Proverbs Chapter 29
Proverbs
Chapter 29
1. A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy. The intractable ox becomes stiff-necked as a result of the yoke being put on him. But being stiff-necked is an apt picture of the stubborn sinner casting off the restraints of God.
Such instances are frequent among the children of godly parents or the hearers of a faithful minister, when every means of grace is a solemn but despised rebuke. Aggravated sin makes the judgment of a righteous God more manifest. The more enlightened the conscience, the more stiff-necked the person becomes.
An alarming illness, a dangerous accident, or the death of a companion in wickedness is the rod and reproof that is intended to give wisdom (verse 15). But if the fool continues to despise all of God's rebukes, his destruction will be sudden and without remedy.
2. When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan. "The robes of honor to the righteous are the garments of gladness to the people. The scepter of authority to the godly is the staff of comfort to the people. On the other hand, the vestments of dignity to the wicked are the weeds that make the people groan. The throne of command to the one is the dungeon of misery to the other. The titles of honor given to the one are sighs and sorrows wrung from the other" (Jermin). What but righteousness can truly bless either an individual, a family, or a nation? "It is no peculiar conceit but a matter of sound consequence that all duties are so much the better performed by how much the men are more religious, from whose abilities the same proceed. For if the course of political affairs cannot in any good sort go forward without fit instruments, let polity acknowledge itself indebted to religion, godliness being the chiefest, top, and wellspring of all true virtue, even as God is of all good things." Thus admirably does our great Hooker insist that "religion, unfeignedly loved, perfects man's abilities to all kinds of virtuous services in the commonwealth."
What need we have to thank God that our guilty country, with so much to humble us in shame, should have been so long spared from the curse of the wicked ruler. The tyrant rules for his own sinful ends, the Christian sovereign for the good of the people.
3. A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth. The substance of this proverb has been given before (10:1; 15:20; 23:15, 24-25; 27:11; 28:7). Yet the variations are instructive. The wisdom is here more distinctly described as lov[ing] wisdom. For "he is wise not only who has arrived at a complete habit of wisdom, but who does love it or desire it and listen to it" (Basil). Let this be manifestly our great object, not as a good thing but the best, the principal thing.
4. By justice a king gives a country stability, but one who is greedy for bribes tears it down. The best laws are of little use when they are badly administered. Partiality and injustice make them null and void. And yet it requires great integrity and moral courage to withstand the temptations of worldly policy and self-interest. The article in our Magna Charta, "We will sell justice to none," is but too plain evidence of the recklessness of all social principles before the great standard was erected among us. Let men of God be in our high places, and righteousness will then exalt our nation, and our church will be the joy and praise of the whole earth.
5. Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet. Most wisely were Bunyan's pilgrims warned, "Beware of the flatterer." Yet, "forgetting to read the note of directions about the way," they fell into his net and, even though delivered, were justly punished for their folly. The doctrine of man's goodness, strength, or freedom; innocent infirmities; venial offenses; softening down the statements of man's total corruption; a general gospel without application; its promises and privileges without the balance of its trials and obligations—all this is frightful flattery. Unwary souls are misled.
Religious flattery is a common snare for the Christian. It may be natural, perhaps well-intentioned, to be willing to profit by more advanced experience and to inquire of a brother by what means he has been able to rise above the ordinary level and, indeed, to even express our envy at his superior knowledge, faith, or love. But all this tends to cherish self-complacency, the bane to that self-renouncing confidence in his Savior that is the clear characteristic of the faithful follower of his Lord. "Surely it is enough for us to have foes within and without to contend with, without having snares for our feet laid by our fellow pilgrims. Oh, it is a cruel thing to flatter. The soul is often more exhausted and injured by disentangling itself from these nets than by the hottest contest with principalities and powers. Those who have once known the torture the believer undergoes while this poison is pervading his soul, the bitter, lowering medicines he must take as antidotes, the frightful oblivion of lessons of humility that he has been studying for years, will, I think (unless much under the influence of the enemy of souls), not administer the noxious potion a second time" (Helen Plumptre).
