Proverbs20chapter 20

Proverbs 20:1

"Wine is a luxurious thing, and drunkenness is tumultuous; whoever delights in these will not be wise." And elsewhere: "Wine and women make the wise to fall away and will reprove the sensible." You have a ready example in that Solomon, who fell away on …

Proverbs 20:1

“Wine” and “strong drink” are personified as themselves doing what they make men do. The latter (see Lev 10:9 note) is here, probably, the “palm-wine” of Syria.

Proverbs 20:1

“Such men are made by wine. strong drink--made by spicing wine (compare Isa 5:11, 22); and it may include wine. raging--or boisterous as a drunkard. deceived--literally, "erring," or reeling.”

Proverbs 20:2

“In this place it openly speaks of Christ as the king, for the one who irritates Christ with [his] sin, sins against his own soul.”

Proverbs 20:2

“The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion,.... The wrath and displeasure of a king, which causes fear; see Pro 19:12; kings should be terrors to evil works and workers, though not to good ones, Rom 13:3. This is true of the King of kings, who one day will be terrible to the drunkards, the mockers, and murderers of his people, before spoken of; whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul; he exposes his life to danger: the Targum supplies it as we do.”

Proverbs 20:4

For the most part the slothful, while he neglects to do things that are necessary, sets before him some that are difficult, but is inconsiderately afraid of others; and so, as though finding something that he may reasonably fear, he satisfies himself that he has good reason for remaining torpid. To him it is rightly said through Solomon, "The sluggard would not plough by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in summer, and it shall not be given unto him."

Proverbs 20:4

“The sluggard will not plough - For other parts of this character, see the preceding chapter, Proverbs 19 (note). It is seldom that there is a season of very cold weather in Palestine; very cold days sometimes occur, with wind, rain, and sleet. They begin their ploughing in the latter end of September, and sow their early wheat by the middle of October. And this is often the case in England itself. The meaning of the proverb is: the slothful man, under the pretense of unfavorable weather, neglects cultivating his land till the proper time is elapsed.”

Proverbs 20:6

All the righteous, our fathers, in all that they did were victorious through faith, as the blessed apostle also testifies about them all, "They prevailed by faith." Solomon also said, "Many men are called merciful, but who can find a faithful man?"

Proverbs 20:6

“Most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness,.... As the Pharisee did, in Luk 18:11; and as the Pharisees in common did; who did all their works to be seen of men, and made clean the outside of the cup and platter; and were very careful to appear outwardly righteous to men, Mat 23:”

Proverbs 20:7

“The just man who walks in his simplicity, etc. This cannot always stand according to the letter. For even the blessed Samuel, a just and simple man, left unlike sons behind him; and Ahaz, an unjust and reprobate king, left a blessed son Hezekiah after …”

Proverbs 20:7

“The just man walketh in his integrity,.... This is the faithful and upright man, who is made righteous by the obedience of Christ; and walks by faith in him, and according to the truth of the Gospel; his children are blessed after him; with temporal blessings; and, walking in the same integrity as he does, they are blessed with spiritual blessings here, and eternal blessedness hereafter; see Psa 37:26. It is an observation of an Heathen poet (c), that good things befall the children of the godly, but not the children of the ungodly. (c) Theoerit. Idyll. 27. v. 32.”

Proverbs 20:9

“Who can say, I have made any heart clean - No man. But thousands can testify that the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed them from all unrighteousness. And he is pure from his sin, who is justified freely through the redemption that is in Jesus.”

Proverbs 20:10

“Every kind of unfair action is shameful. Even in common things, false weights and unjust measures are accursed. And if fraud in the market or in business is punished, can it seem free from reproach if found in the midst of the performance of the duties of virtue?”

Proverbs 20:10

“Divers weights and divers measures - A peise and a peise; - Old MS. Bible: from the French pois, weight. Hebrew: “A stone and a stone; an ephah and an ephah.” One the standard, the other below it; one to buy with, the other to sell by.”

Proverbs 20:11

“Even a child is known by his doings,.... As well as a man; "ye shall know them by their fruits", Mat 7:16; professors and profane.”

Proverbs 20:11

“The graces or the faults of children are not trifles. “The child is father of the man;” and the earliest actions are prophecies of the future, whether it will be pure and right, or unclean and evil.”

Proverbs 20:13

“Do not love sleep, etc. Do not love the sleep of sin and slothfulness, about which the Apostle says, "It is high time to awake out of sleep" (Rom. XIII); lest, if you do not wish to be vigilant now, you be overtaken by that …”

Proverbs 20:16

“Take his garment that is surety for a stranger - I suppose the meaning to be, If a stranger or unknown person become surety in a case, greater caution should be used, and such security taken from this stranger as would prevent him from running away from his engagements.”

Proverbs 20:16

“Take his garment--implies severe exaction, justified by the surety's rashness. a strange woman--by some readings "strangers," but the former here, and in Pr 27:13, is allowable, and strengthens the sense. The debauchee is less reliable than the merely careless.”

Proverbs 20:17

“To eat gravel” was a Hebrew Lam 3:16, and is an Arabic, phrase for getting into trouble. So “bread,” got by deceit, tastes sweet at first, but ends by leaving the hunger of the soul unsatisfied. There is a pleasure in the sense of cleverness felt after a hard bargain or a successful fraud, which must be met by bidding men look on the after consequences.

