성경 주석서

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

The Proverbs. — Or, Master sentences; maxims, axioms, speeches of special precellence and predominance; received rules îשׁì îשׁìé , Dominari, quae vitae dominae et moderatrices esse debent. that must overrule matters, and mightily prevail in the minds of men. The principal, no doubt, they are of those three thousand mentioned in 1 Kings 4:32 , and far beyond those golden sayings Eπη χρυσεα . of Phocylides (profanely preferred before those holy parables by that apostate Julian, ausu nefario ), as having in them more sentences than words, De Euripide Cicero pronunciavit plures esse in eo sententias quam verba. and being so far above all human praise for weight and worth, that, as Salust writes of Carthage, I had better speak nothing of them than too little, since too much is too little.

Of Solomon. — Who better, a deal, deserves to be styled "Master of the sentences" than Peter Lombard; and to be esteemed πανσοφος και παντα ανθρωπεια επισταμενος , as one Xenophon. saith of Homer; or as another saith of Jerome, that he was a man, quem nullum scibile latuit, that knew all that was knowable by a man.

King of Israel. — King in Jerusalem, Ecclesiastes 1:1 which was now the Israel of Israel, as Athens was, in its flourish, said to be the Greece of Greece; Eλλας ελλαδος . - Euripid. yea, the soul, and sun, and eye of Greece; φυχη και ηλιος, και οφθαλμος Eλλαδος . - Demost. yea, the common school of all mankind. Kοινον παιδευτηριον παντων ανθρωπων . - Thucyd. and Diodor. For King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth both in riches and in wisdom. "And all the world sought to Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his heart." 1 Kings 10:24 For "the more wise the preacher was, the more he taught the people knowledge, and caused them to hear, and searched forth many parables"; Ecclesiastes 12:9 , marg. even "words of delight." Proverbs 1:10 , marg. See Trapp in " Proverbs 1:10 "

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To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

To know wisdom. — That is, To give others to know; to wise them, as in Daniel 12:3 ; to give the knowledge of salvation; Luke 1:77 to show men "great and mighty things which they know not," Jeremiah 33:3 but may here hence be taught better than out of Lipsius’s Beehive or Machiavel’s Spider web.

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To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

To receive the instruction. — Tertullian calls the Bible (and the Proverbs by a specialty) nostra digesta, from the lawyers; and others our pandects, A complete body of the laws of any country or of any system of law. from them also. Is there not a thin veil laid over them, which is more ratified by reading, and at last wholly worn away? Surely as by much reading the statute book men grow worldly wise; and as a friend (it is Chrysostom’s comparison) that is acquainted with his friend will get out the meaning of a letter or phrase which another could not that is a stranger, so it is in Scripture. And herein, as one well observeth, the poorest idiot being a sound Christian, goeth beyond the profoundest clerks that are not sanctified, that he hath his own heart instead of a commentary to help him to understand even the most needful points of the Scripture.

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To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

To give subtilty. — Serpentine subtilty, Genesis 3:1 sacred sagacity, a sharp wit, a deep reach, a Spirit that "searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God," 1 Corinthians 2:10 and transformeth a man "into the same image from glory to glory." 2 Corinthians 3:18 Equidem scio multos esse qui hoc non credant, et non paucos qui ea rideant, nosque insanire arbitrentur, saith Peter Martyr, Pet. Mart. in Rom. Ep. dedicat. sed istos rogatos velim, …: that is, I know well there be many that will not believe it, and not a few that will deride it, and think we are mad in ascribing so much to the Scriptures. But oh that they would be entreated to make trial awhile, and to take to the reading of the Bible! Male mihi sit (ita enim in tanta causa iurare ausim) nisi tandem capiantur: sentient denique quantum divina hac ab humanis distent, … Let me never be believed, if they perceive not a plain and palpable difference between these and all human writings whatsoever. And to the same purpose Erasmus, Erasm., Praefat. in Lucam. expertus sum in meipso, saith he, I can speak it by experience, that there is little good to be gotten by reading the Bible cursorily and carelessly; but do it duly and dillgently, with attention and affection, and you shall find such an efficacy as is to be found in no other book that can be named.

