Deeper Commentary
Pro 19:1 Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than he who is
perverse in his lips and is a fool-
Solomon often mocks the poor as poor because they are unwise, and
argues that wisdom brings wealth. In this he denies the wisdom he here
states; that poor people can still have integrity. Or perhaps he has in view
his father David,
Pro 19:2 It isn’t good to have zeal without knowledge; nor being hasty with
one’s feet and missing the way-
This is quoted in Rom. 10:2 about those in Israel who miss the way of
the Lord Jesus, who is ultimately "the way". The fact the Proverbs are so
often alluded to and quoted in later scripture confirms that they are indeed
inspired by God; but Solomon presents them in ways which clearly justify
himself and his father. David's feet almost ran and hasted to evil (Ps.
73:2), yet Solomon seems to overlook this. Solomon's proverbs seem to fail
to address this complexity of situations because of his own
self-righteousness; and yet all he says is inspired and true so far as it
goes.
Pro 19:3 The foolishness of man subverts his way; his heart rages against
Yahweh-
LXX "The folly of a man spoils his ways: and he blames God in his
heart". "Subverts" is the word for "overthrows". But God overthrows the
wicked (s.w. Prov. 21:12). Solomon thereby equates the foolish with the
wicked. But he seems to classify as foolish anyone who doesn't accept his
take on life, or is ignorant of the wisdom he teaches. Ignorance, and even
intellectual failure, is not of itself wickedness. Solomon has such a
dualistic view of things that he assumes anyone who is not wise and
thereby wealthy to be foolish and thereby wicked. But amongst God's
people, things are not so black and white. And we are not to judge,
largely because we simply cannot judge.
Pro 19:4 Wealth adds many friends, but the poor is separated from his
friend-
This is the word used in Prov. 18:1 for how the unwise separates
himself from his friends; the LXX of Prov. 18:1 makes it clearest: "A man
who wishes to separate from friends seeks excuses; but at all times he will
be liable to reproach". The same word is used in Prov. 19:4: "The poor is
separated from his friend". Separation from others is seen as unwisdom, and
therefore associated with poverty; for Solomon thinks that wisdom brings
wealth and unwisdom brings poverty. Solomon presents a picture of any
deviation from the society which he presided over being punished; by
poverty, and being reproached as unwise.
Pro 19:5 A false witness shall not be unpunished; he who pours out lies
shall not go free-
Solomon has much to say about true and false witnesses (Prov. 6:19;
12:17; 14:5,25; 19:5,9,28; 21:28; 24:28; 25:18). Whilst his warnings are
true enough, he surely has an element of self justification in what he
writes. Because he was aware that his parents, David and Bathsheba, had been
accused of many things which had led to all the opposition against David at
the end of his reign, and which opposition Solomon had to contend with in
order to retain the throne for himself. David laments the false witness of
the house of Saul and his own sons, Solomon's half brothers (Ps. 27:12;
35:11). The continual condemnation of false witnesses must be understood in
this context. Whilst it is all true so far as it goes, Solomon is harnessing
Divine truth to his own agenda of self justification. And we who claim to
hold His truths must take warning.
Pro 19:6 Many will entreat the favour of a ruler, and everyone is a friend
to a man who gives gifts-
See on :7. Solomon surely has himself in view, the ruler who was
visited by representatives from many nations, wanting his favour. He
contrasts this with the poor who have no friends (:7). The idea is that
his wealth was a result of his wisdom; whereas God had given him wealth as
a gift of grace. But he abused that grace by arguing that it was a result
of his wisdom.
Pro 19:7 All the relatives of the poor shun him: how much more do his
friends avoid him! He pursues them with pleas, but they are gone-
Here we have one of many examples of where Solomon sees poverty very
negatively, coming as a result of unwisdom just as wealth supposedly comes
as a result of wisdom. And yet in other Proverbs he urges pity to be shown
to the poor. His attitude to poverty is very conflicted; see on :17. He
compares the unpopular poor man with the popular rich man (:6); as if a
chief advantage if wisdom is that it makes the wise popular with people
because of the wealth it gives. This is a very human and secular view,
devoid of any real spirituality.
Pro 19:8 He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding
shall find good-
Whilst this is true so far as it goes, it presents a selfishness in
wanting wisdom. Wisdom is to be gotten from the motive of self love,
because it is profitable for this life. This reflects how Solomon misses
completely the idea of living for the glory of God both now and eternally.
He uses the same term for 'finding good' about how he found his wives
(Prov. 18:22). He assumes therefore that the mere possession of
wisdom / correct understanding meant that the wives he found must be
"good"; but his subsequent experience with them shows how wrong he was.
