Proverbs 14:7-9

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Proverbs 14:8. Deceit, or “deception.”

Proverbs 14:9. Many translators read this verse, “The sacrifice,” or “the sin-offering, makes a sport of,” or “mocks fools.” So Zöckler, Elster, Ewald, Stuart, Wordsworth, etc. Miller translates, “Sin makes a mock at fools.” Among, or “to.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 14:7

THE FOOL AND THE PRUDENT MAN

I. How to know a fool. The dead carcase that is above ground is its own evidence. No one needs to inquire what it is, or where it is. The pestilential atmosphere which surrounds it tells its own tale. So a fool is a self-evidencing person. His words proclaim his character. He says nothing that is worth saying. Nothing that can enlighten a man’s mind or better his nature is to be found in his conversation. “The lips of knowledge” are not with him. But there is not simply the absence of wisdom. He is not a negative character. No man’s soul can remain like an empty house; if wisdom is absent sin comes in and takes up its abode. The fool is also a knave. “The folly of fools is deceit,” and in this also he will sooner or later be his own evidence. Like particles of poisonous matter, his deceit, as well as his ignorance, will make its presence known. His words will sooner or later betray his untruthful character. He will also be known by his profanity. “Fools make a mock at sin.” The most perfect beings in God’s universe regard sin as a serious matter, knowing, as they do, the bitter fruits which spring from one sinful action. God Himself treats sin as a terrible and awful reality. Yet men are to be found who make light of it, and others so depraved as to laugh at that which God regards with abhorrence, and visits with retribution.

II. How to treat a fool. “Go from the presence of a foolish man.” There are three reasons why we go from the neighbourhood of a polluted and polluting carcase. First, its odour is offensive to us. Secondly, to linger near may generate disease in our bodies. Thirdly, being diseased ourselves, we may become an occasion of injury to others. So a man void of moral wisdom ought to be an offensive presence to every man. Our moral instincts ought to be strong enough without any outside voice to say, “Go from him.” The “folly of a fool,” being deceit, he is an incarnation of the devil; our own self-love should prompt us to quit his society. The man that mocks at sin is a generator of moral disease, we cannot be in his company without moral injury, and if we catch the pestilence ourselves we shall in turn infect others with the disease.

III. What constitutes a prudent or morally wise man. He “understands his way.” A fool cannot be said to have a way or method of life any more than the leaf which is driven before the wind, or the timber that is floating down the rapid. Like them, he is the victim of circumstances; he is driven hither and thither by the currents of inclination or passion. He has no “way” to understand. He is as a cloud driven before the hurricane. He floats like a rudderless vessel upon the sea of life. But a prudent man has a “way,” or method of life (see Homiletics on chap. Proverbs 13:14), and the great business of his life is to “understand” it—to find the best means of bringing his life into conformity with that rule of righteousness which is his standard of life; to gather from the voice of God in revelation, in conscience, and in Providence what course he is to pursue, what at all times is the right thing to do, and what is the right way of doing it. This is the life-study of the man who is morally prudent, and the highest aim that a man can propose to himself is to attain to a right understanding of his way. (On the latter clause of Proverbs 14:9 see Homiletics on chap. Proverbs 13:14).

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

Proverbs 14:7. The path of sin is much more easily avoided than relinquished. We can far more easily keep out of the course of the stream than stem the torrent—Bridges.

Thou mayest tarry with a foolish man while he holdeth his peace, and while he is willing and patient to hear thee. For he may get knowledge by hearing, and thou mayest have comfort by speaking. But it is time to be gone when by his lips thou perceivest knowledge to be gone from them.—Jermin.

In nature, some creatures are strong and bold, having both instincts and intruments for combat: other creatures are feeble but fleet. It is the intention of their Maker that they should seek safety, not in fighting, but in fleeing. It would be a fatal mistake if the hare, in a fit of bravery, should turn and face her pursuers. In the moral conflict of human life it is of great importance to judge rightly when we should fight and when we should flee. The weak might escape if they knew their own weakness, and kept out of harm’s way. That courage is not a virtue which carries the feeble into the lion’s jaws. I have known of some who ventured too far with the benevolent purpose of bringing a victim out, and were themselves sucked in and swallowed up. To go in among the foolish for the rescue of the sinking may be necessary, but it is dangerous work, and demands robust workmen … The specific instruction recorded in Scripture for such a case is, “save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted with the flesh” (Jude 1:23). He who would volunteer for this work must fear lest the victim perish ere he get him dragged out, and fear lest himself be scorched by the flame.—Arnot.

