Verse 21
Death and life are in the power of the tongue - This may apply to all men. Many have lost their lives by their tongue, and some have saved their lives by it: but it applies most forcibly to public pleaders; on many of their tongues hangs life or death.
Verse 22
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing - Marriage, with all its troubles and embarrassments, is a blessing from God; and there are few cases where a wife of any sort is not better than none, because celibacy is an evil; for God himself hath said, "It is not good for man to be alone." None of the versions, except the Chaldee, are pleased with the naked simplicity of the Hebrew text, hence they all add good: "He that findeth a Good wife findeth a good thing;" and most people, who have not deeply considered the subject, think the assertion, without this qualification, is absurd. Some copies of the Targum, and apparently one of Kennicott's MSS., have the addition טובה tobah, good; but this would be an authority too slender to justify changing the Hebrew text; yet Houbigant, Kennicott, and other able critics argue for it. The Septuagint is not satisfied without an addition: "But he who puts away a good wife, puts away a good thing: and he that retains an adulteress, is a fool and wicked." In this addition the Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic, agree with the Septuagint. The Hebrew text as it stands, teaches a general doctrine by a simple but general proposition: "He that findeth a wife findeth a good thing." So St. Paul: "Marriage is honorable in all." Had the world been left, in this respect, to the unbridled propensities of man, in what a horrible state would society have been - if indeed society could have existed, or civilization have taken place - if marriage had not obtained among men! As to good wives and bad wives, they are relatively so, in general; and most of them that have been bad afterwards, have been good at first; and we well know the best things may deteriorate, and the world generally allows that where there are matrimonial contentions, there are faults on both sides.
Verse 24
A man that hath friends must show himself friendly - Love begets love; and love requires love as its recompense. If a man do not maintain a friendly carriage, he cannot expect to retain his friends. Friendship is a good plant; but it requires cultivation to make it grow.
There is a kind of factitious friendship in the world, that, to show one's self friendly in it, is very expensive, and in every way utterly unprofitable: it is maintained by expensive parties. feasts, etc., where the table groans with dainties, and where the conversation is either jejune and insipid, or calumnious; backbiting, talebearing, and scandal, being the general topics of the different squads in company.
There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother - In many cases the genuine friend has shown more attachment, and rendered greater benefits, than the natural brother. Some apply this to God; others to Christ; but the text has no such meaning.
But critics and commentators are not agreed on the translation of this verse. The original is condensed and obscure. אוש רעים להתרועע ish reim lehithroea, or lehithroeang, as some would read, who translate: A man of friends may ring again; i.e., he may boast and mightily exult: but there is a friend, אהב oheb, a lover, that sticketh closer, דבק dabek, is glued or cemented, מאח meach, beyond, or more than, a brother. The former will continue during prosperity, but the latter continues closely united to his friend, even in the most disastrous circumstances.
Hence that maxim of Cicero, so often repeated, and so well known: -
Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur. "In doubtful times the genuine friend is known."
A late commentator has translated the verse thus: -
The man that hath many friends is ready to be ruined:
But there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Holden. "A frende that delyteth in love, doth a man more frendship, and sticketh faster unto him, than a brother." Coverdale. "A man that hath friends ought to show himself friendly for a friend is nearer than a brother." Barker's Bible, 1615. "A man amyable to felowschip, more a freend schal ben thanne a brother." - Old MS. Bible. The two last verses in this chapter, and the two first of the next, are wanting in the Septuagint and Arabic.
These are the principal varieties; out of them the reader may choose. I have already given my opinion.
Introduction
The worth of a poor upright man. Riches preserve friends. False witnesses. False friends. A king's wrath. The foolish son. The prudent wife. Slothfulness. Pity for the poor. The fear of the Lord. The spendthrift son. Obedience to parents.
Verse 1
Better is the poor - The upright poor man is always to be preferred to the rich or self-sufficient fool.
Verse 2
Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good - Would it not be plainer, as it is more literal, to say, "Also, to be without knowledge, is not good for the soul?" The soul was made for God; and to be without his knowledge, to be unacquainted with him, is not only not good, but the greatest evil the soul can suffer, for it involves all other evils. The Chaldee and Syriac have: "He who knows not his own soul, it is not good to him." "Where no discretion is, there the soul is not well." - Coverdale.
And he that hasteth with his feet sinneth - And this will be the case with him who is not Divinely instructed. A child does nothing cautiously, because it is uninstructed; a savage is also rash and precipitate, till experience instructs him. A man who has not the knowledge of God is incautious, rash, headstrong, and precipitate: and hence he sinneth - he is continually missing the mark, and wounding his own soul.
Verse 3
The foolishness of man - Most men complain of cross providences, because they get into straits and difficulties through the perverseness of their ways; and thus they fret against God; whereas, in every instance, they are the causes of their own calamities. O how inconsistent is man!
Verse 4
The poor is separated from his neighbor - Because he has the "disease of all-shunned poverty."
Verse 7
Do hate him - They shun him as they do the person they hate. They neither hate him positively, nor love him: they disregard him; they will have nothing to do with him. שנא sana signifies not only to hate, but to show a less degree of love to one than another. So Jacob loved Rachel, but hated Leah - showed her less affection than he did to Rachel.
Verse 10
Delight is not seemly for a fool - תענוג taanug, splendid or luxurious living, rank, equipage, etc. These sit ill on a fool, though he be by birth a lord.
For a servant to have rule over princes - I pity the king who delivers himself into the hands of his own ministers. Such a one loses his character, and cannnot be respected by his subjects, or rather their subjects. But it is still worse when a person of mean extraction is raised to the throne, or to any place of power; he is generally cruel and tyrannical.
Verse 11
It is his glory to pass over a transgression - "No," says what is termed a man of honor; "he must meet me as a gentleman; I must have his blood, let God say what he will." O poor, dastardly coward! thou canst not bear the reproach of poor, flimsy, paltry fellows who ridicule thee, because thou hast refused to commit murder. Such laws should be put down by law; and the man that gives a challenge should be hanged, because he intends to commit murder.
Verse 12
The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion - There is nothing more dreadful than the roaring of this tyrant of the forest. At the sound of it all other animals tremble, flee away, and hide themselves. The king who is above law, and rules without law, and whose will is his own law, is like the lion. This is strongly descriptive of the character of Asiatic sovereigns.
Verse 13
The contentions of a wife are a continual dropping - The man who has got such a wife is like a tenant who has got a cottage with a bad roof through every part of which the rain either drops or pours. He can neither sit, stand work, nor sleep, without being exposed to these droppings. God help the man who is in such a case, with house or wife!
Verse 14
A prudent wife is from the Lord - One who has a good understanding, אשה משכלת ishshah mascaleth; who avoids complaining, though she may often have cause for it.
Verse 15
Into a deep sleep - תרדמה tardemah, the same into which Adam was thrown, before Eve was taken from his side. Sloth renders a man utterly unconscious of all his interests. Though he has frequently felt hunger, yet he is regardless that his continual slothfulness must necessarily plunge him into more sufferings.
Verse 17
Lendeth unto the Lord - O what a word is this! God makes himself debtor for every thing that is given to the poor! Who would not advance much upon such credit? God will pay it again. And in no case has he ever forfeited his word.