1My son, if you have become collateral for your neighbor, if you have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger,
2you are trapped by the words of your mouth; you are ensnared with the words of your mouth.
3Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself, since you have come into the hand of your neighbor. Go, humble yourself. Press your plea with your neighbor.
4Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.
5Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
1 My son, if you have become collateral for your neighbor, if you have struck your hands in pledge for a stranger,
2 you are trapped by the words of your mouth; you are ensnared with the words of your mouth.
3 Do this now, my son, and deliver yourself, since you have come into the hand of your neighbor. Go, humble yourself. Press your plea with your neighbor.
4 Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.
5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
KJVKing James Version
1 My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,
2 Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.
3 Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.
4 Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.
5 Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Show all 3 translations
JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
1 My son, if thou art become surety for thy neighbour, if thou hast struck thy hands for a stranger —
2 Thou art snared by the words of thy mouth, thou art caught by the words of thy mouth —
3 Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, seeing thou art come into the hand of thy neighbour; go, humble thyself, and urge thy neighbour.
4 Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.
5 Deliver thyself as a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Proverbs 18:7(v2)A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are a snare to his soul.
Proverbs 12:13(v2)An evil man is trapped by sinfulness of lips, but the righteous shall come out of trouble.
Proverbs 17:18(v1)A man void of understanding strikes hands, and becomes collateral in the presence of his neighbor.
Proverbs 22:26(v1)Don’t you be one of those who strike hands, of those who are collateral for debts.
Psalms 132:4(v4)I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids;
Show all 26 cross-references
Psalms 91:3(v5)For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence.
Proverbs 11:15(v1)He who is collateral for a stranger will suffer for it, but he who refuses pledges of collateral is secure.
Proverbs 20:16(v1)Take the garment of one who puts up collateral for a stranger; and hold him in pledge for a wayward woman.
James 4:10(v3)Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Genesis 43:9(v1)I’ll be collateral for him. From my hand will you require him. If I don’t bring him to you, and set him before you, then let me bear the…
Genesis 44:32-33(v1)For your servant became collateral for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I don’t bring him to you, then I will bear the blame to my father…
Psalms 124:7(v5)Our soul has escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare. The snare is broken, and we have escaped.
Proverbs 6:10-11(v4)A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so your poverty will come as a robber, and your scarcity as an…
Job 17:3(v1)“Now give a pledge. Be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?
Proverbs 27:13(v1)Take his garment when he puts up collateral for a stranger. Hold it for a wayward woman!
Mark 13:35-36(v4)Watch therefore, for you don’t know when the lord of the house is coming, whether at evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or…
Philemon 1:18-19(v1)But if he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, put that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it (not…
Hebrews 7:22(v1)By so much, Jesus has become the collateral of a better covenant.
Ecclesiastes 9:10(v4)Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are…
2 Samuel 24:14(v3)David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let us fall now into Yahweh’s hand; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into man’s hand.”
Psalms 31:8(v3)You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a large place.
Matthew 24:17-18(v4)Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house. Let him who is in the field not return back to get…
Exodus 10:3(v3)Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, “This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to…
2 Chronicles 12:5(v3)Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, who were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and…
2 Chronicles 36:12(v3)He did that which was evil in Yahweh his God’s sight. He didn’t humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from Yahweh’s mouth.
Proverbs 1:17(v5)For the net is spread in vain in the sight of any bird;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (26 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn v2He forbiddeth us not to become surety one for…
He forbiddeth us not to become surety one for another, according to the rule of charity, but that we consider for whom and after what sort, so that the creditor may not be defrauded.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv1–5Pro 6:1 My son, if thou be surety for…
Pro 6:1 My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, [if] thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,
Ver. 1. My son, if thou be surety.] The wise man, having exhorted his son to marry, rather than burn, and to nourish a family, rather than to haunt harlots’ houses, to the end that he may show himself a good economic, and provide for the comfortable subsistence of wife and children, he bids him here beware - (1.) Of unadvised suretyship; (2.) Of idleness, two great enemies to thrift, without which there can be no good house kept. The royalty of Solomon could not have consisted, for all his riches, without forecast and frugality.
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv1–5Surety, to wit, rashly, without considering for whom or…
Surety, to wit, rashly, without considering for whom or how far thou dost oblige thyself, or how thou shalt discharge the debt, if occasion require it. Otherwise suretiship in some cases may be not only lawful, but an act of justice, and prudence, and charity. See Gen 42:37; 43:9; Phm 1:19. Or, to (as this prefix most commonly signifies) a friend. Stricken thy hand; obliged thyself by giving thy hand, or joining thy hands with another man’s, as the custom then was in such cases; of which see Job 17:3; Pro 17:18; 22:26. With a stranger; with the creditor, whom he calls a stranger, because the usurers in Israel, who lent money to others for their necessary occasions, upon condition of paying use for it, were either heathens, or were reputed as bad as heathens, because this practice was forbidden by God’s law, Deu 23:9. Or, to or for a stranger; for here is the same prefix which is rendered for in the former clause. And so he may imply, that whether a man be surety to or for a friend, or to or for a stranger, the case and course to be used is much of the same kind.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v1It is the excellency of the word of God…
It is the excellency of the word of God that it teaches us not only divine wisdom for another world, but human prudence for this world, that we may order our affairs with discretion; and this is one good rule, To avoid suretiship, because by it poverty and ruin are often brought into families, which take away that comfort in relations which he had recommended in the foregoing chapter. 1. We must look upon suretiship as a snare and decline it accordingly, Pro 6:1, Pro 6:2. "It is dangerous enough for a man to be bound for his friend, though it be one whose circumstances he is well acquainted with, and well assured of his sufficiency, but much more to strike the hands with a stranger, to become surety for one whom thou dost not know to be either able or honest." Or the stranger here with whom the hand is stricken is the creditor, "the usurer to whom thou art become bound, and yet as to thee he is a stranger, that is, thou owest him nothing, nor hast had any dealings with him. If thou hast rashly entered into such engagements, either wheedled into them or in hopes to have the same kindness done for thee another time, know that thou art snared with the words of thy mouth; it was easily done, with a word's speaking; it was but setting thy hand to a paper, a bond is soon sealed and delivered, and a recognizance entered into. But it will not be so easily got clear of; thou art in a snare more than thou art aware of." See how little reason we have to make light of tongue-sins; if by a word of our mouth we may become indebted to men, and lie open to their actions, by the words of our mouth we may become obnoxious to God's justice, and even so may be snared. It is false that words are but wind: they are often snares. 2. If we have been drawn into this snare, it will be our wisdom by all means, with all speed, to get out of it, Pro 6:3-5. It sleeps for the present; we hear nothing of it. The debt is not demanded; the principal says, "Never fear, we will take care of it." But still the bond is in force, interest is running on, the creditor may come upon thee when he will and perhaps may be hasty and severe, the principal may prove either knavish or insolvent, and then thou must rob thy wife and children, and ruin thy family, to pay that which thou didst neither nor drink for. And therefore deliver thyself; rest not till either the creditor give up the bond or the principal give thee counter-security; when thou art come into the hand of thy friend, and he has advantage against thee, it is no time to threaten or give ill language (that will provoke and make ill worse), but humble thyself, beg and pray to be discharged, go down on thy knees to him, and give him all the fair words thou canst; engage thy friends to speak for thee; leave no stone unturned till thou hast agreed with thy adversary and compromised the matter, so that thy bond may not come against thee or thine. This is a care which may well break thy sleep, and let it do so till thou hast got through. "Give not sleep to thy eyes till thou hast delivered thyself. Strive and struggle to the utmost, and hasten with all speed, as a roe or a bird delivers herself out of this snare of the fowler or hunter. Delays are dangerous, and feeble efforts will not serve." See what care God, in his word, has taken to make men good husbands of their estates, and to teach them prudence in the management of them. Godliness has precepts, as well as promises, relating to the life that now is.
But how are we to understand this? We are not to think it is unlawful in any case to become surety, or bail, for another; it may be a piece of justice or charity; he that has friends may see cause in this instance to show himself friendly, and it may be no piece of imprudence. Paul became bound for Onesimus, Plm 1:19. We may help a young man into business that we know to be honest and diligent, and gain him credit by passing our word for him, and so do him a great kindness without any detriment to ourselves. But, 1. It is every man's wisdom to keep out of debt as much as may be, for it is an incumbrance upon him, entangles him in the world, puts him in danger of doing wrong or suffering wrong. The borrower is servant to the lender, and makes himself very much a slave to this world. Christians therefore, who are bought with a price, should not thus, without need, make themselves the servants of men, Co1 7:23. 2. It is great folly to entangle ourselves with necessitous people, and to become bound for their debts, that are ever and anon taking up money, and lading, as we say, out of one hole into another, for it is ten to one but, some time or other, it will come upon us. A man ought never to be bound as surety for more than he is both able and willing to pay, and can afford to pay without wronging his family, in case the principal fail, for he ought to look upon it as his own debt. Ecclesiasticus 8:13, Be not surety above thy power, for, if thou be surety, thou must take care to pay it. 3. It is a necessary piece of after-wit, if we have foolishly entangled ourselves, to get out of the snare as fast as we can, to lose no time, spare no pains, and stick at no submission to make ourselves safe and easy, and get our affairs into a good posture. It is better to humble ourselves for an accommodation than to ruin ourselves by our stiffness and haughtiness. Make sure thy friend by getting clear from thy engagements from him; for rash suretiship is as much the bane of friendship as that which is prudent is sometimes the bond of it. Let us take heed lest we any way make ourselves guilty of other men's sins against God (Ti1 5:22), for that is worse, and much more dangerous, than being bound for other men's debts; and, if we must be in all this care to get our debts to men forgiven, much more to get our peace made with God. "Humble thyself to him; make sure of Christ thy friend, to intercede for thee; pray earnestly that thy sins may be pardoned, and thou mayest be delivered from going down to the pit, and it shall not be in vain. Give not sleep to thy eyes nor slumber to thy eye lids, till this be done."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv1–5My son, if thou be surety for thy friend,....…
My son, if thou be surety for thy friend,.... To another; hast engaged thyself by promise or bond, or both, to pay a debt for him, if he is not able, or if required; or hast laid thyself under obligation to any, to see the debt of another paid;
if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger; or "to" him (b); whom thou knowest not, and to whom thou owest nothing; and hast given him thine hand upon it, as well as thy word and bond, that what such an one owes him shall be paid; a gesture used in suretyship for the confirmation of it, Pro 17:18; or, "for a stranger" (c) And the sense is, either if thou art become bound for a friend of thine, and especially if for a stranger thou knowest little or nothing of, this is a piece of rashness and weakness; or, as Gersom, if thou art a surety to thy friend for a stranger, this also is a great inadvertency and oversight. It is a rash and inconsiderate entering into suretyship that is here cautioned against; doing it without inquiring into, and having sufficient knowledge of the person engaged for; and without considering whether able to answer the obligation, if required, without hurting a man's self and family; otherwise suretyship may lawfully be entered into, and good be done by it, and no hurt to the surety himself and family. Jarchi interprets it of the Israelites engaging themselves to the Lord at Sinai, to keep his commandments.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3, 4A caution against suretyship, ver. 1-5. Against slothfulness, ver.…
A caution against suretyship, ver. 1-5. Against slothfulness, ver. 6-11. The practice and end of a mischievous man, ver. 12-15. Account of seven things which God hates, ver. 16-19. An exhortation to keep the commandments, ver. 20-23. Farther warnings against whoredom, ver. 24-35.
Surety - Rashly, without considering how thou shalt discharge the debt as occasion require. Otherwise suretyship in some cases may be not only lawful, but an act of justice and charity. Stricken thy hand - Obliged thyself by giving thine hand, as the custom then was in such cases. With - With the creditor, whom he calls a stranger, because the usurers in Israel, who lent money to others, upon condition of paying use for it, were either Heathens, or were reputed as bad as Heathens, because this practice was forbidden by God's law, Deut. xxiii, 19.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3, 5Exhortations against becoming surety for others, 1-5;
CHAPTER VI
Exhortations against becoming surety for others, 1-5;
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against idleness, from the example of the ant, 6-11;
description of a worthless person, 12-15;
seven things hateful to God, 16-19;
the benefits of instruction, 20-23;
farther exhortations against bad women, and especially against
adultery, 24-33;
what may be expected from jealousy, 34, 35.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Verse 1. If thou be surety for thy friend] לרעך lereacha, for thy neighbour; i.e., any person. If thou pledge thyself in behalf of another, thou takest the burden off him, and placest it on thine own shoulders; and when he knows he has got one to stand between him and the demands of law and justice, he will feel little responsibility; his spirit of exertion will become crippled, and listlessness as to the event will be the consequence. His own character will suffer little; his property nothing, for his friend bears all the burden: and perhaps the very person for whom he bore this burden treats him with neglect; and, lest the restoration of the pledge should be required, will avoid both the sight and presence of his friend. Give what thou canst; but, except in extreme cases, be surety for no man. Striking or shaking hands when the mouth had once made the promise, was considered as the ratification of the engagement; and thus the man became ensnared with the words of his mouth.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3Pro 6:1-2. My son, if thou be surety for,…
Pro 6:1-2. My son, if thou be surety for, or to, thy friend — Namely, rashly and unadvisedly, without considering for whom, or how the thou dost oblige thyself, or how thou shalt discharge the debt if occasion require it: otherwise suretiship, in some cases, may be not only lawful, but an act of justice and charity; if thou hast stricken thy hand — Obliged thyself by giving thy hand, or joining thy hand with another man’s, as the custom then was in such cases; (of which, see Job 17:3, chap. 17:18, and 22:26;) with a stranger — With the creditor, whom he calls a stranger, because the usurers in Israel, who lent money to others, upon condition of paying use for it, were either heathen, or were reputed as bad as heathen, because this practice was forbidden by God’s law, Deu 23:19. Or, to, or for, a stranger, for here is the same preposition which is rendered for in the former clause. And so the words may imply, that whether a man be surety to, or for, a friend, or to, or for, a stranger, the course to be taken is much of the same kind. Thou art snared, &c. — Thy freedom is lost, and thou art now in bondage to another.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Surety - The “pledge,” or security for payment, which,…
Surety - The “pledge,” or security for payment, which, for example, David was to bring back from his brothers 1Sa 17:18. So the word was used in the primitive trade transactions of the early Israelites.
In the warnings against this suretyship, in the Book of Proverbs, we may trace the influence of contact with the Phoenicians. The merchants of Tyre and Zidon seem to have discovered the value of credit as an element of wealth. A man might obtain goods, or escape the pressure of a creditor at an inconvenient season, or obtain a loan on more favorable terms, by finding security. To give such security might be one of the kindest offices which one friend could render to another. Side by side, however, with a legitimate system of credit there sprang up, as in later times, a fraudulent counterfeit. Phoenician or Jewish money-lenders (the “stranger”) were ready to make their loans to the spendthrift. He was equally ready to find a companion (the “friend”) who would become his surety. It was merely a form, just writing a few words, just “a clasping of the hands” (see the marginal reference) in token that the obligation was accepted, and that was all. It would be unfriendly to refuse. And yet, as the teacher warns his hearers, there might be, in that moment of careless weakness, the first link of a long chain of ignominy, galling, fretting, wearing, depriving life of all its peace. The Jewish law of debt, hard and stern like that of most ancient nations, aright be enforced against him in all its rigour. Money and land might go, the very bed under him might be seized, and his garment torn from his back Pro 20:16; Pro 22:27, the older and more lenient law Exo 22:25-27 having apparently fallen into disuse. he might be brought into a life-long bondage, subject only to the possible relief of the year of jubilee, when the people were religious enough to remember and observe it. His wives, his sons, his daughters might be sharers in that slavery Neh 5:3-5. It was doubtful whether he could claim the privilege which under Exo 21:2 belonged to an Israelite slave that had been bought. Against such an evil, no warnings could be too frequent or to urgent.
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Stricken thy hand - The natural symbol of the promise to keep a contract; in this case, to pay another man’s debts. Compare Pro 17:18; Pro 22:26; Job 17:3; Eze 17:18.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges1846 · Public DomainOn v1THE son has just been warned against the deadly…
THE son has just been warned against the deadly wound of a stranger. He is now cautioned against a hurt from an imprudent friend. So graciously has our God made his book, not only our guide to heaven, but the directory of our common life . We must, however, often take its wise rules with some restriction. We are here earnestly warned against suretyship. Yet in some cases it is plainly allowed and approved.†1 "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly." (Pro 18:24 .) And the passing of our word, or giving a bond, may be an act of prudent friendship, and of solid and permanent advantage. The caution is evidently directed against rash engagements (Compare also Pro 11:15 ; Pro 17:18 ; Pro 20:16 ; Pro 22:26-27 ), to which the young and inexperienced are especially exposed; striking with hands (the usual mode of plighting faith) (Pro 17:18 ; Pro 22:26 ; Job 17:3 ), in an unguarded moment. Often may they be snared and taken by the words of their mouth, by entering into virtual promises, without knowing how far they were pledged, or what might be the issue. Christian prudence will keep us clear from such engagements, which bring distress upon our families, dishonour upon our name, and reproach upon our religion. (Compare Sir 8:13 .) While the "good man showeth favour, and lendeth, he must guide his affairs with discretion;"†2 however grating it may be to incur the suspicion of unkindness. If, however, by any inconsiderate bond, thou hast come into the hand of thy friend; the instant duty is, to humble thyself for thy imprudence, and make sure thy friend, if thou canst prevail with him to answer for himself; and give thyself no rest, till, like as the roe and the bird, thou be disentangled from the snare.
Our God, while he warns us against suretyship, has taken it upon himself. Praise be his name! He has given his word, his bond, yea — his blood — for sinners — a security, that no powers of hell can shake.
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Footnotes:
†1 Rueben and Judah for Benjamin. Gen 42:27 ; Gen 43:9 ; Gen 44:32-33 . Paul for Onesimus. Phm 1:18-19 .
†2 Psa 112:5. P. Henry always cautioned sureties not to be bound for any more than they knew themselves able to pay, nor for more than they would be willing to pay, if the principal failed. — Life, chapter v.
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3Hand. Agreements were made by shaking hands, Isaias lxii.…
Hand. Agreements were made by shaking hands, Isaias lxii. 8. (Xenophon, Anab. iii.) --- Stranger. Septuagint, "enemy." He will presently be such, or thy friend’s creditor will soon lay hold on thee. By standing surety for another, we expose ourselves to be ruined by his negligence. (Calmet) --- The Persians had a horror chiefly of lying and debts. (Herodotus i. 138.) --- All sureties are not condemned, but only such as are inconsiderate. (Menochius) --- A diligent compliance with engagements is commended. (Worthington)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v19. Warning against inconsiderate suretyship
9. Warning against inconsiderate suretyship
Pro_6:1-5
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1 My son, if thou hast become surety for thy neighbor,
hast given thine hand to a stranger
2 if thou art entangled through the words of thy mouth,
art snared by the words of thy mouth:
3 then do this, my son, and free thyself,
since thou hast come into the hand of thy neighbor:
go, bestir thyself, and importune thy neighbor!
4 Give no sleep to thine eyes,
nor slumber to thine eyelids;
5 free thyself, like a roe, from his hand,
and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
10. Rebuke of the sluggard
Pro_6:6-11
6 Go to the ant thou sluggard;
consider her ways and be wise;
7 which hath no governor,
director, or ruler;
8 (yet) she prepareth in summer her food,
she gathereth in harvest her store!
9 How long wilt thou lie, O sluggard?
when wilt thou rise from thy sleep?
10 “A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest;”—
11 then cometh thy poverty like a robber,
and thy want as an armed man!
11. Warning against deceit and violent dealing
Pro_6:12-19
12 A worthless creature is the deceiver,
he that walketh in perverseness of speech;
13 he who winketh with his eye, who speaketh with his foot,
who hinteth with his finger.
14 Perverseness is in his heart,
he deviseth evil at all times;
he stirreth up strifes.
15 Therefore suddenly shall his destruction come,
in a moment shall he be destroyed, and there is no remedy.
16 These six things Jehovah hateth,
and seven are an abhorrence of his soul;
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood;
18 a heart that deviseth evil plots,
feet that make haste to run to evil;
19 one that uttereth lies as a false witness,
and one that stirreth up strifes between brethren.
12. Admonition to chastity with a warning delineation of the fearful consequences of adultery
Pro_6:20-35
20 Keep, O my son, thy father’s commandment,
and reject not the law of thy mother:
21 bind them to thy heart evermore,
fasten it about thy neck.
22 When thou walkest let it guide thee,
when thou liest down let it guard thee,
and at thy waking let it talk with thee.
23 For a lamp is the commandment,
and the law a light, and the reproofs of corrections are a way of life;
24 to keep thee from the vile woman,
from the flattering tongue of the strange woman.—
25 Long not for her beauty in thy heart,
and let her not catch thee with her eyelids!
26 For for the sake of a harlot one cometh to a loaf of bread,
and a man’s wife lieth in wait for the precious life.
27 May one take fire in his bosom,
and his clothes not be burned?
28 Or may one walk upon coals,
and his feet not be scorched?
29 So he who goeth to his neighbor’s wife;
no one that toucheth her shall be unpunished.
30 Men do not overlook the thief, when he stealeth
to satisfy his craving when he is hungry;
31 if he be found he must restore seven fold,
the whole wealth of his house must he give.
32 He who committeth adultery is beside himself;
he that destroyeth himself doeth such things.
33 Stripes and disgrace doth he find,
and his reproach will not pass away.
34 For jealousy is man’s fierce anger,
and he spareth not in the day of vengeance.
35 He regardeth not any ransom,
and is not willing if thou increase thy gift.
GRAMMATICAL AND CRITICAL
Pro_6:1; Pro_6:3. The form רֵעֶיךָ which is found in some texts, is not a plural, but the ־י, “indicates in pause the pronunciation with ־ֶ as in Gen_16:5; Psa_9:15,” Hitzig. Many MSS., moreover, exhibit hero the regular form רֵעֶךָ [Böttcher, § 888, n. 2, utterly rejects the possibility that רֵעֶיךָ can be a singular form, and also that the plural form is admissible here. Holden’s rendering “thy friends,” is incorrectly based upon the plural reading.—A.].
Pro_6:8. [Note the appropriate change of tense. The future תָּכִין “Fiens solitum,” Bött. § 943, b, and the perf. אָגְרָה “Perfectum effectivum,” § § 940, 4; 950, 4; the continually recurring “preparation,” the ensured “gathering.”—A.]
Pro_6:12. הָלַךְ stands here with the simple accusative without בְּ, as in Mic_2:11; Isa_33:15; Psa_15:2.
Pro_6:13. [קוֹרֵץ used here alone with בְּ, usually with a direct object. מוֹלֵל; the verb is in use only in Piel. For the occurrence of participial forms in Piel thus resembling Kal, see Fuerst (sub. 5. מָלַל), and Bött. § 994, 4.—A.].
Pro_6:14. For the explanation of the K’ri מִדְיָנִים (instead of the K’thibh מְדָנִים) see Hitzig on this passage, who is probably right in referring to Gen_37:36 as the source and occasion of this substitution.
Pro_6:16. [The fern. הֵנָּה used of that which is distinctly neuter. See Bött. § 862, 4.—A.].
Pro_6:19. The יָפִיחַ can be regarded as a relative Imperf., with which the participle מְשׁלֵּחַ. interchanges, or it may be regarded as an irregular participial form, lengthened from יָפֵחַ Psa_27:12, and formed like נָטִיל ,יָצִיא, etc. (So Hitzig explains the form) [Fuerst regards it an Imperf., but Bött., very decidedly as a Hiph. participal, here and in Pro_12:17; Pro_14:25; Pro_19:5; Pro_19:9; Psa_12:6; Psa_27:12. See § 994, 9.—A.].
Pro_6:21. [קָשְׁרֵם, a masc. suffix referring to fem. nouns. Bött. § 877, 3, declares it characteristic of “secular prose, popular poetry, and the majority of the later Hebrew writers” thus to disregard exactness in the use of the suffix pronouns. Pro_20:12 is the only similar example adduced from Proverbs. Comp. Green, § 104, g.—A.].
Pro_6:32. מַשְׁחִית a future participle. The suffix in יַעֲשֶׂנָּה refers to the נְאֻפִים which is readily supplied from the נאֵף אִשָּׁה of the first member. [Interpretations divide as to the subject and predicate clause of the sentence. Muenscher, Noyes, Holden agree with the E. V. in making destruction the predicted fate of the adulterer; Stuart, Kamph., and De W. agree with our author in making adultery the natural and certain course of the self-destroyer.—A.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The sixth chapter consists of four independent admonitory discourses of unequal length, of quite different contents, and a merely external and circumstantial connection (through points of contact, as between “sleep and slumber” in Pro_6:4 and the same expressions in Pro_6:10; through the triple warning against impoverishment: Pro_6:11; Pro_6:15; Pro_6:26, etc.). This is as apparent as is the fact that it is only in the last of these four sections that the subject of adultery, that was treated in the fifth chapter, is resumed. It is nevertheless arbitrary and lacks all clear proof, when Hitzig declares the three preceding sections to be the addition of an interpolator different from the author of chaps. 1–9, who is supposed to have taken them from some old book of proverbs, and to have enlarged the third by adding Pro_6:16-19. For, it is argued, this numerical group of proverbs, of eight members, clearly shows itself to be the personal production of the interpolator, who was led by the sixfold division of the categories in Pro_6:12-14 to the composition of this group of the six things that the Lord hates. As though this parallel sixfold or rather sevenfold arrangement in Pro_6:12-19 could not be the work of the composer of the entire group of proverbial discourses that lies before us, just as in the series of similar numerical proverbs contained in chap. 30. (comp. Introd. § 14)! And still further, as if there had not been already in what has gone before at least one isolated warning against unchastity and adultery, as a demonstration of the fact, that in this, connection also the advisory and admonitory discourses that relate to this matter (Pro_5:1 sq.; Pro_6:20 sq.; Pro_7:1 sq.), must not necessarily form a whole continuing without interruption, but might very naturally be interspersed with other shorter passages of differing contents, like those forming the first half of chap. 6!—Apart from this, Hitzig is undoubtedly correct in judging, that attention should be called to the close connection of Pro_6:16-19 with Pro_6:12-15, and that the first mentioned group should be regarded as a mere continuation and fuller expansion of the import of the last mentioned. A special argument for this is the literal repetition of the expression, “stir up strifes,” from Pro_6:14 in Pro_6:19. The view recently prevalent (see e.g., Umbreit, Bertheau, Elster on this passage), according to which Pro_6:16-19 form a separate group of verses as really independent as the rest (1–5, 6–11, etc.) is to be estimated by what has been already said. The correct division has been before presented by Delitzsch (Herzog’s Real. Encycl. xiv., 698), and also by Ewald (on this passage).
2. Pro_6:1-5. Warning against suretyship.—My son, if thou hast become surety for thy neighbor.—The frequent warnings which our book contains against giving security for others (comp. in addition Pro_11:15; Pro_17:18; Pro_20:16; Pro_22:26), are to be explained doubtless by the severe treatment, which, in accordance with the old Hebrew jurisprudence, was awarded to sureties; for their goods might be distrained or they even sold as slaves, just as in the case of insolvent debtors (2Ki_4:1; Mat_18:25; comp. Sir_8:13; Sir_29:18-25, and also the warning maxim of the Greek philosopher Thales: “ἐγγύα, πάρα δ’ἄτα” [give surety, and ruin is near], and the modern popular proverb “Bürgen soll man würgen” [the alliteration cannot be translated; an approach can be made to it in “worry a surety”].—In the passage before us the warning is not so much against suretyship in general, as merely against the imprudent assumption of such obligations, leaving out of account the moral unreliableness of the man involved; and the counsel is to the quickest possible release from every obligation of this kind that may have been hastily assumed.—Hast given thine hand to a stranger.—The stranger (זָר) is not the creditor, but the debtor, who in the first clause had been designated as “neighbor.” For according to Job_17:3 the surety gave his hand to the debtor as a sign that he became bound for him. Therefore the translation of Ewald and Elster, “for a stranger,” is unnecessary as it is incorrect.
Pro_6:2. If thou art entangled through the words of thy mouth.—This second half of the protasis, which, according to Hebrew idiom, is still dependent on the “if” of Pro_6:1, refers to the involved and embarrassed condition of the surety some time after his inconsiderate giving of bonds.
