As “goest” refers to the ordinary course, so “runnest” refers to extraordinary undertakings, wherein the believer has to put forth more than common energy.—Fausset.
The word straightened seems to express the case of one in difficulty and perplexity—contradictory impulses and obstacles pressing and hindering him on every side, perpetually producing embarrassment and apprehension—hedging up the way, and hemming us in, and destroying the freedom and comfort of advancement. Such is the case of a man who walks according to a worldly and carnal policy. He is ever at a loss. As circumstances are ever shifting, he is ever shifting his principles and plans to suit them. But the “wisdom from above” inspires a simplicity and a unity of principle by which a vast amount of this painful and agitating perplexity is taken away.—Wardlaw.
Verse 13. Often a ship’s crew at sea are obliged suddenly to betake themselves to their boats, or abandon the sinking ship. Such a case was recently reported of an American whale-ship in the South Seas. The huge leviathan of the deep, wounded by the art of man, ran out the distance of a mile by way of getting a run-race, and thence came up with incredible velocity against the devoted ship. She began to fill. . . . The word was given. All hands went to work, and soon all the seaworthy boats were loaded to the gunwale with the prime necessaries of life. The deck was now nearly level with the water, and the boats shoved off for safety. After they had pulled a hundred yards away, two resolute men leaped from one of the boats into the sea, and made towards the ship. They disappear down a hatchway. In a minute they emerge again, bearing something in their hands. As they leap into the water the ship goes down; the men are separated from each other and their burden in the whirlpool that gathers over the sinking hull. They do not seem to consult their own safety. They remain in that dangerous eddy until they grasp again the object which they had carried over the ship’s side. Holding it fast, they are seen at length bearing away to their comrades in the boat. What do these strong swimmers carry, for they seem to value it more than life? It is the compass! It had been left behind, and was remembered almost too late. Now they have taken fast hold of it, and will not let it go. Whatever they lose, they will at all hazards keep it, for “it is their life.” When shall we see souls, shipwrecked on the sea of time, take and keep such hold of the truth as it is in Jesus?—Arnot.
Fasten and do not let slack. One rough grapple is not enough. Wisdom insidiously glides away if we give time to the arch deceiver. We are like a child trying to wake: he grasps the apple that one gives, but slackens as drowsiness creeps back.—Miller.
I. Because many thieves lie in the way to rob us of what wisdom teaches. 1. The devil steals away the seed of the word (Matt. xiii. 9). 2. Wicked men also, by seducing us. Sometimes by persecuting us to make us forsake the truth (Matt. xiii. 21). 3. The world with its cares and profits seek to take this treasure from us (Matt. xiii. 22). The flesh presents many pleasures to us which drown our wits. II. Because we may lose wisdom ourselves by negligence.—F. Taylor.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 14–19.
Contrasted Paths and Opposite Characters.
I. The just man’s path. 1. It is a pre-ordained one. The path which the sun takes through the heavens, the path in which our earth encircles the sun, are the paths which God has pre-ordained for them. They are the only paths which they could take and preserve the harmony of the system to which they belong. They are the orbits which are exactly adapted to the fulfilment of the end for which God created them. So the path—the manner of life—of the godly man is the path in which God intended man to walk when He created him. He called him into being in order that he might “walk before Him and be perfect” (Gen. xvii. 1). “The highway of holiness” is the God-ordained path of man, the old way which was trodden by His creatures for ages before man had any existence. 2. It is a blessing-dispensing path. The sun, by keeping God’s pre-ordained path, is a blessing to the world. Its rays possess a quickening power which develops the hidden life of the plant, and so clothes the earth with beauty and fruitfulness. Without its heat and light our globe would be a great Sahara—a vast wilderness of black barrenness. It likewise brings into operation a sense in man which would otherwise be dormant. The light of the body is the eye, but where would sight be without sun? Creatures who have lived for years in darkness appear to lose the power of sight, even if light shines upon their eye-balls. The constant contact of the eye with light keeps alive the power of vision. So with the just man’s path. Without the godly this world would be a moral wilderness. All the beauty of goodness there is in it comes from the life of the children of wisdom. “They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon” (Hosea xiv. 7). And He keeps alive the inner eye of man—the conscience. It, too, needs external light to play upon it to keep it alive. And the holy walk of the godly does this for the ungodly, it prevents the conscience from being utterly stifled by sin. 3. It is a progressive path. It shines more and more. The light of dawn has glories all its own, but it is not strong enough to do the work of the noon-day rays, its heat is not able to penetrate beneath the surface of the earth and wake up the life out of the seed-corn hidden there; its brightness touches the mountain-tops, but does not scatter the shadows in the valleys. But when the sun reaches its meridian “there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” So with the children of wisdom. When they first set out upon their journey their godliness is not so manifest to others, nor does it yield so much comfort to themselves as when they have trodden the path for years. But it must, from a necessity of nature, go on unto perfection. “Just men will be made perfect” (Heb. xii. 3). “They go from strength to strength” (Psa. lxxxiv. 7). They come “to the perfect day.”
