illustration of verse 1.
The custom of striking hands at the conclusion of a bargain has maintained its ground among the customs of civilised nations down to the present time. To strike hands with another was the emblem of agreement among the Greeks under the walls of Troy, for Nestor complains, in a public assembly of the chiefs, that the Trojans had violated the engagements which they had sanctioned by libations of wine and by giving their right hands. (Iliad, Book II. i. 341, see also Book IV. i. 139). The Roman faith was plighted in the same way; for in Virgil, when Dido marked from her watchtowers the Trojan fleet setting forward with balanced sails, she exclaimed, “Is this the honour, the faith, En dextra fidesque?” Another striking instance is quoted by Calmet from Ockley’s History of the Saracens. Telha, just before he died, asked one of Ali’s men if he belonged to the Emperor of the Faithful, and being informed that he did, “Give me, then,” said he, “your hand, that I may put mine into it, and by this action renew the oath of fidelity I have already made to him.” (Calmet, vol. iii). See also Job xvii. 3; 2 Kings x. 15.—Paxton’s Illustrations of Scripture.
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 1. The two characters are carefully distinguished. 1. The companion, on whose behalf the young man pledges himself. 2. The stranger, probably the Phœnician money-lender, to whom he makes himself responsible.—Plumptre.
God graciously directs our temporal affairs by His providence, and condescends, in His word, to give us instructions concerning them. If we regard not these, we need not be surprised though His providence convince us, by dear-bought experience, of our folly and sin.—Lawson.
The son has just been warned against the deadly wound of a stranger. He is now cautioned against a hurt from in imprudent friend. . . . Our God, while he warns against suretyship, has taken it upon Himself. He has given His word, His bond—yea, His blood—for sinners: a security that no powers of hell can shake.—Bridges.
Solomon, on different occasions, condemns the practice of suretyship. This condemnation is general. It does not follow, however, that what he says is to be taken as an unqualified prohibition, to which there are no circumstances that can constitute an exception. . . . There are cases in which it is unavoidable; and there are cases in which the law requires it; and there are cases in which it is not only in consistence with law, but required by all the claims of prudence, justice, and charity. These, however, are rare. And it may be laid down as a maxim regarding the transactions of business, and all the mutual dealings of man with man, that the less of it the better. In such cases as the following, it is manifestly inadmissible, and may even, in some instances, involve a large amount of moral turpitude. I. It is wrong for a man to come under engagements that are beyond his actually existing means. Such a course is not merely of imprudence, but there is in it a threefold injustice. First, to the creditor for whom he becomes surety. Secondly, to his family, if he has one, to whom the requisition of payment must bring distress and ruin. Thirdly, to those who give him credit in his own transactions, with the risks of his own trade. II. The same observations are applicable to the making of engagements with inconsideration and rashness. The case here supposed is evidently that of suretyship for a friend to a stranger. And the rashness may be viewed either in relation to the person or to the case.—Wardlaw.
It may at first excite surprise that Solomon should have thought it needful to dwell so much as he does in the Proverbs on the evil of suretyship (xi. 15; xvii. 18; xx. 16; xxii. 26; xxvii. 13), and that in his lessons of moral prudence he should assign the first place to cautions against it. The reason is probably to be found in the peculiar circumstances under which the Proverbs were written, and the special design of the author in writing them; although, doubtless, Solomon had a general and universal purpose in composing them, and the Holy Spirit, who employed his instrumentality in the work, looked far beyond Solomon and his times, and extended his view to all ages and nations of the world. . . . But the occasion which gave rise to the writing of the Proverbs was a personal and national one. Many strangers resorted to Jerusalem in the days of Solomon from all parts of the civilised world, for the purpose of commerce and trade. Borrowing and lending money was much in vogue; and many shrewd and crafty adventurers speculated on the credulity of rich capitalists. Solomon addresses his son Rehoboam (ver. 3). He was born before his father’s accession to the throne, and Solomon reigned forty years. We hear nothing of him until his ripe maturity, and then we are told of an act of egregious folly. It was evident he was just the person to be the dupe of licentious spendthrifts and griping usurers. The courtly parasite who desired to find means for paying his own debts, or indulging his own vices, and the avaricious money-lender, would find a victim in the princely heir to the throne, whom they would flatter with eulogies on his generosity, and would puff up with proud notions of the exhaustless wealth to which he was the aspirant.—Wordsworth.
Verse 2. In the passage before us the warning is not so much against suretyship in general as merely against the imprudent assumption of such obligations, leaving out of account the moral unreliableness of the man involved; and the counsel is to the quickest possible release from every obligation of this kind that may have been hastily assumed. With the admonitions of our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount, to be ready at all times for the lending and giving away of one’s property, even in cases where one cannot hope for the recovery of what has been given out (Luke vi. 30–36: comp. with 1 Cor. vi. 7), this demand is not in conflict. For Christ also plainly demands no such readiness to suffer loss on account of our neighbour, as would deprive us of personal liberty, and rob us of all means of further beneficence.—Lange’s Commentary.
For bills and obligations do mancipate the most free and ingenuous spirit, and so put a man out of aim that he can neither serve God without distraction nor do good to others, nor set his own state in any good order, but lives and dies entangled and puzzled with cares and snares; and after a tedious and labourious life passed in a circle of fretting thoughts, he leaves at last, instead of better patrimony, a world of intricate troubles to his posterity, who are also taken “with the words of his mouth.”—Trapp.