(with Proverbs 27:1)
I. The precept, "Lean not unto thine own understanding" is one in which, with advancing years, we are well disposed to acquiesce. One who has grown older, and who has really profited by the experience of life, must often have found cause to revise his own judgments. In this world of change and sorrow experience soon teaches us the lesson, "Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Sudden reverses overtake the most prosperous; the most sagacious make blunders, through which their inferiors discover with pleased surprise that these wise men were, after all, not so much wiser than themselves.
II. The result of such experience might seem to be general distrust of the powers of the human intellect, but happily the exigencies of life save us from the danger of any unreasonable scepticism. We must act, and it is continually necessary for us to decide between different courses of action. As experience convinces us of the weakness of our understanding, our liability to go wrong notwithstanding all the light it gives us, we should all be glad if there could be supplied us any way of arriving at our belief which we might safely trust without the necessity of leaning on our own understanding. It is thus that the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to infallibility has been willingly admitted by multitudes.
III. When we want to know what is meant by wisdom and understanding in the Book of Proverbs we can find no better commentary than the saying in the Book of Job: "The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." This, then, is what the writer of this part of the Book of Proverbs means to say in the words of the text. Be not deceived by any suggestions of the human heart which would lead you to fancy that God's precepts are not wise, and that you can find happiness in any ways which are not the ways of holiness. The words of the text convey no injunction to us to put out the candle of the Lord within us, that reason which supplies the light whereby we must walk; but only an injunction to us to hold fast the best conclusion which true wisdom furnishes namely, the conviction that it must be a vain search to look for happiness in any way but this.
IV. The truth that we know not what a day may bring forth seems to give a most disheartening view of human life. We have the burden cast on us of directing our own way while yet the light by which to guide it is denied us. This is the truth which removes all sadness from the reflection that we know not what shall be on the morrow, that while a man's heart deviseth his way, it is the Lord who directeth his steps. Though the path which we tread may be dark and gloomy, we can walk it with courage if we feel that we have our Father and our Saviour with us. The Psalmist found it so long since when he said, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."
G. Salmon, Non-Miraculous Christianity,p. 153.
References: Proverbs 3:5. R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains,p. 142; Preacher's Monthly,vol., i., p. 102; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven,1st series, p. 116. Proverbs 3:5; Proverbs 3:6. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xii., p. 33.