Proverbs 6 - Introduction

Discourse 6. The Naive, The Fool And The Scorner Illustrated. The First Addressed As ‘My Son' Is To Avoid Acting As A Security For Others, The Second Addressed As ‘You Sluggard', Is To Shake Off Laziness, And The Third Unaddressed, Is A Worthless Person And A Troublemaker (Proverbs 6:1).

The discourse opens in the usual way as addressed to ‘my son', but then takes a different course from previous ones. There is no opening appeal to obtain wisdom and understanding. This might suggest that all three are seen as being at fault. It can be seen as three calls on his ‘son' to avoid 1). acting as a security for another, 2). being lazy, and 3). being a troublemaker, a worthless person. On the other hand many would argue quite reasonably that ‘my son' only refers to the first subsection, and that the address in the second subsection is to ‘you sluggard', with the worthless man unaddressed as beyond appeal. This second subsection demonstrates that there is still hope for the person in question, (he can shake himself out of his laziness), but he is nevertheless seen as a layabout, and as not as coming under Solomon's instruction. The third is then not addressed because he is not seen as worthy of being so. He is seen as a hopeless case and simply used as an object lesson. This would tie in with the lack of an opening appeal to listen to wisdom and understanding. The worthless person would never listen to such an appeal.

There is a possible connection between the three subsections in that in the first the neighbour may, because he has been given a surety, slacken off his efforts and not work hard as he should, like the sluggard in the second subsection, or even deliberately renege on his obligations, ‘winking with his eye', like the worthless man in the third subsection (he may well ‘devise wicked imaginations' - Proverbs 6:18). Thus to act as surety for someone might have been seen as tempting them to become a sluggard or a worthless person. But it is far more likely that it was seen as something to be reprimanded, and as a foolish thing to do. The first and second subsections are also connected by the command to ‘go' (Proverbs 6:3 b, Proverbs 6:6), by the words ‘sleep' and ‘slumber' (Proverbs 6:4; Proverbs 6:10), and by the illustration drawn from nature (Proverbs 6:5). The three together are illustrations of the naive, the fool and the scorner (Proverbs 1:22). They exemplify those to whom wisdom speaks. All three are threatened with judgment coming on them, the first indirectly. The surety is living under the threat of judgment being brought against him, bringing him to bankruptcy and bondage; the sluggard is living under the threat of poverty; the troublemaker is living under the threat of being broken. It will be noted that for the first two there is hope. They can escape if they act wisely. For the third there is no hope. Calamity will come suddenly upon him (compare Proverbs 1:27).

The theme of poverty, threatening both the surety and the sluggard, and the calamity facing the worthless man, continue the same idea as is found in Proverbs 5:10.