The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary on the Books of the Bible, Volume 13 (of 32) / The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary on the Book of the Proverbs

by Rev. W. Harris

Verse 5. A forcible image to show that nothing stands so much in a man’s way as the indulgence of his own unbridled will. The man who is most perversely bent on his purposes is most likely to be thwarted in them.—Bridges.

The ungodly finds nothing in his path to hell but thorns and snares, and yet he presses on in it! A sign of the greatness and fearfulness of the ruin of man’s sin.—Lange.

Verse 6. Three different meanings have been found of the interpretation, “according to his way.” (See [Critical Notes].) It may be—1. His way in the sense of his own natural characteristics of style and manner,—and then his training will have reference to that for which he is naturally fitted; or—2. The way of life which he is intended by parents or guardians to pursue; or, 3. The way in which he ought to go. The last is moral, and relates to the general Divine intention concerning man’s earthly course; the second is human and economical; the first is individual, and to some extent even physical. Yet although the third presents the highest standard and has been generally adopted, it has the least support from the Hebrew idiom.—Tr. of Lange’s Commentary.

He learneth best any way that knoweth no other, and he best keepeth any way that groweth in it. Two children that are bred and grow up together, are settled in affection the one to the other. Now, it can be but a childish goodness that is in a child; but if the childhood of goodness shall be bred and grow up with the childhood of man, it will settle the stronger union between them. Aristotle saith, it is a matter of chiefest moment for a man to be accustomed this way or that.—Jermin.

main homiletics of verse 7.

An Analogy Affirmed and a Contrast Suggested.

I. The contrast between the poor man and the borrower. The proverb at least suggests that the poor man and the borrower are not necessarily convertible terms—that a poor man may owe no man anything, and that a man may be in debt without being a poor man in the common acceptation of the word. 1. The poor man and the borrower may occupy different social relations; indeed, as a rule this is the case. The poor man may have been born to poverty, and consequently may be inured to its hardships, one of which is its subjection to the will of the rich. But the borrower may have been born to wealth, and himself accustomed to rule over the poor. The one may be so ignorant and degraded by reason of his poverty as scarcely to be conscious of the yoke he wears; whereas the servitude of the other will be galling in proportion as his education renders him sensitive to his position. 2. They may be unlike in the fact that the poor man may have had no choice but poverty—he may have been born in it, and may have had no opportunity of altering his condition; but the borrower may not have been absolutely obliged to borrow—he may have borrowed merely to speculate or to waste.

II. The point of resemblance between them. They are alike in being both dependent upon the same person—upon the rich man. This rich man may be unlike his poor brother in nothing save in his possession of gold; he may be as uneducated as he is, and morally, far beneath him. He may be much less polished and refined than the man who borrows of him, but, whatever he is or is not does not alter the case, his money makes him the master—both the poor man and the debtor must submit to his dictation, must acknowledge their dependence on him. Both often have the painful consciousness that he holds in his hand all that makes their existence of any value to them—both often alike feel that he could at any time deprive them of their very bread.

III. The lesson of the proverb. The wise man, by thus showing how two men who are unlike in almost every other respect may be reduced to the same level in this, is probably reading a lesson against borrowing. The poor man’s subjection to the rich is a matter which it is not in his power to alter, but a man goes into debt generally of his own free will. He may often be very hardly pressed by necessity to do so, or as a matter of business it may be advisable, but the proverb at least suggests that the step should not be taken without well weighing the consequences. It is doubtless mainly directed against borrowing when a man has not resources to repay, and is not likely to have them.

outlines and suggestive comments.