CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 30:15. Horseleech, or “vampire, an imaginary spectre or ghost, supposed to suck the blood of children.” (Stuart.)
Proverbs 30:15-16. On these verses, Dr. Aiken, the American translator of the Proverbs for Lange’s Commentary, remarks, “As compared with the numerical proverbs which follow, the complexity and the more artificial character of the one before us at once arrests attention. They all have this in common, that whatever moral lesson they have to convey is less obvious, being hinted rather than stated.… In the one now under consideration, insatiable desire and the importance of its regulation seem to be the remote object. In the development, instead of the “three things” and “four things” which repeatedly appear afterwards, we have the “leach,” its two daughters, the three, and the four. Some have regarded the two daughters as representing physical characteristics of the bloodsucker, others as expressing by an Orientalism a doubly intense craving. Parallelism suggests making the first two of the four the two daughters; other allusions of the Scripture to the greediness of the world of the dead justify the first, while the second alone belong to human nature.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 30:11-17
FOUR MANIFESTATIONS OF UNGODLINESS
I. Children without natural affection. Parents that have the disposition and character which God intends them to possess are the best reflection of God that a child can look upon in a fallen world. A son or daughter can by no other means so well come to understand the fatherhood of God as by considering the tenderness and self-sacrifice of good human parents, and hence the Saviour in His most beautiful parable (Luke 15) uses this relationship to set forth the depth and strength of Divine love to sinful men. He who treats such love lightly, therefore, despises the love of Him who instituted the relationship of parent and child to minister to human happiness and to elevate human character. The man or woman who is guilty of this crime reveals a heart incapable of worthy emotion, and a conscience dead to all the claims of duty. Such an unnatural being must fail in all his other relationships—he cannot be a good husband or faithful friend, or worthily fulfil any of the more public duties of life. A man who was found wanting here, was, in the Hebrew commonwealth, regarded as rotten at the very core of his moral nature, and condemned to suffer the extreme penalty of the law (Deuteronomy 21:18-21.) Thus God puts the rebellious child on a level with the murderer and blasphemer, and the terrible threatening passed here upon one who disregards the fifth commandment is another proof of the greatness of the sin in the eyes of God. In Proverbs 30:17 such a sentence is passed upon an undutiful child as is scarcely paralleled in Scripture. Even the body which was the home of so unnatural a soul shall be exposed to ignominy and contempt.
II. Self-deceivers. This is a manifestation of ungodliness, which is in some degree common to all men whose inner vision has not been set right by Divine grace. All unrenewed men are more or less like the ancient Laodiceans, who thought they had need of nothing, but who were in reality so spiritually blind that they could not see their spiritual nakedness (Revelation 3:15). It is those who are “not washed from their filthiness” that are “pure in their own eyes,” for they are in the condition of spirit described by the apostle John—they “walk in darkness,” and “that darkness hath blinded their eyes” (1 John 2:11). But it is their own fault if they remain in this condition of blindness. A man may be born into this world with weak or impaired vision, but there may be means within his reach whereby the defect may be remedied and he become capable of seeing things as they are. By coming under the influence of those who can see well themselves and who can help him to sight also, he may be brought from a state of comparative darkness to one of light, and if with these opportunities within his reach he become worse instead of better, and at last totally blind, his blindness is a crime and not a misfortune. So, although it is true that we all come into this world with our spiritual perceptions defective and impaired, we are blameworthy in the highest degree if we do not put ourselves in contact with the moral light which God has placed within our reach, and we shall in time come to the condition of the Jewish nation in the days of the prophet and in the time of Christ (Isaiah 6:9; Matthew 13:14), “seeing, we shall see, and shall not perceive.” For “the light which lighteneth every man” (John 1:9) has come into the world; and when His word is allowed free access to man’s heart and conscience it opens his spiritual eyes as the morning sun playing upon the bodily eyes of the sleeper arouses him to life and consciousness. Self-deception, therefore, is a sin, and a sin inseparable from ungodliness.
III. The proud. This sin is the natural outcome of the one just mentioned. If a man has no sense of his state before God, he will have no right conception of his position in relation to his fellow-creatures. The eyes that cannot discern their own moral defilement will certainly look disdainfully upon others. He who thus dishonours his God will certainly despise his brother, and the less a man has to be prond of, the prouder he will be. (On this subject of pride see on chap. Proverbs 11:2, and Proverbs 13:10, pages 192 and 305.)
IV. The cruel and covetous. Man’s rapacity and selfishness are set forth in Proverbs 30:15-17 in very strong terms. His greediness and cruelty are compared to that of a creature the sole end of whose existence is to gorge itself with blood; to the ever open grave; to swords and knives, etc. We know too well that this picture is not overdrawn. Nothing that man can imagine in the form of cruelty can surpass what man has been guilty of, and such ingenuity has he sometimes displayed in this direction that one is constrained to believe that he has been inspired by a supernatural power of evil, for his deeds of darkness have seemed too black for man of himself to conceive. Some of the cruelty of man towards man may not be the offspring of covetousness, but doubtless much of it is. Men often care not who suffers, or how much they suffer, so that they satisfy their own selfish desires, and all this unnatural conduct is an evidence that there is a schism in the human race which calls for some remedy such as that of the gospel, whereby such savage natures may be transformed, and “The wolf also dwell with, the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid,” etc. (Isaiah 11:6.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
In Scripture, the word “generations” is repeatedly used to signify particular classes or descriptions of men; for two reasons, or points of analogy:—first, that as generation follows generation, so surely, in every generation, a succession of such characters is to be found;—and secondly, that they very often communicate the character to one another, and thus keep up their respective kinds,—are successive propagators of their species.—Wardlaw.
Proverbs 30:11. Here a new thought begins, but probably one from the same teacher. As he had uttered what he most desired, so now he tells us what he most abhorred, and in true harmony with the teaching of the Ten Commandments places in the foremost rank those who rise against the Fifth.—Plumptre.
Solon, when asked why he had made no law against parricides, replied, that he could not conceive of anyone so impious and cruel. The divine lawgiver knew His creature better, that His heart was capable of wickedness beyond conception (Jeremiah 17:9).—Bridges.
Proverbs 30:14. Yet withal, these cruel oppressors are marked by pitiful cowardice. They vent their wantonness only where there is little or no power of resistance. It is not the wolf with the wolf, but with the defenceless lamb; devouring the poor and needy from off the earth,—“eating up my people”—not like an occasional indulgence, but “as they eat bread” their daily meal, without intermission. (Psalms 14:4.)—Bridges.