CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 12:16. Presently, literally “in that very day,” i.e. “at once.” Covereth shame, or “hides his offence.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 12:15-16
TWO EXAMPLES OF FOOLISHNESS AND WISDOM
I. The man who guides his life by his own self-conceit—rejecting the advice of others. No finite creature possesses sufficient wisdom within himself to direct his path through life. The largest and deepest rivers are dependent upon small streams to sustain their volume of water, and each little stream again must be fed from a source outside itself, and the springs which feed the streams have their origin in the ocean’s fulness. So the very greatest minds are in some things dependent upon minds which in many things are their inferior, and it is a mark of wisdom to acknowledge this, and to be willing to take advice of anyone who is able to give it upon matters in which they are better informed. Thus men are led to exercise a mutual dependence on each other, and all to depend upon Him whose wisdom is the parent of all finite counsel that is of any value.
(1) A man who will not acknowledge and act upon this principle is a fool, because he practically shuts his eyes to a self-evident fact, and denies that he is a member of a race, the members of which are evidently intended to supply each other’s lack in such a manner as to form a mutually dependent body. It is in human society as it is in the individual human body—“the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:21), or if they do say so they only proclaim their great want of wisdom.
(2) He is a fool because he declines to profit by the experience of men in the past. To recur to the simile of the human body, it is intended to live upon material outside itself, and a man is counted insane who refuses to take food. So we are intended to profit by the experience of men who have lived before us, and it is quite as foolish to set it aside as useless to us as it is to refuse to eat in order to live. It is indeed like expecting to keep in health and strength by consuming one’s own flesh. No man does actually and in all cases refuse to profit by the wisdom and experience of others, but he is foolish in proportion as he does so.
(3) He is a fool because he is so declared by the highest authority. God by His offers of guidance, by the very existence of the Bible, declares that men need counsel. (See upon this subject Homiletics on chap. Proverbs 3:7-8, page 34.) The human soul is like a blind Samson, because of the blinding nature of sin relative and sin personal, and all its endeavours to find a right way without hearkening to Divine counsel only result in stumbles and wounds, and finally, if persisted in, in moral ruin. All a man’s endeavours only increase his misery, until he take the counsel offered him by God. He is like a shipwrecked mariner suffering from raging thirst from having drunk of the briny water, every draught only increases the disease, and nothing can save him but drinking of pure water.
(4) This man is his own destroyer. It is bad to be ruined by the temptations of others, but there is this advantage, we can fall back upon the excuse of our first parents: “The woman gave me of the tree and I did eat,” or “the serpent beguiled me” (Genesis 3:12-13). But when a man’s rejection of counsel ruins him, he finds himself in a “blind alley,” from which there is not even the outlet of an excuse.
II. The passionate man. This is often the companion of self-conceit and is indeed a proof of it. If a man is unable to hold a restive horse well in hand, it proves that he has not taken lessons in horsemanship. If a man cannot steer a vessel in ordinary circumstances without running her upon the rocks, it shows that he has not learned the art of navigation. A man who cannot keep his anger from over-mastering him—who cannot keep a firm hold of the rudder of his own spirit—proclaims that he has not subjected himself to moral discipline, that he has disdained to learn the art of moral rulership. Such a man is a fool, because a man in a passion is always despised by others, he often utters words which he would afterwards give much to recall, and generally ends by losing his own self-respect.
III. In contrast to this character stands the man who is in all respects the opposite—him whose character is sketched in the first clauses of these verses, who “loveth instruction” (Proverbs 12:1) who acknowledges that “he is a stranger in the earth and needs Divine guidance” (Psalms 119:19), that “the way of man is not himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his step” (Jeremiah 10:23.—See Homiletics on chap. Proverbs 10:8, page 151). Such a man is willing to listen to the advice of any who are capable of giving it, and his prudence in this matter is generally accompanied by an ability to “cover shame”—to take a reproof or an insult in silence. He has learned to take George Herbert’s advice—
“Command thyself in chief. He life’s war knows
Whom all his passions follow as he goes.”
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 12:15. All through our lost nature the truth of this proverb is visible. A man may be on the road to hell, but think that he is fair for heaven. A man may build by rapine, but think that he is the pink of fair dealing. A man is not a judge about himself. A Christian, therefore, will feel this, and while the impenitent is hard as to his own right, the Christian will be humble, and will be glad, in reasonable ways, to leave his duties to be advised upon by others.—Miller.
