CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 15:3. Beholding, rather “watching,” “observing” (so Stuart, Miller, and Delitzsch).
Proverbs 15:4. Whole-some, “gentle,” “soft,” perverseness or “transgression,” a breach, “a crushing,” “a wounding.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 15:3
DIVINE INTELLIGENCE
I. The Eternal has a perfect knowledge of all places. The sun, in its meridian height, can only penetrate half the globe at the same time, and even then there are deep valleys and caves of the earth, and ocean beds where its rays never come; but God’s eye rests at once not only on all places of His dominion in this planet, which is but as a grain of sand amongst the worlds, but upon every spot in His boundless universe.
II. He has a perfect knowledge of the spirits of His creatures. The human soul has power to hide its secrets from the gaze of every fellow creature. “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him?” (1 Corinthians 2:11). But God’s omniscient eye pierces into the hidden mazes of the soul and reads the silent thoughts and intents of the heart. In this most secret region He walks at large. “O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off” (Psalms 139:1-2). God is the one potentate and judge who can claim a perfect knowledge of all His subjects from personal acquaintance with each individual. Not one is lost in the crowd; each one stands before Him as distinctly as if He were the only creature in the universe.
III. God’s perfect knowledge of His creatures leads Him to contemplate both what is congenial and what is repugnant. He “beholds the evil and the good.” Men, when by Divine grace they become partakers of the Divine Nature, are much moved to gladness by the sight of that which is morally good, and turn with loathing from the evil which they must also contemplate. Yet their happiness springs from that which is within them and not from that which is around, or the preponderance of evil would make life unbearable. So the everblessed God, conscious of His perfect rectitude, has within Him a source of eternal satisfaction notwithstanding the “evil” that He beholds with Divine indignation and sorrow.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
He mentions the “evil” first because they avowedly, or else practically, deny God’s providence (Jeremiah 16:17).—Fausset.
When we perceive that a vast number of objects enter in at our eye by a very small passage, and yet are so little jumbled in the crowd that they open themselves regularly, though there is no great space for that either, and that they give us a distinct apprehension of many objects that lie before us, both of their nature, colour, and size, and by a secret geometry, from the angles that they make in our eye, we judge of the distance of all objects, both from us and from one another—if to this we add the vast number of figures that we receive and retain long, and with great order, in our brains, which we easily fetch up either in our thoughts or in our discourse, we shall find it less difficult to apprehend how an Infinite Mind should have the universal view of all things ever present before it.—Burnet.
The darkness of the air may hide thee from men, and the darkness of thine understanding may hide thee from thyself, but there is no darkness can hide from God.… It was a pretty fancy of one that would have his chamber painted full of eyes, that which way soever he looked he might still have some eye upon him. And it was a wise answer of Livius Drusus, when an artist offered so to contrive his house that he might do what he would and none should see him. “No,” saith Drusus, “contrive it so, rather, that all may see me, for I am not ashamed to be seen.” If the eyes of men make even the vilest forbear their beloved lusts for awhile, and they that are drunk are drunken in the night, how powerful will the eye and presence of God be with those that fear His anger and know the sweetness of His favour. The thoughts of this omnipresence of God will quicken thee to holiness. The soldiers of Israel and Judah were prodigal of their blood in the presence of their two generals (2 Samuel 2:14). Servants will generally work hard while their master looks on. The eye of God, as of the sun, will call the Christian to his work. Those countries that are governed by viceroys seldom flourish or thrive so well as those kingdoms where the prince is present in person. Conscience, God’s viceroy, may much quicken a Christian to holiness, but God, the Prince, much more. “I have kept Thy precepts,” saith David, “for all my ways are before Thee.”—Swinnock.
He is all-eye, and His providence like a well-drawn picture, that vieweth all that come into the room. I know Thy works and Thy labour (Revelation 2); not Thy works only, but Thy labour in doing them. And as for the offender, though he think to hide himself from God by hiding God from himself, yet God is nearer to him than the bark is to the tree, “for in Him all things subsist” (Colossians 1:17) and move (Acts 17:28); understand it of the mind’s motions also. And this the very heathen saw by nature’s rush candle. For Thales Milesius being asked whether the gods know not when a man doth aught amiss, “Yea,” saith he, “if he do but think amiss.” “God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves,” saith another. Repletively He is everywhere, though inclusively nowhere. As for the world, it is to Him as “a sea of glass,” a clear, transparent body; He sees through it. No man needs a window in his breast (as the heathen Monus wished) for God to look in at: every man before God is all window (Job 34:22).—Trapp.
Such is the extent of wickedness that in every place He beholdeth the evil and the good. Yea, if there be but one in a place, that one is both evil and good, and God beholdeth both his evil and his good. The evil God beholdeth first, but they are the good on whom He resteth, as approving of them, and as delighting in them. For their eyes are upon God in every place, as God’s eyes are upon them. The other looketh not after God, and so God looketh after them, as that He looketh from them in auger at their wickedness. He contemplates and considers, which is more than simply to behold, for contemplation addeth to a simple apprehension a deeper degree of knowledge.—Jermin.