Pro_6:3. Then do this, my son, etc.—The apodosis, with its emphatic warning (which extends through Pro_6:5), is fitly introduced by the intensive particle אֵפוֹא, now, now therefore. Comp. Job_17:15; Gen_27:32; Gen_43:11.—Since thou hast come into the hand of thy neighbor. Hitzig, interpreting the כִּי, as in Pro_2:10, as equivalent to אִם, translates “if thou hast come,” etc. But the introduction of a reason is here more pertinent, since the case of an unfortunate issue to the suretyship had already been assumed in Pro_6:2.—Stamp with the foot.—This meaning of הִתְרַפֵּם, which is attested also by Psa_68:30, is urgently commended by the following, “importune thy neighbor” (רְהַב רֵעֶיךָ). [In our version of this phrase in its connection we have substituted Fuerst’s interpretation which is also Holden’s. The verb is found only here and in Psa_68:30. Gesenius and many others, starting with the radical idea, “to trample,” which they find in רפּשׂ and assume in רפם, translate the Hithp. in both passages, “suffer thyself to be trampled,” i.e., “prostrate thyself.” [So the E. V., De W., M., N. and ST.]. Hupfeld (see Comm. on Psa_68:31) and others adopt the indirect reflexive as the true meaning,—“prostrate before thyself, i.e., subdue.” Fuerst, distinguishing the two verbs, interprets רפם as meaning, in accordance with many Arabic analogies, “to move, stir, hasten,” and the Hithp. as meaning “sich beeilen, sich sputen,” i.e., in the Imperative, make haste, bestir thyself. Although this rendering has not in its favor the weight of authorities, the internal evidence appears to us to be decidedly for it.—A.] The meaning is that one should in every way force the heedless debtor—for it is he, and not possibly the creditor, that is here again intended by the “neighbor”—to the fulfilment of his obligations, before it is too late, i.e., before the matter comes to the distraint of goods or other judicial processes on the part of the creditor.
Pro_6:5. Free thyself as a roe from his hand, and like a bird, etc.—Gazelle and bird—in the original a paronomasia: צְבִי and צִפּוֹר—are appropriate emblems of a captive seeking its freedom with anxious haste and exertion. The way is already prepared for these figures by the expressions employed in Pro_6:2. Instead of, מִיַד “out of the hand,” all the old versions, except the Vulg. and Venet., had the reading מִפַּת, “out of the snare. “But this is an attempt at rhetorical improvement (perhaps according to the analogy of Psa_91:3), “in which it was overlooked, that the hand was introduced the first as well as the second time with a reference to the giving of the hand on becoming security” (Pro_6:1). Comp. Umbreit and Hitzig on this passage.
3. Pro_6:6-11. Go to the ant, thou sluggard.—The ant, ever working of its own impulse quietly and unweariedly, is proverbial as an emblem of industry, both among Orientals and in the West; comp. Meidani’s Arabic Proverbs, iii., 468; Saadi’s Persian fable of the ant and the nightingale; Aristotle’s Historia, Anim., 9, 26; Virgil’s Georg., I., 186 sq.; Horace, Serm., I., 1, 33; also the German word “ämsig” (Old High Germ. emazîc), which is derived from “Ameise” (Weigand, deutsches Wörterb., I., 35). [See Thomson’s Land and Book, 1., 519, 520, for illustrations both of the diligence of the ant and the utter laziness of Oriental laborers, “which have no governor, director, or ruler.”—A.]
Pro_6:7. Which hath no governor, director or ruler.—The three expressions שֹׁטֵר קָצִין and משֵׁל are relatively like the Arabic official titles, “Kadi,” “Wali,” and “Emir.” The שֹׁטֵר in particular is the manager, the overseer, who, e.g., in connection with public works urges on to labor (Exo_5:6; Exo_5:14 sq.).—Furthermore, compare Pro_30:27, where also the first clause of Pro_6:8 recurs, in almost literal agreement with our passage.
Pro_6:9-11 add to the positive admonition to industry an emphatic warning against the evil consequences of its opposite.—How long wilt thou lie, O sluggard?—Literally: till when wilt thou, etc. The עַד־מָתַי of the first clause and מָתַי of the second stand in the same order as in Neh_2:6. The meaning of the two parallel questions is substantially “Wilt thou continue lying forever?—Wilt thou never rise?” The double question is, as it were, a logical protasis to he apodosis which follows in Pro_6:11 after the interposing of the sluggard’s answer (ver.10): “then cometh (Heb. וּבָא) like a robber,” etc. Comp. Bertheau on this passage.—A little sleep, etc.—Ironical imitation of the language of the lazy man; literally repeated in Pro_24:33.—A little folding of the hands—i.e., a little folding of the arms, a well-known attitude of one who is settling himself down to sleep (comp. Ecc_4:5), and who in that act does just the opposite of that for which the hands and arms are naturally designed, that is, for vigorous work.—Then cometh thy poverty like a robber.—מְהַלֵּךְ strictly grassator, a frequenter of the roads, a highwayman, a footpad (LXX: κακὸς ὁδοίπορος). The parallel passage, Pro_24:34, has the Hithp. participle מִתְהַלֵּךְ without כְּ, which gives the far weaker sense: “then cometh quietly thy poverty.”—As an armed man—lit., as one armed with, shield (אִישׁ מָגֵן); for even the assailing robber, since he must necessarily be prepared for resistance, must carry with weapons of offence he means of defence.
4. Pro_6:12-19. Against the deceitful and violent.—Concerning the relation of the two divisions of this group of verses, the first of which Pro_6:12-15) depicts the seven modes of deceitful action, while the second (Pro_6:16-19) expressly designates them a seven hated by God, repeating also their enumeration,—see above, § 1 of these exegetical comments.—A worthless man is the deceiver.—In support of this construction if אִישׁ אָוֶן as the subject and of the prefixed אָדָם בְּלִיַּעַל as the predicate [a construction preferred also by Noyes, Kamph. etc.] we have, besides the arrangement, especially the substitution of אָדָם בּ׀ for אִישׁ בּ׀, which was rather to have been expected according to the analogy of 2Sa_16:7, etc. If the second expression were only “an intensive appositive to the first” (Bertheau; see also Luther [Wordsw., M., st., H., in agreement with the E. V.]: “a heedless man, a mischievous person”), then we should have looked for אִישׁ in both instances. With אִישׁ אָוֶן, “man of deceit, of falsity, of inward untruth and vileness,” comp. furthermore מְתֵי אָוֶן, Job_22:15; and also, below, Pro_6:18.—He that walketh in perverseness of speech.—Comp. Pro_4:24; Pro_28:18.
Pro_6:13. The three participles of this verse are best understood, with Hitzig, as prefixed appositives to the subject contained in בְּלִבּוֹ, Pro_6:14, which is indeed the same as that of the 12th verse.—Who winketh with his eyes.—Comp. Pro_10:10; Psa_35:19.—Who speaketh with his feet—i.e., gives signs in mysterious ways (LXX: σημαίνει), now with one foot, then with the other.—Who hinteth with his fingers.—מוֹרֶה Hiph. part. from ירה, here used in its most primitive meaning. The evil intent involved in the three forms of the language of signs as here enumerated is of course implied.
Pro_6:14. He deviseth evil at all times.—Comp. Pro_3:29.—He stirreth up strife.—Literally “he lets loose contentions” (Hitzig), or “he throws out matters of dispute” (Bertheau); comp. Pro_6:19 and Pro_16:28.
Pro_6:15. Therefore suddenly shall his destruction come.—Comp. Pro_1:17; Pro_3:25; Pro_24:22.—Quickly will he be destroyed, etc.—Comp. Pro_19:1; Isa_1:28; Isa_30:14; Jer_19:11.—Without remedy.—Comp. Pro_4:22.
Pro_6:16. These six things Jehovah hateth, and seven, etc.—Of the origin of this peculiar proverbial form, using symbolical numbers, a form for which Arabic and Persian gnomic literature supply numerous illustrations (comp. Umbreit on this passage), Elster probably gives the simplest and most correct explanation, deriving it “purely from the exigencies of parallelism.” “The form of parallelism could not, on account of harmony, be sacrificed in any verse. But how should a parallel be found for a number? Since it was not any definite number that was the important thing, relief was found by taking one of the next adjacent numbers as the parallel to that which was chiefly in mind.” In a similar way Hitzig on Amo_1:3 (where the numbers put into this relation are three and four); “To the number three the number four is appended to characterize the first as one optionally taken, to convey the idea that there are not understood to be precisely three and no more, but possibly more.” At any rate, those expositors are in the wrong, who, as e.g., recently Bertheau and Von Gerlach, find the design of this mode of numeration in the fact that the last of the enumerated elements, the seventh vice therefore in the case before us, is to be brought out with especial emphasis. [Stanley (Hist. Jewish Church, ii. p. 258), adduces this as a probable example of the “enigmas” or “riddles,” which were one of the most characteristic embodiments of the wisdom of the wise king.—Arnot: There is one parallel well worthy of notice between the seven cursed things here, and the seven blessed things in the fifth chapter of Matthew. The first and last of the seven are identical in the two lists. “The Lord hates a proud look” is precisely equivalent to “blessed are the poor in spirit;” and “he that soweth discord among brethren” is the exact converse of the “peacemaker.”—A.].
Pro_6:17. Haughty eyes: literally, high or lofty eyes; comp. Pro_30:13; Psa_18:27; Psa_131:1; Job_21:22; Job_40:11; also the Latin expression grande supercilium.—Hands that shed innocent blood. Comp. Pro_1:11 sq., and Isa_59:7, with which passage Pro_6:18 also corresponds in the form of expression, without for that reason being necessarily derived from it, as Hitzig holds. For in case of such derivation the order of words ought to correspond more exactly with the alleged original, as in Rom_3:15-17.
Pro_6:19. One that uttereth lies as a false witness, literally, one that breathes lies. The same characterization of the false witness is found also in Pro_14:5; Pro_14:25; Pro_19:5; Pro_19:9. As respects the arrangement in which the seven manifestations of treacherous dealing are enumerated in these verses, it does not perfectly correspond with the order observed in Pro_6:12-14. There the series is mouth, eyes, feet, fingers, heart, devising evil counsels, stirring up strifes; here it is eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet, speaking lies, instigating strife. With reference to the organs which are named as the instruments in the first five forms of treacherous wickedness, in the second enumeration an order is adopted involving a regular descent (Pro_6:16-19, eyes, tongue, hands, etc.); the base disposition to stir up strife, or to let loose controversy (see rem. on Pro_6:14) in both cases ends the series.
5. Pro_6:20-24. Admonition to chastity, preparing the way for a subsequent warning against adultery.—Keep, O my son, thy father’s commandment, etc. This general introduction to the new warning against adultery corresponds with the similar preparatory admonitions in Pro_5:1-2; Pro_7:1-5, and serves, like these, to announce the great importance of the succeeding warnings. With respect to Pro_6:20 in particular comp. Pro_1:8.–Pro_6:21. Bind them to thy heart evermore, etc. So Pro_3:3; Pro_7:3. On account of the plural which occurs in the verse, with which the singular is interchanged in Pro_6:22, Hitzig conjectures the insertion of this verse by a late interpolator, and that in accordance with the standard furnished by Pro_3:3, in which place the passage is held to be original. This is arbitrary, for no single ancient manuscript or version confirms the suspicion. Just as well might Pro_6:22 be declared interpolated, inasmuch as only in this is the singular form found, while immediately after, in Pro_6:23, the double designation “commandment” and “doctrine” returns.
Pro_6:22. When thou walkest let it guide thee. The contrast between walking and sleeping or lying is like that in Pro_3:23-24.—When thou walkest let it talk with thee. The accusative suffix in תְּשִׂיחֶךָ is here employed as in Psa_5:4; Psa_42:4; Zec_7:5, etc., for the designation of the person to whom the intercourse indicated in the action of the verb relates. With regard to שִׂיחַ to take, to converse, comp. also Psa_69:13; with reference to the sentence as a whole comp. Psa_139:18.
Pro_6:23. For the reproofs of correction are a way of life, i.e., they lead to life, comp. Pro_2:19; Pro_3:2; Pro_3:16. “Reproofs of discipline” (תּוֹכְחוֹת מוּסָר) corrective reproofs, reproofs whose aim is correction.
Pro_6:24. From the vile woman, strictly the woman of evil, of vileness. רָע (for which the LXX here read רֵעַ) is therefore a substantive, as in the phrase “the way of evil” in Pro_2:12.—From the flattering tongue of the strange woman; literally, from the smoothness of the tongue of the strange woman. For instead of לָשׁוֹן, from which reading of the Masoretic text the meaning would result “from the smoothness of a strange tongue,” we must doubtless point לְשׁוֹן (construct state), since the subject of remark here is the strange, wanton woman (just as in Pro_2:16; Pro_5:20), while the thought of a foreign language (γλώσση ἀλλοτρία, LXX) is altogether remote from the context. In opposition to the translation of Ewald, Bertheau and Elster, “from the smooth-tongued, the strange woman,” comp. Hitzig on this passage.
6. Pro_6:25-35. Warning against adultery itself.—With her eyelids, with which she throws amorous and captivating glances at her lover, comp. Sir_26:9. The eyelids (or, more literally, eyelashes) are here compared with the cords of a net, as in Ecc_12:3, with the lattice of a window, or as in the erotic songs of the Arabs and Persians, with darts, with lances, daggers or swords.
Pro_6:26. For, for the sake of a harlot one cometh to a loaf of bread, i.e., to the last bit, the last morsel of bread, as a sign and emblem of utter poverty (thus Schultens, C. B. Michaelis, Umbreit, Elster); or again, the meaning may be to the begging a loaf of bread, to beggary (thus Aben Ezra, Vatablus, Rosenmueller, Elster, Hitzig). In opposition to the translation defended by most of the ancient expositors, and recently by Ziegler, Ewald, Bertheau, etc., “For as the hire of a harlot one gives hardly a bit of bread,” or as others prefer “merely a bit of bread,” may be adduced 1) the context, see the 2d clause; 2) the lexical fact that עַד can neither mean “hardly” nor “merely;” 3) the fact, historical and archæological, established by Gen_38:17, etc., that the harlot’s reward in ancient Palestine doubtless amounted to more than a mere loaf of bread, e.g. a kid, as in the case cited from Genesis, or a price considerably higher, as seems to follow from Pro_29:3; Sir_9:6; Luk_15:30.—Lieth in wait for the precious life. Very appropriately has נֶפֶשׁ, “life,” the predicate יְקָרָה “costly” connected with it; for its value rises above all mere property; comp. Psa_49:8.
Pro_6:27-29. The meaning is this: impossible as it is that the clothing on one’s breast, or that one’s feet should remain unharmed by scorching if fire be brought, near them, so inconceivable is it that the adulterer should follow his unlawful intercourse without evil consequences and just retribution. The two questions in Pro_6:27-28 imply a strong negation, like the interrogative clauses in Amo_3:4-6. Pro_6:29 is connected with the two negative antecedent clauses as a correlative consequent, and is therefore introduced by כֵּן, so.
Pro_6:30-31. A new figure to illustrate the punishment, surely impending and severe, which threatens the adulterer.—Men do not overlook the thief, etc.; literally “they do not contemn it in the thief.” The imperf. יָבוּזוּ expresses the idea of custom, that which occurs in accordance with experience. [Interpreters are divided between the two ideas of “scorn” and “disregard” as proper renderings of the verb. Stuart, Muensch., Words. adopt the former; men do not despise the thief, though he must be punished; they do despise the adulterer. Words. calls attention to a disposition in modern society to reverse this judgment. Noyes, Holden, like De W., Fuerst and our author, adopt the other view.—A.].—To satisfy his craving when he is hungry. This circumstance, which exhibits the guilt of the thief in a milder light, serves evidently to display the punishment that befalls the adulterer with whom he is here compared, as one more richly deserved. For the more presumptuous his crime, the less excused, or, as it were, demanded by his necessities, the more just is the punishment that comes upon him! If Hitzig had taken due notice of this meaning of Pro_6:30, which is transparent enough, he would have seen in advance how unnecessary and excessively artificial is the attempt to explain the verse as interrogative. [Kamph. adopts his view but does not strengthen it].—He must restore sevenfold. According to the prescriptions of the law in Ex. 21:37; 22:1 sq., it should strictly be only four or fivefold (comp. the publican Zaccheus, Luk_19:8). But in common life these prescriptions were probably not ordinarily observed: the injured party allowing his silence, his declining a judicial prosecution of the matter, to be purchased at a higher rate than was exactly allowed. Furthermore, that “sevenfold” is here used loosely, only as a round number (comp. Gen_4:15), and is not designed, as might be thought, to mark the highest conceivable ransom, appears from the 2d member, which suggests the probability of losing “the whole wealth of his house.”
Pro_6:32 stands in the same relation to the two preceding as Pro_6:29 to Pro_6:27 and Pro_6:28; it expresses the conclusion that is to be drawn from the meaning, which is clothed in the form of an analogy or parable, with reference to the well-deserved recompense of the adulterer. It is therefore hasty and arbitrary in Hitzig to reject this as a spurious gloss, and to find in Pro_6:33 the direct continuation of the thief’s punishment, which has been depicted in Pro_6:31.—He that destroyeth himself doeth such things. Literally, “whoso will destroy his life, he does it.”
Pro_6:33. Stripes and disgrace. The נֶגַע, plaga, may here very well stand in its literal sense, and so designate the blows with which the adulterer detected in the act will be visited by the husband of the unfaithful wife, and will be driven from the house (Umbreit, Hitzig).
Pro_6:34. For jealousy is man’s fierce anger, i.e., the jealousy (קִנְאָה as in Pro_27:4) of the injured husband is a fire blazing fiercely, burning and raging with all the might of a man; comp. “the hurling of a man” [or as others “a mighty prostration”] Isa_22:17. The 2d half of the verse explains this somewhat brief expression, “man’s wrath,” which, moreover, appears to be chosen not without collateral reference to the more rapidly evaporating wrath of women.
Pro_6:35. He regardeth not any ransom, literally, “he does not lift up the face of any ransom,” i.e., does not receive it as adequate to allay his wrath—as one lifts up the face of a suppliant when his request is granted or favorably received.—And is not willing, i.e., to forego his strict right of revenge.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The warning against improvident suretyship in the unqualified form, and the urgent and almost passionate tone in which it is presented in Pro_6:1-5, rests upon the consideration that “all men are liars” (Psa_116:11; Rom_3:4), that therefore no one can be trusted (comp. Jer_17:5 : “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man”), that every neighbor is at the same time in a certain sense a “stranger” to us (see above on Pro_6:1), in a word, that one must be prepared for manifestations of unfaithfulness, or unreliableness, on the part of any one whatever, though he stood ever so near us. Hence the duty, for the sake of preserving one’s own independence and sparing one’s own strength for his personal work (bodily as well as mental), of extricating one’s self at any cost and as speedily as possible from every relation of suretyship, from the continuance of which injurious consequences might result to our own freedom and welfare. With the admonitions of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, to be ready at all times for the lending and giving away of one’s property, even in cases where one cannot hope for the recovery of what has been given out (Luk_6:30; Luk_6:34; Luk_6:36; comp. 1Co_6:7) this demand is not in conflict. For Christ also plainly demands no such readiness to suffer loss on account of our neighbor, as would deprive us of personal liberty, and rob us of all means for further beneficence; and yet this sort of evil result from suretyship is what the author of our passage has in his eye.
2. Also in the subsequent warning against slothfulness (Pro_6:6-11) the reference to the danger of impoverishment appears to be the main motive, brought forward with especial emphasis. This is above all things else the precise thing to be learned from the example of the ant, that it is important to gather diligently “in summer,” that one may not suffer in winter,—that the “harvest time,” when all is within reach in abundance, is the time for earnest and unceasing toils, that one may be able calmly to meet the later seasons of want which offer to the most willing and vigorous industry no opportunity for acquiring. Comp. the example of Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 41. sq.), and apply all this to the spiritual department of labors in Christ’s service, e.g., those of the pastor, the missionary, etc.
3. The six or seven vices, twice enumerated in different order and form of expression, against which the paragraph Pro_6:12-19 warns (comp. the exegetical notes on Pro_6:19), are at the same time all of them manifestations of hatred against one’s neighbor, or sins against the second table of the Decalogue; yet it is not so much a general unkindness as rather an unkindness consisting and displaying itself in falseness and malice that is emphasized as their common element. And only on account of the peculiarly mischievous and ruinous character of just these sins of hatred to one’s neighbor, is he who is subject to them represented as an object of especially intense abhorrence on the part of a holy God, and as threatened with the strongest manifestations of His anger in penalties (Pro_6:15-16).
4. As a fundamental proposition for the successful avoidance of all converse with impure wantons, and of the dangers thence resulting, there is introduced in the 1st clause of Pro_6:25 a warning even against the very first beginnings of all unlawful sexual intercourse, against impure longings, or unchaste desires and thoughts of the heart. Comp. the last commandment of the Decalogue (Exo_20:17), as well as Christ’s intensifying and spiritualizing of the Mosaic prohibition of adultery; Mat_5:28.—The admonition also, which is prefixed as introductory, to keep continually before the eyes and in the heart the teachings of Divine wisdom (comp. Tob_4:6), serves as an emphatic utterance of this “Obsta principüs!” or the exhibition of the necessity that the very first germs and roots of the sin of unchastity must be rooted out.
HOMILETIC AND PRACTICAL
In the endeavor to comprehend in one homiletic whole the four main divisions of the chapter, one would first of all need to have clearly in view the suggestions given in Pro_6:2; Pro_6:11; Pro_6:15; Pro_6:26 sq., with reference to the danger of sinking into poverty and destitution, and to employ these in fixing his central idea. In some such way as this then: Even in the present life want and evil of every sort are wont to be the attendants a) of the lighter offences 1) of inconsiderateness (Pro_6:1-5) and 2) of slothfulness (Pro_6:6-11); b) of the grosser transgressions and vices, such as result 1) from pride and malignity (Pro_6:12-19), and 2) from lust of the eyes and sensuality (Pro_6:20-35).—Comp. Stöcker: Against unfaithfulness in life and conversation, as it displays itself 1) in suretyship; 2) in fulfilling the duties of one’s calling: 3) in daily converse with human society; 4) in married life.
Pro_6:1-5. Starke: A teacher of the divine word becomes in a certain sense a surety to God for the souls of his hearers (Eze_3:18); therefore must he watch over them day and night, that none be lost through fault of his (Act_20:28).—J. Lange: In Christ our friend we have a faithful surety who can and will free us from all our debt.—Wohlfarth: From credulity to put at risk one’s property, to which one’s children have the first claim, and which one should employ only for the general good, and thereby to give an impulse to the follies and sins of others, is quite as ruinous as it is morally blameworthy.
Pro_6:6-11. Melanchthon: Diligence is the virtue by which we are disposed steadfastly and firmly for God’s sake, and the common welfare, to perform the labors belonging to our calling, with the aid of God, who has promised aid to those that seek it. The extremes of this virtue are indolence and a busy officiousness (πολυπραγμοσύνη). The indolent omits too much; the officious, either from excess of ardor, undertakes many things that are not necessary, or undertakes by-works (πάρεργα) and interferes with others’ vocations,” etc.—Egard: God will not support thee without work, but by work; that is His holy ordinance (Gen_3:19). Do thy part, and God will do His. … To know how rightly to employ time and opportunity is great wisdom. Gather in summer that thou mayest have in winter; gather in youth that thou mayest have in old age!—Berleb, Bible: Where the ways of Christianity are not directed in accordance with the perfect law of liberty (Jam_1:25) and according to the impulse of the Spirit of God, but according to any human constitution, there men go more foolishly to work than the ants in their labor.—[Trapp: They are utterly out that think to have the pleasure of idleness, and the plenty of painfulness].
Pro_6:12-19. Egard: A proud heart has never done anything specially for God’s honor and a neighbor’s good; through humble hearts God does great things.—Starke: The evil heart cannot long be hidden; it soon shows itself in evil gestures, words and deeds.—(On Pro_6:18): The heart underlies the seven vices which are an abomination to God, and in the midst, because it is the fountain from which evil flows in all directions (Mat_12:34-35; Mat_15:19). The Lord therefore hates not only the actual outbreakings of sins, but also the devices of the ungodly with which they encompass day and night.—(On Pro_6:16 sq.): Eyes, hands, tongue, heart, feet, are in themselves good and well-pleasing to God; but when they turn from the path of virtue and incline to vice, then they are evil and cannot please God.—Wohlfarth: Before the Lord proud eyes, false tongues, guilty hands, etc., cannot stand. His hand lays hold upon all such transgressors according to the holy law according to which every kind of evil finds its penalty.—[Pro_6:16-17. W. Bates: Pride is in the front of those sins which God hates, and are an abomination to Him. Pride, like an infectious disease, taints the sound parts, corrupts the actions of every virtue, and deprives them of their true grace and glory.—J. Edwards: It is vain for any to pretend that they are humble, and as little children before God, when they are haughty, impudent, and assuming in their behavior amongst men.]
Pro_6:20-35. Stöcker (on Pro_6:25): Solomon here warns chiefly against the things by which one may be enticed into adultery, namely 1) against evil desire and lust in the heart; 2) against wanton, over-curious eyes.—Starke (on Pro_6:25): Since evil lusts spring up in the heart, Solomon would have us at the very beginning stop up the fountains, i.e., suppress the very first instigations of corrupt flesh and blood (Jam_1:14-15). For it is always more difficult to extinguish sparks already existing than to guard against the heart’s receiving any.—Von Gerlach (on Pro_6:34-35): The fearful rage of the jealous husband grows out of the deep feeling, that the wife is one with her husband, a part of him, whose worth cannot be counterbalanced by any possession however great, outside of him.—Comp. J. Lange: Just as little as the adulterer taken in his adultery is left unpunished by the injured husband, so little, yea even less will the spiritual adulterer remain unpunished of the Lord (1Co_3:17).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv3–4come . . . friend--in his power.
come . . . friend--in his power.
humble . . . sure thy friend--urge as a suppliant; that is, induce the friend to provide otherwise for his debt, or secure the surety.
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. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3, 4ADMONITIONS REGARDING SURETYSHIP, Pro_6:1-5.
ADMONITIONS REGARDING SURETYSHIP, Pro_6:1-5.
In order to secure the peace and happiness of married life, which the teacher has just so highly commended, he now cautions his pupil against two evils, which often bring great distress upon families, reducing them to poverty: namely, inconsiderate suretyship and slothfulness.
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1, 2. If thou be surety — It is probable, as suggested by several critics, that אם, (im,) if, is to be mentally carried forward, not only to the second clause of the first verse, but also to the two clauses of the second verse, the whole of these two verses constituting the protasis, or antecedent member of the sentence, which finds its apodosis, or conclusion, in the third verse.
Thy friend — Or, neighbour; any one with whom he may have intercourse.
Stranger — Another person. Some think the “friend” and “stranger” mean the same person; others, that they are distinct, the friend being the companion on whose behalf the young man pledges himself, the stranger probably the Phoenician money-lender, to whom he makes himself responsible as surety.
Stricken… hand — (Compare Pro_17:18; Pro_22:26; Job_17:3; Eze_17:8;) if thou hast bound thyself in any way as security, bail, endorsement, to stand instead of another, or hast so mixed thyself in with his affairs as to injuriously involve thyself in case of his failure; if thou hast (Pro_6:2) in any wise inconsiderately and imprudently become enslaved or captured by words spoken in the way of pledge or promise. Zockler says: “The stranger is not the creditor, but the debtor, who in the first clause is designated as neighbour. For, according to Job_17:3, the surety gave his hand to the debtor, as a sign that he became bound for him.” “The Phoenician or Jewish money-lenders were ready to make their loans to the spendthrift. He was equally ready to find a companion who would become his security. “It was merely a form, just the writing of a few words, just the ‘clasping of the hands’ in token that the obligation was accepted, and that was all! It would be unfriendly to refuse; and yet, as the teacher warns his hearer, there might be in that moment of careless weakness the first link of a long chain of ignominy, galling, fretting, depriving life of all its peace.” — Speaker’s Commentary. For the severity of the Hebrew law in regard to suretyship, compare 2Ki_4:1; Mat_18:25; also, Pro_11:15; Pro_17:18; Pro_20:16; Pro_26:26; Pro_29:13. For the last clause, make sure thy friend, the Geneva Bible has, “solicit thy friende.”
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 Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3, 51. be surety] Better, art become surety, R.V.
1. be surety] Better, art become surety, R.V.
The frequent mention of suretiship in this Book, and the strong terms of warning and reprobation in which it is invariably spoken of, accord well with what we should suppose to be the condition of society in the reign of Solomon. In earlier and simpler times it was enough for the Law to forbid usury or interest for a loan of money to be exacted by one Israelite of another; and raiment given as a pledge or security for a debt was to be returned before night-fall to be the owner’s covering in his sleep (Exo_22:25-27; Lev_25:35-38). With the developement, however, of commerce and the growth of luxury under Solomon, money-lending transactions, whether for speculation in trade, or for personal gratification, had come to be among the grave dangers that beset the path of youth. Accordingly, though the writer of Ecclesiasticus contents himself with laying down restrictions to the exercise of suretiship, and even goes the length of telling us that “An honest man is surety for his neighbor” (Sir_8:13; Sir_29:14-20), our writer here, with a truer insight, has no quarter for it, but condemns it unsparingly on every mention of it (Pro_6:1-5, Pro_11:15, Pro_17:18, Pro_20:16, Pro_22:26-27, Pro_27:13). Even the generous impulse of youth to incur risk at the call of friendship must yield to the dictates, cold and calculating though they seem, of bitter experience.
