The Pulpit Commentary — Proverbs — Section 243

Vers. 12-22.- Virtues and vices in civil life. I. SOME VICES OF SOCIETY. 1. Envious greed. (Ver. 12.) The wicked desires the "takings" of the evil. It is a general description of greedy strife and competition, one man trying to forestall another in the bargain, or to profit at the expense of his loss; a mutually destructive process, a grinding of egoistic passions against one another, so that there can be no mutual confidence nor peace (Isa. xlvili. 22; !vii. 21). The hard selfishness of business life, which may be worse than war, which elicits generosity and self-denial. 2. Tricks of speech. (Ver.13.) How much of this there is, in subtler forms than those of ancient life, in our day! Exaggerations of value, suppression of faults in articles of commerce, lying advertisements, coloured descriptions, etc.,-all these are snares, distinct breaches of the moral law; and were they not compensated by truth and honesty in other directions, society must crumble. 3. Conceit of shrewdness (ver. 14) is a common mark of dishonest men. Tliis may seem right in their own eyes, no matter what a correct-moral judgment may have to say about it. There may lurk a profound immorality beneath the constant phrase, "It pays I" Want of principle never does pay, in God's sense. The seeming success on which such men pride themselves is not real They laugh at the preacher, but expose themselves to a more profound derision. 4. Passion and impetuosity. (Ver. 16.) The temper unfits for social intercourse and business. Flaming out at the first provocation, it shows an absence of reflection and self-control. How many unhappy wounds have been inflicted, either in word or deed; how many opportunities lost, friendships broken, through mere temper! 5. Lying and deceit. (Ver. 17.) The teaching_ of the book harps upon this string again and again. For does not all evil reduce itself to a lie in its essence? .And is not deceit or treachery in some form the real canker in a decaying society, the last cause of all calamity? "We are betrayed I" was the constant exclamation of the French soldiers during the last war, upon the occurrence of a defeat. But it is self-betrayal that is the most dangerous. 6. Foulness or violence of speech. (Ver. 18.) 'l'he speech of the fool is compared. to the ~hrusts of a sword. Not only all abusive and violent language, but all that 1s wantmg in tact, imagination of others' situation, is condemned. 7. Designing craft. (Ver. 20.) '!'he Oll, XII. 1-28,) THE PROVERBS. 245