CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 3:1. Keep. This word, says Miller, primarily means to look hard at, and generally to keep watch over, as over a vineyard.
Proverbs 3:2. Length of days, properly “extension of days.”
Proverbs 3:3. Good understanding, or “good success,” “good reputation.” Some read “good intelligence,” i.e., thou shalt be esteemed before God and man as one of good understanding.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 3:1-4
BLESSINGS FROM THE REMEMBRANCE OF GOD’S COMMANDMENTS
I. The natural desire of a moral instructor. Every teacher desires that his pupil should remember his instructions, and unless that which has been given is remembered it is useless to carry him any further on. Memory holds a very important place in the formation of moral character. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you; … by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2). Paul likewise exhorts his son Timothy by means of his memory (2 Timothy 1:6). See also Hebrews 10:32; 2 Peter 1:15; 2 Peter 3:1, etc. Solomon knew that his son could only profit by his counsel so long as he remembered it.
II. When the memory does not retain moral teaching, it is a moral rather than an intellectual fault. “Let thine heart keep my commandments.” We find it difficult to forget where we love. If a child loves his father, he is not likely to forget his words. Christ reminded his disciples that they did not “remember” because their hearts were hardened (Mark 8:17-18).
III. When the heart keeps the Divine Word, mercy and truth will not forsake the character. Where God’s precepts find a place of abode, there will likewise be found a merciful disposition towards men, and a truthful and sincere piety before God. If a tree has its roots in the waters, we know that its greenness will not fail: “its leaf shall not wither.” The freshness and beauty of the foliage is the necessary outcome of its roots dwelling in the stream. The mercifulness and the truthfulness of a man’s character will be in proportion to his affection for, and consequent retention of, the words of God.
IV. The blessings which will accompany a remembrance of the Divine teaching.
1. Length of days. We may infer from this that, as a rule, long life is to be desired. The longer distance a pure river runs through a country, the greater the amount of blessing which it diffuses on its way to the ocean. The longer a man of “mercy and truth” lives, the more he is enabled to bless his fellow-creatures. A long life gives a man time to attain great knowledge of God, and thus enables him to glorify Him upon the earth. A long life is also to be desired because the peculiar experience of earth belongs to the present life only. When that is ended we have reason to believe that we shall enter upon an entirely new experience; that which belonged to earth will have passed away with our earthly life. It has often been remarked that a godly manner of life is favourable to “length of days.” Sin and anxious care tend to bring men to an early grave, while purity, and trust in a living and loving Father are promoters of bodily health.
2. Divine and human favour. The human ruler is favourable to those who make it their business to obey his commands. A wise and good father makes a difference in his treatment of those children who seek to please him and those who defy his authority. God is the Father, and consequently the rightful Ruler of men, and having made laws for the guidance of His children, it follows of necessity that those who seek to obey those laws must find favour with Him. He is in this sense a respecter of persons. He has respect to those who “have respect unto His commandments” (Psalms 119:6). Favour in the sight of man is also promised. The value of a man’s favour depends upon a man’s character. To find favour with some men would be to be known as an enemy of God (James 4:4). It is written that Jesus increased “in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). But we know that He found little favour with the rulers of the Jews. Therefore, these words must be taken to refer to the favour of those whose favour is worth having.
3. Peace (Proverbs 3:2). Where the conscience and passions are at war there can be nothing but unrest, but when the conscience is reinforced by the Divine precepts, she rules, and the soul, as a consequence, enjoys peace. Peace must flow from the possession of Divine favour, and also from the consciousness of the good-will of good men.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 3:1. Here we advance another step. Not only is it necessary to renounce and shun evil (Proverbs 1:10) and to listen to the voice of Wisdom and go in quest of her (Proverbs 1:20; Proverbs 2:1-4), but it is also requisite to hold her fast under trial and tribulation (Proverbs 3:11), and to practise her rules by love to God and man (Proverbs 3:9; Proverbs 3:27; Proverbs 3:30).—Wordsworth.
“My law.” He who made us knows what is good for us. Submission to His will is the best condition for humanity. Our own will leads to sin and misery. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.… Silently to forget God’s law is a much more common thing amongst us than blasphemously to reject it.—Arnot.
Where love makes the impression, care locks it up.… Philo saith, “Thou forgettest God’s law, because thou forgettest thyself.” For didst thou remember thine own condition, how very nothing thou art, thou couldst not forget His law whose excellency exceedeth all things; and therefore to fasten His law in our hearts, God saith no more than that it is my law, as if the strength of that reason were sufficient to strike them into us not to be forgotten.—Jermin.
We should be able to say to Wisdom as Cœnis did to her lady Antonia, “You need not, madame, bid me do your business, for I so remember your commands, as I need never be reminded of them.”—Trapp.
The mental faculties have a close relation and a mutual dependence upon each other. There are, without doubt, original diversities in the power of memory. But memory depends greatly on attention, and attention depends not less upon the interest which the mind feels on the subject. He who feels no interest will not attend, and he who does not attend will not remember.—Wardlaw.
