main homiletics of verses 19 and 21.
Masters and Servants.
I. Human servants generally need correction. The relation of master and servant is generally, though not always, founded upon some superiority on the one side and inferiority on the other. Where there is any right adjustment of social relations, those who serve are those who lack knowledge of some kind which those who rule are able to impart, and hence arises the necessity of correction on the part of the master and of submission on that of the servant. It is undeniable that there are many inversions of this ideal moral order, but the proverb can only refer to what ought to be, and what often, though not always, is the case.
II. The means of correction ought to be moral means. A servant is a moral and intelligent agent, and not a machine or a brute, and he can and ought to appreciate appeals to his reason and conscience. A wise and humane rider will use his voice to his steed in preference to the whip or the spur, and generally finds it effectual. And words of reproof and encouragement are probably the only successful means of dealing with human nature in this relationship. If these fail, no others will avail, and all benefit from the connection will cease.
III. Therefore human masters need much wisdom. If they are over-indulgent the servant may take undue advantage and claim privileges to which he has no right (ver. 21). In the present constitution of things in this world, and probably throughout the universe, there are inequalities of position and rank which no wise man can ignore, and it is kind and wise to those beneath us to maintain these differences and distinctions. But to maintain them without haughtiness, and with that consideration and sympathy which ought to mark all our intercourse with our fellow-creatures, needs much wisdom on the part of superiors. Dr. David Thomas suggests another, and perhaps a pleasanter application of this proverb. “There is another side,” he says, “to the kindness of a master towards his servant, that is, the making of the servant feel towards him all the sympathy and interest of a son. . . . He who can make his servant feel towards him as a loving, faithful, and dutiful child, will reap the greatest comfort and advantage from his service.” But this happy result can only be brought about where the master is truly wise as well as kind.
For Homiletics on verses 20 and 22, see on chap. [xiv. 17] and [29], pages 363 and 386. On verse 23, see on chap. [xi. 2], page 192, and on [xvi. 18], page 482.
main homiletics of verse 24.
Criminal Partnership.
I. Partnerships are self-revealing. That proverb is an old and true one—“Tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you what you are.” A man seeks the society and shares the pursuits of those who are likeminded with himself; if he chooses the fellowship of the good it shows that there is something in his character that has an affinity to theirs, and if he willingly associates himself with bad men, he proclaims himself to be a bad man. Good men do not “walk in the counsel of the ungodly,” or “sit in the seat of the scornful”—men who are found in such places must be counted among the ungodly and scornful, although they may be negative rather than positive sinners.
II. Criminal partnerships are self-destroying. As we have seen, partners with criminals are criminals themselves in spirit if not in actual deed, and must therefore meet with the doom of the transgressor. Probably the proverb is directed against those who shelter themselves under the idea that those who do not commit the crime themselves, but only consent to it beforehand, or conceal it afterwards, are not so very guilty; but this is nowhere the teaching of Scripture, nor is it the verdict of the human conscience.