CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 3:27. Withhold not, &c., literally “hold not good back from its master,” i.e., from him to whom it belongs.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 3:27-29
DOING JUSTICE AND LOVING MERCY
True wisdom in the heart will show itself in right dealing between man and man. He who holds back any good thing by which it is in his power to bless another man is a thief. The withholding is a crime for which God will visit. This is true in relation not only to debts of justice (James 5:4) but to so-called debts of mercy. When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, there will be some against whom He will bring the charge—“I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick and in prison, and ye visited Me not” (Matthew 25:42-43). There are five reasons against the postponement of any act of justice or mercy until the morrow.
1. The person who is in need to-day may be beyond your reach to-morrow. Death may remove him from your reach, and he may go into eternity your creditor. Men and women have been saved from taking a step which would have been their ruin, by a kindly word or act which would have come too late on the morrow.
2. If your needy friend do live to be helped on the morrow, you may not live to give him help, and you will then enter the presence of God a debtor to your brother. To-morrow is God’s property, to-day is man’s.
3. If your brother is not beyond your reach to-morrow, his need has been increased by the delay. If a man’s condition calls for medical aid to-day, and it is withholden, the disease will have a firmer hold to-morrow and will be harder to cure. What physician would say to a sick man in such a case, “Go, and come again?” Human need is a disease that is increased by delay in dealing with it. It is a weed that grows apace. What is only a seed to-day will be a sapling soon. If you delay the moral and intellectual training of the ignorant, the chains that bind them will be harder to break to-morrow than they are to-day. So that delay makes the demand greater, and the debt which might have been easily paid when it was due becomes hard to meet by withholding.
4. To do the good to-morrow which might be done to-day is not to be an imitator of God. The Divine Father makes His sun to shine to-day upon the evil and the good. He does not say, “To-morrow I will give thee,” but “now is the accepted time.”
5. The postponement of that which is due is “a devising of evil in the heart against thy neighbour” (Proverbs 3:29). Our Lord, in his parable of the good Samaritan, has answered for us the question, Who is my neighbour? (Luke 10). It is the man who is in need, and whose need we can relieve. It is not merely a negative, but a positive sin to withhold help to such a one—it is a violation of that rule of life which Christ Himself declares “is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 3:27. The borrower is then to repay his debt to the lender; the finder to restore that which he hath taken up to the loser; he which hath received anything into his custody, is to bring it forth to him who reposed trust in him; the master is to pay the servant his wages. Finally, everyone is to practise that precept of the Apostle (Romans 13:8).—Muffet.
This practical injunction may be applied:
1. To all lawful debts, for articles purchased or work performed.
2. To government taxes, which ought to be regarded as debts due to the community.
3. To debts of charity and benevolence. For such debts there are. They cannot indeed be claimed; they cannot be made good in law. But they are due—due on the principle of the “royal law” (Matthew 7:12).—Wardlaw.
Here Solomon passes from general recommendations of wisdom to particular precepts of it. He reverts to instances of “mercy and truth” (Proverbs 3:3). He who is in need has a claim of ownership upon our property by the law of love, which is the law of God. Need makes the poor the owner, and God makes thee the dispenser of the goods which thou hast and which he needs: so such benefits are called “righteousness,” i.e., a righteous debt or obligation (2 Corinthians 9:9; Matthew 6:1, “alms;” Greek, “righteousness”). The same principle applies in the case of spiritual knowledge which thou hast and thy neighbour has not.—Fausset.
With the luxuries of grace, the wise man mixes in its conditions. They are rugged like those of the Apostle (1 Corinthians 13). If we enjoy the good of the Gospel, we are to render again according to the benefits shown us.—Miller.
It is the hungry man’s bread which we hoard up in our own barns. It is his meat on which we glut, and his drink which we guzzle: it is the naked man’s apparel which we shut up in our presses, or which we exorbitantly ruffle and flaunt in: it is the needy person’s gold and silver which we closely hide in our chests, or spend idly, or put out to useless use. We are, in thus holding, or thus spending, not only covetous, but wrongful, or havers of more than our own, against the will of the rightful owners.—Barrow.
1. They who have had much experience in the world may be of infinite use by giving salutary advice.
2. If we are afraid of being thought meddling, we can benefit others by a good example.
3. By vindicating the characters of those who have been unjustly defamed.
4. By not only giving alms, but attention, care, and friendship to the needy.
5. By recommending our brethren to God in prayer.—Bishop Porteous.
Proverbs 3:28. This conduct is too common. It may arise—
1. From an avaricious reluctance to part with the money. The avaricious man is so loath to part with the object of his idolatry that even a day’s delay pleases him.
2. From indolent listlessness. The man is not in a mood to be troubled. He is occupied about something else, or he is not disposed to be occupied at all.
3. From insolent superciliousness. This is often discovered towards inferiors, or towards persons against whom there exists a grudge. It is the vice of little minds—ungenerous, unjust, unmanly.—Wardlaw.
He gives twice to one in need who gives at once.—Publius Syrus.
Keep as few good intentions hovering about as possible. They are like ghosts haunting a dwelling. The way to lay them is to find bodies for them.—Arnot.
Proverbs 3:29. This evil may be practised in a great variety of ways. As, for instance—A man in business does what he can to obtain another’s confidence; or, whether he acts from this view or not, he knows that he has that confidence, and he takes advantage of it to obtain large quantities of goods from him, when aware that his own affairs are precarious and his credit sinking. There are not wanting cases in which the most nefarious crimes have been perpetrated through the medium of unsuspecting confidence. The wife of a man’s bosom, or the child of his paternal love, has been seduced by the unwitting confidence he has reposed in a seeming friend. It is the very sin by which “the devil beguiled Eve through his subtilty.” … All therefore who act such a part are of “their father the devil.”—Wardlaw.