Verse 3. This appeal is not, obviously, to the bond-giver, who has seduced us to endorse him, and is as helpless as we to get anybody off; but the bond-holder, for a securityship is to beg off in the most unspeakable abjectness, and to press and to urge the credit to release our name. Now, I say, this is not simpliciter, the gist of the inspiration. But if we introduce the Gospel; if we see in this a great picture of our guilt; if we see in the bond-holder the Friend to whom we are to appeal; if we see in the bond-giver sin in all the seductive forms in which it has come down to us from the original transgressor; if the grip of the suretyship is the law, and the form of the law is the broken covenant; if the act of our “striking hands” is the way we have accepted the curse of Adam, and the way we have volunteered under this stranger’s burdens, then the whole passage becomes complete, and we are ready for the appeal, “Go, humble thyself,” &c. That is the very Gospel.—Miller.
St. Gregory, Bede, and other ancient expositors, apply these injunctions in a spiritual sense. “To be a surety for a friend is to take upon thee the charge of looking to another’s soul,” says St. Gregory, who also, reading the latter clause of the verse in the sense of “urging” and “importuning” (see [Critical Notes]), explains it thus: “Whosoever is set before others for an example of their living is admonished, not only to watch himself, but to rouse up his friend: for it sufficeth not that he doth watch well, if he do not rouse him also over whom he is set from the drowsiness of sin.”
Verse 4. Has this precept any connection with our spiritual interests? It has. It is a part of the eighth commandment, and though men regard it rather as a loss than as a sin to endanger their outward estate, it is both a sin and a temptation. Men who once seemed upright in their dealings have brought reproach upon religion by living and dying in other men’s debt, and by having recourse to unjustifiable methods, suggested by distress, to relieve themselves. The effect of suretyship, even with the most upright men, has often proved hurtful to their souls, embittering their days, and unfitting them for the cheerful service of religion. We are the servants of Christ, and must not disqualify ourselves for His service by making ourselves needlessly the servants of men.—Lawson.
Verse 5. It is evident, however, that the language implies, If, with all your efforts, you are unsuccessful in obtaining your discharge you must stand to your engagement. Treachery would be a much greater loss in character.—Wardlaw.
main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 6–11.
Industry and Indolence.
A contrast. I. The industrious insect. 1. Nature is intended to be a moral teacher to man. The most saintly natures of ancient and modern times have regarded God’s works in this light, and God Himself has led the van in so often pointing man to animate and inanimate Nature for instruction and comfort. He first announced this truth when He said to Noah, “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of a covenant between Me and the earth” (Gen. ix. 13). This is the first record of the enlistment of Nature as a helper to the human soul, the first recorded instance of God’s pointing out to man what He intended all natural objects to become to his spiritual nature. Here the son of Solomon is exhorted to gain instruction—to be stirred up to a sense of duty—from a study of one of God’s inferior creatures. 2. Nature becomes the instructor of those only who consider her ways. The existence, within a man’s reach, of the most beautiful painting in the world will be of no advantage to him unless he studies it. It is only as he considers it that it will convey to him the thought of the painter. The works of God are within the reach of men, but they must be looked at and considered if they are to be to him what God intended them to be. God placed the bow in the cloud and the tiny ant upon the ground to be subjects of meditation. The Psalmist considered the heavens before he was moved with a sense of his own littleness and God’s majesty (Psalm viii.). Solomon’s precept is, “Consider the ant.” 3. The lessons which are to be learned from the study of the ant. Industry, improvement of opportunities, and individual action. The amount of work done by this insignificant insect ought to be enough to shame an indolent man into activity. Her care in embracing present opportunities is a loud rebuke to those who would put off until to-morrow what, perhaps, can only be done to-day. She says, by her diligent use of present hours, “I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work” (John ix. 4). Especially her individual effort is held up as worthy of imitation (ver. 7). While some men wait for another to take the initiative, to clear the path for them, she puts forth her own individual effort without guide, overseer, or ruler. Each man must do his own work in the world, each one has responsibilities of his own which will not admit of being discharged by proxy. He must find out his individual duty, and not try to shift the burden upon the shoulders of another, or wait for another to go before him in the way.
II. The indolent man. 1. He does the right thing at the wrong time, or indulges to excess in a gift of God which is intended to be used in moderation. Sleep is one of God’s most precious gifts to man in his present condition. It is a necessity of human nature. The prophet Elijah had an angel of God to watch over him while he slept. God saw that it was the medicine he most needed in that hour of bodily fatigue and mental depression. But if he had been sleeping at the hour of evening sacrifice, when the nation had to choose between God and Baal on Mount Carmel, he would have been guilty of a great sin against himself, his nation, and his God. Israel was promised the land of rest after they had fought their way through the desert. Rest is the reward of labour and not to be substituted for it. And although intervals of rest are necessary and right, life is meant for work, and the motto of every man ought to be that of the famous coadjutor of the great William of Orange, St. Aldegonde, “Repos ailleurs” (rest elsewhere). The sin of the sluggard is the abuse of a great blessing, the doing of a right thing at the wrong time. 2. The consequence of such conduct. This can be abundantly illustrated from human experience. If the farmer rests when, regardless of cold and storm, he ought to be ploughing or sowing, poverty will be coming upon him when his barns ought to be filled with plenty. The man who lets slip his spiritual opportunities through soul-indolence, will find himself in a state of soul-poverty at the end of life. When he ought to be reaping an abundant harvest of soul-satisfaction from a life whose energies have been used to bless himself and others, he will find himself in a state of soul-destitution. The rich man said to his soul, “Take thine ease,” when he ought to have aroused it to prepare for the future which was coming up to meet him. But for the neglect of this God branded him as a “fool” (Luke xii. 20).
illustrations of verses 6–8.
When I began to employ workmen in this country, nothing annoyed me more than the necessity to hire also an overseer, or to fulfil this office myself. But I soon found this was universal, and strictly necessary. Without an overseer very little work would be done, and nothing as it should be. The workmen will not work at all unless kept to it and directed in it by an overseer who is himself a perfect specimen of laziness. He does absolutely nothing but smoke his pipe, order this, scold that one, discuss the how and the why with the men themselves, or with idle passers-by. This overseeing often costs more than the work overseen. Now the ants manage far better. Every one attends to his own business and does it well. In another respect these provident creatures read a very necessary lesson to Orientals. In all warm climates there is a ruinous want of calculation and forecast. Having enough for the current day, men are reckless as to the future. . . . Now the ant “provideth her meat in summer.” All summer long, and especially in harvest, every denizen of their populous habitation is busy. As we ride or walk over the grassy plains, we notice paths leading to their subterranean granaries; at first broad, clean and smooth, like roads near a city, but constantly branching off into smaller and less distinct, until they disappear in the herbage of the plain. Along these converging paths hurry thousands of ants, thickening inward until it becomes an unbroken column of busy beings going in search of or returning with their food. I read lately, in a work of some pretension, that ants do not carry away wheat or barley. This was by way of comment on Prov. vi. 8. Tell it to these farmers, and they will laugh at you. Ants are the greatest robbers in the land. Leave a bushel of wheat in the vicinity of one of their subterranean cities, and in a surprisingly short time the whole commonwealth will be summoned to plunder. A broad, black column stretches from the wheat to the hole, and, as if by magic, every grain seems to be accommodated with legs, and walks off in a hurry along the moving column.—Thompson’s Land and the Book.