CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 4:14. Go not. The Heb. is literally “to go straightforward;” also, “to pronounce happy.”
Proverbs 4:15. Avoid, “Let it go,” reject it.” Turn from it, i.e., even if thou hast entered, turn back.
Proverbs 4:16. Miller here reads: “For the mere reason that they sleep not, rest assured they do mischief; and that their sleep is stolen, rest assured they occasion stumbling:” and understands it to mean that the more sleepless the industrious impenitent, the faster he is carrying everything to eternal ruin. But all other commentators of importance read as in the English version.
Proverbs 4:18. Shining light, Lit. “the light of dawn that grows and brightens even to the establishment of the day.”
Proverbs 4:19. Darkness, “thick darkness,” the gloom of midnight.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Proverbs 4:14-19
CONTRASTED PATHS AND OPPOSITE CHARACTERS
I. The just man’s path.
1. It is a pre-ordained one. The path which the sun takes through the heavens, the path in which our earth encircles the sun, are the paths which God has pre-ordained for them. They are the only paths which they could take and preserve the harmony of the system to which they belong. They are the orbits which are exactly adapted to the fulfilment of the end for which God created them. So the path—the manner of life—of the godly man is the path in which God intended man to walk when He created him. He called him into being in order that he might “walk before Him and be perfect” (Genesis 17:1). “The highway of holiness” is the God-ordained path of man, the old way which was trodden by His creatures for ages before men had any existence.
2. It is a blessing-dispensing path. The sun, by keeping God’s pre-ordained path, is a blessing to the world. Its rays possess a quickening power which developes the hidden life of the plant, and so clothes the earth with beauty and fruitfulness. Without its heat and light our globe would be a great Sahara—a vast wilderness of black barrenness. It likewise brings into operation a sense in man which would otherwise be dormant. The light of the body is the eye, but where would sight be without sun? Creatures who have lived for years in darkness appear to lose the power of sight, even if light shines upon their eye-balls. The constant contact of the eye with light keeps alive the power of vision. So with the just man’s path. Without the godly this world would be a moral wilderness. All the beauty of goodness there is in it comes from the life of the children of wisdom. “They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon” (Hosea 14:7). And He keeps alive the inner eye of man—the conscience. It, too, needs external light to play upon it to keep it alive. And the holy walk of the godly does this for the ungodly, it prevents the conscience from being utterly stifled by sin.
3. It is a progessive path. It shines more and more. The light of dawn has glories all its own, but it is not strong enough to do the work of the noon-day rays, its heat is not able to penetrate beneath the surface of the earth and wake up the life of the seed-corn hidden there; its brightness touches the mountain-tops, but does not scatter the shadows in the valleys. But when the sun reaches its meridian “there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” So with the children of wisdom. When they first set out upon their journey their godliness is not so manifest to others, nor does it yield so much comfort to themselves as when they have trodden the path for years. But it must, from a necessity of nature, go on unto perfection. “Just men will be made perfect” (Hebrews 12:3). “They go from strength to strength” (Psalms 84:7). They come “to the perfect day.”
II. The wicked man’s way. It is in every point the converse of that which has just been sketched.
1. It is his own way (chap. Proverbs 1:31): not God’s way, not the way in which he was destined to walk. It is an old way (Job 22:15), but not the oldest way; it is a path cast up by the will of man and pre-Adamite sinners.
2. It is a way of darkness, because it is a way of blindness. Blindness puts a man in the dark, and, being in the dark, he has only the experience that springs from darkness. Wickedness puts out the eyes of the soul, and, like a blind Samson, it sits in darkness and the shadow of death. A state of blindness is a state of ignorance. A blind man cannot avoid objects that come in his way, and when he falls in consequence, he knows not the object that caused him to fall. So the wise man here describes the ungodly as one “who knows not at what he stumbles” (Proverbs 4:19). He has no realisation of the real character of his tempters, no insight into the sinfulness of sin; the lack of a guiding principle turns his walk into a series of stumblings. It follows of necessity that such a path is one of danger. It is more dangerous to walk in the night than in the day. The footpad or the highwayman can hide himself from our view in the darkness, and come upon us unawares. We may fall over the precipice at night that we could easily avoid in the day. So is it in a course of sin. A man who shuts his eyes to the light within him, and rejects the light which is to “lighten every man” (John 1:9), will, unawares, be overtaken by retribution, and fall into depths of remorse upon which he little counts.
