Everlasting benediction be upon that tongue, which spake, as no other ever did, or could speak, pardon, peace, and comfort to lost mankind. This was the tree of life, whose leaves were for the healing of the nations.—Bishop Horne.
The root of this tree goeth down to the heart, whence it sucketh the juice of wisdom; its body lieth in the head, where things are ruminated and concocted by it; the branches of it are the several speeches of the mouth; the fruit of it is spread abroad as wide as good occasion is offered.—Jermin.
Not a silent tongue; mere abstinence from evil is not good. . . . Idleness is evil under the administration of God. . . . Not a smooth tongue; it may be soft on the surface, while the poison of asps lies cherished underneath. The serpent licks his victim all over before he swallows it. Smoothness is not an equivalent for truth. . . . Not a voluble tongue; that active member may labour much to little purpose. . . . Not a sharp tongue: some instruments are made keen-edges for the purpose of wounding. . . . Not even a true tongue. Truth is necessary, but it is not enough. The true tongue must also be wholesome. Before anything can be wholesome in its effects on others it must be whole in itself. . . . “Winged words” have fluttered about in poetry and prose through all the languages of the civilised world from old Homer’s day till now. The permanence and prevalency of the expression proves that it embodies a recognised truth. Words have wings indeed, but they are the wings of seeds rather than of birds or butterflies. We are all accustomed in autumn to observe multitudes of diminutive seeds, each balanced on its own tiny wing, floating past on the breeze. . . . Words are like these seeds, in their winged character, their measureless multitude, and their winged speed. They drop off in inconceivable numbers: they fly far: they are widely spread. It is of deep importance that they should be for good, and not for evil. The tongue is a prolific tree, it concerns the whole community that it should be a tree of life, and not of death.—Arnot.
Verse 5. He that regardeth reproof is prudent. Wise he is, and wiser he will be. This made David prize and pray for a reprover (Psa. cxli. 5).—Trapp.
main homiletics of verse 6.
Like in Circumstances, but Unlike in Character.
I. The wicked and the righteous are often on a level as regards material wealth. One may have “much treasure” and the other great “revenues,” or gain. The laws of nature have no respect to character. God makes His sun to “shine upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust” (Matt. v. 43), so that the wicked man reaps a harvest as abundant as that of the righteous man. And all the laws of Providence move with the same even step, certainly showing no favour to the good man over the bad.
II. But though their possessions may be equal, there is great inequality in the enjoyment of them. Character makes all the difference here. Even “a little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked” (Ps. xxxvii. 16). The wicked man is troubled by a sense of being out of harmony with all that is holy, and just, and true in the universe of God, and with a foreboding of future retribution. The wealth of the spirit is so much more than material wealth as the spirit is so much more than the body. It is wealth to have “a conscience purged from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. ix. 14), and to “lay up treasure” without being thus “rich toward God” (Luke xii. 21) is only to “spend money for that which is not bread, and labour for that which satisfieth not.” (See on chap. [iii. 14, 15], [viii. 11–19], etc.)
outlines and suggestive comments.
“The treasure in the house of the righteous” may be understood not of mere wealth, but of whatever is possessed with contentment and cheerfulness, with gratitude to God, with an assurance of His fatherly regard, with the peace that passeth all understanding, with resignation of spirit to the Divine Will, with the present enjoyment of spiritual blessing, and the well-founded “hope of glory, honour, and immortality.” . . . We may suppose the revenues of the wicked to be acquired and enjoyed wickedly. But if not—yet if possessed and expended without the fear of God, and if the means themselves of banishing that fear, and preventing the choice of a better portion,—it may truly be affirmed that in them there is “trouble.”—Wardlaw.