To the simple. — Fatuo, ôçà , fatuello - Lipsius’s diminutive; to the silly simple, whose learning hangs not in his light, who holds not himself too wise to be taught, who is not uncounsellable, unpersuadable. Bis desipit qui sibi sapit; Chytraeus. he is two fools that is wise in his own eyes. Proverbs 3:7 Plurima ignoro, sed ignorantiam meam non ignoro. Little though it be that I know, yet this I know, that I know but little.

To the young man. — Though rude and rash, headlong and headstrong, Arist., Ethic., lib. i. untameable and untractable as "a wild ass’s colt"; Job 11:12 though addicted to "youthful lusts," 2 Timothy 2:22 and madly set upon sin, yet he may "cleanse his ways by cleaving to God’s word," Psalms 119:9 Ecclesiastes 11:10 and become a young saint, an old angel; whereas otherwise, like young lapwings, he is apt to be snatched up by every buzzard.

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wise [man] will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

A wise man will hear. — Hearing and seeing are by Aristotle called "the learned senses," because by these doors learning, yea, life, entereth into the soul. Isaiah 55:3 David Chytraeus, when he lay dying, lifted up himself to hear the discourses of his friends that sat by him, and said that he should die with better cheer if he might die learning something. " Si moribundus etiam aliquid didicisset. " - Melch. Adam.

And will increase learning. — "Take heed what you hear: unto you that hear shall more be given." Mark 4:24 See Trapp on " Mark 4:24 " Only ponder and apply what you hear. For they that do otherwise are like the wolf, who never attain to any more divine learning than to spell Pater ; father , but when they should come to put together, and to apply it to their souls, they say agnus , lamb , - their minds running a-madding after the profits and pleasures of the world, and they thinking those little less than mad that "run to and fro to increase knowledge." Daniel 12:4

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To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

To understand a proverb, and the interpretation. — Or, The sweetness thereof; there being nothing so sweet to a good soul as the knowledge of dark and deep mysteries. See Psalms 119:103 where the same word is used. Heb. Melitsah ; unde fortasse Graecum μελι , et Latinum mel. - Rivet. The little book of the Revelation was in John’s mouth sweet as honey. Revelation 10:9-10 See Trapp on " Revelation 10:9 " See Trapp on " Revelation 10:10 "

And their dark sayings. — Dark to those that are acute obtusi, that have not their "senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Hebrews 5:14 Legum obscuritates non assignemus culpae scribentium sed inscitiae non assequentium, saith he in Gellius. If the law be dark to any, the fault is not in the lawgiver, but in those that should better understand it.

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The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge: [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning. — Or, The chief and principal point The head or firstfruits; the head and height. of wisdom, as the word here signified; yea, wisdom itself. Job 28:28 This Solomon had learned by the instruction of his father, as it is in the next verse, who had taught it him of a child, Proverbs 4:4 Psalms 111:10 and therefore sets it here in the beginning of his works as the beginning of all. As in the end he makes it the end of all, Ecclesiastes 12:13 yea, the all of man, Hoc est enim totus homo. without which he counts him not a complete man, though never so wise to the world ward. Heathen sages, as Seneca, Socrates, …, were wise in their generation, and had many excellent gifts, but they missed of the main; there was no fear of God before their eyes: being herein as alchemists, who miss of their end, but yet find many excellent things by the way. These merchants found goodly pearls, but "the pearl of price" Matthew 13:45-46 they failed of. The prophet calls the fear of God "our treasure." Isaiah 33:6

But fools despise. — Fools; so are all such as fear not God, "being abominable, disobedient, and to every good work reprobate," or injudicious. Titus 1:16 Evil is Hebrew for a fool ; Nebulo of Nabal; fool of Fαυλος . When one highly commended the Cardinal Julian to Sigismund, he answered, Tamen Romanus est; yet he is a popeling. So, yet he is a fool, because void of God’s true fear. "Behold they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?" Jeremiah 8:9

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My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

Hear the instruction of thy father, … — It is not fit to disobey God, thy father, nor thy teacher, saith Aristotle μη καλον χρινειν εναντια τοις θεοις, πατρι, και διδασκαλω . - Arist. Rhet. Our parents, said Hierocles, are Yεοι εφεστιοι , our household gods: and their words should be received as oracles. This is a principal fruit of the fear of God, which it here fitly followeth: like as in the decalogue, the commandment for honouring of parents is set next of all to those of the first table, nay, is indeed, as Philo saith of it, ειτολη μικτη , a mixed commandment.

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