our eyes to see it? So far from becoming a blessing, it will only issue in deeper condemnation.†10 If some are enlightened, multitudes are struck blind. (Joh 12:40 .) But this true vision — the object really beheld as life and light to the soul — is the spring of that happy keeping the law,†11 which realizes no less a privilege than communion with our God and Savior here and for eternity.†12 Yes, truly — to be interested in the promises of God; to be an inheritor of everlasting glory; to be the present possessor of divine favor; to be secured from the peril of everything against him, and assured of the supply of all things that will work for his good — this is the happy portion of the practical disciple. And indeed in the ordinary course of life, as Hooker observes in his godly instructiveness — ’what event soever ensue, it breedeth, if not joy and gladness always, yet always patience, satisfaction, and reasonable contentment of mind. Whereupon it hath been set down as an axiom of good experience, that all things religiously taken in hand are prosperously ended; because, whether men in the end have that, which religion did allow them to desire, or that, which it teacheth them contentedly to suffer, they are in neither case unfortunate.’†13
Who then can justly cast a cloud of gloom over the ways of God? Let the Pentecostal Christians witness to their gladness. (Act 2:46-47 .) Let every servant of his Lord invite his fellow-sinners to the enjoyment of his privileges by the manifestation of their holiness and joy.
Footnotes:
†a Compare Exo 32:25 . 2Ch 28:19 . Geier and others give - ’Dissipantur’ - scattered. Mat 9:36 . Naked. Marg. - without clothing, in which to appear before God. Every view portrays a state of desponding misery.
†1 1Sa 9:9 . Mal 2:7 . Eph 4:11 .
†2 1Co 1:21 . Jas 1:18 . 1Pe 1:23 .
†3 1Co 14:3 . Eph 4:11-14 . 1Th 3:10 . And yet this most fruitful organ of divine agency (preaching), which our blessed Lord honored as the grand medium of his own teaching (Psa 40:9-10 . Isa 61:1-2 ), is now depreciated as the mark of ’a Church only in a weak and a languishing state, and an instrument, which Scripture - to say the least - has never much recommended.’ (Tracts for the Times, 87, p. 75.) Far more orthodox is the sentiment of one of our venerable reformers. ’Thus we may learn the necessity of preaching, and what inconvenience follows when it is not used. "Where preaching fails" - saith Solomon - "there people perish." Therefore let every one keep himself in God’s school-house, and learn his lesson diligently. For as the body is nourished with meat; so is the soul with the word of God.’ Bp. Pilkington’s Works, p. 112. Parker Society’s edition. ’The meanest village’ - Luther was wont to say - ’with a Christian pastor and flock, is a palace of ebony.’
†4 Amo 8:11-12. Isa 8:16 .
†5 Bishop Jewell on the Scriptures.
†6 1Ki 12:28-32 ; 2Ch 15:3-5 . Psa 74:9 . Lam 1:4 ; Lam 2:9 . Eze 7:26 . Hos 3:4 .
†7 Rev 2:1-5; Rev 3:1-3, Rev 3:15-16 .
†8 Preface to Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament.
†9 Luk 19:42. So far as the mass has been reached, we are deeply indebted to the Pastoral Aid Society, which may well be called our Home Missionary Society.
†10 Mat 11:20-24. Luk 12:47-48 .
†11 Pro 3:21-24; Pro 4:5-9 ; Pro 8:32-35 ; Pro 19:16 . Luk 11:28 . Joh 13:17 .
†12 Joh 14:21-23. Rev 22:12, Rev 22:14 .
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 Prophecy, by the urim, or by the mouth of…
Prophecy, by the urim, or by the mouth of prophets, who were in great power and estimation, 3 Kings i. 24., and xii. 23., and 2 Paralipomenon xxv. 6., and xxviii. 8. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "There shall be none to explain the law to the impious nation." (Haydock) --- When pastors are wanting, all goes to ruin, 1 Corinthians xi. 4. (Ven. Bede) (Calmet)
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 no vision--instruction in God's truth, which was by prophets,…
no vision--instruction in God's truth, which was by prophets, through visions (Sa1 3:1).
people perish--(Compare Margin), are deprived of moral restraints.
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keepeth the law--has, and observes, instruction (Pro 14:11, Pro 14:34; Psa 19:11).
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 18. No vision — Revelation, divine instruction, prophetic guidance.
18. No vision — Revelation, divine instruction, prophetic guidance.
The people perish — יפרע, (yippara’h,) variously translated, are scattered, become dissolute, apostatize, are unrestrained, are unbridled, etc. Melanchthon understood it of a prophet, who, as the expounder of God’s laws, had a great hand in the government, and by his counsels, when followed, made the kingdom flourishing. Witness, Elisha in Samaria, and Isaiah in Jerusalem. But when prophecy ceased the people were scattered, or every one did that which was right in his own eyes. The proverb is capable of a wide application; and the history of the Israelites is an illustration of it. Gen_46:2; 1Sa_3:1; 2Sa_7:17; Job_4:13; Dan_2:19; Hos_3:4; Amo_8:12; 2Ch_15:3; Psa_74:9.
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 18. vision … law] “The vision is the actual…
18. vision … law] “The vision is the actual contact between God and the human spirit, which is the necessary condition of any direct revelation; the law is the recorded result of such a revelation, either passed from mouth to mouth by tradition or written permanently in a book. We may then a little amplify the proverb for the sake of exposition: ‘Where there is no living revelation, no perceived contact between man and God, there the bonds which hold society together are relaxed and broken; but he that holds by the revelation that has been given, obeying the law, so far as it has been presented to him, happy is he.’ ” Horton.
It was this keeping the law, as they had received it, which was enjoined upon the Jews by the last of their prophets, in view of the coming centuries during which there should be no vision. Mal_4:4.
