성경 주석서

My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, [if] thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,

My son, if thou be surety. — The wise man, having exhorted his son to marry, rather than burn, and to nourish a family, rather than to haunt harlots’ houses, to the end that he may show himself a good economic, and provide for the comfortable subsistence of wife and children, he bids him here beware - (1.) Of unadvised suretyship; (2.) Of idleness, two great enemies to thrift, without which there can be no good house kept. The royalty of Solomon could not have consisted, for all his riches, without forecast and frugality.

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Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

Thou art snared, — i. e., Endangered to slavery or poverty, or both. Hence the proverb, Sponde, noxa praesto est; Give thy word, and thou art not far from a mischief. Shun, therefore, suretyship, if fairly thou canst, or if not, propound the worst, and undertake for no more than thou canst well perform without thy very great prejudice: ne, ut leo cassibus irretitus dixeris, Si praescivissem? lest thou, being got into the hamble trambles, come in too late with thy fool’s "Had I wist."

Thou art taken. — For a bargain binds a man by the law of nature, and of nations. Judah, though in a shameful business, would make good his engagement to the harlot. Genesis 38:23 Every godly man will do so, though it be to his own hindrance. Psalms 15:4 The Romans had a great care always to perform their word, insomuch that the first temple built in Rome was dedicated to the goddess Fidelity. The Athenians were so careful this way, that Atticus testis is used for one that keeps touch, and Attica fides is sure hold; as, contrarily, Punica fides, there was no hold to be taken of Carthaginian promises. Of a certain pope and his nephew, it is said that the one never spoke as he thought, the other never performed what he spoke. This was small to their commendation. Debt is a burden to every well-minded man; neither can he be at rest till he come to "owe nothing to any man but this, that ye love one another." Romans 13:8 When Archbishop Cranmer discerned the storm which afterwards fell upon him in Queen Mary’s days, he took express order for the payment of all his debts and engagements, which when it was once done, a most joyful man was he, saith Master Foxe in his life. Acts and Mon ., vol. ii. p. 1541. For bills and obligations do mancipate the most free and ingenuous spirit, and so put a man out of aim that he can neither serve God without distraction nor do good to others, nor set his own state in any good order, but lives and dies entangled and puzzled with cares and snares; and, after a tedious and laborious life passed in a circle of fretting thoughts, he leaves at last, instead of better patrimony, a world of intricate troubles to his posterity, who are also "taken with the words of his mouth."

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Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.

When thou art come into the hand. — For "the borrower is servant to the lender," Proverbs 22:7 and Facile ex amico inimicum facies cui promissa non reddes, saith Jerome. Jerome, Ad Celantiam. A friend will soon become a foe, if unfriendly and unfaithfully dealt with. Not keeping time makes a jar in payments - and so in friendship too - as well as in music.

Go, humble thyself. — Crave favour and further time of the creditor. Say, Doubt not of your debt, only forbear a while. Cast thyserf at his feet, as to be trodden - so the Hebrew word here signifieth. Ezekiel 32:2 ; Ezekiel 34:18 Stick not at any submission, so thou mayest gain time, and get off, and not be forced to run into the usurer’s books, that Amalek, or licking people, which, as cormorants, fall upon the borrowers, and, like cur dogs, suck your blood only with licking, and in the end kill you, and crush you, rob you, and ravish you. Psalms 10:8-10

And make sure thy friend. — For whom thou standest engaged; call upon him to save thee harmless. For as Alphius, the usurer, sometimes said of his clients, Optima nomina non appellando mala fieri; Horat. Epod. Colum. de re rust, lib. i. cap. 7. even good debtors will prove slack paymasters if they be let alone, if not now and then called upon. Some read the words thus: Multiply thy friends, or solicit them, viz., to intercede for thee to the creditor, and to keep thee out of this brake.

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Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

Give not sleep to thine eyes, … — Augustus wondered at a certain knight in Rome, that owed much, and yet could sleep securely; and when this knight died, he sent to buy his bed, as supposing there was something more than ordinary in it, to procure sleep. Dio. The opportunity of liberty and thriving is to be well husbanded, lest some storm arising from the cruelty of creditors, or mutability of outward things, overwhelm a man with debt and danger, as the whirlwind doth the unwary traveller upon the Alps with snow. Now if such care be taken that we run not rashly in debt to men, how much more to God! If to undertake for others be so dangerous, how should we pray with that godly man Augustine, From my "other men’s sins" good Lord deliver me! If we are so to humble ourselves to our fellow creatures in this case, how much more should we "humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may lift us up in due season!" James 4:10 If this is to be done without delay, where the danger reacheth but to the outward man, how much more speed and earnestness should be used in making peace with God, whose wrath is a fire that burns as low as hell, and getting the black lines of our sins drawn over with the red lines of his Son’s blood; and so utterly razed out of the book of his remembrance!

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Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand [of the hunter], and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

As a roe from the hand, … — This creature may be taken, but not easily tamed: it seeks therefore by all means to make escape, and when it fleeth, looketh behind it, holding it no life, if not at liberty. Chald. Paraph. in Song of Solomon 8:14 .

And as a bird. — A most fearful creature, and desirous of liberty, that Avis Paradisi bird of paradise, especially, that being taken, never gives over groaning, till let go again. Nititur in sylvas quaeque redire suas.

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Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard. — Man, that was once the captain of God’s school, is now, for his truantcy, turned down into the lowest form as it were, to learn his A B C’s again; yea, to be taught by these lowest creatures. So Christ sends us to school to the birds of the air, and lilies of the field, to learn dependence upon divine providence, Matthew 6:25-29 and to the stork, crane, and swallow, to be taught to take the seasons of grace, and not to let slip the opportunities that God putteth into our hands. Jeremiah 8:7 This poor despicable creature the ant, is here set in the chair to read us a lecture of sedulity and good husbandry. What a deal of grain gets she together in summer! What pains doth she take for it, labouring not by daylight only, but by moonshine also! What huge heaps hath she! What care to bring forth her store, and lay it drying on a sunshine day, lest with moisture it should putrefy, … Not only Aristotle, Aelian, and Pliny, but also Basil, Ambrose, and Jerome, have observed and written much of the nature and industry of this poor creature; telling us in addition that in the ant, bee, stork, …, God hath set before us, as in a picture, the lively resemblance of many excellent virtues, which we ought to pursue and practise. These, saith one, are veri laicorum libri, the true laymen’s books, the images that may teach men the right knowledge of God and of his will, of themselves and their duties.

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Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

Which having no guide, overseer, … — How much more then should man, who hath all these, and is both ad laborem natus, et ratione ornatus, born to labour, and hath reason to guide him. Only he must take heed that he be not antlike, wholly taken up about What shall we eat, or what shall we drink? …

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Provideth her meat in the summer, [and] gathereth her food in the harvest.

Provideth her meat in the summer. — She devours indeed much grain, made chiefly for the use of man; but deserves, saith an interpreter, for this very cause, to be fed with the finest wheat, and greatest dainties, that all men may have her always in their eye: diligent men to quicken their diligence, and sluggards to shame them for their slothfulness.

And gathereth her food in harvest. — That may serve in winter. It is good for a man to keep somewhat by him, to have something in store, and not in diem vivere, to live for the day, Quintil. as the fowls of heaven do. Bonus Servatius facit bonum Bouifacium, as the Dutch proverb hath it; A good saver makes a well doer. Care must be taken ne promus sit fortior condo, that our layings out be not more than our layings up. Let no man here object that of our Saviour, "Care not for tomorrow," … There is a care of diligence, and a care of diffidence; a care of the head, and a care of the heart; the former is needful, the latter sinflil.

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