Ordspråksboken 29:5 Kommentar

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?

Those may be said to flatter their neighbours who commend and applaud that good in them (the good they do or the good they have) which really either is not or is not such as they represent it, and who profess that esteem and that affection for them which really they have not; these spread a net for their feet. 1. For their neighbours' feet, whom they flatter. They have an ill design in it; they would not praise them as they do but that they hope to make an advantage of them; and it is therefore wisdom to suspect those who flatter us, that they are secretly laying a snare for us, and to stand on our guard accordingly. Or it has an ill effect on those who are flattered; it puffs them up with pride, and makes them conceited and confident of themselves, and so proves a net that entangles them in sin. 2. For their own feet; so some understand it. He that flatters others, in expectation that they will return his compliments and flatter him, does but make himself ridiculous and odious even to those he flatters.

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.

A man that flattereth his neighbour,.... That speaks smooth things to him gives him flattering titles, speaks fair to his face, highly commends him on one account or another: spreadeth a net for his feet; has an idle design upon him, and therefore should be guarded against; his view is to draw him into a snare and make a prey of him; he attacks him on his weak side, and hopes to make some advantage of it to himself; wherefore flatterers should be avoided as pernicious persons; or he spreads a net for his own feet, and is taken in the snare which he had laid for his neighbour; or falls into the pit he dug for him, as Gersom observes; see Psa 140:5.

The man who speaks with flattering and deceitful words to his friend, etc. He who praises his neighbor with deceitful words, indeed sets traps for him, so that by the danger of cautious work, as he becomes more careless with words, he may fall into them. But let us see whether the nets of the deceitful ensnare him whose steps they are spread before, or rather encompass the one who spreads them. It follows:

(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.

(Compare Pro 26:28). spreadeth . . . feet--By misleading him as to his real character, the flatterer brings him to evil, prepared by himself or others.

5 A man who flattereth his neighbour Spreadeth a net for his steps. Fleischer, as Bertheau: vir qui alterum blanditiis circumvenit; but in the על there does not lie in itself a hostile tendency, an intention to do injury; it interchanges with אל, Psa 36:3, and what is expressed in line second happens also, without any intention on the part of the flatterer: the web of the flatterer before the eyes of a neighbour becomes, if he is caught thereby, a net for him in which he is entangled to his own destruction (Hitzig). החליק signifies also, without any external object, Pro 28:23; Pro 2:16, as internally transitive: to utter that which is smooth, i.e., flattering. פּעמיו is, as Psa 57:7 = רגליו, for which it is the usual Phoenician word.