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perish] Rather, break loose, as the same word is rendered in Exo_32:25, R.V.; where, as here in the marg., A.V. has, is made naked. In this place R.V. renders, suitably enough, cast off restraint; but it seems desirable to adopt the same rendering in both places, because the historical incident affords a good and possibly an intended illustration of the proverb.
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 (18) Where there is no vision.—No revelation of God’s…
(18) Where there is no vision.—No revelation of God’s will (Isa_1:1), when God teaches none by His Spirit that they may instruct others. So it was in the evil days of Eli (1Sa_3:1), and Asa (2Ch_15:3).
The people perish.—Or, run wild. (Comp. Hos_4:6.)
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But he that keepeth the law.—The teaching of those whom God has instructed (Comp. Isa_1:10.)
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 Where there is no vision, the people perish; rather,…
Where there is no vision, the people perish; rather, cast off restraint, become ungovernable, cannot be reined in. (Exo_32:22, Exo_32:25) "Vision" (chazon), prophecy in its widest sense, denotes the revelation of God"s will made through agents, which directed the course of events, and was intended to be coordinate with the supreme secular authority. The prophets were the instructors of the people in Divine things, standing witnesses of the truth and power of religion, teaching a higher than mere human morality. The fatal effect of the absence of such revelation of God"s will is stated to be confusion, disorder, and rebellion; the people, uncontrolled, fall into grievous excesses, which nothing hut high principles can restrain. We note the licence of Eli"s time, when there was no open vision; (1Sa 3) in Asa"s days, when Israel had long been without a teaching priest; (2Ch_15:3) and when the impious Ahaz "made Judah naked"; (2Ch_28:19) or when the people were destroyed by reason of lack of knowledge of Divine things. (Hos_4:6) Thus the importance of prophecy in regulating the life and religion of the people is fully acknowledged by the writer, in whose time, doubtless, the prophetical office was in full exercise: but this seems to be the only passage in the book where such teaching is directly mentioned; the instructors and preceptors elsewhere introduced as disseminating the principles of the chochmah being parents, or tutors, or professors, not inspired prophets. But he that keepeth the Law, happy is he! "The Law" ( torah) is not merely the written Mosaic Law, but the announcement of God"s will by the mouth of his representatives; and the thought is, not the blessedness of those who in a time of anarchy and irreligion keep to the authorized enactments of the Sinaitic legislation, but a contrast between the lawlessness and ruin of a people uninfluenced by religious guidance, and the happy state of those who obey alike the voice of God, whether conveyed in written statutes or by the teaching of living prophets. (For "happy is he," comp. Pro_14:21 Pro_16:20) Septuagint, "There shall be no interpreter (exhghthv ) to a sinful nation, but he that keepeth the Law is most blessed.
No vision?
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The revelation of ancient prophecy was not continuous and uninterrupted, but it came in flashes, between which there were intervals of darkness. Sometimes those intervals were long and most distressing to a people that had learnt to draw its chief lessons from Divine oracles. Such a time was experienced in the days of Eli, for "the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no open vision"; (1Sa_3:1) and another and longer period was that of the "four centuries of silence" between the closing of the Old Testament and the opening of the New Testament.
I MEN NEED A HEAVENLY VISION. This requirement was recognized in Israel on especial grounds, because the people felt themselves to be a divinely directed nation, with God for their King and Leader. The fading away of the prophet"s vision would be like the vanishing of the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness; a necessary guidance would be lost. But heavenly visions are not less needed by all men.
1. Men need to know heavenly truth.
(1) In order to do the will of God. The servant must know his master"s will if he is to do his duty. Earthly knowledge is not enough. Heavenly messages are wanted, or the duty to God will be neglected.
(2) For the saving of a man"s own soul. We are not merely earthly animals. We are naturally related to heaven. To be starved of heavenly truth is to be left to perish in earthly mindedness.
2. Men cannot discover heavenly truth. It must be revealed. Without a vision from God the world is in spiritual darkness.
II MEN CAN HAVE A HEAVENLY VISION. God has not left his people to grope in a gross Cimmerian darkness. Light has fallen from heaven on earth.
1. This is given in the Bible. That record of old revelation enshrines a perpetual vision of God for all who have eyes to behold it. Therefore it is the duty of Christian people
a. to study the Scriptures,
b. to circulate them throughout the world, and
c. to teach and expound them to children and the ignorant.
2. This is enjoyed in personal experience. Every man can have his own vision, nay, must have it if he would really see truth. It is not to be supposed that everybody can he a Daniel or an Ezekiel, can behold Isaiah"s wonderful vision of God (Isaiah 6) or St. John"s glorious apocalypse of the heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 21). Much less is each man to look for his own separate gospel, and to feel called upon to write his own newer Testament. But in the understanding and appreciation of truth we must each see it for ourselves by the aid of a Divine inspiration. This was predicted by Joel of the new dispensation, (Joe_2:25) and claimed by St. Peter. (Act_2:16-21)
III MEN MAY LOSE THEIR HEAVENLY VISION. God is not capricious. If the Divine voice is silent, this must be because there are no obedient ears to receive it. The vision is only withdrawn when the eyes of men are so blinded by sin and worldliness that they cannot behold it. Then God may send a famine of the Word of truth. (Amo_8:11) It is a fearful thing to be incapable of seeing the truth of God or hearing his voice. But this condition is dependent on our own conduct. We blind our eyes against the light of heaven when we plunge into the mire of sin. We need to pray, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law". (Psa_119:18) Christ came to open blind eyes, (Luk_4:18) and to give new visions of God"s truth. (Joh_18:37)
Vers. 18-23. Fatal defects in the social state.
I THE WANT OF COMMANDING RELIGIOUS TEACHING. The great prophets of Israel were the great instructors of the people. They declared Jehovah"s living oracles; they made clear the eternal principles of the moral law; they forecast what must be the future under moral conditions. The Christian preacher has succeeded to the office of the Jewish prophet. Woe to the nation if the supply of preachers ceases! if, sunk in material interests, they are allowed to forget that the "Word of the Lord" lives and endures, and obedience to it must be the foundation of all private blessing, all public prosperity!
