CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 22:8. The rod of his anger, or, as Zöckler, the “staff of his haughtiness.”
Proverbs 22:16. Zöckler reads this verse “One oppresseth the poor only to make him rich,” i.e., “the oppression which one practises on a poor man rouses his moral energy, and thus, by means of his tireless industry and his productive labour in his vocation, he works himself out of needy circumstances into actual prosperity.”
Here begins the third main division of the book of Proverbs. (See Introduction.) Its contents are styled in Proverbs 22:17 “The words of wise men,” and they differ from the second division in consisting for the most part of much longer sentences, comprising, as a general rule, two verses, but sometimes many more. Zöckler remarks that “there is prevalent everywhere the minutely hortatory, or, in turn, admonitory style, rather than that which is descriptive and announces facts.” Delitzsch and other modern Bible students infer from Proverbs 22:17 that this portion of the book contains “no inconsiderable number of utterances of wise men of Solomon’s time.” (See Introduction to the Book of Proverbs, Lange’s Commentary.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 22:8
A WORTHLESS SEED AND A ROTTEN STAFF
I. The seed sown. It is iniquity. All kinds of deeds and every manner of dealing that are out of harmony with the principles of justice are acts of iniquity. The least deviation from the path of moral right is in its measure an iniquitous step. Sowing iniquity is an expression that covers very much ground, and includes many degrees of moral wrong, from the withholding of the smallest act of justice to the inflicting of the greatest act of injustice. Now, whenever a man deliberately and knowingly does either the one or the other he does it with a purpose. He has an end in view as much as the farmer has when he sows seed in the field. Men do not generally act unjustly and commit crime out of mere love of sin—they generally expect and desire to gain something by it that they think worth having. Solomon here declares that they will be disappointed. He has before dwelt upon the retribution that will follow sin, he is here speaking of its deceptive character. Men do not get from it what they expect—they are disappointed either of the harvest or in it. This has been the experience of all sowers of iniquity in the world since Eve cast in the first seed. In a certain sense she got what she was promised, but how different the crop from what she hoped for. She “reaped vanity.”
II. The staff depended upon. Haughtiness or pride. (See Critical Notes.) This pride of heart and haughtiness of demeanour is born of a man’s imagining that he has gained for himself a position and a name that will defy the changes and vicissitudes of life. This idea bears him up; he leans upon it, as men lean upon a rod or staff. The rich man often makes a staff of his riches, and uses it to “rule over the poor,” as in Proverbs 22:7. The man of talent sometimes makes his talent a staff, and walks among his intellectual inferiors with a proud and haughty step. The great conqueror says in his heart, “I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God … I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13), and with the rod of his power he smites the nations and tramples upon the rights of his fellow-creatures. But all these rods of haughtiness shall be broken, and those who lean upon them shall find they have been trusting to a broken reed, and the objects of their oppression shall say unto them, “Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?”
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The proverb takes two terms for iniquity, one meaning crookedness, the other meaning nothingness. It paints one as only breeding the other. It intends a positive law. Wheat breeds wheat. So iniquity breeds only worthlessness. A man may live a thousand years and yet the harvest will be unvarying. And then to meet the fact that the dominion that his ambition gives does make him ruler over the saints themselves, he employs a verb which expresses high action, but action that exhausts itself. Its literal sense is to consume. The idea is as of a fever which wears down the patient and itself together.… The impenitent seem to have the whole “rod” or sceptre, of our planet, the true solution is this, that the “rod” is just budding out its strength.—Miller.
Often may oppressors prosper for a time. God may use them as his chastening rod. But the seed-time of iniquity will end in the harvest of vanity; and when they have done their work, the rod of their anger shall fail. Such was Sennacherib in olden time, such was Napoleon in our own day. Never has the world seen so extensive a sower of iniquity, never a more abundant harvest of vanity. The rod of anger was he to the nations of the earth. But how utterly was the rod suffered to fail, when the purpose was accomplished! despoiled of empire, shorn of greatness—an exiled captive.—Bridges.