II. The wicked man’s way. It is in every point the converse of that which has just been sketched. 1. It is his own way (chap. i. 31): not God’s way, not the way in which he was destined to walk. It is an old way (Job. xxii. 15), but not the oldest way; it is a path cast up by the will of man and pre-Adamite sinners. 2. It is a way of darkness, because it is a way of blindness. Blindness puts a man in the dark, and, being in the dark, he has only the experience that springs from darkness. Wickedness puts out the eyes of the soul, and, like a blind Samson, it sits in darkness and the shadow of death. A state of blindness is a state of ignorance. A blind man cannot avoid objects that come in his way, and when he falls in consequence, he knows not the object that caused him to fall. So the wise man here describes the ungodly as one “who knows not at what he stumbles” (verse 19). He has no realisation of the real character of his tempters, no insight into the sinfulness of sin; the lack of a guiding principle turns his walk into a series of stumblings. It follows of necessity that such a path is one of danger. It is more dangerous to walk in the night than in the day. The footpad or the highwayman can hide himself from our view in the darkness, and come upon us unawares. We may fall over the precipice at night that we could easily avoid in the day. So it is in a course of sin. A man who shuts his eyes to the light within him, and rejects the light which is to “lighten every man” (John i. 9), will, unawares, be overtaken by retribution, and fall into depths of remorse upon which he little counts. 3. Like the path of the just, it is a progressive path. No man stands still in it. The darkness thickens as the blindness increases, and the blindness grows the longer men refuse to “come to the light” (John iii. 20). Men do not at once come to the height or descend to the depth of iniquity described in verse 16, when, unless they have done some iniquitous act, they feel that they have lost a day. The merchant may feel he has lost a day when he has failed to make a good bargain; the scholar feels it when he has not added to his stock of knowledge; the heathen emperor reckoned a day lost when he had not benefited some one; but for a man not to sleep except he has done a mischief, surely expresses as “perfect a night” as it is possible for human nature to attain to. Surely he then proves himself to be a child of him whose business it is to “go about seeking whom he may devour” (2 Pet. v. 8). 4. It is a path which is destructive to others. As the good man, by walking in God’s path, blesses his fellow-creatures as well as himself, so the wicked man, in his path of darkness, is a curse to others as well as himself. The force of evil example alone is pernicious to all who surround him, but although he may begin in this negative way, he soon advances to positive acts of sin, until he lives upon the misery of others. It becomes his meat and drink to drag others to destruction with him, or, failing that, to do them as much injury as he can (verses 16 and 17).
III. The means of escape from this path of darkness and ruin. “Enter it not,” and, to make sure of not entering it, give it a wide berth—“pass not by it, turn away” (verses 14, 15). When we see those whom we love in danger, we multiply words of warning, and are not careful to avoid repeating words which may have little or no difference in their meaning. So Solomon’s anxiety shows itself here in the repetition of his exhortations. But there is some gradation observed in them. 1. We are not to enter the paths, not even to set one foot upon the forbidden way. Men may be tempted to venture a step or two just to take a glance, and intend to turn back as soon as they have done so, but it is enchanted ground, and it is more than likely if they are once upon the track they will go further than they at first intended. But if they do not enter it, they cannot walk in it. 2. If you have already entered, do not persevere another moment, turn from it at once. If the captain of a ship becomes all at once aware that he is steering his vessel upon the rocks, he puts about at once. The next best thing to not going wrong at all is to turn back—in Bible language, to repent, to put the face in the opposite direction, to turn the whole man back to the opposite goal. 3. In order to escape the danger of entering at all, or of re-entrance after having once forsaken it, avoid its very neighbourhood, pass not by it, go not in the way of temptation. If a youth has been induced to gamble, and has resolved to give up the habit, let him not go near the gambling house—let him give up all intercourse with gamblers; if he has been once under the fatal influence of strong drink, he must taste it no more—not even “look upon the wine when it is red” (ch. xxiii. 31). He must “flee youthful lusts” and the most certain method of doing this is to strike out another course—to “follow after righteousness” (1 Tim. vi. 11, 12), to get well into the way of wisdom, to know from experience the blessedness of the path of the just. Men must have a “way” in life, there is no neutral ground; or if some men seem for a time to be living in the border-land, a time will come when they must declare for one side or the other.