II THE WANT OF FIRM POLICY AND CONDUCT. (Ver. 19) There always will be a class more or less of "slaves," who must be governed, not by mere rhetoric or the appeal to feeling, but by the knowledge that words will be backed by deeds. God means what he says. The laws of nature are no mere abstract statements of truth; they are stern and solemn facts, which cannot be defied with impunity. And the lawless must understand that what ought to be shall be.
III THE WANT OF CALM DELIBERATION. (Ver. 20) Whether in private or in public life, this too may he a ruinous defect. Thus rash enterprises are begun, hostilities break out without warning, a lifelong alienation or the misery of a generation may spring from the passion or the pique of the moment.
IV WANT OF DUE SEVERITY IN DISCIPLINE. (Ver. 21) The exegesis of the verse certainly points to this meaning. Men are stung by the ingratitude or contumacy of those whom they had weakly petted, and whose faults they had nourished by their smiles. But human nature will only respond to just and true treatment; and injurious kindness will reap a thorny crop of ingratitude.
V WANT OF SELF-CONTROL AND OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE. (Vers. 22, 23) (For the first, see Pro_15:18 Pro_28:25) Wrath is the very hot bed of transgression and every "evil work." And self-esteem is a neighbour vice. So near are extremes in life: the moment we are highest in our own imagination we are really lowest in power, in position, in prospect. "He that would build lastingly must lay his foundation low. As man falls by pride, he recovers by humility." And the more God honours men, the more they should humble themselves. J.
Spiritual ignorance and obedience. (See also homily on Pro_19:2) Two things are clear:
1. That God has provided us with many sources of knowledge. We have, for materials to work with, a very complex and richly endowed nature; and we have, for materials to work upon,
(1) that same nature of ours with all its instincts, impulses, desires, hopes;
(2) the great visible system around us into which we can constantly be looking, and of which we might be expected to learn much;
(3) human life, and the providence of God as manifested therein.
2. That these sources of wisdom, which are constant and common to our race, prove to be lamentably insufficient. Man, under the dominion and depression of sin, cannot read aright the lessons which his own nature, the visible universe, and the providence of God are fitted and intended to teach him. He shows himself utterly incapable; he is completely false in his ideas, and pitiably wrong in his course of action. Hence we come to the conclusion of the text
I THE LAMENTABLE RESULT OF SPIRITUAL IGNORANCE. "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Where there is no special Divine revelation, supplementing the knowledge and correcting the ignorance of the unenlightened, there is a "perishing" or a "nakedness" in the land. The sad and miserable result, as all lands and all ages testify, is:
1. Literal, physical death. Without the knowledge of God, and in the absence of the control which the knowledge of his will can supply,
(1) there is strife, violence, war, and of this death is the continual fruit;
(2) there is vice, and this, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
2. Loss of character. Not only of that which is sometimes understood by character, viz. reputation, but also of character itself. Where God"s Word and will are unknown, there is such a deplorable descent into the erroneous and the immoral, that both of these go down and perish.
3. Absence of spiritual life. The life of our life is in God, and not only in his kindness to us, but in our knowledge of him. To be in utter ignorance of him, to have lost all belief in him, to be spending our days in spiritual separation from him, is not this to be so destitute of all that beautifies and brightens, of all that enlarges and ennobles, human life, as to be "dead while we live"? So thought and taught the great Teacher and his great apostle. (Luk_9:60 Joh_5:24 1Ti_5:6) It is not merely that there is a sad exclusion, at the end, from the heavenly kingdom; it is that spiritual ignorance of God constitutes death, and they who are living without God, and becoming more and more alienated from and unlike to him, are perishing "day by day.
II THE BLESSEDNESS OF OBEDIENCE. "He that keepeth the Law," etc. Happy is the man who walks in the fear of God, in the love and the service of Jesus Christ; for
1. He is walking in the path where all the worst evils cannot harm him; he is defended from "the evil which is in the world;" he is upheld in his purity and his integrity.
2. He is living a life which will command the esteem and win the love of the wise and the worthy.
3. He abides under the wing of a heavenly Father"s favour; he is enjoying the friendship of a Divine Saviour.
4. He is expending his powers in the conscious, the happy service of him "whose he is," and in whose service is true and lasting freedom.
5. He is exerting a benignant influence in every circle in which he moves.
6. He is travelling homewards. C.
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 Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Pro_29:18
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
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The improvement of the ministry of the Word
What makes a people very unhappy with respect to the concerns of their souls? The want of vision puts a people in very unhappy circumstances. By vision is understood prophecy. By prophecy is meant the preaching, expounding, and applying the Word of God. Doctrine: Though the want of the ministry of the Word makes a people very unhappy, yet it is not the having of it, but the right improving of it that makes them happy.
I. Deplorable is the case of those who are deprived of the ministry of the Word. What makes the case so deplorable? The original word means, the people are naked, they are left in a bare condition (Exo_22:25). They are stripped of their ornaments, to their shame. They are stripped of their armour, left naked in the midst of danger. They are stripped of the means of their defence. Hence they are exposed in a special manner to the subtlety and violence of their spiritual enemies, without the ordinary means of help. Where there is no vision the people go backward. They leave their first love, their first ways in religion; they fall into a spiritual decay and apostasy. The people are drawn away: from their God and from their duty. The people are idle--they give over their work. The people perish--die for lack of instruction; are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
II. The mere having the ministry of the Word is not sufficient to make a people happy. The people may have it, and yet get no saving benefit from it. Outward privileges make no man a happy man. The mere having the Word will aggravate the condemnation of those that have it and walk not answerably to it.
