Ralph Wardlaw Lectures on Proverbs - Proverbs 30:13 - 30:20

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Ralph Wardlaw Lectures on Proverbs - Proverbs 30:13 - 30:20


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:



LECTURE XCIII.



Pro_30:13-20.



"There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their jawteeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men. The horse-leech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: the grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough. The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid. Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness."



The first of these verses brings before us the haughty, selfconsequential, and supercilious-the "generation" of those who carry their heads high, and look disdainfully down on all around them. This class of men too has been found abundantly in all ages. The spirit described may originate from various causes. There is the pride of high birth-of aristocratic lineage,-that regards with lofty scorn all that is plebeian and vulgar.-There is the pride and vanity of riches, that measures its importance and exacts its homage according to the number of its acres or of its bank deposits; and of this species of the evil there is none that is either so contemptible, so ridiculous, or so provoking, as the pursepride of the weak-minded upstart who has risen suddenly to the self-consequence of a gold-and silver greatness.-There is what the poet has called "the insolence of office"-the lofty and sometimes sufficiently ludicrous airs of men who have got themselves "clothed with a little brief authority;"-and this description of the silliness of self-elation is to be found in the ecclesiastical department of honours, as well as the civil, and in them both from the highest to the lowest grade of dignity,-from the woolsack of the Lord Chancellor to the chair of the smallest municipal corporation; and from the throne of the Archbishop to the desk of an Independent church. There is also, I might mention, the overbearing arrogance of learning-real or pretended, profound or superficial; and the little but often very consequential vanity of various other descriptions of accomplishment. There is still another description of the character,-and in some respects the worst of all. It is exemplified in the sidelong glance of the self-vaunting Pharisee, when he said-"Or even as this publican!"-the haughtiness of self-righteous consequence, which holds its head erect, and lifts the eye of presumptuous boldness, before that God in whose presence archangels "veil their faces with their wings;"-and that to all fellow-men says, with the scowl of indignant disdain-"Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou." And indeed the spirit of the "Stand by thyself, come not near to me,"-may be regarded as, in every department, the spirit of the character before us. It says-"Stand by thyself," for I am nobler;-"Stand by thyself," for I am richer;-"Stand by thyself," for I am wiser;-"Stand by thyself," for I am more learned and accomplished;-"Stand by thyself," for I am by office greater;-as well as "Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou."



All these and all other descriptions of pride are laid under severe condemnation and prohibition in the divine word. Its declarations are-"The lofty looks of men shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted:"-"God resisteth the proud:"-"The proud he knoweth afar off:"-"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven:"-"Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones:"-"Before honour is humility:"-"Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalteth."



"Whenever any man comes aright to God,-that is, comes to him as a sinful and guilty creature,-feeling his own unworthiness, nothingness, and obnoxiousness to the divine displeasure,-abased in his own sight,-a suppliant for mercy,-all descriptions of pride will be brought down and crucified. They will no longer be indulged;-no longer vindicated under plausible excuses and palliative epithets. As a believing sinner, he will become, like his gracious Master, "meek and lowly in heart:"-his eyes no longer lofty, nor his eyelids lifted,-the heart being no longer haughty. "Put on, as the elect of God, humbleness of mind."



Verse Pro_30:14. "There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw-teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men."-Here we have another class,-the generation of hard-hearted, cruel, insatiable oppressors. The forcible figurative expressions here used to depict them need no analysis. To analyse would be to weaken. They are persons who, whether to gratify their avarice, or their profligate ambition, or their love of pleasure and dissipation and extravagance, make no account of the property, the liberty, the peace, the comfort, the enjoyments, the very lives of others,-and especially of the poor,-when they stand in the way of their own gratification. We dwell not on the character. It is too often to be found. All history, alas! is full of it; nor would it be difficult to multiply examples of it, on a larger and on a smaller scale, in our own days. The history of conquest, of colonization, of slavery and slave-trading,-and of some departments of business, in which griping and grasping avarice-that "love of money which is the root of all evil,"-might furnish many a sad tale in the way of illustration. The character is ever introduced in Scripture with the strongest expressions of divine detestation.*



* Pro_28:15-17, &c.



