PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Proverbs
Horton, Robert F. (Robert Forman) · 128,563 words · 191 reading sections
Fourth Series, 1890-91.
Produced by Douglas L. Alley, III, Colin Bell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) _Editor of "The Expositor."_ =London:= _Crown 8vo, cloth, price_ 7s. 6d. _each vol._ Colossians. By A. MACLAREN, D…
264 wordsSECTION 2Introduction.
_Hampstead_; =London:= "Shrewd remarks Of moral prudence, clothed in images Lively and beautiful." WORDSWORTH. _Printed by Hazell Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ CERTAIN EXAMPLES OF THE BINDING CHARACTER OF OUR OWN ACTIONS 79 In attempting to make the book of Proverbs a subject of Expository Lectu…
1,004 wordsSECTION 3Introduction.
To this collection is added an appendix (xxii. 17-xxiv. 22), which opens with an exhortation addressed by the teacher to his pupil. The literary form of this appendix falls far behind the style of the main collection. The terse and compact distich occurs rarely; most of the sayings are more cumbrous and elaborate, and …
662 wordsSECTION 4Introduction.
Now, the two collections which have been described, with their several appendices, were at some favourable point in religious history, possibly in those happy days of Josiah when the Deuteronomic Law was newly promulgated to the joyful nation, brought together, and, as we should say now, edited, with an original introd…
650 wordsSECTION 5_The Beginning Of Wisdom._
[1] _Cf._ xxv. 24 (xxi. 9), xxvi. 22 (xviii. 8), xxvii. 12 (xxii. 3), xxvii. 13 (xx. 16), xxvi. 13 (xxii. 13), xxvi. 15 (xix. 24), xxviii. 6 (xix. 1), xxviii. 19 (xii. 11), xxix. 13 (xxii. 2); to which add xxvii. 15 (xix. 13), xxvii. 21 (xvii. 3), xxix. 22 (xv. 18). "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.…
744 wordsSECTION 6_The Beginning Of Wisdom._
But while Wisdom embraces in her wide survey all things in heaven and in earth, there is one part of the vast field which makes a special demand upon human interest. The proper study of mankind is man. Very naturally the earliest subject to occupy human thought was human life, human conduct, human society. Or, to say t…
710 wordsSECTION 7_The Beginning Of Wisdom._
The Proverbs are often shrewd, often edifying, sometimes almost evangelical in their sharp ethical insight; but we shall constantly be reminded that they do not come with the overbearing authority of the prophetic "Thus saith the Lord." And still more shall we be reminded how far they lag behind the standard of life an…
841 wordsSECTION 8_The Beginning Of Wisdom._
The gates of Knowledge and Wisdom are closed, and they are opened only to the knock of Reverence. Without reverence, it is true, men may gain what is called worldly knowledge and worldly wisdom; but these are far removed from truth, and experience often shows us how profoundly ignorant and how incurably blind pushing a…
750 wordsSECTION 9_The Beginning Of Wisdom._
Or to put the matter in a slightly different way: a thinking mind can only conceive the universe as the product of thought; if the universe is not the product of thought it can never be intelligible to a thinking mind, and can therefore never be in a true sense the object of knowledge; to deny that the universe is the …
795 wordsSECTION 10_The Beginning Of Wisdom._
In this way is struck the key-note of the Jewish "Wisdom." It is profoundly true; it is stimulating and helpful. But it may not be out of place to remind ourselves even thus early that the idea on which we have been dwelling comes short of the higher truth which has been given us in Christ. It hardly entered into the m…
363 wordsSECTION 11Footnotes:
[2] Eccl. vii. 24. [3] Wisdom viii. 1. [4] Eccl. vii. 25. [5] 1 Kings iv. 33. [6] In this passage Wisdom is represented saying-- "I from the mouth of the Highest came forth, and as vapour I veiled the earth; I in the heights pitched my tent, my throne in a pillar of cloud; I alone circled the ring of heaven, an…
279 wordsSECTION 12_Wisdom As The Guide Of Conduct._
"To deliver thee from the way of the evil man.... To deliver thee from the strange woman." --PROV. ii. 12_a_-16_a_. Wisdom is concerned, as we have seen, with the whole universe of fact, with the whole range of thought; she surveys and orders all processes of nature. We might say of her, "She doth preserve the star…
