CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 1:10. Entice thee, “lay thee open.” Miller here reads “if sinners would make a door of thy simplicity, afford thou no entrance.”
Proverbs 1:17. Some interpret this verse as referring to the godly who escape the snares laid for them, others to the wicked, who, not so wise as the bird, plunge themselves into ruin by plotting against the good. Then the blood and lives of Proverbs 1:18 refer to the blood and life of the sinner.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 1:10-19
ENTICEMENT TO SIN AND EXHORTATION AGAINST YIELDING TO IT
I. Youth will certainly be tempted.
1. Because he is in an evil world. In this world everything that possesses life is in danger of losing it. The tree is liable to have its root eaten by the worm, the smaller creatures in the animal world are beset with danger from those above them in size and strength, the fish in the sea is ever in danger of the hook or the net, the bird of the fowler’s snare, the forest king of the hunter’s gun. Man, in respect to his mere bodily existence, is surrounded by influences antagonistic to the preservation of his animal life. And this danger often presents itself in the form of enticement. The crumbs lure the bird into the trap, the bait tempts the fish to bite the hook. A smooth sea and bright sunshine in the morning tempts the fisherman to the voyage upon the treacherous deep, which becomes his grave in the evening. Moral life is not excepted from this rule. Wherever the youth finds himself in the world he will be tempted, because he is everywhere surrounded by influences which war against his soul life.
2. Because it is an ordination of God. The Divine Ruler has ordained that men shall suffer temptation. There are things in this world which are the common lot of all men, from the highest to the lowest. Disease and death come alike to the proudest monarch and his meanest subject, to the man of highest intellect and to the most unlettered savage. And temptation is also an ordained heritage of man. Not even the “second Adam, the Lord from heaven,” was exempted from this rule.
3. Because it is necessary for the formation of moral character. The seaman needs to come into conflict with the stormy winds and the rough waves of the ocean if he is to become a skilful mariner. The very effort which he puts forth to overcome them makes him more fit for his calling. So men must have temptation in order to test their powers of resistance; the struggle against sin, if successful, strengthens the moral character.
II. The elements which form the strength of the temptation.
1. The secresy promised by the tempter. “Let us lay wait for blood,” let us lurk privily for the innocent, etc. No one commits a crime against his fellow man, without an underlying hope that he will not be found out; he even persuades himself that it is hidden from God. “They say, how doth God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High?” (Psalms 73:11).
2. The hope of gain. Advantage of some kind is supposed to be the fruit of every sin. That which the tempter uses here is an increase of wealth. “We shall find all precious substance,” etc. This temptation is most common. A man is persuaded that by a very slight risk he can make a large fortune, that the deed will never come to light, and these two persuasions have been the ruin of hundreds.
3. The number of the tempters. Here several are represented as tempting one. “Come with us.” Numbers always influence us even when no persuasion is used. Men are naturally inclined to do what the many do, to go with the multitude. There is an undefined feeling that safety is with the majority, or, at least, that the being involved with many others lessens personal responsibility. This element of temptation is very powerful in a world where “the many” go in at the gate which leadeth to destruction, and “few” walk in the way which leadeth unto life (Matthew 7:13-14).
III. The way of escape from the tempter.
1. Calling to mind his filial relation. “My son.” It is a great help to a youth who is in danger of being drawn away from his steadfastness in the path of virtue to call his parents to mind. His father’s instructions and example, his mother’s love and prayers, the grief that his fall would bring upon them will, if reflected on, be a means of escape from the tempter’s snare. The thought that he is a son ought to be sufficient to keep him from straying.
2. A consideration of the certain end of sinners. Those who promise themselves and others secresy shall be taken openly. The bird will not be decoyed into the net if he sees it spread, the trap must be laid in secret if it is to be successful. But sinners go on in sin although they are forewarned by God, by their own consciences, by the law of human society, and by the experience of others what the end will be. “Be sure your sin will find you out,” is written, not only in the book of God, but within us and around us. The young man is to bear in mind that they are fools who tell him there is gain to be had by sin. Those who seek to take life in order to enjoy the property of others, or in any way to wrong their fellows for their own fancied gain, shall themselves, like Haman, be hanged upon the gallows which they have made. Let the youth reflect up the sad histories of those who now fill our convict-prisons, and he will feel that it is indeed true that evil-doers “lay wait for their own blood.”
