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Here, 1. The obstinacy of many wicked people in a wicked way is to be greatly lamented. They are often reproved by parents and friends, by magistrates and ministers, by the providence of God and by their own consciences, have had their sins set in order before them and fair warning given them of the consequences of them, but all in vain; they harden their necks. Perhaps they fling away, and will not so much as give the reproof a patient hearing; or, if they do, yet they go on in the sins for which they are reproved; they will not bow their necks to the yoke, but are children of Belial; they refuse reproof (Pro 10:17), despise it (Pro 5:12), hate it, Pro 12:1. 2. The issue of this obstinacy is to be greatly dreaded: Those that go on in sin, in spite of admonition, shall be destroyed; those that will not be reformed must expect to be ruined; if the rods answer not the end, expect the axes. They shall be suddenly destroyed, in the midst of their security, and without remedy; they have sinned against the preventing remedy, and therefore let them not expect any recovering remedy. Hell is remediless destruction. They shall be destroyed, and no healing, so the word is. If God wounds, who can heal?

He that being often reported hardeneth his neck,.... Or "a man of reproofs" (d); either a man that takes upon him to be a censurer and reprover of others, and is often at that work, and yet does those things himself which he censures and reproves in others; and therefore must have an impudent face and a hard heart a seared conscience and a stiff neck; his neck must be an iron sinew and his brow brass: or rather a man that is often reproved by others by parents by ministers of the Gospel, by the Lord himself, by the admonitions of his word and Spirit and by the correcting dispensations of his providence; and yet despises and rejects all counsel and admonition, instruction and reproofs of every kind, and hardens himself against them and shows no manner of regard unto them. The metaphor is taken from oxen, which kick and toss about and will not suffer the yoke to be put upon their necks. Such an one shall suddenly be destroyed; or "broken" (e); as a potter's vessel is broken to pieces with an iron rod, and can never he put together again; so such persons shall be punished with everlasting destruction, which shall come upon them suddenly, when they are crying Peace to themselves notwithstanding the reproofs of God and men; and that without remedy; or, "and there is no healing" (f); no cure of their disease, which is obstinate; no pardon of their sins; no recovery of them out of their miserable and undone state and condition; they are irretrievably lost; there is no help for them, having despised advice and instruction; see Pro 5:12. (d) "vir increpationum", Vatablus, Montanus, Mercerus, Gejerus; "vir correptionum", Piscator, Michaelis; "vir redargutionum", Schultens. (e) "conteretur", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, &c. "confringetur", Schultens; so Baynus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius. (f) "et non (erit) sanitas", Pagninus, Montanus, Baynus; "non sit curatio", Junius & Tremellius; "medicina", Piscator.

(Pro. 29:1-27) hardeneth . . . neck--obstinately refuses counsel (Kg2 17:14; Neh 9:16). destroyed--literally, "shivered" or "utterly broken to pieces." without remedy--literally, "without healing" or repairing.

A general ethical proverb here follows: A man often corrected who hardeneth his neck, Shall suddenly go to ruin without remedy. Line second = Pro 6:15. The connection אישׁ תּוכחות must make the nearest impression on a reader of the Book of Proverbs that they mean a censurer (reprehender), but which is set aside by what follows, for the genit. after אישׁ is, Pro 16:29; Pro 26:21; Pro 29:10; Pro 13:20, the designation of that which proceeds from the subject treated. And since תּוכחות, Psa 37:15; Job 23:4, denotes counter evidence, and generally rejoinders, thus in the first line a reasoner is designated who lets nothing be said to him, and nothing be shown to him, but contradicts all and every one. Thus e.g., Fleischer: vir qui correptus contradicit et cervicem obdurat. But this interpolated correptus gives involuntary testimony of this, that the nearest lying impression of the 'אישׁ תו suffers a change by מקשׁה ערף: if we read הקשׁה (לב) ערף with 'תו, the latter then designates the correptio, over against which is placed obstinate boldness (Syr., Targ., Jerome, Luther), and 'תו shows itself thus to be gen. objecti, and we have to compare the gen. connection of אישׁ, as at Pro 18:23; Pro 21:17, or rather at Kg1 20:42 and Jer 15:10. But it is unnecessary, with Hitzig, to limit 'תו to divine infliction of punishment, and after Hos 5:9; Isa 37:3, to read תוכחות [punishment], which occurs, Psa 149:7, in the sense of punishment inflicted by man. (Note: Vid., Zunz, "Regarding the Idea and the Use of Tokhecha," in Steinschneider's Heb. Bibliographia, entitled המחכיר, 1871, p. 70f.) Besides, we must think first not of actual punishment, but of chastening, reproving words; and the man to whom are spoken the reproving words is one whose conduct merits more and more severe censure, and continually receives correction from those who are concerned for his welfare. Hitzig regards the first line as a conditional clause: "Is a man of punishment stiff-necked?".... This is syntactically impossible. Only מקשׁה ערף could have such force: a man of punishment, if he.... But why then did not the author rather write the words והוא מקשׁה ערף? Why then could not מקשׁה ערף be a co-ordinated further description of the man? Cf. e.g., Ex. 17:21. The door of penitence, to which earnest, well-meant admonition calls a man, does not always remain open. He who with stiff-necked persistence in sin and in self-delusion sets himself in opposition to all endeavours to save his soul, shall one day suddenly, and without the prospect and possibility of restoration (cf. Jer 19:11), become a wreck. Audi doctrinam si vis vitare ruinam.