Go not forth hastily to strive, lest [thou know not] what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.
Ver. 8. Go not forth hastily to strive.] Contention is the daughter of arrogance and ambition. Jam 4:1 Hence Solomon, whose very name imports peace, persuades to peaceableness very oft in this book, and sets forth the mischief of strife and dissension. Stir not strife, saith he, but make haste to stint it - so the words may be rendered - you may do that in your haste that you may repent by leisure. Hasty men, we say, never want woe. If every man were a law to himself, as the Thracians are said to be, a there would not be so much lawing, warbling, and warring as there is. There is a curse upon those "that delight in war," Psa 68:30 as King Pyrrhus did, but a blessing for all the children of peace, Mat 10:40-42 who shall also be called the children of God. Mat 5:9 Paul and Barnabas had a sharp, b but short fit of falling out. Act 15:39 Jerome and Augustine had their bickerings in their disputations; but it was no great matter who gained the day, for they would both win by understanding their errors.
When thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.] That is, When thine adversary hath got the upper hand, and foiled thee. Those are ignoble quarrels, saith one, Ubi vincere inglorium est, atteri sordidum, wherein, whether a man get the better or the worse, he is sure to go by the worse, to sit down with loss in his name, state, or both.
a αυτονομοι. - Herodot.
b παροξυσμος .