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
I. A supposition implied, that sinners will entice. Sin is of so virulent and malignant a nature, that it tainteth the whole air about it and filleth it with infection, and there is no safety to be found within its neighbourhood without the blessed antidotes of piety and carefulness. And the sinner will take as much pains to pervert his companions, as the Jews did to make proselytes, and with the same fatal design and consequence, viz., to make them twofold more the children of hell than themselves. For since the good have all other advantages, and vastly outweigh them in intrinsic worth, they will endeavour to come as near a level as they can by making up in number what they want in value. Besides, it silences in some measure the loud alarms of their own consciences, when many join with them in their vicious performances, and the approbation of others, by complying with their practices, lulleth them to sleep in a dull security.
II. A caution subjoined, “Consent thou not.” To which end—
1. Consider the baseness and danger of consenting. We must sacrifice our reputation, render ourselves unfit for the company of men of worth, and exchange the glorious liberty of the children of God for that of vassals of iniquity. We must call in question the existence of God, and expose ourselves to that avenging hand which will lie heavy upon sinners to all eternity.
2. Take some plain and short directions to secure yourself against their enticements. Repel the first attempts upon your character. When that which is wrong is spoken or acted in your presence, do not suffer yourself to give it inward approbation. Withdraw from such society as soon as possible. Seek God’s assistance.—Nicolas Brady, D.D.
This verse, in brief compass and transparent terms, reveals the foe and the fight. With a kindness and wisdom altogether paternal, it warns the youth of the danger that assails him, and suggests the method of defence.—Arnot.
Carry a severe rebuke in thy countenance, as God doth (Psalms 80:16). To rebuke them is the ready way to be rid of them.—Trapp.
Proverbs 1:11-13. Two unreasonable and insatiable lusts they propose to gratify.
1. Their cruelty. They thirst for blood, and hate those that are innocent, and never gave them any provocation. Who could imagine that human nature should degenerate so far that it should ever be a pleasure to one man to destroy another?
2. Their covetousness. What, though we venture our necks, we shall fill our houses with spoil. See here
(1) the idea they have of worldly wealth. They call that precious substance which is neither substance nor precious; it is a shadow and vanity, especially that which is gotten by robbery. It is the ruin of thousands, that they overvalue the wealth of this world.
2. The abundance which they promise themselves. Those who trade with sin promise themselves mighty bargains. But they only dream that they eat, the housefuls dwindle into scarcely a handful.—Henry.
Proverbs 1:11. The warning, as such, is true for all times and countries, but has here a special application. The temptation against which the teacher seeks to guard his disciple is that of joining a band of highway robbers. At no period in its history has Palestine ever risen to the security of a well-ordered police system, and the wild licence of the marauder’s life attracted, we may well believe, many who were brought up in towns (Judges 11:3; 1 Samuel 22:2), and the bands of robbers who infested every part of the country in the period of the New Testament, and against whom every Roman governor had to wage incessant war, show how deeply rooted the evil was there. The history of many countries (our own, e.g., in the popular Traditions of Robin Hood and Henry V.) presents like phenomena. The robber-life has attractions for the open-hearted and adventurous. No generation, perhaps no class, can afford to despise the warning against it.… Without cause may mean in vain, and receive its interpretation from the mocking question of the tempter: “Doth Job serve God for nought?” The evil-doers deride their victims as being righteous gratis, or in vain.—Plumptre.
If sinners have their “come,” should not saints much more? Should we not incite, entice, whet, and provoke one another, rouse and stir up each other, to love and good works? (2 Peter 1:13; Hebrews 10:24; Isaiah 2:3; Zechariah 8:21.)—Trapp.
Proverbs 1:12. The force of the verse noteth the allurement of wickedness from the cleanly despatch of it, so that nothing appeareth of the doing of it.—Jermin.
