Proverbs 25:1
A new section. COPIED OUT - In the sense of a transfer from oral tradition to writing.... [ Continue Reading ]
A new section. COPIED OUT - In the sense of a transfer from oral tradition to writing.... [ Continue Reading ]
The earthly monarch might be, in some respects, the type of the heavenly, but here there is a marked contrast. The king presses further and further into all knowledge; God surrounds Himself as in “thick darkness,” and there are secrets unrevealed even after the fullest revelation.... [ Continue Reading ]
The other side of the thought of Proverbs 25:2. What the mind of God is to the searchers after knowledge, that the heart of the true and wise king is to those who try to guess its counsels.... [ Continue Reading ]
The interpretation of the proverb of Proverbs 25:4. The king himself, like the Lord whom he represents, is to sit as “a refiner of silver” Malachi 3:3.... [ Continue Reading ]
The pushing, boastful temper is, in the long run, suicidal. It is wiser as well as nobler to take the lower place at first in humility, than to take it afterward with shame. Compare Luke 14:8, which is one of the few instances in which our Lord’s teaching was fashioned, as to its outward form, upon... [ Continue Reading ]
The general meaning is: It is dangerous to plunge into litigation. At all times, there is the risk of failure, and, if we fail, of being at the mercy of an irritated adversary. Without the italics, the clause may be rendered, “lest thou do something (i. e., something humiliating and vexatious) at th... [ Continue Reading ]
An anticipation of the highest standard of ethical refinement Matthew 18:15, but with a difference. Here the motive is prudential, the risk of shame, the fear of the irretrievable infamy of the betrayer of secrets. In the teaching of Christ the precept rests upon the divine authority and the perfect... [ Continue Reading ]
APPLES OF GOLD - Probably the golden colored fruit set in baskets (i. e., chased vessels of open worked silver); so is a word spoken upon its wheels (i. e., moving quickly and quietly on its way). The proverb may have had its origin in some kingly gift to the son of David, the work of Tyrian artists... [ Continue Reading ]
The theme of this proverb being the same as that of Proverbs 25:11, its occurrence suggests the thought that rings used as ornaments for ears, or nose, or forehead, and other trinkets formed part of the works of art spoken of in the foregoing note, and that the king had something at once pointed and... [ Continue Reading ]
A picture of the growing luxury of the Solomonic period. The “snow in harvest” is not a shower of snow or hail, which would be terrifying and harmful rather than refreshing (compare 1 Samuel 12:17); but, rather, the snow of Lebanon or Hermon put into wine or other drink to make it more refreshing in... [ Continue Reading ]
The disappointment caused by him who promises much and performs little or nothing, is likened to the phenomena of an eastern climate; the drought of summer, the eager expectation of men who watch the rising clouds and the freshening breeze, the bitter disappointment when the breeze dies off, and the... [ Continue Reading ]
A SOFT TONGUE - Winning and gentle speech does what it seems at first least capable of doing; it overcomes obstacles which are as bones that the strongest jaws would fail to crush.... [ Continue Reading ]
HAST THOU FOUND HONEY? - Compare Judges 14:8; 1 Samuel 14:27. The precept extends to the pleasure of which honey is the symbol.... [ Continue Reading ]
Let thy foot be seldom in the house of thy friend, etc. Though thy visits were sweet as honey, he may soon learn to loathe them.... [ Continue Reading ]
MAUL - A heavy sledge hammer. The word is connected with “malleus:” its diminutive “mallet” is still in use.... [ Continue Reading ]
Stress is to be laid on the uselessness of the “broken tooth” and the “foot out of joint,” or tottering, rather than on the pain connected with them. The King James Version loses the emphasis and point of the Hebrew by inverting the original order, which is “a broken ... joint is confidence” etc.... [ Continue Reading ]
Examples of unwisdom and incongruity sharpen the point of the proverb. Pouring vinegar upon nitre or potash utterly spoils it. The effervescence caused by the mixture is perhaps taken as a type of the irritation produced by the “songs” sung out of season to a heavy heart. The verb rendered “taketh... [ Continue Reading ]
A precept reproduced by Paul Romans 12:20; the second clause of which seems at first sight to suggest a motive incompatible with a true charity. Leviticus 16:12 suggests an explanation. The high priest on the Day of Atonement was to take his censer, to fill it with “coals of fire,” and then to put t... [ Continue Reading ]
The marginal reading is far more accurate and gives a better sense. The northwest wind in Palestine commonly brings rain, and this was probably in the thought of the writer.... [ Continue Reading ]
Compare the Proverbs 21:9 note.... [ Continue Reading ]
The craving of wanderers for news from the home that they have left is as a consuming thirst, the news that quenches it as a refreshing fountain.... [ Continue Reading ]
FALLING DOWN BEFORE - i. e., Yielding and cringing. To see this instead of stedfastness, is as grievous as for the traveler to find the spring at which he hoped to quench his thirst turbid and defiled.... [ Continue Reading ]
SO FOR MEN ... - A difficult sentence, the text of which is probably defective. The words are not in the original. Many commentators render: so to search into weighty matters is itself a weight, i. e., people soon become satiated with it as with honey. Possibly a warning against an over-curious sear... [ Continue Reading ]