Proverbs 20:18

“With good advice make war, - Perhaps there is not a precept in this whole book so little regarded as this. Most of the wars that are undertaken are wars of injustice, ambition, aggrandizement, and caprice, which can have had no previous good counsel. A minister, who is perhaps neither a good nor a great man, counsels his king to make war; the cabinet must be brought into it, and a sufficient number out of the states of the kingdom gained over to support it. By and by, what was begun through caprice must be maintained through necessity.”

Proverbs 20:19

“Flattereth - literally, “The man who opens his lips,” who has no reticence; such a man, with or without intending it, does the work of a talebearer.”

Proverbs 20:20

“Whoso curseth his father - Such persons were put to death under the law; see Exo 21:17; Lev 20:9, and here it is said, Their lamp shall be put out - they shall have no posterity; God shall cut them off both root and branch.”

Proverbs 20:21

“An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning,.... Of a man's setting out in the world in trade and business; and which sometimes is got lawfully, and this must be excepted from this proverb; but generally what is got hastily and in a short time is got unlawfully, and so does not prosper.”

Proverbs 20:21

“Or, An inheritance gotten hastily (greedily sought after by unjust means) at the beginning, the end thereof shall not be blessed. Another reading gives, “an inheritance loathed, (compare Zec 11:8), or with a curse upon it.” The King James Version agrees with the versions.”

Proverbs 20:22

“A brother who was hurt by another brother went to the Theban Sisois and said, 'I want to get back at a brother who has hurt me.' The hermit begged him, 'Don't do that, my son, leave vengeance in the hands of God.' But he …”

Proverbs 20:23

“It is an abomination to the Lord to have diverse weights, etc. For having diverse weights and a deceitful scale in one's heart means that while seeking pardon from the Lord for one's own sins, one is unwilling to forgive a man who has sinned …”

Proverbs 20:24

“You maintain that "all are governed by their own free choice." What Christian can bear to hear this? For if not one, or a few or many but all of us are governed by our own free choice, what becomes of the help of God? And how do you explain the text, "A man's goings are ordered by the Lord"?”

Proverbs 20:25

“It is ruin for a man to devour the holy, etc. Since it is a sin to harm any man, how much more so when it is he who has sinned? How forty men in the Acts of the Apostles vowed that they would neither …”

Proverbs 20:25

“Better, It is a snare to a man to utter a vow (of consecration) rashly, and after vows to inquire whether he can fulfill them. Both clauses are a protest against the besetting sin of rash and hasty vows. Compare the marginal reference.”

Proverbs 20:26

“Bringeth the wheel over them - He threshes them in his anger, as the wheel does the grain on the threshing-floor. Every one knows that grain was separated from its husks, in Palestine, by the feet of the oxen trampling among the sheaves, or bringing a rough-shod wheel over them. Asiatic kings often threshed their people, to bring out their property; but this is not what is intended here.”

Proverbs 20:27

“The spirit of man - The “breath” of Gen 2:7, the higher life, above that which he has in common with lower animals, coming to him direct from God. Such a life, with all its powers of insight, consciousness, reflection, is as a lamp which God has lighted, throwing its rays into the darkest recesses of the heart. A still higher truth is proclaimed in the Prologue of John’s Gospel. The candle, or lamp of Yahweh, derives its light from “the Light that lighteth every man,” even the Eternal Word.”

Proverbs 20:28

“For the perfection of prelacy, two things are necessarily required, namely zeal for justice and the affection of mercy: for mercy and truth preserve the king. According to these two, the governance of prelacy in the Church militant ought to be ordered.”

Proverbs 20:29

“The glory of young men is their strength,.... That is the excellent thing in them, and it is to their honour when it is employed in the service of their king and country, and especially in the service of God and religion; though it does not become them to glory in it, Jer 9:23; and the beauty of old men is the gray head; an index of wisdom and prudence; see Job 12:”

Proverbs 20:29

“The glory of young men is their strength - Scarcely any young man affects to be wise, learned, etc.; but all delight to show their strength and to be reputed strong. Agility, one evidence of strength, their particularly affect; and hence their various trials of strength and fleetness in public exercises. And the beauty of old men is the gray head - They no longer affect strength and agility, but they affect wisdom, experience, prudent counsels, etc., and are fond of being reputed wise, and of having respect paid to their understanding and experience.”

Proverbs 20:30

“The sick are to be admonished to consider how great a boon is bodily affliction, which both washes away committed sins and restrains those which might have been committed, which inflicts on the troubled mind wounds of penitence derived from outward stripes. Whence it is written, "The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil, and stripes in the secret parts of the belly." For the blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil, because the pain of scourges cleanses iniquities, whether meditated or perpetrated. But by the appellation of belly the mind is wont to be understood.”

Proverbs 20:30

“The blueness of a wound - חברות chabburoth, from חבר chabar, to unite, to join together. Does it not refer to the cicatrice of a wound when, in its healing, the two lips are brought topether? By this union the wound is healed; and by the previous discharge the lace-rated ends of fibres and blood-vessels are purged away. So stripes, though they hurt for the time, become the means of correcting and discharging the moral evil of the inmost soul, the vice of the heart, the easily-besetting sin.”