Chú giải Kinh Thánh

A new section.

Copied out - In the sense of a transfer from oral tradition to writing.

The earthly monarch might be, in some respects, the type of the heavenly, but here there is a marked contrast. The king presses further and further into all knowledge; God surrounds Himself as in "thick darkness," and there are secrets unrevealed even after the fullest revelation.

The other side of the thought of Proverbs 25:2. What the mind of God is to the searchers after knowledge, that the heart of the true and wise king is to those who try to guess its counsels.

The interpretation of the proverb of Proverbs 25:4. The king himself, like the Lord whom he represents, is to sit as "a refiner of silver" Malachi 3:3.

The pushing, boastful temper is, in the long run, suicidal. It is wiser as well as nobler to take the lower place at first in humility, than to take it afterward with shame. Compare Luke 14:8-10, which is one of the few instances in which our Lord's teaching was fashioned, as to its outward form, upon that of this book.

The general meaning is: It is dangerous to plunge into litigation. At all times, there is the risk of failure, and, if we fail, of being at the mercy of an irritated adversary. Without the italics, the clause may be rendered, "lest thou do something (i. e., something humiliating and vexatious) at the end thereof."

An anticipation of the highest standard of ethical refinement Matthew 18:15, but with a difference. Here the motive is prudential, the risk of shame, the fear of the irretrievable infamy of the betrayer of secrets. In the teaching of Christ the precept rests upon the divine authority and the perfect example.

Apples of gold - Probably the golden colored fruit set in baskets (i. e., chased vessels of open worked silver); so is a word spoken upon its wheels (i. e., moving quickly and quietly on its way). The proverb may have had its origin in some kingly gift to the son of David, the work of Tyrian artists, like Hiram and his fellows. Others gazed on the cunning work and admired, but the wise king saw in the costly rarity a parable of something higher. "A word well set upon the wheels of speech" excelled it. Ornamentation of this kind in the precious metals was known, even as late as in the middle ages, as oeuvre de Salomon.