Most commentators say scatter or disperse. “Winnow,” which has usage (Ruth iii. 2), bears better upon the second clause. (See renderings in [Critical Notes].) Winnowing knowledge, i.e., letting the lips, under the guidance of wisdom, be an instrument for holding folly back and giving utterance to knowledge, must be the finest practice for getting strength to piety; while the second clause shows the incompetence of folly to “winnow” anything, by saying that “the heart of the foolish is not fixed” (and therefore lacks the first principles of choice, in separating one thing from the other).—Miller.
The foolish sow cockle as fast as wiser men do corn, and are as busy in digging descents to hell as others are in building staircases for heaven.—Trapp.
main homiletics of verses 8 and 9.
Praying and Living.
I. God loves righteous men with a special love. God has a love for all His human creatures—a love which springs out of His relationship to them as their Creator. He loves the “world” (John iii. 16), but this love cannot be said to spring from likeness of character between Him and the objects of His love. There is a spontaneous love welling up in the mother’s heart towards her child long before that child has developed any qualities to win love. The love springs from the relationship that exists between the child and the parent, and it exists before there has been time and opportunity to develop a loveable character. And there is still love in the mother’s heart from the relationship, if, after there has been time to form a loveable character, no such character is manifested—if there is no response to the parent’s love. There is this spontaneous love in God for all His human children—a love that, even when it meets with no response, does not cease to pity those who reject it. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. v. 8). “But after the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus iii. 4, 5). But the spiritual love which God has to righteous men—to men of integrity—to men who are sincere in their love of righteousness, and who make conformity to it the end and aim of their life (see on chap. [xi. 3], page 196), is a love which springs from likeness of character. It is the personal love of a perfectly Righteous Being for persons whose characters, in some degree, resemble His own. The good human father loves to see his own character in miniature in that of his child. He delights to see his son “following after” him in his holy habits and feelings—he loves him with a deeper and more joyful love as he sees in him the germs of holy desires and aims which he knows will be more fully developed as he grows into manhood. And so the “Heavenly Father” loves with the love of delight (chap. xii. 22) those of His human sons and daughters who have begun to reflect His image in their hearts and lives, and waits with patience until the blade changes to the ear, and the ear into the full corn—until they are not only just men, but “just men made perfect” (Heb. xii. 23).
II. One act of a righteous man which God regards with special pleasure. “The prayer of the upright.” 1. Because it is an expression of conscious need. A sense of spiritual need and weakness is indispensable, even to the continuance of a righteous character, much more to its growth. While a man feels his need, he will not only keep what he already has, but will be in the way of getting more. While he feels that he has not “already attained” neither is “already perfect” he will “follow after” perfection, he will “reach forth unto those things which are before, and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God”—(Phil. iii. 12–14), even to entire and absolute holiness of character. When he prays, he expresses his sense of need, and thus gives proof of that lowliness and contrition of heart without which no man can receive supplies of Divine grace. Therefore God delights in his prayer. 2. It is an expression of filial confidence. He not only knows what he wants, but he knows who is able and willing to supply his need. Prayer is in itself an act of faith—it is an expression of belief that “God is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. xi. 6). A human benefactor, especially a human parent, feels that application to him for help is a tribute to his goodness and to his power—it is a manifestation that those who seek his aid are assured of his willingness and ability to meet their need. So with the Divine Friend and Father. He loves to have His compassion and His power confided in by His creatures. 3. It is an act of obedience. God has commanded “men always to pray” (Luke xviii. 1). It was a condition to be observed under the Old Testament dispensation, as well as under that of the new. “Thus saith the Lord, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them” (Ezek. xxxvi. 37). Ask and it shall be given you” (Luke xi. 9). The conditions are easy, but they are indispensable. No wise parent gives his children what they desire, except certain conditions are fulfilled. They may be very easy, but in no well-governed family are they dispensed with. So in God’s family. True He knows what His children need before they ask Him, even better than the wisest and most tender human parent, but the command is absolute, the condition without exception. Prayer is therefore acceptable to Him because it is an act of obedience to His command.
III. God abhors the way of the wicked. 1. Because they are at war with their better nature. There are instincts in every man which are opposed to wrong-doing. There is a light which lightens every man that cometh into the world. When men sin they war against their own better nature. Cain possessed instincts which he must have stifled and trampled down before he could shed his brother’s blood, and so it is with every son of Adam. God must hate that which debases the creature whom He created in His own image. 2. Because their ways are at war with His purpose to bless them. A wise statesman may conceive a plan which he sees by his superior intelligence is calculated to bring great blessings to his nation. He labours to make the nation see it also—he uses all his reasoning power and all the force of his eloquence to bring it into operation, to make it the law of the land. But the very people whom it is intended to benefit may, from ignorance and prejudice, oppose his wise and beneficent efforts. He looks upon their opposition with the deepest displeasure, because it is opposed to their own welfare. If a son rebel against the plans which a wise and good father has formed for his benefit, the father must be deeply displeased at the obstinacy which thus frustrates his purpose of love and wisdom. God’s complaint against Israel was, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me” (Isa. i. 2)—rebelled against all His gracious plans and purposes concerning them, and that is His quarrel with the ways of wicked men in general that crosses all His purposes of mercy towards them.
IV. Their acts of worship are especially displeasing to Him. They are offered with no sense of spiritual need—with no desire to forsake sin. When such men engage in outward acts of worship it is as if a thief were to offer to his judge some of his unlawful gain as a bribe to be allowed to go free of punishment. God so regarded the sacrifices of Israel when they came into His courts with “hands full of blood.” “Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth” (Isa. i. 14, 15). They were an abomination to Jehovah because the hearts of the men who offered them were in love with sin and desired only, if possible, to escape the penalty due to it. Men in all ages would have been well pleased to “be pardoned and to retain the offence,” but the very suggestion of such a thing is a gross insult to the righteousness of God, and as this is the only construction that can be put upon a drawing near to Him in outward service while the heart is far from Him (Isa. xxix. 13), the sacrifice of the wicked must be the act most abhorrent to God of a way which is altogether an “abomination unto Him.”
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 8. When an ungodly man prays, it is not the act of prayer that constitutes the sin, it is the want of a praying heart. The sin is in him, not in his prayer.—Wardlaw.