CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 21:4. The ploughing. This word is by most modern commentators translated, as in the marginal references, light. It is likewise so rendered in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and in Luther’s version. Ewald, Elster, Wordsworth, and others, translate as in the English version. The Hebrew words are very similar. Those who adopt the former rendering understand the word to stand in apposition to the high look and the proud heart of the first clause (literally “To be lofty of eyes, and to be swollen of heart”), and regard it as a figurative representation of the spirit of the wicked man. Ewald and others refer the ploughing of the wicked to the “very first-fruits of a man’s activity.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 21:4
THE PLOUGHING OF THE WICKED
I. The high look and the proud heart indicate a man wrong at the foundation of his character. They show that he has not yet learned the alphabet of true godliness—that he has not yet begun to know his guilt and his weakness. He is ignorant of the depravity of his moral nature—of the capabilities of wrong that lie hidden within him, undeveloped now, it may be, but ready to assert their presence when the temptation presents itself. The man who has been born blind is entirely ignorant of the outline even of his own features, but he does not form a conception which is farther removed from the reality than a spiritually unenlightened man does of the real features of his moral character. The proud man by his pride proclaims his moral blindness—his high look is a sure indication that the light within him is darkness—that he has never seen himself as he really is. Hence it follows that he is wrong at the very core and centre of his moral being; where pride holds her throne there is no room for God, there is no confession of sin, and no yielding to Divine guidance.
II. While the heart is wrong the whole life will be wrong. This truth is expressed in the proverb, however we translate the verb in the second clause (See Critical Notes). Things that are not wrong in themselves become wrong if done from a sinful motive. A man may plough a field, and in itself the action may be neither good nor bad, but if he plough in order to sow a crop of thistles the action is a criminal one. A man may be diligent and painstaking in his business, and his diligence may in itself seem commendable, but if he exercises it only to gain money for sinful ends his very buying and selling becomes sin. And if we translate the word “light,” and understand it to signify prosperity, the truth taught is very much the same. While a man’s pride keeps him at a moral distance from God, no matter how successful he may be, the taint and curse of unpardoned guilt is upon all his gains and possessions.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Holy intention is to the actions of a man that which the soul is to the body, or form to its matter, or the root to the tree, or the sun to the world, or the fountain to the river, or the base to a pillar. Without these the body is a dead trunk, the matter is sluggish, the tree is a block, the world is darkness, the river is quickly dry, the pillar rushes into flatness and ruin, and the action is sinful, or unprofitable and vain.—Jeremy Taylor.
The evil spirit called sin may be trained up to politeness, and made to be genteel sin; it may be elegant, cultivated sin; it may be very exclusive and fashionable sin; it may be industrious, thrifty sin; it may be a great political manager, a great commercial operator, a great inventor; it may be learned, scientific, eloquent, highly-poetic sin! Still it is sin, and, being that, has in fact the same radical and fundamental quality that, in its ranker and less restrained conditions, produces all the most hideous and revolting crimes of the world.—Bushnell.
All thine actions while unregenerate—whether inward or outward, whether worldly or religious—are all sinful and cursed. Like the leper under the law, thou taintest whatever thou touchest, and makest it unclean.… Thy calling is not without its corruption.… nay, thy very religious exercises are sinful.… Thine incense stinks of the hand that offered it.… The vessel of thy heart is not clean, and God will not taste of the liquor which cometh out of it. Because thy person is not accepted, thy performances are all rejected. “Thou art in the flesh, and therefore canst not please God” (Romans 8:8).—Swinnock.