Pro 19:9 A false witness shall not be unpunished; he who utters lies shall
perish-
See on :5. Solomon is alluding to his father David's parting
commandments to Solomon to destroy all the opposition to him (1 Kings
2:6,9). So whilst what Solomon writes is true, he is harnessing Divine
truth to his own agenda of self justification. And we who claim to hold
His truths must take warning.
Pro 19:10 Delicate living is not appropriate for a fool, much less for a
servant to have rule over princes-
Ecc. 10:7 indicates Solomon finally didn't think Prov. 19:10 was true
in practice: “I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as
servants upon the earth”. He thought that in reality, servants do rule over
princes. Although he retained his theoretical wisdom as a teaching position,
his own heart was far from it.
Pro 19:11 The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger; it is his glory
to overlook an offence-
We wonder how Solomon could write this without thinking of his hot
tempered father who refused to overlook the offence of Nabal, and was
about to murder him and his family. But he appears to whitewash his
father, and instead has in view how David overlooked the offences of the
likes of Shimei at one point; although he later asked Solomon to ensure he
murdered Shimei.
"Overlook" is literally 'to pass over', and the Hebrew is used for
"transgression" (s.w. Josh. 23:16; 2 Kings 18:12; Jer. 2:20). God's
response to human 'passing over' is at times to 'pass over' it, to
overlook it. Other times He deals with sin differently, atoning for it,
forgiving it, reconciling His people... but as a Father has compassion on
His children, so He likewise overlooks much human failure. Indeed this
'passing by' transgression [s.w. 'overlook'] is what makes Yahweh unique-
there is no other god like Him in this (Mic. 7:18). And this is to feature
in our range of options in dealing with human sin. To copy God in this
will be our "glory".
Pro 19:12 The king’s wrath is like the roaring of a lion, but his favour is
like dew on the grass-
At the end of his days, Solomon recognized that although he had
loved the theory of wisdom, the image of a spiritual life, the wisdom of
God had never really impacted his soul: "I said, I will be wise (referring
back to his request for wisdom in 1 Kings 3); but it was far from me"
(Ecc. 7:23). His request for wisdom had only been so that he could do the
job of leading Israel, living out the parental expectation of his father,
whom he admits in Proverbs 4 had taught him to ask for wisdom. In Prov.
19:12 he speaks as if his own wisdom was like the dew coming down- as if he
felt that the mere possession of wisdom made him the Messiah figure which
his father had so hoped for him to be in Ps. 72:6. And he says as much in
Prov. 29:3: “Whoso loveth wisdom [exactly what Solomon was commended for
doing] rejoiceth his father”.
Pro 19:13 A foolish son is the calamity of his father. A wife’s quarrels are
a continual dripping-
"Destructive" or "wickedness" is the word used of the wickedness of
Ahithophel and Absalom (Ps. 55:11). Solomon's Proverbs seem in places a
justification of himself as king over his brother Absalom. He uses the same
word to speak of "transgressors are taken in their own wickedness /
destructiveness" (Prov. 11:6); how a liar [Absalom] listens to a
'destructive' tongue [in taking advice from Ahithophel] (Prov. 17:4); and
how a foolish son [Absalom] is the calamity or destruction of his father
(Prov. 19:13).
Pro 19:14 House and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent
wife is from Yahweh-
David had left Solomon an inheritance of both riches (1 Chron. 29:28)
and a "house" or family line to continue. But Solomon liked to think that
his many wives were "prudent", and were "from Yahweh"- when they were
idolaters who were not of Yahweh, and who turned his heart away from
Yahweh to their gods. This arrogant perception and persuasion led Solomon
to liken his illicit Gentile girlfriend in the Song of Solomon to a true
Israelite, describing her in the language of the tabernacle and likening
her to various attractive places within Israel. All Solomon writes is
true, but he clearly always has himself in mind as the parade fulfilment
of them; and in this he was so wrong.
Pro 19:15 Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep; the idle person shall
suffer hunger-
Again Solomon's works centred approach leads him to condemn laziness
and sloth. In Prov. 10:3 Solomon has taught that the righteous will never
"suffer hunger" (s.w.). So he considers idleness to be unrighteousness.
Righteousness is thereby equated with doing many works. But this fails to
appreciate that there is none truly righteous, at times God suffers men to
hunger (s.w. Dt. 8:3) that He might teach them; and blessing in the end is
all of grace and not of works, lest any man [like Solomon] should boast in
their works, as he does in Ecc. 1.
Pro 19:16 He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, but he who is
disrespectful in his ways shall die-
Solomon has no eternal perspective in his thinking. He assumes that
he is the judge of all, and his kingdom is the promised Messianic Kingdom
of God on earth. He presents untimely death in this life as the result for
disrespect to the commandments. But in fact the wicked prosper, and the
ultimate outcome of human life is not now, but in the judgment of the last
day. In contrast, David wanted God to "keep his soul"" (e.g. Ps. 25:20),
rather than Solomon's emphasis upon a person keeping their own soul
through obedience.