The doctrine of Divine omniscience, although owned and argued for by men’s lips, is neglected or resisted in their lives. The unholy do not like to have a holy eye ever open upon them, whatever their profession may be. If fallen man, apart from the one Mediator, say or think that the presence of God is pleasant to them, it is because they have radically mistaken either their own character or His. They have either falsely lifted up their own attainments or falsely dragged down the character of the judge.… In every place our hearts and lives are open in the sight of Him with whom we have to do. The proposition is absolutely universal. We must beware, however, lest that feature of the word which should make it powerful only renders it indefinite and meaningless. Man’s fickle mind treats universal truths that come from heaven as the eye treats the visible heaven itself. At a distance from the observer all around the blue canopy seems to descend and lean upon the earth, but where he stands it is far above, out of his sight. It touches not him at all; and when he goes forward to the line where now it seems to touch other men, he finds it still far above, and the point which applies to this lower world is distant as ever. Heavenly truth, like heaven, seems to touch all the world around, but not his own immediate sphere, or himself its centre. The grandest truths are practically lost in this way when they are left whole. We must rightly divide the word, and let the bits come into every crook of our own character. Besides the assent to general truth, there must be specific personal application. A man may own omniscience and yet live without God in the world.—Arnot.
The subjects of Proverbs 15:4-5 have been considered before. (See Homiletics on chap. Proverbs 12:17-18, page 274, and on chap. Proverbs 13:1, page 293.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 15:4. Rueetschi carries the idea of gentleness (see Critical Notes) through the two clauses as the central idea: “It is precisely with this gentle speech, which otherwise does so much good, that the wicked is wont to deceive, and then one is by this more sorely and deeply stricken and distressed than before.”—Lange’s Commentary.
That tongue which is “a witness of truth,” and therefore “saves souls” (chap. Proverbs 14:25), “is a tree of life.” Go into any garden of the lost, and where no such tree is, all are pagans. One sees, therefore, how the figure is kept up. If I am born into a land where there are gospel tongues; that is, if, when I grow up, I am not in China, and not in India, but in a Christian village, where people have and spread the gospel, that “tongue, as a healing thing, is (my) tree of life.” Where I get “life” is from its branches.—Miller.
This verse may be compared with the second. The tongue which “useth knowledge aright” has a morally and spiritually healing influence. It imparts instruction to the ignorant. It speaks peace to the troubled conscience. It soothes the anguish of the afflicted. It subdues the swelling of passion. It allays the self-inflicted tortures of envy. It heals divisions and animosities. These and other blessed fruits entitle it to the designation, “a tree of life;” productive, as it is, of genuine, varied, and valuable joys to all within the reach of its influence. And when the tongue makes known God’s saving health,”—the salvation revealed by Him in the gospel,—it then gives life in the highest and most important sense.—Wardlaw.
A high image of what the tongue ought to be; not negative, not harmless, but wholesome, or healing, as the salt cast into the spring cleansed the bitter waters (2 Kings 2:21).… But the meekest of men felt perverseness a breach in the spirit (Numbers 16:8-15). The tongue of Job’s friends broke “the bruised reed” (Job 13:1-5). Even our beloved Lord, who never shrunk from external evil, keenly felt the piercing edge of this sword (Psalms 69:19-20).—Bridges.
One stripe of the tongue woundeth three—the backbiter, him that giveth ear to the backbiting, and the backbitten.—Cawdray.
Saith the old philosopher, “Than a good tongue there is nothing better, than an evil nothing worse. It hath no mean; it is either exceedingly good or excessively evil. It knows nothing but extremes, and is either best of all, or worst of all (James 3:8). The tongue is every man’s best or worst moveable.… A good tongue is the best part of a man, and most worthy of the honour of sacrifice. This only when it is well seasoned. Seasoned, I say, with salt, as the apostle admonisheth; not with fire” (Colossians 4:6).—T. Adams.
Everlasting benediction be upon that tongue, which spake, as no other ever did, or could speak, pardon, peace, and comfort to lost mankind. This was the tree of life, whose leaves were for the healing of the nations.—Bishop Horne.
The root of this tree goeth down to the heart, whence it sucketh the juice of wisdom; its body lieth in the head, where things are ruminated and concocted by it; the branches of it are the several speeches of the mouth; the fruit of it is spread abroad as wide as good occasion is offered.—Jermin.
Not a silent tongue; mere abstinence from evil is not good.… Idleness is evil under the administration of God.… Not a smooth tongue: it may be soft on the surface, while the poison of asps lies cherished underneath. The serpent licks his victim all over before he swallows it. Smoothness is not an equivalent for truth.… Not a voluble tongue; that active member may labour much to little purpose.… Not a sharp tongue: some instruments are made keen-edged for the purpose of wounding.… Not even a true tongue. Truth is necessary, but it is not enough. The true tongue must also be wholesome. Before anything can be wholesome in its effects on others it must be whole in itself.… “Winged words” have fluttered about in poetry and prose through all the languages of the civilised world from old Homer’s day till now. The permanence and prevalency of the expression proves that it embodies a recognised truth. Words have wings indeed, but they are the wings of seeds rather than of birds or butterflies. We are all accustomed in autumn to observe multitudes of diminitive seeds, each balanced on its own tiny wing, floating past on the breeze.… Words are like these seeds, in their winged character, their measureless multitude, and their winged speed. They drop off in inconceivable numbers: they fly far: they are widely spread. It is of deep importance that they should be for good, and not for evil. The tongue is a prolific tree, it concerns the whole community that it should be a tree of life, and not of death.—Arnot.
Proverbs 15:5. He that regardeth reproof is prudent. Wise he is, and wiser he will be. This made David prize and pray for a reprover (Psalms 141:5).—Trapp.