See the introduction to Proverbs. According to the different reading, there noted, the inscription ends with: “the man spake,” and the words that follow, are the beginning of the confession, “I have wearied myself after God and have fainted.” SPAKE - The Hebrew word is that commonly used of the utt... [ Continue Reading ]
A confession of ignorance, with which compare the saying of Socrates that he was wise only so far as he knew that he knew nothing, or that of Asaph Psalms 73:22.... [ Continue Reading ]
He found, when he looked within, that all his learning was as nothing. He had heard of God only “by the hearing of the ear” Job 42:5, and now he discovered how little that availed. THE HOLY - The Holy One. Compare Proverbs 9:10.... [ Continue Reading ]
Man is to be humbled to the dust by the thought of the glory of God as seen in the visible creation. WHO HATH ASCENDED UP INTO HEAVEN, OR DESCENDED? - The thought is obviously that of the all-embracing Providence of God, taking in at once the greatest and the least, the highest and the lowest. The... [ Continue Reading ]
Out of this consciousness of the impotence of all man’s efforts after the knowledge of God rises the sense of the preciousness of every living word that God has Himself revealed, whether through “the Law and the prophets” or through “wise men and scribes.”... [ Continue Reading ]
Men are not to mingle revealed truth with their own imaginations and traditions. In speculating on the unseen, the risk of error is indefinitely great, and that error God reproves by manifesting its falsehoods.... [ Continue Reading ]
TWO THINGS - The limitation of man’s desires follows naturally upon his consciousness of the limits of his knowledge.... [ Continue Reading ]
The order of the two requests is significant. The wise man’s prayer is first and chiefly, “truth in the inward parts,” the removal of all forms of falsehood, hollowness, hypocrisy. NEITHER POVERTY ... - The evil of the opposite extremes of social life is that in different ways they lead men to a fa... [ Continue Reading ]
The special dangers of the two extremes. Wealth tempts to pride, unbelief, and a scorn like that of Pharaoh Exodus 5:2; poverty to, dishonesty, and then to perjury, or to the hypocritical profession of religion which is practically identical with it.... [ Continue Reading ]
ACCUSE NOT A SERVANT - The prayer in Proverbs 30:8 does not shut out, sympathy with those who are less favored. Even the slave has a right to protection against frivolous or needless accusation. Others, however, render the words Make not a slave to accuse his master, i. e., Do not make him disconten... [ Continue Reading ]
As the teacher had uttered what he most desired, so now he tells what he most abhorred; and in true-harmony with the teaching of the Ten Commandments places in the foremost rank those who rise against the Fifth.... [ Continue Reading ]
The Pharisee temper (compare the marginal reference).... [ Continue Reading ]
Note the numeration mounting to a climax, the two, the three, the four (Amos 1:3 etc.). The word rendered “horseleach” is found nowhere else, and its etymology is doubtful; but there are good grounds for taking the word in its literal sense, as giving an example, in the natural world, of the insatia... [ Continue Reading ]
Another enigma. The four things of Proverbs 30:16 agreed in the common point of insatiableness; the four now mentioned agree in this, that they leave no trace behind them. Proverbs 30:19 THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID - The act of sin leaves no outward mark upon the sinners.... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR FOUR WHICH IT CANNOT BEAR - Better: four it cannot bear. Here the common element is that of being intolerable, and the four examples are divided equally between the two sexes. Each has its examples of power and prosperity misused because they fall to the lot of those who have no training for the... [ Continue Reading ]
ODIOUS WOMAN - One in whom there is nothing loveable. Marriage, which to most women is the state in which they find scope for their highest qualities, becomes to her only a sphere in which to make herself and others miserable.... [ Continue Reading ]
EXCEEDING WISE - Some prefer the reading of the Septuagint and Vulgate: “wiser than the wise.” The thought, in either case, turns upon the marvels of instinct, which, in their own province, transcend the more elaborate results of human wisdom.... [ Continue Reading ]
See the marginal reference note. Note the word “people” applied here to ants, as to locusts in Joel 1:6. The marvel lies in their collective, and, as it were, organized action.... [ Continue Reading ]
CONIES - See the marginal reference note.... [ Continue Reading ]
Compare Joel 2:7; the most striking fact in the flight of the locust-swarms was their apparent order and discipline, sweeping over the land like the invasion of a great army.... [ Continue Reading ]
SPIDER - Rather, the Gecko (or Stellio), a genus of the lizard tribe, many species of which haunt houses, make their way through crevices in the walls, and with feet that secrete a venomous exudation catch the spiders or the flies they find there.... [ Continue Reading ]
A GREYHOUND - The Hebrew word occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. The literal meaning is: “one with loins girded;” and some have referred this to the stripes of the zebra, others to the “war-horse” (compare Job 39:19, Job 39:25), as he is represented in the sculptures of Persepolis, with rich... [ Continue Reading ]
LAY THINE HAND UPON THY MOUTH - The act expresses the silence of humiliation and repentance after the sin has been committed, and that of self-restraint, which checks the haughty or malignant thought before it has passed even into words.... [ Continue Reading ]
CHURNING ... WRINGING ... FORCING - In the Hebrew text it is one and the same word. “The pressure of milk produces curds, the pressure of the nose produces blood, the pressure of wrath (i. e., brooding over and, as it were, condensing it) produces strife.”... [ Continue Reading ]