Pro 19:17 He who has pity on the poor lends to Yahweh; He will reward him-
Solomon on one hand teaches pity towards the poor (Prov. 14:21,31;
19:17; 28:8). But on the other, he mocks the poor as being poor because of
their unwisdom, believing that wealth is given in response to wisdom. He
is very conflicted in his attitude to the poor. The Divine revelation of
truth to him was clearly that he should be generous to the poor. But he
fences against this in other places by saying that the poor are being
punished for their unwisdom. So like us when we encounter need that
requires our generosity, he hedges his position very carefully; rather
than accepting the simple force of the wisdom given to him, that pity to
the poor as it were transfers our wealth from earth to heaven, and we will
receive it back in due time (Prov. 19:17). And he is quite obsessive about
not being collateral for the poor. Solomon had not known need, neither material nor spiritual, and it
shows in his attitude to so obsessively forbidding the giving of
collateral to guarantee a loan (Prov. 6:1-3; 11:15; 17:18; 20:16; 22:26;
27:13- all quite some emphasis). It makes hollow all Solomon's
exhortations
to be generous to your poor neighbour and to be a brother in adversity to
your neighbour (Prov. 14:21; 17:17). Solomon is here reasoning from the
viewpoint of secular wisdom. The law of Moses didn't forbid giving or
taking collateral for loans, it accepted this would happen (Ex. 22:25-27).
Another approach is to understand Solomon's positive comments about
helping the poor as historical allusion to his father David.
Pro 19:18 Discipline your son while there is hope; don’t be a willing
party to his death-
As will be explained on :20, this is true so far as it goes, and is a
fair enough commentary upon the Mosaic instruction to stone to death a
disobedient son. But Solomon took this idea of physical chastisement too
far, to the point of not giving due weight to the power of God Himself
through His wisdom to discipline or chastise a person.
Pro 19:19 A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty, for if you rescue him,
you must do it again-
Solomon had asked for wisdom in order to know how to judge Israel.
And so many of his Proverbs refer to judgment. But there is no grace in
what he says; he frequently insists that the judgment for sin and unwisdom
must be carried out, and any 'rescue' of the man by grace is pointless and
wrong. But he totally fails to appreciate that his father had been saved
by grace for his hot blooded intention to murder Nabal and all his family,
and forgiven by grace alone for his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah, when
the just penalty was death. He had psychologically, subconsciously
whitewashed his father David; he has no sense of grace and reflecting
gratitude for grace in merciful judgment of others.
Pro 19:20 Listen to counsel and receive instruction, so that you may be
wise in your very end-
Solomon has so much to say about "correction" or "instruction" coming
from the possession of wisdom (Prov. 8:10,33; 10:17; 12:1; 13:1,24;
15:5,10,32; 16:22; 19:20,27; 22:15; 23:12,13). But in the end he chastised
or corrected his people by whipping them (s.w. 1 Kings 12:11,14). Solomon
initially asked for wisdom in order to guide his people, but he ended up
whipping / physically chastising them into conformity with his wishes
rather than allowing wisdom to correct. Again, he was playing God; for it
is God through His wisdom who chastises, and not man. But Solomon thought
he was effectively God to his people. This is why Solomon argues that
servants cannot be corrected by words (Prov. 29:19 s.w.), and a child must
be physically chastised (s.w. Prov. 19:18; 29:17 cp. Prov. 13:24; 23:13),
regardless of his screams of pain. This kind of thing is a denial of his
claims elsewhere that it is Divine wisdom which chastises / corrects, and
such correction is from God and not man. Solomon's final description of
himself as an old and foolish king who refuses to be admonished says it
all (Ecc. 4:13); he admonishes others (s.w. Ecc. 12:12), but refuses to be
admonished or corrected by his own wisdom. He failed to personalize it.
Pro 19:21 There are many plans in a man’s heart, but Yahweh’s counsel will
prevail-
Yahweh's counsel is seen as the wisdom which Solomon was teaching
(:20).
Pro 19:22 That which makes a man to be desired is his kindness; a poor man
is better than a liar-
Spiritual ambition means that we will desire to do some things which
we can’t physically fulfil- and yet they will be counted to us. Abraham is
spoken of as having offered up Isaac- his intention was counted as the
act. And Prov. 19:22 RV appropriately comments: “The desire of a man is
the measure of his kindness”. It is all accepted according to what a man
has, not what he has not. Faith is perfected / matured by the
process of works (James 2:22,23). The works, the upward spiral of a life
lived on the basis of faith, develop the initial belief in practice.
