Bible Commentaries

[good] name [is] rather to be chosen than great riches, [and] loving favour rather than silver and gold.

A good name is rather to be chosen. — Heb., A name, as "a wife," for a good wife. Proverbs 18:22 Better no wife than an ill wife, so better no name than an ill name. This good name proceeding from a good conscience, this honour from virtue, Isaiah 43:4 this perfume of faith and obedience, this splendour and sparkle of the "white stone," which only shines upon heavenly hearts - is far more desirable than great riches. For, first, These oft take away the life of the owners thereof. Proverbs 1:19 The greater wealth, the greater spoil awaits a man. As a tree with thick and large boughs, every man desires to lop him. Whereas a good name saves a man oft from that danger, as it did Jonathan, whom the people rescued. Secondly, Riches breed and bring their cares and cumbers with them. Qui habet terras habet guerras, saith the proverb; many lawsuits and other vexations, …; when a good name, as a precious ointment poured out, gets loving favour, with which it is therefore fitly coupled in this text. Thirdly, Riches are enjoyed but till death at utmost; but a good name outlives the man, and is left behind him for a blessing. Isaiah 65:15 Proverbs 10:7 See Trapp on " Proverbs 10:7 " Other people went beyond God’s Israel in wealth and riches, but none in fame and renown. 2 Samuel 7:23 Deuteronomy 4:6 Fourthly, Riches are oft gotten by fame. Let a man’s name be up, and there will be great recourse to him; but let him once crack his credit, and riches cannot repair him. Infamy will not be bought off with money. Lastly, Riches are common to good men with bad men; but a good name, truly so called, is proper to God’s peculiar, confined to the communion of saints. He was therefore a better husband than divine that first called riches bona, goods, And that heathen was nearer the truth than many profligate professors of it who said, Ego si bonam famam servasso sat dives ero: Plautus. that is, If I may but keep a good name, I have wealth enough.

And loving favour rather than silver and gold. — Which what is it else but white and red earth? and therefore no way fit to come in competition with good repute and report among the best, such as Christ had, Luke 2:52 and Joseph, and Daniel, and David, and Demetrius; 3 John 1:12 and they had it as a special favour from God, who fashions men’s opinions, and hides his people from the strife of tongues. Job 5:21 Psalms 31:20

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The rich and poor meet together: the LORD [is] the maker of them all.

The rich and the poor meet together. — They have mutual need one of another, and meet many times, as it were, in the midway, by an alteration of their condition. "They that were full were hired forth for bread, and the hungry are no more hired." 1 Samuel 2:5 "The mighty are put down from their seats, and those of low degree are exalted." Luke 1:53

The Lord is the maker of them all. — The maker of the men, the maker of their estates, and the maker of that change and alteration which often happeneth, that the one might become grateful, the other humble. See Job 31:15 .

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prudent [man] foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.

A prudent man foreseeth an evil, … — Prevision is the best means of prevention. "A wise man’s eyes are in his head," Ecclesiastes 2:14 "his heart is also at his right hand." Ecclesiastes 10:2 The Chinese say of themselves that all other nations of the world see but with one eye, they only with two. The Italians give out that they only do sapere ante factum, look before they leap, forecast an evil before it befall them. But these are praises proper to them that have learned holy and heavenly wisdom, that by certain sights and signs discern a tempest in the clouds, and seek seasonable shelter under the hollow of God’s hand, "under the shadow of his wings." Such prudent persons were Noah, Joseph, Jonadab, Josiah, the Christians at Pella, …

But the fool passeth on. — Pusheth on without fear or wit, as being resolved to have his will, whatever it stand him in.

And is punished. — As a just reward of his rashness. Sin ever ends tragically. Flagitium et flagellum, ut acus et filum. Who ever waxed fierce against God and prospered? Job 9:4 "With the froward thou wilt wrestle," saith David. Psalms 18:26 "Upon the wicked God shall rain snares," … Psalms 11:6 And then, ut leo cassibus irretitus dixit, si praescivissem, as the lion, when he was caught in the hunter’s toil, said, If I had foreknown this mischief, I would have shunned it. So these after wits, these post masters, these Epimetheuses, shall come in (but all too late) with their fool’s ‘Had-I-wist,’ which they should have timeously foreseen and prevented.

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By humility [and] the fear of the LORD [are] riches, and honour, and life.

By humility and the fear of the Lord. — Heb., The heel of humility, … The humble heart that lies low, and "hearkens what God the Lord will say unto it," that follows him trembling, as the people followed Saul, 1 Samuel 13:7 shall have hard at the heels of it riches - a sufficiency, if not a superfluity - and honour, which is to be chosen before riches, Proverbs 22:1 See Trapp on " Proverbs 22:1 " and life, above the danger of those thorns and snares mentioned in the next verse; not life present only, but "length of days for ever and ever." Psalms 21:4 Oh the μυριομακαριοτης , the heaped up happiness of a man that humbles and trembles before the Lord! He that doth the former, cannot but do the latter. Hence that close connection of these two graces in this text, "By humility, the fear of the Lord"; so the original runs without the grammatical copulative and, to show that they go always together - yea, the one is as it were predicated upon the other. Neither want they their reward - "riches," "hohour," "life." What things be these? Who would not turn spiritual purchaser?

