Ver. 1. The Proverbs.] Properly so called. See Proverbs 1:1. For the nine former chapters are a kind of common places, or continued discourses premised as a preface to these ensuing wise and grave sentences, tending much to the information of the mind and reformation of the manners, and containing things profitable for all sorts of people. They are not unfitly compared by a divine to a bag full of sweet and fragrant spices, which shuffled or shaken together, or taken single, yield a sweet odour; or to stars in the firmament, each in itself glorious and independent of another, yet all receive their light from the sun. A wise son maketh a glad father.] Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts. Every son should be an Abner, that is, his father’s light; and every daughter an Abigail, her father’s joy. Eve promised herself much in her Cain, and David did the like in his Absalom. Sed, fallitur augurio spes bona saepe suo, - they were both deceived. Samuel succeeds Eli in his cross, as well as his place, though not in his sin; and had cause enough to call his untoward children, as Augustus did, tres vomicas, tria carcinomata, - so many ulcerous sores, mattery imposthumes. Virtue is not as lands, inheritable. All that is traduced with the seed is either evil, or not good. Let parents labour to mend by education what they have marred by propagation; and when they have done all, pray “God persuade Japhet,” lest else they be put to wish one day, as Augustus did, Oh that I had never married, or never had children! And let children cheer up their parents, as Joseph, Samuel, and Solomon did; and as Epaminondas, who was wont to say, Se longe maximum suarum laudum fructum capere quod earum spectatores haberet parentes, -that he joyed in nothing more than that his parents were yet alive, to take comfort in his brave achievements; for otherwise God will take them in hand, as he did Abimelech, to whom he “rendered the wickedness done to his father”; (Judges 9:5) and as he did Absalom, whom he trussed up in the height of his rebellious practices with his own immediate hand; or else he will punish them in and by their posterity, which shall either be none (Proverbs 20:20, compared with 2 Samuel 14:7), or worse than none; as he who, when his aggrieved father complained that never man had so undutiful a child as he had, Yes, said his son (with less grace than truth), my grandfather had. The heaviness of his mother.] The mother is mentioned (though the father haply as heavy) first, as most faulted if her children miscarry; (Proverbs 24:15) next, as most slighted by them; (Proverbs 15:20) and lastly, as most impatient of such an affliction. Rebekah was weary of her life by reason of the daughters of Heth brought in to her by Esau. (Genesis 27:46) If they lie idle at home, mothers have the misery of it; if they do worse abroad, the worst is made of it to the mother at home by fame, that loud liar. φροντιδες μεγδλαι, ελπιδες αδηλοι.— Plut. A purulent swelling or cyst in any part of the body; an abscess. Sueton, cap. 6. Corn. Nepos. Mr Fuller’s Holy State.
Ver. 2. Treasures of wickedness.] Our Saviour calls it “Mammon of iniquity,” (Luke 16:9) that next odious name to the devil. Most men’s care is how to grasp and get wealth for their children— rem rem, quocunque modo rem. Virtus post nummos, &c. But what saith a grave author? “Better leave thy child a wallet to beg from door to door, than a cursed hoard of evil gotten goods.” There is for the most part lucrura in arca, damnum in conscientia, -gain in the purse, but loss in the conscience. But righteousness delivereth from death.] Piety, though poor, delivereth from the second death, and from the first too, as to the evil of it. For as Christ took away the guilt of sin, not sin itself, so he hath taken away, not death, but the sting of death from all believers, making it to such of a curse a blessing; of a punishment, a benefit; of a trap door to hell, a portal to heaven; a postern to let out temporal life, but a street door to let in eternal life. Mr Bolton. Augustine.
Ver. 3. The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous.] That refuseth to enrich himself by evil arts, and to rise by wicked principles. For it might be objected, If I strain not my conscience, I may starve for it. Fear not that, saith the wise man; faith fears not famine. Necessaries thou shall be sure of; (Psalms 37:25,26 34:15) superfluities thou art not to stand upon (1 Timothy 6:8) The Hebrews by “righteousness” in the former verse understand alms deeds, as Daniel 4:24,27 [See Trapp on “Mt 7:1”] and so the sense here may be. The righteous, though he give much to the poor, shall be never the poorer, since not getting, but giving, is the way to thrive. See my “Common Place of Alms.” But he casteth away the substance of the wicked.] For either they lose it, or live beside it, and are little the better for it. “He that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and in his end be a fool.” (Jeremiah 17:11) God will make a poor fool of him quickly. And the like may be said of the illiberal and tenacious person. [See Trapp on “Pr 3:27”] Niggards fear to lose their wealth by giving, but fear not to lose their wealth, and souls, and all, by keeping it. τροφην ου τρυφην: σκηπασματα ου κοσμηματα. Quo mihi divitias queis non conceditur uti?