Pro 19:23 The fear of Yahweh leads to life, and whoever has it rests
satisfied; he will not be visited by harm-
But as the book of Job teaches, this is simply not the case. Solomon
insists on a simplistic form of the prosperity Gospel, whereby the wise
have a wonderful life with no "harm", and the unwise are always falling
into sin and misery. But the wicked prosper; in this life. Solomon fails
to appreciate that there is judgment to come, and only then will there be
"life" indeed granted.
Pro 19:24 The lazy buries his hand in the dish; he will not so much as
bring it to his mouth again-
The Proverbs contain repeated condemnation of laziness. Lack of a
zealous work ethic is a rejection of wisdom, according to Solomon. As
Solomon explains in Ecc. 1, he was an active person, not lazy by nature.
And yet he lacked spirituality. He claimed that his service of God was due
to his spirituality, but it was in reality merely a semblance of serving
God when it was really just reinforcing his own personality type. His
mocking of the "sluggard" or "lazy one" is so frequent (Prov. 6:6,9;
10:26; 13:4; 15:19; 19:24; 20:4; 21:25; 22:13; 24:30; 26:13-16). But it is
a reflection of his own works-based approach to righteousness; the 'wise'
"do" good things, and the wicked don't do enough good things. Personal
spiritual mindedness and relationship with God are simply not emphasized.
Pro 19:25 Flog a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; rebuke one
who has understanding, and he will gain knowledge-
David had spoken of the house of Saul as scoffing at him (s.w. Ps.
119:51). And the line of David had been chosen to replace Saul because he
had refused to "learn prudence" at Samuel's rebuke. David had accepted
rebuke and was open to it, notably from Nathan the prophet (Ps. 38:1;
141:5); and so again Solomon's Proverbs are true, but he harnesses them to
the justification of himself and his father. But Solomon was only to
remain the prophetic son of David if he accepted reproof (s.w. 2 Sam.
7:14); and he didn't. He refused to personalize his own wisdom, as we can.
Pro 19:26 He who robs his father and drives away his mother, is a son who
causes shame and brings reproach-
Solomon surely has in view his half brother Absalom, who for years
had garnered support from the men of Israel in return for promises that he
would judge in their favour if they helped him overthrow David. And yet
the problems with Absalom were all prophesied by Nathan as a Divinely
raised up punishment and consequence for the sin of David with Bathsheba,
Solomon's mother. But Solomon whitewashes his parents, and always puts the
blame for the consequences and the trouble in the family solely upon the
behaviour of his half brothers.
Pro 19:27 If you stop listening to instruction, my son, you will stray
from the words of knowledge-
This may sound axiomatic and stating the obvious. Hence LXX "A son
who ceases to attend to the instruction of a father will cherish evil
designs"; GNB "My child, when you stop learning, you will soon neglect
what you already know", AV "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that
causeth to err from the words of knowledge". "Stray" is the word used for
Saul straying from the words of instruction given him by Samuel (1 Sam.
26:21), whereas David kept listening to it. Again we see Solomon always
seeking to justify his father David, and to criticize his competitors in
the house of Saul.
Pro 19:28 A corrupt witness mocks justice, and the mouth of the wicked
gulps down iniquity-
Solomon repeatedly condemns "the mouth of the wicked" (Prov.
10:6,11,32; 11:11; 12:6; 15:28; 19:28). All he says is true enough, but he
clearly enough has in view how his father David had condemned the
supporters of Saul and Absalom as having "the mouth of the wicked" (Ps.
109:2). And these were the groups who were threatening his power and
throne. Solomon presents himself by implication as having the mouth of the
just / righteous. And yet we must note that David too had spoken multiple
words of deceit in relation to the murder of Uriah. Indeed the phrase is
used in Is. 53:9 as if the Lord Jesus was the only man who didn't have a
"mouth of deceit". Solomon like David was in denial of the fact that we
all sin with our mouths, as James makes clear in James 3:1-3.
True as the Proverbs are which condemn "a worthless / wicked person" (Prov. 6:12; 16:27; 19:28), again we have a subtext of Solomon seeking to justify himself and his father David, and to criticize the various competitors to Solomon's throne. "A worthless person" is the term used for Nabal (1 Sam. 25:17), those in David's camp who were not fully supportive of David (1 Sam. 30:22), Sheba who plotted to overthrow the Davidic line as king (2 Sam. 20:1), and particularly of those who wanted to overthrow Solomon as king (2 Chron. 13:7).
Pro 19:29 Penalties are prepared for scoffers, and beatings for the backs
of fools-
Solomon seems to justify the rich treating the poor harshly (see on Prov.
18:23). He himself treated his people as fools, beating them (1 Kings
12:11). And so often his Proverbs draw simplistic caricatures of the folly
and laziness of the poor. He came to assume that his people were fools,
and he could abuse them therefore, at will. Those who are lifted up with
pride at their possession of "truth" often come to despise and abuse
others.
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