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In all these places the LXX. use ἐγγυᾶσθαι, ἔγγυος, ἐγγύη (comp. Heb_7:22); but the Heb. word here used appears as a noun in a Greek form (ἀρραβών), and is found in the LXX. only in Gen_38:17-18; Gen_38:20. It is employed by St Paul to denote the gift of the Spirit as the pledge or earnest of the future inheritance (2Co_1:22; 2Co_5:5; Eph_1:14). The later history of the word is traced by Dean Plumptre in an interesting note at the end of Proverbs 6 in the Speaker’s Comm.
with a stranger] i.e. if thou hast “become surety for thy friend,” by entering for him, by the usual formality of shaking hands (Pro_11:15, Pro_17:18, Pro_22:26; Job_17:3), into an undertaking with the stranger to whom he is indebted, to be responsible for his debt. In favour of this rendering is perhaps the article before “stranger” (lit. the stranger, i.e. money-lender), with whom he has involved himself.
The rendering, however, of R.V. text, for a stranger, preserves the parallelism better (the preposition moreover is the same in both clauses of the verse), while it understands the “neighbour” which it substitutes for “friend” in the first clause of this verse, to be equivalent to the “stranger,” i.e. “another” than thyself. For this wide use of the Heb. word for “stranger,” comp. Pro_27:2; 1Ki_3:18.
Eleventh Address. Chap. 6. Pro_6:1-5. The Surety
“From the solemn principle announced at the close of the last chapter (Pro_6:23) the teacher passes … to illustrate the truth by three examples, that of the Surety (Pro_6:1-5), that of the Sluggard (Pro_6:6-11), and that of the Worthless Man (Pro_6:12-19). And then because the horrors of impurity are the most striking and terrible instance of all, this subject coming up again at Pro_6:20, like the dark ground tone of the picture, finally runs into the long and detailed description of ch. 7.” Horton, ch. vii. p. 79.
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 Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3, 5(i). Ninth Discourse:—Against Suretyship (Pro_6:1-5).
(1) If thou be surety for thy friend.—When the Mosaic Law was instituted, commerce had not been taken up by the Israelites, and the lending of money on interest for its employment in trade was a thing unknown. The only occasion for loans would be to supply the immediate necessities of the borrower, and the exaction of interest under such circumstances would be productive of great hardship, involving the loss of land and even personal freedom, as the insolvent debtor and his family became the slaves of the creditor (Neh_5:1-5). To prevent these evils, the lending of money on interest to any poor Israelite was strictly forbidden (Lev_25:35-37); the people were enjoined to be liberal, and lend for nothing in such cases. But at the time of Solomon, when the commerce of the Israelites had enormously developed, and communications were opened with Spain and Egypt and (possibly) with India and Ceylon, while caravans penetrated beyond the Euphrates, then the lending of money on interest for employment in trade most probably became frequent, and suretyship also, the pledging of a man’s own credit to enable his friend to procure a loan. And when the wealth that accompanied this development of the national resources had brought luxury in its train, borrowing and suretyship would be employed for less worthy purposes, to supply the young nobles of Jerusalem with money for their extravagance. Hence possibly the emphatic language of the text and Pro_20:16; Pro_27:13.
Stricken thy hand.—That is, as we should say, “shaken hands on the bargain.”
With a stranger.—Or rather, for another, i.e., thy friend.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv1–5Vers. 1-35. The sixth chapter embraces four distinct discourses,…
Vers. 1-35. The sixth chapter embraces four distinct discourses, each of which is a warning. The subjects treated of are
(1) suretyship (vers. 1-5);
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(2) sloth (vers. 6-11);
(3) malice (vers. 12-19); and
(4) adultery (ver. 20 to the end).
The continuity of the subject treated of in the preceding chapter appears to be somewhat abruptly interrupted to make way for the insertion of three discourses on subjects which apparently have little connection with what precedes and what follows. Their unlooked for and unexpected appearance has led Hitzig to regard them as interpolations, but it has been conclusively pointed out by Delitzsch that there is sufficient internal evidence, in the grammatical construction, figures, word formations, delineations, and threatenings, to establish the position that they proceeded from the same hand that composed the rest of the book and to guarantee their genuineness. But another and not less interesting question arises as to whether any connection subsists between these discourses and the subject which they apparently interrupt. Such a connection is altogether denied by Delitzsch, Zockler, and other German commentators, who look upon them as independent discourses, and maintain that, if there is any connection, it can be only external and accidental. On the other hand, Bishops Patrick and Wordsworth discover an ethical connection which, though not clear at first sight, is not on that account less real or true. The subject treated of in the preceding chapter is the happiness of the married life, and this is imperilled by incautious undertaking of suretyship, and suretyship, it is maintained, induces sloth, while sloth leads to maliciousness After treating of suretyship, sloth, and malice in succession, the teacher recurs to the former subject of his discourse, viz. impurity of life, against which he gives impressive warnings. That such is the true view them appears little doubt. One vice is intimately connected with another, and the verdict of experience is that a life of idleness is one of the most prolific sources of a life of impurity. Hence we find Ovid saying"Quaeritur, Aegisthus, qua re sit factus adulter? In promptu causa est desidiosus erat." "Do you ask why Aegisthus has become an adulterer? The reason is close at hand he was full of idleness.
Within the sphere of these discourses them. selves the internal connection is distinctly observable, vers. 16-19 being a refrain of vers. 12-15, and the phrase, "to stir up strife," closing each enumeration (see vers. 14 and 19).
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-5. The perils of suretyship.
Here we have
I A FEATURE OF ANCIENT LIFE. The warnings against incurring this responsibility are very frequent in this book. (Pro_11:15 Pro_17:18 Pro_20:16 Pro_22:26) For the bail was treated like the insolvent debtor. (2Ki_4:1 Mat_18:25) He was subject to distraint or to be sold into slavery. Ben-Sira (29, 18, seq. ) says, "Suretyship hath destroyed many that were doing well, and swallowed them up as a wave of the sea. It hath turned mighty men out of their homes, and they wandered among foreign peoples." The surety struck his band into that of the debtor, as a sign that he would answer for him. This would be accompanied by a verbal declaration, and hence the man had bound and confined himself himself by the words of his mouth." The rigidity of ancient custom in this particular told with terrible severity against thoughtless incurrers of responsibility, no matter how kind the motive. Hence
II THE URGENT NEED OF PRUDENCE. Ver. 3: "Since thou hast come into the hand power of thy neighbour, stamp with thy foot, and storm thy neighbour;" i.e. be urgent and insistent with the careless debtor for whom thou hast pledged thyself, press upon him the fulfilment of his responsibilities before it be too late. Exercise a sleepless vigilance (ver. 4, "Tear thyself free like a gazelle from its haunt, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler").
III MODERN REFLECTIONS AND LESSORS.
1. Let us be thankful that the severity of the ancient laws and customs concerning debt and suretyship has been mitigated. The history of the changes of law is one of the best evidences of Christianity, and proof that prior conceptions of God advance side by side with gentler conceptions of social relations and duties.
2. Prudence is a constant necessity, and its cultivation a virtue, though not the highest. We must learn to adjust the claims of prudence and of neighbourly love.
3. Independence is not only a "glorious privilege," but the firm foundation for the best life enjoyment and life work. These are golden words from Ben-Sira, valid for all time: "Take heed to thyself, lest thou fail. The elements of life are water, bread, and a coat to ones back, and a dwelling to hide unseemliness. Better the poor man"s life in his hut than faring luxuriously in others" houses... It is an ill life from house to house, and not to be able to open your mouth where you are sojourning." To do our own work or God"s work well, we should aim at detachment, disembarrassment, freedom of spirit. J.
Vers. 1-5. Ninth admonitory discourse. Warning against suretyship.
The contents of this section are not to be taken so much as an absolute unqualified prohibition of suretyship as counsel directed against the inconsiderate and rash undertaking of such an obligation. There were some occasions on which becoming surety for another was demanded by the laws of charity and prudence, and when it was not inconsistent with the humane precepts of the Mosaic Law as enunciated in Lev_19:19. In other passages of our book the writer of the Proverbs lays down maxims which would clearly countenance the practice, (Pro_14:21 Pro_17:17 Pro_18:24 Pro_27:10) and in the apocryphal writings the practice is encouraged, if not enjoined (Ecc 29:14; Ecc_8:13). Notwithstanding this limitation, however, it is observable that suretyship is almost invariably spoken of in terms of condemnation, and the evil consequences which it entailed on the surety may be the reason why it is so frequently alluded to. The teacher refers to the subject in the following passages: here; Pro_11:15:17:18 Pro_22:26 Pro_20:16 Pro_27:13. My son. On this address, see Pro_2:1 Pro_3:1, Pro_3:17. If thou be surety (Hebrew, im-aravta); literally, if thou hast become surety; LXX, ean eggush ; Vulgate, si spoponderis. What the teacher counsels in the present instance is that, if by inadvertence a person has become surety, he should by the most strenuous endeavours prevail on his friend to free him from the bond. The Hebrew verb arav is properly "to mix," and then signifies "to become surety" in the sense of interchanging with another and so taking his place. The frequent mention of suretyship in the Proverbs is alluded to above. The first recorded instances are those where Judah offers to become surety for Benjamin, first to Israel, (Gen_43:9) and secondly to Joseph. (Gen_44:33) It is singular that it is only once alluded to in the Book of Job, where Job says, "Lay down now, put me in surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?"; (Job_17:3) and once only, and that doubtfully, in the whole of the Mosaic writings, in the phrase tesummat yad, i.e. giving or striking the hand in the case of perjury. (Lev_6:2) The psalmist refers to it in the words, "Be surety for thy servant for good". (Psa_119:122) It is spoken of twice in Isaiah, (Isa_38:14 Isa_36:8) once in Ezekiel (Eze_27:27) and in Nehemiah, (Neh_5:3) and the cognate noun, arrabon, "the pledge," security for payment, is met with in Gen_38:17 and 1Sa_17:18. These scattered notices in the Old Testament show that the practice was always in existence, while the more frequent notices in the Proverbs refer to a condition of society where extended commercial transactions had apparently made it a thing of daily occurrence, and a source of constant danger. In the New Testament one instance of suretyship is found, when St. Paul offers to become surety to Philemon for Onesimus. (Phm_1:19) But in the language of the New Testament, the purely commercial meaning of the word is transmuted into a spiritual one. The gift of the Spirit is regarded as the arrabon, orrabwn , "the pledge," the earnest of the Christian believer"s acceptance with God. (2Co_1:22 2Co_5:5 Eph_1:14) For thy friend; Hebrew, l"reeka. The Hebrew reeh, more usually rea, is "the companion or friend," and in this ease obviously the debtor for whom one has become surety. The word reappears in ver. 3. The l (l) prefixed to reeh is the dativus commodi. So Delitzsch and others. If not in the original, but rightly inserted. Thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger (Hebrew, taka"ta lazzar kapeyka); properly, thou hast stricken thy hand for a stranger. The analogous use of l (l) in lazzar determines this rendering. As in the corresponding l"reeyka, the l (l) indicates the person for whose benefit the suretyship is undertaken, i.e. the debtor, and not the person with whom the symbolical act is performed, i.e. the creditor. Compare the following passages, though the construction with l is wanting: "He that is surety for a stranger"; (Pro_11:15) "Take his garment that is surety for a stranger". (Pro_20:16 and Pro_27:13) "The stranger," zar, is not an alien, or one belonging to another nationality, but simply one extraneous to one"s self, and so equivalent to akher, "another." The meaning, therefore, seems to be, "If thou hast entered into a bond for one with whom thou art but slightly acquainted." Others (Wordsworth, Plumptre), however, take zar as representing the foreign money lender. The phrase, "to strike the hand," taka kaph, or simply "to strike," taka, describes the symbolical act which accompanied the contract. Taka is properly "to drive," like the Latin defigere, and hence "to strike," and indicates the sharp sound with which the hands were brought into contact.
The act no doubt was accomplished before witnesses, and the hand which was stricken was that of the creditor, who thereby received assurance that the responsibility of the debtor was undertaken by the surety. The "striking of the hand" as indicating the completion of a contract is illustrated by the author of the "Kamoos", (quoted by Lee, on Job_17:3) who says, "He struck or clapped to him a sale... he struck his hand in a sale, or on his hand... he struck his ow hand upon the hand of him, and this is among the necessary (transactions) of sale." So among Western nations the giving of the band has been always regarded as a pledge of bona fides. Thus Menelaus demands of Helena (Euripides, "Hel.," 838), Epi toisde nun dexiage , "Touch my right hand now on these conditions," i.e. in attestation that you accept them. In purely verbal agreements it is the custom in the present day for the parties to clasp the hand. A further example may be found in the plighting of troth in the Marriage Service.
Vers. 1-5. The surety.
Our Christian charity may naturally be shocked at the selfishness apparently inculcated by the frequent warnings against giving security for others that are scattered up and down the Book of Proverbs. They have done more than anything else to lead people to regard the standard of morality of the Proverbs as low and worldly. Let us consider the subject from various points of view.
I THE STANDARD OF MORALITY OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS IS LOWER THAN THAT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Let this fact be clearly recognized. Revelation is progressive. Doctrine is only revealed by degrees. The same applies to ethics. Such a method is most suited to the moral education of the race. A less-advanced people can only live up to a less-elevated principle. If the standard be raised too high, it ceases to be effective, and becomes like a counsel of perfection, which ordinary people disregard. On the other hand, Christians have no excuse for taking refuge in the lower principles of an obsolete dispensation.
II AN EXCLUSIVE ATTENTION TO ONE DUTY WILL ALWAYS MILITATE AGAINST OTHER DUTIES. Duties cross and qualify one another. Each taken by itself and pressed to its extreme wilt lead to conflict with others. Now, here prudence only is commended. To enforce it the more powerfully, other duties are for the time left out of sight. When they are taken up they will qualify, it considerably.
III IT IS FOOLISH TO UNDERTAKE AN OBLIGATION WHICH WE ARE UNWILLING TO CARRY OUT. It is so easy to make chivalrous promises. But immense harm is done by over haste in professions of generosity. Let a man count the cost enough to see whether he is morally able to bear the strain before making a very liberal offer.
IV MUCH EVIL WAS DONE BY THE MONEY LENDING SYSTEM OF THE JEWS. The laws of debt were most stringent, and "the goods of the sureties might be distrained, or they even sold as slaves, just as in the case of insolvent debtors." Such an outrageously cruel state of things was justly deprecated.
V OTHER MORE PRESSING CLAIMS FORBID US TO CONTRACT SOME OF THE MOST EXACTING OBLIGATIONS. The good-natured Jew who beggared his children and lost his liberty by becoming surety to a spendthrift, robbed those who had most right to enjoy his property, and hindered himself from doing more good in the future. The duty of a man to his family is often pleaded as an excuse for some act of mean selfishness. Nevertheless, the duty is real, and must not be neglected. A man has no right to risk his children"s welfare in order to oblige a friend. People who are too hasty in putting their names to bills should remember thin
VI THE SURETY IS ONLY ADVISED TO ESCAPE BY JUST MEANS. He is not told to break his promise, to hide, to leave the country. He is urged to seek a release by requesting his friend to grant it him. Such a course is humiliating. But it is not dishonest.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-5. Answering for others; danger and deliverance.
There are times when we are invited and are bound to answer for other people it may be with our word, or it may be with our bond. We have all been indebted to the kindnesses of our friends in this direction, and that which we have received from our fellows we should be ready to give to them in return. But it is a matter in which it is very easy to go much too far; in which carelessness is wrong and even criminal; in which, therefore wise counsel is well worth heeding.
I THAT GOOD MEN ARE EXPOSED TO SERIOUS DANGER IN THE WAY OF SURETYSHIP. (Vers. 1-3.) Good men, as such. For it is they who are most likely to be in a position to grant the help which is desired, and who are most likely to be induced to do so. The danger is threefold.
1. The appeal is to kindness of heart. It is the young at starting, or it is the unfortunate, or it is those on whom the helpless are dependent, who supplicate our interposition; and it is difficult for the tender hearted to turn a deaf ear to their entreaty.
2. The peril is easily incurred. It was but the taking of the hand in the presence of two or three witnesses; it is but the signing of a name at the foot of a bond, and the thing is done.
3. The result is remote and uncertain. No evil may ever happen; if it should, it will fall some day in the distance.
II THAT GODLY PRINCIPLE REQUIRES US TO PUT A STRONG CHECK ON INCLINATION.
1. However much our sympathetic feelings may be stirred, however great the pleasure of compliance, and however deep the pain of refusal, we must forbear, when we have not wherewith to meet the demand that may be made on us. To comply, under such conditions, is simple dishonesty; it is criminal; it is an essentially false action.
2. We should imperil the comfort of our own family. Our first duty is to the wife whom we have solemnly covenanted before God to cherish and care for, and to the children whom the Father has entrusted to our charge.
3. We should be encouraging a culpable spirit of unsound speculation.
4. We should be disregarding the general good. No minister can commend to a Christian community a brother whom he believes to be unfit for the post without sinning against Christ and his Church most seriously. No man can recommend an incompetent or unworthy neighbour or friend to a position of trust and influence without doing a wrong which, if it be not condemned in the Decalogue, will be heavily scored in the Divine account.
III THAT IF WE FIND WE HAVE ERRED, WE MUST DO EVERY POSSIBLE THING TO GAIN DELIVERANCE. (Vers. 3-7) There should be:
1. The utmost promptitude (ver. 4). When the blow may not fall for sometime to come, there is special temptation to procrastinate until it is too late. Seek safety at once; let not the sun go down before the first step is taken.
2. Energy in action (ver. 5). We should seek to extricate ourselves and those who are dear to us with the vigour with which the roe escapes from the hunter, the bird from the fowler.
3. If necessary, with self-humiliation (ver. 3). We hate to "humble ourselves," but we ought to be ready to do this rather than allow trouble and ruin to hang over our home.
IV THAT IF THIS URGENCY BE DUE TO TEMPORAL DANGERS, HOW MUCH MORE IMPERATIVE IS OUR DUTY TO GAIN DELIVERANCE FROM SPIRITUAL PERILS! We may well give "no sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to our eyelids," until the peril is passed of being called by the Divine Creditor to meet a debt when we "have nothing to pay. 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 Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn v1If thou be surety for thy friend.
Pro_6:1-5
If thou be surety for thy friend.
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Social suretyships
The principles of domestic, social, and political economy in the Bible are far more wise, as well as righteous, than can be found in human book or periodical.
I. Suretyship as an evil to be deplored. If thou be surety; as if he had said, It is a sad thing if thou hast. It is not, however, always an evil. There are two things necessary to render it justifiable.
1. The case should be deserving.
2. You should be fully competent to discharge the obligation. But the most deserving men will seldom ask for suretyships, and the most competent men will seldom undertake the responsibility.
II. Suretyship as an evil very easily contracted. Merely striking the hand, and uttering the words. One word, the word Yes, will do it, written or uttered in the presence of a witness. Plausibility will soon extract it from a pliant and generous nature.
III. Suretyship as an evil to be strenuously removed. Deliver thyself.
1. Do it promptly. Try by every honest means to get the bond back again.
2. Do it beseechingly. Humble thyself. It is no use to carry a high hand; thou art in his power.
3. Do it effectively. Thou art encaged in iron law; break loose honourably somehow, and be free. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
If thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger.
Striking the hand
A surety is one who becomes security for a debt due by another. The customary or legal forms which render suretyship valid differ in different countries. Allusion here is to the practice of the surety confirming his engagement by giving his hand to the creditor, in presence of witnesses. The prohibition must not be taken as unqualified. There are cases in which suretyship is unavoidable. The law sometimes requires it. But the less of it the better.
I. It is wrong for a man to come under engagements that are beyond his actually existing means. Such a course is not merely imprudent; there is in it a threefold injustice.
1. To the creditor for whom he becomes surety, inasmuch as the security is fallacious, not covering the extent of the risk.
2. To his family, to whom the payment may bring distress and ruin.
3. To those who give him credit in his own transactions; for, in undertaking suretyships, he involves himself in the risks of other trades besides his own.
II. It is wrong to make engagements with inconsideration and rashness. The case here treated is that of suretyship for a friend to a stranger; and the rashness and haste may be viewed in relation either to the person or to the ease. Men, when they feel the generous impulse of friendly emotion, are apt to think at the moment only of themselves, as if the risk were all their own, and to forget that they are making creditors and family securities, without asking their consent, or making them aware of their risks. Suretyships for strangers are specially condemned. (R. Wardlaw.)
Debtors and creditors
The friend of the surety here is the debtor, the stranger is the creditor.
I. The Scripture affords direction for trading and civil converse.
1. For wariness in suretyship here.
2. For faithfulness in dealing elsewhere. But why does the wise man concern himself with such matters.
Because--
1. Religion guides best in civil matters.
2. The eighth commandment requires care of our estates.
3. The Church consists of families and traders which cannot be upheld without care.
4. Religion is ill spoken of for the careless ruin of professors estates. Then follow Scripture precedents in trading rather than corrupt mens examples.
II. Young men should be advised by their elders in worldly affairs. They have more knowledge and more experience than younger men.
III. Rash suretyship is to be avoided. Go to the pleading-place (forum), and among frequent contenders nothing is more frequently heard, than the dangers of suretyship, and the sighings of the surety.
1. Be not bound for more than thou canst spare from thy trade and charge.
2. Be not bound for idle persons, that are likely to leave thee in the lurch, and can show no likelihood of ever paying. There be honest poor men enough that will need thy help in this kind. Thou needest not to bestow thy means on prodigals. (Francis Taylor, B.D.)
Lending money on interest
When the Mosaic law was instituted, commerce had not been taken up by the Israelites, and the lending of money on interest for its employment in trade was a thing unknown. The only occasion for loans would be to supply the immediate necessities of the borrower, and the exaction of interest under such circumstances would be productive of great hardship, involving the loss of land, and even of personal freedom, as the insolvent debtor and his family became the slaves of the creditor (Neh_5:1-5). To prevent these evils, the lending of money on interest to any poor Israelite was strictly forbidden (Lev_25:1-55.); the people were enjoined to be liberal, and to lend for nothing in such cases. But at the time of Solomon, when the commerce of the Israelites was enormously developed, and communications were opened with Spain and Egypt, and possibly with India and Ceylon, while caravans penetrated beyond the Euphrates, then the lending of money on interest for employment in trade most probably became frequent, and suretyship also--the pledging of a mans own credit to enable his friend to procure a loan. (Ellicotts Commentary.)
Certain examples of the binding character of our own actions
The surety. The sluggard. The worthless person.
I. The surety. The young man, finding his neighbour in monetary difficulties, consents in an easy-going way to become his surety; enters into a solemn pledge with the creditor, probably a Phoenician money-lender. He now stands committed. His peace of mind and his welfare depend no longer upon himself, but upon the character, the weakness, the caprice, of another. A young man who has so entangled himself is advised to spare no pains, and to let no false pride prevent his securing release from his obligation. There may, however, be cases in which a true brotherliness will require us to be surety for our friend. Ecclesiasticus says: An honest man is surety for his neighbour, but he that is impudent will forsake him. If we can afford to be a surety for our neighbour, we can clearly afford to lend him the money ourselves. A miserable chain thoughtlessness in the matter of suretyship may forge for the thoughtless.
II. The sluggard. Poverty and ruin must eventually overtake him. In every community there is a certain number of people who are constitutionally incapable. Examples of insect life are brought to teach and stimulate human beings.
III. The worthless character. His heart is as deceitful as his lips: he cannot be true on any terms. This kind of man is the pest of commerce; the bane of every social circle; the leaven of hypocrisy and malice in the Christian Church. (R. F. Horton, D.D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v1"The surety the sluggard and the worthless person." Pro_6:1;…
CHAPTER 7
CERTAIN EXAMPLES OF THE BINDING CHARACTER OF OUR OWN ACTIONS
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"The surety the sluggard and the worthless person." Pro_6:1; Pro_6:6; Pro_6:12
FROM the solemn principle announced at the close of the last chapter the teacher passes, almost unconscious of the thought which determines his selection of subjects, to illustrate the truth by three examples, -that of the Surety, that of the Sluggard, that of the Worthless Man. And then, because the horrors of impurity are the most striking and terrible instance of all, this subject, coming up again at Pro_5:20, like the dark ground tone of the picture, finally runs into the long and detailed description of chapter 7.
These three examples are full of interest, partly because of the light they throw on the habits and moral sentiments of the time in which this Introduction was written, but chiefly because of the permanent teaching which is luminous in them all, and especially in the third.
We may spend a few minutes upon the first. The young man, finding his neighbor in monetary difficulties, consents in an easy-going way to become his surety; he enters into a solemn pledge with the creditor, probably a Phoenician money-lender, that he will himself be responsible if the debtor is not prepared to pay at the appointed time. He now stands committed; he is like a roe that is caught by the hunter, or a bird that is held by the fowler, in the hand of his neighbor. His peace of mind, and his welfare, depend no longer upon himself, but upon the character, the weakness, the caprice of another. This is a good illustration of the way in which a thoughtless action may weave cruel bands to bind the unwary. Looking at the matter from this point of view, our book strongly and frequently denounces the practice of suretiship. To become surety for another shows that you are void of understanding. So foolish is the action that it is compared to the surrender of ones own garments, and even to the loss of personal freedom. A proverb declares: "He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it, but he that hateth suretiship is sure."
If then the young man has enmeshed himself in obligations of this kind, he is recommended to spare no pains, not to stand upon a false pride, but to go with all urgency, with frank abasement, to the man for whom he has pledged his credit, and at all costs to get released from the obligation. "Be thou not," says Wisdom, "one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts: if thou hast not wherewith to pay, why should, he take away thy bed from under thee?" {Pro_22:26-27}
We feel at once that there is another side to the question. There may be cases in which true brotherliness will require us to be surety for our friend. "An honest man is surety for his neighbor, but he that is impudent will forsake him," says Ecclesiasticus. And from another point of view an injunction has to be given to one who has persuaded his friend to stand as his surety, -"Forget not the friendship of thy surety, for he hath given his life for thee. A sinner will overthrow the good estate of his surety, and he that is of an unthankful mind will leave him in danger that delivered him." But confining ourselves to the standpoint of the text, we may well raise a note of warning against the whole practice. As Ecclesiasticus himself says, "Suretiship hath undone many of good estate, and shaken them as a wave of the sea: mighty men hath it driven from their houses, so that they wandered among strange nations. A wicked man transgressing the commandments of the Lord shall fall into suretiship." {Ecclesiasticus 29:14; Ecclesiasticus 29:16-19}
We may say perhaps that the truly moral course in these relations with our fellows lies here: if we can afford to be a surety for our neighbor, we can clearly afford to lend him the money ourselves. If we cannot afford to lend it to him, then it is weak and foolish, and may easily become wicked and criminal, to make our peace of mind dependent on the action of a third person, while in all probability it is hurtful to our friend himself, because by consenting to divide the risks with the actual creditor we tend to lessen in the debtors mind the full realization of his indebtedness, and thus encourage him in shifty courses and unnerve his manly sense of responsibility. The cases in which it is wise as well as kind to become bail for another are so rare that they may practically be ignored in this connection; and when these rare occasions occur they may safely be left to the arbitrament of other principles of conduct which in the present instance are out of view. Here it is enough to emphasize what a miserable chain thoughtlessness in the matter of suretiship may forge for the thoughtless.
We may now pass to our second illustration, the poverty and ruin which must eventually overtake the Sluggard. "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns. The face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I beheld, and considered well: I saw, and received instruction." And there is the lazy owner of this neglected farm murmurring, "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." There seem to be in every community a certain number of people who can only be described as constitutionally incapable: as children they are heavy and phlegmatic; at school they are always playing truant, and exerting themselves, if at all, to escape the irksome necessity of learning anything; when they enter into life for themselves they have no notion of honest effort and steady persistency, but directly their employment becomes distasteful they quit it; and at length, when they end their days in the workhouse, or in those shameful haunts of sin and vice to which sloth so easily leads, they have the melancholy reflection to take with them to the grave that they have proved themselves an encumbrance of the earth, and can be welcomed in no conceivable world. Now the question must force itself upon our attention, Might not these incapables be rescued if they were taken young enough, and taught by wholesome discipline and a wise education what will be the inevitable issue of their lethargic tendencies? Might not the farm of the sluggard be impressed on their very eyeballs as a perpetual and effective warning?
