CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 15:11. Hell and destruction, “Sheôl,” and “Abaddôn,” two different names for the world of the departed. “Sheôl” is the unseen world in general, “Abaddôn” the place of destruction, i.e., the place where their bodies are destroyed (so Stuart, Zöckler, etc.). How much more. Miller translates these particles by “because also” (see his Comment).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 15:11
TWO WORLDS
I. Two worlds out of the reach of the human senses—the world of departed men and the human soul. Both these mysterious worlds are shut out or shut in from the eye of man by the bolts and bars of his bodily senses. How exceedingly small a portion of the vast universe of God is revealed to the eye of sense! The small globe upon which man finds himself is nearly all that he can possibly know with his bodily vision. Reason may tell him that there is much more, faith may afford him clearer evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), but over all there is a veil drawn. The vast world, where dwells the great majority of the human race—that unseen home, peopled with the spirits of just men made perfect, and the dwelling-place of the spirits of the unjust—are regions entirely beyond the reach of human sight. And there is another world equally out of the reach of his vision. He has never seen the soul of any one of the thousands of his fellow-men with whom he has come in contact. He has never read the heart of his most intimate friend. His own “living soul,” even that which is himself, has never been apprehended by his bodily senses. He has never touched or looked upon that.
II. But both these invisible worlds are entirely open to the eye of God. The world of spirits and the individual soul of each man are seen by Him as plainly as we see the material world around us, or as we see the bodies of our fellow-creatures. And they are far more fully comprehended by Him than the visible things upon which our eyes rest every day are comprehended by us. For what do we really know of the essential properties of that by which we are surrounded? Is not our very bodily organism a mystery to us? But each soul of each individual man in the body, and each “unclothed” (2 Corinthians 5:4) spirit in the worlds of the departed is “naked and open” in the eyes of Him with whom each one “has to do” (Hebrews 4:13) as really and as intimately as if in all the universe there was only one creature of whom the omniscient Creator had to take cognizance.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
It is the gross persuasion of some, as if hell and destruction were only things that God did set before us, and that they were not before Him; as if they were things wherewith God did only terrify us, and which should never be. But the wise man telleth us, that they are before the Lord, and that though we know not where hell is and what is done there, yet it is before God’s eyes. And, therefore, though the heart of the children of men be made as deep as hell by hellish devices, yet much more is that manifest to God. The heart of man is more manifest to Him than it is to himself. Wherefore St. Augustine, speaking unto God, saith, “Thou wert within, and I was without.” For, indeed, God is often within and knoweth what our hearts are, when we ourselves are without and do not know them.—Jermin.
This terrible truth these hearts secretly know, and their desperate writhings to shake it off show how much they dislike it. The Romish confessional is one of the most pregnant facts in the history of man. It is a monument and measure of the guilty creature’s enmity against God.… We have wondered at the blindness and stupidity of our common nature in permitting a man, not more holy than his neighbours, to stand in the place of God to a brother’s soul. There is cause for grief, but not ground for surprise. The phenomenon proceeds in the way of natural law. It is the common, well understood process of compounding for the security of the whole, by the voluntary surrender of a part. The confessional is a kind of insurance office where periodical exposure of the heart to a man is the premium paid for fancied impunity in hiding that heart altogether from the deeper scrutiny of the all-seeing God.… It is God’s love from the face of Jesus Christ shining into my dark heart that makes my heart open and delight to be His dwelling-place. The eye of the just Avenger I cannot endure to be in this place of sin; but the eye of the compassionate Physician I shall gladly admit into this place of disease.—Arnot.
“Because also the hearts of the children of men.” (See Miller’s rendering in Critical Notes.) The intimation is God knows hell because He knows men. He knows that “hating reproof,” we die (Proverbs 15:10), and just how fast we die or sink by each act of hating. In other words, he knows how fast sin grows under an administration of justice; and, therefore, how far a given sinner will have gone down, at any date, through his eternal age.—Miller.
The verse may denote that the deepest machinations of the prince of hell, and of all his legions of fallen angels, are open to the Lord’s inspection, and must end in their disappointment and deeper torment; how, then, can man, who is so inferior in sagacity and subtilty, expect to hide his counsels from God, or to prosper in rebellion against Him?” There is nothing so deep or secret that can be hid from the eyes of God, much less man’s thoughts.”—Scott.