WHEN THOU SITTEST TO EAT WITH A RULER, &C.— There are two evils to be avoided at the tables of the great: the one is, too much talking; the other, too much eating: the wise man exhorts his disciple to avoid both the one and the other by the phrase, _put a knife to thy throat;_ "Repress your appetite... [ Continue Reading ]
LABOUR NOT TO BE RICH— In this admonition against covetousness, the wise man neither forbids all labour, nor a provident care, which he commends in other places; but only represents how vain it is to be over-solicitous, and to leave no thoughts or strength for any thing else: for so the first word i... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR SURELY THERE IS AN END— Hebrew אחרית _acherith, a future state._ This is one of the places where some have rendered _acherith_ by _a reward,_ and Le Clerc among the rest. But to limit the reward to this world, as that learned critic every where does, is to make a sort of new world of the present... [ Continue Reading ]
BE NOT AMONGST WINE-BIBBERS, &C.— See the note on chap. Proverbs 15:17. The wise man almost throughout this whole chapter gives his disciple precepts respecting meals. First, he tells him of the manner in which he ought to conduct himself in eating with princes; he then cautions him to avoid the tab... [ Continue Reading ]
MY SON, GIVE ME THINE HEART, &C.— The _heart_ was esteemed by the ancients the seat of the affections: accordingly, Solomon may be understood as calling upon his disciple to embrace his dictates with the warmest affection, and to reduce them to practice without exception. See Dr. Chandler, and Archb... [ Continue Reading ]
A WHORE IS A DEEP DITCH— See the note on chap. Proverbs 22:14.... [ Continue Reading ]
LOOK NOT THOU UPON THE WINE, &C.— Red wine is more esteemed in the east than white; and we are told in the travels of Olearius, that it is customary with the Armenian Christians in Persia, to put Brazil wood or saffron into their wine, to give it a _higher colour,_ when the wine is not so _red_ as t... [ Continue Reading ]
AT THE LAST IT BITETH, &C.— "Remember that the pleasure will be attended at last with intolerable pains when it works like so much poison in thy veins, and casts thee into troubles as keen, and diseases as difficult to cure, as the biting of a serpent, or the stinging of a _basilisk;"_ (for so the l... [ Continue Reading ]
AS HE THAT LIETH UPON THE TOP OF A MAST— The Vulgate renders this, _And as the sleeping pilot, having lost his helm:_ but our translation, which is agreeable to the Hebrew, is by far the strongest and most expressive.... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY HAVE STRICKEN ME, &C.— _They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I did not see it; they have beaten me, and I did not know them: when will it be that I shall awake, and again return to my wine?_ Houbigant.... [ Continue Reading ]