The best time to ponder any path is not at the end, not even in the middle, but at the beginning of it.—Arnot.
Verse 27. It is as if the royal way was hemmed in by the sea, and a fall over either side were danger of drowning. Some are too greedy; others ascetic. Some are too bold; others too diffident. Some neglect the one Mediator; others seek more mediators than one. Some flee the cross; others make one. Some tamper with Popery; others, from dread of it, hazard the loss of valuable truth.—Cartwright.
CHAPTER V.
Critical Notes.—2. Discretion, Lit. “reflection,” “prudent consideration.” 3. Drop as an honey-comb, “distil honey.” 4. Wormwood. In Eastern countries this herb, the absinthum of Greek and Latin botanists, was regarded as a poison. It has a bitter and saline taste. 6. This verse is rendered in two ways. The forms of the two verbs may be in the second person masculine, and so apply to the tempted youth, or in the third person feminine, and so be understood to refer to the harlot. Most modern commentators take the latter reading. Delitzsch translates: “She is far removed from entering the way of life: her steps wander without her observing it.” Stuart: “That she may not ponder the path of life, her ways are become unsteady, while she regards it not.” The rendering in Lange’s Commentary is, “The path of life she never treadeth, her steps stray, she knoweth not whither.” The Authorised Version is, however, supported by Rosenmuller and Michaelis. 9. Honour, or “power,” “bloom,” or “freshness.” 11. Mourn, or “groan,” “at the last,” lit. “at thine end.” 14. Readings here again vary. Miller translates: “I soon became like any wicked man.” Lange’s Commentary: “A little more, and I had fallen into utter destruction.” The renderings of Stuart and Delitzsch are substantially the same as the Authorised Version. 16. In order to make the idea in this verse agree with those preceding and following it, Stuart and other commentators insert a negative: “Let (not) thy fountains,” &c. Lange’s Commentary considers this needless, and retains the same idea by conceiving the sentence to be an interrogative indicated, not by its form, but by its tone: “Shall thy fountains?” etc. So also Hitzig. Holden, Noyes, Wordsworth, Miller, &c., read as in the Authorised Version. 19. Be ravished, lit. “err,” used in the next verse in a bad sense, and in chap xx. 1, and Isa. xxviii. 7, of the staggering gait of the intoxicated. It seems to express a being transported with joy. 21. Pondereth, or “marketh out.” 22. Shall be holden, rather “is holden.” 23. Without, “for lack of.”
illustration of verse 19.
Here we have started up, and sent leaping over the plain, another of Solomon’s favourites. What elegant creatures those gazelles are, and how gracefully they bound. We shall meet them all through Syria and Palestine, and the more you see of them the greater will be your admiration. Solomon is not alone in his partiality. Persian and Arab poets abound in reference to them. The fair ones of these fervid sons of song are often compared to the coy gazelle that comes by night and pastures upon their hearts. They are amiable, affectionate, and loving, by universal testimony, and accordingly no sweeter comparison can be found than that of Prov. v. 19.—Thompson’s Land and the Book.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 1–20.
Bitter and Sweet Waters.
I. A wrong relation. The relationship here forbidden is wrong. 1. Because it is a sin against the tempter. The tempter in Eden had his load of iniquity increased by the yielding of the tempted one to his persuasion. He increased his crime when he made another a partaker of his disobedience. Satan, doubtless, becomes worse every time that he persuades another to sin. The gambler’s guilt and misery is increased in proportion to his success in bringing others to ruin. The young man in the text increases the guilt of the “strange woman” by yielding to her enticements. He burdens her with new guilt and intensifies her iniquity, and therefore helps to treasure up for her a greater remorse when her conscience shall awake and arise from the grave of sensuality. 2. Because it is a sin against a man’s own body. That which is our own is generally valued by us, and there is nothing material which is ours in a more exclusive sense than our bodily frame. It is nearer to us than any other material possession, and to sin against it is to sin against that which stands in the nearest relation to our personal moral individuality. There are sins done in the body by the mind which are purely mental, from which the body does not suffer; but adultery forces the body into a relation which brings misery and disease upon it, and in due season consumes and destroys it like a devouring flame. “Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body” (1 Cor. vi. 18). 3. Because it is a sin against human nature in general, and national life in particular. Human nature is like the human body, every man is linked to his fellow-men as the several members of the body are parts of one whole. This solidarity—this union of interest—is more obvious when considered in relation to a particular community or nation; and, as no member of the human body can be disfigured without bringing the whole frame into a state of imperfection and loss of dignity, so no man can degrade himself without bringing degradation upon the whole race. The fornicator is a plague-spot upon the body of humanity; and although other sinners bring disfigurement upon the body universal, there is none who defiles it as he does. God has written His mark upon the crust of the earth against this enormous sin (Gen. xix. 24, 25). 4. Because it makes God, in a sense, to bear the iniquity with the transgressor. The youth who spends the money his father gives him in furthering his own wicked purposes makes his father an unwilling partaker of his crimes, because the money was supplied by him. God made this complaint against sinners in the olden time. The good gifts of the earth which God bestowed upon the Hebrew people were used by them in their debasing idol-worship. God gave them the means of honouring Him, and they used His gifts in dishonouring His name. So God gives to every man power to glorify Him and to bless himself and the world by the formation of right relations. When the power thus given is used in an unlawful manner, God’s own gift is used against Himself. The sinner turns the Divine gift against the Divine Giver; and while in God he lives, and moves, and has his being, he lives and moves but to sin against his Maker. Thus in Scripture language God “is made to serve” with the sinner, while He is “wearied with his iniquities” (Isa. xliii. 22–24).