Verses Pro_30:15-16. "The horse-leech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: the grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with, water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough."-There is an evident connexion between these verses and what precedes,-especially with the character described in the fourteenth verse. There is a comparison intended, in illustration of that character;-or rather a series of comparisons. There could not be a more apt one than the first. The "horseleech" or blood-sucker,*1 gorges itself with blood, drawing it in with all possible eagerness, and never relaxing its hold,-still emptying itself, and still seeking more,-or filling itself even to bursting:-an appropriate image surely for the insatiable desires of the man of avarice, or of the profligate man of pleasure and extravagance. In the expression-"The horse-leech hath two daughters" there is by some thought to be an allusion to the two forks of the tongue by which it fastens itself to draw the blood. And different notions have been entertained as to what are meant by the "two daughters." It has been said that daughter, in the same way as son, is used to signify that which bears some striking resemblance to the thing of which it is represented as the son or the daughter:-and cruelty or blood-thirstiness and covetousness have been conceived the dispositions here meant to be thus represented. I confess myself very doubtful as to these views; and am much inclined to leave out the supplementary word crying, and to consider the Give, Give, as what Solomon intends by the daughters of the horse-leech: "The horse-leech hath two daughters, Give, Give."*2 The daughters have one name and one character. They plead and cater for the mother. The plain meaning is that the "horse-leech" is never satisfied. Greed is its very offspring:-"Give, Give," its two daughters. A more fit emblem, then, there could hardly be, for insatiable avarice, or the insatiable love of pleasure. What follows is also to be understood as being in the nature of comparison:-"There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: the grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough." The meaning is-that the desires of avarice and of ambition and pleasure are insatiable, as the grave, and the barren womb, the earth, and the fire. Taking the words in this connexion, they are full of point and appropriateness. To take them by themselves, out of connexion with what they are clearly designed to illustrate, is to render them tame, vapid, and unworthy of the position they hold among divine sayings. "The grave" is still, since sin entered into the world, ever, ever, ever, opening its mouth for new victims. The barren womb is still fretfully impatient for the blessing of children-"Give me children, else I die." The earth "drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it," and is incessantly needing and craving fresh moisture,-and after long drought can hardly be saturated. The fire is ever requiring new supplies of fuel, consuming and devouring all that is thrown into it. Such are the insatiable appetites of avarice, pleasure, and ambition.



*1 The meaning is disputed. Stuart renders vampire.

*2 Stuart takes the same view. His work had not appeared when these Lectures were prepared.



If you only suppose that, in this series of comparisons, Solomon has reference at once to the characters in the fourteenth verse and to those also in the twelfth and thirteenth-(the desire of notice, and admiration, and flattery, being as insatiable on the part of those who, in different ways, entertain the high conceit of themselves, however false and foolish, which is there described, as are the avaricious, the ambitious, and the sensual)-then, by taking the seventeenth verse in connexion with the eleventh, we shall have the series of comparisons complete. In the eleventh verse we have the generation of rebellious children-without natural affection: and in the seventeenth we have their sentence:-"The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." Here too is a figure. It expresses the certain and fearful vengeance that shall fall upon despisers and mockers of parents. Think of it, my young friends. The eye that winks in mockery,-or that leers with disdain,-or that kindles in hatred and rage,-or that turns away with indifference or aversion,-that eye indicates states of heart which the Lord abhors, and which He will visit with punitive vengeance. Although the language is manifestly figurative, and the birds of prey that pick out the guilty eye are but emblems of the avenging displeasure of a sin-hating God, bringing punishment upon the guilty soul,-yet has it not unfrequently been verified to the letter. All who have marked the history of crime are well aware how many criminals who have come to the gallows, have acknowledged the commencement of their career of vice and villany to have been contempt of parents. And these, after public execution, have been thrown to the beasts and birds of prey; or they have been gibbeted in irons, till the mocking eye has been picked out by the ravens of the valley, or devoured by the young eagles, and the carrion fowls have eaten their flesh from their bones. Let the young take warning,-and beware of every rising emotion of disrespect, and of every word, or look, or act of contempt and insubordination:-"Honour thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise."



