With this chapter begins the fourth main division of this book, consisting, as its introductory words inform us, of sayings and perhaps writings of Solomon, which were placed together in their present form by men appointed to the work by King Hezekiah. Zöckler remarks that “while the first and larger section of the book purports to be essentially a book for youth, this is evidently a book for the people, a treasury of proverbial wisdom for kings and subjects—as is indicated by the first introductory proverb.… Whether as the source from which the transfer or compilation of the following proverbs was made, we are to think simply of one book or of several books, so that the transfer would be the purely literary labour of excerpting, a transcribing or collecting by copying; or whether we have to consider as the source simply the oral transmission of ancient proverbs of wise men by the mouth of the people, must remain doubtful. It is, perhaps, most probable that both the written and the oral tradition were alike sifted for the objects of the collection.” (Zöckler, in Lange’s Commentary.)
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 25:1. Copied out, rather “collected.” See the remarks above.
Proverbs 25:2. Honour, rather “glory,” as in the first clause.
Proverbs 25:3. The word is should be omitted; unsearchable applies equally to the three subjects of the sentence.
Proverbs 25:4. The finer, rather the “founder,” or “goldsmith.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Proverbs 25:1-3
GOD’S MYSTERIES AND MAN’S RESEARCH
I. There is much connected with God’s nature and with His government that will never be revealed to man in his present state. This is in accordance with the greatness of God and the littleness of man in comparison with him. There are many things connected with God which man in his present state could not comprehend, and there are others which he might comprehend, but of which it is better he should remain in ignorance. The parent conceals many things from a child because the concealment is more consistent with a wise training than the revelation of them would be. Some of them the child could not understand, and others it is better that he should not know until he attains to riper years. When he has become a man he will admire the wisdom of his parent in thus withholding from him what he did. God, as the infinitely wise Parent and Trainer of human creatures, often doubtless conceals much from us from similar reasons, and we shall one day see that the concealment was to the glory of His gracious character. When a physician is called to treat a man whose life is hanging upon a thread, he is not expected to enter into an explanation of the nature of the remedies he uses or to give a reason for all the treatment he prescribes. Such an explanation would be unworthy of the dignity of his profession and hurtful to his patient. Concealment is often an essential and necessary part of his plan, and when the sick man is restored to health he acknowledges that it was to the glory of his healer that he kept him for a time in ignorance. God is the great Physician and Healer of human souls, and it would neither befit His majesty nor further His purposes of mercy to reveal the reasons of all He does to His fallen creatures. When they have attained to perfect moral health they will give glory to Him for all that He concealed as well as for all that He revealed.
II. But there is much that is hidden that will be revealed to the diligent seeker. If it is God’s prerogative and a part of His divine plan to conceal much from man, it is His purpose and desire to reveal much to him if he will only seek after it. How many of God’s operations in nature are full of mystery to one who only looks upon the surface of things, but how far diligent and earnest searchers have penetrated into the secret workings of the Divine wisdom in this direction. Although there is much hidden from them, still there is much that was once a mystery that is now made plain. And it is doubtless the same also in relation to God’s working in higher regions—in His dealings in providence and in His plan of redemption. Although there is much here that must remain a mystery to the human mind, he who diligently and reverently seeks to know the mind and purpose of God in relation to these things will not lose his reward.
III. While then, it is God’s prerogative to determine what He will reveal to man it is man’s glory and duty to be ever seeking to know more of God’s ways and works. The third verse seems to institute a comparison between the Divine and human rulers. These latter have their state secrets—sometimes for arbitrary purposes and in other cases from necessity they conceal their plans until their ends are accomplished. If the government is a despotic one this secrecy is to be feared and deprecated; if, on the other hand, the ruler or rulers are merciful and just their subjects may safely trust them when their plans of action are for a time hidden. But however it may be with human kings, there is no questioning the right of the King of Kings to hide what He pleases from His creatures, and no reason for His creatures to doubt either His wisdom or His love in so doing. But man has a duty to perform in relation to this concealment. His Maker and his Ruler does not desire to see him sit down in indolent indifference, making no effort to penetrate the secrets of the world around him, or to apprehend in some degree some of the deep things of God’s “unsearchable dealings.” (Romans 11:33). The veil seems to have been cast over some of these problems for the very purpose of stimulating man to search and to test the depth of his interest in them. While, then, the pursuit of knowledge of any kind is good, there is none so elevating, none that brings so rich a reward, and none that man is so bound to follow after, as the knowledge of God in His works of creation, and providence, and redemption. Solomon, as the greatest monarch of his day, counted this his first duty and his highest glory, and there have been many uncrowned kings in all ages of the world who have set this before them as the aim and end of their life, and in so doing have set a diadem upon their own brows and have won the homage and love of multitudes of their race.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 25:1-2. It was a good saying of a pious divine, “Lord preserve us from a comprehensible God.” It is our duty to venerate and wonder, and not to pry with curious eyes into the secrets of God. The history of the fall is an everlasting warning to the sons of Adam to prefer the tree of life to the tree of knowledge.—Lawson.
1. Taking it in contrast with the latter part of the verse—“but the honour of kings is to search out a matter,”—there is implied the idea that the Divine knowledge is universal, perfect, and free from everything of the nature of inquiry, investigation, effort, in the acquisition. His acquaintance with all things is, in the strictest sense, intuitive, and, in the strictest sense, complete. He requires no “searching out” in order to discover anything; nor is it possible to make any addition to His knowledge. The past, the present, and the future are alike before His all-comprehensive mind. He sees all the present. He remembers all the past. He foresees all the future. His knowledge is “light without any darkness at all;” and it is light that is equally clear through the immensity of the universe, and through all time and all eternity!
2. The language implies God’s entire independence and supremacy, as a part of His glory. He “giveth not account of any of his matters,” further than, in sovereignty, He sees meet to do. He conceals when He pleases. He discloses when He pleases:—“Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?” and who can demand the disclosure of any one of the secrets of the infinite and independent Mind?
3. The impenetrable depth of His counsels is a part of God’s glory. His “judgments are a great deep.” What line of created wisdom can fathom them?—
“Not angels, that stand round his throne,
Can search His secret will!”
“Canst thou, by searching, find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven; what can’st thou do? deeper than hell; what can’st thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.” “O the depth of the riches, and wisdom, and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” This is fitted to inspire us, His intelligent creatures, with “reverence and godly fear.” In the sovereign secresy, the unapproachable reservation, the unfathomable mysteriousness of the Divine counsels—in the very requirement that we humbly how, in adoring submission, where we cannot comprehend, without asking a question, or urging a further disclosure:—in all this, there is something that gives the Creator His proper place. There is in it a sacredness, an awfulness, that makes us feel, as we ought to do, our infinite distance. This is God’s glory.—Wardlaw.
Proverbs 25:3. There is no searching the height or the depth of the King’s heart, any more than the height of heaven, or the depth of the earth, (which in those unastronomic days meant blankly not at all). Give God a universe to rule; and what He must do in that great compass, as a King, is quite unsearchable.—Miller.
For Homiletics of Proverbs 25:4-5 see on chap. Proverbs 20:26; Proverbs 20:28, page 596.