3. Like the path of the just, it is a progressive path. No man stands still in it. The darkness thickens as the blindness increases, and the blindness grows the longer men refuse to “come to the light” (John 3:20). Men do not all at once come to the height or descend to the depth of iniquity described in Proverbs 4:16, when, unless they have done some iniquitous act, they feel that they have lost a day. The merchant may feel he has lost a day when he has failed to make a good bargain; the scholar feels it when he has not added to his stock of knowledge; the heathen emperor reckoned a day lost when he had not benefited some one; but for a man not to sleep except he has done a mischief, surely expresses as “perfect a night” as it is possible for human nature to attain to. Surely he then proves himself to be a child of him whose business it is to “go about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
4. It is a path which is destructive to others. As the good man, by walking in God’s path, blesses his fellow-creatures as well as himself, so the wicked man, in his path of darkness, is a curse to others as well as himself. The force of evil example alone is pernicious to all who surround him, but although he may begin in this negative way, he soon advances to positive acts of sin, until he lives upon the misery of others. It becomes his meat and drink to drag others to destruction with him, or, failing that, to do them as much injury as he can (Proverbs 4:16-17).
III. The means of escape from this path of darkness and ruin. “Enter it not,” and, to make sure of not entering it, give it a wide berth—“pass not by it, turn away” (Proverbs 4:14-15). When we see those whom we love in danger, we multiply words of warning, and are not careful to avoid repeating words which may have little or no difference in their meaning. So Solomon’s anxiety shows itself here in the repetition of his exhortations. But there is some gradation observed in them.
1. We are not to enter the paths, not even to set one foot upon the forbidden way. Men may be tempted to venture a step or two just to take a glance, and intend to turn back as soon as they have done so, but it is enchanted ground, and it is more than likely if they are once upon the track they will go further than they at first intended. But if they do not enter it, they cannot walk in it.
2. If you have already entered, do not persevere another moment, turn from it at once. If the captain of a ship becomes all at once aware that he is steering his vessel upon the rocks, he puts about at once. The next best thing to not going wrong at all is to turn back—in Bible language, to repent, to put the face in the opposite direction, to turn the whole man back to the opposite goal.
3. In order to escape the danger of entering at all, or of re-entrance after having once forsaken it, avoid its very neighbourhood, pass not by it, go not in the way of temptation. If a youth has been induced to gamble, and has resolved to give up the habit, let him not go near the gambling house—let him give up all intercourse with gamblers; if he has been once under the fatal influence of strong drink, he must taste it no more—not even “look upon the wine when it is red” (ch. Proverbs 23:31). He must “flee youthful lusts,” and the most certain method of doing this is to strike out another course—to “follow after righteousness (1 Timothy 6:11-12), to get well into the way of wisdom, to know from experience the blessedness of the path of the just.” Men must have a “way” in life, there is no neutral ground; or if some men seem for a time to be living in the border-land, a time will come when they must declare for one side or the other.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 4:14. We must all “enter” somewhere. We are all travelling. We all necessarily follow something. Don’t take the path of the wicked for it. That is the doctrine.—Miller.
Sin is like a whirlpool. He who once ventures within the circle of its eddying waters in the self-sufficient assurance that he may go a certain length, and then turn at his pleasure and stem the current back, may feel the fancied strength of the sinews of his moral resolution but weakness in the moment of need, and may—nay, almost certainly will—be borne on further and further, till, all power of resistance failing, he is carried round and round with increasing celerity, and sucked into the central gulf of irrecoverable perdition.—Wardlaw.
Jortin, in his remarks upon Ecclesiastical History, relates the story of a colloquy between a Father of the second century and an evil spirit in a Christian, whom he sought to expel. Upon inquiring how he dared be so impudent as to enter a Christian, the evil spirit replied, “I went not to church after him, but he came to the playhouse after me, and, finding him upon my own ground, I sought to secure him for myself.” Whatever becomes of the story, the moral of it deserves attention.—Leifchild.
We pray to be kept from temptation, and our practice ought not to contradict our prayers; otherwise, it is evident that we mock God by asking from Him what we do not wish to have.—Lawson.
Proverbs 4:15. This triple gradation of Solomon showeth, with a great emphasis, how necessary it is to flee from all appearance of sin.… Entireness (friendship) with wicked consorts is one of the strongest chains of hell, and binds me to a participation of both sin and punishment.—Brooks.
Come not near.
1. Because our corruption is so great that, if we come near it, we will both smell it with delight and smell of it.
2. Because wicked men stand upon the edge of their way to draw others into it, as thieves watch for their prey.
3. We may stumble into that way ourselves, if we be not pulled into it by others. He that walks on the brink of a river may fall in. There is but a narrow bridge between lawful and unlawful. And that which is lawful to-day may, by a circumstance, be made unlawful to-morrow.—Francis Taylor.