Leaving this important question to social reformers, we may note how beautifully this book employs the examples of insect life to teach and stimulate human beings. "The ants are a people not strong. Yet they provide their meat in summer. The locusts have no king. Yet go they forth all of them by bands." {Pro_30:25-27} "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." {Pro_6:6; Pro_6:8} By this little touch the book of Proverbs has turned the magnificent fields of modern scientific observation, and all the astonishing revelations of the microscope, into a school of moral and spiritual discipline for human life. Thus the ants swarm in the woods and the fields as if to rebuke the laziness and thriftlessness of man. They work night and day; they store their galleries with food; they capture and nourish aphides, which they use as a kind of domestic cattle. The vast and symmetrical mounds, which they rear as habitations and barns, are, relatively to the size of the builders, three or four times larger than the pyramids. By what mysterious instinct those long lines of laborers march and work in unison; by what half-human impulses they form in serried hosts and engage in deadly battles prolonged through several days; by what ludicrous freaks they are led to imitate men, spending their lives in pampered luxury, dependent upon slaves, until at last in their helplessness they are mastered by their bondservants in revolt; by what heavenly motive they are stirred to feed and nourish and nurse one another in sickness and trouble, -we need not here enquire, for we are only told to go to the ant in order to learn her ways of ceaseless activity. But in this brief precept we seem to receive a hint of the boundless instruction and warning to be derived from the humbler inhabitants of this earth which man claims as his own.
Let us pass to the third illustration of the theme. The surety is the victim of easygoing thoughtlessness, the sluggard is the victim of laziness and incapacity; but now there appears on the scene the thoroughly worthless character, the man of Belial, and after his portrait is drawn in a few touches, his sudden and hopeless ruin is announced in a way which is all the more striking because the connection between the sin and its punishment is left to be guessed rather than explained. {Pro_6:12-15} The description of this person is wonderfully graphic and instructive, and we must dwell for a moment on the details. We see him, not in repose, but busy going from place to place, and talking a great deal. His lips are shaped continually to lie, -"he walketh with a froward mouth." There is no straightforwardness about him; he is full of hint, suggestion, innuendo; he gives you always the idea that he has an accomplice in the background; he turns to you and winks in a knowing way; he has a habit of shuffling with his feet, as if some evil spirit forbade him to stand still; you constantly catch his gesticulating; he points with his thumb over his shoulder, and nods significantly; he is never better pleased than when he can give the impression of knowing a great deal more than he cares to say. He delights to wrap himself in mystery-to smile blandly and then relapse into a look of inscrutability-to frown severely and then assume an air of gentle innocence. He is in the habit of beckoning one into a corner, and making a whispered communication as if he were your particular friend, as if he had taken a fancy to you directly he saw you, and was therefore eager to give you some information which nothing would induce him to divulge to anyone else; if you are foolish enough to share his confidences, he gives you very soon, when others are standing by, a cunning leer, as if to intimate that you and he are old acquaintances, and are in the secret, which the rest do not know.
The fact is that his heart is as deceitful as his lips; he cannot be true on any terms. If some simple and open course occurred to his mind he would shun it instinctively, because it is in devising evil that he lives and moves and has his being. His friendliest approaches fill an honest man with misgiving, his words of affection or admiration send a cold shudder through ones frame. His face is a mask; when it looks fair you suspect villainy; when it looks villainous, and then only, you recognize that it is true. Wherever he goes he makes mischief, he causes divisions; he is the Iago of every play in which he takes a part, the Judas of every society of which, he is a member. He manages to sow suspicion m the mind of the least suspicious, and to cast a slur on the character of the most innocent. When he has created discord between friends he is delighted. If he sees them disposed to a reconciliation, he comes forward as a mediator and takes care to exasperate the differences, and to make the breach irreparable. Like Edmund in "King Lear," he has a genius for setting men at variance, and for so arranging his plots that each party thinks he hears with his own ears and sees with his own eyes the proof of the others perfidy. But, unlike Edmund, he does the mischief, not for any special good to himself, but for the mere delight of being an agent of evil.
It is this kind of man that is the pest of commerce. He introduces dishonest practices into every business that he touches. He makes it a principle that in selling you are to impose on the customer, avail yourself of his ignorance or prejudice or weakness, and hide everything which might incline him to draw back; while in buying you are to use any fraud or panic or misrepresentation which might induce the seller to lower the price. When he has been in a business for a little while the whole concern becomes tainted, there is a slime over everything; the very atmosphere is fetid.
It is this kind of man that is the bane of every social circle. In his presence, all simplicity and innocence, all charity and forbearance and compassion, seem to wither away. If you are true and straightforward he manages to make you ridiculous; under his evil spell you seem a simpleton. All genial laughter he turns into sardonic smiles and sneers; all kindly expressions he transforms into empty compliments which are not devoid of a hidden venom. He is often very witty, lint his wit clings like an eating acid to everything that is good and pure; his tongue will lodge a germ of putrescence in everything which it touches.
It is this kind of man that is the leaven of hypocrisy and malice in the Christian Church; he intrigues and cabals. He sets the people against the minister and stirs up the minister to suspect his people. He undertakes religious work, because it is in that capacity he can do most mischief. He is never better pleased than when he can pose as the champion of orthodoxy, because then he seems to be sheltered and approved by the banner which he is defending.
"Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly." It is because the character is so incurably base, so saturated with lies and insincerities, that there can be no gradations or temperings in his punishment. One who is less evil may be proved and tested with slight troubles, if possibly he may be stirred to amendment. But this utterly worthless person is quite unaffected by the smaller trials, the tentative disciplines of life. He cannot be chastised as a son; he can only be broken as a vessel in which there is an intrinsic flaw; or as a building, which has got the plague in its very mortar and plaster.
We are told that in Sierra Leone the white ants will sometimes occupy a house, and eat their way into all the woodwork, until every article in the house is hollow, so that it will collapse into dust directly it is touched. It is so with this deceitful character, so honeycombed, and eaten through, that though for years it may maintain its plausible appearance in the world, few people even suspecting the extent of the inward decay on a sudden the end will come; there will be one touch of the finger of God, and the whole ill-compacted, worm-devoured thing will crumble into matchwood: "He shall be broken, and that without remedy."
But while we are thus watching this worthless soul overtaken with an inevitable calamity, we are reminded that not only are our eyes upon him, but the Lord also sees him. And to that calm and holy watcher of the poor sinful creature there are six things which appear specially hateful-seven which are an abomination of His soul. {Pro_6:16-19} Is there not a kind of comfort in the thought that the Lord watches and knows the whole story of that miserable life, not leaving it to us to condemn, but taking upon Himself the whole responsibility? He knows whether there is a reason in nature for these bad hearts; He knows too what power outside of nature can change and redeem them. But at present we want only to mark and consider these seven things which are abominable to God-the seven prominent traits of the character which has just been depicted. We seem to need some spiritual quickening, that we may observe these hateful things not only with our own natural repugnance, but with something of the holy hatred and the inward loathing which they produce in the Divine mind.
1. Haughty eyes. "There is a generation, Oh how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up." And to that generation how many of us belong, and what secret admiration do we cherish for it, even when we can honestly disclaim any blood relationship! That haughty air of the great noble; that sense of intrinsic superiority; that graciousness of manner which comes from a feeling that no comparison can possibly be instituted between the great man and his inferiors; that way of surveying the whole earth as if it were ones private estate; or that supreme satisfaction with ones private estate as if it were the whole earth! This lofty pride, when its teeth are drawn so that it cannot materially hurt the rest of mankind, is a subject of mirth to us; but to the Lord it is not, it is hateful and abominable; it ranks with the gross vices and the worst sins; it is the chief crime of Satan.
2. A lying tongue, though it "is but for a moment." {Pro_12:19} It is the sure sign of Gods intense hatred against lies that they recoil on the head of the liar, and are the harbingers of certain destruction. We dislike lies because of their social inconvenience, and where some social convenience is served by them we connive at them and approve. But God hates the lying tongue, whatever apparent advantage comes from it. If we lie for personal gain He hates it. If we lie from mere weakness, He hates it. If we lie in the name of religion, and in the fashion of the Jesuit, for the welfare of men and the salvation of souls, He hates it none the less. The abomination does not consist in the motive of the lie, but in the lie itself.
3. Hands that shed innocent blood. So hateful are they to Him that He could not let David His chosen servant build Him a house because this charge could be laid against the great king. The soldier in the battle-field hewing down the man who is innocent, and the man who in carelessness or greed is wearing the poor, who are dependent on him, down to death, and the man who in a passion rises up and murders his fellow, -these are very hateful to the Lord. There at the beginning of the worlds history, in the blood of righteous Abel crying to the Lord, and in the mark set on the guilty brow of Cain, the heart of God was clearly and finally shown. He has not changed. He does not shed innocent blood Himself; He cannot away with them that shed it.
4. Hateful too to Him is the devising heart, even where courage or opportunity fails of realizing the device. There are so many more murders in the world than we see, so many cruel and wicked deeds restrained by the police or by a dominant public sentiment, which yet lie deep in the wicked imagination of our hearts, and are abominable to God, that we may be thankful if we do not see as He sees, and may wonder at the forbearance of His compassion.
5. Feet that be swift in running to mischief. Feet listless in the ways of brotherly service or holy worship, but swift, twinkling with eager baste, when any mischief is toward, are marked by God-and hated.
6. And a false witness is abominable to Him, the poisoner of all social life, the destroyer of all justice between man and man. Again and again in this book is censure passed upon this unpardonable crime.
7. Finally, as the blessing of Heaven descends on the peacemaker, so the hatred of God assails the man who sows discord among brethren.
Such is the character which God abominates, the character which binds itself with cords of penalty and falls into irretrievable ruin. And then, after this disquisition on some of the vices which destroy the individual life and disturb society, our author turns again to that snaring vice which is so much the more destructive because it comes under the guise, not of hate, but of love. Those other vices after all bear their evil on their faces, but this is veiled and enchanted with a thousand possible sophistries; it pleads the instincts of nature, the fascinations of beauty, the faults of the present social state, and even advances the august precepts of science. Surely in a way where such a danger lurks we need a commandment which will shine as a lamp, a law which will be itself a light (Pro_6:23).
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 Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v1Pro_6:1. With a stranger, rather, “for” a stranger.
CRITICAL NOTES,—
Pro_6:1. With a stranger, rather, “for” a stranger.
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Pro_6:3. When thou art come, rather, “for thou hast come.” Humble thyself, literally “let thyself be trodden under foot.” Make sure, “importune,” “urge.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH—Pro_6:1-5
SELF-IMPOSED BONDAGE
I. Man’s highest glory may become the chief instrument of his trouble. The human tongue, or rather the power of speech, is a gift that stands preeminent among the good gifts of God to His creatures. It is man’s most potent instrument of good or evil. The tongue of the statesman, when used wisely, may bring blessings on millions, but when it is made the tool of ambition it may entail misery upon generations. The tongue of a Christian, when used wisely, may be the means of bringing others into the way of life, but his unguarded words may be a stumbling-block in the way of many. The warning of the text reminds us that when the tongue is not kept in check by reason and consideration the glory becomes the means of ensnaring the whole man. The horse is a most useful servant to man, but the creature must be under proper control or he may be the means of inflicting the most serious injury upon his rider. If the rudder of a vessel is left to the guidance of the waves, the vessel is very likely to find herself upon the rocks. So with the tongue of man, it must be under the control of reason or it may bring its owner into danger and disgrace. When a man binds himself by solemn promises to a stranger of whose character he must be ignorant, he is very likely to involve himself and those dependent on him in much trouble, and perhaps in dishonour. A promise hastily made without due consideration of the consequences has often entailed upon a man years of suffering.
II. The same instrument which, thoughtlessly used, brings a man into a snare, may, when rightly guided, be the means of his deliverance. The promise made by Herod to Herodias (Mat_14:7) was one which ought never to have been made. The king was ensnared by allowing his tongue to utter rash words, of which even he upon reflection repented. In his case, without doubt, it would have been a much less sin to have broken his promise than to keep it. But in the case before us, the advice given by Solomon to his pupil is, not to break his word, but to use the same instrument by which he bound himself, to obtain, if possible, a release. This he is to do—
1. By means purely moral. There are other means which a man might try. He might use threatening; he might employ falsehood; but these would be sinful. The only lawful means are those here implied, viz., words of persuasion and entreaty.
2. Without delay. He must endeavour to rectify his error at once; every day that passes over his head may be bringing nearer the day when he may be called upon to redeem his promise, and so he is to give “no sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids.
III. This advice is to be followed as a matter of duty. The man who has acted imprudently is bound to endeavour to deliver himself by lawful means. He is not to allow pride to hinder him (Pro_6:3). He is bound to try and prevent his life from being marred in the future—perhaps to its very close. For a man who is fettered by a promise which ought never to have been made, is like a creature born to enjoy freedom who has been taken captive by the hunter or the fowler. And as it is more than lawful for the roe or the bird (Pro_6:5) to try to regain its freedom, so is it the duty of man to use all right means to the same end.
ILLLUSTRATION OF Pro_6:1
The custom of striking hands at the conclusion of a bargain has maintained its ground among the customs of civilised nations down to the present time. To strike hands with another was the emblem of agreement among the Greeks under the walls of Troy, for Nestor complains, in a public assembly of the chiefs, that the Trojans had violated the engagements which they had sanctioned by libations of wine and by giving their right hands. (Iliad, Book II. i. 341, see also Book IV. i. 139). The Roman faith was plighted in the same way; for in Virgil, when Dido marked from her watch-towers the Trojan fleet setting forward with balanced sails, she exclaimed, “Is this the honour, the faith, En dextra fidesque?” Another striking instance is quoted by Calmet from Ockley’s History of the Saracens. Telha, just before he died, asked one of Ali’s men if he belonged to the Emperor of the Faithful, and being informed that he did, “Give me, then,” said he, “your hand, that I may put mine into it, and by this action renew the oath of fidelity I have already made to him.” (Calmet, vol. iii). See also Job_17:3; 2Ki_10:15.—Paxton’s Illustrations of Scripture.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pro_6:1. The two characters are carefully distinguished.
1. The companion, on whose behalf the young man pledges himself.
2. The stranger, probably the Phœnician money-lender, to whom he makes himself responsible. Plumptre.
God graciously directs our temporal affairs by His providence, and condescends, in His word, to give us instructions concerning them. If we regard not these, we need not be surprised though His providence convince us, by dear-bought experience, of our folly and sin.—Lawson.
The son has just been warned against the deadly wound of a stranger. He is now cautioned against a hurt from an imprudent friend.… Our God, while he warns us against suretyship, has taken it upon Himself. He has given His word, His bond—yea, His blood—for sinners: a security that no powers of hell can shake.—Bridges.
Solomon, on different occasions, condemns the practice of suretyship. The condemnation is general. It does not follow, however, that what he says is to be taken as an unqualified prohibition, to which there are no circumstances that can constitute an exception.… There are cases in which it is unavoidable; and there are cases in which the law requires it; and there are cases in which it is not only in consistency with law, but required by all the claims of prudence, justice, and charity. These, however, are rare. And it may be laid down as a maxim regarding the transactions of business, and all the mutual dealings of man with man, that the less of it the better. In such cases as the following, it is manifestly inadmissible, and may even, in some instances, involve a large amount of moral turpitude.
I. It is wrong for a man to come under engagements that are beyond his actually existing means. Such a course is one not merely of imprudence, but there is in it a threefold injustice. First, to the creditor for whom he becomes surety. Secondly, to his family, if he has one, to whom the requisition of payment must bring distress and ruin. Thirdly, to those who give him credit in his own transactions, with the risks of his own trade.
II. The same observations are applicable to the making of engagements with inconsideration and rashness. The case here supposed is evidently that of suretyship for a friend to a stranger. And the rashness may be viewed either in relation to the person or to the case.—Wardlaw.
It may at first excite surprise that Solomon should have thought it needful to dwell so much as he does in the Proverbs on the evil of suretyship (Pro_11:15; Pro_17:18; Pro_20:16; Pro_22:26; Pro_27:13), and that in his lessons of moral prudence he should assign the first place to cautions against it. The reason is probably to be found in the peculiar circumstances under which the Proverbs were written, and the special design of the author in writing them; although, doubtless, Solomon had a general and universal purpose in composing them, and the Holy Spirit, who employed his instrumentality in the work, looked far beyond Solomon and his times, and extended his view to all ages and nations of the world.… But the occasion which gave rise to the writing of the Proverbs was a personal and national one. Many strangers resorted to Jerusalem in the days of Solomon from all parts of the civilised world, for the purpose of commerce and trade. Borrowing and lending money was much in vogue; and many shrewd and crafty adventurers speculated on the credulity of rich capitalists. Solomon addresses his son Rehoboam (Pro_6:3). He was born before his father’s accession to the throne, and Solomon reigned forty years. We hear nothing of him until his ripe maturity, and then we are told of an act of egregious folly. It was evident he was just the person to be the dupe of licentious spendthrifts and griping usurers. The courtly parasite who desired to find means for paying his own debts, or indulging his own vices, and the avaricious moneylender, would find a victim in the princely heir to the throne, whom they would flatter with eulogies on his generosity, and would puff up with proud notions of the exhaustless wealth to which he was the aspirant.—Wordsworth.
Pro_6:2. In the passage before us the warning is not so much against suretyship in general as merely against the imprudent assumption of such obligations, leaving out of account the moral unreliableness of the man involved; and the counsel is to the quickest possible release from every obligation of this kind that may have been hastily assumed. With the admonitions of our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount, to be ready at all times for the lending and giving away of one’s property, even in cases where one cannot hope for the recovery of what has been given out (Luk_6:30-36 : comp. with 1Co_6:7), this demand is not in conflict. For Christ also plainly demands no such readiness to suffer loss on account of our neighbour, as would deprive us of personal liberty, and rob us of all means of further beneficence.—Lange’s Commentary.
For bills and obligations do mancipate the most free and ingenuous spirit, and so put a man out of aim that he can neither serve God without distraction nor do good to others, nor set his own state in any good order, but lives and dies entangled and puzzled with cares and snares; and after a tedious and laborious life passed in a circle of fretting thoughts, he leaves at last, instead of better patrimony, a world of intricate troubles to his posterity, who are also taken “with the words of his mouth.”—Trapp.
Pro_6:3. This appeal is not, obviously, to the bond-giver, who has seduced us to endorse him, and is as helpless as we to get anybody off; but the bond-holder; and the great remedy, therefore, for a securityship is to beg off in the most unspeakable abjectness, and to press and to urge the creditor to release our name. Now, I say, this is not simpliciter, the gist of the inspiration. But if we introduce the Gospel; if we see in this a great picture of our guilt; if we see in the bond-holder the Friend to whom we are to appeal; if we see in the bond-giver sin in all the seductive forms in which it has come down to us from the original transgressor; if the grip of the suretyship is the law, and the form of the law is the broken covenant; if the act of our “striking hands” is the way we have accepted the curse of Adam, and the way we have volunteered under this stranger’s burdens, then the whole passage becomes complete, and we are ready for the appeal, “Go, humble thyself,” &c. That is the very Gospel.—Miller.
St. Gregory, Bede, and other ancient expositors, apply these injunctions in a spiritual sense. “To be a surety for a friend is to take upon thee the charge of looking to another’s soul,” says St. Gregory, who also, reading the latter clause of this verse in the sense of “urging” and “importuning” (see Critical Notes), explains it thus: “Whosoever is set before others for an example of their living is admonished, not only to watch himself, but to rouse up his friend: for it sufficeth not that he doth watch well, if he do not rouse him also over whom he is set from the drowsiness of sin.
Verse.
4. Has this precept any connection with our spiritual interests? It has. It is a part of the eighth commandment, and though men regard it rather as a loss than as a Sin to endanger their outward estate, it is both a sin and a temptation. Men who once seemed upright in their dealings have brought reproach upon religion by living and dying in other men’s debt, and by having recourse to unjustifiable methods, suggested by distress, to relieve themselves. The effect of suretyship, even with the most upright men, has often proved hurtful to their souls, embittering their days, and unfitting them for the cheerful service of religion. We are the servants of Christ, and must not disqualify ourselves for His service by making ourselves needlessly the servants of men.—Lawson.
Pro_6:5. It is evident, however, that the language implies, If, with all your efforts, you are unsuccessful in obtaining your discharge you must stand to your engagement. Treachery would be a much greater loss in character.—Wardlaw.
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.
The Sermon Bible1900 · Public DomainOn v1(with Psa 119:105)
Pro 6:23
(with Psa 119:105)
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The Divine lamp is:—
I. A light on the path. The best path in the world would be of no use without light enough to see our way. If we cannot have daylight, we shall be glad of moonlight; and if the night be dark and moonless, we shall want lamplight. What a glorious lamp you would have if it were possible to get a spark of the sun itself, and put that into your lantern! Even such a lamp is the Bible.
II. A light upon the past. The Bible shows us how man began his journey, created in the image of God, and happy in loving and obeying God. It shows us his first wrong step, and how one wrong act opened the door of sin and misery and death. Thus the word of God is—
III. A warning light. It is God’s lighthouse, to warn us off the treacherous rocks of sin, on which we are in danger of being wrecked. It is God’s beacon-light warning us to be on our guard against the assaults of temptation, and the power and craft of that great enemy of our souls, from whom we can be safe only when we put on the whole armour of God.
IV. A saving light.
V. A light for every step.
E. R. Conder, Drops and Rocks, p. 149.
Pro 6:27-28
These words contain an important principle of general application to every sin—the impossibility for a man to play with the enticement to sin without falling a prey thereto. The truth of the statement will appear if we take into consideration the following things:—
I. That every temptation presented to man addresses itself to a nature that is already corrupt, and is therefore liable to take to it.
II. That man in playing with the temptation puts himself directly in the way that leads naturally to the sin.
III. That playing with the temptation to any evil shows some degree of bias in the nature to that particular evil.
IV. That playing with temptation brings man into contact with sin only on its pleasurable side, and thus gives it an advantage to make an impression favourable to itself on his mind.
V. That man, through playing with temptation, weakens his moral power to resist the sin, and gradually gets so debilitated as to be too weak to oppose it.
VI. That man, by playing with temptation, at last tempts the Spirit of God to withdraw His protection from him, and to leave him to himself, and a prey to his lust.
O. Thomas, The Welsh Pulpit of Today, p. 68.
References: Pro 6:28.—E. R. Conder, Drops and Rocks, p. 149. 6—Parker, Pulpit Analyst, vol. i., p. 541.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow1909 · Public DomainOn v1Dissuasives from Hurtful things
Dissuasives from Hurtful things
Pro_6:1-19 are inserted here from some other collection, and contain warnings against suretyships (1-5), sloth (6-11), falseness (12-15), evils which the Lordhates (16-19). At Pro_6:20 the thread of Proverbs 5 is resumed.
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1. The surety appears to have taken the creditor's hand in the presence of witnesses: cp. 2Ki_10:15.
3. Read, 'Seeing thou art come into the hand of thy neighbour, go, bestir thyself, and beset thy neighbour. Make haste to get out of his power' (Mat_5:25).
7. Ants really have an elaborately organised society: in some species there is a king and queen; others keep slaves.
11. One that travelleth] RV 'a robber.' The roads were insecure, as English ones were in the times when 'highwayman' meant 'robber.'
13. Cp. the Arab's prayer: 'O God, pardon us the culpable winking of the eyes.' Here the winking, etc., are signals to confederates.
16. A proud look] lit. 'haughty eyes' (RV): see our word 'supercilious,' from supercilium= the eyebrow.
25. The beauty of an Eastern woman's eyes is enhanced by being painted round with kohl in the shape of an almond.
26. A harlot brings him down to a loaf of bread, to extreme poverty; an adulteress will involve his in utter ruin.
30. The OT. never treats theft leniently. Read, 'Do not men despise,' etc. Yes! and much more an adulterer.
31. In divers cases twofold, fourfold, fivefold restitution was prescribed (Exodus 22, etc.): sevenfold means very great (Gen_4:15).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein1922 · Public DomainOn v11. The surety (Pro 6:1-5)
CHAPTER 6
1. The surety (Pro 6:1-5)
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2. The sluggard (Pro 6:6-11)
3. The naughty, good-for-nothing person (Pro 6:12-19)
4. The strange woman (Pro 6:20-35)
Pro 6:1-5. These are instructions concerning contracts, in being surety for a neighbor and the danger connected with it.
Pro 6:6-11. The sluggard is commanded to go to the ant for a lesson. (See also Pro 30:25.) The ant is a marvellous little creature. That which modern science has found out by close observation of the life of this little insect is here tersely stated by the words of the Lord, the Creator. They swarm in the woods and in the fields; they work day and night; they capture, train and nourish aphides, which they use as a kind of slave. They build vast and symmetrical mounds, which they use as homes and barns, and which are, relatively to the size of the tiny builders, three times larger than the Egyptian pyramids. They march and labor in unison, have their own wars, nourish their sick, and all is done without a chief, an overseer or a ruler. Yet man with a higher intelligence and a higher work to do can be a sluggard.
Pro 6:12-19. The description of the sluggard is followed by that of a worthless person. It is a son of Belial (the term used in the Hebrew) whose picture is drawn. He is a naughty person, a good-for-nothing, a man of iniquity; he has a lying mouth. A minute description of his way and work is given; everywhere he makes mischief and causeth division. But suddenly there comes the calamity upon him. He shall be broken and that without remedy. Such is the way of the man who despiseth wisdom, follows his old nature and plunges ultimately into the outer darkness. Finally there will yet appear “the man of sin,” that wicked one, in whom all these evils will culminate and he shall suddenly be broken without remedy. (See Dan 11:45.) We do well to read carefully the six things which the Lord hateth (Pro 6:16-19).
Pro 6:20-35. The words of the Lord, the commandment and the law as stated here, are of unspeakably great importance. They are to be in the heart and about the neck.
When thou walkest, it shall lead thee;
When thou steepest, it shall watch over thee;
And when thou wakest, it shall talk with thee.
They are a lamp and a light; they are the way of life. Then follows another description of the evil woman, a warning not to lust after her beauty nor to be taken by her eyelids. These oriental women painted their faces; by plucking their eyebrows they made them almond-shaped. Alas! that in the society of the twentieth century the women and girls of a so-called Christian civilization should do the same thing, and we fear, for the same purpose as the whorish woman described in this chapter.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v1Warning Against Foolish Suretyship, Idleness, and Malice
Warning Against Foolish Suretyship, Idleness, and Malice
v. 1. My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, pledging himself or giving security for the debts of another, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, giving his hand to any neighbor in need, to any debtor as a sign of binding oneself for his debts, Job 17:3,
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v. 2. thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, or, "if thou art entangled with the sayings of thy mouth," thou art taken, held captive, with the words of thy mouth, held to his promise, this referring to the situation arising when the debtor finds himself unable to meet his obligations.
v. 3. Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, tearing himself loose from the entanglement, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend, or, "since thou hast come into the hand of thy neighbor," this being the unfortunate consequence of the pledge lightly given. Go, humble thyself, rather, "stamp with thy foot," in an emphatic demand, and make sure thy friend, importuning him with great earnestness to fulfill his obligations, to tend to the payment of the debt before it is too late.
v. 4. Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids, the most strenuous, ceaseless endeavors being demanded by the situation.
v. 5. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, literally, "from his," the debtor’s, "hand," bending every effort, with anxiety and exertion, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. Prompt and energetic action will be necessary to avoid serious trouble. The author now sets forth the kind of person who is most apt to require surety, the connection of thought probably being this, that the man who went security might be considered as speaking to the lazy debtor in this manner:
v. 6. Go to the ant, the proverbial emblem of industry, thou sluggard; consider her ways, carefully observing how she makes provision for herself, and be wise, learning wisdom from the irrational insect;
v. 7. which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, none of the officials who were and are required in Oriental countries to oversee the average workman,
v. 8. provideth her meat, her winter’s supply of food, in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest, in the heat of late summer, storing it away carefully for the time of need.
v. 9. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? lying abed in laziness. When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? And now the conduct of the lazy is graphically described,
v. 10. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, an ironical imitation of the sigh of the sluggard, a little folding of the hands to sleep! But what is the result?
v. 11. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, not merely a vagrant, but a footpad, and thy want as an armed man, one armed with a shield, prepared for both offense and defense, so that the sluggard is overwhelmed before he has seriously thought of warding off danger. The mention of the footpad, or robber, now results in the description of violent and malicious men.
v. 12. A naughty person, morally worthless, a wicked man, the heedless man being a vile deceiver, walketh with a froward mouth, exercising himself in perverseness of speech, so addicted to malicious falsehood that he is a stranger to truth.
v. 13. He winketh with his eyes, as a signal to his companions to join him in some act of malice, he speaketh with his feet, giving signs with a similar intention, he teacheth with his fingers, hinting with them in a form of sign language understood by his fellows;
v. 14. frowardness is in his heart, malicious plans of every description, he deviseth mischief continually, in agreement with his wicked nature; he soweth discord, throwing out matters of dispute, stirring up strife, fomenting quarrels.
v. 15. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly, a crushing weight of destruction overtaking him before he is aware of it; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy, without a chance to escape, when the measure of his sins is full. In this connection the author enumerates some of the things which challenge the punishment of the Lord.
v. 16. These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto Him, He regards them all with loathing and abhorrence:
v. 17. a proud look, a haughty and supercilious behavior, a lying tongue, the organ of speech being named here for the false person, and hands that shed innocent blood, Cf Isa 59:7,
v. 18. an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, always planning mischief, feet that be swift in running to mischief, unable to restrain their eagerness for every form of wickedness,
v. 19. a false witness that speaketh lies, literally, "breatheth out lies," since he is addicted to that habit, and he that soweth discord among brethren, turning friends and relatives against one another. Against all these sins the inspired writer warns the believers of all times, since Satan, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1, 3, 4set aside your money
set aside your money
Implied here is that your promise and the circumstances forced you to save up your money. AT: "had to save up some of your money" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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a guarantee for your neighbor's loan
Possible meanings are 1) your neighbor may come to you to ask for a loan or 2) your neighbor wants to take out a loan from someone else, but you promise to pay the lender back if your neighbor cannot.
neighbor
This same Hebrew word can also mean "friend."
you have laid a trap for yourself
This is a figure of speech saying that you are going to trap yourself. AT: "you have made a trap in which you yourself are caught" (See: Idiom)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1, 36:1-5 To secure the debt of another person is…
6:1-5 To secure the debt of another person is to guarantee it with one’s own possessions. Whether to earn a friend’s goodwill or to turn a profit from a stranger (cp. Exod 22:25; Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20), the risk is too great to take; it could lead to financial ruin. This message is repeated in Prov 11:15; 17:18; 20:16; 22:26; 27:13.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v2 He forbiddeth us not to become surety one for…
He forbiddeth us not to become surety one for another, according to the rule of charity, but that we consider for whom and after what sort, so that the creditor may not be defrauded.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Pro 6:1 My son, if thou be surety for…
Pro 6:1 My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, [if] thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,
Ver. 1. My son, if thou be surety.] The wise man, having exhorted his son to marry, rather than burn, and to nourish a family, rather than to haunt harlots’ houses, to the end that he may show himself a good economic, and provide for the comfortable subsistence of wife and children, he bids him here beware - (1.) Of unadvised suretyship; (2.) Of idleness, two great enemies to thrift, without which there can be no good house kept. The royalty of Solomon could not have consisted, for all his riches, without forecast and frugality.
