The words are fitly chosen: “labour” in honest industry is the righteous man’s ordinary way of living. “Revenue” (fruit) not gained by honest labour is frequently the wicked man’s livelihood.—Fausset.
It is not directly said, as the previous clause might lead us to expect, that the “fruit” of the wicked tendeth to “death,” but to “sin.” This, by the wise man, is considered as the same thing. It “tendeth to sin,” and, consequently, to death. Thus it is said, “When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (Jas. i. 15). Between the two there is an intimate and inseparable connection.—Wardlaw.
The righteous are laborious, as knowing that to be the end of their life. For themselves they labour, to lead their lives with comfort here, to get the life of glory hereafter. For others they labour, to supply the wants of their disconsolate life on earth, and to help them forward to the blessed life of heaven. Wherefore St. Bernard saith well, “When we read that Adam in the beginning was set in a place of pleasure to work in it, what man of sound understanding can think that his children should be set in a place of affliction for to play in it.”—Jermin.
main homiletics of verse 17.
The Influence of Example.
We take here the rendering of all recent commentators as given in the [Critical Notes], and understand the verse to set forth the truth that “no man liveth to himself.” His character is reproduced in others.
I. A good man is a way, because he is the means to an end. The way to the city is the road by which we reach it. The life of a holy man is a way to spiritual and eternal life, because it is the means by which men come home to God. If there were no good men in the world, there would be no means by which sinners could be brought from death unto life. Christ is pre-eminently “the way,” because His life is the great means by which men learn to know and to return to God. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me” (John xiv. 6). The longer a path is trodden the more distinctly it proclaims itself as a way. So a good man becomes a more evident way the longer he lives. A good life is so distinct in its teachings that both sage and savage are compelled to admit its influence, and the longer it exerts its power for good the more pronounced it becomes. The Son of God has for ages been the way to life, and the longer He continues to be so the more distinctly is He seen to be the means to this end.
II. The conditions to be fulfilled in order to become a way of life. 1. The man must keep instruction. It is not enough to receive it. The Word of God must not only be heard, but must be kept. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John xiii. 17). 2. He must submit to discipline even when it takes the form of reproof. This is implied in the last clause of the verse, “He that refuseth reproof causes to err.” The man who has attained a position in any profession, and has thereby become qualified to lead others, has done so because he has submitted to discipline even when it has been in the unpalatable form of reproof. Such a man can well exhort others to submit to that by which he has become fit to be their guide. Even the Son of God “learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. v. 8).
III. An ungodly man injures others as well as himself. He not only wanders from the path himself, but he “causeth (others) to err.” We often hear it said of a godless man—of one “who refuseth reproof”—that “he is nobody’s enemy but his own.” This cannot be. It has been truly said that “nothing leaves us wholly as it found us. Every man we meet, every book we read, every picture or landscape we see, every word or tone we hear, mingles with our being and modifies it.” This being so, every man makes every man with whom he comes in contact better or worse, and as every good man draws others into the path of life, so every man who refuses to submit to Divine discipline drags others with him in the broad road that leads to destruction.
outlines and suggestive comments.