Proverbs 6:1

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 (Exodus 22:25-27; Leviticus 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 (Proverbs 6:1-5; Proverbs 11:15; Proverbs 17:18; Proverbs 20:16; Proverbs 22:26-27; Proverbs 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.

In all these places the LXX. use ἐγγυᾶσθαι, ἔγγυος, ἐγγύη (comp. Hebrews 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 Genesis 38:17-18; Genesis 38:20. It is employed by St Paul to denote the gift of the Spirit as the pledge or earnest of the future inheritance (2 Corinthians 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:5; Ephesians 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 (Proverbs 11:15; Proverbs 17:18; Proverbs 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; 1 Kings 3:18.