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 On vv1–5 Surety, to wit, rashly, without considering for whom or…
Surety, to wit, rashly, without considering for whom or how far thou dost oblige thyself, or how thou shalt discharge the debt, if occasion require it. Otherwise suretiship in some cases may be not only lawful, but an act of justice, and prudence, and charity. See Gen 42:37; 43:9; Phm 1:19. Or, to (as this prefix most commonly signifies) a friend. Stricken thy hand; obliged thyself by giving thy hand, or joining thy hands with another man’s, as the custom then was in such cases; of which see Job 17:3; Pro 17:18; 22:26. With a stranger; with the creditor, whom he calls a stranger, because the usurers in Israel, who lent money to others for their necessary occasions, upon condition of paying use for it, were either heathens, or were reputed as bad as heathens, because this practice was forbidden by God’s law, Deu 23:9. Or, to or for a stranger; for here is the same prefix which is rendered for in the former clause. And so he may imply, that whether a man be surety to or for a friend, or to or for a stranger, the case and course to be used is much of the same kind.
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 On v1 It is the excellency of the word of God…
It is the excellency of the word of God that it teaches us not only divine wisdom for another world, but human prudence for this world, that we may order our affairs with discretion; and this is one good rule, To avoid suretiship, because by it poverty and ruin are often brought into families, which take away that comfort in relations which he had recommended in the foregoing chapter. 1. We must look upon suretiship as a snare and decline it accordingly, Pro 6:1, Pro 6:2. "It is dangerous enough for a man to be bound for his friend, though it be one whose circumstances he is well acquainted with, and well assured of his sufficiency, but much more to strike the hands with a stranger, to become surety for one whom thou dost not know to be either able or honest." Or the stranger here with whom the hand is stricken is the creditor, "the usurer to whom thou art become bound, and yet as to thee he is a stranger, that is, thou owest him nothing, nor hast had any dealings with him. If thou hast rashly entered into such engagements, either wheedled into them or in hopes to have the same kindness done for thee another time, know that thou art snared with the words of thy mouth; it was easily done, with a word's speaking; it was but setting thy hand to a paper, a bond is soon sealed and delivered, and a recognizance entered into. But it will not be so easily got clear of; thou art in a snare more than thou art aware of." See how little reason we have to make light of tongue-sins; if by a word of our mouth we may become indebted to men, and lie open to their actions, by the words of our mouth we may become obnoxious to God's justice, and even so may be snared. It is false that words are but wind: they are often snares. 2. If we have been drawn into this snare, it will be our wisdom by all means, with all speed, to get out of it, Pro 6:3-5. It sleeps for the present; we hear nothing of it. The debt is not demanded; the principal says, "Never fear, we will take care of it." But still the bond is in force, interest is running on, the creditor may come upon thee when he will and perhaps may be hasty and severe, the principal may prove either knavish or insolvent, and then thou must rob thy wife and children, and ruin thy family, to pay that which thou didst neither nor drink for. And therefore deliver thyself; rest not till either the creditor give up the bond or the principal give thee counter-security; when thou art come into the hand of thy friend, and he has advantage against thee, it is no time to threaten or give ill language (that will provoke and make ill worse), but humble thyself, beg and pray to be discharged, go down on thy knees to him, and give him all the fair words thou canst; engage thy friends to speak for thee; leave no stone unturned till thou hast agreed with thy adversary and compromised the matter, so that thy bond may not come against thee or thine. This is a care which may well break thy sleep, and let it do so till thou hast got through. "Give not sleep to thy eyes till thou hast delivered thyself. Strive and struggle to the utmost, and hasten with all speed, as a roe or a bird delivers herself out of this snare of the fowler or hunter. Delays are dangerous, and feeble efforts will not serve." See what care God, in his word, has taken to make men good husbands of their estates, and to teach them prudence in the management of them. Godliness has precepts, as well as promises, relating to the life that now is.
But how are we to understand this? We are not to think it is unlawful in any case to become surety, or bail, for another; it may be a piece of justice or charity; he that has friends may see cause in this instance to show himself friendly, and it may be no piece of imprudence. Paul became bound for Onesimus, Plm 1:19. We may help a young man into business that we know to be honest and diligent, and gain him credit by passing our word for him, and so do him a great kindness without any detriment to ourselves. But, 1. It is every man's wisdom to keep out of debt as much as may be, for it is an incumbrance upon him, entangles him in the world, puts him in danger of doing wrong or suffering wrong. The borrower is servant to the lender, and makes himself very much a slave to this world. Christians therefore, who are bought with a price, should not thus, without need, make themselves the servants of men, Co1 7:23. 2. It is great folly to entangle ourselves with necessitous people, and to become bound for their debts, that are ever and anon taking up money, and lading, as we say, out of one hole into another, for it is ten to one but, some time or other, it will come upon us. A man ought never to be bound as surety for more than he is both able and willing to pay, and can afford to pay without wronging his family, in case the principal fail, for he ought to look upon it as his own debt. Ecclesiasticus 8:13, Be not surety above thy power, for, if thou be surety, thou must take care to pay it. 3. It is a necessary piece of after-wit, if we have foolishly entangled ourselves, to get out of the snare as fast as we can, to lose no time, spare no pains, and stick at no submission to make ourselves safe and easy, and get our affairs into a good posture. It is better to humble ourselves for an accommodation than to ruin ourselves by our stiffness and haughtiness. Make sure thy friend by getting clear from thy engagements from him; for rash suretiship is as much the bane of friendship as that which is prudent is sometimes the bond of it. Let us take heed lest we any way make ourselves guilty of other men's sins against God (Ti1 5:22), for that is worse, and much more dangerous, than being bound for other men's debts; and, if we must be in all this care to get our debts to men forgiven, much more to get our peace made with God. "Humble thyself to him; make sure of Christ thy friend, to intercede for thee; pray earnestly that thy sins may be pardoned, and thou mayest be delivered from going down to the pit, and it shall not be in vain. Give not sleep to thy eyes nor slumber to thy eye lids, till this be done."
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 On vv1–5 My son, if thou be surety for thy friend,....…
My son, if thou be surety for thy friend,.... To another; hast engaged thyself by promise or bond, or both, to pay a debt for him, if he is not able, or if required; or hast laid thyself under obligation to any, to see the debt of another paid;
if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger; or "to" him (b); whom thou knowest not, and to whom thou owest nothing; and hast given him thine hand upon it, as well as thy word and bond, that what such an one owes him shall be paid; a gesture used in suretyship for the confirmation of it, Pro 17:18; or, "for a stranger" (c) And the sense is, either if thou art become bound for a friend of thine, and especially if for a stranger thou knowest little or nothing of, this is a piece of rashness and weakness; or, as Gersom, if thou art a surety to thy friend for a stranger, this also is a great inadvertency and oversight. It is a rash and inconsiderate entering into suretyship that is here cautioned against; doing it without inquiring into, and having sufficient knowledge of the person engaged for; and without considering whether able to answer the obligation, if required, without hurting a man's self and family; otherwise suretyship may lawfully be entered into, and good be done by it, and no hurt to the surety himself and family. Jarchi interprets it of the Israelites engaging themselves to the Lord at Sinai, to keep his commandments.
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(b) "extraneo", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Baynus, Mercerus, Gejerus, Cocceius, Schultens. (c) "Pro alieno", Tigurine version; "pro alio peregrino", Michaelis.
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 On vv1, 3, 4 A caution against suretyship, ver. 1-5. Against slothfulness, ver.…
A caution against suretyship, ver. 1-5. Against slothfulness, ver. 6-11. The practice and end of a mischievous man, ver. 12-15. Account of seven things which God hates, ver. 16-19. An exhortation to keep the commandments, ver. 20-23. Farther warnings against whoredom, ver. 24-35.
Surety - Rashly, without considering how thou shalt discharge the debt as occasion require. Otherwise suretyship in some cases may be not only lawful, but an act of justice and charity. Stricken thy hand - Obliged thyself by giving thine hand, as the custom then was in such cases. With - With the creditor, whom he calls a stranger, because the usurers in Israel, who lent money to others, upon condition of paying use for it, were either Heathens, or were reputed as bad as Heathens, because this practice was forbidden by God's law, Deut. xxiii, 19.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5 Exhortations against becoming surety for others, 1-5;
CHAPTER VI
Exhortations against becoming surety for others, 1-5;
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against idleness, from the example of the ant, 6-11;
description of a worthless person, 12-15;
seven things hateful to God, 16-19;
the benefits of instruction, 20-23;
farther exhortations against bad women, and especially against
adultery, 24-33;
what may be expected from jealousy, 34, 35.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Verse 1. If thou be surety for thy friend] לרעך lereacha, for thy neighbour; i.e., any person. If thou pledge thyself in behalf of another, thou takest the burden off him, and placest it on thine own shoulders; and when he knows he has got one to stand between him and the demands of law and justice, he will feel little responsibility; his spirit of exertion will become crippled, and listlessness as to the event will be the consequence. His own character will suffer little; his property nothing, for his friend bears all the burden: and perhaps the very person for whom he bore this burden treats him with neglect; and, lest the restoration of the pledge should be required, will avoid both the sight and presence of his friend. Give what thou canst; but, except in extreme cases, be surety for no man. Striking or shaking hands when the mouth had once made the promise, was considered as the ratification of the engagement; and thus the man became ensnared with the words of his mouth.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Pro 6:1-2. My son, if thou be surety for,…
Pro 6:1-2. My son, if thou be surety for, or to, thy friend — Namely, rashly and unadvisedly, without considering for whom, or how the thou dost oblige thyself, or how thou shalt discharge the debt if occasion require it: otherwise suretiship, in some cases, may be not only lawful, but an act of justice and charity; if thou hast stricken thy hand — Obliged thyself by giving thy hand, or joining thy hand with another man’s, as the custom then was in such cases; (of which, see Job 17:3, chap. 17:18, and 22:26;) with a stranger — With the creditor, whom he calls a stranger, because the usurers in Israel, who lent money to others, upon condition of paying use for it, were either heathen, or were reputed as bad as heathen, because this practice was forbidden by God’s law, Deu 23:19. Or, to, or for, a stranger, for here is the same preposition which is rendered for in the former clause. And so the words may imply, that whether a man be surety to, or for, a friend, or to, or for, a stranger, the course to be taken is much of the same kind. Thou art snared, &c. — Thy freedom is lost, and thou art now in bondage to another.
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 On vv1–3 Surety - The “pledge,” or security for payment, which,…
Surety - The “pledge,” or security for payment, which, for example, David was to bring back from his brothers 1Sa 17:18. So the word was used in the primitive trade transactions of the early Israelites.
In the warnings against this suretyship, in the Book of Proverbs, we may trace the influence of contact with the Phoenicians. The merchants of Tyre and Zidon seem to have discovered the value of credit as an element of wealth. A man might obtain goods, or escape the pressure of a creditor at an inconvenient season, or obtain a loan on more favorable terms, by finding security. To give such security might be one of the kindest offices which one friend could render to another. Side by side, however, with a legitimate system of credit there sprang up, as in later times, a fraudulent counterfeit. Phoenician or Jewish money-lenders (the “stranger”) were ready to make their loans to the spendthrift. He was equally ready to find a companion (the “friend”) who would become his surety. It was merely a form, just writing a few words, just “a clasping of the hands” (see the marginal reference) in token that the obligation was accepted, and that was all. It would be unfriendly to refuse. And yet, as the teacher warns his hearers, there might be, in that moment of careless weakness, the first link of a long chain of ignominy, galling, fretting, wearing, depriving life of all its peace. The Jewish law of debt, hard and stern like that of most ancient nations, aright be enforced against him in all its rigour. Money and land might go, the very bed under him might be seized, and his garment torn from his back Pro 20:16; Pro 22:27, the older and more lenient law Exo 22:25-27 having apparently fallen into disuse. he might be brought into a life-long bondage, subject only to the possible relief of the year of jubilee, when the people were religious enough to remember and observe it. His wives, his sons, his daughters might be sharers in that slavery Neh 5:3-5. It was doubtful whether he could claim the privilege which under Exo 21:2 belonged to an Israelite slave that had been bought. Against such an evil, no warnings could be too frequent or to urgent.
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Stricken thy hand - The natural symbol of the promise to keep a contract; in this case, to pay another man’s debts. Compare Pro 17:18; Pro 22:26; Job 17:3; Eze 17:18.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain On v1 THE son has just been warned against the deadly…
THE son has just been warned against the deadly wound of a stranger. He is now cautioned against a hurt from an imprudent friend. So graciously has our God made his book, not only our guide to heaven, but the directory of our common life . We must, however, often take its wise rules with some restriction. We are here earnestly warned against suretyship. Yet in some cases it is plainly allowed and approved.†1 "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly." (Pro 18:24 .) And the passing of our word, or giving a bond, may be an act of prudent friendship, and of solid and permanent advantage. The caution is evidently directed against rash engagements (Compare also Pro 11:15 ; Pro 17:18 ; Pro 20:16 ; Pro 22:26-27 ), to which the young and inexperienced are especially exposed; striking with hands (the usual mode of plighting faith) (Pro 17:18 ; Pro 22:26 ; Job 17:3 ), in an unguarded moment. Often may they be snared and taken by the words of their mouth, by entering into virtual promises, without knowing how far they were pledged, or what might be the issue. Christian prudence will keep us clear from such engagements, which bring distress upon our families, dishonour upon our name, and reproach upon our religion. (Compare Sir 8:13 .) While the "good man showeth favour, and lendeth, he must guide his affairs with discretion;"†2 however grating it may be to incur the suspicion of unkindness. If, however, by any inconsiderate bond, thou hast come into the hand of thy friend; the instant duty is, to humble thyself for thy imprudence, and make sure thy friend, if thou canst prevail with him to answer for himself; and give thyself no rest, till, like as the roe and the bird, thou be disentangled from the snare.
Our God, while he warns us against suretyship, has taken it upon himself. Praise be his name! He has given his word, his bond, yea — his blood — for sinners — a security, that no powers of hell can shake.
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Footnotes:
†1 Rueben and Judah for Benjamin. Gen 42:27 ; Gen 43:9 ; Gen 44:32-33 . Paul for Onesimus. Phm 1:18-19 .
†2 Psa 112:5. P. Henry always cautioned sureties not to be bound for any more than they knew themselves able to pay, nor for more than they would be willing to pay, if the principal failed. — Life, chapter v.
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 On vv1, 3 Hand. Agreements were made by shaking hands, Isaias lxii.…
Hand. Agreements were made by shaking hands, Isaias lxii. 8. (Xenophon, Anab. iii.) --- Stranger. Septuagint, "enemy." He will presently be such, or thy friend’s creditor will soon lay hold on thee. By standing surety for another, we expose ourselves to be ruined by his negligence. (Calmet) --- The Persians had a horror chiefly of lying and debts. (Herodotus i. 138.) --- All sureties are not condemned, but only such as are inconsiderate. (Menochius) --- A diligent compliance with engagements is commended. (Worthington)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 9. Warning against inconsiderate suretyship
9. Warning against inconsiderate suretyship
Pro_6:1-5
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1 My son, if thou hast become surety for thy neighbor,
hast given thine hand to a stranger
2 if thou art entangled through the words of thy mouth,
art snared by the words of thy mouth:
3 then do this, my son, and free thyself,
since thou hast come into the hand of thy neighbor:
go, bestir thyself, and importune thy neighbor!
4 Give no sleep to thine eyes,
nor slumber to thine eyelids;
5 free thyself, like a roe, from his hand,
and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
10. Rebuke of the sluggard
Pro_6:6-11
6 Go to the ant thou sluggard;
consider her ways and be wise;
7 which hath no governor,
director, or ruler;
8 (yet) she prepareth in summer her food,
she gathereth in harvest her store!
9 How long wilt thou lie, O sluggard?
when wilt thou rise from thy sleep?
10 “A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest;”—
11 then cometh thy poverty like a robber,
and thy want as an armed man!
11. Warning against deceit and violent dealing
Pro_6:12-19
12 A worthless creature is the deceiver,
he that walketh in perverseness of speech;
13 he who winketh with his eye, who speaketh with his foot,
who hinteth with his finger.
14 Perverseness is in his heart,
he deviseth evil at all times;
he stirreth up strifes.
15 Therefore suddenly shall his destruction come,
in a moment shall he be destroyed, and there is no remedy.
16 These six things Jehovah hateth,
and seven are an abhorrence of his soul;
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood;
18 a heart that deviseth evil plots,
feet that make haste to run to evil;
19 one that uttereth lies as a false witness,
and one that stirreth up strifes between brethren.
12. Admonition to chastity with a warning delineation of the fearful consequences of adultery
Pro_6:20-35
20 Keep, O my son, thy father’s commandment,
and reject not the law of thy mother:
21 bind them to thy heart evermore,
fasten it about thy neck.
22 When thou walkest let it guide thee,
when thou liest down let it guard thee,
and at thy waking let it talk with thee.
23 For a lamp is the commandment,
and the law a light, and the reproofs of corrections are a way of life;
24 to keep thee from the vile woman,
from the flattering tongue of the strange woman.—
25 Long not for her beauty in thy heart,
and let her not catch thee with her eyelids!
26 For for the sake of a harlot one cometh to a loaf of bread,
and a man’s wife lieth in wait for the precious life.
27 May one take fire in his bosom,
and his clothes not be burned?
28 Or may one walk upon coals,
and his feet not be scorched?
29 So he who goeth to his neighbor’s wife;
no one that toucheth her shall be unpunished.
30 Men do not overlook the thief, when he stealeth
to satisfy his craving when he is hungry;
31 if he be found he must restore seven fold,
the whole wealth of his house must he give.
32 He who committeth adultery is beside himself;
he that destroyeth himself doeth such things.
33 Stripes and disgrace doth he find,
and his reproach will not pass away.
34 For jealousy is man’s fierce anger,
and he spareth not in the day of vengeance.
35 He regardeth not any ransom,
and is not willing if thou increase thy gift.
GRAMMATICAL AND CRITICAL
Pro_6:1; Pro_6:3. The form רֵעֶיךָ which is found in some texts, is not a plural, but the ־י, “indicates in pause the pronunciation with ־ֶ as in Gen_16:5; Psa_9:15,” Hitzig. Many MSS., moreover, exhibit hero the regular form רֵעֶךָ [Böttcher, § 888, n. 2, utterly rejects the possibility that רֵעֶיךָ can be a singular form, and also that the plural form is admissible here. Holden’s rendering “thy friends,” is incorrectly based upon the plural reading.—A.].
Pro_6:8. [Note the appropriate change of tense. The future תָּכִין “Fiens solitum,” Bött. § 943, b, and the perf. אָגְרָה “Perfectum effectivum,” § § 940, 4; 950, 4; the continually recurring “preparation,” the ensured “gathering.”—A.]
Pro_6:12. הָלַךְ stands here with the simple accusative without בְּ, as in Mic_2:11; Isa_33:15; Psa_15:2.
Pro_6:13. [קוֹרֵץ used here alone with בְּ, usually with a direct object. מוֹלֵל; the verb is in use only in Piel. For the occurrence of participial forms in Piel thus resembling Kal, see Fuerst (sub. 5. מָלַל), and Bött. § 994, 4.—A.].
Pro_6:14. For the explanation of the K’ri מִדְיָנִים (instead of the K’thibh מְדָנִים) see Hitzig on this passage, who is probably right in referring to Gen_37:36 as the source and occasion of this substitution.
Pro_6:16. [The fern. הֵנָּה used of that which is distinctly neuter. See Bött. § 862, 4.—A.].
Pro_6:19. The יָפִיחַ can be regarded as a relative Imperf., with which the participle מְשׁלֵּחַ. interchanges, or it may be regarded as an irregular participial form, lengthened from יָפֵחַ Psa_27:12, and formed like נָטִיל ,יָצִיא, etc. (So Hitzig explains the form) [Fuerst regards it an Imperf., but Bött., very decidedly as a Hiph. participal, here and in Pro_12:17; Pro_14:25; Pro_19:5; Pro_19:9; Psa_12:6; Psa_27:12. See § 994, 9.—A.].
Pro_6:21. [קָשְׁרֵם, a masc. suffix referring to fem. nouns. Bött. § 877, 3, declares it characteristic of “secular prose, popular poetry, and the majority of the later Hebrew writers” thus to disregard exactness in the use of the suffix pronouns. Pro_20:12 is the only similar example adduced from Proverbs. Comp. Green, § 104, g.—A.].
Pro_6:32. מַשְׁחִית a future participle. The suffix in יַעֲשֶׂנָּה refers to the נְאֻפִים which is readily supplied from the נאֵף אִשָּׁה of the first member. [Interpretations divide as to the subject and predicate clause of the sentence. Muenscher, Noyes, Holden agree with the E. V. in making destruction the predicted fate of the adulterer; Stuart, Kamph., and De W. agree with our author in making adultery the natural and certain course of the self-destroyer.—A.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The sixth chapter consists of four independent admonitory discourses of unequal length, of quite different contents, and a merely external and circumstantial connection (through points of contact, as between “sleep and slumber” in Pro_6:4 and the same expressions in Pro_6:10; through the triple warning against impoverishment: Pro_6:11; Pro_6:15; Pro_6:26, etc.). This is as apparent as is the fact that it is only in the last of these four sections that the subject of adultery, that was treated in the fifth chapter, is resumed. It is nevertheless arbitrary and lacks all clear proof, when Hitzig declares the three preceding sections to be the addition of an interpolator different from the author of chaps. 1–9, who is supposed to have taken them from some old book of proverbs, and to have enlarged the third by adding Pro_6:16-19. For, it is argued, this numerical group of proverbs, of eight members, clearly shows itself to be the personal production of the interpolator, who was led by the sixfold division of the categories in Pro_6:12-14 to the composition of this group of the six things that the Lord hates. As though this parallel sixfold or rather sevenfold arrangement in Pro_6:12-19 could not be the work of the composer of the entire group of proverbial discourses that lies before us, just as in the series of similar numerical proverbs contained in chap. 30. (comp. Introd. § 14)! And still further, as if there had not been already in what has gone before at least one isolated warning against unchastity and adultery, as a demonstration of the fact, that in this, connection also the advisory and admonitory discourses that relate to this matter (Pro_5:1 sq.; Pro_6:20 sq.; Pro_7:1 sq.), must not necessarily form a whole continuing without interruption, but might very naturally be interspersed with other shorter passages of differing contents, like those forming the first half of chap. 6!—Apart from this, Hitzig is undoubtedly correct in judging, that attention should be called to the close connection of Pro_6:16-19 with Pro_6:12-15, and that the first mentioned group should be regarded as a mere continuation and fuller expansion of the import of the last mentioned. A special argument for this is the literal repetition of the expression, “stir up strifes,” from Pro_6:14 in Pro_6:19. The view recently prevalent (see e.g., Umbreit, Bertheau, Elster on this passage), according to which Pro_6:16-19 form a separate group of verses as really independent as the rest (1–5, 6–11, etc.) is to be estimated by what has been already said. The correct division has been before presented by Delitzsch (Herzog’s Real. Encycl. xiv., 698), and also by Ewald (on this passage).
2. Pro_6:1-5. Warning against suretyship.—My son, if thou hast become surety for thy neighbor.—The frequent warnings which our book contains against giving security for others (comp. in addition Pro_11:15; Pro_17:18; Pro_20:16; Pro_22:26), are to be explained doubtless by the severe treatment, which, in accordance with the old Hebrew jurisprudence, was awarded to sureties; for their goods might be distrained or they even sold as slaves, just as in the case of insolvent debtors (2Ki_4:1; Mat_18:25; comp. Sir_8:13; Sir_29:18-25, and also the warning maxim of the Greek philosopher Thales: “ἐγγύα, πάρα δ’ἄτα” [give surety, and ruin is near], and the modern popular proverb “Bürgen soll man würgen” [the alliteration cannot be translated; an approach can be made to it in “worry a surety”].—In the passage before us the warning is not so much against suretyship in general, as merely against the imprudent assumption of such obligations, leaving out of account the moral unreliableness of the man involved; and the counsel is to the quickest possible release from every obligation of this kind that may have been hastily assumed.—Hast given thine hand to a stranger.—The stranger (זָר) is not the creditor, but the debtor, who in the first clause had been designated as “neighbor.” For according to Job_17:3 the surety gave his hand to the debtor as a sign that he became bound for him. Therefore the translation of Ewald and Elster, “for a stranger,” is unnecessary as it is incorrect.
Pro_6:2. If thou art entangled through the words of thy mouth.—This second half of the protasis, which, according to Hebrew idiom, is still dependent on the “if” of Pro_6:1, refers to the involved and embarrassed condition of the surety some time after his inconsiderate giving of bonds.
Pro_6:3. Then do this, my son, etc.—The apodosis, with its emphatic warning (which extends through Pro_6:5), is fitly introduced by the intensive particle אֵפוֹא, now, now therefore. Comp. Job_17:15; Gen_27:32; Gen_43:11.—Since thou hast come into the hand of thy neighbor. Hitzig, interpreting the כִּי, as in Pro_2:10, as equivalent to אִם, translates “if thou hast come,” etc. But the introduction of a reason is here more pertinent, since the case of an unfortunate issue to the suretyship had already been assumed in Pro_6:2.—Stamp with the foot.—This meaning of הִתְרַפֵּם, which is attested also by Psa_68:30, is urgently commended by the following, “importune thy neighbor” (רְהַב רֵעֶיךָ). [In our version of this phrase in its connection we have substituted Fuerst’s interpretation which is also Holden’s. The verb is found only here and in Psa_68:30. Gesenius and many others, starting with the radical idea, “to trample,” which they find in רפּשׂ and assume in רפם, translate the Hithp. in both passages, “suffer thyself to be trampled,” i.e., “prostrate thyself.” [So the E. V., De W., M., N. and ST.]. Hupfeld (see Comm. on Psa_68:31) and others adopt the indirect reflexive as the true meaning,—“prostrate before thyself, i.e., subdue.” Fuerst, distinguishing the two verbs, interprets רפם as meaning, in accordance with many Arabic analogies, “to move, stir, hasten,” and the Hithp. as meaning “sich beeilen, sich sputen,” i.e., in the Imperative, make haste, bestir thyself. Although this rendering has not in its favor the weight of authorities, the internal evidence appears to us to be decidedly for it.—A.] The meaning is that one should in every way force the heedless debtor—for it is he, and not possibly the creditor, that is here again intended by the “neighbor”—to the fulfilment of his obligations, before it is too late, i.e., before the matter comes to the distraint of goods or other judicial processes on the part of the creditor.
