CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 20:16. A strange woman. Rather, “a stranger.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 20:16
NECESSARY SECURITY
I. An untrustworthy creditor. A man who under ordinary circumstances makes himself a surety for one who is a stranger to him, is chargeable with great folly, and the act may be a criminal one. He is very foolish if he pledges himself up to his ability of redeeming his pledge, and he is dishonest if he goes beyond it. The warning of the proverb is directed against entering into business relations with a man who has so slight a sense of his own responsibility as to become “surety for a stranger.” It may be regarded as a certainty that a man who will enter into such an engagement without reflection and caution is not to be depended on—does not measure his actions in this particular by a very high standard of morality. He may be a man of generous impulses and good intentions, but he lacks that substratum of high principle which makes a safe creditor.
II. An extreme security. The necessity of exacting security before credit, discloses the existence of immorality in the world. In a family where every brother is known to the other, and where the interests of each are the interests of all, there is no need to take a pledge for the performance of any promise, or the payment of any debt. But in the imperfect state of society in which we find ourselves, security before credit is necessary when we enter into business transactions with our fellow men, for the world is not yet ruled by the Divine precept, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.”—(Matthew 19:19). And the security may be regulated by the reliability of him whom we trust. Solomon here regards him who becomes surety for a stranger, as so unlikely to be faithful to his own liabilities, that those who trust him may exact from him even that pledge which was the last allowed in the Mosaic law, and which could not be retained beyond the day (Exodus 22:26-27). The injunction is probably to be regarded rather as advice against trusting such a man at all. (On the subject of suretyship, see Comments on chap. Proverbs 6:1. page 76).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The moral is that securityships are so unsafe that we may treat the man as one already ruined. But in the spiritual world it means (chap. 6.) that a man who holds fast sloth (chap. Proverbs 5:13), holds fast a bond of eternal vengeance; that he renews it by his wilful act (Proverbs 17:18); that it is a bond to a friend (chap. Proverbs 6:1), but that friend forced ex lege to collect it; that if now at this late day he holds it on, stand clear from him! He will certainly be lost. Take his garment, that is, use the last resort, as against the most hopeless bondsman.—Miller.
His garment is not so near unto him as thou art unto thyself; that is not more needful to keep him warm than it is to keep thee safe. And seeing that he, by his folly, hath made himself naked of understanding, it is not thou but himself that maketh him naked of his garment. Seeing he is content to give himself a pledge for a stranger, it is less than thou doest in taking his garment as a pledge of him.—Jermin.