Ver. 1. My son, keep my words.] Aristotle hath observed, and daily experience makes it good, that man shows his weakness no way more than about moderating the pleasure ef his tasting and touching, forasmuch as they belong to him, not as a man, but as a living creature. Now therefore as where the hedge is lowest, there the beast leaps over soonest, so Satan will be sure to assault us where we are least able to withstand him. And whereas old men have no cause to be secure—(David was old when he went in to Bathsheba, and Lot not young when he deflowered his two daughters; -of the Brabonts it is said, that quo magis senescunt eo magis stultescunt, The older the more foolish; and the heathen sages say, Metuendam esse senectam, quod non veniat sola, that old age is to be feared, as that which comes not alone, but being itself a disease, it comes accompanied with many diseases both of body and mind); -young men especially, whom the Greeks call ηιθεοι of αθω, to be hot, and Αιζηοι of Ζεω, to boil, and who think they have a licence helluari, scortari, fores effringere, to drink and drab, which they count and call a trick of youth, have but more than need to be constantly and carefully cautioned and called upon, as here they are, to “flee fornication,” (1 Corinthians 6:8) to “flee youthful lusts,” (2 Timothy 2:22) with posthaste to flee them, to “abstain from fleshly lusts” tanquam a mellito veneno, ” which war against the soul.” (1 Peter 2:11) The body cannot be so wounded with weapons as the soul is with lusts. Holy Timothy—so temperate a young man that St Paul was fain to prescribe him medicine, bidding him no longer to drink water, but “a little wine for his stomach’s sake and his often infirmities,” (1 Timothy 5:23) contracted happily by his too much abstinence, for the better keeping under his body, and bringing it into subjection—is in the same chapter by the same apostle exhorted to exhort the younger women with all purity; (1 Timothy 5:2) whereby is intimated, that through the deceit of his heart, and the slipperiness of his age, even while he was pressing those young women to purity, some impure motion might press in upon him; which, though but a stranger to Timothy—as Peter Martyr and others observe out of that passage in Nathan’s parable, (2 Samuel 12:5) that lust was to David—yet might prove a troublesome inmate if not suddenly ejected. It is no marvel, therefore, that the wise man is so exceedingly earnest with his son about the business of abhorring harlotry, the hatefulness whereof he now paints out in a parable, setting it forth in liveliest colours. Turpe est senescere aetatem, non tamen senescere lasciviam. -Nazianz. Contra πρεσβυτηρ α πυρ et σβεω: et senex quasi seminex.
Ver. 2. Keep my commandments, and live.] “Live,” i.e., live happily. I am the Lord that teacheth thee to profit, therefore keep my commandments; (Isaiah 48:17) as if God should say, It is for thy profit that I command thee, and not for mine own. “In doing thereof there is great reward,” saith David, (Psalms 19:11) and present reward, saith Solomon here, Do it and live. In the court of earthly princes there is αναβολη και μεταβολη delays and changes. Men are off and on in their promises; they are also slow and slack in their performances. But it is otherwise here: the very “entrance of thy word giveth light,” (Psalms 119:130) and the very onset of obedience giveth life. It is but “Hear, and your soul shall live,” (Isaiah 55:3) “Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me.” (Revelation 22:12) And my law as the apple of thine eye.] With all chariness and circumspection. The least mote offends the eye, and the least deviation violates the law. Sin is homogeneous, all of a kind, though not all of the same degree; as the least pebble is a stone, as well as the largest rock, and as the drop of a bucket is water, as well as the main ocean. Hence the least sins are in Scripture reproached by the names of the greatest. Malice is called man slaughter, lust adultery, &c.; concupiscence is condemned by the law, even the first motions of sin, though they never come to consent. (Romans 7:7) Inward bleeding may kill a man. De minutis non curat lex, saith the civilian; but the law of God is spiritual, though we be carnal. And as the sunshine shows us atoms and motes, that till then we discerned not, so doth the law discover and censure smallest failings. It must therefore be kept curiously, even “as the apple of the eye,” as that little man in the eye, that cannot be touched but he will be distempered. Careful we must be even in the minutula legis, the punctilios of duty. Men will not lightly lose the least ends of gold. ןו שׁ יא ab שׁ יא Neque enim auri tantum massas tollunt, sed et bracteolas.
Ver. 3. Bind them upon thy fingers.] That thou mayest have them always in sight, as God hath his people: “Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands: thy walls are continually before me.” (Isaiah 49:16) The Hebrews here refer fingers to action, heart to meditation and retention. Men should have the law of God at their fingers ends. Any of us Jews, saith Josephus, being asked of any point of the law, answereth it as readily as if he had been asked his own name: they should also be “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” The hand is οργανον οργανων the instrument of action. David “lifted up both his hands to the word,” (Psalms 119:48) as if he would pull it to him with both hands, as if he would do the deed in good earnest. The “heavens are the work of God’s fingers”; (Psalms 8:3) the law should be of ours. Aristotle.