6. An evil man is snared by his own sin, but a righteous one can sing and be glad. There is always a snare in the ways of sin, always a song in the ways of God. Sinner, think for a moment. What are the pleasures of sin compared to the pleasures of paradise? Remember, sin and ruin are bound together, and who can separate them?
Is it not worth pursuing this dishonorable evil to its sources, whether remote or close to hand? Are we incapacitated or only disinclined to sing? Seek a clearer exercise of faith, to rouse from indolence and to remove mistaken apprehensions. And in the active energy of faith, repent, return, watch and pray, mortify besetting sins. Inquire seriously: Are the materials for our song passed away? Are not the countless mercies yet remaining enough to swallow up the most bitter circumstances? Let faith be used in putting them together and in counting them. Surely under the deepest gloom that could ever rest on the soul, the harp would be taken down from the willows, and the righteous would sing and be glad. To some Christians of a morbid temperament, Bernard's advice may be important: "Let us mingle honey with wormwood, that the wholesome bitter may give health when it is drunk tempered with a mixture of sweetness. While you think humbly of yourselves, think also of the goodness of the Lord." "Always there are evil days in the world, always there are good days in the Lord" (Augustine).
7. The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. To respect the poor is as important as to honor a mighty person. The man of God will follow the example of the great King of righteousness. "Let him have the conscience first," says Bishop Sanderson, "and then the patience too (and if he has the conscience, certainly he will have the patience), to search into the truth of things and not be dainty of his pains herein, though matters be intricate, and the labor like to be long and irksome."
Selfishness, however, not truth, justice, or mercy, is the standard of the wicked. But fearful is it to sit in the place of God as his representative, only to pervert his judgment for selfish aggrandizement. For "he who rejects the complaint of the poor and beats them off with big words and terror in his looks, either out of the hardness of his heart or the love of ease, when he might have leisure to give them audience if he were so minded and to take notice of their grievances cannot justly excuse himself by pleading, 'Behold, we knew it not'" (Bishop Sanderson).
Most striking was Bishop Ridley's concern for the poor, imploring the queen in his last moments at the stake on behalf of certain poor men's leases in his bishopric likely to become void by his death. In the same noble spirit was the remembrance of the dying Scott to his son of the arrival of the season when he would plant a root for the supply of the poor.
8. Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger. The comparison here is between proud, haughty scorners (in the Hebrew, "men of scorn") and wise men. The one involves public injury, the other public blessing. The one raises a tumult; the other quells it. The man who scorns being bound by common restraint will stir up a city by his presumption or set it on fire by bringing the fire of divine anger upon it. Happily, wise men are scattered through the land, and their energy and prudence turns away divine wrath. "Proud and foolish men kindle the fire that wise and good men must extinguish" (Henry).
9. If a wise man goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, and there is no peace. It would generally be far better not to meddle with such a fool as is here described. We can only deal with him on very disadvantageous terms, and with little prospect of a good result. But what if I am appointed to contend with such fools? Can I return their unreasonable provocation with tenderness and compassion? Yes, when as the most effective means for their benefit I commend them to the almighty and sovereign grace of God. Can I forget that if this grace has healed my deep-rooted stubbornness, it is no less rich, no less free, no less sufficient for them?
10. Bloodthirsty men hate a man of integrity and seek to kill the upright. The noble army of martyrs stands before us. See the intensity of malice in the contrivance of the variety of their torture. Bloodthirsty men hate a man of integrity. The innocency of God's saints is the only ground for hatred. On the threatened apprehension of any outbreak of evil, the cry of the bloodthirsty was, "The Christians to the lions!"
And yet God is not unmindful of the troubles that threaten his servants. Saul sought to murder David, but Jonathan protected him. Jeremiah's enemies plotted against him, but Ebed-melech saved his life. Herod sought to kill Peter, but the church shielded him with her prayers.
11. A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. Indeed the words of the fool, as an old expositor remarks, "are at the very door, so to speak, of his mind, which being always open, they readily fly abroad. But the words of the wise are buried in the inner recess of his mind, whence the coming out is more difficult" (Cartwright). This is wisdom to be valued and cultivated.
