CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 21:1. Rivers of water. Rather streams, the allusion being to the watercourses, which in hot countries intersect fields and gardens for the purpose of irrigation, in which the water is entirely under the control of the husbandman.
Proverbs 21:2 Pondereth, rather weigheth, as in chap. Proverbs 16:2. It is the same verb as that used in 1 Samuel 2:3 and Isaiah 40:12-13.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 21:1
THE KING OF KINGS
I. Kings are more entirely in the hand of God than subjects are in the hands of kings. The king of the days of Solomon was, as some Oriental rulers are now, an absolute monarch. In the case of Solomon himself, his will was law, and in his hand was the power of life and death (see 1 Kings 3:24-25). Of Nebuchadnezzar it is said, “Whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down” (Daniel 5:19). It is to such a king that the proverb refers—to one who called no man or any number of men master, but upon whose single will apparently depended the destiny of millions. Yet he was not the independent being that he appeared, neither were his subjects so dependent upon his will as they appeared to be. The most abject slave in his dominions was less under his control than he was under the control of Him by whom “kings reign” and “princes rule” (chap. Proverbs 8:15-16). The gardener whose ground is intersected by water-channels finds it a very easy task to turn the stream in the direction he desires; the soil yields to his touch, and forthwith the water flows whithersoever he wills. But the moist earth is not so easily moulded by the hand of man, as the heart of the proudest monarch is subdued to obedience by his Maker; and the water is not more entirely subject to the will of the husbandman than is the will of the most stubborn despot to the will of Jehovah.
II. The power which God exercises over kings extends into a region where no earthly ruler can penetrate. The heart of the king is in the hand of Jehovah. This is more than the most absolute monarch can boast concerning his meanest subject. Nebuchadnezzar could issue his decree, that whoso did not fall down before his golden image should be cast into the fiery furnace, but he could not move the steadfast determination of the Hebrew youths to acknowledge no god but the God of Israel. His will could determine what should be done to their bodies, but all his threatenings could not reach their hearts. But God rules the spirit of a man in that He has access to his innermost thoughts and feelings, and can thus touch the spring of all his actions, and thus bring him to do His will, even when he seems to be doing only his own.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Could anything be more bold? Mark the compass—first, of subject, the whole stream as the gardener turns it; second, of object, “whithersoever” or anything He pleases; and third, of sovereignty; its pleasing Him, that being the only test. The “king” may be a Cæsar. His lip may make new geographies (ch. Proverbs 16:10). His “heart” may change the history of all things. And yet, like a vineyard’s channels diverted by a child, this Pharaoh’s heart is in the fingers of the Most High.… Upon whatsoever. Not toward anything. A stream may be turned in a new direction to get rid of it. God has no such streams. It is turned on something. For God has an end to answer when He rules even the vilest of fiends.—Miller.
Whether, in the second line, the pleasant refreshing influence of the rivulets, dispensing blessing and increase, comes into account as a point of the comparison, is uncertain (comp. Isaiah 32:2); this, however, is not improbable, inasmuch as the heart of a king may in fact become in an eminent degree a fountain of blessing for many thousands, and, according to God’s design, ought to be so. See chap. Proverbs 16:15.—Lange’s Commentary.
For Homiletics on Proverbs 21:2 see on chap. Proverbs 16:2, page 454.