We will be as Sheol, as Hades, as the great underworld of the dead, all-devouring, merciless. The destruction of those we attack shall be as sudden as that of those who go down quickly into Sheol. (Numbers 16:30; Numbers 16:33)—Plumptre.
Proverbs 1:13. Wickedness has always been a very bragging boaster. These sinners make a brag like that which the devil made to Christ: “All these things will I give thee.” Covetousness is a strong chain to draw men on to wickedness.—Jermin.
Proverbs 1:14. The first form of temptation is addressed to the simple lust of greed. The second, with more subtle skill, appeals to something in itself nobler, however easily perverted. The main attraction of the robber-life is its wild communism, the sense of equal hazards and equal hopes. To have “one purse,” setting laws of property at nought among themselves, seems almost a set-off against their attacks on the property of others.—Plumptre.
Proverbs 1:15. “God will not take the wicked by the hand.” (Job 8:20.) Why, then, should we?—Trapp.
The affairs of this life are the highways of the King of Heaven; thou mayest walk in the ways of them, but not with the wicked. It is an argument of a wicked man but to company with the wicked. We judge evil accompanyings to be next to evil deeds.—Jermin.
Proverbs 1:16. They may talk of walking, of walking in pleasures and delights, to get thee to walk with them. But, though, from what thou findest at first, thou little thinkest what will be the end, yet let me tell thee that it is to evil the journey tendeth; to that it will quickly come, for their feet run unto it. What shame is it that evil should be so pursued after!—Jermin.
Proverbs 1:17. These men are plotting with their eyes wide open. The verse teaches the great doctrine of deliberateness to ruin. Men go to hell when they expect it; at least, they go when it is a trap to them, of which they know the setting. They go open-eyed on into the gin.—Miller.
The great net of God’s judgments is spread out, open to the eyes of all, and yet evil-doers, wilfully blind, still rush into it.—Plumptre.
Proverbs 1:18. These couriers of hell, who carry the despatches of the devil, cannot run faster to the hurt of others than they do to their own mischief; they cannot make more haste to shed the blood of others than they do to shed their own blood.—Jermin.
Proverbs 1:19. These “ways” are certainly some of the worst. The persons described are of the baser sort; the crimes enumerated are gross and rank. Yet when these apples of Sodom are traced to their sustaining root, it turns out to be greed of gain. The love of money can bear all these. When this greed is generated, like a thirst in the soul, it imperiously demands satisfaction wherever it can most readily be found. In some countries of the world it still retains the old-fashioned iniquity which Solomon has described. In our country, though the same passion domineer in a man’s heart, it will not adopt the same method, because it has cunning enough to know that it will not succeed. Dishonesty is diluted, and coloured, and moulded, to suit the taste of the times. But the ancient and modern evil-doers are reckoned brethren in iniquity, despite the difference in the costume of their crimes.… This greed, when full-grown, is coarse and cruel. It has no bowels. It marches right to its mark, treading on everything that lies in the way. If necessary “it taketh away the life of the owners thereof.” Covetousness is idolatry. The idol delights in blood. He demands and gets a hecatomb of human sacrifices.—Arnot.
Midas, the Phrygian king, asked a favour of the gods, and they agreed to grant him whatever he should desire. The monarch, overjoyed, resolved to make the favour inexhaustible. He prayed that whatever he touched might be turned to gold. The prayer was granted, and bitter were the consequences. What the king touched did turn to gold. He laid his hand upon the rock and it became a huge mass of priceless value; he clutched his oaken staff, and it became in his hand a bar of virgin gold. At first the monarch’s joy was unbounded, and he returned to his palace the most favoured of mortals. Alas for the shortsightedness of man! He sat at table, and all he touched turned to gold—pure solid gold. The conviction rushed upon him that he must perish from his grasping wish—die in the midst of plenty; and remembering the ominous saying he had heard, “The gods themselves cannot take back their gifts,” he howled to the sternly smiling Dionysius to restore him to the coarsest, vilest food, and deliver him from the curse of gold.—Biblical Treasury.