III. A right improvement of the mercy of the Word will make a happy people. This improvement consists in two things--
1. Faith in Jesus Christ.
2. Holiness of life.
This improvement will make happy souls here and hereafter. Here, in peace with God, pardon of sin, all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; and hereafter in eternal salvation. It bids fair for prosperity in earthly things. It gives happiness under the crosses and trials of this world. It puts a happiness into the relations in which we stand. Directions for improving the ministry of the Word:
1. Pray much for a real benefit from ordinances.
2. Diligently attend upon ordinances.
3. Meditate upon what you hear, and converse with one another about it.
4. Set yourselves humbly to obey the truths delivered from the Lords Word, embracing them by faith.
5. Put your hand to the Lords work in your several stations in your families and among those with whom you converse, to prosecute the great ends of the gospel. (T. Boston, D D.)
The vitality of vision
I. Where there is no vision of the present working of Christ in the world, charity and hope fade. The progress of the age is Christs work. Beneficial operations of all kinds are His present-day miracles. The sympathy of the age, its mission, its humanity, its sacrifice, its enthusiasm for progress, is Christs doing. Let us see Him in the past and in the present. Then we shall have a nobler faith, a larger charity, and a radiant hopefulness.
II. Where there is no vision of the Divine Fatherhood, devotion decays. Our devotional life accords with the conception of God we hold up to our attention. If we think of God as stern, arbitrary, partial, we cannot experience love, worship, trust, sacrifice. The human heart is constituted to love only the lovable; to worship only the perfect and benevolent; to trust only the just and true.
III. Where there is no vision of Divine providence, practical energy declines. Give up the idea of a Supreme Mind caring for all, and life is not Worth living. Let the vision of the all-embracing providence of God be clear, and life will be transfigured. All Christian workers are thus sustained. Failure, loss, rejection, may be the record on the visible side; but faith sees on the unseen side an all-comprehending spiritual kingdom, and says, All things work together for good.
IV. Where there is no vision of truth and fact, knowledge decays. As tradition and conservation prevail truth becomes a dead carcase. The hour for revival, for reform, is come, and the minds that see the truth lead the new movement. The dreams of seers renew the life of the worlds thought.
V. Where there is no vision of the possibilities of human nature, sympathy decays. Man has instinctively recognised his fellow as spiritual, as free, as immortal, as possessing unlimited capacities of progress, and as the object, consequently, of intense interest and of unlimited love. The vision of that ideal of man is the inspiration of all philanthropy.
VI. Where there is no vision of duty, holiness declines. Man is the subject of relations. The highest relation he maintains is to Christ. His life-care is the duty he owes to Christ. As we have that vision before us, we shall ennoble all we do. VII. The vision of heaven saves hope from perishing. The inspiration of all progress is hope. The most fruitful hope we can cherish is the perfection of mankind in the celestial life in fellowship with Christ. Such a vision ennobles, sanctifies, vitalises, lights up the present with heavenly radiance, and makes death the gate of life. (T. Matthews.)
Divine vision essential to human salvation
I. True vision is a revelation from God. A communication not furnished by nature; not the product of human intellect, or imagination, or fancy; not the tradition of the elders, however venerable; but a special unfolding of the Divine nature and government, adapted to the moral exigencies of the race. Such a communication is possible. Such is probable--
1. From conflicting indications of the Divine character furnished by nature.
2. The universally felt moral necessities of man. Such is actually accomplished, as the whole body of Christian evidence attests.
II. There many places where, as yet, this vision is not. Where it is not known. Where it is not published. Where it is not believed.
III. Where it is not, the people perish.
1. It alone reveals a Saviour and a salvation adapted to man.
2. It alone is associated with spiritual power to deliver man from the bondage, and misery, and guilt, and doom, of sin. The vision of God is to them that possess it a most precious thing. They who possess it not ought to be the objects of the deepest compassion. They who do possess it are bound, by every consideration of gratitude and pity, to send it to those who do not. (J. M. Jarvie.)
Divine revelation
The text presents two facts concerning redemptive revelation.
I. Its absence is a great calamity. Where there is no vision, the people perish. The word perish has been variously rendered: some read will apostatise, others are made naked, others are dispersed, others are become disorderly. All renderings agree in expressing the idea of calamity, and truly is it not a sad calamity to be deprived of the Bible?
II. Its regulative experience is a great blessing. He that keepeth the law, happy is he. This vision is not an abstraction or a speculative system--it is a law; it comes with Divine authority; it demands obedience; it is not the mere subject for a creed, but the code for a life; its aim is to regulate all the movements of the soul. It is only those who are ruled by it who are made happy, those who have it and are not controlled by it will as assuredly perish. It is not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the law. Who is the happy man? Not the man who has the vision and does not study it, nor the man who studies it and never reduces it to practice: it is the man who translates the vision into his life. He that keepeth the law, happy is he. There is no heaven for man but in obedience to God. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
The soul perishing for lack of vision
The vision here is acquaintance with God and the things of the invisible world. Vision became almost synonymous with revelation Where there is no Bible, there can be no vision. To talk of preparing a nation for the reception of the Bible, by first of all civilising that nation is to betray ignorance of what has produced the degeneracy of humanity, and mistrust of the engine which God has placed in our hands. The civilisation must and will follow the reception of the Bible. Notice the marginal rendering, the people is made naked. The people is stripped, the people has no clothing in which to appear before God, if you take away revelation. They may attempt a righteousness of their own, and think to cover themselves with a covering which their own hands have woven. But the text is most emphatic in denouncing such schemes and hopes. We must put on Christ, and be clothed with His righteousness. If we would make s right and full use of the disclosures and statements of our Bible, we must, it would seem, have the things of redemption and futurity presented with the same distinctness and vividness to the internal organs, as the things of the world are to the external. This is the great triumph of spirit over matter. Speak to those whose religion is more than nominal, who do behold Christ with the eye of the soul. We account for much of that slow progress in piety, which you both observe in others and lament in yourselves, on the principle that you are but seldom occupied with contemplations of the invisible world. Let us not be wanting in diligence in using the telescope that has been entrusted to us to aid us in seeing the unseen. (H. Melvill, B.D.)
