I. A good word yields the speaker a present joy. There is a present reaction of joy following every right deed which is its present and immediate reward. If a man gives his money to a right object from the highest motive he is silently repaid, even while he is in the act of giving, by the joy which he feels. So the man who having neither silver or gold gives help by words of advice or sympathy. Good words are sometimes more precious than gold to the sinning or the suffering, and for such gifts there is the reward which follows every effort to help and bless others. How much of the joy of Christ’s life on earth must have arisen from the enlightening and life-giving answers of His mouth, to those who sought to learn of Him.
II. It yields the speaker joy on reflection. There is nothing equal to the joy of performing a good deed, except the joy of reflecting upon it. This is a more lasting joy, and can be repeated again and again. Happy is he who, in looking back upon the “answers of his mouth,” can derive joy from the consciousness that he spoke the right word at the right time.
III. Such a word is an unending source of joy, because it is an unending influence for good. None can tell “how good it is”—none can say that its influence will ever cease. A stone thrown into the ocean is but the act of a moment; but wise men tell us that the influence of that act is felt long after the stone has found the bed of the ocean. The word spoken by the Highest Wisdom to Saul on his way to Damascus, how good was it for the man to whom it was addressed, and how good it has been, and will be for millions throughout the ages of eternity. None but God can estimate the power of the evil that was then averted from the Church of God, the depth of personal guilt from which the man addressed was delivered, or the amount of blessed influence that was then set in motion. And many a word of the disciple has been good in the same manner, although not in the same degree, as that word of the Master.
outlines and suggestive comments.
It must be a word spoken in season (chap. xxv. 11), though it be from feeble lips. For though “there are some happy seasons, when the most rugged natures are accessible” (Bishop Hopkins), yet many a good word is lost by being spoken out of season. Obviously a moment of irritation is out of season. We must wait for the return of calmness and reason. Sometimes, indeed, the matter forces itself out after lengthened and apparently ineffectual waiting. It has been long brooded over within and must have its vent. But this explosion sweeps away every prospect of good, and leaves a revolting impression. Instead of a fertilising shower, it has gathered into a violent and destructive tempest. It is most important, that our whole deportment should bring conviction, that we yearn over the souls of those whom we are constrained to reprove. . . . Never commence with an attack; which, as an enemy’s position, naturally provokes resistance. Study a pointed application. A word spoken for every one, like a coat made for everyone, has no individual fitness.—Bridges.
The verb usually translated to “answer” means primarily to sing, or rather, to break out with the voice; rather, “to speak after a silence;” which, of course, would usually be in making “answer.” Hence the idiom, “answered and said,” literally, broke silence, and said. Such an utterance would become very oracular in the more solemn decisions of life. A “decree,” as we have translated it, is a noun out of the above described verb. It means an uttered decision; such as an answer may be to a business speech; such as is alluded to on God’s part (chap. xvi. 4); and such as may be overmasteringly momentous in the business and results of life. Solomon sees in it a rare truth in respect to decision for immortality. “A word!” Why, it may win eternity! An offer presses! A word refuses! A word snatches possession for ever! Lo! the amazing difference! Body and soul hang upon “a word.” “Great counsel” (ver. 22) indeed, that is, that prompts a man to say, Yes! and “a word (spoken) in season” truly! if it be a confession of Christ! and if it take the offer of an eternal blessedness! Because there is no drawing back after that beginning (ver. 24).—Miller.
The words have probably a special reference to the debates in council implied in ver. 22. True as they are at all times, they also bring before us the special characteristic of the East, the delight in ready, improvised answers, solving difficulties, turning aside anger. Such an answer, to a people imaginative rather than logical, has much more weight than any elaborate argument. Compare the effect produced on the mind of the scribe who heard our Lord’s dispute with the Sadducees, when he saw that He had “answered well” (Mark xii. 28).—Plumptre.
main homiletics of verse 24.
The Upward and the Downward Path.
I. The existence of a place of retribution stated as a fact. The word Sheōl, here and elsewhere translated hell, signifies first the place of all departed spirits, whether they be saints or sinners. Those who dwell in Sheōl are those who have quitted the relations and conditions of time and sense, and who dwell in a world invisible to human eye. But the connection of the word here makes it necessary to understand it as having reference to a place of retribution. That there is such a place beyond death is suggested by analogy, and affirmed by the Word of God. In every city and centre of human life we find a place of retribution inhabited by those whose characters are supposed to merit such a dwelling. All nations upon the earth find it necessary to have their prisons—to have places in which to confine those whose crimes call for their separation from their more virtuous fellow-creatures. The existence of such places is as much a fact as the existence of men upon the earth. Hence we might have inferred that there was such a place for like characters in the world which is beyond our vision, but which men, both good and bad, are continually quitting this world to inhabit. The existence of such an abode seems to be imperatively demanded, when we consider that some of the worst of the human race never find their way to a prison in this world, and it seems a merciful proceeding towards the offenders themselves that their course should be arrested in another life. The Book of God tells us that there is such a place—that the dwelling of the “devil and his angels” is the destination of those who quit this world in a state of unforsaken and unforgiven sin (Matt. xxv. 41).