Bible Commentaries

CHAPTER 6

1. The surety (Proverbs 6:1-5)

2. The sluggard (Proverbs 6:6-11)

3. The naughty, good-for-nothing person (Proverbs 6:12-19)

4. The strange woman (Proverbs 6:20-35)

Proverbs 6:1-5. These are instructions concerning contracts, in being surety for a neighbor and the danger connected with it.

Proverbs 6:6-11. The sluggard is commanded to go to the ant for a lesson. (See also Proverbs 30:25.) The ant is a marvellous little creature. That which modern science has found out by close observation of the life of this little insect is here tersely stated by the words of the Lord, the Creator. They swarm in the woods and in the fields; they work day and night; they capture, train and nourish aphides, which they use as a kind of slave. They build vast and symmetrical mounds, which they use as homes and barns, and which are, relatively to the size of the tiny builders, three times larger than the Egyptian pyramids. They march and labor in unison, have their own wars, nourish their sick, and all is done without a chief, an overseer or a ruler. Yet man with a higher intelligence and a higher work to do can be a sluggard.

Proverbs 6:12-19. The description of the sluggard is followed by that of a worthless person. It is a son of Belial (the term used in the Hebrew) whose picture is drawn. He is a naughty person, a good-for-nothing, a man of iniquity; he has a lying mouth. A minute description of his way and work is given; everywhere he makes mischief and causeth division. But suddenly there comes the calamity upon him. He shall be broken and that without remedy. Such is the way of the man who despiseth wisdom, follows his old nature and plunges ultimately into the outer darkness. Finally there will yet appear “the man of sin,” that wicked one, in whom all these evils will culminate and he shall suddenly be broken without remedy. (See Daniel 11:45.) We do well to read carefully the six things which the Lord hateth (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Proverbs 6:20-35. The words of the Lord, the commandment and the law as stated here, are of unspeakably great importance. They are to be in the heart and about the neck.

When thou walkest, it shall lead thee;

When thou steepest, it shall watch over thee;

And when thou wakest, it shall talk with thee.

They are a lamp and a light; they are the way of life. Then follows another description of the evil woman, a warning not to lust after her beauty nor to be taken by her eyelids. These oriental women painted their faces; by plucking their eyebrows they made them almond-shaped. Alas! that in the society of the twentieth century the women and girls of a so-called Christian civilization should do the same thing, and we fear, for the same purpose as the whorish woman described in this chapter.