I take for granted, that I believe to be the truth, that the words “for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head,” have reference, not to the fires of Divine-vengeance, but to the influence of kindly treatment melting down the enemy to conciliation, as fuel heaped on the ore fuses it from the hardness, and sends it forth in liquid streams, to take the features and impress of the mould.—A certain prince, on leading his generals and his army against an advancing host of invaders, declared his resolution not to leave a single enemy alive. He sent an embassy to treat with them. He made proposals such as subdued and attached them, and rendered them valuable allies. On astonishment being expressed that he should have thus failed in his determination and promise, his ready reply was—“I have not failed: I have kept my word. I engaged not to leave a living enemy; nor have I. They are enemies no longer—they are friends.” He had “heaped coals of fire on their head.”—Wardlaw.
For hunger and thirst are common enemies, both to thee and him. And therefore, as where a common enemy invadeth, particular enmity is laid aside, and all join there to help and withstand him; so here lend a hand to resist these common enemies, which though now have seized on thine enemy may quickly seize on thee. Besides he is hungry as a man, he thirsteth as a man—not as an enemy—and therefore as a man give him bread to eat, give him water to drink. This may also quench the hunger of his enmity, and satisfy also the hunger of his hatred.—Jermin.
If anyone desires to try this work, he must bring to it at least these two qualifications, modesty and patience. If he proceed ostentatiously, with an air of superiority and a consciousness of his own virtue, he will never make one step of progress. The subject will day by day grow harder in his hands. But even though the successive acts of kindness should be genuine, the operator must lay his account with a tedious process and many disappointments. . . . The miner does not think that his coals of fire are wasted, although he has been throwing them on for several successive hours, and the stones show no symptoms of dissolving. He knows that each portion of the burning fuel is contributing to the result, and that the flow will be sudden and complete at last. Let him go and do likewise who aspires to win a brother by the subduing power of self-sacrificing love.—Arnot.
main homiletics of verse 23.
The Way to Treat a Backbiter.
It will be seen from a reference to the [Critical Notes], that nearly all modern commentators render this verse quite differently from the common version, and so reverse the meaning. It will, however, bear the common rendering, “I confess,” says Wardlaw, “that if the word will bear it at all, our version seems decidedly preferable. There is something tame, commonplace, and of little practical consequence—hardly worth forming the subject of a proverb—in saying that as the north wind brings rain, ‘a backbiting tongue’ brings anger. But the verse as it stands in our translation inculcates a most important lesson.” We therefore take the proverb as we find it in our Bible, as setting forth—
I. An unrighteous action producing a righteous emotion. We have before had brought before us in this book the peculiar iniquity of backbiting and its evil results (see [ch. xii. 17–19, 22], page 274). The special unrighteousness of the act lies, of course, in the fact that the person who is the subject of it, being absent and ignorant of the charge brought against him, has no opportunity of defending himself. A feeling of indignation against such an act, and an expression of it in the countenance, is therefore demanded from every lover of truth and justice. He who will calmly listen to a tale of slander and show no token of disapproval, makes himself a partaker of the sin. But it is impossible for a righteous man to act thus. When a putrid body is presented to our bodily senses, if we are healthy men we experience a feeling of revulsion which we cannot conceal. And so if a man is morally healthy he must experience and reveal a strong dislike to the backbiting tongue.
II. The unrighteous action overpowered by the righteous emotion. When the heavy rain-clouds which overspread the sky are dispersed and driven away by the wind, they show themselves to be the weaker of the two contending forces. And so when the backbiting tongue is silenced by the look of righteous indignation, it gives proof that, however strong the workings of evil are, the power of goodness is stronger. Those who set their faces against this or any other vice, may always draw encouragement from the fact that there is a reprover within the breast of the wrong-doer, which in spite of all efforts to stifle it, seconds the reprover from without—wherever the conscience is at all awake, it says “Amen” to a faithful rebuke, whether administered by word or look. And so it is that a countenance upon which is written righteous anger is so potent a check to a backbiting tongue.
outlines and suggestive comments.
It is a great encouragement to tale-bearers, to observe their wicked stories are heard with attention. If a man looks upon them with a cheerful countenance, and listens to their tales, and makes them welcome to his table, they naturally conclude that the person to whom they speak has as bad a heart as themselves, and they will not fail to bring him new stories of the like kind, as soon as they have got an opportunity to learn or to make them. But if the receiver of stolen goods is a sharer with the thief in his guilt, and if any man that encourages another in evil partakes in his sin, then he that hears the backbiter with complacency is little better than himself, and would probably follow the same trade if he had the same talents for it. We cannot, therefore, clear ourselves from the sin of backbiting, unless we refuse to receive a bad report of our neighbour, and testify our displeasure, by all proper methods, at the base conduct of the assassins that would murder in the dark the good-name of their fellow-creatures. When the murderers of Isbosheth brought their master’s head to David, judging from their own disposition that it would be an acceptable present to him, he treated them in such a manner that no man ever sent another present of the like kind to him.—Lawson.