We have one great “Counsellor” Messiah, who is made unto us “wisdom” (Isaiah 9:6; 1 Corinthians 1:30). Let us “hearken unto” Him (chap. Proverbs 1:33). Fausset.
And such a fool is every natural man (Job 11:12); wise enough, haply in his generation—so is the fox too—wise with such wisdom as, like the ostrich’s wings, makes him outrun others upon earth, but helps him never a whit towards heaven.—Trapp.
The worse any man is, or doth, the less he seeth his evil. They that commit the most sins have hope that they stand guilty of fewest; they that fall into the greatest transgressions, imagine that their faults be the smallest; they that sink into the deepest dangers do dream of greatest safety; they that have longest continued in rebellion against God, of all others, for the most part are slowest to repentance.… St. Paul testifieth that when he was in the worst case, he knew nothing but that he had been in the best.—Dod.
Every man’s way is, and must be, in some degree, acceptable to himself, otherwise he would never have chosen it. But, nevertheless, whoever is wise, will be apt to suspect and be diffident of himself. Let men’s abilities be ever so great, and their knowledge ever so extensive, still they ought not, and without great danger and inconvenience cannot, trust wholly and entirely to themselves. For those abilities and that knowledge easily may be, and often are, rendered useless by the prejudices and prepossessions of men’s own minds. Nothing is more common than for men’s appetites and affections to bribe their judgments, and seduce them into erroneous ways of thinking and acting. They are often entangled and set fast, not through the want of light and knowledge, not through any defect of their heads, but through the deceitfulness of their hearts. In many cases where they could easily direct other men, they suffer themselves to be misled, and are driven into the snare by the strength of inclination, or by the force of habit.… This acquired darkness, this voluntary incapacity, as well as the want of counsel thereby occasioned, nowhere appears more frequently, or more remarkably, than in the transaction of our spiritual concerns, and what relates to the discharge of our duty. “The way of man,” says our royal author, “is right in his own eyes,” though the end “thereof be the ways of death.” When we have wandered out of the road, and almost lost ourselves in bye-paths, we can make ourselves believe that we have continued all the while in the highway to truth and happiness.… But, however lightly we may esteem the helps and directions of men, shall we not attend to the counsels of Our Heavenly Father, and the admonitions of the Most High? Can we have more regard to what is “right in our own eyes” than to what is right in His?—Balguy.
Proverbs 12:16. “Covereth,” with the mantle of patience and charity, instead of exasperating himself, and losing self-control by dwelling on the indignity of the word or deed, and the worthlessness of the injurer. He does not publish the act to the discredit of the other, but consults for the reputation of the other, lest he should add sin to the injury suffered.—Fausset.
Truly is wrath called shame. For is it not a shame that unruly passions should, as it were, trample reason under foot, disfigure even the countenance, and subjugate the whole man to a temporary madness? (Daniel 3:19.)—Bridges.
A fool hath no power over his passions. Like tow, he is soon kindled; like a pot, he soon boils; and like a candle whose tallow is mixed with brine, as soon as lighted he spits up and down the room. “A fool uttereth all his mind” (Chap. Proverbs 29:11). The Septuagint renders it “all his anger.” For, as the Hebrews well note in a proverb they have, “A man’s mind is soonest known in his purse, in his drink, and in his anger.” But “A wise man covereth shame” by concealing his wrath, or rather by suppressing it when it would break forth to his disgrace, or the just grief of another. This was Saul’s wisdom (1 Samuel 10:27); and Jonathan’s (1 Samuel 20:35); and Ahasuerus’s, when, in a rage against Haman, he walked into the garden. The philosopher wished Augustine, when angry, to say over the Greek alphabet.—Trapp.
The meaning of the Holy Ghost is not here to condemn all kinds of anger, for it is one of the powers of the soul which God created as an ornament in men, and godly anger is a part of God’s image in him, and a grace commended in Moses, Elijah, etc., and our Saviour Himself, and he that is always altogether destitute of this doth provoke God to be angry with him, for want of zeal and hatred of sin; but it is a passionate anger that is here reproved, which is not a power of the soul, but an impotency. He that conceiveth the other is an agent, and doth a service to God; but he that is moved with this is a patient, and sin hath in that case prevailed against him.—Dod.