Ver. 1. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck.] As an untamed heifer, that “pulleth away the shoulder,” (Zechariah 7:11) and detracteth the yoke; or as the creature called monoceros, the unicorn, interimi potest, capi non potest, may be slain but not taken; so those that refuse to be reformed, hate to be healed, will not bend, shall surely and severely be broken, certissime citissimeque confringentur, they shall certainly and suddenly be dashed in pieces as a potter’s vessel, that cannot be pieced together again. (Isaiah 30:13,14) Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel, (Jeremiah 15:12) and shall not the fierce wrath of God shatter and shiver out a silly sinner that will needs stout it out with him, and yet is no more able to stand before him than a glass bottle before a cannon shot? Let Eli’s sons, and such refractories, look for ruin. The prophet fitly compares them to headstrong horses that get the bit into their mouths, run desperately upon the rocks, and so in short time break first their hoofs and then their necks. Queen Elizabeth, in talking with Marshal Biron—whom the French king sent ambassador to her, anno 1601—sharply accused Essex (who had recently lost his head) of obstinacy, rash counsels, and wilful disdaining to ask pardon, and wished that the French king would rather use mild severity than careless clemency, and cut off the heads of treacherous persons in time, &c. This might have terrified Biron from those wicked attempts which he was even at this time plotting against his king, had not his mind been besotted. But the power of his approaching fate did so blind him, that within few months after he underwent the same death that Essex did—though nothing so piously and Christianly, as having hardened his neck against wholesome counsel. Now if men harden their hearts, God will harden his hand, and hasten their destruction, and that without remedy. Solinus. Corriptimur sed non corrigimur. -Augustine. Cambden’s Elisabeth, fol. 562.
Ver. 2. When the righteous are in authority.] Or, Are increased, as Proverbs 28:28; [See Trapp on “Pr 28:28”] The people mourn.] Heb., Sigh (as the oppressed Israelites in Egypt did) where they dare not speak out. But what a bloody tyrant was Sulla, who put to death Marcus Plaetorius only for sighing at the cruel execution of Marcus Marius! So one Lancelot was burnt in Giles’s fields for pitying the cruel death of a couple of martyrs. Acts and Mon., fol. 1164.
Ver. 3. Whoso loveth wisdom rejoiceth his father.] [See Trapp on “Pr 10:1”] But he that keepeth company with harlots.] [See Trapp on “Pr 5:9”] Those she sinners, as they call them, are costly creatures, and they that keep them care not what cost they cast away upon them.
Ver. 4. The king by judgment stablisheth the land.] This one piece of Solomon’s politics hath much more good advice in it than all Lypsius’s Beehive, or Machiavel’s Spider web. But he that receiveth gifts.] Heb., A man of oblations; that is, as some interpret it, a man that sacreligiously meddleth with things dedicated to pious uses, and makes a gain of them to himself. See Proverbs 20:25.
Ver. 5. A man that flattereth his neighbour, &c.] A smooth boots, as the word signifies, a butterspoken man, [see Isaiah 3:12] or a divided man, for a flatterer’s tongue is divided from his heart. Glaber.
Ver. 6. In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare.] Or, A cord—viz., to strangle his joy with—to check and choke all his comforts. In the midst of his mirth he hath many a secret gripe, and little knows the world where his shoe pincheth him. Every fowl that hath a seemly feather hath not the sweetest flesh, nor doth every tree that bringeth a goodly leaf bear good fruit. Glass giveth a clearer sound than silver, and many things glitter besides gold. The wicked man’s jollity is but the hypocrisy of mirth; it may wet the mouth, but not warm the heart—smooth the brow, but not fill the breast. We may be sure, that as Jezebel had a cold heart under a painted complexion, so many a man’s heart aches and quakes within him when his face counterfeits a smile. But the righteous sing and rejoice.] Good men only may be glad, and none have any reason to rejoice but they. (Hosea 9:1) The Papists have a proverb, Spiritus Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus, and the mad world are easily persuaded by the devil that there is no comfort in a Christian course—that your precise fellows live a melancholy and monkish kind of life, and have no joy of anything. Herein the devil deals like those inhospitable savages in America, that make great fires, and set forth terrible sights upon their country’s shore, purposely to frighten passengers from landing there. And as those wicked spies brought up an evil report of the land of Canaan, and thereby discouraged the people, so doth the devil and his imps of the purity of religion and power of godliness as uncouth and uncomfortable, when in truth there is no sound comfort without it—no true joy but in it. Though Saul could not be merry without a fiddler, Ahab without Naboth’s vineyard, Haman without Mordecai’s courtesy, yet a righteous man can be merry without all these. Yea, as the lily is fresh, beautiful, and looks pleasantly, though among thorns, so can he amidst troubles. Paul—than whom never any out of hell suffered more—did not only glory in tribulation, but “overabound exceedingly with joy.” (2 Corinthians 7:4)