CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 14:34. The Hebrew word for reproach means also “mercy.” Hence Gejer and Miller translate “Mercy for nations is the sin-offering,” the word sin being often used to express the sin-offering.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 14:34
NATIONAL SALVATION
I. Some standard of right and wrong is necessary to national existence. There are men who have affirmed that there is no such thing as virtue and vice—that they are only inventions of those who desire to rule their fellow-creatures, and that the world could do without them. But experience teaches the contrary. Every nation, if it is to have an existence, even if it rejects a Divine revelation, or is ignorant of it, must have some standard by which to judge human actions. Without the recognition of such a standard, even if it is only based upon the light of reason, not only would national prosperity be impossible, but national existence. Rome and Greece had such standards as well as Israel, although the first-mentioned nations had no revelation from heaven except that of the natural conscience, and if all the existing codes were abolished to-morrow men would find it necessary to form others in order to preserve their national, if not their individual existence.
II. The prosperity and influence of a nation is in proportion to its national righteousness. This is not the case of the individual man. His present condition and circumstances, the measure of power that he possesses, or the amount of the influence he exerts, is no index of the amount of righteousness which he possesses. He may be a noble of the land, or he may have no social standing; he may fare sumptuously every day, or he may subsist on the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table, and neither from the one lot or the other can any conclusion be drawn as to what his moral standing is. There is another world in which the righteous man will be exalted, and the unrighteous man will reap the reward of unrighteousness; but national righteousness and unrighteousness receive their reward in this world.
1. Righteous dealing in a nation promotes its commercial prosperity. If the merchants of a nation are known to be honest in their transactions and truthful in their words, they will gain and hold a high place in the markets of the world.
2. It secures it an influence among the governing powers of the world. In proportion as its intercourse with other nations is marked, not by a lust for conquest or a desire to rule, no matter by what means—but by a recognition of the rights of all—in that proportion will it acquire a power far more real and far more lasting than that gained by its ability to outdo other nations in the number of its soldiers or the size of its navy.
III. National reproach for sin will be in proportion to its possession of a high or low moral standard. “Sin is a reproach to any people;” but it is the greatest reproach to those who possess the greatest light. The sin of Israel was a greater reproach to them than the sin of the Philistines was to them, because the one possessed the light of a Divine revelation, and the other did not. So in the present day, the nations who sin against the light of the revealed word of God are far greater sinners than those upon whom that light has never shone. The principle to which the Divine Son gave utterance concerning the Jewish nation is the one by which He judges nations in the present day. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin (John 15:24).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
As there is nothing in religion to counteract the design of a wise system of civil polity, so there is nothing in a wise system of civil government to counteract the design of the Christian religion. The exaltation of the nation is the end of civil polity. Righteousness is the end of religion, or rather is religion itself.—Saurin.
It is the nature of sin
(1) to lesson and diminish a people;
(2) to sink and depress the spirit of a people;
(3) to destroy the wealth of a people;
(4) to deprive them of the blessings of freedom;
(5) to provoke the displeasure of God and to draw down His judgments.—Emmons, in “Lange’s Commentary.”
Righteousness is both “the prop to make it subsist firm in itself and a crown to make it glorious in the eyes of others” (Bp. Sanderson). Greece in her proud science, Rome in the zenith of her glory, both were sunk in the lowest depths of moral degradation (Romans 1:23-32 was a picture of the heathen world in the best ages of refinement). Their greatness consisted only in the visions of poesy or the dream of philosophy. Contrast the influence of righteousness, bringing out of the most debased barbarism a community impregnated with all the high principles that form a nation’s well-being. Thus to christianise is to regenerate, to elevate the community, to “exalt the nation,” and that not with a sudden flash of shadowy splendour, but with a solid glory, fraught with every practical blessing. “Those princes and commonwealths who would keep their governments entire and uncorrupt, are, above all things, to have a care of religion and its ceremonies, and preserve them in due veneration. For in the whole world there is not a greater sign of imminent ruin than when God and His worship are despised.” Such was the testimony of the profligate politician Machiavel.… What an enemy an ungodly man is to his country! Loudly though he may talk of his patriotism, and even though God should make him an instrument to advance her temporal interest; yet he contributes, so far as in him lies, to her deepest reproach.—Bridges.
Religion and virtue do naturally tend to the good order and more easy government of human society, because they have a good influence both upon magistrates and subjects.
1. Upon magistrates. Religion teaches them to rule over men in the fear of God, because though they be gods on earth, yet they are subjects of heaven, and accountable to him who is higher than the highest in this world. Religion in a magistrate strengthens his authority because it procures veneration and gains a reputation to it. And in all affairs of the world so much reputation is so much power.
2. Upon subjects. First, it makes them obedient to government, and conformable to laws; and that not only out of fear of power, which is but a weak and loose principle of obedience, but out of conscience, which is a firm, and constant and lasting principle, and will hold a man fast when all other obligations will break. Secondly, it tends to make men peaceable with one another. For it endeavours to plant all those qualities and dispositions in men which tend to peace and unity, and to fill men with a spirit of universal love and good-will. It endeavours likewise to secure every man’s interest, by commanding the observation of that great rule of equity, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”—Tillotson.
We find the great general principle of Divine Providence, in regard to nations, thus laid down by Jehovah Himself to the prophet Jeremiah—“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them” (Jeremiah 18:7-10). This was a principle, not applicable to Israel exclusively—for we find it expressly applied to the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the inhabitants of Sodom and of Nineveh. And the Old Testament bringing before us specimens of the Divine administration, the Spirit of God letting us so far into the secrets of its principles and laws, we have every reason to believe that in the government of God over the world, the same principle is still in operation, though we may not be able to trace it—that, had we only an inspired record of what takes place now, we should see it clearly in all cases; and even without such a record there are cases in which it would be equal impiety and blindness not to discern and own it.—Wardlaw.
“Righteousness” means saving righteousness, and “Sin-offering” is literally sin. (See Critical Notes). “Righteousness” lifts to the very skies. “The mercy of nations,” as the words literally are, is not wealth, or peace, or a good king, or broad lands of plenty, but an interest in Christ, “the sin-offering,” and a home amongst the happy.—Miller.
“Peoples” is plural, whereas “a nation” is singular, implying the paucity of the nations observing righteousness. The Hebrew word for reproach meaning also mercy, Gejer translates, “Mercy is an expiratory sacrifice for sin.” Not that mercy puts away sin before God, but before men, who are by mercy reconciled to those who had before been unmerciful to them.—Fausset.