Pro_6:5. Free thyself as a roe from his hand, and like a bird, etc.—Gazelle and bird—in the original a paronomasia: צְבִי and צִפּוֹר—are appropriate emblems of a captive seeking its freedom with anxious haste and exertion. The way is already prepared for these figures by the expressions employed in Pro_6:2. Instead of, מִיַד “out of the hand,” all the old versions, except the Vulg. and Venet., had the reading מִפַּת, “out of the snare. “But this is an attempt at rhetorical improvement (perhaps according to the analogy of Psa_91:3), “in which it was overlooked, that the hand was introduced the first as well as the second time with a reference to the giving of the hand on becoming security” (Pro_6:1). Comp. Umbreit and Hitzig on this passage.
3. Pro_6:6-11. Go to the ant, thou sluggard.—The ant, ever working of its own impulse quietly and unweariedly, is proverbial as an emblem of industry, both among Orientals and in the West; comp. Meidani’s Arabic Proverbs, iii., 468; Saadi’s Persian fable of the ant and the nightingale; Aristotle’s Historia, Anim., 9, 26; Virgil’s Georg., I., 186 sq.; Horace, Serm., I., 1, 33; also the German word “ämsig” (Old High Germ. emazîc), which is derived from “Ameise” (Weigand, deutsches Wörterb., I., 35). [See Thomson’s Land and Book, 1., 519, 520, for illustrations both of the diligence of the ant and the utter laziness of Oriental laborers, “which have no governor, director, or ruler.”—A.]
Pro_6:7. Which hath no governor, director or ruler.—The three expressions שֹׁטֵר קָצִין and משֵׁל are relatively like the Arabic official titles, “Kadi,” “Wali,” and “Emir.” The שֹׁטֵר in particular is the manager, the overseer, who, e.g., in connection with public works urges on to labor (Exo_5:6; Exo_5:14 sq.).—Furthermore, compare Pro_30:27, where also the first clause of Pro_6:8 recurs, in almost literal agreement with our passage.
Pro_6:9-11 add to the positive admonition to industry an emphatic warning against the evil consequences of its opposite.—How long wilt thou lie, O sluggard?—Literally: till when wilt thou, etc. The עַד־מָתַי of the first clause and מָתַי of the second stand in the same order as in Neh_2:6. The meaning of the two parallel questions is substantially “Wilt thou continue lying forever?—Wilt thou never rise?” The double question is, as it were, a logical protasis to he apodosis which follows in Pro_6:11 after the interposing of the sluggard’s answer (ver.10): “then cometh (Heb. וּבָא) like a robber,” etc. Comp. Bertheau on this passage.—A little sleep, etc.—Ironical imitation of the language of the lazy man; literally repeated in Pro_24:33.—A little folding of the hands—i.e., a little folding of the arms, a well-known attitude of one who is settling himself down to sleep (comp. Ecc_4:5), and who in that act does just the opposite of that for which the hands and arms are naturally designed, that is, for vigorous work.—Then cometh thy poverty like a robber.—מְהַלֵּךְ strictly grassator, a frequenter of the roads, a highwayman, a footpad (LXX: κακὸς ὁδοίπορος). The parallel passage, Pro_24:34, has the Hithp. participle מִתְהַלֵּךְ without כְּ, which gives the far weaker sense: “then cometh quietly thy poverty.”—As an armed man—lit., as one armed with, shield (אִישׁ מָגֵן); for even the assailing robber, since he must necessarily be prepared for resistance, must carry with weapons of offence he means of defence.
4. Pro_6:12-19. Against the deceitful and violent.—Concerning the relation of the two divisions of this group of verses, the first of which Pro_6:12-15) depicts the seven modes of deceitful action, while the second (Pro_6:16-19) expressly designates them a seven hated by God, repeating also their enumeration,—see above, § 1 of these exegetical comments.—A worthless man is the deceiver.—In support of this construction if אִישׁ אָוֶן as the subject and of the prefixed אָדָם בְּלִיַּעַל as the predicate [a construction preferred also by Noyes, Kamph. etc.] we have, besides the arrangement, especially the substitution of אָדָם בּ׀ for אִישׁ בּ׀, which was rather to have been expected according to the analogy of 2Sa_16:7, etc. If the second expression were only “an intensive appositive to the first” (Bertheau; see also Luther [Wordsw., M., st., H., in agreement with the E. V.]: “a heedless man, a mischievous person”), then we should have looked for אִישׁ in both instances. With אִישׁ אָוֶן, “man of deceit, of falsity, of inward untruth and vileness,” comp. furthermore מְתֵי אָוֶן, Job_22:15; and also, below, Pro_6:18.—He that walketh in perverseness of speech.—Comp. Pro_4:24; Pro_28:18.
Pro_6:13. The three participles of this verse are best understood, with Hitzig, as prefixed appositives to the subject contained in בְּלִבּוֹ, Pro_6:14, which is indeed the same as that of the 12th verse.—Who winketh with his eyes.—Comp. Pro_10:10; Psa_35:19.—Who speaketh with his feet—i.e., gives signs in mysterious ways (LXX: σημαίνει), now with one foot, then with the other.—Who hinteth with his fingers.—מוֹרֶה Hiph. part. from ירה, here used in its most primitive meaning. The evil intent involved in the three forms of the language of signs as here enumerated is of course implied.
Pro_6:14. He deviseth evil at all times.—Comp. Pro_3:29.—He stirreth up strife.—Literally “he lets loose contentions” (Hitzig), or “he throws out matters of dispute” (Bertheau); comp. Pro_6:19 and Pro_16:28.
Pro_6:15. Therefore suddenly shall his destruction come.—Comp. Pro_1:17; Pro_3:25; Pro_24:22.—Quickly will he be destroyed, etc.—Comp. Pro_19:1; Isa_1:28; Isa_30:14; Jer_19:11.—Without remedy.—Comp. Pro_4:22.
Pro_6:16. These six things Jehovah hateth, and seven, etc.—Of the origin of this peculiar proverbial form, using symbolical numbers, a form for which Arabic and Persian gnomic literature supply numerous illustrations (comp. Umbreit on this passage), Elster probably gives the simplest and most correct explanation, deriving it “purely from the exigencies of parallelism.” “The form of parallelism could not, on account of harmony, be sacrificed in any verse. But how should a parallel be found for a number? Since it was not any definite number that was the important thing, relief was found by taking one of the next adjacent numbers as the parallel to that which was chiefly in mind.” In a similar way Hitzig on Amo_1:3 (where the numbers put into this relation are three and four); “To the number three the number four is appended to characterize the first as one optionally taken, to convey the idea that there are not understood to be precisely three and no more, but possibly more.” At any rate, those expositors are in the wrong, who, as e.g., recently Bertheau and Von Gerlach, find the design of this mode of numeration in the fact that the last of the enumerated elements, the seventh vice therefore in the case before us, is to be brought out with especial emphasis. [Stanley (Hist. Jewish Church, ii. p. 258), adduces this as a probable example of the “enigmas” or “riddles,” which were one of the most characteristic embodiments of the wisdom of the wise king.—Arnot: There is one parallel well worthy of notice between the seven cursed things here, and the seven blessed things in the fifth chapter of Matthew. The first and last of the seven are identical in the two lists. “The Lord hates a proud look” is precisely equivalent to “blessed are the poor in spirit;” and “he that soweth discord among brethren” is the exact converse of the “peacemaker.”—A.].
Pro_6:17. Haughty eyes: literally, high or lofty eyes; comp. Pro_30:13; Psa_18:27; Psa_131:1; Job_21:22; Job_40:11; also the Latin expression grande supercilium.—Hands that shed innocent blood. Comp. Pro_1:11 sq., and Isa_59:7, with which passage Pro_6:18 also corresponds in the form of expression, without for that reason being necessarily derived from it, as Hitzig holds. For in case of such derivation the order of words ought to correspond more exactly with the alleged original, as in Rom_3:15-17.
Pro_6:19. One that uttereth lies as a false witness, literally, one that breathes lies. The same characterization of the false witness is found also in Pro_14:5; Pro_14:25; Pro_19:5; Pro_19:9. As respects the arrangement in which the seven manifestations of treacherous dealing are enumerated in these verses, it does not perfectly correspond with the order observed in Pro_6:12-14. There the series is mouth, eyes, feet, fingers, heart, devising evil counsels, stirring up strifes; here it is eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet, speaking lies, instigating strife. With reference to the organs which are named as the instruments in the first five forms of treacherous wickedness, in the second enumeration an order is adopted involving a regular descent (Pro_6:16-19, eyes, tongue, hands, etc.); the base disposition to stir up strife, or to let loose controversy (see rem. on Pro_6:14) in both cases ends the series.
5. Pro_6:20-24. Admonition to chastity, preparing the way for a subsequent warning against adultery.—Keep, O my son, thy father’s commandment, etc. This general introduction to the new warning against adultery corresponds with the similar preparatory admonitions in Pro_5:1-2; Pro_7:1-5, and serves, like these, to announce the great importance of the succeeding warnings. With respect to Pro_6:20 in particular comp. Pro_1:8.–Pro_6:21. Bind them to thy heart evermore, etc. So Pro_3:3; Pro_7:3. On account of the plural which occurs in the verse, with which the singular is interchanged in Pro_6:22, Hitzig conjectures the insertion of this verse by a late interpolator, and that in accordance with the standard furnished by Pro_3:3, in which place the passage is held to be original. This is arbitrary, for no single ancient manuscript or version confirms the suspicion. Just as well might Pro_6:22 be declared interpolated, inasmuch as only in this is the singular form found, while immediately after, in Pro_6:23, the double designation “commandment” and “doctrine” returns.
Pro_6:22. When thou walkest let it guide thee. The contrast between walking and sleeping or lying is like that in Pro_3:23-24.—When thou walkest let it talk with thee. The accusative suffix in תְּשִׂיחֶךָ is here employed as in Psa_5:4; Psa_42:4; Zec_7:5, etc., for the designation of the person to whom the intercourse indicated in the action of the verb relates. With regard to שִׂיחַ to take, to converse, comp. also Psa_69:13; with reference to the sentence as a whole comp. Psa_139:18.
Pro_6:23. For the reproofs of correction are a way of life, i.e., they lead to life, comp. Pro_2:19; Pro_3:2; Pro_3:16. “Reproofs of discipline” (תּוֹכְחוֹת מוּסָר) corrective reproofs, reproofs whose aim is correction.
Pro_6:24. From the vile woman, strictly the woman of evil, of vileness. רָע (for which the LXX here read רֵעַ) is therefore a substantive, as in the phrase “the way of evil” in Pro_2:12.—From the flattering tongue of the strange woman; literally, from the smoothness of the tongue of the strange woman. For instead of לָשׁוֹן, from which reading of the Masoretic text the meaning would result “from the smoothness of a strange tongue,” we must doubtless point לְשׁוֹן (construct state), since the subject of remark here is the strange, wanton woman (just as in Pro_2:16; Pro_5:20), while the thought of a foreign language (γλώσση ἀλλοτρία, LXX) is altogether remote from the context. In opposition to the translation of Ewald, Bertheau and Elster, “from the smooth-tongued, the strange woman,” comp. Hitzig on this passage.
6. Pro_6:25-35. Warning against adultery itself.—With her eyelids, with which she throws amorous and captivating glances at her lover, comp. Sir_26:9. The eyelids (or, more literally, eyelashes) are here compared with the cords of a net, as in Ecc_12:3, with the lattice of a window, or as in the erotic songs of the Arabs and Persians, with darts, with lances, daggers or swords.
Pro_6:26. For, for the sake of a harlot one cometh to a loaf of bread, i.e., to the last bit, the last morsel of bread, as a sign and emblem of utter poverty (thus Schultens, C. B. Michaelis, Umbreit, Elster); or again, the meaning may be to the begging a loaf of bread, to beggary (thus Aben Ezra, Vatablus, Rosenmueller, Elster, Hitzig). In opposition to the translation defended by most of the ancient expositors, and recently by Ziegler, Ewald, Bertheau, etc., “For as the hire of a harlot one gives hardly a bit of bread,” or as others prefer “merely a bit of bread,” may be adduced 1) the context, see the 2d clause; 2) the lexical fact that עַד can neither mean “hardly” nor “merely;” 3) the fact, historical and archæological, established by Gen_38:17, etc., that the harlot’s reward in ancient Palestine doubtless amounted to more than a mere loaf of bread, e.g. a kid, as in the case cited from Genesis, or a price considerably higher, as seems to follow from Pro_29:3; Sir_9:6; Luk_15:30.—Lieth in wait for the precious life. Very appropriately has נֶפֶשׁ, “life,” the predicate יְקָרָה “costly” connected with it; for its value rises above all mere property; comp. Psa_49:8.
Pro_6:27-29. The meaning is this: impossible as it is that the clothing on one’s breast, or that one’s feet should remain unharmed by scorching if fire be brought, near them, so inconceivable is it that the adulterer should follow his unlawful intercourse without evil consequences and just retribution. The two questions in Pro_6:27-28 imply a strong negation, like the interrogative clauses in Amo_3:4-6. Pro_6:29 is connected with the two negative antecedent clauses as a correlative consequent, and is therefore introduced by כֵּן, so.
Pro_6:30-31. A new figure to illustrate the punishment, surely impending and severe, which threatens the adulterer.—Men do not overlook the thief, etc.; literally “they do not contemn it in the thief.” The imperf. יָבוּזוּ expresses the idea of custom, that which occurs in accordance with experience. [Interpreters are divided between the two ideas of “scorn” and “disregard” as proper renderings of the verb. Stuart, Muensch., Words. adopt the former; men do not despise the thief, though he must be punished; they do despise the adulterer. Words. calls attention to a disposition in modern society to reverse this judgment. Noyes, Holden, like De W., Fuerst and our author, adopt the other view.—A.].—To satisfy his craving when he is hungry. This circumstance, which exhibits the guilt of the thief in a milder light, serves evidently to display the punishment that befalls the adulterer with whom he is here compared, as one more richly deserved. For the more presumptuous his crime, the less excused, or, as it were, demanded by his necessities, the more just is the punishment that comes upon him! If Hitzig had taken due notice of this meaning of Pro_6:30, which is transparent enough, he would have seen in advance how unnecessary and excessively artificial is the attempt to explain the verse as interrogative. [Kamph. adopts his view but does not strengthen it].—He must restore sevenfold. According to the prescriptions of the law in Ex. 21:37; 22:1 sq., it should strictly be only four or fivefold (comp. the publican Zaccheus, Luk_19:8). But in common life these prescriptions were probably not ordinarily observed: the injured party allowing his silence, his declining a judicial prosecution of the matter, to be purchased at a higher rate than was exactly allowed. Furthermore, that “sevenfold” is here used loosely, only as a round number (comp. Gen_4:15), and is not designed, as might be thought, to mark the highest conceivable ransom, appears from the 2d member, which suggests the probability of losing “the whole wealth of his house.”
Pro_6:32 stands in the same relation to the two preceding as Pro_6:29 to Pro_6:27 and Pro_6:28; it expresses the conclusion that is to be drawn from the meaning, which is clothed in the form of an analogy or parable, with reference to the well-deserved recompense of the adulterer. It is therefore hasty and arbitrary in Hitzig to reject this as a spurious gloss, and to find in Pro_6:33 the direct continuation of the thief’s punishment, which has been depicted in Pro_6:31.—He that destroyeth himself doeth such things. Literally, “whoso will destroy his life, he does it.”
Pro_6:33. Stripes and disgrace. The נֶגַע, plaga, may here very well stand in its literal sense, and so designate the blows with which the adulterer detected in the act will be visited by the husband of the unfaithful wife, and will be driven from the house (Umbreit, Hitzig).
Pro_6:34. For jealousy is man’s fierce anger, i.e., the jealousy (קִנְאָה as in Pro_27:4) of the injured husband is a fire blazing fiercely, burning and raging with all the might of a man; comp. “the hurling of a man” [or as others “a mighty prostration”] Isa_22:17. The 2d half of the verse explains this somewhat brief expression, “man’s wrath,” which, moreover, appears to be chosen not without collateral reference to the more rapidly evaporating wrath of women.
Pro_6:35. He regardeth not any ransom, literally, “he does not lift up the face of any ransom,” i.e., does not receive it as adequate to allay his wrath—as one lifts up the face of a suppliant when his request is granted or favorably received.—And is not willing, i.e., to forego his strict right of revenge.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The warning against improvident suretyship in the unqualified form, and the urgent and almost passionate tone in which it is presented in Pro_6:1-5, rests upon the consideration that “all men are liars” (Psa_116:11; Rom_3:4), that therefore no one can be trusted (comp. Jer_17:5 : “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man”), that every neighbor is at the same time in a certain sense a “stranger” to us (see above on Pro_6:1), in a word, that one must be prepared for manifestations of unfaithfulness, or unreliableness, on the part of any one whatever, though he stood ever so near us. Hence the duty, for the sake of preserving one’s own independence and sparing one’s own strength for his personal work (bodily as well as mental), of extricating one’s self at any cost and as speedily as possible from every relation of suretyship, from the continuance of which injurious consequences might result to our own freedom and welfare. With the admonitions of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, to be ready at all times for the lending and giving away of one’s property, even in cases where one cannot hope for the recovery of what has been given out (Luk_6:30; Luk_6:34; Luk_6:36; comp. 1Co_6:7) this demand is not in conflict. For Christ also plainly demands no such readiness to suffer loss on account of our neighbor, as would deprive us of personal liberty, and rob us of all means for further beneficence; and yet this sort of evil result from suretyship is what the author of our passage has in his eye.
2. Also in the subsequent warning against slothfulness (Pro_6:6-11) the reference to the danger of impoverishment appears to be the main motive, brought forward with especial emphasis. This is above all things else the precise thing to be learned from the example of the ant, that it is important to gather diligently “in summer,” that one may not suffer in winter,—that the “harvest time,” when all is within reach in abundance, is the time for earnest and unceasing toils, that one may be able calmly to meet the later seasons of want which offer to the most willing and vigorous industry no opportunity for acquiring. Comp. the example of Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 41. sq.), and apply all this to the spiritual department of labors in Christ’s service, e.g., those of the pastor, the missionary, etc.
3. The six or seven vices, twice enumerated in different order and form of expression, against which the paragraph Pro_6:12-19 warns (comp. the exegetical notes on Pro_6:19), are at the same time all of them manifestations of hatred against one’s neighbor, or sins against the second table of the Decalogue; yet it is not so much a general unkindness as rather an unkindness consisting and displaying itself in falseness and malice that is emphasized as their common element. And only on account of the peculiarly mischievous and ruinous character of just these sins of hatred to one’s neighbor, is he who is subject to them represented as an object of especially intense abhorrence on the part of a holy God, and as threatened with the strongest manifestations of His anger in penalties (Pro_6:15-16).
4. As a fundamental proposition for the successful avoidance of all converse with impure wantons, and of the dangers thence resulting, there is introduced in the 1st clause of Pro_6:25 a warning even against the very first beginnings of all unlawful sexual intercourse, against impure longings, or unchaste desires and thoughts of the heart. Comp. the last commandment of the Decalogue (Exo_20:17), as well as Christ’s intensifying and spiritualizing of the Mosaic prohibition of adultery; Mat_5:28.—The admonition also, which is prefixed as introductory, to keep continually before the eyes and in the heart the teachings of Divine wisdom (comp. Tob_4:6), serves as an emphatic utterance of this “Obsta principüs!” or the exhibition of the necessity that the very first germs and roots of the sin of unchastity must be rooted out.
HOMILETIC AND PRACTICAL
In the endeavor to comprehend in one homiletic whole the four main divisions of the chapter, one would first of all need to have clearly in view the suggestions given in Pro_6:2; Pro_6:11; Pro_6:15; Pro_6:26 sq., with reference to the danger of sinking into poverty and destitution, and to employ these in fixing his central idea. In some such way as this then: Even in the present life want and evil of every sort are wont to be the attendants a) of the lighter offences 1) of inconsiderateness (Pro_6:1-5) and 2) of slothfulness (Pro_6:6-11); b) of the grosser transgressions and vices, such as result 1) from pride and malignity (Pro_6:12-19), and 2) from lust of the eyes and sensuality (Pro_6:20-35).—Comp. Stöcker: Against unfaithfulness in life and conversation, as it displays itself 1) in suretyship; 2) in fulfilling the duties of one’s calling: 3) in daily converse with human society; 4) in married life.
Pro_6:1-5. Starke: A teacher of the divine word becomes in a certain sense a surety to God for the souls of his hearers (Eze_3:18); therefore must he watch over them day and night, that none be lost through fault of his (Act_20:28).—J. Lange: In Christ our friend we have a faithful surety who can and will free us from all our debt.—Wohlfarth: From credulity to put at risk one’s property, to which one’s children have the first claim, and which one should employ only for the general good, and thereby to give an impulse to the follies and sins of others, is quite as ruinous as it is morally blameworthy.
Pro_6:6-11. Melanchthon: Diligence is the virtue by which we are disposed steadfastly and firmly for God’s sake, and the common welfare, to perform the labors belonging to our calling, with the aid of God, who has promised aid to those that seek it. The extremes of this virtue are indolence and a busy officiousness (πολυπραγμοσύνη). The indolent omits too much; the officious, either from excess of ardor, undertakes many things that are not necessary, or undertakes by-works (πάρεργα) and interferes with others’ vocations,” etc.—Egard: God will not support thee without work, but by work; that is His holy ordinance (Gen_3:19). Do thy part, and God will do His. … To know how rightly to employ time and opportunity is great wisdom. Gather in summer that thou mayest have in winter; gather in youth that thou mayest have in old age!—Berleb, Bible: Where the ways of Christianity are not directed in accordance with the perfect law of liberty (Jam_1:25) and according to the impulse of the Spirit of God, but according to any human constitution, there men go more foolishly to work than the ants in their labor.—[Trapp: They are utterly out that think to have the pleasure of idleness, and the plenty of painfulness].
Pro_6:12-19. Egard: A proud heart has never done anything specially for God’s honor and a neighbor’s good; through humble hearts God does great things.—Starke: The evil heart cannot long be hidden; it soon shows itself in evil gestures, words and deeds.—(On Pro_6:18): The heart underlies the seven vices which are an abomination to God, and in the midst, because it is the fountain from which evil flows in all directions (Mat_12:34-35; Mat_15:19). The Lord therefore hates not only the actual outbreakings of sins, but also the devices of the ungodly with which they encompass day and night.—(On Pro_6:16 sq.): Eyes, hands, tongue, heart, feet, are in themselves good and well-pleasing to God; but when they turn from the path of virtue and incline to vice, then they are evil and cannot please God.—Wohlfarth: Before the Lord proud eyes, false tongues, guilty hands, etc., cannot stand. His hand lays hold upon all such transgressors according to the holy law according to which every kind of evil finds its penalty.—[Pro_6:16-17. W. Bates: Pride is in the front of those sins which God hates, and are an abomination to Him. Pride, like an infectious disease, taints the sound parts, corrupts the actions of every virtue, and deprives them of their true grace and glory.—J. Edwards: It is vain for any to pretend that they are humble, and as little children before God, when they are haughty, impudent, and assuming in their behavior amongst men.]
Pro_6:20-35. Stöcker (on Pro_6:25): Solomon here warns chiefly against the things by which one may be enticed into adultery, namely 1) against evil desire and lust in the heart; 2) against wanton, over-curious eyes.—Starke (on Pro_6:25): Since evil lusts spring up in the heart, Solomon would have us at the very beginning stop up the fountains, i.e., suppress the very first instigations of corrupt flesh and blood (Jam_1:14-15). For it is always more difficult to extinguish sparks already existing than to guard against the heart’s receiving any.—Von Gerlach (on Pro_6:34-35): The fearful rage of the jealous husband grows out of the deep feeling, that the wife is one with her husband, a part of him, whose worth cannot be counterbalanced by any possession however great, outside of him.—Comp. J. Lange: Just as little as the adulterer taken in his adultery is left unpunished by the injured husband, so little, yea even less will the spiritual adulterer remain unpunished of the Lord (1Co_3:17).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3–4 come . . . friend--in his power.
come . . . friend--in his power.
humble . . . sure thy friend--urge as a suppliant; that is, induce the friend to provide otherwise for his debt, or secure the surety.
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 On vv1, 3, 4 ADMONITIONS REGARDING SURETYSHIP, Pro_6:1-5.
ADMONITIONS REGARDING SURETYSHIP, Pro_6:1-5.
In order to secure the peace and happiness of married life, which the teacher has just so highly commended, he now cautions his pupil against two evils, which often bring great distress upon families, reducing them to poverty: namely, inconsiderate suretyship and slothfulness.
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1, 2. If thou be surety — It is probable, as suggested by several critics, that אם, (im,) if, is to be mentally carried forward, not only to the second clause of the first verse, but also to the two clauses of the second verse, the whole of these two verses constituting the protasis, or antecedent member of the sentence, which finds its apodosis, or conclusion, in the third verse.
Thy friend — Or, neighbour; any one with whom he may have intercourse.
Stranger — Another person. Some think the “friend” and “stranger” mean the same person; others, that they are distinct, the friend being the companion on whose behalf the young man pledges himself, the stranger probably the Phoenician money-lender, to whom he makes himself responsible as surety.
Stricken… hand — (Compare Pro_17:18; Pro_22:26; Job_17:3; Eze_17:8;) if thou hast bound thyself in any way as security, bail, endorsement, to stand instead of another, or hast so mixed thyself in with his affairs as to injuriously involve thyself in case of his failure; if thou hast (Pro_6:2) in any wise inconsiderately and imprudently become enslaved or captured by words spoken in the way of pledge or promise. Zockler says: “The stranger is not the creditor, but the debtor, who in the first clause is designated as neighbour. For, according to Job_17:3, the surety gave his hand to the debtor, as a sign that he became bound for him.” “The Phoenician or Jewish money-lenders were ready to make their loans to the spendthrift. He was equally ready to find a companion who would become his security. “It was merely a form, just the writing of a few words, just the ‘clasping of the hands’ in token that the obligation was accepted, and that was all! It would be unfriendly to refuse; and yet, as the teacher warns his hearer, there might be in that moment of careless weakness the first link of a long chain of ignominy, galling, fretting, depriving life of all its peace.” — Speaker’s Commentary. For the severity of the Hebrew law in regard to suretyship, compare 2Ki_4:1; Mat_18:25; also, Pro_11:15; Pro_17:18; Pro_20:16; Pro_26:26; Pro_29:13. For the last clause, make sure thy friend, the Geneva Bible has, “solicit thy friende.”
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 On vv1, 3, 5 1. be surety] Better, art become surety, R.V.
1. be surety] Better, art become surety, R.V.
The frequent mention of suretiship in this Book, and the strong terms of warning and reprobation in which it is invariably spoken of, accord well with what we should suppose to be the condition of society in the reign of Solomon. In earlier and simpler times it was enough for the Law to forbid usury or interest for a loan of money to be exacted by one Israelite of another; and raiment given as a pledge or security for a debt was to be returned before night-fall to be the owner’s covering in his sleep (Exo_22:25-27; Lev_25:35-38). With the developement, however, of commerce and the growth of luxury under Solomon, money-lending transactions, whether for speculation in trade, or for personal gratification, had come to be among the grave dangers that beset the path of youth. Accordingly, though the writer of Ecclesiasticus contents himself with laying down restrictions to the exercise of suretiship, and even goes the length of telling us that “An honest man is surety for his neighbor” (Sir_8:13; Sir_29:14-20), our writer here, with a truer insight, has no quarter for it, but condemns it unsparingly on every mention of it (Pro_6:1-5, Pro_11:15, Pro_17:18, Pro_20:16, Pro_22:26-27, Pro_27:13). Even the generous impulse of youth to incur risk at the call of friendship must yield to the dictates, cold and calculating though they seem, of bitter experience.
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In all these places the LXX. use ἐγγυᾶσθαι, ἔγγυος, ἐγγύη (comp. Heb_7:22); but the Heb. word here used appears as a noun in a Greek form (ἀρραβών), and is found in the LXX. only in Gen_38:17-18; Gen_38:20. It is employed by St Paul to denote the gift of the Spirit as the pledge or earnest of the future inheritance (2Co_1:22; 2Co_5:5; Eph_1:14). The later history of the word is traced by Dean Plumptre in an interesting note at the end of Proverbs 6 in the Speaker’s Comm.
with a stranger] i.e. if thou hast “become surety for thy friend,” by entering for him, by the usual formality of shaking hands (Pro_11:15, Pro_17:18, Pro_22:26; Job_17:3), into an undertaking with the stranger to whom he is indebted, to be responsible for his debt. In favour of this rendering is perhaps the article before “stranger” (lit. the stranger, i.e. money-lender), with whom he has involved himself.
The rendering, however, of R.V. text, for a stranger, preserves the parallelism better (the preposition moreover is the same in both clauses of the verse), while it understands the “neighbour” which it substitutes for “friend” in the first clause of this verse, to be equivalent to the “stranger,” i.e. “another” than thyself. For this wide use of the Heb. word for “stranger,” comp. Pro_27:2; 1Ki_3:18.