656 wordsSECTION 13_Wisdom As The Guide Of Conduct._
The rebukes of the prophets--Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah--may have a wider application, but they seem at any rate to include this highwayman's life. "Your hands are full of blood" is the charge of Isaiah;[13] and again, "Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniq…
678 wordsSECTION 14_Wisdom As The Guide Of Conduct._
In the second place, we must try to look at these temptations in the light of our own day, in order that we may listen to the voice of wisdom, not in the antiquarian, but rather in the practical spirit. The second temptation exists amongst us almost unchanged, except that the vast accumulation and concentration of vice…
836 wordsSECTION 15_Wisdom As The Guide Of Conduct._
The Bandit life has here emerged in a new form. "Come, let us lay wait for blood," says the Sweater or the Fogger, "let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them up alive as Sheol, and whole as those that go down into the pit."[23] The Bandit is an outcast from society, and his hand is turned …
671 wordsSECTION 16_Wisdom As The Guide Of Conduct._
It needs but a clear vision or a little wise reflection to see the destructive tendency of Evil. It is the commonest fact of experience that where "vice goes before, vengeance follows after." Why do men not perceive it? There is a kind of fatuity which blinds the eyes. The empty-headed bird sees the net spread out befo…
796 wordsSECTION 17_The Earthly Rewards Of Wisdom._
And wisdom still cries to _us_, "Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you." [10] Prov. ii. 10. [11] Prov. i. 32. [12] We may remind ourselves that, according to the most probable conjecture, this introduction to Solomon's Proverbs (chaps, i.-ix.) dates f…
682 wordsSECTION 18_The Earthly Rewards Of Wisdom._
This is a side of truth which we frequently allow to drop out of sight, in order to emphasize another side which is considered more important. We are accustomed to dwell on the promised joys of the future world as if godliness had no promise of the life which now is, and in so doing we take all life and colour from tho…
698 wordsSECTION 19_The Earthly Rewards Of Wisdom._
(2) But there is a second result of the right life which ordinary observation and common sense may estimate. Wisdom is very uncompromising in her requirement of fair dealing between man and man. She cannot away with those commercial practices which can only be described as devising "evil against thy neighbour," who "dw…
693 wordsSECTION 20_The Earthly Rewards Of Wisdom._
But in enumerating these external results of right living we have only touched incidentally upon the deeper truths which lie at the root of it. It is time to look at these. God is necessarily so much to men, men are necessarily so completely bereft without Him, that clear vision and strong action are utterly impossibl…
1,037 wordsSECTION 21_The Earthly Rewards Of Wisdom._
When a few years have been passed in humble dependence on God, it is then possible to look back and see with astonishing clearness how real and decisive the leadings of the Spirit have been. There were moments when two alternatives were present, and we were tempted to decide on the strength of our own understanding; bu…
673 wordsSECTION 22_The Earthly Rewards Of Wisdom._
To know the secret of the Lord, to walk in this world not guideless, but led by the Lord of life, to approach death itself not fearful, but in the hands of that Infinite Love for whom death does not exist, surely this is worth more than the gold and precious stones which belong only to the earth and are earthy. This wi…
748 wordsSECTION 23_Education: The Child'S Thought Of The Parent._[53]
[32] Prov. ii. 21, 22. [33] Prov. i. 31-33. [34] Prov. ix. 12, 18. [35] _Cf._ xxviii. 26, "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered." [36] Prov. iii. 1-10. [37] Luke xviii. 29, 30. [38] The Hebrew word שִׁקּוּי in iii. 8_b_ is the same as that which is translate…
715 wordsSECTION 24_Education: The Child'S Thought Of The Parent._[53]
John Paton, that noble missionary to the New Hebrides, has given us a vivid picture of his early home. It was a plain lowland cottage, with its "but and ben," and between the two a small chamber with a diminutive window shedding diminutive light on the scene. To this room the children saw the father retire oftentimes a…
