Proverbs 17:19 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

He that exalteth his gate— Among other violences of the Arabs, that of riding into the houses of those whom they mean to harass, is not one of the least observable; the rather, as it seems to be referred to in the Scriptures. To prevent this insult, and the mischief which these Arabs might do them, Thevenot tells us, that the door of the house in which the French merchants lived at Rama was not three feet high; and that all the doors of that town are equally low, to hinder the Arabs from entering their houses on horseback; and he afterwards speaks of a large door going into the church at Bethlehem, which has been walled up, and only a wicket left in it three feet high, and two wide, to hinder the Arabs from entering the church with their horses. Other authors have made the like observation. Now may not the present passage refer to this, He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction, or calamity? The royal preacher elsewhere saith, Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall; and again, Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility; texts which seem to contain the same thought in general with that before us. If then he thought fit to come to particulars, why is the height of the gate of a haughty person mentioned, rather than other circumstances of magnificence in a building? rather than the wideness of the house, the airiness of the rooms, the cutting out of windows, the cedar ceilings, and the vermillion, which are all mentioned by Jeremiah as pieces of grandeur? It can hardly be imagined, that Solomon mentioned the stateliness of the gateway of a house without a particular meaning; but if bands of Arabs had taken the advantage of large doors to enter into houses which stood in the confines of Solomon's kingdom, or of neighbouring countries with which the Jews were well acquainted, there is a most graceful vivacity in the Apophthegm. See Observ. p. 56.