No vision
The question suggested by the text is, Can we see? Were we made to see? Is all else related by law of adaptation to man on this earth save God Himself who made the earth and man? It is vision that decides our scale in this world, and our honour and glory in the world to come. For ages men have believed that they were made to see and know God in His works and in His Word; that we have not only eyes, but objects; that we can hold intercourse with God--love Him, trust Him, and pray to Him. The peril of our age is no new peril. Materialism is as old as Sadducean Judaism. This is the great vital difference in men--vision. This it is that decides their principles, their ethics, their characters.
I. Materialistic ideas of life blind us to the true vision. We are in a world of material things. But we, Christians, build temples to the invisible Lord. We seek and we worship a Saviour whom, not having seen, we love. We judge morality to be more than utility. We walk by faith, not by sight. There is no true vision without the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
II. Christ is the revealer of life and immortality. These words contain two distinct truths. Life is the spiritual view of all things. Immortality is life in Christ beyond the grave.
III. Character is decided by our visions of truth. The right life comes from the right thought. If my life is to be redeemed and moulded by Divine influences, then my vision is all in all to me.
IV. Perishing is seen in this present life. Men do perish! Compared with what you might be, you are now perishing. Woe to that nation that has no eye to see the face of God in Christ! (W. M. Statham.)
The beneficent influence of heavenly visions
Man has spiritual wants as well as bodily wants, and he must have spiritual things to satisfy them. Temporal and visible things meet and satisfy all the wants of the body, but the soul must receive its sustenance from the invisible and the eternal. The spiritual world is a fact to the senses of the soul as truly as the material world is a fact to the bodily senses. Visions are as necessary for the soul as food for the body, and so heavenly visions were not Gods gifts to one nation and for a limited time, but are to all countries and for all times. Godly men in our days are having visions exactly in the same sense as the seers and prophets of old; the difference is in degree, not in kind. But a distinction must be made between the seer in the highest sense and seers in a general sense. God inspires and gives special visions to a chosen few in different ages and countries. Note the powers of inward vision to which we give the names of insight and intuition--insight into human character, intuition of Divine principles--clear knowledge of what man is and how God will act. The original meaning of the word saw, is to cleave, or split; then to see into, to see through, to get down beneath the surface of things and discover their real nature. What characterises the bulk of Hebrew visions is penetrativeness. All the seers of the world are hard workers, and are active in their visions. Sometimes the seer does valuable service to the world by rediscovering some great revealed truth which had been hidden by the accretion of ages of erroneous human ideas and creeds. Luther was such an one. And we are to thank Heaven for seers like Carlyle, Ruskin, Beecher, Browning, and Tennyson, who fearlessly cleave old customs, shams, conventionalisms, dogmas, and creeds, and proclaim to the world, like the prophets of old, eternal and unchangeable truths. Note the mighty influence of heavenly visions on the world. What would have been the moral condition of the world if God had given no visions to holy and inspired men?
I. The restraining power of visions. In the days of Samuel there was no open vision. God mercifully raised him up, and gave him visions to enable him to check and restrain the ungodliness of his age. Our great want is more men of visions as political and social reformers and preachers.
II. The sustaining power of visions. Men are sure to perish socially and spiritually if God does not mercifully grant them visions.
III. The ennobling influence of visions upon mens characters. The tendency of Gods visions to men is to purify their thoughts, to elevate their spirits, to ennoble their characters. The objective in the visions gradually becomes subjective, as a part of the character. But you are not to expect these heavenly visions by sleeping and dreaming, but by holy meditation, fervent prayer, and strenuous effort to live the life of the Son of God.
IV. The blessedness of obedience to the heavenly visions. If we would know the highest joy of visions, we must obey them. (Z. Mather.)
Ideals
Man talks to God; that is prayer. God talks with man; that is inspiration. According to the sensational philosophy there is no vision, there is no invisible world, or at least we cannot know it directly and immediately. This takes all the glory out of life. Take out from man the power of perceiving the invisible and the eternal, and all life loses its life. God is no longer a Divine reality. He is only an opinion. The same philosophy which robs the universe of its God robs man of his soul. This philosophy is equally fatal to morals. There are no longer any great, eternal, immutable laws. Take vision out of religion, what have you left? You had a Church of Christ, now you have a Society of Ethical Culture.
I. Ideals are realities. What we call ideals are not conceptions we have created; they are realities we have discovered. The great laws of nature are not created by the scientists. They only formulate and express the laws of nature. The laws of harmony are eternal; and when the musician finds a new harmony, he finds what was before. In the ethical realm, the great laws of righteousness are not created; they are eternal. Moses did not make them, he only found forms in which to state them. God is not a thesis, an opinion, a theory, a supposition, created to account for phenomena; He is the great underlying reality of which all phenomena are the manifestation.
II. Imagination is seeing. Science owes its progress to this power of vision. All the greatest men of science first saw dimly and imperfectly the invisible realities, then followed, tested, and tried their visions, and proved the reality of them. The great seers and prophets of all time have not been men who have created thoughts to inspire us; they have been men with eyes that saw, and they have helped also to see.
