Bible Commentaries
Proverbs 27

Verse 2

Another - An “alienus” rather than “alius.” Praise to be worth anything must be altogether independent.

Verse 3

Compare Ecclus. 22:15; a like comparison between the heaviest material burdens and the more intolerable load of unreasoning passion.

Verse 4

Envy - Better, as in the margin, the violence of passion in the husband who thinks himself wronged (compare Proverbs 6:34).

Verse 5

Secret love - Better, love that is hidden; i. e., love which never shows itself in this one way of rebuking faults. Rebuke, whether from friend or foe, is better than such love.

Verse 6

Deceitful - Better, abundant. Very lavish is the enemy of the kisses that cover perfidy, but lavish of them only. His courtesy goes no deeper.

Verse 7

The special instance covers the general law, that indulgence in pleasure of any kind brings on satiety and weariness, but self-restraint multiplies the sources of enjoyment.

Verse 8

Change of place is thought of as in itself an evil. It is not easy for the man to find another home or the bird another nest. The maxim is characteristic of the earlier stages of Hebrew history, before exile and travel had made change of country a more familiar thing. Compare the feeling which made the thought of being “a fugitive and a vagabond” Genesis 4:12-13 the most terrible of all punishments.

Verse 10

“Better is a neighbor” who is really “near” in heart and spirit, than a brother who though closer by blood, is “far off” in feeling.

Verse 11

The voice of the teacher to his true disciple. He pleads with him that the uprightness of the scholar will be the truest answer to all attacks on the character or teaching of the master.

Verses 12-13

Compare the marginal reference.

Verse 14

The picture of the ostentatious flatterer going at daybreak to pour out blessings on his patron. For any good that he does, for any thanks he gets, he might as well utter curses.

Verse 15

Continual dropping - Here, as in the marginal reference, the flat, earthen roof of Eastern houses, always liable to cracks and leakage, supplies the groundwork of the similitude.

Verse 16

The point is the impossibility of concealment or restraint. A person cannot hide the wind, or clasp it in his hands. If he takes an unguent in his right hand, the odor betrays him, or it slips out. So, in like manner, the “contentious woman” is one whose faults it is impossible either to hide or check. The difficulty of the proverb led to a different reading, adopted by the versions, “The north wind is rough, and yet it is called propitious”; it clears off the clouds and brings fine weather.

Verse 17

The proverb expresses the gain of mutual counsel as found in clear, well-defined thoughts. Two minds, thus acting on each other, become more acute. This is better than to see in “sharpening” the idea of provoking, and the point of the maxim in the fact that the quarrels of those who have been friends are bitter in proportion to their previous intimacy.

Verse 18

Waiteth - literally, “keepeth,” “observeth.” As the fig tree requires constant care but yields abundant crops, so the ministrations of a faithful servant will not be without their due reward. Compare 2 Timothy 2:6.

Verse 19

As we see our own face when we look on the mirror-like surface of the water, so in every heart of man we may see our own likeness. In spite of all diversities we come upon the common human nature in which we all alike share. Others see in the reference to the reflection in the water the thought that we judge of others by ourselves, find them faithful or the reverse, as we ourselves are.

Verse 20

Hades, the world of the dead, and Destruction (Death, the destroying power, personified) have been at all times and in all countries thought of as all-devouring, insatiable (compare the marginal reference). Yet one thing is equally so, the lust of the eye, the restless craving which grows with what it feeds on Ecclesiastes 1:8.

Verse 21

So is ... - Better, So let a man be to his praise, let him purify it from all the alloy of flattery and baseness with which it is too probably mixed up.

Verse 22

Bray - To pound wheat in a mortar with a pestle, in order to free the wheat from its husks and impurities, is to go through a far more elaborate process than threshing. But the folly of the fool is not thus to be got rid of. It sticks to him to the last; all discipline, teaching, experience seem to be wasted on him.

Verses 23-27

The verses sing the praises of the earlier patriarchal life, with its flocks and herds, and tillage of the ground, as compared with the commerce of a later time, with money as its chief or only wealth.

Proverbs 27:23

The state - literally, face. The verse is an illustration of John 10:3, John 10:14.

Proverbs 27:24

Riches - The money which men may steal, or waste, is contrasted with the land of which the owner is not so easily deprived. Nor will the crown (both the “crown of pure gold” worn on the mitre of the high priest, Exodus 29:6; Exodus 39:30; and the kingly diadem, the symbol of power generally) be transmitted (as flocks and herds had been) “from one generation to another.”

Proverbs 27:25

Appeareth - Better, When the grass disappeareth, the “tender grass showeth itself.” Stress is laid on the regular succession of the products of the earth. The “grass” (“hay”) of the first clause is (compare Psalms 37:2; Psalms 90:5; Psalms 103:15; 2 Kings 19:26) the proverbial type of what is perishable and fleeting. The verse gives a picture of the pleasantness of the farmer’s calling; compared with this what can wealth or rank offer? With this there mingles (compare Proverbs 27:23) the thought that each stage of that life in its season requires care and watchfulness.