CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 11:25. Liberal soul, “the soul of blessing,” i.e., “the soul that blesses others.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 11:24-26
THE LIBERAL AND THE NIGGARDLY MAN
We have here a twofold contrast under two similitudes—
I. A man who withholds what he ought to give out. “He withholdeth more that is meet—he withholdeth corn” when he ought to sell it.
1. He is a sinner against the law of necessity which runs through all human things. The earth will only yield of her good things by first having good things cast into her bosom. The farmer who is sparing of labour and of money in the tillage of his fields will never be a rich man. The same principle is at work in the mart and on the exchange. There must of necessity be a wise scattering of wealth before there is any increase.
2. He is a sinner against the Divine ordination and commandment. When God organised the Hebrew commonwealth he ordained that the “poor should not cease out of the land” (Deuteronomy 15:2), and that they should be helped by the rich. The same principle was proclaimed by Christ, when he said “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8), God has given to you that you may give to others. This is the fast that Jehovah has chosen, “Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thine house? When thou seest the naked that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thy own flesh” (Isaiah 58:7).
3. He is, as a necessity, a sinner against his fellow creatures. He sins against their need. In times of scarcity those who have abundance and will not give of their abundance are guilty, how much more those who have the material to feed the people and will not even sell it, but withhold it to raise the price. Such men are robbers and murderers. They murder by refusing the means of life.
4. He is a sinner against himself. He will not be so rich as he would have been if he had used what he had in accordance with the laws of nature and morality. A man who does not put his money out to a lawful use cannot make more by it. More than this, he is a stranger to that blessedness of which Christ spake when He said “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). But this is not all, he is under a Divine and human curse. God’s ban is upon him. If a tree is constantly receiving from the fatness of the earth and the heavens and yet brings forth no fruit for the service of man, it is marked for the woodman’s axe. The message of God to such cumberers of the ground is, Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire (James 5:1-3). “The people shall curse him.” How can they do otherwise? They feel that he has robbed them of their rights when he will not even sell what they are willing to buy.
II. The man who gives out liberally of that which he possesses. He yields first of all to the necessity of things. He scatters his wealth wisely in order to increase it. But this is his lowest motive and his smallest blessing. So far as mere trading goes this scattering to increase is a mere matter of necessity. He knows he must cast a bushel of corn into the ground if he would have it increase—that he must spend a thousand pounds before he can gain ten thousand. In this way he shows that he has faith in the ordinary law of multiplication. But he goes further than this. “He selleth corn” at a fair price, when, by withholding it, he might exact more. This is a sample of all his dealings with his fellow-men. He does not take advantage of their necessities to enrich himself (see Homiletics on Proverbs 11:1). He goes beyond this—he not only sells at a fair price, but he is a giver. He scatters in the way of giving out of his abundance, “looking for nothing again” (Luke 6:35). But he is a great gainer.
1. He will very likely get richer in material wealth by giving. This is not positively affirmed in the text “there is that scattereth and yet increaseth.” But he will certainly never be the poorer, for he makes God his creditor. “He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord” (chap. Proverbs 19:17).
2. He will certainly be richer in more precious wealth. “He will be watered himself.” He will have a double blessing. Men will call down blessings on his head. Those who partake of his wealth will give him in return love, honour, and respect. God will add to his personal character that which will increase tenfold the blessedness of his existence. He will, according to the apostolic promise, “make all grace to abound toward him, that he, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” He will “increase the fruits of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 9:6-11), and water his soul with His own Divine influence. “If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon-day: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, aud make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, whose waters fail not” (Isaiah 58:11).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 11:24-25. Is not this just one of the appropriate ways of putting faith to the test on God’s part, and showing its reality on ours? Is it not precisely the defectiveness of this faith that makes us timid, cautious, parsimonious in giving? ever fearing that we may stint ourselves and feel the want of what we expend on suffering humanity and on the cause of God? Is it not thus by unbelief that we are tempted to sow sparingly? And ought it to be, that the husbandman trust more to the laws of nature than the Christian does to the covenant of his God.—Wardlaw.
The Jews in Haggai’s time had no prosperity till they made the house of the Lord their chief object (Haggai 1:6; Haggai 1:9-11; Haggai 2:15-19). So far is the true wealth of the withholder from being increased by withholding what is meet to be given for the glory of God and the good of man, that he is at last deprived even of that which he had (Matthew 13:12).—Fausset.
Men may scatter in improvidence and sin, and it tendeth to poverty (chap. Proverbs 21:17). But the man of God, “dispersing abroad” the seed of godliness (Psalms 112:9), consecrating his substance and influence to the Lord, “as he has opportunity, doing good unto all men” (Galatians 6:10), shall receive a plentiful increase.—Bridges.
The liberal man will ever be rich; for God’s providence is his estate, God’s wisdom and power are his defence, God’s love and favour are his reward, and God’s word is his security. Barrow.
The liberal soul is made fat in the healthful vigour of practical godliness. The minister is refreshed by his own message of salvation to his people. The Sunday-school teacher learns many valuable lessons in the work of instruction. The Christian visitor’s own soul glows in carrying the precious name of Jesus to a fellow-sinner. Every holy temper, every spiritual gift, every active grace is increased by exercise. Bridges.