It would not be complaisance, but cowardice—it would be a sinful softness which allowed affinity in taste to imperil your faith or your virtue. It would be the same sort of courtesy which, in the equatorial forest, for the sake of its beautiful leaf, lets the liana, with its strangling arms, run up the plaintain or orange, and pays the forfeit in blasted boughs and total ruin. It would be the same sort of courtesy which, for fear of appearing rude or inhospitable, took into dock the infected vessel, or welcomed, not as a patient, but a guest, the plague-stricken stranger.—Jas. Hamilton.
Proverbs 4:16-17. The devil, their taskmaster, will not allow them time to sleep, which is very hard bondage.—Trapp.
The character of the wicked is here drawn in their father’s image—first, sinners; then tempters.… Judas with his midnight torches (John 18:3); the early morning assembly of the Jewish rulers (Luke 22:66); the frenzied vow of the enemies of Paul (Acts 23:12); and many a plot in after ages against the Church—all vividly pourtray this unwearied wickedness.—Bridges.
The fearful stage of debasement when the tendency to sin is like the craving for stimulants, as a condition without which there can be no repose.—Plumptre.
The trouble of others is the rest of the wicked.—Jermin.
Just as bread forms the flesh, and makes it grow, according as it is eaten, so wickedness is the food of the spirit. “My meat is,” says Christ, “to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). “Thy words were found, and I did eat them” (Jeremiah 15:16). So in chap. Proverbs 1:31, “Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way”—the meaning being, that a man’s way, spiritually considered, is all that forms him. He feeds upon it. If it is righteous, it nourishes him in life. If it is wicked, it nourishes him in death. He feeds on food of wickedness, and grows exactly in proportion as he sins. His very life is in its very self a deadly self-banqueting.—Miller.
They sin, not of frailty, but of malice; not by occasion, as it were, but by an insatiable desire of committing wickedness.—Muffet.
Proverbs 4:18. He sets forth betime in the morning and travels to meet the day.
The sun is an emblem, not of the just, but of the Justifier. Christ alone is the light of the world, Christians are the enlightened. The just are those whom the Sun of Righteousness shines upon.… When any portion of the earth’s surface begins to experience a dawn diminishing its darkness, it is because that portion is gradually turning round towards the sun, the centre of light fixed in the heavens. When any part of the earth lies away from the sun, and in proportion to the measure of its aversion, it is dark and cold, in proportion as it turns to him again its atmosphere grows clearer, until in its gradual progress it comes in sight of the sun, and its day is perfect then. So is the path of the just. Day is not perfect here in the believer’s heart.… but the machinery of the everlasting covenant is meantime going softly and silently as the motion of the spheres; and they that are Christ’s here, whatever clouds dim their present prospect, are wearing every moment farther from the night, and nearer to the day.—Arnot.
There is a day to be which shall be a day indeed, without cloud, without night, without morning, without evening. Unto this day leadeth the path of the righteous, and which going on, shineth more and more, until at last, when it seemeth to go out, it shall be received into that light which never goeth out.—Jermin.
Light is emblematical of knowledge, holiness, and joy. The three bear invariable proportion to each other—holiness springing from knowledge, and joy from both.… “The entrance of God’s word gives light.” But the entrance of this light into the mind is often, like the early dawn, feeble, glimmering, uncertain.… But it does not abide so.… He who is enlightened from above is eager for more of the blessed light. He thirsts for knowledge, and is on the alert to obtain it.… With growth in knowledge there is growth in holiness. At the first dawn of spiritual light some faint desires are felt after God and sanctity. These progressively increase, and they show their influence in the increase of practical godliness … And joy is the natural attendant of spiritual illumination and inward sanctity. It, too, is progressive. Like the sun in every stage of his diurnal course, it may be overcast by occasional clouds. But as the sun appears the brighter on his emerging from the cloudy veil, so the trials of the just serve to give lustre to their virtues.—Wardlaw.
Proverbs 4:19. It is interesting to note the resemblance between these words and those of our Lord (John 11:10; John 12:35).—Plumptre.
Strange enough! it is a confessed darkness. There is a sort of common light that tells a man that impenitence is darkness. And yet it does not teach him better. Like mere physical light at times, some chemical ray is absent. The darkness that remains is a darkness that may be felt. It constitutes our eternal chains (2 Peter 2:4); it binds a man on the car of ruin. And like a Christian, who, in his partial light, may fail to know what is blessing him, so the sinner in his absolute darkness, takes industry for virtue, and family love for a wholesome righteousness; and does not know the incidents of life that are stumbling blocks to eternal ruin.—Miller.
Sinners are in such darkness that they are insensible to the objects that are leading them to ruin, thus they stumble—
1. At the great deceiver.
2. At one another.
3. At Divine Providence.
4. At their common employments.
5. At the nature and tendency of their religious performances.
6. At the preaching they hear.
7. At the blindness of their hearts.—Emmons, from Lange’s Commentary.