CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 25:15. Prince. Rather “Judge”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 25:15
FORBEARANCE AND PERSUASIVENESS
I. Patience without speech is an overcoming power. The strongest smith will find a piece of cold iron too much for him—if he attempt to bend or break it he will be met with a resistance which he cannot overcome. But he places the apparently unconquerable bar upon the coals, and by degrees it seems to assume altogether another nature, and is ready to be fashioned to any shape or form. He gets this victory by waiting, and he finds it a far more effectual method than attempting to subdue the metal by physical force. Forbearance will sometimes do as much for the stubborn human will as the fire does for the iron. Many men who cannot be threatened into compliance with our wishes, may be overcome by patient kindness. A prince may be here put by Solomon as a type of all men in authority and high position, who by reason of their position are less under the power of others and consequently are less likely to yield to any other force than persuasion. With such men high-handed dealing and efforts to intimidate generally provoke a more stubborn resistance.
II. Patience seconded by gentle speech is doubly powerful. The smith’s work is not done when by waiting he has given time for the iron to become soft and impressible; he must then bring his skill and activity to bear upon it and so mould it to his will. So after long forbearance there must be wise and persuasive speech to finish the work. The long-suffering patience, perhaps under trial and provocation, has softened the hard heart or the stubborn will, and now the gentle words are listened to and have their full weight. But this would not have been the case if patience without speech had not gone first to make way for them.
III. Those who conquer by forbearance in deed and gentleness in word walk in the Divine footsteps. In the dealings of God with the human race, no attribute of His character is more manifest than “the riches of His forbearance and long suffering” (Romans 2:4), and it is by this that He “leads men to repentance.” “Instead of coming down upon man by storm,” says Dr. Bushnell, “in a manner of direct onset to carry his submission by storm, God lays gentle siege to him, waiting for his willing assent and choice.… To redress an injury by gentleness, and tame his adversary’s will by the circuitous approach of forbearance and a siege of true suggestion is not the manner of men, only of God.” It is not, alas! the manner of men in general, but all those who call Him Master try to imitate Him in this as in all other of His perfections that can be imitated by finite and imperfect creatures.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The soft member breaking the hard bone may seem to be a paradox. But it is a fine illustration of the power of gentleness above hardness and irritation. Apply it to those who are set against the truth. Many a stout heart has been won by a forbearing, yet uncompromising, accommodation to prejudice. In reproof Jehovah showed what He could do in “the strong wind and the earthquake.” But His effective rebuke was in the “still small voice;” without upbraiding; sharp, yet tender, (1 Kings 19:11-13.) So powerful is the energy of gentleness! Indeed, “among all the graces that adorn the Christian soul, like so many jewels of various colours and lustres, against the day of her espousals to the Lamb of God, there is not one more brilliant than that of patience.”