Ver. 1. My son, if thou be surety.] The wise man, having exhorted his son to marry, rather than burn, and to nourish a family, rather than to haunt harlots’ houses, to the end that he may show himself a good economic, and provide for the comfortable subsistence of wife and children, he bids him here beware—(1.) Of unadvised suretyship; (2.) Of idleness, two great enemies to thrift, without which there can be no good house kept. The royalty of Solomon could not have consisted, for all his riches, without forecast and frugality.
Ver. 2. Thou art snared,] i. e., Endangered to slavery or poverty, or both. Hence the proverb, Sponde, noxa praesto est; Give thy word, and thou art not far from a mischief. Shun, therefore, suretyship, if fairly thou canst, or if not, propound the worst, and undertake for no more than thou canst well perform without thy very great prejudice: ne, ut leo cassibus irretitus dixeris, Si praescivissem? lest thou, being got into the hamble trambles, come in too late with thy fool’s “Had I wist.” Thou art taken.] For a bargain binds a man by the law of nature, and of nations. Judah, though in a shameful business, would make good his engagement to the harlot. (Genesis 38:23) Every godly man will do so, though it be to his own hindrance. (Psalms 15:4) The Romans had a great care always to perform their word, insomuch that the first temple built in Rome was dedicated to the goddess Fidelity. The Athenians were so careful this way, that Atticus testis is used for one that keeps touch, and Attica fides is sure hold; as, contrarily, Punica fides, there was no hold to be taken of Carthaginian promises. Of a certain pope and his nephew, it is said that the one never spoke as he thought, the other never performed what he spoke. This was small to their commendation. Debt is a burden to every well-minded man; neither can he be at rest till he come to “owe nothing to any man but this, that ye love one another.” (Romans 13:8) When Archbishop Cranmer discerned the storm which afterwards fell upon him in Queen Mary’s days, he took express order for the payment of all his debts and engagements, which when it was once done, a most joyful man was he, saith Master Foxe in his life. For bills and obligations do mancipate the most free and ingenuous spirit, and so put a man out of aim that he can neither serve God without distraction nor do good to others, nor set his own state in any good order, but lives and dies entangled and puzzled with cares and snares; and, after a tedious and laborious life passed in a circle of fretting thoughts, he leaves at last, instead of better patrimony, a world of intricate troubles to his posterity, who are also “taken with the words of his mouth.” Acts and Mon., vol. ii. p. 1541.
Ver. 3. When thou art come into the hand.] For “the borrower is servant to the lender,” (Proverbs 22:7) and Facile ex amico inimicum facies cui promissa non reddes, saith Jerome. A friend will soon become a foe, if unfriendly and unfaithfully dealt with. Not keeping time makes a jar in payments—and so in friendship too—as well as in music. Go, humble thyself.] Crave favour and further time of the creditor. Say, Doubt not of your debt, only forbear a while. Cast thyserf at his feet, as to be trodden—so the Hebrew word here signifieth. (Ezekiel 32:2 34:18) Stick not at any submission, so thou mayest gain time, and get off, and not be forced to run into the usurer’s books, that Amalek, or licking people, which, as cormorants, fall upon the borrowers, and, like cur dogs, suck your blood only with licking, and in the end kill you, and crush you, rob you, and ravish you. (Psalms 10:8-10) And make sure thy friend.] For whom thou standest engaged; call upon him to save thee harmless. For as Alphius, the usurer, sometimes said of his clients, Optima nomina non appellando mala fieri; even good debtors will prove slack paymasters if they be let alone, if not now and then called upon. Some read the words thus: Multiply thy friends, or solicit them, viz., to intercede for thee to the creditor, and to keep thee out of this brake. Jerome, Ad Celantiam. Horat. Epod. Colum. de re rust, lib. i. cap. 7.
Ver. 4. Give not sleep to thine eyes, &c.] Augustus wondered at a certain knight in Rome, that owed much, and yet could sleep securely; and when this knight died, he sent to buy his bed, as supposing there was something more than ordinary in it, to procure sleep. The opportunity of liberty and thriving is to be well husbanded, lest some storm arising from the cruelty of creditors, or mutability of outward things, overwhelm a man with debt and danger, as the whirlwind doth the unwary traveller upon the Alps with snow. Now if such care be taken that we run not rashly in debt to men, how much more to God! If to undertake for others be so dangerous, how should we pray with that godly man Augustine, From my “other men’s sins” good Lord deliver me! If we are so to humble ourselves to our fellow creatures in this case, how much more should we “humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may lift us up in due season!” (James 4:10) If this is to be done without delay, where the danger reacheth but to the outward man, how much more speed and earnestness should be used in making peace with God, whose wrath is a fire that burns as low as hell, and getting the black lines of our sins drawn over with the red lines of his Son’s blood; and so utterly razed out of the book of his remembrance! Dio.