Give, and thou shalt receive. John Howard, when he grew sad about his piety, put on his hat and went about among the poor. He came back a gainer. He diverted his mind from his own interests, and yet promoted them in a higher assurance. Religion being benevolence, as well as a love of holiness, doing good to others is a philosophic way of ripening it in ourselves. Proverbs 11:24 has its Poor Richard phrase as well as a higher one. Being “penny wise and pound foolish” is understood even in our shops. But the grand sense is evangelical. “Inserviendo allius consumor” may be true of poor impenitents, but a candle is no emblem for a Christian. He is a glorious sun who, by some strange alchemy, brightens by shining. Watereth refers to the ground, or to animals. “Giving plenty to drink” is the meaning of the word as applied to men.—Miller.
Wherefore doth the Lord make your cup run over, but that other men’s lips might taste the liquor? The showers that fall upon the highest mountains should glide into the lowest valleys.—Secker.
Man is God’s image, but a poor man is
Christ’s stamp to boot; both images regard.
God reckons for him, counts the favour His:
Write, so much given to God; thou shalt be heard.
Let thy alms go before, and keep heaven’s gate
Open for thee, or both may come too late.
The last clause of Proverbs 11:25 is literally he that raineth shall himself become a river. The water that falls in refreshing and fertilising irrigation is not lost, but becomes a fair stream. So the bounty of the liberal man, which rains down blessings, will flow on for ever in a beautiful river.—Wordsworth.
The well-being of all is concerned in the right working of each. One necessarily affects for good or evil all the rest in proportion to the closeness of its relations and the weight of its influence. You draw another to keep him from error: that other’s weight which you have taken on keeps you steadier in your path. You water one who is ready to wither away; and although the precious stream seems to sink into the earth, it rises to heaven and hovers over you, and falls again upon yourself in refreshing dew. It comes to this, if we be not watering we are withering.—Arnot.
Poor men are not excluded from the grace and blessing of being merciful, though they attain not to the state and ability of being wealthy. Mercy is not placed with money in the purse, but dwelleth with loving-kindness in the heart. He that can mourn with such as do mourn, he that can pray for them that be in distress, has a “soul of blessing.”—Dod.
St. Gregory applieth the words particularly unto ministers, and saith, He that by preaching doth outwardly bless, receiveth the fatness of inward increase. And to this sense the Chaldee reads it, saying, “He that teacheth shall himself also learn.” And then the former part of the verse may be taken thus, the soul that bestoweth abroad the blessings of a wise instruction shall profit much in his wisdom, according to a common saying among the Jews, “I have profited more by my scholars than by all things else.”—Jermin.
Bounty is the most compendious way to plenty; neither is getting, but giving, the best thrift. The five loaves in the Gospel, by a strange kind of arithmetic, were multiplied by a division and augmented by subtraction. So will it be in this case. St. Augustine, descanting upon Psalms 76:5, says, “Why is this?” “They found nothing in their own hands, because they feared to lay up anything in Christ’s hands.” “The poor man’s hand is Christ’s treasury,” saith another Father.—Trapp.
Proverbs 11:26. He that withholdeth corn holdeth, as it were, the gracious hand of God, yea, pulleth it back by his covetousness, when God in bounty hath stretched it forth unto a land.… Now, what is said of a countryman concerning his corn, let the citizen also mark concerning his wares, “Let not profit overcome honesty, but let honesty overcome profit.” And what is said to the citizen let the minister also observe, and bind not up by a damnable silence that good word which may profit many.—Jermin.
The point of antithesis apparently fails only to give stronger security to the blessing. The curse comes directly from the people; the blessing from above.—Bridges.
The prevailing maxim of the world, ever since the first murderer gave utterance to the tendencies of human nature, after its fall, in the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” has been, “Every man for himself.” The identity of human nature in all ages is stamped upon the book of Proverbs. What presented itself to view in Solomon’s days is no rarity still.… There can hardly be a more affecting exemplification than this of the power of an avaricious disposition in hardening the heart.—Wardlaw.
Such a man, like a corrupt, imposthumated member, would draw all the nourishment to himself, and cares not, though the other parts of the body perish. This oak, which will suffer no small trees to thrive near it, will in time fall with the breath of so many curses.—Swinnock.
Modern political economy may have taught us that even here the selfishness of the individual does, in the long run, by limiting consumption, and maintaining a reserve, promote the general good, but it is no less true that men hate the selfishness and pour blessings upon him who sells at a moderate profit. Our own laws against forestalling and regrating schemes for a maximum price of bread, as in the famine of the French Revolution, histories like that of M. Manlins, legends like that of Bishop Hatto and the rats, are tokens of the universality of the feeling.—Plumptre.
Literally, “breaketh it,” like Joseph to his brethren and the people in Egypt. In a spiritual sense this verse may be applied specially to pastors and to churches. He that withholdeth corn—he that keepeth back from others the bread of life, which is the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures—the food of the soul, he shall be accursed; but blessings are upon him that fully and freely dispenses it.—Wordsworth.
To be an object of aversion among his neighbours is a heavy infliction upon a human being. No man can despise it.… This, in the last resort, is the protection of the poor and the punishment of the oppressor. The mightiest man desires the blessing of the people, and dreads their curse. Wealth would be a weapon too powerful for the liberty of men, if he who wields it were not confined within narrow limits by the weakness of humanity, common to him with the meanest of the people.—Arnot.
Here is consolation to them that bring an upright heart to selling, though they cannot be large in giving: therein they do a service to God and perform a work of love to their neighbour.—Dod.