Proverbs 14:8. We are not to infer, because “wisdom” eludes the scorner, that it is, therefore, something mystic. It fits earth so closely, that it actually carves our “way.” Nay, more closely still, it is actually path-finding itself. She takes a man from her very gate, and tells him all that he must do. She not only discerns paths, but that is all of her; she does nothing else. “The wisdom of the subtle is the making discernible of his way,” while, on the other hand, “the folly of the stupid is (its own) delusion.” All of us having a way, and all of us following it with the great energy of our lives, “the excellency and knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.” Wisdom grasps its end; folly never. Wisdom is the great pathfinder; folly a “delusion.”—Miller.

Every man has a final destination before him. The way of all is the way to the grave, and to eternity. But in that eternity are two widely different states. To the opposite states there are two ways—“the narrow,” and “the broad.” Oh the infinite value of true wisdom here,—the wisdom that understands both ways, and rightly chooses between! The folly of fools is deceit may mean that the folly of fools proves to them deceit. Their confidence in it, and their expectations from it, are sheer delusion. Or the sense may be, “deceit is the folly of fools.” “New stratagems,” says Lord Bacon, “must be devised, the old failing and growing useless; and as soon as ever a man hath got the name of a cunning crafty companion, he hath deprived himself utterly of the principal instrument for the management of his affairs,—which is trust.” Policy, therefore, on this as on other accounts, is “the folly of fools.—Wardlaw.

When men are acquainted with everything but what they ought to know, they are only notable fools. If we had hearts large as the sands upon the sea-shore, and filled with a world of things, whilst we remained ignorant of the way of attaining true happiness, we should resemble that philosopher who was busied gazing at the moon till he fell into the ditch.… They are fools who know other people’s business better than their own. Some people, if you will take their own word for it, could reign better than the king and preach better than the minister. They know, in short, how to manage in every condition but their own.—Lawson.

Religion is an orderly thing, as wise as it is warm. Whatever be the excitement of an irregular course, more good is done by steady consistency. To break the ranks in disorder, to be eager to understand our neighbour’s way (John 21:21), obscures the light upon our own. The true wisdom is to understand what belongs to us personally and relatively (1 Kings 3:6; Ecclesiastes 8:5). “As God hath distributed to every man, so let him walk, and abide with God” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Let the eye do the work of the eye, and the hand of the hand. If Moses prayed in the mount, and Joshua fought in the valley (Exodus 17:10), it was not because one was deficient in courage, and the other in prayer; but because each had his appointed work, and understood his own way.—Bridges.

Every one that goeth on in the right way doth not understand his way. Hence it is that many so often wander out of it, hence that so easily they are drawn from it. But he that is prudent looketh into his way, considereth the dangers of it, provideth himself against the enemies that he shall or may meet with, and being well assured of the righteousness of the way, he goeth on with confidence and safety. And this is the wisdom of the prudent, this proves him to be wise.… Again, the folly of fools, though it be folly in themselves, it is deceit to the devil, who maketh them to think that to be the right way, wherein they are clean out of the way.—Jermin.

Proverbs 14:9. The word here used signifieth both the fault and the guilt of it, whereby the offender is liable unto wrath and punishment. For they being firmly joined together, the Hebrew joineth them in the same word. Notwithstanding fools not finding the scourge of sin tied immediately unto the act committed, as if they were mocked when they are told of punishment to come, they make a mock at it. The favour, therefore, which the righteous show them is quickly to make them feel the rod of justice. For while they punish the offence they show great love to the offender, not only in stopping the course of his sinning, which is the stopping the increase of his misery, but it may be also working his amendment, which is the salvation of his soul.—Jermin.