Proverbs 3:2. Length of days is the promise to the righteous—whether for earth or for heaven as their Father deems fittest for them. It itself, the promise, as regards this life, has no charm.… But peace added forms the sunshine of the toilsomeway.—Bridges.
The original is “length of days and years of lives.” They are lives which religion promiseth, one on earth, another in heaven: here such a long life as short days can make up, but there days shall be years: there shall be but one day, lengthened into eternity.—Jermin.
Where is the consistency of promising long life to wisdom! Where is the truth of such an assurance? But certain grammatical endings give us immediate signs of another interpretation. The verb “add” is masculine; the words “law” and “commandments” are feminine. On the contrary, all are masculines among the nouns of the next clause. Unless there should be reason to do violence by an ungrammatical exception, the nouns should be the subjects rather than the objects of the verb. We translate therefore, “For length of days, and years of life, and prosperity, shall make thee greater.”—Miller.
Such declarations are certainly not to be interpreted as a promise of long life in this world in every instance, as the result of obedience to God’s commands. There are promises to Israel of their days being prolonged in the land which are greatly mistaken when interpreted of the life of individuals; and as pledging in every case its prolongation to all the good. Such passages relate to the continued possession of the land of promise by the people, if they, in their successive generations, continued to serve God.—Wardlaw.
Simple duration of life in itself to Jewish mind, a great gift of God. “Years of life,” i.e., of a life truly such, a life worth living, not the lingering struggle with pain and sickness (compare the use of “life” in Psalms 30:5; Psalms 42:8.—Plumptre.
Proverbs 3:3. There was such a similitude of nature between the twins of love that at once they wept, and at once they smiled; they fell sick together, and they recovered jointly. Such are these twins of grace. In policy, mercy without truth is a sweet shower dropping upon barren sands, quite spilt, and no blessing following it; truth without mercy is extreme right and extreme injury. Consider them toward God and heaven. A faith of mere protestation without good works, such is truth without mercy, and all the integrity of the heathen, all the goodness that Socrates could teach, such is mercy without truth.—Bishop Hacket.
The neck is, in Solomon’s writings, the organ and symbol of obedience. To bind God’s law about the neck is not only to do it, but to rejoice in doing it; to put it on and exult in it as the fairest ornament.—Wordsworth.
I. The matter to be recorded—mercy and truth. These two, meeting and kissing in the Mediator, constitute the revealed character of God Himself; and He desires to see, as it were, a miniature of His own likeness impressed upon His children.
II. The tablet for receiving it—the human heart. The reference is obviously to the tables of stone. The tables were intended to be not a book only, but a type. An impress should be taken on our own hearts, that we may always have the will of God hidden within us.—Arnot.
Let these graces be, as with God, in combination. The want of one buries the commendation of the other. “Such a one is merciful to the poor, but there is no truth in him.” “Such a one is very just in his dealings, but he is as hard as a flint.” Nor must these virtues be in occasional and temporary exercise. “Let them not forsake thee.”—Bridges.
Intimating—I. Their forsaking us is more than our forsaking them. Our forsaking them may come of our weakness, but their forsaking us comes of our wilfulness and hardness of heart in not entertaining them. II. It sets out the easiness of the loss of them through our corruption. III. It sets forth our great need of them. IV. It intimates our great care and pains needful for the retaining of them. They are easily lost, but hardly kept. A hawk must be well tamed before he is let fly, else he will return no more. These graces must be as carefully kept as providently gotten, like riches. And they must both be kept together, else mercy may lie to do good, and truth may reveal without cause what may do hurt. Therefore join both as God does (Psalms 85:10).—Francis Taylor.
Mercy and truth are dear sisters, blessed companions in God, sweet companions in man. Mercy loveth truth, truth loveth mercy, God loveth both; and if man love himself, he will do so likewise.—Jermin.
These words correspond to the two tables of the law. Benevolence is at the bottom of the command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour,” and what is right is that great glory which we are to love in God.—Miller.
Proverbs 3:4. In other words, “Thou shalt be favoured and truly prospered, God and man both bearing witness to thy well-directed efforts.”—Stuart.
He that shows mercy to men shall find mercy with God.… and men love to be dealt truly and mercifully with themselves, even though they deal not so with others; especially they that get good by our merciful and just dealing will favour us.—Francis Taylor.
This favour of God and men, i.e., not of all indiscriminately, but first and pre-eminently of the wise and devout, such as agree with God’s judgment, is evidently in the view of the poet the highest and most precious of the multiform blessings of wisdom which he enumerates. What, however, is this favour of God and men but the being a true child of God, the belonging to the fellowship of God and His people, the co-citizenship in the kingdom of truth and blessedness? We stand here manifestly at the point at which the Old Testament doctrine of retributions predominantly earthly begin to be transformed into the supersensual or spiritual realistic doctrine of the New Testament (Matthew 5:10-12; Matthew 19:28-30).—Lange’s Commentary.
This promise is all one with that of the Apostle Paul, when, speaking of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, he saith, “that he which in these things serveth Christ, pleaseth God and is acceptable to men” (Romans 14:18).