Proverbs 4:13 মন্তব্য

When the things of God are to be taught precept must be upon precept, and line upon line, not only because the things themselves are of great worth and weight, but because men's minds, at the best, are unapt to admit them and commonly prejudiced against them; and therefore Solomon, in this chapter, with a great variety of expression and a pleasant powerful flood of divine eloquence, inculcates the same things that he had pressed upon us in the foregoing chapters. Here is, I. An earnest exhortation to the study of wisdom, that is, of true religion and godliness, borrowed from the good instructions which his father gave him, and enforced with many considerable arguments (Pro 4:1-13). II. A necessary caution against bad company and all fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness (Pro 4:14-19). III. Particular directions for the attaining and preserving of wisdom, and bringing forth the fruits of it (Pro 4:20-27). So plainly, so pressingly, is the case laid before us, that we shall be for ever inexcusable if we perish in our folly.

INTRODUCTION TO PROVERBS 4 In this chapter Solomon advises to seek after wisdom, to avoid bad company, and to continue in the right paths of goodness and truth: he excites attention to what he had to say, from the relation he stood in to the persons addressed; from the nature of his instructions, which were good and profitable; and from his own example, in attending to those his parents gave him, Pro 4:1; He exhorts above all things to get wisdom, from the superior excellency of it, and from the preservation, promotion, and honour, to be had by it, Pro 4:5; and he further enforces big exhortations, from their being the means of a comfortable life, and of the prolongation of it, and of leading in a right way without straitness or stumbling, Pro 4:10. And then proceeds to caution against bad company, and going into a bad way of life; which is enforced from the mischief done by those that walk in it, and from the darkness of it, to which the path of the just is opposed, Pro 4:14. And the exhortation to attend to and observe his instructions, and keep them, is repeated, from the consideration of their being life and health to them, Pro 4:20; and that they might be preserved, and not departed from, direction's are given about ordering the heart, mouth, lips, eyes, and feet, Pro 4:23.

Take fast hold of instruction,.... Not the law, as Jarchi and Gersom interpret it; but the instruction of wisdom, the doctrine of Christ or the Gospel; see Pro 8:1; which is an instruction into the mind and will of God, concerning the salvation of men; into the grace of God, showing that salvation, in all its branches, is of pure grace; into the person and offices of Christ, and into the business of salvation through him; into the doctrines of peace, pardon, righteousness, and eternal life by him. This should be "taken fast hold of"; in order to which, men should take heed unto it, attentively hear it; they should come with a cordial affection to it, and an eager desire after it, or they will never lay fast hold on it; for taking fast hold, as it supposes a careful attention to the Gospel, so a reception of it in the love of it, and an eagerness to be possessed of it: such may be said to take fast hold on it, who receive it into their hearts, and not into their heads only; head knowledge of the Gospel instruction is not hold fast enough, it must be heart knowledge of it; it is taken fast hold on when it is mixed with faith when heard; when it is digested and incorporated as it were into men, and becomes the ingrafted word; when men are led experimentally and practically into it, and are not hearers only, but doers of it; and, being thus taken fast hold of, let her not go; the instruction of wisdom, or the Gospel of Christ; do not drop it, nor depart from it, nor waver about it; nor be languid in a profession of it, nor indifferent to it: "be not remiss" (x), as the word signifies; or let not thine hand be remiss, or let not thine hand go; having, as it were with both hands, took fast hold of the Gospel, hold it fast, neither drop it through negligence and carelessness, nor suffer it to be taken from thee by fraud or force; keep her, for she is thy life; which may be understood either of the Gospel, Wisdom's instruction, which should be kept as a rich treasure, and not parted with at any rate; since it is the means of quickening dead sinners; of showing sensible ones the way of life by Christ; of producing faith in them, by which they live upon him; and of maintaining and supporting the spiritual life in them, and of reviving and comforting them under the most drooping and afflictive circumstances; a man would as soon part with his life surely as part with this! Or else, seeing the feminine gender is here used, which does not agree with the word translated "instruction", but with "wisdom", mentioned Pro 4:11; so Aben Ezra; therefore Christ may be here meant, who is to be kept as the pearl of great price, being more precious than rubies and all desirable things, and especially since he is the "life" of his people: he is the author and maintainer of their spiritual life; he is their life itself, it is hid with him; and because he lives, they live also: all the comforts and supplies of life are from him, and he is their eternal life; it is given through him and by him, and ties greatly in the enjoyment of him. (x) "ne remittas", Tigurine version, Mercerus, Gejerus, Michaelis.