The following verses must, in like manner, be understood in the way of comparison:-and so understood, they are full of force, and full of practical instruction-verses Pro_30:18-20. "There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid. Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness."-What is the comparison? It is that of the wiles of the infamous and practised seducer of female honour and virtue,-and of the arts of the intriguing and accomplished adulteress, both in laying wait for her prey, and in concealing her guilt-to "the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, and the way of a ship in the midst of the sea:"-and a warning is thus conveyed with regard to both,-a practical and profitable warning. It is not the philosophical or scientific principle on which the eagle flies, by which she is borne up on the air, and by which all her motions are effected, that is here the subject of wonder, although wonderful it is, and like everything else in nature, fitted to fill the observant mind with devout admiration:-neither is it the peculiar structure, and the laws of muscular motion connected with it, by which the convolutions, and the side and forward movements of the serpent are accomplished and regulated:-nor is it the mechanical principle, applied and adjusted by the skill of man, by which the ship is upheld on the water, and is propelled, and "turned whithersoever the governor listeth." It is not to these,-no, not at all-that Agur refers. His lesson is one, not in natural or in physical science or in human art,-but one in morals,-one relative to vice and to virtue,-to the dangers from the one, and the necessity of carefully guarding the other. The spirit of the comparison, in all the three cases, lies in the difficulty or the impossibility of tracing the path. The capricious windings, and circlings, and dartings and hoverings, and risings and fallings, of the eagle, no one can follow. The bird itself could not trace the same course again. The path of the serpent is intricately tortuous, bending, and twisting, and convoluting, and pushing itself in every possible direction;-so that there is no tracing of its foldings and doublings. The ship's course is instantly lost: and it tacks and retacks, and stretches from point to point, to attain its destination. It is impossible to follow the very same track again.



And in addition to the impossibility of tracing the course, there is another thing in the comparison. There is, in each of the cases, an end in view, an object to be effected. The eagle adapts its various movements, so as at last to pounce upon its prey:-the serpent, tortuous as is his path, has his aim, and reaches it:-the ship, with the wind ahead, shifts and tacks about; but still with a certain point to be gained.



The comparison is of these three things to two others-to the manifold wiles of the artful and vile seducer:-and to the similar arts of the crafty adulteress in luring secretly her prey, and in hiding from detection her infamy.-Artful villains-wretches for whom no term of infamy is too strong-insinuate themselves into the affections of young women, by an endless diversity of schemes and stratagems,-of pretensions, and promises, and flatteries, and sophistical arguments, and protestations, and persuasions, such as cannot he all unravelled:-



"Studied, sly, ensnaring arts,"



varying according to characters and circumstances;-like the wheelings and circlings of the eagle in the air,-or the curvatures of "the crooked serpent" upon a rock,-or the tackings and doublings of a ship at sea. And, as in these cases there is no trace of the course left, so in the case which they illustrate, the great art is, to leave no trace by which the progress and consummation of guilt can afterwards be marked and substantiated.*



* Comp. Pro_5:6.



So too the unfaithful-the adulterous wife, is full of artifice,-this being in her case even more necessary than in the other. And when she has secured her end,-there is artifice to conceal it-to impose upon her injured husband. She here appears before us, most graphically, assuming the air of perfect composure-of one completely at her ease;-her conscience, if not actually seared, brought under sufficient coercive control to cover all emotion. She sits down as usual to her meal, with her husband and family,-with full self-possession and indifference of manner,-just as if nothing had happened; "eating, and wiping her mouth, and saying, I have done no evil"-telling tales perhaps of the guilt of others, affecting to shudder at them, and comparing her own innocence with their shameful conduct.



I dwell not on these monstrous evils. Read the early chapters of this book, ye youthful and thoughtless especially, and weigh them well. You will find there an abundance of faithful and affectionate warning-warning drawn from both observation and woful experience, of the criminality and the ruinous consequences to body, soul, and estate,-for time and for eternity,-of the evils in question, evils against which faithfulness commands us to warn, and to warn with all possible earnestness,-while delicacy and propriety forbid enlargement.



I conclude by beseeching God's spiritual children to cultivate the tempers and pursue the courses of conduct, that stand opposed to those of the "generations" described in this passage.-Ye who have parents,-and especially young professors-cherish and display the reverential and dutiful affection that ought ever to be maintained towards father and mother.-Cultivate all of you real inward purity of heart, from which there will spring a growing purity of life.-Cherish a lowly spirit:-"be clothed with humility,"-not humility on your knees before the throne merely, but humility which, when you rise from your knees, and mingle with your family and with the world, diffuses its lovely influence over your entire deportment.-Cultivate benevolent kindness, in affection of heart, in the words of the mouth, and in beneficent activity, towards all who come within the sphere of your influence;-"doing good to all, and especially to them who are of the household of faith:"-"putting on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies." "Take heed, and beware of covetousness:"-"lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven:"-and as to ambition, let "the honour that cometh from God," rather than that which men bestow, be what you seek and long to secure. And beware of every unchaste thought, word, and action. Let, in short, your entire course of life, in all its departments,-in your closets with God,-in your homes with your families,-in your fields, your warehouses, and your workshops,-in all your private and your public intercourse,-be constantly under the regulating, the impelling, and the restraining influence of the fear and the love of God. Thus "work out your own salvation," and "hold forth the word of life."