12. If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials become wicked. The influence of the ruler's personal character on his people involves a fearful responsibility. A wicked prince makes a wicked people. In his more immediate sphere, if a ruler listens to lies that are contrary to the laws of God and of love, he will never lack those about him who are ready to minister to his folly. "Lies will be told to those who are ready to listen to them" (Henry).
All in authority must learn the lesson of responsibility. Let Christian ministers especially not only hold the truth in its full integrity and take heed that their character will bear the strictest scrutiny, but let them turn away from the fawning flattery of those of whose uprightness there is at best but doubtful proof.
13. The poor man and the oppressor have this in common: The Lord gives sight to the eyes of both. The teaching of this proverb, as of one similar to it (22:2), seems to be the real equality of the divine dispensations under apparent inequalities. While these two categories of people are so different, they have this in common: They are on the same level before God. However much men may differ—one may oppress and despise, another may complain about the oppressive ways of his rich neighbor— the Lord gives sight to the eyes of both. God is no respecter of persons. Both classes partake in his providential blessings. Both are the subjects of his divine grace, "members of the same body, animated by the same spirit, appointed for the same inheritance, partakers of the same great and precious promises. There was not one prize for the soul of the poor, and another for the rich. There was not one table for the meaner guests, and another for the greater" (Bishop Reynolds). The beggar Lazarus and the rich tax collector Matthew have met together in one common home. Both are the undeserved monuments of wondrous, everlasting mercy. The eyes of both are enlightened spiritually, eternally.
14. If a king judges the poor with fairness, his throne will always be secure. This maxim has often been repeated in substance (verses 4, 7; 20:28). The writer of this book was a king. He was naturally led to write for his own benefit, even while the divine Spirit guided his pen for the use of rulers to the end of time. May every king and ruler place this picture of a godly ruler constantly before his eyes.
15. The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother. Discipline is the order of God's government. Parents are his dispensers of it to their children. Let correction be first tried, and if it succeeds, let the rod be spared. If not, let the rod do its work. "Take this for certain," says Bishop Hopkins, "that as many deserved stripes as you spare from your children, you do but lay on your own back. And those whom you refuse to chastise, God will make severer scourges to chastise you."
Without a wise and firm control, the parent is miserable, and the child is ruined. "I earnestly entreat you," writes the wise and experienced Josiah Pratt to his sons and daughters, "to subdue the wills of your children most tenderly if you can. But if not, your duty and your love require measures that shall enforce obedience. A very young child puts forth perhaps his first approaches to sin in acts of cunning and rebellion. Rely with unshaken confidence on that divine maxim, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.'"
16. When the wicked thrive, so does sin, but the righteous will see their downfall. "Let not the righteous," said good Bishop Patrick, "be discouraged; for the wickeder men are, the shorter is their reign." The faithful Christian minister, conscious of his inability to stem the ever-flowing torrent of iniquity, would sink in despair but for the assured confidence that he is on the conquering side, that his cause, being the cause of his Lord, must eventually prevail.
17. Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul. Once more the wise man returns to the subject of discipline. These repeated inculcations (verse 15; 13:24; 19:18; 22:15; 23:13-14) strongly show its importance. The command is positive—discipline your son. This Book of Proverbs is not out-of-date. Like every other part of the sacred volume, it is the book for every age, given by the inspiration of God. To try, therefore, more self-pleasing rules is to set up our will in opposition to God's, and to place reason or feeling where faith should stand. It is making ourselves wise above that which is written. Put his Word to the test. The simplicity and perseverance of faith will be richly honored in God's own best time and way.
18. Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint [kjv: where there is no vision, the people perish]; but blessed is he who keeps the law. The revelation here, as appears from the contrast, is divine instruction. The Christian ministry is the appointed ordinance to communicate this blessing and is therefore the main instrumentality of conversion and subsequent Christian perfection. And yet this most fruitful organ of divine agency (preaching), which our blessed Lord honored as the grand medium of his own teaching (Psalm 40:9-10; Isaiah 61:1-2), is now depreciated as the mark of "a church only in a weak and a languishing state, and an instrument that Scripture, to say the least, has never much recommended" (Tracts for the Times). Far more orthodox is the sentiment from one of our venerable reformers: "Thus we may learn the necessity of preaching, and what inconvenience follows when it is not used. 'Where preaching falls,' says Solomon, 'there people perish.' Therefore, let everyone keep himself in God's schoolhouse and learn his lesson diligently. For as the body is nourished with meat, so is the soul with the Word of God" (Bishop Pilkington). "The meanest village," Luther was apt to say, "with a Christian pastor and flock is a palace of ebony."
No greater calamity, therefore, can there be than the removal of the revelation. For "when there is none that can edify and exhort and comfort the people by the Word of God, they must needs perish. They become thralls and captives to Satan. Their heart is bound up. Their eyes are shut up; they can see nothing. Their ears are stopped up; they can hear nothing. They are carried away as a prey into hell, because they have not the knowledge of God" (Bishop Jewell). Where revelation is withdrawn from a church, the people perish in ignorance and delusion. For as our Protestant Cranmer nobly testified, "I know how Antichrist both obscured the glory of God and the true knowledge of his Word: overcasting the same with mists and clouds of error and ignorance through their false glosses and interpretations. It pitieth me," he adds, "to see the simple and hungry flock of Christ led into corrupt pastures, to be carried blindfold they know not whither."
But blessed is he who keeps the law. Truly to be interested in God's promises, to be an inheritor of everlasting glory, to be the present possessor of divine favor, to be secured from the peril of everything that is against him and assured of the supply of all things that will work for his good—this is the blessed portion of the practical disciple. Who, then, can justly cast a cloud of gloom over the ways of God? Let the Pentecostal Christians witness to their joy (Acts 2:46-47). Let every servant of his Lord invite his fellow sinners to the enjoyment of his privileges by the manifestation of their holiness and joy.
19. A servant cannot be corrected by mere words; though he understands, he will not respond. Discipline must be carried not only into the family (verses 15, 17) but throughout the whole household in order to preserve God's authority and order. An important hint is here given about the management of servants. The Scripture fully sets out the duties of servants (Titus 2:9; Ephesians 6:7). Sullen resistance to reproof is most inconsistent with the profession of a Christian. And if the offender escapes the correction of an earthly master, he will be visited with the rod of his angry Lord, as a self-deceiver or backslider withdrawing from his high obligation.
20. Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him. We have just been warned against sullen silence. This next warning is directed against hasty words. When a person flows on in his words, evidently without time for consideration, when he gives his opinion as if there were no time to take counsel or to take notice of the judgment of others, this is the fool speaking. It is very difficult to deal effectively with him. Until the stronghold of his own conceit is shaken, argument and instruction are lost on him.
21. If a man pampers his servant from youth, he will bring grief in the end. We have here another valuable rule for domestic discipline, directing masters to a wise treatment of their servants. It is a grievous error to convince ourselves or to induce another to step out of the path that a God of order has marked for us.
22. An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins. Anger is not necessarily a sinful passion. But in a fallen nature, to preserve its purity is a rare and most difficult matter. It must be confined to points where God's honor is concerned, and even here the sun must not go down on our anger.
But let us not be satisfied with the outward constraint on passion. God condemns the deep-rooted principle that gives it birth—the wretched heart filled with soul-destroying corruption. Oh, for the mystery and teaching of the cross, to mold our temper into a genuine godly spirit and influence.
23. A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor. This proverb, Bishop Hall remarks in his own style, "is like unto Shushan: in the streets whereof honor is proclaimed to the humble Mordecai; in the palace whereof is erected an engine of death to a proud Haman." It shows the spirit of our Lord's oft-repeated declaration expounded by his daily providences that whoever exalts himself will be abased, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. The speech of Artabanus to Xerxes before his invasion of Greece is a striking testimony from a heathen. "God delights to depress whatever is too highly exalted. Thus a large army is often defeated by a small one. When God in his jealousy throws them into a panic or thunders against them, they miserably perish. For God suffers no mortal to think magnificently" (Herodotus). The real value of man in himself is so small that the psalmist is at a loss where to find it (Psalm 8:3-4).