III. Ideals being realities, and imagination seeing, scepticism is ignorance. By scepticism is meant the doubt that scoffs at the invisible and eternal, not the mere questioning of a particular dogma. We are not to measure the truth by our capacity to see, but our capacity to see by the truth. The world needs nothing so much as men who will carry the spirit of vision into every phase of life. There are two classes of men in this world--drudges and dreamers. The man who works without vision, who is not lifted up by his thoughts out of mere material things, he is a drudge. (Lyman Abbott.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain "Where no vision is, a people casts off restraint,…
CHAPTER 30
THE NEED OF REVELATION
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"Where no vision is, a people casts off restraint, but he that keepeth the law is happy."- Pro_29:18
THE form of the proverb shows that we are not to treat the vision and the law as opposite, but rather as complementary terms. Visions are it is true, especially the mark of the prophets, and the law is often confined in a special sense to the Pentateuch; but there is a much wider usage of the words, according to which the two together express, with tolerable completeness, what we mean by Revelation. The vision means a perception of God and His ways, and is quite as applicable to Moses as to Isaiah; and, on the other hand, the law covers all the distinct and articulate instruction which God gives to His people in any of His ways of self-communication. "Come ye," says Isaiah, {Isa_2:3} "and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem"; where the whole context shows that, not the Mosaic Law, but rather a new and particular declaration of the Lords will, is referred to.
But while the vision and the law are not to be treated as opposites, it is possible to distinguish between them. The vision is the actual contact between God and the human spirit, which is the necessary condition of any direct revelation; the law is the recorded result of such a revelation, either passed from mouth to mouth by tradition, or written permanently in a book.
We may then a little amplify the proverb for the sake of exposition: "Where there is no living revelation, no perceived contact between man and God, there the bonds which hold society together are relaxed or broken; but he that holds by the revelation that has been given, obeying the law, so far as it has been presented to him, happy is he."
Man has need of a revelation; that is the assertion. Society, as an ordered and happy body of men in which each person is rightly subordinated to the whole, and in which law, as distinct from individual caprice, prevails, requires a revealed law. The light of nature is good, but it is not sufficient. The common sense of mankind is powerful, but not powerful enough. In the absence of a real and valid declaration of Gods will times must come when the elemental passions of human nature will break out with unrestrained violence, the teachings of morality will be disputed, their authority will be denied, and their yoke will be broken; the links which hold the state and the community together will snap, and the slow growths of ages may disappear in a moment. It is not difficult to show the truth of this assertion from experience. Every people that emerges from barbarism has a vision and a law; a certain revelation which forms the foundation, the sanction, the bond of its corporate existence. When you can point to a tribe or a group of tribes that know nothing of God, and therefore have no idea of revelation, you at once assure us that the people are sunk in a hopeless savagery. We are, it is true, inclined to deny the term revelation to those systems of religion which lie outside of the Bible, but it is difficult to justify such a contraction of view. God has not left Himself anywhere without a witness. The more closely we examine the multitudinous religions of the earth, the more clearly does it appear that each of them had at its origin a definite, however limited, revelation. The idea of One all-powerful, good, and wise, God is found at the beginning of each faith that can be traced back far enough, and the actual condition of heathen systems always suggests a decline from a higher and a purer religion. We may say, then, with much plausibility, that no lasting and beneficial form of human society has ever existed apart from a vision and a law.
But leaving the wide field of comparative religions, do we not see an illustration of the truth of the text in the European countries which are more subject to our observation? In proportion as a people loses its faith in revelation it falls into decay. This was made manifest in the experience of the French Revolution. When the Jacobins had emancipated themselves from the idea of God, and had come out into the clear light of reason, so terribly did they "cast off restraint" that their own leader, Robespierre, endeavored with a feverish haste to restore the recognition of God, assuming himself the position of high pontiff to the Supreme Being. The nearest approach that the world has probably ever seen to a government founded on Atheism was this government of the French Revolution, and a more striking commentary on this text could hardly be desired.
But the need of a revelation can be apprehended, apart from all appeals to history, by simply studying the nature of the spirit of man. Man must have an object of worship, and that object must be such as to command his worship. Auguste Comte thought to satisfy this need of the heart by suggesting Humanity as the Grand Etre, but humanity was and is nothing but an abstraction. Feeling this himself, he recommended the worship of woman, and he prostrated his heart before Clotilde de Vaux; but sacred and beautiful as a mans love of a woman may be, it is no substitute for worship. We must have quite another than ourselves and our own kind, if our hearts are to find their rest. We must have an Almighty, an Infinite; we must have one who is Love. Until his spirit is worshipping, man cannot realize himself, or attain the height of his intended stature.
Again, man must have an assurance of his own immortality. While he believes himself to be mortal, a creature of a day, and that an uncertain day, it is impossible for him to rise much above the level of other ephemeral things. His pursuits must be limited, and his aims must be confined. His affections must be chilled by the shadow of death, and in proportion as he has nobly striven and tenderly loved, his later years must be plunged in hopeless gloom, because his efforts have been ineffectual and his beloved have gone from him. No juggling with terms; no half-poetic raptures about "the choir invisible," can meet the mighty craving of the human heart. Man must be immortal, or he is not man. "He thinks he was not made to die."
But to meet these demands of the spirit what, apart from revelation, can avail? That metaphysics is futile practically all men are agreed. Only the philosopher can follow the dialectics which are to prove the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. And even the philosopher seems to grow pale and wizened in the process of his demonstration, and wins at last a vantage-ground of cold conviction, to find that there is no comfort there. But can science offer the assurance which philosophy was unable to give? Let us listen to the conclusion of a scientific writer on this subject, one who has lost his hold on revelation and can realize a little of what he has lost.
"The highest and most consoling beliefs of the human mind," he says, "are to a great extent bound up with the Christian religion. If we ask ourselves frankly how much, apart from this religion, would remain of faith in a God, and in a future state of existence, the answer must be, very little. Science traces everything back to primeval atoms and germs, and there it leaves us. How came these atoms and energies there, from which this wonderful universe of worlds has been evolved by inevitable laws? What are they in their essence, and what do they mean? The only answer is, It is unknowable. It is behind the veil, and may be anything. Spirit may be matter, matter may be spirit. We have no faculties by which we can even form a conception from any discoveries of the telescope or microscope, from any experiments in the laboratory, or from any facts susceptible of real human knowledge, of what may be the first cause underlying all these phenomena."
