Bible Commentaries
Proverbs 20

Verses 1-30

1. Raging] RV ’a brawler.’ Is deceived] RM ’reeleth.’ It makes a man sneer, quarrel and reel about.

2. Fear] the ’terror’ which he causes. Soul] RV ’life.’

4. Read, ’In the autumn.. therefore when he seeketh,’ etc.: the first season begins about October, the second about April.

5. A clever cross-questioner elicits one’s plans.

8. Scattereth away] RM ’winnoweth’ (1 Kings 3:28).

9. ’What mortal when he saw,

Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend,

Could ever yet dare tell Him fearlessly:

“I have kept uninfring’d my nature’s law;

The inly-written chart Thou gavest me,

To guide me, I have steer’d by to the end”?’

13. Open thine eyes] i.e. Wake up!

15. Read, ’There is gold and abundance of corals and precious vessels—wise lips are all these.’

16. ’Strangers,’ not a strange woman. He does not deserve to escape the consequences of his folly.

19. A ’chatterbox,’ not a ’flatterer,’ is meant.

25. RV ’It is a snare to a man rashly to say, It is holy,’ etc. Reflect before vowing (Sirach 15:1.; Matthew 15:8). There is a Greek story of one who found a gold mine, and thereupon vowed a gold ram to Juno: soon he substituted a silver one; then a small brass one; eventually she got nothing. ’The river past and God forgotten.’

26. The wheel of the threshing-cart, crushing in its weight (Amos 1:3).

27. Conscience is a searchlight, piercing the depths of the heart (1 Corinthians 2:11).

28. It is the king’s goodness and reliableness that are meant.

30. The blueness, etc.] RV ’Stripes that wound cleanse,’ etc. (Psalms 119:67).