Proverbs 27:2
ANOTHER - An “alienus” rather than “alius.” Praise to be worth anything must be altogether independent.... [ Continue Reading ]
ANOTHER - An “alienus” rather than “alius.” Praise to be worth anything must be altogether independent.... [ Continue Reading ]
Compare Ecclus. 22:15; a like comparison between the heaviest material burdens and the more intolerable load of unreasoning passion.... [ Continue Reading ]
ENVY - Better, as in the margin, the violence of passion in the husband who thinks himself wronged (compare Proverbs 6:34).... [ Continue Reading ]
SECRET LOVE - Better, love that is hidden; i. e., love which never shows itself in this one way of rebuking faults. Rebuke, whether from friend or foe, is better than such love.... [ Continue Reading ]
DECEITFUL - Better, abundant. Very lavish is the enemy of the kisses that cover perfidy, but lavish of them only. His courtesy goes no deeper.... [ Continue Reading ]
The special instance covers the general law, that indulgence in pleasure of any kind brings on satiety and weariness, but self-restraint multiplies the sources of enjoyment.... [ Continue Reading ]
Change of place is thought of as in itself an evil. It is not easy for the man to find another home or the bird another nest. The maxim is characteristic of the earlier stages of Hebrew history, before exile and travel had made change of country a more familiar thing. Compare the feeling which made... [ Continue Reading ]
“Better is a neighbor” who is really “near” in heart and spirit, than a brother who though closer by blood, is “far off” in feeling.... [ Continue Reading ]
The voice of the teacher to his true disciple. He pleads with him that the uprightness of the scholar will be the truest answer to all attacks on the character or teaching of the master.... [ Continue Reading ]
Compare the marginal reference.... [ Continue Reading ]
The picture of the ostentatious flatterer going at daybreak to pour out blessings on his patron. For any good that he does, for any thanks he gets, he might as well utter curses.... [ Continue Reading ]
CONTINUAL DROPPING - Here, as in the marginal reference, the flat, earthen roof of Eastern houses, always liable to cracks and leakage, supplies the groundwork of the similitude.... [ Continue Reading ]
The point is the impossibility of concealment or restraint. A person cannot hide the wind, or clasp it in his hands. If he takes an unguent in his right hand, the odor betrays him, or it slips out. So, in like manner, the “contentious woman” is one whose faults it is impossible either to hide or che... [ Continue Reading ]
The proverb expresses the gain of mutual counsel as found in clear, well-defined thoughts. Two minds, thus acting on each other, become more acute. This is better than to see in “sharpening” the idea of provoking, and the point of the maxim in the fact that the quarrels of those who have been friend... [ Continue Reading ]
WAITETH - literally, “keepeth,” “observeth.” As the fig tree requires constant care but yields abundant crops, so the ministrations of a faithful servant will not be without their due reward. Compare 2 Timothy 2:6.... [ Continue Reading ]
As we see our own face when we look on the mirror-like surface of the water, so in every heart of man we may see our own likeness. In spite of all diversities we come upon the common human nature in which we all alike share. Others see in the reference to the reflection in the water the thought that... [ Continue Reading ]
Hades, the world of the dead, and Destruction (Death, the destroying power, personified) have been at all times and in all countries thought of as all-devouring, insatiable (compare the marginal reference). Yet one thing is equally so, the lust of the eye, the restless craving which grows with what... [ Continue Reading ]
SO IS ... - Better, So let a man be to his praise, let him purify it from all the alloy of flattery and baseness with which it is too probably mixed up.... [ Continue Reading ]
BRAY - To pound wheat in a mortar with a pestle, in order to free the wheat from its husks and impurities, is to go through a far more elaborate process than threshing. But the folly of the fool is not thus to be got rid of. It sticks to him to the last; all discipline, teaching, experience seem to... [ Continue Reading ]
The verses sing the praises of the earlier patriarchal life, with its flocks and herds, and tillage of the ground, as compared with the commerce of a later time, with money as its chief or only wealth. Proverbs 27:23 THE STATE - literally, face. The verse is an illustration of John 10:3, John 10:1... [ Continue Reading ]