CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 16:28. A whisperer, i.e., “a backbiter.”
Proverbs 16:30. Moving, or compressing, indicating resolution, or biting, indicative of scorn and malice.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 16:27-30
DIFFERENT SPECIES OF THE SAME GENUS
I. Human depravity manifests itself in a variety of forms.—There may be many lawless children in a family, but they may not all sin against the same law—they may all rebel against what is true and good, but some may be preeminent transgressors in one way and some in another. One son may be a notorious liar and another may be a slave to ungovernable passion, while a third may be addicted to another and different vice. It is so in the great human family—all unregenerate men are transgressors against God’s good and righteous law, but their transgressions may take different forms.
II. But all ungodliness is subversive of human happiness.—If a man sets at nought the law of God, he will be a curse to those around him. There are many such men who seem to delight in increasing the misery of mankind, they make it their business to “dig up evil,” they work diligently to bring to light that which it is most desirable should be hidden and forgotten, and so they are like a scorching, consuming fire to the peace of many of their fellow creatures. And if they are not so openly and manifestly bad, if they are untruthful men, they must sow around them seeds of suspicion and discord which hinder men from being bound together in bonds of friendship or break such bonds when they have been formed.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 16:27. “A worthless man.” This is the farthest an impenitent moralist will go in condemning himself. He may be a worthless man (a man of Belial, i.e., of no profit), but he is not a harmful man.… Solomon calls this mild gracelessness a digging up of evil. Recurring to the potency of the tongue, he says, “The lips of such men, sweet as they may seem, fairly scorch and burn.”—Miller.
In the expression “diggeth up evil” two ideas may be included:—
1. Taking pains to devise it. We dig or search for treasure in a mine, or where we fancy it lies concealed: thus the wicked man does in regard to evil. It is his treasure—that on which he sets his heart; and for it, as for treasure, he “digs” and “searches”—ay, often deep and long. His very happiness seems to depend on his reaching and finding it. He is specially laborious and persevering when anyone chances to have become the object of his pique or malice. Marvellous is the assiduity with which he then strains every nerve to produce mischief,—plodding and plotting for it,—mining and undermining,—exploring in every direction, often where no one could think of but himself,—and with savage delight exulting in the discovery of aught that can be made available for his diabolic purpose.
2. Taking pains to revive it after it has been buried and forgotten. He goes down into the very graves of old quarrels; brings them up afresh; puts new life into them; wakes up grudges that had long slept; and sets people by the ears again who had abandoned their enmities, and had been for years in reconciliation and peace. As to “evil,” whether old and new, “the son of Belial” is like one in quest of some mine of coal, or of precious metal. He examines his ground, and wherever he discovers any hopeful symptoms on the surface he proceeds to drill, and bore, and excavate. The slightest probability of success will be enough for his encouragement to toil and harass himself night and day until he can make something of it. The persevering pains of such men would be incredible were they not sadly attested by facts:—“They search, out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep” (Psalms 64:1-6).—Wardlaw.
Whisperers are like the wind that creeps in by the chinks and crevices of a wall, or the cracks in a window, that commonly proves more dangerous than a storm that meets a man in the face upon the plain.—Trapp.
Proverbs 16:28. The idea is, sin cannot keep silence. In its quiet hour it speaks, rolling out (literally) articulate influences. The very idea is terrible. It separates friends. That is, the world being knit together by the law of love, the impenitent separate it asunder. They separate man from his race, and destroy that highest friendship that he might have with the Almighty.—Miller.
Proverbs 16:29. Yet though a wicked man be never so violent, he cannot compel thee to his ways, he can but entice thee, he can but lead thee; it is still in thine own power whether thou wilt follow him or no. Wherefore though it agree to his violence to lead, let it be thy care to keep back from his ways.—Jermin.
Unbelief can hardly be libelled, and Solomon’s very thought is to show how violent it is! It is the match even of hell, for it derides it! It is the robber even of God, for it thieves from Him. It takes life without paying for it. It assaults the Maker upon His throne. It stares broadly at the truth each Sunday when it listens, and flouts it as though never heard. Unbelief is “violence;” and yet, as though it were the most seductive charm it “seduces” (entices) one’s neighbour.—Miller.
These sons of Belial are also tempters of others. A fearful employment—a fearful delight! Yet the employment would not be followed were there not pleasure in it. The pleasure is fiendish—laying plans and putting every vile art into practice, to seduce the virtuous and unsuspecting youth from the way of rectitude!… As there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, so is there a malicious joy in hell when such tempters succeed in turning any from the right to the wrong, from the narrow to the broad way. This is the joy of fiends, the other of angels.—Wardlaw.
Proverbs 16:30. Wicked men are great students; they beat their brains and close their eyes that they may revolve and excogitate mischief with more freedom of mind. They search the devil’s skull for new devices, and are very intentive to invent that which may do hurt; their wits will better serve them to find out a hundred shifts or carnal arguments, than to yield to one saving truth.—Trapp.