Proverbschapter 20
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Speaks with:Proverbs 16×6Proverbs 19×5Proverbs 20×4Proverbs 11×4Proverbs 13×2Proverbs 18×2
Summary
Chapter summary
'Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler; and whosoever erreth thereby is not wise.' The sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter. 'Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?' Divers weights and divers measures, both alike an abomination. Even a child maketh himself known by his doings. 'The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, Jehovah hath made even both of them.' Say not thou, I will recompense evil: 'wait for Jehovah, and he will save thee.' Man's goings are of Jehovah.
Context
Poetry · Solomon, Agur, Lemuel — Proverbs overview
- A. 1–15 Wine Is a Mocker; the Sluggard Will Not Plow in Winter
- B. 16–30 Say Not, I Will Recompense Evil — Wait for Jehovah
The outline
A.Wine Is a Mocker; the Sluggard Will Not Plow in Wintervv. 1 to 15
Read vv. 1 to 15 →B.Say Not, I Will Recompense Evil — Wait for Jehovahvv. 16 to 30
Read vv. 16 to 30 →
The world behind this chapter
Proverbs 20The history
"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging." Two different drinks are named. Wine was the ordinary table drink, watered down; "strong drink" translates a word for fermented brews made from barley or dates, sometimes sweetened, and drunk unmixed. Both were normal at feasts, and drunkenness was a recognised civic problem, not a rare vice.
"The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest." Ploughing in Israel happens after the early rains soften the ground, in the cold wet months of late autumn. That is exactly when a man least wants to be out behind an ox in a wet field — and it is the only window there is. Skipping it means an empty spring.
"It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth" is haggling caught on the page. The buyer runs down the goods in front of the seller to move the price, then walks off and tells his friends what a bargain he got. Everyone in the market had done it or had it done to them.
"Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD" returns to the two-weight fraud, and adds measures — the containers for grain and oil, which could be built shallow or deep in the same way.
What it meant to them
"Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out" was a picture from a well shaft — the water is really down there, but you need a rope, a jar, and patience.
The chapter keeps handing daily transactions back to God: the weights in the bag, the lamp of the LORD searching the inward parts, the king scattering the wicked with his eye. For the first hearers, that meant business was never merely business.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Proverbs 20. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.