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Thorns [and] snares [are] in the way of the froward: he that doth keep his soul shall be far from them.

Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward. — In opposition to the reward of righteousness; Proverbs 22:4 which is to say, "The ungodly are not so." Or if they have riches, they prove thorns to them to prick and choke their souls; if honour, and long life to enjoy it, these prove snares to them. Of carnal hearts it may be said, as Pharaoh said of the Israelites, "They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in." Exodus 14:3 They have treasures in the field, of wheat, barley, and oil, as those ten men had, Jeremiah 41:8 and are therefore loath to die. And yet before they die - live they never so long in all abundance of riches and honours - God can bring them to that pass that Charles V was at, whom of all men the world judged most happy. Philip of Mornay reports of him that he cursed his honours in his old age, his victories, trophies, riches, saying, Abite hinc, abite longe: Away, away, get you far away.

He that doth keep his soul, shall be far from them. — As well from the wicked man’s miseries as his misdemeanours; he keeps aloof from both; he dares not meddle with the hole of the asp, lest he meet with a sting. Custos animae elongabit se, … Moneo te iterumque monebo, saith Lactantius to his Demetrian, ne oblectamenta ista terrae pro magnis aut veris bonis habere te credas: quae sunt non tantum fallacia quia dubia, verum etiam insidiosa quia dulcia. Lactant., De Opificio Dei. Set not thine heart upon the asses, since thou art in election for a kingdom, and the hearts of all Israel are upon thee.

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Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Train up a child in the way he should go. — Or, According to his measure and capacity, dropping good things by degrees into his narrow mouthed vessel, and whetting the same upon his memory by often repeating, as the knife by oft going over the whetstone (it is Moses’s comparison) Shanan and shanah ; repetere sicut in acuendo. Deuteronomy 6:6 becomes keen and useful. This is the way to make them expert and exact, and to secure them from Satan, for we are not ignorant of his wiles. It is reported of the harts of Scythia, that they teach their young ones to leap from bank to bank, from rock to rock, from one turf to another, by leaping before them, which otherwise they would never practise, by which means, when they are hunted, no beast can ever take them. So if men exercise their children unto godliness while they are young, Satan, that mighty hunter, shall never have them for his prey. They will not be young saints, old devils, as the profane proverb hath it; but young saints, old angels. Now, as all children should be carefully catechised and well principled, so those Timothies especially that are designed to the work of the ministry. Quintilian’s orator must, from two or three years old, be inured and accustomed to the best and purest words, very well pronounced unto him by his nurses, parents, handmaids, as soon as ever he begins to babble. Quanto id in theologo futuro expetendum, curandumque magis? Amama in Attib. How much more, saith a learned man, should this be done by one that is to be a divine?

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The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower [is] servant to the lender.

The rich ruleth over the poor. — And that with rigour, as Pharaoh did over Israel, as those imperious mammonists in St James’s time that oppressed and subjugated their poorest brethren, trampling upon them with the feet of intolerable insolence and cruelty. James 2:6 "Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children," said those poor Jews in Nehemiah, who pleads their cause most effectually. Nehemiah 5:7-13 Ubi quot verba, tot tela, quae nimirum animam divitum percellant, fodicent et lancinent, as one saith in another case, He sets upon them with irresistible rhetoric, and makes them restore - which yet rich oppressors are very hardly drawn to do. Every grain of riches hath a vermin of pride and ambition in it. 1 Timothy 6:17 See Trapp on " 1 Timothy 6:17 " Men’s blood riseth together with their good, and they think that everything must be as they would have it. But especially if they have "drawn the poor into their nets" Psalms 10:9 - that is, into their bonds, debts, mortgages, as Chrysostom expounds it; then they not only rob, but ravish them; to their cruelty they join dishonesty; there is neither equity nor mercy to be had at their hands.

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He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.

He that soweth iniquity, shall reap vanity. — The usurer and cruel creditor soweth his money, his mammon of iniquity (that ungain grain), upon his poor debtors; and whether it be a barren year or a fruitful, a good soil or a bad, luna affert menstruos sensus, he hath his constant pay, yea, his use upon use, according to that Greek verse,

‘ Eστι τοκος προ τοκοιο, τοκος τε μεν εστι και αλλος .’

Now, can such increase be blest? Shall not those that thus sow the wind be sure to reap the whirlwind?

And the rod of his anger shall fail. — That is, that tyrannical power which he exerciseth upon others, as his underlings, shall be broken. God will take out of his hand the rod wherewith he hath beaten his fellow servants, and waste it upon his own back to the very stump.

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