For the different renderings of this verse, see the [Critical Notes]. However we translate it the thoughts suggested are the same, viz.:—
I. That pain in the present may prevent greater pain in the future. When the surgeon is called in to examine a wounded man, the examination of the wound may give him more pain than he would have suffered if he had been let alone; it may bring far more present suffering to extract the ball, or to insert the probe, than it would have done simply to bandage the wound. But the pain of to-day is to ensure days of healthful rest by and by; if the present suffering was not inflicted, months and years of pain in the future might be the result. The pain of mind or body inflicted upon a child of five or ten years old, is intended by its parent to prevent greater moral or physical pain when he is fifty or seventy. There is no human creature who can afford to do without the pruning-knife at some period of its life; and if the pruning is not administered, the penalty will be paid either in this world or the next. The wise and loving parent gives pain in youth to prevent pain to his child in manhood, and the All-wise and Loving Father, God, subjects His children to pain in the present life to prevent a deeper and more lasting pain in the life to come. He pricks the conscience by His word to bring men to repentance, and so to salvation from the “wrath to come” and He sees even in His own children so much “evil” remaining that He is compelled to visit “their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes” (Psa. lxxxix. 32), in order to “cleanse” their characters.
II. Pain of body may be beneficial to the human spirit. This is a subject to which our attention has been before directed. See on chap. [xiii. 24], page 334, and on chap. [xvii. 10], page 510.
CHAPTER XXI.
Critical Notes.—1. Rivers of water. Rather streams, the allusion being to the watercourses, which in hot countries intersect fields and gardens for the purpose of irrigation, in which the water is entirely under the control of the husbandman. 2. Pondereth, rather weigheth, as in chap. xvi. 2. It is the same verb as that used in 1 Sam. ii. 3 and Isa. xl. 12, 13. 4. The ploughing. This word is by most modern commentators translated, as in the marginal references, light. It is likewise so rendered in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and in Luther’s version. Ewald, Elster, Wordsworth, and others, translate as in the English version. The Hebrew words are very similar. Those who adopt the former rendering understand the word to stand in apposition to the high look and the proud heart of the first clause (literally, “To be lofty of eyes, and to be swollen of heart”), and regard it as a figurative representation of the spirit of the wicked man. Ewald and others refer the ploughing of the wicked to the “very first-fruits of a man’s activity.” 5. Thoughts, rather the counsels, the calculatings. 6. Vanity tossed to and fro. Rather a fleeting breath. The Hebrew word hebel, here translated vanity, means vapour. 7. Robbery, or violence, rapacity. 8. Zöckler translates the first clause of this verse, “Crooked is the way of the guilty man.” Fausset remarks that the Hebrew word ish (man) expresses a man once good; froward implies his perversity, by having left the good way. Right, i.e., direct, straightforward. 9. Wide house. Literally house of companionship, i.e., to share the house with her. 11. Instructed. Zöckler translates this “prospereth,” and understands the simple to be the subject of both clauses of the verse. 12. The words man and God are both supplied by the translators. The verse should be “The righteous considereth the house of the wicked (and) overthroweth,” etc. Some understand it, therefore, to mean “The righteous man gives instruction to the house of the wicked to turn them away from evil.” But Stuart remarks that the verb of the second clause is a very strong word, to precipitate, to cast down headlong, and refers the righteous (one) of the first clause to God. This is Zöckler’s rendering also. 15. Shall be. These words are not in the original, and destroy the sense, which is that justice is joy to the good, and destruction to the bad. Luther renders, “It is a joy to the just to do what is right; but to the wicked a terror.” 24. Proud wrath, literally “wrath of pride” or overflowings of haughtiness. 27. With a wicked mind, literally, “for iniquity,” and may refer to a desire to cloak a sinful purpose by an outward show of piety, or an attempt to expiate a sinful act by an outward atonement. Miller reads for “how much more” “because also.” 28. Constantly, rather for ever. Stuart understands the verse to mean “that the sincere listener to the Divine commands will ever be at liberty to speak, and find confidence put in what he says.” 29. Hardeneth his face, or “putteth on a bold countenance.” Directeth, or “considereth,” or “establisheth.”
main homiletics of verse 1.
The King of Kings.
I. Kings are more entirely in the hand of God than subjects are in the hands of kings. The king of the days of Solomon was, as some Oriental rulers are now, an absolute monarch. In the case of Solomon himself, his will was law, and in his hand was the power of life and death (see 1 Kings iii. 24, 25). Of Nebuchadnezzar it is said, “Whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down” (Dan. v. 19). It is to such a king that the proverb refers—to one who called no man or any number of men master, but upon whose single will apparently depended the destiny of millions. Yet he was not the independent being that he appeared, neither were his subjects so dependent upon his will as they appeared to be. The most abject slave in his dominions was less under his control than he was under the control of Him by whom “kings reign” and “princes rule” (chap. viii. 15, 16). The gardener whose ground is intersected by water-channels finds it a very easy task to turn the stream in the direction he desires; the soil yields to his touch, and forthwith the water flows whithersoever he wills. But the moist earth is not so easily moulded by the hand of man, as the heart of the proudest monarch is subdued to obedience by his Maker; and the water is not more entirely subject to the will of the husbandman than is the will of the most stubborn despot to the will of Jehovah.
II. The power which God exercises over kings extends into a region where no earthly ruler can penetrate. The heart of the king is in the hand of Jehovah. This is more than the most absolute monarch can boast concerning his meanest subject. Nebuchadnezzar could issue his decree, but whoso did not fall down before his golden image should be cast into the fiery furnace, but he could not move the steadfast determination of the Hebrew youths to acknowledge no god but the God of Israel. His will could determine what should be done to their bodies, but all his threatenings could not reach their hearts. But God rules the spirit of a man in that He has access to his innermost thoughts and feelings, and can thus touch the spring of all his actions, and thus bring him to do His will, even when he seems to be doing only his own.