802 wordsSECTION 25_Education: The Child'S Thought Of The Parent._[53]
Now the answer to this question may for the Christian be briefly given, Bring your children to Christ, teach them to recognize in Him their Saviour, and to accept Him as their present Lord and gracious Friend. But this all-inclusive answer will not suffer by a little expansion on the lines which are laid down in the ch…
656 wordsSECTION 26_Education: The Child'S Thought Of The Parent._[53]
We are tempted in dealing with children to train them only in outward habits, and to forget the inward sources which are always gathering and forming; hence we often teach them to avoid the lie on the tongue, to put away from them the froward mouth and perverse lips,[61] and yet leave them with the lies in the soul, th…
691 wordsSECTION 27_Education: The Child'S Thought Of The Parent._[53]
The right life then is a steady progress undiverted by the alluring sights and sounds which appeal to the senses.[64] "Look not round about thee," says Ecclesiasticus,[65] "in the streets of the city, neither wander thou in the solitary places thereof." We are to learn that the way goes through Vanity Fair, but admits …
786 wordsSECTION 28_The Ways And Issues Of Sin._
With daily growing gratitude and veneration does such an one look back upon the early home of piety and tenderness. [53] This subject, which occupies so large a part of the book, is further treated in Lect. XXIII. [54] It is noteworthy that the LXX. in ver. 2 seek to maintain the Solomonic authorship by deliberately …
743 wordsSECTION 29_The Ways And Issues Of Sin._
There is a corresponding difference in the effects of the two. Few men could study these chapters in the book of Proverbs without experiencing a healthy revolt against the iniquity which is unveiled; while few men can read the works of modern realism without contracting a certain contamination, without a dimming of the…
696 wordsSECTION 30_The Ways And Issues Of Sin._
"Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared."[79] Forbidding to marry is a device of Satan; anything which tends to degrade or to desecrate marriage bears on its face the ma…
861 wordsSECTION 31_The Ways And Issues Of Sin._
There is an inevitableness about it all, for life is not lived at a hazard; every path is clearly laid bare from its first step to its last before the eyes of the Lord; the ups and downs which obscure the way for us are all level to Him.[88] Not by chance, therefore, but by the clearest interworking of cause and effect…
759 wordsSECTION 32_The Ways And Issues Of Sin._
Again, every sin is preparing for us a loss of wealth, of the only wealth which is really durable, the treasure in the heavens; every sin is capable of "bringing a man to a piece of bread,"[93] filching from him all the food on which the spirit lives. It is too common a sight to see a young spendthrift who has run thro…
862 wordsSECTION 33Footnotes:
Here then is the plain, stern truth,--a law, not of Nature only, but of the Universe. As you look into a fact so solemn, so awful; as the cadence of the chapter closes, do you not seem to perceive with a new clearness how men needed One who could take away the sins of the world, One who could break those cruel bonds wh…
296 wordsSECTION 34Vi.
_CERTAIN EXAMPLES OF THE BINDING CHARACTER OF OUR OWN ACTIONS._ "The surety ... the sluggard ... and the worthless person."--PROV. vi. 1, 6, 12. From the solemn principle announced at the close of the last chapter the teacher passes, almost unconscious of the thought which determines his selection of subjects, to i…
845 wordsSECTION 35Vi.
We may now pass to our second illustration, the poverty and ruin which must eventually overtake _the Sluggard_. "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns. The face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone wall thereof wa…
985 wordsSECTION 36Vi.
The fact is that his heart is as deceitful as his lips; he cannot be true on any terms. If some simple and open course occurred to his mind he would shun it instinctively, because it is in devising evil that he lives and moves and has his being. His friendliest approaches fill an honest man with misgiving, his words of…
665 wordsSECTION 37Vi.