The idea of sacrificial offering is that of expiation (see Critical Notes for the renderings of the word translated sin): it is a penitential work, it falls under the prevailing point of view of an ecclesiastical punishment, a satisfaction in a church-disciplinary sense. The forgiveness of sin is conditioned by this,

(1) that the sinner either abundantly makes good by restitution the injury inflicted on another, or in some other way bears temporal punishment for it, and
(2) that he willingly presents the sacrifice of rams or of sheep, the value of which the priest has to determine in its relation to the offence. Fools fall from one offence to another, which they have to atone for by the presentation of sacrificial offerings; the sacrificial offering mocketh them, for it equally derides them on account of the self-inflicted loss, and on account of the efforts with which they must make good the effects of their frivolity and madness; while on the contrary, among men of upright character, a relation of mutual favour prevails, which does not permit that the one give to the other an indemnity, and apply the trespass-offering. Delitzsch.

“Sin makes a mock at fools; but between upright beings there is favour.” Not makes sport, as a fool might, of engaging in his sins. A fool may make sport of sin, but hardly could be said to make a mock at it. “Sin makes a mock at fools,” but between “upright beings,” or “among the righteous,” we cannot conceive of any mockery. The upright God, and the upright saint; the upright saint and the upright Saviour; grace and judgment; faith, and the scenes of the last day; between these there must be goodwill, i.e., mutual delight and favour. So 1 John 4:17, “Herein does the love gain its end between us (that is, between God and us; see Proverbs 14:16), that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world,” etc.—Miller.

Among the righteous is favour; that is to say, the practice of virtue and uttering of gracious speeches, joined with such goodwill and sweet joy as that their, meeting is like the precious ointment that was poured on the head of Aaron.—Muffet.

The conduct of the man who makes a mock at sin involves—

1. Impiety. To mock at sin is to despise God’s holiness, set at nought God’s authority, to abuse God’s goodness, to disregard and slight God’s glory.

2. Cruelty. The scoffer may pretend to humanity, but there breathes not on earth a more iron-hearted monster. He may profess to feel for the miseries of mankind; for the ravages of disease and death over their bodies; of fire, and flood, and storm over their means of life and comfort; of melancholy, and idiotcy, and madness over their minds. But he makes a mock at the prolific cause of all. There is not an ill that man is called upon to suffer that does not owe its origin to sin. Like the “star called wormwood” in the Apocalyptic vision, it has fallen on every “fountain and river” of human joy, turning all their waters into bitterness. It is the sting of conscience. It is the venom and barb of the darts of the King of Terrors. It is the very life of the “worm that dieth not.” Oh! the miserably-mistaken flattery that can speak of the kind-heartedness of the man who laughs at that which is the embryo-germ of all the sufferings of time, and all the woes of eternity.

3. Infatuation. Sin is the evil that is ruining the sinner himself—the disease that is preying upon his own vitals—the secret consuming fire that is wasting his eternal all. Yet the deluded victim of its power makes a jest of it!—Wardlaw.

Some men are so like their father, the devil, that they will tempt men to sin that they may laugh at them.—Lawson.

To complete the antithesis, the sense must be supplied, fools make a mock at sin (and so incur the wrath of God); but (the righteous regard sin as a serious offence), and therefore among the righteous there is the favour of God.—Fausset.

The fool’s sport—sin.

1. Sin, which is so contrary to goodness that it is abhorred of those sparks and cinders which the rust of sin hath not quite eaten out of our nature as the creation left it.

2. Sin, which sensibly brings on present judgments, or if not, is the more fearful. The less it receives here, the more is behind.

3. Sin, that shall at last be laid heavy on the conscience: the lighter the burden was at first, it shall be at last the more ponderous. The wicked conscience may for awhile lie asleep, but this calm is the greatest storm.

4. Sin, which provokes God to anger.

5. Sin, which was punished even in heaven.

6. Sin, which God so loathed that he could not save men because of it, except by the death of His own Son. Oh, think if ever man felt sorrow like Him, or if He felt any sorrow except for sin. Did the pressure of it lie so heavy upon the Son of God, and doth a son of man make light of it? Thou mockest at thy oppressions, oaths, frauds; for these He groaned. Thou scornest His gospel preached; He wept for thy scorn. Thou knowest not, O fool, the price of sin; thou must do, if thy Saviour did not for thee. If He suffered not this for thee, thou must suffer it for thyself.—T. Adams.

They dance with the devil all day, and yet think to sup with Christ. Their sweet meat must have sour sauce, but among the righteous, though they sin of infirmity, yet forasmuch as they are sensible of and sorrowful for their failings, and see them to confession, God will never see them to their confusion.—Trapp.