Every prudent [man] dealeth with knowledge: but a fool layeth open [his] folly.
Ver. 16. Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge.] Observes circumstances, and deports himself with discretion; thrusts not himself into unnecessary dangers; carves not a piece of his heart but to those he is well assured of. See an instance of this prudence in Ezra; Ezr 8:22 in Nehemiah, Neh 2:5 he calls it not the place of God's worship - such an expression that heathen king might have disgusted - but the place of his father's sepulchres; in Esther, who concealed her stock and kindred till she saw her time; in Christ, when he was tried for his life; in Paul, Acts 23:6 ; Act 19:10 who lived two years at Ephesus, and spake not much against the worship of their great goddess Diana. Acts 19:35 ; Act 19:37 "The prudent shall keep silence in an evil time." Amo 5:13 It is not good provoking evil men that are irreformable, nor safe pulling a bear or mad dog by the ear.
But a fool layeth open his folly.] Plasheth it, and setteth it a sunning, as it were, by his headlong, headstrong exorbitances. By his inconsiderate courses he openly bewrays and proclaims what he is; he sets his folly "upon the cliff of the rock, that it should not be covered." Eze 24:7