Proverbs24chapter 24

The closing picture is the most concrete in the book: a field and a vineyard "all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down." Hill-country vineyards needed a stone wall to keep out jackals and grazing animals, terraces rebuilt each year, and constant clearing. Walls fall in the winter rains. A single lazy season shows, and two seasons lose the plot.

"Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house." This is the order a young man setting up on his own had to follow: get the ground cleared and planted first, because a house cannot be eaten. A vineyard takes four or five years to bear, so the planting decides when a marriage is possible.

"If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death… doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it?" Executions and debt seizures happened in public, and a bystander who knew the truth could stop one by speaking at the gate. The excuse quoted — "behold, we knew it not" — is the exact thing a man would say afterwards.

"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth" cuts against the ordinary honour code of the region, where public gloating over a fallen rival was the expected finish to a feud.