We are told that in Sierra Leone the white ants will sometimes occupy a house, and eat their way into all the woodwork, until every article in the house is hollow, so that it will collapse into dust directly it is touched. It is so with this deceitful character, so honeycombed, and eaten through, that though for years …
752 wordsSECTION 38Vi.
4. Hateful too to Him is _the devising heart_, even where courage or opportunity fails of realizing the device. There are so many more murderers in the world than we see, so many cruel and wicked deeds restrained by the police or by a dominant public sentiment, which yet lie deep in the wicked imaginations of our heart…
326 wordsSECTION 39Footnotes:
[95] See Prov. xvii. 18, xx. 16, repeated in xxvii. 13, and especially xi. 15. [96] Prov. xxii. 26, 27. [97] Eccles. xxix. 14, 16, 17, 18, 19. [98] Prov. xxiv. 30-34; see for a fuller treatment of the subject Lecture XX. [99] Prov. xxx. 25-27. [100] It is the word used in Exod. v. 6 of those who directed the tasks…
254 wordsSECTION 40_Realism In Moral Teaching._
"I looked forth through my lattice; and I beheld."--PROV. vii. 6. The three chapters which close the introduction of our book (vii.-ix.) present a lively and picturesque contrast between Folly and Wisdom---Folly more especially in the form of vice; Wisdom more generally in her highest and most universal intention. Fol…
746 wordsSECTION 41_Realism In Moral Teaching._
This blessed kinship with Understanding should save the young man from such a fate as we are now to contemplate. It is twilight, not yet absolutely dark, but the shuddering horror of the scene seems to quench the doubtful glimmer of evening and to plunge the observer suddenly into midnight.[112] There is a young man c…
675 wordsSECTION 42_Realism In Moral Teaching._
She throws her arms round him and kisses him, and he makes no question that it is a tribute to the personal attractions which he has himself often admired in his mirror. She would have him believe that it was he whom she had come out specially to seek, though it would have been just the same whoever had caught her eye;…
674 wordsSECTION 43_Realism In Moral Teaching._
The effect of comparison with dumb animals is heightened by throwing in a more direct comparison with other human beings. Transposing the words, with Delitzsch, as is evidently necessary in order to preserve the parallelism of the similitude, we find this little touch: "He goeth after her straightway, as a fool to the …
724 wordsSECTION 44_Realism In Moral Teaching._
Then he perceives that the fatal step that he took was "for his life," that is, his life was at stake. When he entered into the trap, the die was cast; hope was abandoned as he entered there. The house which appeared so attractive was a mere covered way to hell. The chambers which promised such imagined delights were o…
711 wordsSECTION 45_Realism In Moral Teaching._
Accordingly, here is a wonder which none can explain, but which none can gainsay. When the victim of fleshly sin, suffering from the arrow which has pierced his liver, handed over as it seems to despair, is led to gaze upon the Crucified Christ, and to understand the meaning of His bearing our sins in His own body on t…
503 wordsSECTION 46_The First-Born Of The Creator._
[110] Prov. vii. 6. [111] Prov. vii. 4. [112] Prov. vii. 9. [113] Prov. vii. 8. The term צָעַד describes a special kind of motion, _e.g._, the slow pacing of the oxen that bare the ark (2 Sam. vi. 15), or the imagined efforts of idols to move (Jer. x. 5); it is therefore unfortunate to render it by the generic word …
806 wordsSECTION 47_The First-Born Of The Creator._
In the first part Wisdom solemnly states her own value, as compared with the valuables which men usually covet--silver, and gold, and precious stones. That she is of more account than these, appears from the fact that they are but parts of her gifts. In her train come riches; but they differ from ordinary riches in bei…
725 wordsSECTION 48_The First-Born Of The Creator._
Is it not obvious, then, that men, who are her sons, ought to give ear to her counsels? What could establish a stronger claim for attention than this ancient origin, this honourable part in laying the very foundations of the earth, and this special interest in human life from the beginning? Raised to this high level, w…
823 wordsSECTION 49_The First-Born Of The Creator._
