Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware: and reprove one that hath understanding, [and] he will understand knowledge.
Ver. 25. Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware.] Alterius perditio, tua fit cautio, saith the wise man. Seest thou another man shipwrecked? look well to thy tackling. Poena ad paucos, &c. Let but a few be punished, and many will be warned and wised; any will, but the scorner himself, who will not be better, though brayed in a mortar. This scorner may very well be the sluggard mentioned in the former verse. Smite him never so much, there is no beating any wit into him. Pharaoh was not a button the better for all that he suffered; but Jethro, taking notice of God's heavy hand upon Pharaoh, and likewise upon the Amalekites, was thereby converted, and became a proselyte, as Rabbi Solomon noteth upon this text.