To deliver thee from the way of the evil man.
Wickedness and wisdom, the bane and the antidote
I. A terrible description of wicked persons.
1. Their character. Their speech is corrupt. Their habit is corrupt. Their heart is corrupt. Their influence is corrupt.
2. Their peril. The spell of lust palsies the grasp of her victims. Everything dies under the influence of wickedness--self- respect, spiritual sensibility, mental freedom, the freshness, the vigour, and the beauty of life.
3. Their doom. They are rooted out from the esteem of the good, from the sphere of improvement, from the realm of mercy, and from the domain of hope.
II. The antidote. Wickedness is terribly powerful, but wisdom is mightier. Its mightiness in man, however, depends upon its right reception.
1. Wisdom guards the innocent. The way to keep out evil is to fill the soul with goodness.
2. It delivers the fallen. Heavenly wisdom in the soul is the only soul-redemptive force.
3. It guides the redeemed. Like the star to the mariner, it this wisdom shine within us it will guide us safely over the voyage of life. (David Thomas, D.D.)
The influence of associates
The tree frog acquires the colour of whatever it adheres to for a short time. If it be found on the oak, it is a brown colour; on the sycamore or cedar, he is of a whitish brown colour; but when found on the growing corn, he is sure to be green. Just so it is with young men. Their companions tell us what their characters are; if they associate with the vulgar, the licentious, and the profane, then their hearts are already stained with their guilt and shame, and they will themselves become alike vicious. Our moral and physical laws show how important it is to have proper associations of every kind, especially in youth. How dangerous it is to gaze on a picture or scene that pollutes the imagination or blunts the moral perceptions, or has a tendency to deaden a sense of our duty to God and man! (Christian Treasury.)
From the man that speaketh froward things.--
Froward
This is a word which occurs more than once in these verses, and which occurs frequently throughout this book, and whereof I have not met with an exactly defined signification. Some understand by it peevishness or perverseness. Were I to consult its etymology I should rather conceive that it was “fromward”; and so, impetuous, headstrong, acting on the impulse of whatever feeling is uppermost in the mind, unrestrained by calculation or conscience, and the opposite, therefore, of discretion. In Proverbs 2:12 I should render the word by “unfaithful”; in Proverbs 2:14, by “perverse”; in Proverbs 3:32, by “unlawful,” or “transgressor of the law.” But it is not easy to gather the precise meaning of the word “froward,” as the original words for it are various. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)
Verses 13. To walk in the ways of darkness.--
Perils in the deep
Here an arm of the sea of life is spread out before us, and we are led to an eminence whence we may behold its raging. We must, one by one, go down into these great waters. We see many of our comrades sinking beneath the surge. It is good to count the number, and measure the height of these ranks of raging waves, that we may be induced to hold faster by the anchor of the soul, which is sure and steadfast. The dangers are delineated in exact order.
I. “the way of evil.” Whether they be persons or principles the word does not expressly say. The way of the evil is the way which Satan trod, and by which all his servants follow.
II. “the man that speaketh froward things.” He is one of the foremost dangers to young men. In a workshop, or warehouse, or circle of private friendship, one with a foul tongue is a serious mischief-maker. It may be that the froward things are swearings; or impurities, or infidel insinuations; or mere silliness that fills with vanity, and tends to weaken the moral fibre. Even when a person does not sympathise with the evil, and imitate it, his conscience gets a wound. It is not good for us, in an experimental way, thus to know evil.
III. “Who leave the paths of righteousness.” When the imagination is polluted, and the tongue let loose, the feet cannot keep on the path of righteousness. Thinking, and hearing, and speaking evil, will soon be followed by doing it. In all of us are the seeds of crime, and in many the seedlings are growing apace. He who would be kept from the path of the destroyer must crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts. In the matter of watching for one’s soul the true wisdom is to take care of the beginnings.
IV. “to walk in the ways of darkness.” The doing of evil produces darkness, and darkness produces the evil-doing. Indulged lusts put out the eyesight of the conscience; and under the darkened conscience the lusts revel unchecked.
V. “Who rejoice to do evil.” A more advanced step in guilt. At first the backslider is ashamed of his fall. He palliates, alleges the strength of the temptation, and promises amendment. As the hardening progress goes on, he begins to feel more easy, and comes to rejoice in evil.
VI. Who “delight in the frowardness of the wicked.” These are more abandoned than the wicked themselves. To take pleasure in sin is a characteristic of fallen humanity; to delight in seeing others sinning is altogether devilish. To complete the picture of the dangers to which the young are exposed, one other peril of the world’s deep is marked on the chart which is mercifully placed in the voyager’s hands--it is “the strange woman.” The deceiver is so-called. Marriage is honourable in all. Unlawful relations of the sexes mean wild, selfish passions, which will surely be followed by visible marks of God’s vengeance. God’s anger will track lust through all its secret doublings. He makes sin generate its own punishment. And the woe of a hardened sensualist is a “hell” indeed. (W. Arnot, D. D.)