The first distinct utterance of a truth which has been so full of comfort to many thousands, the summing up of all controversies, like those of Job’s friends (Job v. 17) or our Lord’s disciples (John ix. 2) as to the mystery of suffering. It was the lesson which the book of Job had proclaimed as the issue of so many perplexities. Here it enters into the education of every Jewish child taught to acknowledge a Father in heaven chastening him even as he had been chastened by an earthly father. The Apostle writing to the Hebrews can find no stronger comfort.—Plumptre.
Especially the well-beloved Son, who (ver. 12) was made “perfect through sufferings.”—Wordsworth.
God’s strokes are better than Satan’s kiss and love; God smites for life, Satan caresses for death.—Egard.
The kingdom of God in this world is a kingdom of the cross; but all suffering tends evermore to the testing and confirmation of faith (1 Pet. i. 6–7).—Lange.
God’s chastenings and corrections are no signs of anger, but of love; they are the pains which our healing and cure demand. Those who lie under the cross are often more acceptable to God than those who taste and experience His dainties. He finds pleasure in our crosses and sufferings for this reason, because these are His remembrance and renewal of the sufferings of His Son. His honour is also involved in such a perpetuation of the cross in His members (Eph. iii. 13; Col. i. 24, etc.), and it is this that causes Him this peculiar joy.—Berleburg Bible.
God loveth not thy correction, but thee He loveth.—Jermin.
He that escapes affliction may well suspect his adoption.—Trapp.
The same stroke may fall on two men, and be in the one case judgment, in the other love. “In vain have I smitten your children, they received no correction” (Jer. ii. 30). All were “smitten,” but they only obtained paternal correction who, in the spirit of adoption, “received” it as such. You may prune branches lying withered on the ground, and also branches living in the vine. In the two cases, the operation and the instrument are precisely alike; but the operation on this branch has no result, and the operation on that branch produces fruitfulness, because of a difference in the place and condition of the branches operated upon.—Arnot.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 13–18.
Wisdom and Her Gifts.