Eleventh Address. Chap. 6. Pro_6:1-5. The Surety
“From the solemn principle announced at the close of the last chapter (Pro_6:23) the teacher passes … to illustrate the truth by three examples, that of the Surety (Pro_6:1-5), that of the Sluggard (Pro_6:6-11), and that of the Worthless Man (Pro_6:12-19). And then because the horrors of impurity are the most striking and terrible instance of all, this subject coming up again at Pro_6:20, like the dark ground tone of the picture, finally runs into the long and detailed description of ch. 7.” Horton, ch. vii. p. 79.
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 On vv1, 3, 5 (i). Ninth Discourse:—Against Suretyship (Pro_6:1-5).
VI.
(i). Ninth Discourse:—Against Suretyship (Pro_6:1-5).
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(1) If thou be surety for thy friend.—When the Mosaic Law was instituted, commerce had not been taken up by the Israelites, and the lending of money on interest for its employment in trade was a thing unknown. The only occasion for loans would be to supply the immediate necessities of the borrower, and the exaction of interest under such circumstances would be productive of great hardship, involving the loss of land and even personal freedom, as the insolvent debtor and his family became the slaves of the creditor (Neh_5:1-5). To prevent these evils, the lending of money on interest to any poor Israelite was strictly forbidden (Lev_25:35-37); the people were enjoined to be liberal, and lend for nothing in such cases. But at the time of Solomon, when the commerce of the Israelites had enormously developed, and communications were opened with Spain and Egypt and (possibly) with India and Ceylon, while caravans penetrated beyond the Euphrates, then the lending of money on interest for employment in trade most probably became frequent, and suretyship also, the pledging of a man’s own credit to enable his friend to procure a loan. And when the wealth that accompanied this development of the national resources had brought luxury in its train, borrowing and suretyship would be employed for less worthy purposes, to supply the young nobles of Jerusalem with money for their extravagance. Hence possibly the emphatic language of the text and Pro_20:16; Pro_27:13.
Stricken thy hand.—That is, as we should say, “shaken hands on the bargain.”
With a stranger.—Or rather, for another, i.e., thy friend.
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 On vv1–5 Vers. 1-35. The sixth chapter embraces four distinct discourses,…
Vers. 1-35. The sixth chapter embraces four distinct discourses, each of which is a warning. The subjects treated of are
(1) suretyship (vers. 1-5);
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(2) sloth (vers. 6-11);
(3) malice (vers. 12-19); and
(4) adultery (ver. 20 to the end).
The continuity of the subject treated of in the preceding chapter appears to be somewhat abruptly interrupted to make way for the insertion of three discourses on subjects which apparently have little connection with what precedes and what follows. Their unlooked for and unexpected appearance has led Hitzig to regard them as interpolations, but it has been conclusively pointed out by Delitzsch that there is sufficient internal evidence, in the grammatical construction, figures, word formations, delineations, and threatenings, to establish the position that they proceeded from the same hand that composed the rest of the book and to guarantee their genuineness. But another and not less interesting question arises as to whether any connection subsists between these discourses and the subject which they apparently interrupt. Such a connection is altogether denied by Delitzsch, Zockler, and other German commentators, who look upon them as independent discourses, and maintain that, if there is any connection, it can be only external and accidental. On the other hand, Bishops Patrick and Wordsworth discover an ethical connection which, though not clear at first sight, is not on that account less real or true. The subject treated of in the preceding chapter is the happiness of the married life, and this is imperilled by incautious undertaking of suretyship, and suretyship, it is maintained, induces sloth, while sloth leads to maliciousness After treating of suretyship, sloth, and malice in succession, the teacher recurs to the former subject of his discourse, viz. impurity of life, against which he gives impressive warnings. That such is the true view them appears little doubt. One vice is intimately connected with another, and the verdict of experience is that a life of idleness is one of the most prolific sources of a life of impurity. Hence we find Ovid saying"Quaeritur, Aegisthus, qua re sit factus adulter? In promptu causa est desidiosus erat." "Do you ask why Aegisthus has become an adulterer? The reason is close at hand he was full of idleness.
Within the sphere of these discourses them. selves the internal connection is distinctly observable, vers. 16-19 being a refrain of vers. 12-15, and the phrase, "to stir up strife," closing each enumeration (see vers. 14 and 19).
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-5. The perils of suretyship.
Here we have
I A FEATURE OF ANCIENT LIFE. The warnings against incurring this responsibility are very frequent in this book. (Pro_11:15 Pro_17:18 Pro_20:16 Pro_22:26) For the bail was treated like the insolvent debtor. (2Ki_4:1 Mat_18:25) He was subject to distraint or to be sold into slavery. Ben-Sira (29, 18, seq. ) says, "Suretyship hath destroyed many that were doing well, and swallowed them up as a wave of the sea. It hath turned mighty men out of their homes, and they wandered among foreign peoples." The surety struck his band into that of the debtor, as a sign that he would answer for him. This would be accompanied by a verbal declaration, and hence the man had bound and confined himself himself by the words of his mouth." The rigidity of ancient custom in this particular told with terrible severity against thoughtless incurrers of responsibility, no matter how kind the motive. Hence
II THE URGENT NEED OF PRUDENCE. Ver. 3: "Since thou hast come into the hand power of thy neighbour, stamp with thy foot, and storm thy neighbour;" i.e. be urgent and insistent with the careless debtor for whom thou hast pledged thyself, press upon him the fulfilment of his responsibilities before it be too late. Exercise a sleepless vigilance (ver. 4, "Tear thyself free like a gazelle from its haunt, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler").
III MODERN REFLECTIONS AND LESSORS.
1. Let us be thankful that the severity of the ancient laws and customs concerning debt and suretyship has been mitigated. The history of the changes of law is one of the best evidences of Christianity, and proof that prior conceptions of God advance side by side with gentler conceptions of social relations and duties.
2. Prudence is a constant necessity, and its cultivation a virtue, though not the highest. We must learn to adjust the claims of prudence and of neighbourly love.
3. Independence is not only a "glorious privilege," but the firm foundation for the best life enjoyment and life work. These are golden words from Ben-Sira, valid for all time: "Take heed to thyself, lest thou fail. The elements of life are water, bread, and a coat to ones back, and a dwelling to hide unseemliness. Better the poor man"s life in his hut than faring luxuriously in others" houses... It is an ill life from house to house, and not to be able to open your mouth where you are sojourning." To do our own work or God"s work well, we should aim at detachment, disembarrassment, freedom of spirit. J.
Vers. 1-5. Ninth admonitory discourse. Warning against suretyship.
The contents of this section are not to be taken so much as an absolute unqualified prohibition of suretyship as counsel directed against the inconsiderate and rash undertaking of such an obligation. There were some occasions on which becoming surety for another was demanded by the laws of charity and prudence, and when it was not inconsistent with the humane precepts of the Mosaic Law as enunciated in Lev_19:19. In other passages of our book the writer of the Proverbs lays down maxims which would clearly countenance the practice, (Pro_14:21 Pro_17:17 Pro_18:24 Pro_27:10) and in the apocryphal writings the practice is encouraged, if not enjoined (Ecc 29:14; Ecc_8:13). Notwithstanding this limitation, however, it is observable that suretyship is almost invariably spoken of in terms of condemnation, and the evil consequences which it entailed on the surety may be the reason why it is so frequently alluded to. The teacher refers to the subject in the following passages: here; Pro_11:15:17:18 Pro_22:26 Pro_20:16 Pro_27:13. My son. On this address, see Pro_2:1 Pro_3:1, Pro_3:17. If thou be surety (Hebrew, im-aravta); literally, if thou hast become surety; LXX, ean eggush ; Vulgate, si spoponderis. What the teacher counsels in the present instance is that, if by inadvertence a person has become surety, he should by the most strenuous endeavours prevail on his friend to free him from the bond. The Hebrew verb arav is properly "to mix," and then signifies "to become surety" in the sense of interchanging with another and so taking his place. The frequent mention of suretyship in the Proverbs is alluded to above. The first recorded instances are those where Judah offers to become surety for Benjamin, first to Israel, (Gen_43:9) and secondly to Joseph. (Gen_44:33) It is singular that it is only once alluded to in the Book of Job, where Job says, "Lay down now, put me in surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?"; (Job_17:3) and once only, and that doubtfully, in the whole of the Mosaic writings, in the phrase tesummat yad, i.e. giving or striking the hand in the case of perjury. (Lev_6:2) The psalmist refers to it in the words, "Be surety for thy servant for good". (Psa_119:122) It is spoken of twice in Isaiah, (Isa_38:14 Isa_36:8) once in Ezekiel (Eze_27:27) and in Nehemiah, (Neh_5:3) and the cognate noun, arrabon, "the pledge," security for payment, is met with in Gen_38:17 and 1Sa_17:18. These scattered notices in the Old Testament show that the practice was always in existence, while the more frequent notices in the Proverbs refer to a condition of society where extended commercial transactions had apparently made it a thing of daily occurrence, and a source of constant danger. In the New Testament one instance of suretyship is found, when St. Paul offers to become surety to Philemon for Onesimus. (Phm_1:19) But in the language of the New Testament, the purely commercial meaning of the word is transmuted into a spiritual one. The gift of the Spirit is regarded as the arrabon, orrabwn , "the pledge," the earnest of the Christian believer"s acceptance with God. (2Co_1:22 2Co_5:5 Eph_1:14) For thy friend; Hebrew, l"reeka. The Hebrew reeh, more usually rea, is "the companion or friend," and in this ease obviously the debtor for whom one has become surety. The word reappears in ver. 3. The l (l) prefixed to reeh is the dativus commodi. So Delitzsch and others. If not in the original, but rightly inserted. Thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger (Hebrew, taka"ta lazzar kapeyka); properly, thou hast stricken thy hand for a stranger. The analogous use of l (l) in lazzar determines this rendering. As in the corresponding l"reeyka, the l (l) indicates the person for whose benefit the suretyship is undertaken, i.e. the debtor, and not the person with whom the symbolical act is performed, i.e. the creditor. Compare the following passages, though the construction with l is wanting: "He that is surety for a stranger"; (Pro_11:15) "Take his garment that is surety for a stranger". (Pro_20:16 and Pro_27:13) "The stranger," zar, is not an alien, or one belonging to another nationality, but simply one extraneous to one"s self, and so equivalent to akher, "another." The meaning, therefore, seems to be, "If thou hast entered into a bond for one with whom thou art but slightly acquainted." Others (Wordsworth, Plumptre), however, take zar as representing the foreign money lender. The phrase, "to strike the hand," taka kaph, or simply "to strike," taka, describes the symbolical act which accompanied the contract. Taka is properly "to drive," like the Latin defigere, and hence "to strike," and indicates the sharp sound with which the hands were brought into contact.
The act no doubt was accomplished before witnesses, and the hand which was stricken was that of the creditor, who thereby received assurance that the responsibility of the debtor was undertaken by the surety. The "striking of the hand" as indicating the completion of a contract is illustrated by the author of the "Kamoos", (quoted by Lee, on Job_17:3) who says, "He struck or clapped to him a sale... he struck his hand in a sale, or on his hand... he struck his ow hand upon the hand of him, and this is among the necessary (transactions) of sale." So among Western nations the giving of the band has been always regarded as a pledge of bona fides. Thus Menelaus demands of Helena (Euripides, "Hel.," 838), Epi toisde nun dexiage , "Touch my right hand now on these conditions," i.e. in attestation that you accept them. In purely verbal agreements it is the custom in the present day for the parties to clasp the hand. A further example may be found in the plighting of troth in the Marriage Service.
Vers. 1-5. The surety.
Our Christian charity may naturally be shocked at the selfishness apparently inculcated by the frequent warnings against giving security for others that are scattered up and down the Book of Proverbs. They have done more than anything else to lead people to regard the standard of morality of the Proverbs as low and worldly. Let us consider the subject from various points of view.
I THE STANDARD OF MORALITY OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS IS LOWER THAN THAT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Let this fact be clearly recognized. Revelation is progressive. Doctrine is only revealed by degrees. The same applies to ethics. Such a method is most suited to the moral education of the race. A less-advanced people can only live up to a less-elevated principle. If the standard be raised too high, it ceases to be effective, and becomes like a counsel of perfection, which ordinary people disregard. On the other hand, Christians have no excuse for taking refuge in the lower principles of an obsolete dispensation.
II AN EXCLUSIVE ATTENTION TO ONE DUTY WILL ALWAYS MILITATE AGAINST OTHER DUTIES. Duties cross and qualify one another. Each taken by itself and pressed to its extreme wilt lead to conflict with others. Now, here prudence only is commended. To enforce it the more powerfully, other duties are for the time left out of sight. When they are taken up they will qualify, it considerably.
III IT IS FOOLISH TO UNDERTAKE AN OBLIGATION WHICH WE ARE UNWILLING TO CARRY OUT. It is so easy to make chivalrous promises. But immense harm is done by over haste in professions of generosity. Let a man count the cost enough to see whether he is morally able to bear the strain before making a very liberal offer.
IV MUCH EVIL WAS DONE BY THE MONEY LENDING SYSTEM OF THE JEWS. The laws of debt were most stringent, and "the goods of the sureties might be distrained, or they even sold as slaves, just as in the case of insolvent debtors." Such an outrageously cruel state of things was justly deprecated.
V OTHER MORE PRESSING CLAIMS FORBID US TO CONTRACT SOME OF THE MOST EXACTING OBLIGATIONS. The good-natured Jew who beggared his children and lost his liberty by becoming surety to a spendthrift, robbed those who had most right to enjoy his property, and hindered himself from doing more good in the future. The duty of a man to his family is often pleaded as an excuse for some act of mean selfishness. Nevertheless, the duty is real, and must not be neglected. A man has no right to risk his children"s welfare in order to oblige a friend. People who are too hasty in putting their names to bills should remember thin
VI THE SURETY IS ONLY ADVISED TO ESCAPE BY JUST MEANS. He is not told to break his promise, to hide, to leave the country. He is urged to seek a release by requesting his friend to grant it him. Such a course is humiliating. But it is not dishonest.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-5. Answering for others; danger and deliverance.
There are times when we are invited and are bound to answer for other people it may be with our word, or it may be with our bond. We have all been indebted to the kindnesses of our friends in this direction, and that which we have received from our fellows we should be ready to give to them in return. But it is a matter in which it is very easy to go much too far; in which carelessness is wrong and even criminal; in which, therefore wise counsel is well worth heeding.
I THAT GOOD MEN ARE EXPOSED TO SERIOUS DANGER IN THE WAY OF SURETYSHIP. (Vers. 1-3.) Good men, as such. For it is they who are most likely to be in a position to grant the help which is desired, and who are most likely to be induced to do so. The danger is threefold.
1. The appeal is to kindness of heart. It is the young at starting, or it is the unfortunate, or it is those on whom the helpless are dependent, who supplicate our interposition; and it is difficult for the tender hearted to turn a deaf ear to their entreaty.
2. The peril is easily incurred. It was but the taking of the hand in the presence of two or three witnesses; it is but the signing of a name at the foot of a bond, and the thing is done.
3. The result is remote and uncertain. No evil may ever happen; if it should, it will fall some day in the distance.
II THAT GODLY PRINCIPLE REQUIRES US TO PUT A STRONG CHECK ON INCLINATION.
1. However much our sympathetic feelings may be stirred, however great the pleasure of compliance, and however deep the pain of refusal, we must forbear, when we have not wherewith to meet the demand that may be made on us. To comply, under such conditions, is simple dishonesty; it is criminal; it is an essentially false action.
2. We should imperil the comfort of our own family. Our first duty is to the wife whom we have solemnly covenanted before God to cherish and care for, and to the children whom the Father has entrusted to our charge.
3. We should be encouraging a culpable spirit of unsound speculation.
4. We should be disregarding the general good. No minister can commend to a Christian community a brother whom he believes to be unfit for the post without sinning against Christ and his Church most seriously. No man can recommend an incompetent or unworthy neighbour or friend to a position of trust and influence without doing a wrong which, if it be not condemned in the Decalogue, will be heavily scored in the Divine account.
III THAT IF WE FIND WE HAVE ERRED, WE MUST DO EVERY POSSIBLE THING TO GAIN DELIVERANCE. (Vers. 3-7) There should be:
1. The utmost promptitude (ver. 4). When the blow may not fall for sometime to come, there is special temptation to procrastinate until it is too late. Seek safety at once; let not the sun go down before the first step is taken.
2. Energy in action (ver. 5). We should seek to extricate ourselves and those who are dear to us with the vigour with which the roe escapes from the hunter, the bird from the fowler.
3. If necessary, with self-humiliation (ver. 3). We hate to "humble ourselves," but we ought to be ready to do this rather than allow trouble and ruin to hang over our home.
IV THAT IF THIS URGENCY BE DUE TO TEMPORAL DANGERS, HOW MUCH MORE IMPERATIVE IS OUR DUTY TO GAIN DELIVERANCE FROM SPIRITUAL PERILS! We may well give "no sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to our eyelids," until the peril is passed of being called by the Divine Creditor to meet a debt when we "have nothing to pay. 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 On v1 If thou be surety for thy friend.
Pro_6:1-5
If thou be surety for thy friend.
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Social suretyships
The principles of domestic, social, and political economy in the Bible are far more wise, as well as righteous, than can be found in human book or periodical.
I. Suretyship as an evil to be deplored. If thou be surety; as if he had said, It is a sad thing if thou hast. It is not, however, always an evil. There are two things necessary to render it justifiable.
1. The case should be deserving.
2. You should be fully competent to discharge the obligation. But the most deserving men will seldom ask for suretyships, and the most competent men will seldom undertake the responsibility.
II. Suretyship as an evil very easily contracted. Merely striking the hand, and uttering the words. One word, the word Yes, will do it, written or uttered in the presence of a witness. Plausibility will soon extract it from a pliant and generous nature.
III. Suretyship as an evil to be strenuously removed. Deliver thyself.
1. Do it promptly. Try by every honest means to get the bond back again.
2. Do it beseechingly. Humble thyself. It is no use to carry a high hand; thou art in his power.
3. Do it effectively. Thou art encaged in iron law; break loose honourably somehow, and be free. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
If thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger.
Striking the hand
A surety is one who becomes security for a debt due by another. The customary or legal forms which render suretyship valid differ in different countries. Allusion here is to the practice of the surety confirming his engagement by giving his hand to the creditor, in presence of witnesses. The prohibition must not be taken as unqualified. There are cases in which suretyship is unavoidable. The law sometimes requires it. But the less of it the better.
I. It is wrong for a man to come under engagements that are beyond his actually existing means. Such a course is not merely imprudent; there is in it a threefold injustice.
1. To the creditor for whom he becomes surety, inasmuch as the security is fallacious, not covering the extent of the risk.
2. To his family, to whom the payment may bring distress and ruin.
3. To those who give him credit in his own transactions; for, in undertaking suretyships, he involves himself in the risks of other trades besides his own.
II. It is wrong to make engagements with inconsideration and rashness. The case here treated is that of suretyship for a friend to a stranger; and the rashness and haste may be viewed in relation either to the person or to the ease. Men, when they feel the generous impulse of friendly emotion, are apt to think at the moment only of themselves, as if the risk were all their own, and to forget that they are making creditors and family securities, without asking their consent, or making them aware of their risks. Suretyships for strangers are specially condemned. (R. Wardlaw.)
Debtors and creditors
The friend of the surety here is the debtor, the stranger is the creditor.
I. The Scripture affords direction for trading and civil converse.
1. For wariness in suretyship here.
2. For faithfulness in dealing elsewhere. But why does the wise man concern himself with such matters.
Because--
1. Religion guides best in civil matters.
2. The eighth commandment requires care of our estates.
3. The Church consists of families and traders which cannot be upheld without care.
4. Religion is ill spoken of for the careless ruin of professors estates. Then follow Scripture precedents in trading rather than corrupt mens examples.
II. Young men should be advised by their elders in worldly affairs. They have more knowledge and more experience than younger men.
III. Rash suretyship is to be avoided. Go to the pleading-place (forum), and among frequent contenders nothing is more frequently heard, than the dangers of suretyship, and the sighings of the surety.
1. Be not bound for more than thou canst spare from thy trade and charge.
2. Be not bound for idle persons, that are likely to leave thee in the lurch, and can show no likelihood of ever paying. There be honest poor men enough that will need thy help in this kind. Thou needest not to bestow thy means on prodigals. (Francis Taylor, B.D.)
Lending money on interest
When the Mosaic law was instituted, commerce had not been taken up by the Israelites, and the lending of money on interest for its employment in trade was a thing unknown. The only occasion for loans would be to supply the immediate necessities of the borrower, and the exaction of interest under such circumstances would be productive of great hardship, involving the loss of land, and even of personal freedom, as the insolvent debtor and his family became the slaves of the creditor (Neh_5:1-5). To prevent these evils, the lending of money on interest to any poor Israelite was strictly forbidden (Lev_25:1-55.); the people were enjoined to be liberal, and to lend for nothing in such cases. But at the time of Solomon, when the commerce of the Israelites was enormously developed, and communications were opened with Spain and Egypt, and possibly with India and Ceylon, while caravans penetrated beyond the Euphrates, then the lending of money on interest for employment in trade most probably became frequent, and suretyship also--the pledging of a mans own credit to enable his friend to procure a loan. (Ellicotts Commentary.)
Certain examples of the binding character of our own actions
The surety. The sluggard. The worthless person.
I. The surety. The young man, finding his neighbour in monetary difficulties, consents in an easy-going way to become his surety; enters into a solemn pledge with the creditor, probably a Phoenician money-lender. He now stands committed. His peace of mind and his welfare depend no longer upon himself, but upon the character, the weakness, the caprice, of another. A young man who has so entangled himself is advised to spare no pains, and to let no false pride prevent his securing release from his obligation. There may, however, be cases in which a true brotherliness will require us to be surety for our friend. Ecclesiasticus says: An honest man is surety for his neighbour, but he that is impudent will forsake him. If we can afford to be a surety for our neighbour, we can clearly afford to lend him the money ourselves. A miserable chain thoughtlessness in the matter of suretyship may forge for the thoughtless.
II. The sluggard. Poverty and ruin must eventually overtake him. In every community there is a certain number of people who are constitutionally incapable. Examples of insect life are brought to teach and stimulate human beings.
III. The worthless character. His heart is as deceitful as his lips: he cannot be true on any terms. This kind of man is the pest of commerce; the bane of every social circle; the leaven of hypocrisy and malice in the Christian Church. (R. F. Horton, D.D.)
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 On v1 "The surety the sluggard and the worthless person." Pro_6:1;…
CHAPTER 7
CERTAIN EXAMPLES OF THE BINDING CHARACTER OF OUR OWN ACTIONS
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"The surety the sluggard and the worthless person." Pro_6:1; Pro_6:6; Pro_6:12
FROM the solemn principle announced at the close of the last chapter the teacher passes, almost unconscious of the thought which determines his selection of subjects, to illustrate the truth by three examples, -that of the Surety, that of the Sluggard, that of the Worthless Man. And then, because the horrors of impurity are the most striking and terrible instance of all, this subject, coming up again at Pro_5:20, like the dark ground tone of the picture, finally runs into the long and detailed description of chapter 7.
These three examples are full of interest, partly because of the light they throw on the habits and moral sentiments of the time in which this Introduction was written, but chiefly because of the permanent teaching which is luminous in them all, and especially in the third.
We may spend a few minutes upon the first. The young man, finding his neighbor in monetary difficulties, consents in an easy-going way to become his surety; he enters into a solemn pledge with the creditor, probably a Phoenician money-lender, that he will himself be responsible if the debtor is not prepared to pay at the appointed time. He now stands committed; he is like a roe that is caught by the hunter, or a bird that is held by the fowler, in the hand of his neighbor. His peace of mind, and his welfare, depend no longer upon himself, but upon the character, the weakness, the caprice of another. This is a good illustration of the way in which a thoughtless action may weave cruel bands to bind the unwary. Looking at the matter from this point of view, our book strongly and frequently denounces the practice of suretiship. To become surety for another shows that you are void of understanding. So foolish is the action that it is compared to the surrender of ones own garments, and even to the loss of personal freedom. A proverb declares: "He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it, but he that hateth suretiship is sure."
If then the young man has enmeshed himself in obligations of this kind, he is recommended to spare no pains, not to stand upon a false pride, but to go with all urgency, with frank abasement, to the man for whom he has pledged his credit, and at all costs to get released from the obligation. "Be thou not," says Wisdom, "one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts: if thou hast not wherewith to pay, why should, he take away thy bed from under thee?" {Pro_22:26-27}
We feel at once that there is another side to the question. There may be cases in which true brotherliness will require us to be surety for our friend. "An honest man is surety for his neighbor, but he that is impudent will forsake him," says Ecclesiasticus. And from another point of view an injunction has to be given to one who has persuaded his friend to stand as his surety, -"Forget not the friendship of thy surety, for he hath given his life for thee. A sinner will overthrow the good estate of his surety, and he that is of an unthankful mind will leave him in danger that delivered him." But confining ourselves to the standpoint of the text, we may well raise a note of warning against the whole practice. As Ecclesiasticus himself says, "Suretiship hath undone many of good estate, and shaken them as a wave of the sea: mighty men hath it driven from their houses, so that they wandered among strange nations. A wicked man transgressing the commandments of the Lord shall fall into suretiship." {Ecclesiasticus 29:14; Ecclesiasticus 29:16-19}
We may say perhaps that the truly moral course in these relations with our fellows lies here: if we can afford to be a surety for our neighbor, we can clearly afford to lend him the money ourselves. If we cannot afford to lend it to him, then it is weak and foolish, and may easily become wicked and criminal, to make our peace of mind dependent on the action of a third person, while in all probability it is hurtful to our friend himself, because by consenting to divide the risks with the actual creditor we tend to lessen in the debtors mind the full realization of his indebtedness, and thus encourage him in shifty courses and unnerve his manly sense of responsibility. The cases in which it is wise as well as kind to become bail for another are so rare that they may practically be ignored in this connection; and when these rare occasions occur they may safely be left to the arbitrament of other principles of conduct which in the present instance are out of view. Here it is enough to emphasize what a miserable chain thoughtlessness in the matter of suretiship may forge for the thoughtless.
We may now pass to our second illustration, the poverty and ruin which must eventually overtake the Sluggard. "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns. The face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I beheld, and considered well: I saw, and received instruction." And there is the lazy owner of this neglected farm murmurring, "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." There seem to be in every community a certain number of people who can only be described as constitutionally incapable: as children they are heavy and phlegmatic; at school they are always playing truant, and exerting themselves, if at all, to escape the irksome necessity of learning anything; when they enter into life for themselves they have no notion of honest effort and steady persistency, but directly their employment becomes distasteful they quit it; and at length, when they end their days in the workhouse, or in those shameful haunts of sin and vice to which sloth so easily leads, they have the melancholy reflection to take with them to the grave that they have proved themselves an encumbrance of the earth, and can be welcomed in no conceivable world. Now the question must force itself upon our attention, Might not these incapables be rescued if they were taken young enough, and taught by wholesome discipline and a wise education what will be the inevitable issue of their lethargic tendencies? Might not the farm of the sluggard be impressed on their very eyeballs as a perpetual and effective warning?
Leaving this important question to social reformers, we may note how beautifully this book employs the examples of insect life to teach and stimulate human beings. "The ants are a people not strong. Yet they provide their meat in summer. The locusts have no king. Yet go they forth all of them by bands." {Pro_30:25-27} "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." {Pro_6:6; Pro_6:8} By this little touch the book of Proverbs has turned the magnificent fields of modern scientific observation, and all the astonishing revelations of the microscope, into a school of moral and spiritual discipline for human life. Thus the ants swarm in the woods and the fields as if to rebuke the laziness and thriftlessness of man. They work night and day; they store their galleries with food; they capture and nourish aphides, which they use as a kind of domestic cattle. The vast and symmetrical mounds, which they rear as habitations and barns, are, relatively to the size of the builders, three or four times larger than the pyramids. By what mysterious instinct those long lines of laborers march and work in unison; by what half-human impulses they form in serried hosts and engage in deadly battles prolonged through several days; by what ludicrous freaks they are led to imitate men, spending their lives in pampered luxury, dependent upon slaves, until at last in their helplessness they are mastered by their bondservants in revolt; by what heavenly motive they are stirred to feed and nourish and nurse one another in sickness and trouble, -we need not here enquire, for we are only told to go to the ant in order to learn her ways of ceaseless activity. But in this brief precept we seem to receive a hint of the boundless instruction and warning to be derived from the humbler inhabitants of this earth which man claims as his own.
