MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 18:17
CROSS-EXAMINATION
I. The evidence of one person alone must not be too much depended on. This is but another way of putting the old proverb that “One tale is good till another is told.” And this does not necessarily imply that the first teller of the tale is an untruthful person, but we are so apt to apprehend facts through the medium of our own prejudices—to see things in the light in which we wish to see them—that even two truthful men may sometimes vary much in their version of the same occurrence. This will be more certainly the case if it is a man’s “own cause” that is under discussion, self-interest is then very likely to lead him to give a one-sided statement. He may unintentionally leave out facts which in the eyes of another person may be very important, or he may bring others into a prominence to which an impartial judge may not consider them entitled. Hence—
II. The need of cross-examination—of another to “come and search him.” Questioning may not convict the first person of any mis-statement, but it may elicit other facts which give quite a different colouring to the whole. The wife of Potiphar seemed “just in her cause” when she declared that Joseph left his garment in her hand and fled. This was not an untruth, and appearances were certainly very much against her innocent victim, but if Joseph had been allowed to tell his story too, the truth might have come to light. Therefore we learn that we must not give a verdict for or against an accused person until both he and his accuser have been heard.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The first clause reads thus in the Hebrew, “A righteous one, the first in his quarrel,” and has a brevity which is practically too great. The righteous is not a righteous man provero, but only righteous, he having the first chance to speak. How true this is, men for the first time in a court can easily imagine. Each last strong speech comes out victorious. Now the lost has done all the strong speaking as yet. Wait till God speaks, and the case will look very differently.—Miller.
In every cause, the first information, if it have dwelt for a little in the judge’s mind, takes deep root, and colours and takes possession of it, insomuch that it will hardly be washed out unless either some clear falsehood be detected or some deceit in the statement thereof.—Bacon.
Saul made himself appear just in his own cause. The necessity of the case seemed to warrant the deviation from the command. But Samuel searched him, and laid open his rebellion. (1 Samuel 15:17-23.) Ziba’s cause seemed just in David’s eyes, until Mephibosheth’s explanation searched him to his confusion. Job’s incautious self-defence was laid open by Elihu’s probing application. (Job 33:8-12.)—Bridges.
In religious disputes it is a great injustice to depend for the character of a sect, or an impartial representation of their doctrines, upon one whom partiality has blinded and rendered unfit, however honest he may be, to do them justice. Party spirit has as much influence as gifts to blind the eyes of the wise, and to pervert the words of the righteous.—Lawson.
This word, falling from heaven on the busy life of man, is echoed back from every quarter in a universal acknowledgment of its justness.… This scripture reveals a crook in the creature that God made upright. There is a bias in the heart, the fountain of impulse, and the resulting life-course turns deceitfully aside. Self-love is the twist in the heart within, and self-interest is the side to which the variation from righteousness steadily tends.… The heart makes the lie, deceiving first the man himself, and thereafter his neighbours. The bent is in the mould where the thought is first cast in embryo, and everything that comes forth is crooked. In my early childhood a fact regarding the relations of matter came under my observation which I now see has its analogue in the moral laws. An industrious old man, by trade a mason, was engaged to build a certain piece of wall at so much per yard. He came at the appointed time, laid the foundations according to the specifications, and proceeded with his building, course upon course, according to the approved methods of his craft. When the work had advanced several feet above the ground, a younger man, with a steadier hand and a brighter eye, came to assist the elder operator. Casting his eye along the work, as he laid down his tools and adjusted his apron, he detected a defect, and instantly called out to his senior partner that the wall was not plumb. “It must be plumb,” rejoined the builder, somewhat piqued, “for I have laid every stone by the plumb-line.” Suiting the action to the word he grasped the rule, laid it along his work, and triumphantly pointed to the lead vibrating and settling down precisely on the cut that marks the middle. Sure enough the wall was according to rule, and yet the wall was not plumb. The rule was examined, and the discovery was made that the old man, with his defective eyesight, had drawn the cord through the wrong slit at the top of the instrument, and then from some cause which I cannot explain, using only one side of it, had never detected his mistake.… It is on some such principle that people err in preparing a representation of their own case. They suspend their plumb, not from the middle, but from one edge of the rule, and that the edge which lies next their own interests.—Arnot.