Proverbs 21

Notes

Ver. 1. The wills, inclinations, and purposes of kings and others, are entirely under the eye and observation of God: and he would turn them into right paths as surely as the gardener or husbandman manages his canals of water. 2. Men, through their self-love, often fancy their own purposes and works to be extremely right; while the Lord, who perfectly knows their hearts, observes them to be very defective or sinful. 3. Uprightness of heart, and holiness and virtue of life, are more pleasing to God than the most pompous devotions or the most liberal benefactions or alms. 4. Not only the insolence, pride, and ambition of wicked men are criminal before God, but all their natural, civil, and moral actions, and all their worldly greatness and prosperity lead to sin; and all they do is sinful in its principle, manner, and end. 5. Prudent contrivances and laborious industry are the proper means of plenty and affluence: but hasty resolutions, precipitant measures, and unjust methods involve men in trouble and loss. 6. The getting of wealth by lying, flattery, calumny, or perjury, is a beguiling and unprofitable course, however much used by such as walk in ways leading to destruction; and the wealth thus obtained is as unsubstantial and transient as heaps of chaff or clouds of smoke before the wind. 7. The injuries which wicked men do to others, in rendering their families poor or desolate, shall, in most ruinous punishments, be returned upon their own heads, because they are wilfully bent upon their unjust dealings. 8. The whole temper and course of a wicked man are contrary to the law and nature of God, and odious to him: but they whose consciences are washed in Jesus' blood, and their hearts renewed by his grace, walk in good works, acceptable to God and profitable to men. 9. Better is it to live poorly and solitary in the open air, exposed to all the injuries of the weather, or to be thrust into some little corner, than have a spacious house and numerous family governed by a contentious wife, whose perpetual scolding and brawling, on the smallest occasion, is more intolerable than thunder, lightning, or blustering winds. 10. A wicked man's heart desires to be ever doing mischief, and to have others falling into it: nor will he spare good or bad, friend or foe, if, by reproof or otherwise, they stand in the way of his covetousness, ambition, or other lusts. 11. When obstinate scoffers at the laws of God and men are punished in providence or by the magistrates; others, particularly such as they have seduced, will bethink themselves what they are doing: and wise men will improve instructions and admonitions, to render themselves wiser and better. 12. While righteous magistrates search the houses of the wicked for ill-gotten goods, and in order that they may be duly punished and deprived of power to do further mischief, godly men, in order to deter them from like courses, consider the judgment and ruin which God brings on the wicked for their sins. 13. They who refuse to help the poor in distress shall be reduced to misery themselves, and have none to pity or help them. 14. Presents, especially if secretly and prudently given, have a powerful influence to appease angry and wrathful men. 15. The execution of justice, and the practice of holiness and virtue, are a pleasure to the righteous; but are a terror and burden to the wicked, whom God and the magistrates shall concur to destroy. 16. He that will not live according to the directions of God's Word, but follows the conduct of his own lusts and passions, shall, after all his extravagances, be for ever fixed in hell. 17. Voluptuous persons destroy their own pleasures by wasting their estates; and they who are given to costly and delicious feeding can never thrive. 18. Wicked men often fall into the very miseries which they had prepared for the godly; and in times of common calamity are often severely punished that the righteous may be delivered. 20. True wisdom enables men to procure what is necessary for their families, and to enjoy it with satisfaction; but foolish persons lavishly waste what they neither know how to get or how to live without. 21. They who make it their business to receive and improve Jesus Christ and his righteousness and grace, in a life of holiness and virtue, shall find every new-covenant blessing in time and eternity. 22. Wise men, by their prudence, kindness, and perseverance, can effect the most difficult enterprises, and do more than others who have much more strength. 23. Restraint of the tongue from impure, false, profane, rash, injurious language, greatly preserves men from troubles, embarrassments, and miseries. 24. Pride, insolence, and outrageous words only render men infamous and contemptible. 25, 26. The slothful man is killed by an insatiable desire after that which he has not and will not labour for; but pious and diligent persons have enough for themselves, and also wherewith to relieve others. 27. All the appearances of devotion and piety about unrenewed persons being hypocritical, proceeding from a wicked principle, done in a wicked manner, and to a wicked end, are abominable to God. 28. The testimony, character, and soul of a false witness shall quickly be ruined: but he that speaks nothing but what he knows to be true, is fixed and invariable in his attestations. 29. Impenitent sinners refuse to blush at their abominations, and obstinately resolve to go on in them; but sincere saints carefully conduct their thoughts, words, and actions by the rule of God's Word. 30. No projects, however wisely laid or prudently conducted, can defeat or alter the purposes or counteract the providence of God. 31. Neither horses, chariots, nor powerful armies can obtain victories, or even protect their owners: but all safety and salvation are of and through faith in Christ himself.

Ver. 7. The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them. There are two views of the subject. (1) Several nations live by robbery, and reckon it an honourable employment. Yet, in the end, all such communities, like the piratical Algerines and murderous Thugs, are brought to destruction. (2) There is a robbery of God when he is defrauded of that worship, honour, and glory that are due to his name, which must finally terminate in the destruction of the guilty, Mal. 3. 9. C.

Ver. 13. Not 'he that stoppeth his ear at the importunity of the poor' is condemned, for that importunity is often the result of vice, idleness, or fraud; but he that disregards 'their cry' when it arises, as in a child, from want or pain that they cannot supply or relieve. C.

Ver. 22. Never did the world appear in a more hopeless state than a little before the dawn of the blessed Reformation. The human mind was enslaved to authority and tradition—an authority without charter from God, a tradition without name, till manufactured on emergency. The consciences of men were prostrate before the shrine of the confessional: their spirits were terrified into cowardly submission by the fires of an imaginary purgatory; and the walls of spiritual Babylon were high, as unto heaven. Yet these walls were scaled, and this city was taken, not by 'power nor by might,' but by a few 'wise men'—men 'made wise unto salvation' by the Scriptures (2 Ti. 3. 15), and strong and victorious by the Spirit of truth, and love, and holiness. C.