"In like manner we can already, to a great extent, and probably in a short time shall be able to the fullest extent to trace the whole development of life from the lowest to the highest; from protoplasm, through monera, infusoria, mollusca, vertebrata, fish, reptile and mammal, up to man; and the individual man from the microscopic egg, through the various stages of its evolution up to birth, childhood, maturity, decline, and death. We can trace also the development of the human race through enormous periods of time, from the modest beginnings up to its present level of civilization, and show how arts, languages, morals, and religions have been evolved gradually by human laws from primitive elements, many of which are common in their ultimate form to man and the animal creation."
"But here also science stops. Science can give no account of how these germs and nucleated cells, endowed with these marvelous capacities for evolution, came into existence, or got their intrinsic powers. Nor can science enable us to form the remotest conception of what will become of life, consciousness, and conscience, when the material conditions with which they are always associated, while within human experience, have been dissolved by death, and no longer exist. We know as little, in the way of accurate and demonstrable knowledge, of our condition after death as we do of our existence-if we had an existence-before birth."
Science frankly confesses that she can tell us nothing of the things which it most concerns us to know. On those things she is no farther advanced than she was in the days of Aristotle. Never do we feel how much men need a revelation so vividly as when we have grasped the first principles of such a great scientific thinker as Mr. Herbert Spencer, and realize how far he is able to take us and how soon he has to leave us. How does it meet the craving of the soul for God to show us the slow stages by which man became a living soul? As well might you try to satisfy the musicians ear by. telling him how his art had grown from the primitive tom-tom of the savage. How can it help the life to be lived wisely, lovingly, and well, in the midst of the uncertainty of the world, and confronted by the certainty of death, to be told that our physical structure is united by a thousand immediate links with that of other mammals. Such a fact is insignificant; the supreme fact is that we are not like other mammals in the most important respects; we have hearts that long and yearn, minds which enquire and question- they have not; we want God, our heart and our flesh crieth out for the living God, and we demand an eternal life- they do not.
How can science pretend that what she does not know is not knowledge, while she has to confess that she does not know precisely the things which it most concerns us as men to know? How can the spirit of man be content with the husks which she gives him to eat, when his whole nature craves the kernel? What probability is there that a man will close his eyes to the sun because another person, very clever and industrious, has shut himself up in a dark cellar, and tries to persuade him that his candle is all the light he may legitimately use, and what cannot be seen by his candle is not real?
No, science may not prove revelation, but she proves our need of it. She does her utmost, she widens her borders, she is more earnest, more accurate, more informed, more efficacious than ever: but she shows that what man most wants she cannot give, -she bids him go elsewhere.
But now it may be said: It is one thing to prove that man needs a revelation, and another to show that a revelation has been given. That is perfectly true, and this is not the place to adduce all the evidence which might prove that revelation is a reality; but what an advance we have made on the cold, self-satisfied deism of the eighteenth century, which maintained that the light of nature was enough, and revelation was quite superfluous, when the truest and most candid voices of science are declaring with such growing clearness that for the knowledge which revelation professes to give, revelation, and revelation alone, will suffice!
We Christians believe that we have a revelation, and we find that it suffices. It gives us precisely those assurances about God and about the soul without which we falter, grow bewildered, and begin to despond. We have a vision and a law. Our Bible is the record of the ever-widening, ever-clearing vision of God. The power and authority of the vision seem to be the more convincing, just because we are permitted to see the process of its development. Here we are able to stand with the seer and see, not the long aeonian stages of creation which science has been painfully tracking out in these later days, but the supreme fact, which science professes herself unable to see, that God was the Author of it all. Here we are able to see the first imperfect conception of God which came in vision and in thought to the patriarch or sheikh in the earliest dawn of civilization. Here we can observe the conceptions clearing, through Moses, through the Psalmists, through the Prophets, until at last we have a vision of God in the person of His Son, who is the brightness of the Fathers glory, the express image of His countenance. We see that He, the unseen Creator, is Love.
Our Bible, too, is the record of a law, -a law of human conduct, the will of God as applied to earthly, life. At first the law is confined to a few primitive practices and outward observances; then it grows in complexity and multiplication of details; and only after a long course of discipline, of effort and apparent failure, of teaching and-deliberate disobedience, is the law laid bare to its very roots, and presented in the simplified and self-evidencing form of the Sermon on the Mount and the apostolic precepts.
It is not necessary to start with any particular theory about the Bible, any more than it is necessary to know the substance of the sun before we can warm ourselves in his beams. It is not necessary to look for scientific accuracy in the histories and treatises through which the vision and the law are communicated to us. We know that the vessels are earthen, and the presupposition all through is that the light was only growing from the glimmer of the dawn up to the perfect day. But we know, we are persuaded, that here, to seeing eyes and humble hearts, is the revelation of God and of His will.
Nor is it only in the Bible that God speaks to us. There have been times in the history of Christendom-such times as the middle of the eighteenth century-when though the Bible was in mens hands, it seemed to be almost a dead letter. "There was no vision, and the people cast off restraint." It is by living men and women to whom He grants visions and reveals truths, that God maintains the purity and power of His revelation to us. He came in vision to Fox and the early Friends, to Zinzendorf and the early Moravians, to Wesley and the early Methodists. Seldom does a generation pass but some seers are sent to make the Word of God a living influence to their age. The vision is not always unmixed with human error, and when it ceases to be living it may become obstructive, a cause of paralysis rather than of progress. But Augustine and Jerome, Benedict and Leo, Francis and Dominic, Luther and Calvin, Ignatius Loyola, and Xavier, Fenelon and Madame Guyon, Jonathan Edwards and Channing, Robertson and Maurice, Erskine and MacLeod Campbell, are but examples of Gods method all down the Christian ages. The vision comes pure and fresh as if straight from the presence of God. Traditionalism crumbles away. Doubt retreats like a phantom of the night. Mighty moral revolutions and spiritual awakenings are accomplished by the means of His chosen ones. And it should be our desire and our joy to recognize and welcome these seers of God.