And now to advance to another idea which is implied in the passage, the idea that in the very conception of the universe human life was contemplated, and regarded with a peculiar delight by the Wisdom of God. The place which Man occupies in creation has been variously estimated in different religious systems and by dif…
804 wordsSECTION 50_The First-Born Of The Creator._
But when we notice how the Wisdom who is here speaking is at once the mouthpiece of the laws which underlie the whole creation and of the laws which govern the moral life, it is easy to perceive how this passage becomes a foreshadowing of that wonderful Being who of God is made unto us Wisdom as well as Righteousness. …
720 wordsSECTION 51_The First-Born Of The Creator._
He, like Wisdom in the book of Proverbs, appears in the busy haunts of man, appeals to them, invites them with large, open-armed generosity. _His_ voice is to the sons of men. He, like Wisdom, can say with absolute truth, "All the words of My mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing crooked or perverse in them." He…
443 wordsSECTION 52Footnotes:
[117] Prov. viii. 1-6. [118] Prov. viii. 7-9. [119] Prov. viii. 20. [120] Prov. viii. 8, 9. [121] Prov. viii. 18. [122] Prov. viii. 10-16. [123] Prov. viii. 17. [124] Prov. viii. 22. There is unfortunately an ambiguity in the word קָנָה. It may mean either "to possess" or "to create." _Cf._ Gen. xiv. 19, 22, whe…
539 wordsSECTION 53Ch. Ix., Vv. 14 With 3, And 16 With 4.
After the lengthened contrast between the vicious woman and Wisdom in chaps. vii. and viii., the introduction of the book closes with a little picture which is intended to repeat and sum up all that has gone before. It is a peroration, simple, graphic, and beautiful. There is a kind of competition between Wisdom and F…
660 wordsSECTION 54Ch. Ix., Vv. 14 With 3, And 16 With 4.
Yes, our Lord, the Wisdom Incarnate, has glorious ideas of hospitality; He keeps open house; His purpose is to call mankind to a great feast; the "bread and the wine" are prepared; the sacrifice which furnishes the meat is slain. His messengers are not commissioned with a mournful or a condemnatory proclamation, but wi…
724 wordsSECTION 55Ch. Ix., Vv. 14 With 3, And 16 With 4.
Again, how constantly He insisted on the mysterious fact that to him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken what he hath, precisely in the spirit of this saying: "Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning."[149] The ent…
826 wordsSECTION 56Ch. Ix., Vv. 14 With 3, And 16 With 4.
Such is the invitation, and such the warning, of Wisdom; such is the invitation, and such the warning, of Christ. Leave off, ye simple ones, and live. After all, most of us are not scorners, but only very foolish, easily dazzled with false lights, easily misled with smooth utterances which happen to chime in with our o…
806 wordsSECTION 57Ch. Ix., Vv. 14 With 3, And 16 With 4.
And now, before leaving this subject, we must briefly remark the great change and advance which Christ has brought into our thought of the relation between the two sexes. This Book of Wisdom is a fair illustration of the contempt in which woman was held by the wise men of Israel. One would suppose that she is the tempt…
560 wordsSECTION 58_Wealth._
[134] _Cf._ for this contrast between the two xxiii. 26-28, where Wisdom speaks, and expressly warns against her rival. [135] The arrangement of the house is that of an open courtyard, surrounded with apartments, the general roof supported on the pillars thus. [Illustration] [136] Prov. vii. 14. [137] Prov. ix. 5. …
656 wordsSECTION 59_Wealth._
In our own day this question of the distribution of wealth stands in the front rank of practical questions. Religious teachers must face it, or else they must forfeit their claim to be the guides and instructors of their generation. Socialists are grappling with this question not altogether in a religious spirit: they…
691 wordsSECTION 60_Wealth._
Since then Poverty is a legitimate subject of dread, there are urgent exhortations to diligence and thrift, quite in accordance with the excellent apostolic maxim that if a man will not work he shall not eat; while there are forcible statements of the things which tend to poverty, and of the courses which result in com…
716 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.