The world counts nothing great without display. But note the substantial honor that comes from God only. Humility is indeed true greatness. It is "the crown," as Mr. Howels remarks, "of finite beings, made and jeweled by the hand of God himself. Supremacy is the glory of God; humility is the ornament of his child."
It is with us as with our Lord—honor comes out of humiliation. "You are not only our Savior but our pattern too. If we can go down the steps of your humiliation, we shall rise up the stairs of your glory" (Bishop Hall).
24. The accomplice of a thief is his own enemy; he is put under oath and dare not testify. This is a warning under the eighth commandment. The law makes no distinction between the thief and the accomplice. Consenting to sin, receiving the stolen goods, involves us in the guilt and punishment. The accomplice may be less practiced in sin. He may be only commencing his course. But even the first step is the way to death. One step naturally leads to another.
Oh, how frightful is the history of thousands whose fellowship with sinners has drawn them into fellowship with sin, and ultimately to take the lead in sin. And of these thousands, how few, it is to be feared, retrace their steps and become, like Onesimus, true followers of Christ and faithful servants to man!
25. Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. We know that a snare brings a man into difficult straits. He is not master of himself. Here Satan spreads a snare, and the fear of man drives people into it. And a fearful snare it is, and always has been, to thousands. Many, once entangled, have never escaped. It besets every step of the pathway to heaven.
What, especially among the young, makes so many ashamed to be found on their knees, to be known as readers of their Bibles, to cast in their lot decidedly among the saints of God? For them the fear of man is a snare. And therefore they do not ask, "What should I do?" but "What will my friends think of me?" They cannot brave the finger of scorn. And if they seem for a while to be in earnest, "they have slavish fears" (as Bunyan well describes the case) "that do overmaster them. . . . They betake themselves to second thoughts, namely, that it is good to be wise and not to run . . . the hazard of losing all, or at least of bringing themselves into unavoidable and unnecessary troubles." (This is a conversation between Hopeful and Christian, from Pilgrim's Progress.) They prefer to writhe under their convictions rather than to suffer reproach for the sake of Christ.
How different is this servile principle from the godly fear of sin, which the wise man had earlier noted as the substance of happiness (28:14). "By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil; by the fear of man they run themselves into evil" (Flavel). The one is the pathway to heaven (19:23). The other, involving the denial of the Savior, plunges its wretched slave into the lake of fire.
But even apart from this tragic end, observe the weighty hindrance to Christian integrity. Indeed, as Mr. Scott most truly observes, obeying God and not fearing man is, often at least, "the last victory the Christian gains. He will master, by that grace which is given by God, his own lusts and passions and all manner of inward and outward temptations. He will be dead to the pleasures of the world long before he has mastered this fear of man. This kind of spirit is not cast out but by a very spiritual and devout course of life." Oh, for deliverance from this principle of bondage.
26. Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that man gets justice. We must, in the light of this proverb, seek God to be our Friend. Here is solid ground for faith. Begin with God; all judgment is in his hands. Let him choose and dispose your lot. Consider everything that happens as coming from him. As Thomas a Kempis put it, "As you will, what you will, when you will." This is the shortest and the surest way of peace. Only believe!
27. The righteous detest the dishonest; the wicked detest the upright. Here is the oldest, the most rooted, the most universal quarrel in the world. It was the first fruit of the Fall (Genesis 3:15). It has continued ever since and will last to the end of the world.
The soul is wearied with the unceasing struggles with the enemies of truth. How can we not want to fly away on the wings of a dove and be at rest? And how can we fight in this contest but for the blessed hope God has given us? O Lord, may the time come quickly when the woman's conquering seed will bruise the serpent's head and the head of all his descendants finally and forever, and then reign as King and Savior over his redeemed people.