"He that keepeth the law, happy is he." It is a mournful thing to be without a revelation, and to grope in darkness at midday; to hold ones mind in melancholy suspense, uncertain about God, about His will, about the life eternal. But it is better to have no revelation than to have it and disregard it. Honest doubt is full of necessary sorrow, but to believe and not to obey is the road to inevitable ruin. "He that keepeth"-yea, he that looks into revelation, not for curiosity, but for a law by which to live; who listens to the wise precepts, not in order to exclaim, "How wise they are!" but in order to act on them.
There are many professing Christians who are constantly plunged in gloom. Unbelievers may point the finger at them, and say, "They believe in God, in salvation, and in heaven, but see what an effect it has on them. Do they really believe?" Oh, yes, they really believe, but they do not obey; and no amount of faith brings any lasting happiness apart from obedience. The law requires us to love God, to love men; it requires us to abstain from all appearance of evil, to touch not the unclean thing; it bids us love not the world, it tells us how impossible the double service of God and Mammon is. Now, though we believe it all, it can give us nothing but pain unless we live up to it. If there is a vision and we shut our eyes to it, if there is a law and we turn away from it, woe unto us! But if we receive the vision, if we loyally and earnestly keep the law, the world cannot fathom the depth of our peace, nor rise to the height of our joy.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Pro_29:18. Vision. Rather “Revelation.” “The word denotes prophetic prediction,…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Pro_29:18. Vision. Rather “Revelation.” “The word denotes prophetic prediction, the revelation of God by His seers (1Sa_9:9); the chief function of these consisted in their watching over the vigorous fulfilling of the law, or in the enforcement of the claims of the law (Zöckler).
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_29:18
DIVINE REVELATION AND HUMAN OBEDIENCE
I. The human soul needs what it cannot produce. If the flower is to attain to its development of beauty and colour it must have the sunlight and the rain from without itself—it needs what it has no power to produce. The husbandman and all mankind need a harvest, but they have no power within themselves to supply their need; although they can plough, and plant, and sow, they cannot give the quickening rays of light and heat which alone can make the seed to live and grow. The entire human race has spiritual needs which it cannot supply, and capabilities which must be developed by influences outside and above itself. It needs a knowledge of God’s nature, and will, and purposes, if it is to grow in moral stature, and blossom and ripen into moral beauty and fruitfulness, but no human intellect or heart can acquire this knowledge by its own unaided efforts. If the human soul is to grow in goodness it must know God, and if it is to know Him, God must reveal Himself.
II. God by revelation has supplied man’s need. This supply man had a right to look for and expect. He had a right to look to the Creator of his bodily appetites and needs for the supplies that are necessary to his physical life and well-being, and he does not look in vain. God has given the “earth to the children of men” (Psa_115:16), and every year He causes it to bring forth and bud, not only giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, but an abundance of luxuries for his enjoyment. It is most natural and reasonable to look to the Giver of all these good things for the body, and expect from Him the supply of the deeper needs of the soul. We do not think a human parent does his duty to his child if he only feeds and clothes him and makes no effort to enlighten his mind and satisfy his heart. And surely the Great Father of the universe would not be worthy of His name if He dealt so with the children of whose bodies and souls He is the Author. But He has not left us thus unprovided for, but “at sundry times and in divers manners He has spoken unto men” (Heb_1:1), telling them enough of Himself and of themselves to satisfy their spiritual cravings, and to elevate their spiritual nature.
III. It follows that gratitude and self-love should prompt men to listen to God, and to obey Him. If the foregoing assertions are true, it follows that man must give heed to the revelation of God, or sustain permanent and irretrievable loss. As he cannot reject the Divine provision for the body without bodily death, so he cannot refuse attention to God’s provision for his soul without spiritual ruin—without causing to perish all those powers and faculties of his highest nature the exercise of which make existence worth having. Self-love, therefore, should prompt a man to “keep the law,” and if he do not listen to its voice he has only himself to blame for missing real happiness. If a man is starving, his best friend can do no more than supply his need, he must eat the food set before him; and when God has offered to the children of men that wine and milk which will satisfy the soul, and cause it to grow, He has done all that even a God can do. (Isa_55:1-2.) Man is a self-murderer if he refuse it.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
He doth not say they may perish, but they do perish; or they are in danger of perishing, but they do certainly perish where there is no serious, conscientious, faithful, powerful preaching.… There men perish temporarily; when vision, when preaching ceased among the Jews, oh, the dreadful calamities and miseries that came upon the people!… There men perish totally: both the bodies and the souls of men perish where serious conscientious preaching fails (Hos_4:6); “My people are destroyed for want of knowledge.” … The Papists say that ignorance is the mother of devotion; but this text tells us that it is the mother of destruction.—Brooks.
This is only a hypothetical case, for there are no such “people.” Nevertheless there is such a principle. Just in proportion as men do not know they will not be punished. Paul and Solomon are in full accord. “They that sin without law shall also perish without law; but they that sin in the law shall be judged by the law.” (Rom_2:12.) These Proverbs elsewhere have taught the same doctrine (chap. Pro_8:36). Men might all perish, but some less terribly, from a difference of light. All men have some light (Rom_1:20); and that which they actually have is all that they shall answer for in the day of final account. Still there is a form of ignorance that will exactly proportion our guilt. It is ghostly ignorance, or the absence of spiritual knowledge. Perhaps I may still say that a man is punished for what he has, and not for what he has not. A man who knows of this ignorance, and has light enough to know his need of light, has enough to give account for in that without being supposed to suffer for a profound negation. Be this as it may, there is such an ignorance. It exactly grades our sins. It is the measure of our depravity, The profounder it sinks we sink. No man need sink or perish. There is a remedy. “The word is nigh” (us.)—Miller.
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.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 29:18 The wise accept divine guidance from God’s law,…
29:18 The wise accept divine guidance from God’s law, the guide to his will.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.