Let us pass to the third illustration of the theme. The surety is the victim of easygoing thoughtlessness, the sluggard is the victim of laziness and incapacity; but now there appears on the scene the thoroughly worthless character, the man of Belial, and after his portrait is drawn in a few touches, his sudden and hopeless ruin is announced in a way which is all the more striking because the connection between the sin and its punishment is left to be guessed rather than explained. {Pro_6:12-15} The description of this person is wonderfully graphic and instructive, and we must dwell for a moment on the details. We see him, not in repose, but busy going from place to place, and talking a great deal. His lips are shaped continually to lie, -"he walketh with a froward mouth." There is no straightforwardness about him; he is full of hint, suggestion, innuendo; he gives you always the idea that he has an accomplice in the background; he turns to you and winks in a knowing way; he has a habit of shuffling with his feet, as if some evil spirit forbade him to stand still; you constantly catch his gesticulating; he points with his thumb over his shoulder, and nods significantly; he is never better pleased than when he can give the impression of knowing a great deal more than he cares to say. He delights to wrap himself in mystery-to smile blandly and then relapse into a look of inscrutability-to frown severely and then assume an air of gentle innocence. He is in the habit of beckoning one into a corner, and making a whispered communication as if he were your particular friend, as if he had taken a fancy to you directly he saw you, and was therefore eager to give you some information which nothing would induce him to divulge to anyone else; if you are foolish enough to share his confidences, he gives you very soon, when others are standing by, a cunning leer, as if to intimate that you and he are old acquaintances, and are in the secret, which the rest do not know.
The fact is that his heart is as deceitful as his lips; he cannot be true on any terms. If some simple and open course occurred to his mind he would shun it instinctively, because it is in devising evil that he lives and moves and has his being. His friendliest approaches fill an honest man with misgiving, his words of affection or admiration send a cold shudder through ones frame. His face is a mask; when it looks fair you suspect villainy; when it looks villainous, and then only, you recognize that it is true. Wherever he goes he makes mischief, he causes divisions; he is the Iago of every play in which he takes a part, the Judas of every society of which, he is a member. He manages to sow suspicion m the mind of the least suspicious, and to cast a slur on the character of the most innocent. When he has created discord between friends he is delighted. If he sees them disposed to a reconciliation, he comes forward as a mediator and takes care to exasperate the differences, and to make the breach irreparable. Like Edmund in "King Lear," he has a genius for setting men at variance, and for so arranging his plots that each party thinks he hears with his own ears and sees with his own eyes the proof of the others perfidy. But, unlike Edmund, he does the mischief, not for any special good to himself, but for the mere delight of being an agent of evil.
It is this kind of man that is the pest of commerce. He introduces dishonest practices into every business that he touches. He makes it a principle that in selling you are to impose on the customer, avail yourself of his ignorance or prejudice or weakness, and hide everything which might incline him to draw back; while in buying you are to use any fraud or panic or misrepresentation which might induce the seller to lower the price. When he has been in a business for a little while the whole concern becomes tainted, there is a slime over everything; the very atmosphere is fetid.
It is this kind of man that is the bane of every social circle. In his presence, all simplicity and innocence, all charity and forbearance and compassion, seem to wither away. If you are true and straightforward he manages to make you ridiculous; under his evil spell you seem a simpleton. All genial laughter he turns into sardonic smiles and sneers; all kindly expressions he transforms into empty compliments which are not devoid of a hidden venom. He is often very witty, lint his wit clings like an eating acid to everything that is good and pure; his tongue will lodge a germ of putrescence in everything which it touches.
It is this kind of man that is the leaven of hypocrisy and malice in the Christian Church; he intrigues and cabals. He sets the people against the minister and stirs up the minister to suspect his people. He undertakes religious work, because it is in that capacity he can do most mischief. He is never better pleased than when he can pose as the champion of orthodoxy, because then he seems to be sheltered and approved by the banner which he is defending.
"Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly." It is because the character is so incurably base, so saturated with lies and insincerities, that there can be no gradations or temperings in his punishment. One who is less evil may be proved and tested with slight troubles, if possibly he may be stirred to amendment. But this utterly worthless person is quite unaffected by the smaller trials, the tentative disciplines of life. He cannot be chastised as a son; he can only be broken as a vessel in which there is an intrinsic flaw; or as a building, which has got the plague in its very mortar and plaster.
We are told that in Sierra Leone the white ants will sometimes occupy a house, and eat their way into all the woodwork, until every article in the house is hollow, so that it will collapse into dust directly it is touched. It is so with this deceitful character, so honeycombed, and eaten through, that though for years it may maintain its plausible appearance in the world, few people even suspecting the extent of the inward decay on a sudden the end will come; there will be one touch of the finger of God, and the whole ill-compacted, worm-devoured thing will crumble into matchwood: "He shall be broken, and that without remedy."
But while we are thus watching this worthless soul overtaken with an inevitable calamity, we are reminded that not only are our eyes upon him, but the Lord also sees him. And to that calm and holy watcher of the poor sinful creature there are six things which appear specially hateful-seven which are an abomination of His soul. {Pro_6:16-19} Is there not a kind of comfort in the thought that the Lord watches and knows the whole story of that miserable life, not leaving it to us to condemn, but taking upon Himself the whole responsibility? He knows whether there is a reason in nature for these bad hearts; He knows too what power outside of nature can change and redeem them. But at present we want only to mark and consider these seven things which are abominable to God-the seven prominent traits of the character which has just been depicted. We seem to need some spiritual quickening, that we may observe these hateful things not only with our own natural repugnance, but with something of the holy hatred and the inward loathing which they produce in the Divine mind.
1. Haughty eyes. "There is a generation, Oh how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up." And to that generation how many of us belong, and what secret admiration do we cherish for it, even when we can honestly disclaim any blood relationship! That haughty air of the great noble; that sense of intrinsic superiority; that graciousness of manner which comes from a feeling that no comparison can possibly be instituted between the great man and his inferiors; that way of surveying the whole earth as if it were ones private estate; or that supreme satisfaction with ones private estate as if it were the whole earth! This lofty pride, when its teeth are drawn so that it cannot materially hurt the rest of mankind, is a subject of mirth to us; but to the Lord it is not, it is hateful and abominable; it ranks with the gross vices and the worst sins; it is the chief crime of Satan.
2. A lying tongue, though it "is but for a moment." {Pro_12:19} It is the sure sign of Gods intense hatred against lies that they recoil on the head of the liar, and are the harbingers of certain destruction. We dislike lies because of their social inconvenience, and where some social convenience is served by them we connive at them and approve. But God hates the lying tongue, whatever apparent advantage comes from it. If we lie for personal gain He hates it. If we lie from mere weakness, He hates it. If we lie in the name of religion, and in the fashion of the Jesuit, for the welfare of men and the salvation of souls, He hates it none the less. The abomination does not consist in the motive of the lie, but in the lie itself.
3. Hands that shed innocent blood. So hateful are they to Him that He could not let David His chosen servant build Him a house because this charge could be laid against the great king. The soldier in the battle-field hewing down the man who is innocent, and the man who in carelessness or greed is wearing the poor, who are dependent on him, down to death, and the man who in a passion rises up and murders his fellow, -these are very hateful to the Lord. There at the beginning of the worlds history, in the blood of righteous Abel crying to the Lord, and in the mark set on the guilty brow of Cain, the heart of God was clearly and finally shown. He has not changed. He does not shed innocent blood Himself; He cannot away with them that shed it.
4. Hateful too to Him is the devising heart, even where courage or opportunity fails of realizing the device. There are so many more murders in the world than we see, so many cruel and wicked deeds restrained by the police or by a dominant public sentiment, which yet lie deep in the wicked imagination of our hearts, and are abominable to God, that we may be thankful if we do not see as He sees, and may wonder at the forbearance of His compassion.
5. Feet that be swift in running to mischief. Feet listless in the ways of brotherly service or holy worship, but swift, twinkling with eager baste, when any mischief is toward, are marked by God-and hated.
6. And a false witness is abominable to Him, the poisoner of all social life, the destroyer of all justice between man and man. Again and again in this book is censure passed upon this unpardonable crime.
7. Finally, as the blessing of Heaven descends on the peacemaker, so the hatred of God assails the man who sows discord among brethren.
Such is the character which God abominates, the character which binds itself with cords of penalty and falls into irretrievable ruin. And then, after this disquisition on some of the vices which destroy the individual life and disturb society, our author turns again to that snaring vice which is so much the more destructive because it comes under the guise, not of hate, but of love. Those other vices after all bear their evil on their faces, but this is veiled and enchanted with a thousand possible sophistries; it pleads the instincts of nature, the fascinations of beauty, the faults of the present social state, and even advances the august precepts of science. Surely in a way where such a danger lurks we need a commandment which will shine as a lamp, a law which will be itself a light (Pro_6:23).
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 On v1 Pro_6:1. With a stranger, rather, “for” a stranger.
CRITICAL NOTES,—
Pro_6:1. With a stranger, rather, “for” a stranger.
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Pro_6:3. When thou art come, rather, “for thou hast come.” Humble thyself, literally “let thyself be trodden under foot.” Make sure, “importune,” “urge.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH—Pro_6:1-5
SELF-IMPOSED BONDAGE
I. Man’s highest glory may become the chief instrument of his trouble. The human tongue, or rather the power of speech, is a gift that stands preeminent among the good gifts of God to His creatures. It is man’s most potent instrument of good or evil. The tongue of the statesman, when used wisely, may bring blessings on millions, but when it is made the tool of ambition it may entail misery upon generations. The tongue of a Christian, when used wisely, may be the means of bringing others into the way of life, but his unguarded words may be a stumbling-block in the way of many. The warning of the text reminds us that when the tongue is not kept in check by reason and consideration the glory becomes the means of ensnaring the whole man. The horse is a most useful servant to man, but the creature must be under proper control or he may be the means of inflicting the most serious injury upon his rider. If the rudder of a vessel is left to the guidance of the waves, the vessel is very likely to find herself upon the rocks. So with the tongue of man, it must be under the control of reason or it may bring its owner into danger and disgrace. When a man binds himself by solemn promises to a stranger of whose character he must be ignorant, he is very likely to involve himself and those dependent on him in much trouble, and perhaps in dishonour. A promise hastily made without due consideration of the consequences has often entailed upon a man years of suffering.
II. The same instrument which, thoughtlessly used, brings a man into a snare, may, when rightly guided, be the means of his deliverance. The promise made by Herod to Herodias (Mat_14:7) was one which ought never to have been made. The king was ensnared by allowing his tongue to utter rash words, of which even he upon reflection repented. In his case, without doubt, it would have been a much less sin to have broken his promise than to keep it. But in the case before us, the advice given by Solomon to his pupil is, not to break his word, but to use the same instrument by which he bound himself, to obtain, if possible, a release. This he is to do—
1. By means purely moral. There are other means which a man might try. He might use threatening; he might employ falsehood; but these would be sinful. The only lawful means are those here implied, viz., words of persuasion and entreaty.
2. Without delay. He must endeavour to rectify his error at once; every day that passes over his head may be bringing nearer the day when he may be called upon to redeem his promise, and so he is to give “no sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids.
III. This advice is to be followed as a matter of duty. The man who has acted imprudently is bound to endeavour to deliver himself by lawful means. He is not to allow pride to hinder him (Pro_6:3). He is bound to try and prevent his life from being marred in the future—perhaps to its very close. For a man who is fettered by a promise which ought never to have been made, is like a creature born to enjoy freedom who has been taken captive by the hunter or the fowler. And as it is more than lawful for the roe or the bird (Pro_6:5) to try to regain its freedom, so is it the duty of man to use all right means to the same end.
ILLLUSTRATION OF Pro_6:1
The custom of striking hands at the conclusion of a bargain has maintained its ground among the customs of civilised nations down to the present time. To strike hands with another was the emblem of agreement among the Greeks under the walls of Troy, for Nestor complains, in a public assembly of the chiefs, that the Trojans had violated the engagements which they had sanctioned by libations of wine and by giving their right hands. (Iliad, Book II. i. 341, see also Book IV. i. 139). The Roman faith was plighted in the same way; for in Virgil, when Dido marked from her watch-towers the Trojan fleet setting forward with balanced sails, she exclaimed, “Is this the honour, the faith, En dextra fidesque?” Another striking instance is quoted by Calmet from Ockley’s History of the Saracens. Telha, just before he died, asked one of Ali’s men if he belonged to the Emperor of the Faithful, and being informed that he did, “Give me, then,” said he, “your hand, that I may put mine into it, and by this action renew the oath of fidelity I have already made to him.” (Calmet, vol. iii). See also Job_17:3; 2Ki_10:15.—Paxton’s Illustrations of Scripture.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Pro_6:1. The two characters are carefully distinguished.
1. The companion, on whose behalf the young man pledges himself.
2. The stranger, probably the Phœnician money-lender, to whom he makes himself responsible. Plumptre.
God graciously directs our temporal affairs by His providence, and condescends, in His word, to give us instructions concerning them. If we regard not these, we need not be surprised though His providence convince us, by dear-bought experience, of our folly and sin.—Lawson.
The son has just been warned against the deadly wound of a stranger. He is now cautioned against a hurt from an imprudent friend.… Our God, while he warns us against suretyship, has taken it upon Himself. He has given His word, His bond—yea, His blood—for sinners: a security that no powers of hell can shake.—Bridges.
Solomon, on different occasions, condemns the practice of suretyship. The condemnation is general. It does not follow, however, that what he says is to be taken as an unqualified prohibition, to which there are no circumstances that can constitute an exception.… There are cases in which it is unavoidable; and there are cases in which the law requires it; and there are cases in which it is not only in consistency with law, but required by all the claims of prudence, justice, and charity. These, however, are rare. And it may be laid down as a maxim regarding the transactions of business, and all the mutual dealings of man with man, that the less of it the better. In such cases as the following, it is manifestly inadmissible, and may even, in some instances, involve a large amount of moral turpitude.
I. It is wrong for a man to come under engagements that are beyond his actually existing means. Such a course is one not merely of imprudence, but there is in it a threefold injustice. First, to the creditor for whom he becomes surety. Secondly, to his family, if he has one, to whom the requisition of payment must bring distress and ruin. Thirdly, to those who give him credit in his own transactions, with the risks of his own trade.
II. The same observations are applicable to the making of engagements with inconsideration and rashness. The case here supposed is evidently that of suretyship for a friend to a stranger. And the rashness may be viewed either in relation to the person or to the case.—Wardlaw.
It may at first excite surprise that Solomon should have thought it needful to dwell so much as he does in the Proverbs on the evil of suretyship (Pro_11:15; Pro_17:18; Pro_20:16; Pro_22:26; Pro_27:13), and that in his lessons of moral prudence he should assign the first place to cautions against it. The reason is probably to be found in the peculiar circumstances under which the Proverbs were written, and the special design of the author in writing them; although, doubtless, Solomon had a general and universal purpose in composing them, and the Holy Spirit, who employed his instrumentality in the work, looked far beyond Solomon and his times, and extended his view to all ages and nations of the world.… But the occasion which gave rise to the writing of the Proverbs was a personal and national one. Many strangers resorted to Jerusalem in the days of Solomon from all parts of the civilised world, for the purpose of commerce and trade. Borrowing and lending money was much in vogue; and many shrewd and crafty adventurers speculated on the credulity of rich capitalists. Solomon addresses his son Rehoboam (Pro_6:3). He was born before his father’s accession to the throne, and Solomon reigned forty years. We hear nothing of him until his ripe maturity, and then we are told of an act of egregious folly. It was evident he was just the person to be the dupe of licentious spendthrifts and griping usurers. The courtly parasite who desired to find means for paying his own debts, or indulging his own vices, and the avaricious moneylender, would find a victim in the princely heir to the throne, whom they would flatter with eulogies on his generosity, and would puff up with proud notions of the exhaustless wealth to which he was the aspirant.—Wordsworth.
Pro_6:2. In the passage before us the warning is not so much against suretyship in general as merely against the imprudent assumption of such obligations, leaving out of account the moral unreliableness of the man involved; and the counsel is to the quickest possible release from every obligation of this kind that may have been hastily assumed. With the admonitions of our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount, to be ready at all times for the lending and giving away of one’s property, even in cases where one cannot hope for the recovery of what has been given out (Luk_6:30-36 : comp. with 1Co_6:7), this demand is not in conflict. For Christ also plainly demands no such readiness to suffer loss on account of our neighbour, as would deprive us of personal liberty, and rob us of all means of further beneficence.—Lange’s Commentary.
For bills and obligations do mancipate the most free and ingenuous spirit, and so put a man out of aim that he can neither serve God without distraction nor do good to others, nor set his own state in any good order, but lives and dies entangled and puzzled with cares and snares; and after a tedious and laborious life passed in a circle of fretting thoughts, he leaves at last, instead of better patrimony, a world of intricate troubles to his posterity, who are also taken “with the words of his mouth.”—Trapp.
Pro_6:3. This appeal is not, obviously, to the bond-giver, who has seduced us to endorse him, and is as helpless as we to get anybody off; but the bond-holder; and the great remedy, therefore, for a securityship is to beg off in the most unspeakable abjectness, and to press and to urge the creditor to release our name. Now, I say, this is not simpliciter, the gist of the inspiration. But if we introduce the Gospel; if we see in this a great picture of our guilt; if we see in the bond-holder the Friend to whom we are to appeal; if we see in the bond-giver sin in all the seductive forms in which it has come down to us from the original transgressor; if the grip of the suretyship is the law, and the form of the law is the broken covenant; if the act of our “striking hands” is the way we have accepted the curse of Adam, and the way we have volunteered under this stranger’s burdens, then the whole passage becomes complete, and we are ready for the appeal, “Go, humble thyself,” &c. That is the very Gospel.—Miller.
St. Gregory, Bede, and other ancient expositors, apply these injunctions in a spiritual sense. “To be a surety for a friend is to take upon thee the charge of looking to another’s soul,” says St. Gregory, who also, reading the latter clause of this verse in the sense of “urging” and “importuning” (see Critical Notes), explains it thus: “Whosoever is set before others for an example of their living is admonished, not only to watch himself, but to rouse up his friend: for it sufficeth not that he doth watch well, if he do not rouse him also over whom he is set from the drowsiness of sin.
Verse.
4. Has this precept any connection with our spiritual interests? It has. It is a part of the eighth commandment, and though men regard it rather as a loss than as a Sin to endanger their outward estate, it is both a sin and a temptation. Men who once seemed upright in their dealings have brought reproach upon religion by living and dying in other men’s debt, and by having recourse to unjustifiable methods, suggested by distress, to relieve themselves. The effect of suretyship, even with the most upright men, has often proved hurtful to their souls, embittering their days, and unfitting them for the cheerful service of religion. We are the servants of Christ, and must not disqualify ourselves for His service by making ourselves needlessly the servants of men.—Lawson.
Pro_6:5. It is evident, however, that the language implies, If, with all your efforts, you are unsuccessful in obtaining your discharge you must stand to your engagement. Treachery would be a much greater loss in character.—Wardlaw.
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.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 (with Psa 119:105)
Pro 6:23
(with Psa 119:105)
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The Divine lamp is:—
I. A light on the path. The best path in the world would be of no use without light enough to see our way. If we cannot have daylight, we shall be glad of moonlight; and if the night be dark and moonless, we shall want lamplight. What a glorious lamp you would have if it were possible to get a spark of the sun itself, and put that into your lantern! Even such a lamp is the Bible.
II. A light upon the past. The Bible shows us how man began his journey, created in the image of God, and happy in loving and obeying God. It shows us his first wrong step, and how one wrong act opened the door of sin and misery and death. Thus the word of God is—
III. A warning light. It is God’s lighthouse, to warn us off the treacherous rocks of sin, on which we are in danger of being wrecked. It is God’s beacon-light warning us to be on our guard against the assaults of temptation, and the power and craft of that great enemy of our souls, from whom we can be safe only when we put on the whole armour of God.
IV. A saving light.
V. A light for every step.
E. R. Conder, Drops and Rocks, p. 149.
Pro 6:27-28
These words contain an important principle of general application to every sin—the impossibility for a man to play with the enticement to sin without falling a prey thereto. The truth of the statement will appear if we take into consideration the following things:—
I. That every temptation presented to man addresses itself to a nature that is already corrupt, and is therefore liable to take to it.
II. That man in playing with the temptation puts himself directly in the way that leads naturally to the sin.
III. That playing with the temptation to any evil shows some degree of bias in the nature to that particular evil.
IV. That playing with temptation brings man into contact with sin only on its pleasurable side, and thus gives it an advantage to make an impression favourable to itself on his mind.
V. That man, through playing with temptation, weakens his moral power to resist the sin, and gradually gets so debilitated as to be too weak to oppose it.
VI. That man, by playing with temptation, at last tempts the Spirit of God to withdraw His protection from him, and to leave him to himself, and a prey to his lust.
O. Thomas, The Welsh Pulpit of Today, p. 68.
References: Pro 6:28.—E. R. Conder, Drops and Rocks, p. 149. 6—Parker, Pulpit Analyst, vol. i., p. 541.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Dissuasives from Hurtful things
Dissuasives from Hurtful things
Pro_6:1-19 are inserted here from some other collection, and contain warnings against suretyships (1-5), sloth (6-11), falseness (12-15), evils which the Lordhates (16-19). At Pro_6:20 the thread of Proverbs 5 is resumed.
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1. The surety appears to have taken the creditor's hand in the presence of witnesses: cp. 2Ki_10:15.
3. Read, 'Seeing thou art come into the hand of thy neighbour, go, bestir thyself, and beset thy neighbour. Make haste to get out of his power' (Mat_5:25).
7. Ants really have an elaborately organised society: in some species there is a king and queen; others keep slaves.
11. One that travelleth] RV 'a robber.' The roads were insecure, as English ones were in the times when 'highwayman' meant 'robber.'
13. Cp. the Arab's prayer: 'O God, pardon us the culpable winking of the eyes.' Here the winking, etc., are signals to confederates.
16. A proud look] lit. 'haughty eyes' (RV): see our word 'supercilious,' from supercilium= the eyebrow.
25. The beauty of an Eastern woman's eyes is enhanced by being painted round with kohl in the shape of an almond.
26. A harlot brings him down to a loaf of bread, to extreme poverty; an adulteress will involve his in utter ruin.
30. The OT. never treats theft leniently. Read, 'Do not men despise,' etc. Yes! and much more an adulterer.
31. In divers cases twofold, fourfold, fivefold restitution was prescribed (Exodus 22, etc.): sevenfold means very great (Gen_4:15).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The surety (Pro 6:1-5)
CHAPTER 6
1. The surety (Pro 6:1-5)
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2. The sluggard (Pro 6:6-11)
3. The naughty, good-for-nothing person (Pro 6:12-19)
4. The strange woman (Pro 6:20-35)
Pro 6:1-5. These are instructions concerning contracts, in being surety for a neighbor and the danger connected with it.
Pro 6:6-11. The sluggard is commanded to go to the ant for a lesson. (See also Pro 30:25.) The ant is a marvellous little creature. That which modern science has found out by close observation of the life of this little insect is here tersely stated by the words of the Lord, the Creator. They swarm in the woods and in the fields; they work day and night; they capture, train and nourish aphides, which they use as a kind of slave. They build vast and symmetrical mounds, which they use as homes and barns, and which are, relatively to the size of the tiny builders, three times larger than the Egyptian pyramids. They march and labor in unison, have their own wars, nourish their sick, and all is done without a chief, an overseer or a ruler. Yet man with a higher intelligence and a higher work to do can be a sluggard.
Pro 6:12-19. The description of the sluggard is followed by that of a worthless person. It is a son of Belial (the term used in the Hebrew) whose picture is drawn. He is a naughty person, a good-for-nothing, a man of iniquity; he has a lying mouth. A minute description of his way and work is given; everywhere he makes mischief and causeth division. But suddenly there comes the calamity upon him. He shall be broken and that without remedy. Such is the way of the man who despiseth wisdom, follows his old nature and plunges ultimately into the outer darkness. Finally there will yet appear “the man of sin,” that wicked one, in whom all these evils will culminate and he shall suddenly be broken without remedy. (See Dan 11:45.) We do well to read carefully the six things which the Lord hateth (Pro 6:16-19).
Pro 6:20-35. The words of the Lord, the commandment and the law as stated here, are of unspeakably great importance. They are to be in the heart and about the neck.
When thou walkest, it shall lead thee;
When thou steepest, it shall watch over thee;
And when thou wakest, it shall talk with thee.
They are a lamp and a light; they are the way of life. Then follows another description of the evil woman, a warning not to lust after her beauty nor to be taken by her eyelids. These oriental women painted their faces; by plucking their eyebrows they made them almond-shaped. Alas! that in the society of the twentieth century the women and girls of a so-called Christian civilization should do the same thing, and we fear, for the same purpose as the whorish woman described in this chapter.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Warning Against Foolish Suretyship, Idleness, and Malice
Warning Against Foolish Suretyship, Idleness, and Malice
v. 1. My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, pledging himself or giving security for the debts of another, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, giving his hand to any neighbor in need, to any debtor as a sign of binding oneself for his debts, Job 17:3,
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v. 2. thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, or, "if thou art entangled with the sayings of thy mouth," thou art taken, held captive, with the words of thy mouth, held to his promise, this referring to the situation arising when the debtor finds himself unable to meet his obligations.
v. 3. Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, tearing himself loose from the entanglement, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend, or, "since thou hast come into the hand of thy neighbor," this being the unfortunate consequence of the pledge lightly given. Go, humble thyself, rather, "stamp with thy foot," in an emphatic demand, and make sure thy friend, importuning him with great earnestness to fulfill his obligations, to tend to the payment of the debt before it is too late.
v. 4. Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids, the most strenuous, ceaseless endeavors being demanded by the situation.
v. 5. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, literally, "from his," the debtor’s, "hand," bending every effort, with anxiety and exertion, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. Prompt and energetic action will be necessary to avoid serious trouble. The author now sets forth the kind of person who is most apt to require surety, the connection of thought probably being this, that the man who went security might be considered as speaking to the lazy debtor in this manner:
v. 6. Go to the ant, the proverbial emblem of industry, thou sluggard; consider her ways, carefully observing how she makes provision for herself, and be wise, learning wisdom from the irrational insect;
v. 7. which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, none of the officials who were and are required in Oriental countries to oversee the average workman,
v. 8. provideth her meat, her winter’s supply of food, in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest, in the heat of late summer, storing it away carefully for the time of need.
v. 9. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? lying abed in laziness. When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? And now the conduct of the lazy is graphically described,
v. 10. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, an ironical imitation of the sigh of the sluggard, a little folding of the hands to sleep! But what is the result?
v. 11. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, not merely a vagrant, but a footpad, and thy want as an armed man, one armed with a shield, prepared for both offense and defense, so that the sluggard is overwhelmed before he has seriously thought of warding off danger. The mention of the footpad, or robber, now results in the description of violent and malicious men.
v. 12. A naughty person, morally worthless, a wicked man, the heedless man being a vile deceiver, walketh with a froward mouth, exercising himself in perverseness of speech, so addicted to malicious falsehood that he is a stranger to truth.
v. 13. He winketh with his eyes, as a signal to his companions to join him in some act of malice, he speaketh with his feet, giving signs with a similar intention, he teacheth with his fingers, hinting with them in a form of sign language understood by his fellows;
v. 14. frowardness is in his heart, malicious plans of every description, he deviseth mischief continually, in agreement with his wicked nature; he soweth discord, throwing out matters of dispute, stirring up strife, fomenting quarrels.
v. 15. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly, a crushing weight of destruction overtaking him before he is aware of it; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy, without a chance to escape, when the measure of his sins is full. In this connection the author enumerates some of the things which challenge the punishment of the Lord.
v. 16. These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto Him, He regards them all with loathing and abhorrence:
v. 17. a proud look, a haughty and supercilious behavior, a lying tongue, the organ of speech being named here for the false person, and hands that shed innocent blood, Cf Isa 59:7,
v. 18. an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, always planning mischief, feet that be swift in running to mischief, unable to restrain their eagerness for every form of wickedness,
v. 19. a false witness that speaketh lies, literally, "breatheth out lies," since he is addicted to that habit, and he that soweth discord among brethren, turning friends and relatives against one another. Against all these sins the inspired writer warns the believers of all times, since Satan, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
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 On vv1, 3, 4 set aside your money
set aside your money
Implied here is that your promise and the circumstances forced you to save up your money. AT: "had to save up some of your money" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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a guarantee for your neighbor's loan
Possible meanings are 1) your neighbor may come to you to ask for a loan or 2) your neighbor wants to take out a loan from someone else, but you promise to pay the lender back if your neighbor cannot.
neighbor
This same Hebrew word can also mean "friend."
you have laid a trap for yourself
This is a figure of speech saying that you are going to trap yourself. AT: "you have made a trap in which you yourself are caught" (See: Idiom)
the words of your mouth
"what you said" or "what you promised to do"
translationWords
neighbor
promise
word
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 On vv1, 3 6:1-5 To secure the debt of another person is…
6:1-5 To secure the debt of another person is to guarantee it with one’s own possessions. Whether to earn a friend’s goodwill or to turn a profit from a stranger (cp. Exod 22:25; Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20), the risk is too great to take; it could lead to financial ruin. This message is repeated in Prov 11:15; 17:18; 20:16; 22:26; 27:13.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.