잠언 26:11 주석

Note, 1. It is too common a thing for honour to be given to fools, who are utterly unworthy of it and unfit for it. Bad men, who have neither wit nor grace, are sometimes preferred by princes, and applauded and cried up by the people. Folly is set in great dignity, as Solomon observed, Ecc 10:6. 2. It is very absurd and unbecoming when it is so. It is an incongruous as snow in summer, and as great a disorder in the commonwealth as that is in the course of nature and in the seasons of the year; nay, it is as injurious as rain in harvest, which hinders the labourers and spoils the fruits of the earth when they are ready to be gathered. When bad men are in power they commonly abuse their power, in discouraging virtue, and giving countenance to wickedness, for want of wisdom to discern it and grace to detest it.

See here, 1. What an abominable thing sin is, and how hateful sometimes it is made to appear, even to the sinner himself. When his conscience is convinced, or he feels smart from his sin, he is sick of it, and vomits it up; he seems then to detest it and to be willing to part with it. It is in itself, and, first or last, will be to the sinner, more loathsome than the vomit of a dog, Psa 36:2. 2. How apt sinners are to relapse into it notwithstanding. As the dog, after he has gained ease by vomiting that which burdened his stomach, yet goes and licks it up again, so sinners, who have been convinced only and not converted, return to sin again, forgetting how sick it made them. The apostle (Pe2 2:22) applies this proverb to those that have known the way of righteousness but are turned from it; but God will spue them out of his mouth, Rev 3:16.

As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest,.... Which were very undesirable and unseasonable, yea, very hurtful to the fruits of the earth; and a great obstruction to the labourers in the harvest, and a hinderance to the gathering of it in; and were very rare and uncommon in Judea; it was even a miracle for thunder and rain to be in wheat harvest, Sa1 12:17; so honour is not seemly for a fool: for a wicked man; such should not be favoured by kings, and set in high places of honour and trust; "folly set in great dignity", or foolish and bad men set in honourable places, are as unsuitable and inconvenient as snow and rain in summer and harvest, and should be as rare as they; and they are as hurtful and pernicious, since they discourage virtue and encourage vice, and hinder the prosperity of the commonwealth; such vile persons are contemned in the eyes of good men, and are disregarded of God; he will not give, theft, glory here nor hereafter; the wise shall inherit it, but shame shall be the promotion of fools, Pro 3:35; see Ecc 10:6.

As a dog returneth to his vomit,.... Who being sick with what he has eaten, casts it up again, and afterwards returns unto it and licks it up; so a fool returneth to his folly, or "repeats" (a) it, time after time, many times, as Ben Melech; or a wicked man turns to his wickedness, who, having had some qualms upon his conscience for sin, for a while forsakes it; but that fit being over, and he forgetting all his former horror and uneasiness, returns to his old course of life: a wicked man is here compared to a dog, as he is elsewhere for his impudence and voraciousness in sinning; and the filthiness of sin is expressed by the vomit of a dog, than which nothing is more nauseous and loathsome; and the apostasy of the sinner, from an external course of righteousness into open profaneness is signified by the return of this creature to it. This is said to be a "true proverb", Pe2 2:22, where it is quoted and applied. (a) "qui iterat", Tigurine version, Michaelis; "iterans", Montanus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Gejerus; "duplicans", Schultens.

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. [Proverbs 26:11]

Don’t you know that people so unconcerned about their own salvation and vacillating between attention to it and headlong course into the devil’s net are compared in sacred Scripture with dogs? It says, remember, “The person who turns away from his sin and then goes back to it is like a dog returning to its vomit.”

These, no doubt, are the things suffered by clerics, monks or virgins who are proud, disobedient and lukewarm. When at the beginning of their life they abandoned the ways of this world and with a fervent spirit fled to the service of holy religion, through the grace of God they were rid of all their sins. But afterwards, when they did not put forth zeal because of carelessness and sloth and were not filled with spiritual graces through the help of God, the vices which had departed found them empty and returned with many more and compelled them to return to their vomit. Then was fulfilled in them what is written, “As the dog that returns to his vomit becomes hateful, so is the sinner that returns to his sin.”

We have learned that in some less observant monasteries, men have entered and brought their capital with them and later, losing their religious fervor, have made great trouble in demanding their property. Returning to the world which they had left, as dogs return to their vomit, with the aid of their relatives they have extorted what they had brought with them to the monastery and have sought the support of secular judges. With the help of magistrates they have [thus] destroyed the monasteries, so that we see many innocent men ruined by a single sinner.

As a dog returns to his vomit, etc. When a dog vomits, he surely ejects the food that was weighing down his chest; but when he returns to his vomit, he is again burdened by what had relieved him; and those who lament their sins, surely confess and cast out the wickedness which was badly satisfying them and which was weighing down the innermost parts of their mind, which, after confession, they resume while they long for it.

(Pro. 26:1-28) The incongruities of nature illustrate also those of the moral world. The fool's unworthiness is also implied (Pro 17:7; Pro 19:10).

returneth . . . folly--Though disgusting to others, the fool delights in his folly.

The series of proverbs regarding fools is continued: Like a dog which returneth to his vomit, Is a fool who cometh again with his folly. שׁב is like שׁונה, particip.; only if the punctuation were כּכּלב, ought "which returneth to his vomit" to be taken as a relative clause (vid., under Psa 38:14). Regarding על as designating the terminus quo with verbs of motions, vid., Khler under Mal. 3:24. On קא = קיא, cf. Pro 23:8. Luther rightly; as a dog devours again his vomit. The lxx translate: ὥσπερ κύων ὅταν ἐπέλθῃ ἐπὶ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ ἔμετον; the reference in Pe2 2:22 : κύων ἐπιστρέψας ἐπὶ τὸ ἴδιον ἐξέραμα, is thus not from the lxx; the Venet. is not connected with this N.T. citation, but with the lxx, if its accordance with it is not merely accidental. To devour again its vomit is common with the dog. (Note: Vid., Schulze's Die bibl. Sprichwrter der deutschen Sprache, p. 71f.) Even so, it is the manner of fools to return again in word and in deed to their past folly (vid., regarding שׁנה with ב of the object. Pro 17:9); as an Aram. popular saying has it: the fool always falls back upon his foolish conduct. (Note: Vid., Wahl's Das Sprichwort der heb.-aram. Literatur, p. 147; Duke's Rabbin. Blumenlese, p. 9.) He must needs do so, for folly has become to him a second nature; but this "must" ceases when once a divine light shines forth upon him. The lxx has after Pro 26:11 a distich which is literally the same as Sir. 4:21.