Proverbs 1:17
How futile it is to spread the net where any bird can see it!
BSB
ASV
For in vain is the net spread In the sight of any bird:
KJV
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
If then nets are not wrongfully stretched for birds, as it is said in Proverbs, but God justly leads men into the snare, as it is said, "You led us into the snare," and if not even a sparrow, cheapest of birds, falls into the snare without the will of the Father (its fall into the snare being due to its failure to use properly the power of its wings given to it to soar), let us pray to do nothing to deserve being brought into temptation.
Strictly speaking, this is the first proverb (i. e., similitude) in the book; a proverb which has received a variety of interpretations. The true meaning seems to be as follows: “For in vain, to no purpose, is the net spread out openly. Clear as the warning is, it is in vain. The birds still fly in.
Men warned ought to escape danger as birds instinctively avoid visibly spread nets. But stupid sinners rush to their own ruin (Ps 9:16), and, greedy of gain, succeed in the very schemes which destroy them (1Ti 6:10), not only failing to catch others, but procuring their own destruction.
A solemn warning against temptation. entice--literally, "open the way." consent . . . not--Sin is in consenting or yielding to temptation, not in being tempted.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Isaiah 1:3The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”
leads to
At their feasts are the lyre and harp, tambourines and flutes and wine. They disregard the actions of the LORD and fail to see the work of His hands.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.
“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”
They do not comprehend or discern, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see and closed their minds so they cannot understand.
This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’
Through
Jeremiah 8:7Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.
leads to
The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”
Through
Job 35:11who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’
leads to
Blessed is the man You discipline, O LORD, and teach from Your law,
Through
Proverbs 7:23until an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare—not knowing it will cost him his life.
leads to
For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.