To an earnest call for attention to his teachings, the writer adds a commendation of wisdom, preceded and enforced by the counsels of his father and teacher. To this he adds a caution (against the devices of the wicked), and a series of exhortations to docility, integrity, and uprightness. (Pro. 4:1-27) (Compare Pro 1:8). to know--in order to know. doctrine--the matter of learning (Pro 1:5), such as he had received (Lam 3:1).

(Compare Pro 3:18). The figure of laying hold with the hand suggests earnest effort.

The exhortations attracting by means of promises, now become warnings fitted to alarm: 13 Hold fast to instruction, let her not go; Keep her, for she is thy life. 14 Into the path of the wicked enter not, And walk not in the way of the evil 15 Avoid it, enter not into it; Turn from it and pass away. 16 For they cannot sleep unless they do evil, And they are deprived of sleep unless they bring others to ruin. 17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, And they drink the wine of violence. Elsewhere מוּסר means also self-discipline, or moral religious education, Pro 1:3; here discipline, i.e., parental educative counsel. תּרף is the segolated fut. apoc. Hiph. (indic. תּרפּה) from tarp, cf. the imper. Hiph. הרף from harp. נצּרה is the imper. Kal (not Piel, as Aben Ezra thinks) with Dagesh dirimens; cf. the verbal substantive נצּרה Psa 141:3, with similar Dagesh, after the form יקּהה, Gen 49:10. מוּסר (elsewhere always masc.) is here used in the fem. as the synonym of the name of wisdom: keep her (instruction), for she is thy life, (Note: Punctuate כּי היא; the Zinnorith represents the place of the Makkeph, vid., Torath Emeth, p. 9.) i.e., the life of thy life. In Pro 4:14 the godless (vid., on the root-idea of רשׁע under Psa 1:1) and the habitually wicked, i.e., the vicious, stand in parallelism; בּוא and אשּׁר are related as entering and going on, ingressus and progressus. The verb אשׁר signifies, like ישׁר, to be straight, even, fortunate, whence אשׁר = Arab. yusâr, happiness, and to step straight out, Pro 9:6, of which meanings אשּׁר is partly the intensive, as here, partly the causative, Pro 23:19 (elsewhere causative of the meaning, to be happy, Gen 30:13). The meaning progredi is not mediated by a supplementary צעדיו; the derivative אשׁוּר (אשּׁוּר), a step, shows that it is derived immediately from the root-idea of a movement in a straight line. Still less justifiable is the rendering by Schultens, ne vestigia imprimas in via malorum; for the Arab. âththr is denom. of ithr, אתר, the primitive verb roots of which, athr, אתר = אשׁר, are lost. Pro 4:15 On פּרעהוּ, avoid it (the way), (opp. אחז, Job 17:9; תּמך, Psa 17:5), see under Pro 1:25. שׂטה, elsewhere (as the Arab. shatt, to be without measure, insolent) used in malam partem, has here its fundamental meaning, to go aside. מעליו (expressed in French by de dessus, in Ital. by di sopra) denotes: so that thou comest not to stand on it. עבר means in both cases transire, but the second instance, "to go beyond (farther)" (cf. Sa2 15:22, and under Hab 1:11), coincides with "to escape, evadere." Pro 4:16 In the reason here given the perf. may stand in the conditional clauses as well as in Virgil's Et si non aliqua nocuisses, mortuus esses; but the fut., as in Ecc 5:11, denotes that they (the רעים and the רשׁעים) cannot sleep, and are deprived of their sleep, unless they are continually doing evil and bringing others into misery; the interruption of this course of conduct, which has become to them like a second nature, would be as the interruption of their diet, which makes them ill. For the Kal יכשׁולוּ, which here must have the meaning of the person sinning (cf. Pro 4:19), and would be feeble if used of the confirmed transgressors, the Kerı̂ rightly substitutes the Hiphil יכשׁילוּ, which occurs also Ch2 25:8, there without an object, in the meaning to cause to fall, as the contrast of עזר (to help). Pro 4:17 The second כּי introduces the reason of their bodily welfare being conditioned by evil-doing. If the poet meant: they live on bread which consists in wickedness, i.e., on wickedness as their bread, then in the parallel sentence he should have used the word חמס; the genitives are meant of the means of acquisition: they live on unrighteous gain, on bread and wine which they procure by wickedness and by all manner of violence or injustice. On the etymon of חמס (Arab. ḥamas, durum, asperum, vehementem esse), vid., Schultens; the plur. חמסים belongs to a more recent epoch (vid., under Sa2 22:49 and Psa 18:49). The change in the tense represents the idea that they having eaten such bread, set forth such wine, and therewith wash it down.